Is Bill helping or hurting?

Is Bill undermining Hillary?, posted Jan. 22 on "AMERICAblog," talks about how Bill Clinton has been involved with and helping Hilary with her campaign. The blogger then talks about how some people, especially women, seem to be starting to lean away from Hilary because they think this may be more like another term for Bill as president instead of it being Hilary as the first woman president. I find this to be an interesting predicament that Hilary is in. This is because there is no doubting that Bill has helped her along the campaign trail. I recall that at the beginning of the campaigning that Bill was vital in helping Hilary raise so much money for her campaign and he has been helping every bit of the way since then. Also, there is the fact that they are a married couple that should be considered, so it is understandable that Bill would close around Hilary as she campaigns much like any other family members of any of the other candidates. But, all this aside, the fact remains that, to some, Bill having some kind of control in office would be a negative thing and for this reason it may be negative for Bill to be so closely involved with Hilary and her campaign. I'm not sure what Hilary's best course of action would be, but I find myself thinking that it would probably be a good idea for Bill to go into the background a little more. This is not to say that he should stop helping completely, but just that it might be good to give Hilary a chance to show voters that she will be able to work and make decisions on her own just to put some of these worrying voters at ease.

Tough situation with tougher desicions

Vote "No" On This Potential Nomination, posted Jan. 21 on "A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days," talks about the possibility that General David Petraeus will be nominated to be the NATO supreme commander. The controversy that's being addressed is that right now things are far from settled in the Middle East and that Petraeus is a great military leader so they should keep him there for the time being. I agree 100% with this blog. Petraeus is the best military mind at hand and he is currently in the best place for his skill to be used to the max. It is also the most important place for him to be right now. If he was taken out of Iraq to become the commander of NATO, it may be something that he deserves, but it would be illogical knowingly take someone out of an important place when he is the best around to tackle the job. Petraeus is a great military leader and will definitely become the supreme commander of NATO eventually, but now is not the time to start switching up command which would only make things tougher. I think it is also important to make the point that the job Petraeus is doing he is doing extremely well on; whether or not you agree with the political issues surrounding the war in Iraq, on the military side of things, our military has done amazingly well in limiting casualties and in efficiently suppressing resistance without any significant losses in comparison to any war in all of history.

Yay for video games...

The Virtue of Video Games, posted Jan. 20 on "A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days," gives a link to an article on game.slashdot.org. The article says how video games may actually have a practical use after all. It then refers to an incident where a SUV flipped on a highway and a man came to help and provided medical assistance from things he had learned from playing America's Army, a popular video came. I for one am pumped about this article. I guess it comes from being a typical guy who likes to play video games and is sick of being told that I'm wasting my time. Sadly though, I find the point made in this article quite useless and the story it refers to seems to be an extremely isolated situation that I doubt would ever be the case again. This is because the fact of the matter is that most things one learns from video games are completely useless if not totally false. In fact, I find myself thinking that the man who applied medical help to the victims in the accident is probably lucky that he didn't cause more harm than good, if he was really just using knowledge he got from a video game. And, in this light, I believe it would be advisable that people who read said article don't go away from it thinking they should try an apply knowledge they gain from their video games to real life. But, it should be clear that I am in no way trying to bash video games and those who use them, especially since I am one of them, but I’m just saying that they don't give useful knowledge pertaining to real life and shouldn't be viewed as such.

