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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (356030)	10/24/2007 10:38:02 PM
From: steve harris	Respond to of 1578529

Global warming is responsible for the current increasing levels of democrat party absurdity.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (356030)	10/25/2007 7:15:03 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578529

Maryland for one. there are many places.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (356030)	10/25/2007 8:03:53 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578529

Who Doesn’t ? Huckabee? By GAIL COLLINS Chuck Norris has spoken. I know many of you were waiting to hear who the star of “Walker, Texas Ranger” has decided to endorse in the presidential race. Well, the winner is ... Mike Huckabee. “It’s time to quit choosing our leaders based solely upon charisma or one strong suite,” said Norris, in a statement that was rich in historical references, if a little weak on copy editing. Norris has a side career as a columnist for a conservative news Web site, so perhaps his opinion carries more weight than your average action star who has not yet been elected to public office. (It would help, though, if the “Current Events” section of the Chuck Norris home page was not devoted to the schedule for the World Combat League.) But the question we want to consider today is why he is virtually the only prominent name backing Huckabee, who is this season’s likable presidential candidate. This is the venerable, if not particularly rewarding role once held by Morris Udall and John McCain2000, and it involves having reporters appreciate you much more than the politicians and donors do. Like Bill Clinton, Huckabee was born in a town called Hope and became a pretty good governor of a state that doesn’t make it all that easy. (Plus, you have to love the fact that he lived for a while in a mobile home on the Arkansas Statehouse grounds.) He’s extremely inclusive, defending minorities who are illegal immigrants as well as the ones registered to vote. He can be both funny and convincing on the stump. On the downside, I think he’d be a terrible president. He doesn’t know beans about foreign affairs, he wants to replace the income tax with a national sales tax, and his positions on social issues are far to the right of the general populace. But why aren’t the social conservatives rallying around this guy? Unlike any of the major candidates, he’s still on his first wife and first position on abortion. Once we start getting into the inevitable personal stories of redemption, Americans would have a much better time listening to Huckabee tell how he lost 110 pounds than sitting through Rudy’s 9/11 story again or looking at pictures of Mitt’s 10 grandchildren. Yet the leaders of the Values Voters keep waiting for one of the top-tier candidates to change — a strategy that any woman who’s had an unsatisfactory boyfriend could warn them is never going to pan out. They pace around muttering that maybe Fred Thompson will start acting more ... alive, or that Mitt Romney will stop being a Mormon. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, seems to think Rudy Giuliani has come around on gay marriage. (Perkins should talk to Rudy’s gay former roommate Howard Koeppel about the time the then-mayor promised to marry Koeppel and his partner as soon as the laws change.) Huckabee’s problems say more about the leaders of the religious right than about him. They’re united mainly by their hatred of abortion and gay marriage, and a desire to win. Considerations like who has the most Christian attitudes toward illegal immigrants don’t register. And the fact that as governor Huckabee spent a lot of time trying to spend money on the needy doesn’t go over all that well with the ones who believe that God’s top priority is eliminating the estate tax. Lately, anti-Huckabee conservatives have been suggesting he’s soft on crime. The story involves an Arkansas man, Wayne DuMond, who was accused of kidnapping and raping a high school cheerleader in 1985. While he was free awaiting trial, masked men broke into his home, beat and castrated him. His testicles wound up in a jar of formaldehyde, on display on the desk of the local sheriff. At the trial, he was sentenced to life plus 20 years. When Huckabee became governor, DuMond was still in an apparently hopeless situation, though theoretically eligible for parole. Huckabee championed his cause, and wrote him a congratulatory letter when he was finally released in 1999. Then in 2000 DuMond moved to Kansas City, where he sexually assaulted and murdered a woman who lived near his home. “There’s nothing you can say, but my gosh, it’s the thing you pray never happens,” the clearly tortured Huckabee recently told The National Review. “And it did.” If by some miracle he became the presidential nominee, there would obviously be many opportunities to point out that Michael Dukakis never sent a letter to Willie Horton celebrating his furlough. Why do the leaders of the religious right keep sidling away from a Baptist minister whose greatest political sin seems to have been showing compassion to a prisoner who appeared to deserve it? Why can’t they rally around the candidate who pushed for more government spending to promote poor children’s health and education, and reminded his conservative critics that when they talk about being pro-life, “life doesn’t begin at conception and end at birth?” I think we have answered the question.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (356030)	10/25/2007 1:25:29 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578529

Left Coast: An effective response to SoCal wildfires October 25, 2007 By Kai Stinchcombe I drove down to Los Angeles Monday night with my girlfriend to report on the wild fires that have been raging this week in Southern California. Driving down the 5 toward L.A., I was struck by the number of convoys of state fire trucks headed toward the disaster. In a four-hour drive, we probably passed about 50 fire trucks. In Los Angeles, police convoys screamed around the city with their sirens on, blocking dangerous roads, clearing emergency routes and preparing to evacuate residents. At times, we saw a dozen police vehicles headed down the highway together to a new fire, or 20 squad cars parked down a street preparing an evacuation. Residents described getting “reverse 911” calls — emergency services calling them to let them know what was going on and that they needed to get out. In areas in the path of the fire, lights were on and neighbors were often moving from house to house, assessing the situation together as fire crews set up positions. Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff states that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has learned its lessons since Hurricane Katrina. They provided emergency relief grants yesterday and are aiming to have 1,900 fire fighters on the ground by this morning. This is a fast response and an appropriate one. The state response has also been impressive. The California Department of Forestry and Fire has 45 aircraft at 22 air bases; operates 1,100 fire engines at 800 fire stations; employs 5,200 personnel; and organizes 5,600 volunteer firefighters during the fire season. Its budget was increased by over a quarter to $1.3 billion this year, of which 94% goes to fire protection. California firefighters’ training is among the best in the nation. In both Los Angeles and San Diego, city and county units were efficient and well prepared. The city of Los Angeles employs about 3,600 union fire fighters and, thanks to a $500 million bond issue in 2000, has excellent facilities, including a new emergency air operations base. The county fire department adds in 1,300 firefighters, 250 engines and 10 helicopters. This is clearly not a Katrina-scale disaster — less than 10 percent of the land is burned in L.A. and Orange Counties, and only 8 percent of residents have evacuated, as opposed to Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed an entire region. The governments in L.A. and San Diego are still staffed and functioning. Furthermore, the baseline wealth in Los Angeles and San Diego is much higher, meaning that more people have access to transportation and alternative housing. But the comparison is one everyone is drawing, and it is illustrative. Almost a million people have been evacuated, and thousands of homes have been destroyed, but only five lives have been reported lost at press time. This time, the disaster response worked. Although the 1,900 federal firefighters are welcome, the vast majority of fire resources in play are still Californian. What we’re seeing is California’s tax dollars at work. There is always more to do, but we should pause for a moment and thank ourselves for making these investments. California has a well trained, high-morale, professional firefighting force and the physical infrastructure to support these firefighters. Our police departments are well staffed and have the equipment they need. We have competent administrative agencies that can coordinate a disaster response, prepare plans in advance and work together smoothly. It’s easy to complain about the high and numerous taxes in California. But looking at the response to this disaster, it seems our tax dollars have been put to good use. This was a time when we needed our government, and our government — in the form of the brave fire fighters and police officers still battling the fires — has followed through. daily.stanford.edu