Mikki

One correction: Obama was not associated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, but with the Gamaliel Foundation, a different community organizing network working in the Alinsky tradition. Gamaliel hired Obama, and he was a trainer for the Gamaliel Foundation.

Peace.

Hillary Clinton: Lies Have Short Legs

Senator Hillary Clinton’s repeated telling of a shocking fabricated and later recanted story of her arrival in a Bosnian combat zone “under sniper fire” is absolutely ghastly. This horrific fabrication is not only a very telling indictment of her credibility and integrity; it reveals a clear vision of a ruthless woman lost in self consumption.

I have no apprehension for having made the aforementioned scalding comments because two decades ago I myself served. At one point in my career I was a crewmember aboard the carrier “United States Ship Independence”. During my service on that vessel we were required to launch aircraft and drop bombs on the nations of Grenada and Lebanon. Tensions were high and in Lebanon our aircraft were engaged and one was shot down. Through it all I never felt particularly threatened. Why? Because I was an Air Traffic Controller and I sat comfortably in my air conditioned work center, dozens of miles off shore, deep within the skin of a well protected ship. That my fellow Americans, is the maximum extent to which I can embellish these events. Oh wait! When “Battle Stations” were announced, I did have to put on my ball cap and tuck my pants into my socks.

Now some years later, the First Lady of the United States, flies into Bosnia with her teenaged daughter. As would be procedurally appropriate they got a routine briefing equivalent in significance to: “Hey Hillary, tuck your pants into your socks” followed by an uneventful landing and an informal reception on the tarmac. From these actual routine events, came a tale so outrageous it was nearly tantamount to she, Chelsea and Sinbad slithering across the tarmac cradling rifles with night vision scopes and with bayonets in their teeth. Thank God it was daylight or she might have claimed it was 3:00 AM.

I can not fully relate to all of the families of those who faced combat, injury or death in Bosnia or the Gulf War or Iraq or any other conflict or police action in recent American History or years prior. Still I know that there have been so many who served under austere and life threatening conditions sacrificed through injury and those who died for this country. So for anyone and in particular a candidate for President of the United States, to manipulate the reality of exposure to, or service in dangerous conflict as she has done is the height of depravity. To attempt to beguile an American public which includes those who are serving, those who have served and those who have sacrificed, all of the families and all fellow citizens is beyond comprehension. What is more, and that which can only be considered the height of gall is, to date I am aware of no apology.

At fifty four years old I have seen many things. I have a fairly good understanding of politics and the tactics that can make politics both enjoyable and disturbing. I am not however a political junkie so perhaps my memory data banks are some what limited. Still, I can scarcely recall anything so calculated and outrageous in my remembrances of prior political contests.

I believe this will be the final element in Senator Clinton’s undoing in this political campaign. She had already begun setting the bridges ablaze with her tactics throughout and more recently, the veiled threats to the Democratic Party Leadership were a mistake. Seemingly she and her campaign never figured out that something was changing. She brought the same old script and played the leading role in the same old dreary production of “Washington Politics As Usual”.

At the end of the day I believe this gifted woman was blinded by dangerous ambition and she lost sight of the real prize. The real prize being the trust and confidence of the American people. Sadly, the American people have a clear vision of that which she never hoped to reveal. The hole in the place where her soul should be.

Leon A. Walker

© Leon A. Walker, April 2008 – Approved for use by any recipients, viewers or holders.

Thank you for documenting this beverage and its advertising. The ingredients you described, especially the high fructose corn syrup, are common in soda and many other food products as a cheap substitute for sugar. The first use of high fructose corn syrup coincides with the onset of the obesity epidemic so there is some reason to believe that it harms the body. In addition it may harm behavior so that the origin of hyphy in hyperactivity gets an ironic kick from a junk drink named Hyphy.

Your suggestions for documenting harmful advertising in our street-walk documentation is really valuable and I thank you for it.

Best,

Hank Herrera

Indeed. In the ‘States, the industry likes to refer to how little effect a doubling of corn prices has on the price of a box of some highly processed product, like corn flakes. Of course, they never mention the effect on the prices of other commodities pushed aside by corn: wheat, barley, soybeans, canola. This comment from the Chair of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board is pretty typical:

“Corn prices have little effect on the cost of food. Only 19 cents of every dollar spent on food goes back to the farm, and corn is just a fraction of that 19 cents.”

But in the poorest countries of the world, what people eat is semi-processed, at best. The wholesale price of corn has a very significant effect on the end–user price of corn meal.

In short, what biofuel proponents in the North seem to be saying to the rest of the world (not consciously, of course) is: “Let them eat dirt.”