J's Cafe Nette

Archive for April 9th, 2007

I don’t know about anyone else, but I know if I played on a college women’s basketball team that lost the national championship I would be feeling pretty low about the loss. To hear me and my teammates described as “nappy-headed hos” by a national radio personality would make that hurt even worse regardless of my race. But these girls happen to be black and calling them “nappy-headed hos” is definitely making a racial comment that is insensitive at best.

Today, CBS radio and MSNBC announced a two-week suspension of Don Imus from his show—beginning next Monday! Why not now?

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Check the photo on this Drudge piece.

It’s being called the equivalent of a paparazzi gotcha:

A snapshot of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and his chief political/media adviser David Axelrod — taken in the Senator’s Capitol Hill office!

ROLL CALL reports: Congressional ethics rules forbid the use of federal office space for political and campaign activity.

A spokeswoman for the Obama camp declined comment to the paper.

Obama and Axelrod are old buddies whose relationship dates back years and they could have been having an innocuous conversation, one strategist noted. But it does raise some flags, which is the last thing a contender in a competitive race with a polished, practiced vet such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) wants to do. “It could be seen as a rookie mistake,” the consultant said.

It could have been just a friendly conversation. After all, we don’t have any audio of what happened in the meeting.

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What is it about the Democrat presidential candidates that they fear having a debate partially sponsored by Fox News?

A debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus and Fox News for September has been nixed by Senator Barack Obama. Since he’s the only member of the CBC who is running, it gives an excuse to everyone else to drop out of the debate.

Barack Obama has chosen not to attend September’s Democratic presidential primary debate co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute and Fox News, an aide said, effectively dooming the event.

Friday, John Edwards was the first candidate to announce he’d skip the debate. The CBC Institute is hosting one other debate, with CNN in January, in which all candidates are expected to participate.

“CNN seemed like a more appropriate venue,” the aide said, adding that Obama himself had not called CBC leadership or Fox executives to deliver the news. “It was handled at a staff level.”

The aide said that Obama will participate in the six officially-sanctioned Democratic National Committee debates, whose existence provided candidates a measure of cover to drop out of the Fox-sponsored debate.

Well, if you want softballs lobbed at you I guess CNN is the network of choice.

This seems to be such an orchestrated child-like response against Fox News. It’s Fox News not Wolf News! I thought we were supposed to be afraid of the big, bad wolf, and I don’t mean Blitzer either.

Maybe the Republicans should refuse to debate on anything that resembles a left-leaning network, but then again how would the people of the other political persuasion be able to see them and judge their candidacies? The same goes for the Democrats. How will conservatives actually be able to see their debates if they don’t watch CNN as a personal choice. I’m one of them.

This is just plain foolish. What happens in the big race in November when all the networks will carry the debates? Oh, right, they’ll ban people like Brit Hume from asking any questions. Or maybe they will even manage to get Fox News banned from broadcasting those debates.

I have one question for the Democrat presidential candidates: Is there one of you who will stand up for what is right and take honest questions or are you all going to hide behind the backs of Obama and Edwards?

Update: Senator Hillary Clinton has also dropped out of the debate and has announced she will participate only in the DNC debates.

Clinton spokesman Blake Zeff emails, “We’re going to participate in the DNC-sanctioned debates only. We’ve previously committed to participating in the SC and Tavis Smiley debates.”

Source.

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This excuse is a new one on me.

A Charleston Southern University economics professor is in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission after nearly $134 million in investments disappeared.

Al Parish, the self-proclaimed “Economan” of Charleston, S.C., claims amnesia in the case of the missing money and has checked himself into a hospital, Inside Higher Ed reports.

The SEC alleges that Parish had sold interest in five investment funds since 1986 and provided false reporting of the funds’ financial results. Four of the funds were “informal pools of money” while the fifth focused on “hard assets” such as jewelry and art, Inside Higher Ed reports.

Among Parish’s investors is his former employer, Charleston Southern University, which invested some $10 million of its estimated $13 million to $18 million endowment with the professor, renown in the local media for his quick sound bites on investing.

