| Diane Abbott: Obama can transform the world's image of America
Barak Obama's campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination has taken off like a rocket. Some people may be disappointed that he only drew level with Hillary Clinton on "Super Tuesday", but that is an extraordinary achievement when only two weeks ago Clinton had double-digit leads in most of the states concerned. And, like a rocket, his campaign has illuminated many things in a sudden blaze of light. What it has revealed about the attitudes to race of many white British pundits and commentators is not to their credit. Obama had barely won his first caucus when one commentator devoted his column to complaining that it was harder in politics for white women than for black men. As there are 14 white women in the US Senate compared to one black man (Senator Obama) this was a particularly silly claim.
Universities bar entry to soft A-level subjects
The dumbing down continues. I see all too many CV's from people who have no idea that their prized 'Media Studies' and 'Cultural History' courses condemns their CV to the recycling bin when they send it to an international bank. Presumably they have just woken up to the fact that not everybody can work in 'media' Many of my co-workers are from abroad and are bi or multi-lingual .
For an impoverished beauty queen, a stark choice: sex work or no work
What Natasha does on the bed in the dingy room with flaking orange paint so shames her she cannot bring herself to use the word. She calls it "so and so" and sells it here from midday to midnight, six days a week. On a very good day she makes £45. With each 30-minute session earning £2.50 that works out at 18 different men, many drunk, some violent. She tries to forget the very good days. "I don't want to be with a strange man who wants to kiss your whole body. Some suck you up and leave red marks. It's ugly." Natasha shuddered. "Ugly, ugly, ugly." Three years ago she won two beauty contests and was runner-up in another two, including Miss Best Legs, on Nicaragua's impoverished Caribbean coast. With dreams of modelling she boarded a bus for the distant capital, Managua.
Will an “emotional moment”
The Religious Reich is wringing their hands and freaking out right about now (and I LOVE it). A vote for Mitt—probably the most competent and "Presidential" of the GOP brood—is a vote for gasp! a CULT! (That cracks me UP! Xtians not wanting to vote for Romney because they think Mormonism is a cult…classic "pot, meet kettle" rhetoric. ALL religions are CULTS.) The RR like Huck, 'cuz he's a good ol' boy sworn to uphold the Bible of the United States, but he hasn't been a very good guv. In fact, some of his politics are actually progressive. We certainly can't have that. McCain is too liberal for them, and face it, no one else has a shot. Rudy's dead in the water. Sorry, Gules, but you wore out your only card: Sept. 11th. Yawn. So the conservatives in America are scared.
Butler County 2008 budget stands, but belts will tighten
Although Butler County commissioners agreed last week to let stand a 2.5-mill property tax increase for 2008, the board directed all county departments and row offices to make small but immediate spending cuts. Additionally, commissioners said they will ask representatives of about two dozen local nonprofit groups to justify why they should receive allocations this year totaling about $95,000. Meetings with those representatives will be followed by a commissioners' decision within three months as to whether the groups will receive any funding in 2008. Also, the long-time practice of paying medical benefits for the dozen or so solicitors who work for county row offices will be evaluated, as well as the practice of employing outside solicitors. The moves are among a series of short- and long-term recommendations from a volunteer budget review committee that was asked last month by the county commissioners to go over the $185 million spending plan with a fine-toothed comb.
State Of The Union Address/Democratic Response Coverage - Monday ...
And I use that verb “see" deliberately. The last time anything like this happened, 1928, with Calvin Coolidge. There was, of course, no TV. No Mr. Coolidge's speech, then still known by its formal title, the President's Annual Message to Congress. It was nationally broadcast on radio as long ago as 1923. So that's the historical oddness of the thing, Mr. Matthews. Let's pick up on the point that I interrupted you at, at the start of the hour here, the idea that we may have just seen a vice presidential candidate walk in. CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC ANCHOR: Condoleezza Rice, despite the difficulties of this foreign policy, including the war, which is immensely unpopular—a very small number of Americans like the war in Iraq or the decision to go to war in Iraq—Condoleezza Rice has escaped largely unscathed by that.
Bush calls Kosovo right move
As an independent state, Kosovo now assumes responsibility for its destiny," Bush wrote in his letter to Sejdiu. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice welcomed "the commitments Kosovo made in its declaration of independence" to implement a United Nations-backed plan, "to embrace multi-ethnicity as a fundamental principle of good governance, and to welcome a period of international supervision." .
|
