Apples And Oranges


From YAHOO! News:

WASHINGTON - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate now supporting Barack Obama, said Sunday John McCain's military service does not automatically qualify him to be commander in chief.

Underscoring during a national television appearance a position he has been expressing for several weeks, Clark said performing heroic military service is not a substitute for gaining command experience.

"In the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "It's a matter of gauging your opponents and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war.

"He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world, but he hasn't held executive responsibility," Clark said. "That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn't a wartime squadron."

Moderator Bob Schieffer, who raised the issue by citing similar remarks Clark has made previously, noted that Obama hadn't had those experiences nor had he ridden in a fighter plane and been shot down. "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," Clark replied.

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Eating at a restaurant doesn't make me a chef. Even if I almost die from food poisoning.



(Deeplip)

"Why Me? Why Me?"



O.J.: Anybody else wouldn't be going to court

From YAHOO! News


"If I was anybody else, I wouldn't be going to court," Simpson told a reporter for Fargo, N.D., radio station KFGO who interviewed him late Tuesday at a Fargo cigar bar.

Simpson was vacationing in eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger declined comment.

Simpson's lawyer, Yale Galanter, said Thursday that Simpson was venting his frustration about facing trial Sept. 8 in Las Vegas on charges carrying the possibility of prison time.


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O.J. is right. If he was anybody else, he'd be behind bars serving time for a double murder, not running around robbing people in hotels.




(Deeplip)

Ralph Nader's Mouth: Unsafe At Any Speed?


Ralph Nader reached a new low this week when he accused Barack Obama of "talking white" in order to win appease white voters.

You've come a long way down, Ralph Nadir.




(Deeplip)

Friends In High Places



ABC News' Political Radar blog -- Cindy McCain would "feel safe" with her husband in the White House: During an interview that will air today on ABC's Good Morning America, Cindy McCain says she would feel safer with her husband as president than Democratic rival Barack Obama.


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Understandably so, since it was largely her husband's celebrity and political clout that enabled her to avoid prosecution for forging prescriptions and stealing pain pills from the medical charity she founded.



(Deeplip)

"First, Do No Harm"



Tim Russert did not have to die yesterday. The medical establishment has much to answer for. To suggest, as his doctor did, that Russert was "controlling" his heart disease with medication and exercise is absurd. The statin drugs which doctors routinely prescribe to lower cholesterol are known to cause or exacerbate heart problems. They control symptoms without addressing the underlying causes. You didn't need to be a doctor to see that the overweight, overworked Russert was a heart attack waiting to happen.

His doctor also claimed Russert was "asymptomatic". More doubletalk. He was a diabetic with an enlarged heart and significant coronary artery disease: it doesn't get much more symptomatic than that.

A wonderful man who died too soon, and the doctors act as if it was a bad roll of the cosmic dice.

Just Say No


I buy my morning papers at a nearby Wawa, which has a six lane "fuel court".

Every day I hear people in the check-out line complaining about the price of gas. Many of them spend as much as thirty dollars for cigarettes, buying several packs along with their cups of coffee and snack food. At four dollars a gallon, it doesn't make sense to buy smokes with money that could be spent on gas.

Yesterday I bought four newspapers. My bill came to $2.75. The man ahead of me bought four packs of cigarettes, a cup of coffee and a Lil' Debby snack cake for just under thirty dollars. He could have put that extra twenty five in his gas tank, but I'm sure it never crossed his mind. I watched him drive out of the parking lot in his mammoth SUV, talking on his cell phone.

We are a nation of addicts.

Damaged Goods



From Yahoo! News:


Outcry after French court rules on virginity

By ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 40 minutes ago

The bride said she was a virgin. When her new husband discovered that was a lie, he went to court to annul the marriage — and a French judge agreed.

The ruling ending the Muslim couple's union has stunned France and raised concerns the country's much-cherished secular values are losing ground to cultural traditions from its fast-growing immigrant communities.

The decision also exposed the silent shame borne by some Muslim women who transgress long-held customs demanding proof of virginity on the wedding night.

In its ruling, the court concluded the woman had misrepresented herself as a virgin and that, in this particular marriage, virginity was a prerequisite.

But in treating the case as a breach of contract, the ruling was decried by critics who said it undermined decades of progress in women's rights. Marriage, they said, was reduced to the status of a commercial transaction in which women could be discarded by husbands claiming to have discovered hidden defects in them.


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Never mind about her defects. Any man who insists that his bride be a virgin is, by definition, defective.



(Deeplip)