Posts Tagged ‘Obama’
So That’s What Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” Is About…
A deal in Copenhagen? Hopefully. A meaningful deal in Copenhagen? Perhaps. Will there be substantive actions in order to stay within the 2C limit? Maybe. Is there going to be a plan to significantly reduce emissions? It’s a promise.
After all, what’s a President that is also the first preventative Nobel Peace Prize winner going to be good at selling? Hope, mostly hope.
The real audacity is in pushing oneself forward almost exclusively counting on the fact that hope is the last to die.
And I hope the USA will get out of Afghanistan by 2011.
Novel Peace Prize 2009
Oslo, October 9 (MNN) – U.S. President Barack Obama incessant mentioning of the word “peace” has been rewarded with this year’s Novel Peace Prize. “No, it’s not a mistake by a person hitting the wrong key at his laptop on a Friday night,” said an anonymous source. “The Committee simply decided it was time to reward the possible future, as it looks so much better than the actual past“.
In other news: bloggers all around the world are rejoicing. Now they know, all it takes to bag over a million dollars, is to talk about nice things.
Enough With Anti-Iran Propaganda!
In the UK, and in Italy, and I am sure in the USA as well for what I can read on the International Herald Tribune, we are being bombarded by anti-Iran propaganda. There is no attempt at explaining, let alone understanding the complexities of the present situation, and one side is depicted as “good”, the other as “bad”.
Italian daily “Corriere della Sera”‘s home page a couple of days ago was literally drooling at the rumors of a “lake of blood” in front of the Majlis, the Iranian Parliament. Why? Because that would finally seal the concept of a violent, evil regime. Trouble is, there is an unfortunate number of dead but it has nothing to do with what you would expect from a violent crackdown by armed thugs and police firing live round on the crowd.
President Ahmadinejad’s fight against corruption is never mentioned, just as only few will have noticed that the opposition’s eminence grise is Ayatollah Rafsanjani, former President himself and whose sons appears to have “magically” become the richest people in Iran during that tenure.
What is requested by the opposition is never explained either. What has apparatchik Mousavi got to do with people asking to be freed from the long hands of the Moral Police, is left to the reader’s imagination. Supreme Leader Khamenei is belittled for having himself allied with Ahmadinejad and the Veterans of the Revolution.
What do we read instead in Western newspapers, but absurdist analyses showing very little respect for Muslimhood, let alone the Islamic Republic of Iran? (I’ll put a link about that soon…)
In this atmosphere it is clear that too many powerful, and truly evil forces, in Iran, in the USA, in the UK, in the Arab world and in Israel have a heavy interest in keeping Iran as a trouble spot and impeding a geostrategically completely natural alliance with the United States itself.
There isn’t much a person, or even a group of people can do. But denouncing the propaganda is one possibility.
Not All Civilians Are Born Equal
Reuters: “Obama condemns Iran crackdown on protests” Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:45pm EDT
“we deplore violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place,” [Obama] said
BBC: “‘Dozens dead’ in US drone strike” Page last updated at 12:22 GMT, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 13:22 UK
There have been more than 35 US strikes since last August – killing over 340 people – and most have landed in the North and South Waziristan tribal regions
Obama vs. McCain Electoral-College Forecasting
A list of websites (from Italian blog “noisefromAmerika“) devoted to more serious US election forecasting than the usual, absolutely pointless nationwide polls: for the simple reasons that Presidents are elected via the Electoral College system, not directly.
- Andrea Moro’s 2008 election forecasts (currently: Obama’s winning probability 98.3%)
- The Princeton Election Consortium (currently: Obama 300 votes. McCain 238)
- University of Iowa’s Winner-Takes-All Market (currently: Obama 56.5%. McCain 43.5%)
- RealClearPolitics Electoral College (currently: Obama 273 votes. McCain 265)
- FiveThirtyEight’s Projections (currently: Obama 61.2%. McCain 38.8%)
- Intrade’s Prediction Market (currently: Obama 52.1%. McCain 47.5%)
The Big Lies of the 2008 US Presidential Election
- John McCain is not as conservative as he tries so hard to make you believe
- Barack Obama is not as conservative as he tries so hard to make you believe
And no, there’s no typo in the text above…
Obama’s Swift Riposte to McCain’s Challenge
NOTE ADDED SEP 8: Gov. Palin’s Vogue cover below is a fake
Denver, Aug 31 (MNN) – Sen. Barack Obama, Democratic Nominee for the 2008 US Presidential Election, has recruited today two well-known characters to fight back the unexpected challenge from the youth/women side by Sen. John McCain and his VP choice, Gov. Sarah Palin.
Sen. Obama said he was very glad to introduce, in the newly-created positions of Vice-Vice-Presidents, Betty Boop and Swee’Pea.
His remarks may cause controversy though (“Betty would look better on Vogue!” and “Swee’Pea’s got much less experience in foreign or any other matters“) .
According to uninformed sources, Sen. McCain is planning to up the ante by revealing that he himself years ago was in a Hollywood blockbuster (the second episode of Jurassic Park), playing a character named “Kelly Curtis Malcolm” …
Obama: Bigger Than The Beatles
The Democratic Presidential Candidate for the US Elections 2008 is much more than a Presidential Candidate. Obama is on his way to become a pop icon.
Actually, he’s there already.