Dangers in Russia

For Those Who Continue To Wonder Why We Should Worry About Vladimir Putin, posted Jan. 17 on "A Chequer-Board of Days and Nights," talks about some unsettling news from Russia. The post talks about Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and about his current actions which seem dangerously close to him creating a dictatorship around himself. The post makes the point that Russia is not going to become a threat militarily because of these possible political changes; this is a point that I generally agree with. This is because now there are many powerful nations with nuclear power to go along with their militaries and it is pretty much safe to assume that no one, without monumental aggravation, will launch a nuclear war and Russia's current standard military is in no way the type of military that a nation would launch against the united front of any number of other nations. But, the problem remains that, if Putin does place himself in a dictatorship, one can never be absolutely sure what he'll do with that power because he is answerable to no one. Aside from the military threat, the blogger made a point that the real issues would come from problems by there being miscalculations in the US's Russo-American foreign policy; this is because of how hard it is to work with and understand absolute dictators. I find this to be a more realistic problem that would arise from Putin taking power. It's hard to say what real dangers and problems will come if Putin keeps gaining power, but I am sure that Russia possibly moving into having a dictatorship can have no good results.

Shooting ourselves in the foot

Former GOP congressman indicted on terrorism charges, posted Jan. 16 on "AMERICAblog," talks about the indictment of former congressman, Mark Deli Siljander, for fundraising for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a supporter of both Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The blog is covering a story from CNN about this incident. Allegedly, Siljander helped raise over $130,000 for the Islamic American Relief Agency. This is a fundraiser in the US that has been long expected of supporting Islamic terrorists. In the indictment, the US government claims that a member working for this fundraiser was a fundraiser for Osama bin Laden at one point; this case being brought forth is part of a long investigation against the fundraiser that started back in 2004. The specific charges against Siljander are for money laundering, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. This is because he accepted money, about $50,000, from that fundraiser that he knew had been stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development, he lobbied for other senators to support the charity despite although authorities had warned that it was supporting terrorists, and for lying to government prosecutors when questioned for this case. I would think it would be clear what I think of this man, and what any up-right American should think of him, but my only question now is how could anyone, in all faithfulness, do this and still be able to live with himself? Yet, this story is only starting to come out and there are still a lot of unknowns that need to be answered before I can understand what this former congressman's motives were. But one thing is for sure, with important people who have lots of influence in our country doing things such as this, I can better understand how terrorist groups can still find ways to get money and function. My only hope is that this is a totally isolated matter and I definitely plan to follow this story to see the outcome and what happens to the former senator and the Islamic American Relief Agency.

Do religion and politics mix?

Huckabee, whose religion thinks Catholics aren't Christians, says we need to amend the Constitution to bring it more in line with God, posted Jan. 15 on "AMERICAblog," addresses comments from Huckabee concerning his beliefs and laws he wants to change. Specifically, he wants to change to Constitution to ban abortion and gay marriage. These are two things that I would love and support completely if said changes were ever attempted. But, his argument for these changes are that they conflict with the Word of God and we should change the way we live instead of trying to change God's standards. Being a Christian I, once again, totally agree with his reasoning and with what he wants to do. The problem that arises is that these are all good and true goals for Christians and the church to pursue, but I'm not positive that its sound reasoning in running for political office. I do believe in the importance of separation between church and state, this is for a number of reasons I'm not going to cover, and going with that line of thought I don't believe that a political candidate should base his campaign and claim that possible laws he'll set in place will be for the soul reason of religious beliefs. This is because this could be a dangerous step towards a theocracy. And once things go in this direction, religious views and doctrine will come up against and possibly be compromised with anti-Christian political issues (sorry, I know I said I wasn't going to try an touch on the huge topic of the importance of separation of church and state, but this is all I'll say). Before I finish, I would like it to be clear that I'm am not putting down the ideals or plans of Huckabee, in fact I fully hope that he would succeed in his plans if he is elected president, but I think it’s out of place to campaign for political office with religious reasoning as the only basis for argument and that there are plenty of other good reasons and general moral reasons to go against abortion and gay marriage.

Ethanol and food prices related to Congress?

