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August 20 - WORLD GOA DAY
Celebrating the inclusion of Konkani in the 8th schedule of the
Indian Constitution on August 20, 1992
For a list of World Goa Day events see:
http://worldgoaday2009.blogspot.com
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Bosco wrote:
>
>#1) What has Zimbabwe, N. Korea, etc have to do with the Pope in this
> instance? Or even Aiyar-ji for that matter.
>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:18:36 +0100
From: Gabe Menezes <gabe.mene...@gmail.com>
How do they train themselves to be so impervious to reality?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-republicans-religion-and-t
Mario observes:
Hey, Gabe,
It would help if you posted a complete URL, but I was able to find the article
anyway and found it filled with untruths and half truths.
The column you have posted has nothing to do with either the topic of this
thread or Bosco's comment that you have referenced, which, unbeknownst to you,
I have answered in another post.
The article is just another in a long list of scurrilous articles that the left
wing Independent is famous for. Here are just a few of the more egregious
examples:
Excerpt:
Since Obama's rise, the US right has been skipping frantically from one fantasy
to another, like a person in the throes of a mental breakdown. It started when
they claimed he was a secret Muslim, and – at the same time – that he was a
member of a black nationalist church that hated white people.
Mario responds:
According to its title, this column is supposed to be about Republicans. Here
we see the the author jumping to using the general term "the US right", who may
or may not be Republicans.
I know many Republicans and I would like Johann Hari or Gabe to show us some
evidence of a comment by any Republican official that Obama was any kind of
Muslim, secret or not.
The facts are that Obama said in his memoires that his father was an atheist,
then, before he went to Saudi Arabia to genuflect before Kind Abdullah, he
suddenly said he had Muslim roots and many memories of experiencing Muslim
culture as a youth in Indonesia, which he had also previously swept under the
rug.
The second part is true, regardless of whether any Republican said it or not.
Obama was a member for 20 years of one of the most viciously radical
anti-American and anti-Jewish churches in Chicago, which he also tried to deny
until outed by the Pastor who said Obama would say anything to get elected.
Excerpt:
Then, once these arguments were rejected and Obama won, they began to argue
that he was born in Kenya and secretly smuggled into the United States as a
baby, and the Hawaiian authorities conspired to fake his US birth certificate.
So he is ineligible to rule and the office of President should pass to... the
Republican runner-up, John McCain.
Mario responds:
Johann Hari either does not know or deliberately left out the fact that the
person who first questioned Obama's status as a natural born American was a
Democrat who was once an Assistant Attorney General in Pennsylvania and a
Hillary Clinton supporter and has a web site: www.obamacrimes.com
This started well before the election so Mr. Hari is wrong again when he says
it started after Obama won.
However, some Republicans have questioned why Obama, if he has nothing to hide,
has not released his original birth certificate but a proxy document which is
not the same thing.
Johann Hari also displays his ignorance because
a) Obama being born in Kenya to an obviously American mother would not have
invalidated his natural born American status unless his mother had renounced
her citizenship, and there is no evidence that she did. For example, John
McCain was born in Panama.
b) If Obama was disqualified for any reason the Presidency would not pass to
John McCain but to the comical Vice President Joe Biden.
Excerpt:
These aren't fringe phenomena: a Research 200 poll found that a majority of
Republicans and Southerners say Obama wasn't born in the US, or aren't sure.
Mario responds:
This is just flat out false. The author uses another scurrilous journalistic
trick by lumping "Republicans" and "Southerners" thus no one can tell what
exactly he is referring to because one is a political party and the other is a
geographical region.
The Research 200 poll, a fringe poll which is not used by mainstream
organizations, actually showed that a majority of Republicans polled believed
Obama was born in the US, so this is another flat out falsehood by the author.
Excerpt:
This trend has reached its apotheosis this summer with the Republican Party now
claiming en masse that Obama wants to set up "death panels" to euthanise the
old and disabled. Yes: Sarah Palin really has claimed – with a straight face –
that Barack Obama wants to kill her baby.
Mario responds:
This para is a complete distortion of the facts. Palin never said what this
author claims. She used the term to dramatize and draw attention to unclear
provisions in the bill drafted by the Democrats where government bureaucrats
would make or influence end-of-life decisions. Her questions were based on
similar panels in other countries that have socialized medicine, and the state
of Oregon where a panel recently refused to pay for chemo for a not-so-old
woman and offered to pay for euthanasia instead.
Besides, if Palin was wrong, why did the Democrats in the Senate remove the
provisions she questioned from their bill?
On the other hand, here is how well known political analyst and best selling
author of the Obama critique "Catastrophe", Dick Morris, previously a senior
advisor to Bill Clinton who has broken with the Democrats over their approach
to deficits and health care and Israel, describes the entire Democrat health
care proposal as a Death Panel because government bureaucrats will have life
and death decisions just like they do in Canada and Britain. Here is his
analysis of the Obama backed proposals and the effect on seniors:
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/08/18/its-all-a-death-panel-the-truth-about-obamacare/
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/08/03/reform-at-seniors-expense/
Excerpt:
The Republicans want to defend the existing system, not least because they are
given massive sums of money by the private medical firms who benefit from the
deadly status quo.
Mario responds:
Not true. Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike are opposing the bill
because they don't want the American health care system to become as good and
efficient as Canada's or Britain's:-)) Memo: I'm being sarcastic here. I have
to clarify this these days with truth-twisters around ready to pounce:-))
The wonders of the Canadian and British system be seen here:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jbjzPEY0Y3bvRD335rGu_Z3KXoQw
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5955840/Patients-forced-to-live-in-agony-after-NHS-refuses-to-pay-for-painkilling-injections.html
Since Johann Hari is trying to insinuate that the British health care system is
humane and compassionate when compared to the American system, here is a panel
discussion that features a British MP and Member of the European Parliament
that illustrates the exact opposite.
Gabe should listen carefully to this video so he can learn what is actually
going on in his country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spI4Aetab3w&feature=player_embedded
From the discussion: The NHS is the third largest employer in the world after
the Chinese Red Army and the Indian Railways.
This is such a large voting block that it is virtually impossible now to reform
the British NHS system.
Imagine what the 300 million person US system would be like if allowed to
become like Britain's NHS.