Google search for “Obama”: 131,000,000 pages
Google search for “Beatles”: 52,500,000 pages
Poor John Lennon…how could he have imagined having the wrong target in mind?
ps btw: Google search for “Jesus”: 176,000,000 pages. Only 45 millions to go, for the junior Senator from Illinois
John “July 4th” McCain to the Rescue
Coincidences pile up in the extremely good news of the rescue in Colombia of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages: among them, the fact that US Presidential Candidate John McCain, outspent at home and behind in the polls, is visiting Colombia in the same period, just by pure chance of course.
McCain is so lucky he will be able to bring home three American hostages just in time for the 4th of July. Furthermore, it is now known that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe considers the US Senator trustworthy enough to reveal all details of an extremely risky rescue attempt, the night before.
The only thing missing is a picture of Obama with an “I love FARC” t-shirt and the White House will see another Republican President.
Straw Men vs. Obama
(UPDATE: a shortened version of the text below has been published in the Letters section of the International Herald Tribune, May 25, 2008)
Truly there must be something powerful in Barack Obama’s message for the US Presidential Campaign of 2008, if critics are so busy setting up flawed arguments about his heritage, or foreign policy ideas.
First we had Luttwak’s improbable stint as a Shari’a scholar, somehow “demonstrating” that Obama’s Muslim father would be a liability… in the Muslim world. And now, how do N Thrall and J J Wilkins criticize Obama’s suggestion that, in foreign policy, talks are better than wars-by-proxy?
Why, they try to make a rather esoteric analogy with a Kennedy-Khrushchev summit of 47 years ago (“Kennedy talked, Khrushchev triumphed“, IHT, May 23).
Never mind that Obama has never suggested starting off by meeting face-to-face with the Presidents of Iran or Hamas, for example; that the world is vastly different from 1961’s; and that as anybody living in the real world knows very well already, the Administration of President George W Bush has engaged in talks with “America’s enemies” such as Lybia and North Korea.
And rightly so! Well, if Messrs Thrall and Wilkins are so convinced that the mere act of talking brings huge risks of being considered “too weak”, perhaps they should suggest closing off much of the State Department.
A flawed argument is also known as a “straw man”. Well, I for one think there have been enough of those scarecrows set up, especially against Obama. Please, can we have now some serious political discussion instead?
Republican Alert: Major Presidential Speeches Warning
The Economist quotes outgoing Republican congressman Tom Davis:
When Bush tries to articulate a vision, he will butcher the Gettysburg Address. Obama, he will make an A&P grocery list sing.
Obama has already managed to star in a “presidential speech” in Philadelphia, when challenged about race. The risk for McCain is to inspire more exceptional performances, eg about women (after attacks on Michelle Obama) and white working-class poverty (if remarks of Obama being too sophisticated for his own good keep coming).
Yet more signs that this is going to be a sedate campaign, with two candidates simply too nice to each other to inspire any enthusiasm…
Luttwak Goes Ga-Ga on Obama
How else to interpret this rambling Op-Ed where renowned Edward N. Luttwak, “fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and author of Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace” transform himself into an improbable Shari’a expert, declaring Obama an “apostate”?
President Apostate? By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK – Published: May 12, 2008
I am perfectly sure that even in the darkest Afghanistan at the time of Mullah Omar, somebody’s religious choices in his 20’s, starting from an almost perfectly blank slate, would not have been considered evidence for “apostasy”.
Luttwak disingenuosly tries to justify his poor arguments with “all the well-meaning desires projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic“. Methinks there is one way to improve relations with the world’s Muslims, and that is to have a President that is not called George W Bush.
Blissfully, the US Constitution will make that happen, on January 20, 2009.
252 days to go…
Time for Hillary Clinton To Let Go
Wouldn’t it be a great time for Hillary Clinton to halt her campaign to become Democrat candidate for the 2008 USA Presidential elections? While she’s still appearing to be “riding high” even if not high enough.
Also because, she’s kind of “officially lost”.
With the media machine moving onward and forward, in fact, it is possible to understand what exactly has happened in the Pennsylvania primaries:
Popular vote:
Clinton: 54.6%
Obama: 45.4%
Difference: 9.2%. Note that newspaper reported a 10% difference instead, by mishandling the decimal digits…
Estimated national delegates:
Clinton: 85
Obama: 73
% Difference: 7.6%
With Clinton desperate for a double-digit win, I do not see how these figures can be interpreted as anything else than an invitation for her to find something else to do with her life.
Feeling Just Fine About USA 2008
I am not that worried this year about the results of the Presidential elections in the USA.
If Hillary Clinton wins, we’ll get four years of Clintonism. Nothing to celebrate, but not that bad either.
If Barack Obama wins, we’ll get kick-started into the XXI century, with an experimentally fresh jump in the unknown (a bit like Reagan in 1981, and Clinton in 1993…).
If John McCain wins, there’ll be the steady hand of a maverick commanding the Superpower nation. Who knows, maybe like fellow ex-serviceman Eisenhower in the 1950’s, President McCain will be able to isolate the centers of power from the Military-Industrial Complex that has been pushing the USA towards an interminable series of wars and ingerences, for more than a generation.
Plenty to be optimistic about 2009 onwards then…
My personal preferences:
Obama-Clinton: Obama.
McCain-Clinton: McCain
McCain-Obama: I’d likely stay home as a sign of my approval, whatever the result.
Maurizio - Omnologos 