Democratic Presidential Forum
June 28th, 9:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. ET at Howard University in Washington, DC.
Republican Presidential Forum
September 27, 9:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. ET at Morgan State in Baltimore, MD.
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Senate Blocks Immigration Bill
Jun 28.07
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.
The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.
Senators in both parties said the issue is so volatile that Congress is highly unlikely to revisit it this fall or next year, when the presidential election will increasingly dominate American politics. [ap]
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Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a convenient way of measuring and comparing the size of national economies. Annual GDP represents the market value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year. Put differently:
GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports – imports)
Although the economies of countries like China and India are growing at an incredible rate, the US remains the nation with the highest GDP in the world – and by far: US GDP is projected to be $13,22 trillion (or $13.220 billion) in 2007, according to this source. That’s almost as much as the economies of the next four (Japan, Germany, China, UK) combined.
The creator of this map has had the interesting idea to break down that gigantic US GDP into the GDPs of individual states, and compare those to other countries’ GDP. What follows, is this slightly misleading map – misleading, because the economies both of the US states and of the countries they are compared with are not weighted for their respective populations.
Pakistan, for example, has a GDP that’s slightly higher than Israel’s – but Pakistan has a population of about 170 million, while Israel is only 7 million people strong. The US states those economies are compared with (Arkansas and Oregon, respectively) are much closer to each other in population: 2,7 million and 3,4 million.
[strangemaps]###
Bruce Willis on Letterman [06.25.2007]
Working on a new documentary:
An Unappealing Hunch [view]
Mean Girl Anne Strikes Again
The mainstream media must be accepting cheques from Ann Coulter on the sly. What other possible explanation could there be for the continued "quoting" of her (faithfully removing all context in the process) in a way that insures that she'll be chattered about and used (again) by the Edwards presidential campaign as a vehicle to ask people for money?
So, we hear she said that "she wished that Edwards was killed by a terrorist." That's how many about the carnival media chose to tell it. It's a prime example of standard form.
[AP]: RALEIGH, N.C. - Elizabeth Edwards pleaded Tuesday with Ann Coulter to “stop the personal attacks” a day after the conservative commentator said she wished Edwards’ husband, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, had been killed by terrorists.
That was created out of this original comment, here, in context:
“But about the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So I’ve learned my lesson. If I’m gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”
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Moments of Brilliance
Cameron Diaz has apologized for her display of ignorance in what is being described as a "fashion faux pas" concerning her skipping around Peru toting a Maoist slogan imprinted bag. Nice!
One might be able to understand the ignorance of one person, but surely she doesn't travel alone, so this speaks volumes on all those in her company at the time.
Diaz appeared oblivious to the controversy she stirred up, smiling and enthusiastically taking many pictures of the ancient site and the town of Cuzco. [cbc]
[Photo:Karel Navarro/Associated Press]
The olive green bag emblazoned with a red star and the characters "Serve the People" isn't seen as quite the same cute and brain dead fashion statement in Peru as it is in Beverly Hills.
The phrase is one of the more famous political slogans of Mao Zedong, former leader of the Chinese Communist Party and Peruvian citizens were terrorized by the Maoist Shining Path movement in the 1980's to 1990's with 70,000 people being killed during that time.
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Fred Thompson, The Candidate
Filmed on June 11, 2007
Hoover Institution fellow, Peter Robinson, speaks with Fred Thompson about his candidacy for President of the United States. Robinson delves into the key issues facing America today, the politics of running for president, and the source of Thompson's conservative views.
Thompson, who has cultivated a strong Internet presence with his writings, recently opened his website I'm With Fred" where people can assist and keep up to the latest on his pending campaign.
ABC's "Fred Thompson Report" has a number of his writings and commentaries to read and listen to.
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I love Paris in the spring time. Could we have a little more media coverage of her please? The media elites that brought us nonstop, mind numbing Anna Nicole reportage (the awe from that is still fresh) and fill their programming 24/7 with all but useless banality, deemed that the helicopters should be deployed to dissect each mile of her ride to court. Wow, now that's entertainment. Or something.
To then further prove how vacant mainstream programming has become, some media kings then sit around musing and interviewing each other about this very phenomena and why they perpetuate such drivel.
You've got to be kidding, right?
later and furthermore....OK, transformation is complete. I like Paris now. OK? The badgering and saturation has overcome.
Like some robber baron capitalist of yore, the New York Times is telling the remaining full price readers of its print product that they will pay more and get less, the same message it has been sending advertisers for years. But far from a sign of strength, this move is an indicator that the slow motion business collapse of the New York Times Company may be picking up its pace.
Faced with rapidly waning print media revenue and internet revenues which are growing, but not even close to offsetting the decline of print, the strategic plan of Pinch Sulzberger is failing. [americanthinker]
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Mark Steyn
June 17, 2007
[suntimes]
[...] The ''undocumented'' are, as it happens, brimming with sufficient documents to open bank accounts or, on the other hand, rent a Ryder truck, as Mohammad Salameh did in 1993 when he and his pals bombed the World Trade Center first time round. Being ''undocumented'' means being documented up to the hilt as far as everyone else is concerned but ''undocumented'' only to the U.S. government. Which, when you think about it, is a very advantageous status to have.
