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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TideGlider who wrote (517518)	12/30/2003 7:15:03 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Lenore Skenazy Resolutions sure to push your buttons newsandopinion.com \| At last! New Year's resolutions for the people who need 'em most - THE ELECTRONIC-DEVICE DESIGNER'S SOLEMN PLEDGE: From this point forth, I, a dyed-in-the-silicon techie who intuitively understands all gadgets, will accept the fact that what seems "obvious" to me is "#&%# impossible!" to everyone else. I will therefore keep someone like my doddering great-aunt in mind whenever I design household objects, such as an electric toothbrush. (Even though great-auntie doesn't have any teeth. I know that's not the point.) So, anyway: I hereby pledge that every function on every gadget will have its own button. For instance, an alarm clock will have one button for setting the alarm and a completely separate button for setting the time. Even if it seems painfully obvious to me that you just tap the button once for time and twice for alarm - four times if you want to reset it for p.m. during daylight-saving time - and that's that. But, no, I will give you all sorts of little buttons for your little minds. Promise. When I affix an on-off switch, it will be clearly labeled "on-off" and not "standby." Similarly, a play button shall state the word "play," and not be just a circle, an arrow, or an arrow in a circle. Furthermore, these words - "play," "off" and "on" - shall be displayed in a color that contrasts with the object itself. On no account will they be written in raised black plastic on a black plastic surface. And speaking of no-nos, when I design a remote control, it will not have three buttons along the top that say, "TV," "VCR" and "TV/VCR," because that, admittedly, is infuriating. Nor will it have weird buttons that say things like "zero back" and "tamperproof" which, on a slow day in '97, we added just to confuse you. When designing cordless phones, I will confer with my fellow designers to decide once and for all whether the phone will answer automatically when you pick it up or you first have to press "talk." We will also universally agree that, from now on, "talk" shall not also mean "hang up." And when we get around to designing a new generation of cell phones ... forget it. We'll never agree on cell phones. But I personally pledge never to make the on button red again, as I did for a while in '02 - even though that provided a lot of laughs. As for other appliances: I will design no more microwaves with different levels of heating. I am keenly aware that everyone wants to nuke on high, just like everyone wants Tylenol that is Extra Strength. I will make all radios with knobs. I will add absolutely no new functions to the digital camera. In fact, I'll take a couple off, like pixel choice. With everything I design, I will include the appropriate batteries. But I can't promise to tell you where they go.

To: TideGlider who wrote (517518)	12/30/2003 7:15:40 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Blair acted like a 'white vigilante' by invading Iraq, says bishop Sarah Hall, political correspondent Tuesday December 30, 2003 The Guardian Tony Blair came under attack from two of the Church of England's most senior figures yesterday for acting "like a white vigilante" and for lacking humility in forging ahead with the war on Iraq. In the most outspoken outburst, the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, accused religious conservatives surrounding the US president, George Bush, of espousing "a very strange distortion of Christianity" - particularly since, through Iraq's reconstruction, many would gain financially. "For Bush and Blair to go into Iraq together was like a bunch of white vigilantes going into Brixton to stop drug dealing. This is not to deny there's a problem to be sorted, just that they are not credible people to deal with it," he said. In a separate rebuke, the Archbishop of York, David Hope, questioned the legitimacy of the war and said Mr Blair would have to answer to God - a "higher authority" - for his decision to forge ahead with the conflict. He called on people to pray for Mr Blair and called on him to show more humility rather than exercising power in an authoritarian way. Referring to Iraq, he said: "One of the qualities of a good leader is that they have to be really attentive to the views of the people. It seemed at one stage that that was not happening." The conflict, and the events leading up to it, had raised questions of leadership and trust. Referring to Iraq, he said: "We still have not found any weapons of mass destruction anywhere. Are we likely to find any? Does that alter the view as to whether we really ought to have mounted the invasion or not? "Undoubtedly, a very wicked leader has been removed, but there are wicked leaders in other parts of the world." Dr Hope went on to call on Britons to "spend more time praying for Tony Blair", who should exercise a "calm, quiet authority". The coalition leaders would have to give an account to a "a higher authority," he added, in an echo of the warning by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at the Iraq war remembrance service, that Mr Blair would be "called to account." Downing Street last night refused to be drawn on the church leaders' attacks, made in the Independent and the Times respectively. But the rebukes are likely to rankle with the prime minister, a devout Christian, who recently declared he was ready "to meet my maker" and answer for his decisions on Iraq. While Alastair Campbell, the prime minister's former director of communications, forbade Mr Blair from speaking about his faith, and Mr Blair has sidestepped questions about whether he has prayed with Mr Bush at war summits, faith forms a strong part of the prime minister's psyche. He confessed in an interview conducted during the Iraq war that he had wanted to end a televised statement before British troops went into Iraq with the phrase "God bless you", but was dissuaded by officials. The former foreign secretary Robin Cook yesterday said it was time for Mr Blair to drop his claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "It really is time that the prime minister accepted that himself," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "It is undignified to continue to insist he was right when everyone can see he was wrong." politics.guardian.co.uk

To: TideGlider who wrote (517518)	12/30/2003 7:23:44 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

As I recall, a lot of Repugnicans were also claiming credit for eliminating the DEFICIT with Clinton. They never claimed to have eliminated the national DEBT, only the current account deficit, which, if continued, would have allowed us to begin paying down the national debt. Sadly, Bush didn't heed Clinton's advice. It was the fiscal disipline of Rubin/Clinton that led to the boom of the '90's, needing no tax cut stimulus. Bush believed in the Reagan voodoo, only without spending disipline, instead of the Rubin/Clinton magic. Bush has managed to produce incredible deficits in a short time while producing very little stimulus, because he gave the money to rich people who are sensibly hunkering down with it or moving it offshore into gold and euros and foreign securities.