Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: i-node who wrote (408397)	8/20/2008 10:50:04 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1586818

Oh boy......I bet Russia pulls back from Georgia real fast now. Putin must be shaking in his boots....he never knew Bush was this butch! US and Poland sign defence deal Washington and Warsaw have signed a deal to deploy part of a US missile shield in Poland, insisting the aim is to ward off Iranian attacks, despite deep Russian anger at the move. Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary, and Radoslaw Skorski, her Polish counterpart, signed the accord at an official ceremony in Warsaw, the capital, on Wednesday. The formal signing comes six days after the two countries agreed to a deal that will see 10 US interceptor missiles placed by 2011-2013 just 18km from Russia's westernmost frontier. "The negotiations were very tough but friendly," Donald Tusk, Poland's prime mnister said to Rice in English, after the signing. "We have achieved our main goals, which means that our country and the United States will be more secure." The deal has sparked threats from Russia that Poland is making itself vulnerable to attack - even a nuclear one. Along with Russia's rhetoric, the agreement has further strained Moscow's ties with the West in the wake of its fighting with Georgia, a US ally. 'Incendiary comments' Neave Barker, reporting for Al Jazeera from Moscow, said: "The first indication that this [signing] was going to happen took place a few days ago - mid conflict [between Russia and Georgia] I might add - where Poland indicated it was willing to allow the US to station its missile defence shield on its territory." Russia then took this indication to mean that the intended target of the missile defence shield was not, as the US claimed, rogue states - the likes of Iran - but Russia, said Barker. "That's the main concern here, and what we have been seeing over the past few days is Russia acting accordingly to beef up its own defences as well," he added. "We have heard some incendiary comments from the ministry of defence here that Poland would now be perhaps a new target for Russian missiles." Lech Kaczynski, Poland's president, said on Wednesday that the signing ceremony would be "an important day in our history". The deal "strengthens Poland's position in the world", Kaczynski said in a televised address on Tuesday evening. The country has in recent years joined the EU and is a member of Nato. Philip Coyle, a senior adviser with the Centre for Defence Information in Washington DC, said the Bush administration has been trying for about 18 months to reach this deal, but the timing has turned out to be "most unfortunate from a Russian point of view". "The tragedy in all of this confrontation with Russia is that the system that's proposed for Poland and the Czech Republic is a scarecrow," he told Al Jazeera. "It's not something that Europe can rely on, it is not dependable. If Iran had missiles that could reach central Europe, which they don’t yet, this system couldn't be relied on to defend against them anyway." 'Sword-rattling' The "commotion and sword-rattling with Russia is for nothing", Coyle said. "Some of this may be just a threat, but Russia has shown in just the past week or so it has a formidable military force, so if I were Poland or the Czech Republic, I would be more worried about Russia than I would be about Iran or North Korea." The US says the missile defence system is aimed at protecting it and Europe from future attacks from states such as Iran. It rejects Moscow's insistence that it is a threat to Russia. For Poles, it has a further dimension at a time when Russia's actions in Georgia have generated alarm throughout Eastern Europe. They see it as offering a form of protection beyond that of Nato in light of a resurgent Russia to the east. The two countries spent a year and a half negotiating, and talks recently had stalled on Poland's demands that the US bolster Polish security with Patriot missiles in exchange for hosting the missile defence base. Washington agreed to do so last week, as Poland invoked the Georgia conflict to strengthen its case. Short-range missiles The Patriots are meant to protect Poland from short-range missiles from neighbours - such as Russia. Kaczynski stressed that the missile defence shield was purely a defensive system and not a threat to any nation. "For that reason, no one who has good intentions toward us and toward the Western world should be afraid of it," he said. Poles have been shaken by Russian threats against their nation in punishment for accepting the US site. A day after Warsaw and Washington reached agreement on the deal last week, a leading Russian general made his country's strongest warning to date against the system. "Poland, by deploying [the system] is exposing itself to a strike - 100 per cent," General Anatoly Nogovitsyn was reported as saying on Friday by the Interfax news agency. english.aljazeera.net

To: i-node who wrote (408397)	8/20/2008 10:52:26 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1586818

This is what you call "squeaky clean". I thought you believed in 'guilt by association'... at least you do where Obama is concerned.... McCain and Keating had become personal friends following their initial contacts in 1981.[8] Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in lawful[14] political contributions from Keating and his associates.[15] In addition, McCain's wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter had made nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard Keating's jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain did not pay Keating (in the amount of $13,433) for some of the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln.[6][16]