¿Que Pasa?

This humble Bolivian blogger is outraged that Bolivian troops have recently been sent into Venezuela amidst chaos following the death of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (more commonly known as ALBA) directed its CSALBA forces—a coalition of the forces of ALBA nations—into Venezuela. This move directly led to the outrageous deaths of Venezuelan civilians.

Additionally, our troops are needed at home! Our economy, already ailing from previous economic downturns now faces serious threat from the poaching of natural resources—some of our nation’s most precious assets. We—the Bolivian people—need to protect our homeland! Can we really afford to protect our allies to our own detriment? Walker San Miguel Rodriguez, director of our armed forces, seriously needs to think about his priorities! ALBA or Bolivia?

Palestinian Authority PM Salam Fayyad to Haaretz

Palestinian Authority PM Salam Fayyad to Haaretz

Fayyad seems like a sensible fellow. The ball is in Israel's court right now to show that it is truly committed to peace. Bibi and Avigdor have surprised me so far by not starting a war or doing anything too extreme, but as PM Fayyad said, there are a lot of actions on the part of Israel that simply do not further any objectives other than a projection of IDF power. It is simply disgraceful that Israel has not secured the release of Gilad Shalit after more than 3 years. It is perplexing how Israel thinks it is furthering its security objectives by maintaining roadblocks that cause distress to common Palestinians. As we learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, you must win the hearts and minds of the people to defeat the terrorists. I have long believed that economic growth and social progress are the key to stopping terrorist activity in Palestine and ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. PM Fayyad, a respected economist, appears to understand this. Does Israel?

To those who participated in Silent Solidarity 10/21/08

Let me preface this note by saying that I respect your right to participate in such an event and respect that you are getting involved in a cause you believe in.

Now let's get down to business.

I do not know the motivation behind your decision to participate. For some of you, it is certainly a religious stand and I do not begrudge your freedom to express your religious beliefs. I respect those of you who have truly thought about the issue of abortion and have made a conscientious decision to hold the views that you do. Remarks in this note are not primarily directed toward you. I believe that the best way to resolve the issue is constructive discussion between those of differing opinions.

The aforementioned group I hold in esteem. Some other members of the conservative community do not show such tolerance, however. Believe it or not, those with pro-choice beliefs suffer considerable discrimination from those on the other side, however much organizations want to promote the idea of "anti-Christian hate". I have lost track of the number of times we have been denigrated as murderers and baby-killers. We are stereotyped as having no morals, as if conservative Christians were granted authority to self-righteously judge the values of all other people. The very terms "pro-life" and "pro-abortion" themselves have highly insulting implications. Am I "pro-death" if I support a woman's right to choose an abortion as an option of last resort? Am I anti-life? Because a majority of this country supports legal abortion (with varying degrees of restrictions) and by your standards, this country as a whole is "pro-death" or "anti-life".

Barack Obama said on 5 October 2004 at Benedictine University that "No one is pro-abortion". Think about that for a moment. That's right. Contrary to what some on the right may believe, we do not want more abortions. We do not want abortion to become a form of birth control. How many abortions would you like to be carried out in America? Zero? That's what I thought, because that's what I would like as well. That's what Bill Clinton said some years ago as he reprimanded a crowd of pro-choice supporters who cheered a legal victory. Let me repeat. NO ONE IS PRO-ABORTION.

We all share a goal of reducing the need for a woman to have an abortion. We all would love to live in a country where no vulnerable woman is pressured into having unprotected sex. There are just differing approaches on how to best reduce the number of abortions: through education and aid, or through a legal ban. You must understand this if there is to be a viable effort to reduce the number of abortions, we must understand each other. There are those on my side of the fence who do not care for the opinions of others, just as some people on your side. I disown those individuals. As much as I may disagree with you, I will show you respect and try to win you over through civil discussion. But if you call pro-choicers baby-killers and try to claim moral superiority, I can not reason with you. If you think we want abortions to be as widespread as the pill, I can not reason with you. While I respect the right of Silent Solidarity students to hold events, I cannot give credence to the actions of many of the participants. I am sorry for those of you who are not guilty of the accusations I have made, there are just too many among you who are. I cannot help but view the protest as a slight against the pro-choice community, despite the noble intentions of some of you.