On Food Inflation, posted Jan. 15 on "A Chequer-Board of Days and Nights," comments on the points made on "Cato-at-liberty" where it talks about ethanol issues. The story makes a point about food prices due to ethanol, "'Ethanol has increased the average American’s grocery bill $47 since July,' said Sen. Chuck Schumer, citing figures from Iowa State University." It goes on to point out that this problem is a result of taxes and tariffs set in place by Congress. To help along the ethanol industry, Congress put in place a 51-cent-per-gallon exemption from normal gas taxes and they put a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol from foreign nations. Although this is useful for the ethanol industry, specifically boosting American ethanol producers, the demand for corn is through the roof which drives up grain costs, this includes the feed grain. This in turn is affecting farmers’ ability to feed and work with cattle in general causing them to have to raise the price of products such as milk. I agree with the writer of the story in saying that the tariffs on the foreign ethanol should be dropped. This is because there would be no significant blow to American ethanol, but by allowing the cheaper ethanol into the market would bring the demand on corn down which could in turn allow farmers to drop the high prices on other dairy products such as milk. The economy is going through some tough times as work is done to reorganize towards the use of ethanol as a viable fuel source, a noble and good move (I admit that I was decidedly wrong in being so cynical concerning ethanol in my last post), and lowering tariffs on foreign ethanol would be a good way to help the farmers work their way through these changes without forcing prices up. This would also be beneficial to the rest of the economy by allowing people to pay less for foods.

Say "yes" to nuclear power

5 Myths About Breaking Our Foreign Oil Habit, posted Jan. 13 on "A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days," talks about the important issues and possible problems that will face our nation. The blog asks why no presidential candidates will make remarks concerning these issues considering their large importance. In saying how important it is to address the issues faced by our country concerning foreign oil, the blogger came up with two points that he wanted to make, one of which I whole heartedly agree with, but the other I'm not so sure about. First, he says that America needs to build more nuclear power plants to address power shortages. Second, he says that to keep everyday products like foods at reasonable prices, we should invest in ethanol. I find myself more skeptical of the latter of these two points because I don't feel that ethanol will be a useful, long-lasting solution to raising oil prices. I have reached this conclusion because ethanol still takes lots of power and oil to make. Because of this, I see solutions such as ethanol and hybrid cars as non-practical solutions because they don't actually fix the problems, but only delay the inevitable. The problem is, though, that I have no idea or solution that can do any better than these ideas, so I am in no real position to attack these ideas to answer oil problems. But, concerning the first point the blogger made, I think that more nuclear plants are a must; building more nuclear plants is something that America should already have done years ago. I am a strong believer of this because, despite the way many environmentalist make them sound horrible, nuclear power plants are by far the cleanest and most efficient form of power. Although the US was the first nation to harness nuclear power, European countries have far surpassed the number of nuclear plants in America because they seem to see the obvious practicality and use of it. The problem is that there have been incidents or scares, such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, that have given the public a scare and they have made people more willing to believe environmentalists against nuclear power plants after hearing about these things. In short, I'm not sure of how to solve our oil and power problems completely in America, but building more nuclear power plants would be a long overdue step in the right direction.

Trouble on Wall Street

Wall Street powerhouses to be bailed out - by foreign governments, posted Jan. 10 on "AMERICAblog," talks about the huge losses that banks on Wall Street have been taking recently. The post goes on to say how these banks have made incredibly close ties to foreign nations and, with their current hardships taking place, are turning to these foreign nations for help. This whole situation is laid out by the blogger in a very negative light, especially the executives of the banks who are still very wealthy. I agree in the sense that this is a bad situation for the banking business, this includes banks all over the world, not just the ones on Wall Street, but I disagree for the most part about the blogger's opinion on the whole matter. The blogger slams the executives for bonuses they gained during the relative prosperity that was going on a few years back and accuses them of being poor businessmen; he blames them for the current trouble that the banking companies are currently experiencing. I'm not going to say that all of these points are totally baseless because it is possible that they're right in some cases. But, as the saying goes, hind sight is 20-20 and there would be no way for the executives to know how the market would fluctuate. When companies are doing well and prospering, it is by no means unusual for the owners to take bonuses as excess profits come in. And then, if and when things change for the worst, they work hard to help the company and bring it back, but going so far to say that their bonuses caused the problem or that they should take the money back out of their own pockets to help bring the company back would be incredibly unlikely that anyone in their situation would do. I would even go so far as to say that no one, not even Chris in Paris, would give up their money in said situation. In short, I'm saying that the people who run these banks are not idiots and they're not crooks; to have made it to the positions that they're in means that they must have some significant business skill and taking bonuses when things are good and there's money to spare is common practice and not unethical. As to the reason that the banks have lost billions recently, it’s possible that mistakes were made and that they're just fluctuations resulting from tough economic times. But, whether or not it was because of bad business moves by executives running the banks or not, it wasn't because they took bonuses while times were good and they shouldn't be made out like villains for it.