Anyway, about five years or so back, I started making references in columns to ''fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community.'' But from the lame Steyn joke of yesteryear to the reality of tomorrow is a mere hop and a skip. A few days ago, Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, declared: ''This week we will vote on cloture and final passage of a comprehensive bill that will strengthen border security, bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows, and keep our economy strong.''
Talk about ''a fast track to citizenship''! Never mind probationary visas, Z-visas and green cards, in the eyes of the Democrat steering ''comprehensive immigration reform'' through Congress, these guys are already ''undocumented Americans.'' Was it simply a slip of the tongue? (Speaking of which, I thought thanks to George W. Bush we had ''the worst economy since Herbert Hoover.'' When did it get ''strong''?) Or did Sen. Reid mean it?
If he did, the very concept of citizenship is dead, and the Senate might as well opt for ''really comprehensive immigration reform'' and declare everyone on the planet a U.S. citizen with backdated Social Security entitlements.
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Bravo to Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his cogent position regarding world affairs and polite rebuff of sunglass maven Bono.
Sorry, but, what exactly is Bono doing hanging around the G8 at each meeting anyway? Was Bonoland secretly added to the nations of this group while the populace slept? Being a spokesman for a cause is one thing, but making demands of the governing bodies of nations in the insulting and arrogant manner as he has should receive exactly the given response.
Harper has said he's a U2 fan but he's not at the summit to meet celebrities. His office did not respond to a phone call from Bono seeking a meeting to discuss aid for Africa. Later, it was explained that the prime minister could meet Bono at another time. [thestar]
On Thursday, the prime minister declined a personal meeting with Bono at the G8 summit, saying he was too busy to discuss the African AIDS crisis with him.
"Meeting celebrities isn't my shtick," Harper said, although he expressed admiration for Bono's humanitarian work. [cbc]
Harper has it exactly right. Whereas previous Canadian Liberal governments would be wafting Bono's scent towards themselves with open palms and having him sign golf balls or something, Mr. Harper's reaction deserves applause.
I'll thank Bono for not demanding and tampering in the business of elected officials and telling same how to spend their populations tax dollars.
Recap from last year:
[Slate]: A familiar paradox about leftist celebrities in the entertainment industry is that their embrace of progressivism almost never includes a wholehearted embrace of progressive taxation, i.e., the principle that the richer you get, the larger the percentage of your income you ought to pay in taxes. The latest example is U2's Bono, a committed and unusually sophisticated anti-poverty crusader who is taking surprisingly little heat for the decision by his band, U2, to relocate its music-publishing business from Ireland to the Netherlands in order to shelter its songwriting royalties from taxation.
[...]
...relocating your business offshore in order to avoid paying taxes to the Republic of Ireland, where poverty is higher than in almost any other developed nation? Bono's hypocrisy seems even more naked when you consider that Ireland is a tax haven for artists.
[bloomberg] : Bono, the rock star and campaigner against Third World debt, is asking the Irish government to contribute more to Africa. At the same time, he's reducing tax payments that could help fund that aid.
More Bonoisms: A planned £100 million extension to an hotel co-owned by Bono and The Edge, of the rock band U2, faces opposition after accusations that it would threaten the heritage of Dublin.
The musicians want to increase the size of the 50-bedroom Clarence Hotel into a five-star venue with 140 extra rooms and a glass roof in the shape of a Viking long boat, designed by Lord Foster of Thames Bank. But in a letter to Dublin city council, published in the magazine Building Design, Michael Smith, the former chairman of the heritage group An Taisce, accused Bono and his co-owners of having a “fetish for glamour”. [timesonline]
Here's an interesting flashback interview from 2005:
July 04, 2005 SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH AFRICAN ECONOMICS EXPERT
"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.
Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
[spiegel]
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Moments of Brilliance
Speaker, Nancy Pelosi Supports Canadian Troops
Mutterings were heard that, well, it's "fake but accurate!!"
We're quite confident that old Nance doesn't twiddle about with the web pages herself, but clearly the webmasters who are under Democrat party employ are beyond clueless. Everyone makes mistakes, sure. But to exhibit the sheer ineptitude at such a simple task, not once, but twice in a year seems to indicate that some are being paid beyond worth.
It took around three hours or so for some wunderkind staffer to catch wind of the error, reading the Internet reaction no doubt, to replace it. A little flash montage is now in place where the above originally concocted display was.
Some might recall last October's example of even more offensive incompetence from the within the offices of the Democrats, where again they used a photo of a Canadian soldier to underscore their message of support. Obviously the main concern was to find a suitable emotional photo to express agenda. That's fine, but try not to scream out sheer incompetence while doing so. It takes a bit of the edge off. 
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Dennis Miller Defines Senator Harry Reid
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The 14-year-old Ducks captured their first NHL title with a 6-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night, ending the series in five games in front of the home folks yet again.
Ottawa
Anaheim
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