Thank you for taking the time to read my note. Hopefully, this will clarify some misconceptions and move us further in the quest to reduce the number of abortions to zero.

John McCain's acceptance speech

Let me preface the rest of this post by listing the points of McCain's speech that I liked.

-The Iraq vet protesters with the "McCain votes against vets" sign
-Nuclear power
-Double the child tax exemption

That's all that I could find in my notes, there are probably a few more.

Now let's move on to the lies. I'll stick to the lies that I can debunk off the top of my head.

-"You have my respect..."-to Obama campaign: So all the personal attacks? That's respect? Wow, Obama should really be more respectful to McCain, shouldn't he?

-Palin's tax cuts: As far as I know, Palin did not cut taxes. Alaska has no state income or sales tax. She did give a $1200 tax rebate per citizen from oil money. A technicality but there is a difference.

-"The party of Lincoln, Roosevelt...": Yeah about that...you know blacks supported Lincoln. Southerners hated him. Robber barons hated Roosevelt. You know that thing called civil rights? Started with Lincoln. Oh and Lincoln instituted the first income tax. Party of Lincoln and Roosevelt my ass.

-Will appoint judges who don't legislate from the bench: So let me get this straight. When judges say that withholding habeas rights from prisoners at Gitmo, it's legislating from the bench. When judges say that a handgun ban is unconstitutional, it's doing their duty. When judges say that abortion is legal, it's legislating from the bench. But when you appoint judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, it's not legislating from the bench? And since when could judges make law anyway? I should invite John McCain to my gov class.

-Obama will raise taxes: On Bill Gates maybe. Hell, the McCains even get a $5,641 tax break under Obama and they make 6 million bucks a year. I keep wondering why Obama doesn't hit McCain for this lie that he's repeated over and over in ad after ad.

-Obama will tax small businesses to force them to cut jobs: Didn't McCain listen to Obama's acceptance speech? Obama specifically mentioned a small business tax cut.

-Obama wants to bring back old jobs and McCain new ones: Apparently McCain doesn't watch much TV. He might have seen that Obama ad that says that we can retrain workers from the old economy to build a new one.

-Obama wants schools to answer to unions and bureaucrats: See above. And also, remember that crazy idea to eliminate tenure in exchange for higher salaries for competent teachers? That was Obama. This section on education I felt was extremely similar to Obama's during his acceptance speech.

===

That's all for the blatant lies. There were plenty of other semi-contradictory statements and positions I just don't agree with in the speech. Those may come later.

Palin's daughter pregnant

Yes, Palin's daughter is pregnant. No, it should not have anything to do with the campaign.

This announcement will make more waves with the very religious conservatives that McCain is supposedly reaching out to, than with moderates and Democrats who do not believe that family matters should be dragged into politics.

I severely criticize the rumormongers that have been circulating the rumor around liberal blogs that Palin faked a pregnancy to cover up for her daughter. But for Republicans to call foul and say Obama is behind the rumors (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2944356420080901?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true)...just as despicable. I applaud the mainstream media for at least placing Hurricane Gustav as the priority news item.

It goes to show the laserlike focus of our media that this has been picked up. To me, it is yet another family issue that shouldn't be in the media at all (guess I'm guilty of talking about it too). The nation should just let it go. Cheney has a lesbian daughter. Does it matter at all?

I will be severely disappointed if the Obama campaign does anything except offer its condolences to the Palin family. I will also be severely disappointed if the McCain campaign continues to link Obama's name to every piece of trash that comes out of the blogosphere.

Let's just let it go.

Russia recognizes independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia

Oh snap.