Hilary continues oddly and "The Reality-Based Community"

Hillary's supporters may set up anti-Obama 527, posted Jan. 8 on "AMERICAblog," covers Clinton's campaign plans and how they're changing. First, a bunch of the rich supporters backing Clinton and her campaign may possibly set up a committee for the sole purpose of finding her democratic opponents' flaws and slandering them. Personally, I find this sick and hilarious at the same time. First, this is a sad state of affairs where it is so common a tactic to drag opponents' names through the mud in politics today, that groups and candidates won't even hide it and try to rationalize their slandering, but instead they come right forward and unashamedly admit what they are doing. Second, this is quite funny because I see no way that any casual observer of politics could hear information such as this and still think highly enough of Hillary Clinton to vote for her. Next in this post, it covered some changes that may be made to Clinton's campaign struggle as she works to regain what once looked like a large lead for the democratic nomination. The changes being referred to are the possibility that she will overlook South Carolina and Nevada and instead prepare as much as possible for the large number of primaries taking place on Tuesday, Feb. 5. Whether such a plan will work in her favor or not is unknowable, but I find myself less and less interested in the issues and changes regarding Clinton and her campaign from day to day as she seems to be becoming less and less of a possibility for even making it to the final presidential elections as each day goes by.

On "The Reality-Based Community," posted Jan. 8 on "A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days," writes about how democratic candidates were confronted during the New Hampshire debate over their opinions concerning the "surge" in Iraq. Simply put, the surge has had extremely positive results; the blog points out, "Attacks have fallen by more than 60 percent, al-Qaeda has been dealt a major blow, and the threat of sectarian civil war that seemed imminent a year ago has receded." All of the democratic candidates showed extreme dislike for the sending of more troops to Iraq, and when asked questions concerning the partial success in Iraq, they all responded vaguely about political problems and continued violence in Iraq. Oddly, they didn't really need to be vague about this issue, they could've agreed that the surge has successfully quelled most of the violence but has yet to accomplish its goals of making political peace among the factions in Iraq and come out on top of the debate. But, they showed stubbornness by being unwilling to even grant the possibility that any good is being done in Iraq. And by acting this way, it seems to me that the democratic candidates only worsen their image by seeming evasive and a little fake because being vague and giving evasive answers usually points to being wrong or having something to hide.

Good moves by Obama while Hilary tanks

Coming Together on Iraq?, posted Jan. 7 on "A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days," talks about Obama as taking a big step in bringing more civilized talks out between politicians on opposite sides of the Iraq War. This is because, the blog states, he is "actually trying to engage in dialogue with those who disagree with him on policy issues." Which is something that doesn't seem to happen too much between politicians these days. Although I myself am still very much conservative, I find myself to think of Obama as at least competent and the most reasonable of the democratic candidates. The blog goes on to say that, although Obama seems to be willing to talk to those opposed to his views, Michael O'Hanlon directs peoples' attention to the fact that the change in Barack's tone is still nowhere to be seen in his official rhetoric concerning the war in Iraq. This is very true, but the open dialogue that Obama has started is a positive change, whether there is much real substance to it or not, and hopefully it will lead to some compromises and changes in his official rhetoric concerning the war in Iraq.