Maybe his memory will come back and he can find all those lost investments.

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Tonto will be absent for awhile since he has several projects he is working on in a home recently purchased that he and his wife are remodeling.

He’ll be back as soon as he has the free time to blog. I can’t wait to see his new place because he can take a shack and turn it into a castle!

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We at Js Cafenette are already asking our readers to be civil to one another and we don’t have anyone’s seal of approval. It just makes sense.

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Here is the text of a letter sent to Speaker Pelosi by some of the GOP leadership in the House and the Senate, courtesy of the Drudge Report.

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

We are writing to urge you to call the House back into session immediately so that Congress can finish its work on the emergency legislation to fund the Global War on Terrorism. This funding request has been pending since February 5, but your leadership team chose to leave town for more than two weeks rather than completing this bill. As a result, our troops have been put at risk.

We are especially troubled by the House’s failure to appoint conferees. The Senate appointed conferees on March 29, moments after passing its bill, but the House never did so despite passing the bill a week earlier. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the Senate that he hoped the House-Senate conference would begin on March 30. That hoped-for progress has been thwarted by your failure to act.

It should go without saying that our military leaders are in the best position to know the needs of our troops, and they have left no doubt that this funding is needed urgently. General Peter Schoomaker, United States Army Chief of Staff, has written that, “without approval of the supplemental funds in April, we will be forced to take increasingly draconian measures which will impact Army readiness and impose hardships on our Soldiers and their families.” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has also emphasized the dangers of delay: “This kind of disruption to key programs will have a genuinely adverse effect on the readiness of the Army and the quality of life for soldiers and their families.”

Our troops need this funding, and they need it soon. The Senate is in session and ready to work. We respectfully request that you cancel the remainder of your break, call the House back into session, appoint conferees promptly, and work in good faith to pass a clean supplemental funding bill that the President can sign as soon as possible. Every day we don’t fund our troops is a day their ability to fight this war is weakened.

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Elizabeth Edwards has a problem with her across the street “rabid” Republican neighbor.

She criticizes him for pulling a gun while chasing workers investigating the right of way on his property. Admittedly, I wouldn’t like that either, but then I don’t live in such a large house with such a large driveway as Mrs. Edwards.

She doesn’t like the fact he has a “slummy” piece of property and he won’t clean it up. I guess it wasn’t slummy when they chose their property.

On top of that, the neighbor has posted a Rudy Giuliani sign 100 feet from the Edwards’ yard.

Elizabeth Edwards says she is scared of the “rabid, rabid Republican” who owns property across the street from her Orange County home — and she doesn’t want her kids going near the gun-toting neighbor.

Edwards, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, particularly recalls the time neighbor Monty Johnson brought out a gun while chasing workers investigating a right of way near his property. The Edwards family has yet to meet Johnson in person.

“I wouldn’t be nice to him, anyway,” Edwards said in an interview. “I don’t want my kids anywhere near some guy who, when he doesn’t like somebody, the first thing he does is pull a gun out. It scares the business out of me.”

She may not have to worry too much longer as the neighbor wants to sell out since property taxes have risen since the Edwardses moved in.

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Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, once considered to be a shoe-in for the presidential nomination of the Democrat party, seems to be support in the critical states of Iowa and New Hampshire, according to recent polls.

She still leads in New Hampshire,but her support seems to be dwindling, and it appears she has lost the lead completely in Iowa.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton trails her chief Democratic rivals in the Iowa caucus polls and is clinging to a shaky front-runner status in New Hampshire — the two pivotal kickoff contests that could decide her fate in next year’s nomination battle.

A mere nine months before Democrats begin choosing their nominee in the snowy caucuses and primaries of January, the senator from New York retains her position at the front of the pack in the national party-preference polls. But she also faces increasingly tighter races in Iowa and New Hampshire — states known for burying front-runners and boosting challengers.