Hillary's awful comments about MLK, posted Jan. 7 on "AMERICAblog," talks about comments that Clinton said in response to comments from and about Obama. She clearly didn't mean to make it sound like she was belittling Martin Luther King, Jr., as the blog points out, but it sure looks like that's what she did. The quotes were taken slightly out of context, but even with everything she said, the parts where she seems to compare Obama to MLK and herself to President Johnson sound pretty bad. Although Clinton is still a huge candidate who holds a good chance of taking the democratic nomination, the current trend of things does not bode well for her. Obama is figuratively on top at the moment due to his current success; not anything for Clinton to distress about yet. But, she seems to be doing just that when she makes comments like those posted in this blog and this will only continue to hurt her. If Clinton keeps digging herself in holes, such as this, over every bump she reaches during the primaries, Obama will just have one less candidate that he has to worry about.

Looking at a different blog for the Liberal outlook

I previously stated that I would be following the "Wonkette" blog for my liberal outlook, but after some searching, I have found "AMERICAblog" which I find to have more interesting posts and content than the previous, so I will be following the latter for the remainder of this blog.

Clinton campaign fears loss in NH and evidence grows of Obama's bounce from Iowa, posted Jan. 6, discusses the not yet, but almost, panicked state of the Clinton campaign staff after recent polls. New Hampshire was a state that Clinton has put a fair amount of effort into and was fairly confident in her likeliness of winning it, "but if the turnout even begins to mirror what happened in Iowa, all bets are off," says a Clinton adviser. It seems that after Obama's victory in Iowa, that it has caused a ripple where the new hype surrounding him has caused a much larger than expect number of people to lean in favor of him in states, such as New Hampshire, with their primaries coming up soon. Although this is a bit of a scary situation for Clinton and her campaign, the recent polls taken since Obama's victory in Iowa may not be as serious as they seem since there is speculation that it is just hype spreading from Iowa so that excited voters are voting for who seems to be popular for the moment. Given some time, this may change as the excitement from Iowa dies down which may lead to New Hampshire still falling to Clinton. Personally, though, I believe that New Hampshire will almost definitely fall to Obama because it's primary is just around the corner and, whether voters in New Hampshire will admit it or not (as the blog stated), their opinions have been affected by Obama's victory in Iowa and it will probably last for a while and show up in the primary. Whether or not a domino type effect results from this or whether or not Clinton can bounce back from what could possibly be important and surprising back to back loses is hard to see. But I believe one thing is for sure: whatever chances Obama had at winning the democratic nomination were, they have definite increased an unexpectedly large amount after winning the Iowa primary, but its impossible to tell exactly how much that is, or if it'll be enough, only time will tell.

Opening Post

I have decided to follow "A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days," a conservative blog, and, on the other side of the political spectrum, "Wonkette," a liberal blog.

An Increasingly Troubled Employment Market, posted on January 4, addresses the issue of growing unemployment in the US. In recent months, the unemployment has been increasing which has thus made people worried about the possibility of a recession and the continued increase of the unemployment rate. The blog goes on to say how, working parallel to how people have become scared over the increase in unemployment, stocks have taken a big drop recently. Despite this, it does point out that unemployment is still only 5% which isn't very made in the greater scheme of things. I find myself agreeing with the final point made in this post. Although there are definitely negative effects whenever the rate of unemployment goes up, it is still small in the bigger picture of the whole nation. The problem is that people scare easily and react strongly to small, and sometimes insignificant, problems, often the media plays a big part in over dramatizing these things. But the negative reaction of the public over small problems like a slight increase in unemployment can easily lead to bigger problems like causing large drops in the stock market, which can cause more economic problems and possibly cause what would be a serious recession. This is a bit far from and past the point made by the post in "A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days." But after reading into this issue, I find myself thinking more negatively of the media and its effects because of its ability to influence the masses, making mountains out of mole hills; fake, preceived mountains that can lead to the creation of real mountains.