In Iowa, the latest polls compiled by the Real Clear Politics Web site (www.realclearpolitics.com) showed that former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina led Mrs. Clinton by an average 30.3 percent to 26.8 percent. An April 1 Strategic Vision poll had Mr. Edwards leading at 27 percent, with 20 percent for Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Mrs. Clinton close behind at 19 percent.

The Midwestern state, which holds its first-in-the-nation nominating caucuses Jan. 14, was where Democratic front-runner Howard Dean stumbled in a series of embarrassing gaffes that swiftly swept him from the 2004 presidential race.

The political landscape looks better for Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire, which holds its primary Jan. 22, but not by much. A Zogby poll showed her narrowly leading Mr. Edwards by six points — 29 percent to 23 percent — with Mr. Obama in a dead heat for second place. But the University of New Hampshire’s Granite State Poll last week showed that her support has fallen dramatically since February, from 35 percent to 27 percent, while Mr. Edwards’ support had jumped by five percentage points over the same period to 21 percent — putting the two in a statistical dead heat.

Mrs. Clinton’s national front-runner status was reinforced last week when she announced that she had collected $26 million in campaign donations in the first quarter, a record in presidential primary contributions. But Mr. Obama appeared to trump that achievement when he announced a few days later that he had raised almost as much, $25 million, and from twice as many donors — 100,000 — than Mrs. Clinton reported.

With more donors as a base Obama has more opportunity to collect more money. It seems Mrs. Clinton may have tapped out her donors, but then we don’t know how many have given the maximum amount allowable by law.

Politics is operated by the rules of survival of the fittest, with the strongest one winning in the end.

This is something to keep our eye on.

Here’s an editorial that explains it better than I have.

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Many years ago I heard Johnny Cash sing a song on a Billy Graham Crusade. I had never heard the song before nor have I heard it since, but the title was “Matthew 24 Is Knocking on My Door”.

I want to quote a bit of that chapter from the New American Standard Bible. (I like that version because it’s easier to understand and is the one my pastor uses so it makes it easier for me to follow him when he’s reading.)

3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you.

5 “For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many.

6 “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.

7 “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.

8 “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

You can read the entire chapter here.

This is not another story about the war, but I had to include that part to put into context what Jesus was telling the disciples.

The part I’m interested in particularly right now is the part about earthquakes.

Remember the big tsunami that hit at Christmas a couple of years ago, and now another one that hit in the Solomons just recently? These are only two, but I have been reading an interesting article about the huge earthquake in the Solomons.

Check this out:

RANONGGA, Solomon Islands (AFP) – The seismic jolt that unleashed the deadly Solomons tsunami this week lifted an entire island metres out of the sea, destroying some of the world’s most pristine coral reefs. [my emphasis]

In an instant, the grinding of the Earth’s tectonic plates in the 8.0 magnitude earthquake Monday forced the island of Ranongga up three metres (10 foot).

Submerged reefs that once attracted scuba divers from around the globe lie exposed and dying after the quake raised the mountainous landmass, which is 32-kilometres (20-miles) long and 8-kilometres (5-miles) wide.

Corals that used to form an underwater wonderland of iridescent blues, greens and reds now bleach under the sun, transforming into a barren moonscape surrounding the island.

The stench of rotting fish and other marine life stranded on the reefs when the seas receded is overwhelming and the once vibrant coral is dry and crunches underfoot.

Dazed villagers stand on the shoreline, still coming to terms with the cataclysmic shift that changed the geography of their island forever, pushing the shoreline out to sea by up to 70 metres. [my emphasis.]

I read and hear of these natural disasters happening more and more frequently, along with the wars and rumors of wars, nation rising up against nation, people claiming to be the Christ, and I can’t help but believe we are witnessing Matthew 24 happening before our very eyes.

42 “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.

43 “But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into.

44 “For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.

I just wonder how many of us believe the Second Coming of Jesus could be very soon based on what we are told in the Bible. Judging by the way we are living, I would say not many of us are watching for that “thief in the night” but are out enjoying life as we’ve always known it.

I don’t know the day or the hour either, but the Lord Himself gave us the signs of the end times. We would be wise to heed His words and be prepared.

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