No Obamamania from Michigan GOP Chair
By Juliet Eilperin
TAYLOR, Mich. -- Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis has a new nickname for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.): "pet rock."
Speaking to a gathering of GOP stalwarts tonight, Anuzis conceded the presidential hopeful was loveable and popular. But that just makes him, in Anuzis' eyes, "the pet rock of the 2008 campaign."
"At the end of the day, we're going to figure out it's just a rock," Anuzis told the crowd, prompting a few laughs. "He's just another typical liberal senator who wants to be president of the United States."
No telling which Democratic presidential candidate will earn the nickname "Chia Pet" in the days to come.
As Ted Glick has recently stated, "We cannot accept people like Mitch McConnell and George Bush and Dick Cheney and the rest of them, who are, I would say advisedly, climate criminals."
opensecrets.org"Thousands protest in Gaza against "vampire" Bush"Why don't they post that video?
Some 20,000 members of the Islamist group, shunned by the West for refusing to renounce violence, set U.S. and Israeli flags alight. Bush was a "butcher" whose first presidential visit to the Holy Land was skewed towards helping Israel, they said.
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Protesters in Gaza, which Hamas seized in June after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces, waved green Hamas flags as well as posters with pictures of Bush as a vampire drinking from a cup marked "Muslim blood".
"Iran's president, Mahmoud Amadinejad, has said Israel should be "wiped off the map," and Israel sees Iran's nuclear program as an existential threat."
"If I were an Israeli, I would take the words of the Iranian president seriously, and as president of the United States I take them seriously," Bush said.
"Whether there's an imminent attack coming, I don't think so," Bush said.
If Iran did strike Israel, Bush said, "We will defend our ally, no ands, ifs or buts."
Colombian cocaine smugglers scuttled a U.S.-bound homemade submarine off the South American country's Pacific coast, Colombia's navy said on Thursday.oh..it's not just these two "homemade submarines", though. They have many more.
It was the second time in a month that Colombian forces, backed by the U.S. Coast Guard, stopped an underwater craft that was then sunk by its crew members to destroy their incriminating cargo.
In both cases, the smugglers quickly opened the hatches to sink the vessels before they could be boarded by authorities.
Both submarines had the capacity to ship 10 to 12 tons of cocaine to the world's biggest market.
Colombia's navy has stopped 18 cocaine submarines since 2005.My goodness. Cocaine laden submarines? No wonder the DEA says cocaine prices are going up. Transportation costs are a bitch.
India's tourism minister said today that the dollar will no longer be accepted at the Taj Mahal and other national tourist sites.aaahh, welcome to the "poor life". Where for each hour you work..your wealth becomes less and less worldwide. Thanks "resident" Bush.
For years tourists visiting most sites in India were charged either $5, or 250 rupees.
After falling 11 percent in 2007, hitting nine-year lows to hover around 39 rupees, the dollar is out.
Charging only rupees now seems more practical and will save tourists money because "the dollar was weaker against the rupee," Tourism Minister Ambika Soni told the CNN-IBN news channel.
"Before the dollar lost its value, there was a demand to have (admission tickets) just in rupees," he added.
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"We expect a slight appreciation of the rupee to continue, although it won't be as dramatic as last year," said Agam Gupta, head of foreign exchange trading at Standard Chartered Bank in India.
The dollar has fallen against most major currencies, and it has lost ground against the rupee due to an influx of foreign capital, Gupta said.
[best viewed while listening to the theme from Jaws.]
Aide: He's gaining. Some polls have him at a ten point lead in Iowa. That's a 25 point erosion in just the last month, and now clears the margin of error.
Hillary: I don't understand. We were running solidly for the last six months. What changed?
Aide: um. Nothing. Apparently that's the issue. Focus groups had us keeping you aloof and general. The more you stayed a symbolic blank slate, the more they liked you.
Hillary: So what's the problem?
Aide Well, it seems that at some point, people are looking for genuine. They want honesty, intelligence, and straightforward answers and discussion. It looks like Obama's been riding a positive wave with this strategy.
Hillary: But what about the focus groups? We tested honest and straightforward, and it tested horribly.
Aide: Uh, yes and no. We tested YOU attempting honest and straightforward. But the focus groups never bought it. Apparently genuine is more than a conversational style. And quite frankly, you made them very uncomfortable.
Hillary: So you're saying I can't stay vague symbolic, and I can't pull off honesty well enough to compete with actual honesty. So where does that leave me?
Aide: Um. well. How do feel about running for President of the Senate?
Hillary: .....
Egypt's MPs are expected to pass a law requiring royalties be paid whenever copies are made of museum pieces or ancient monuments such as the pyramids.From the WP,
Zahi Hawass, who chairs Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told the BBC the law would apply in all countries.
The money was needed to maintain thousands of pharaonic sites, he said.
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Mr Hawass said the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt.
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"Commercial use" of ancient monuments like the pyramids or the sphinx would also be controlled, he said.
"Even if it is for private use, they must have permission from the Egyptian government," he added.
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But he said the law would not stop local and international artists reproducing monuments as long as they were not exact replicas.
"If you (want to) build an exact copy of the Great Pyramid we will stop you," Hawass told The Associated Press.Give me a break. Copyrighted antiquities are a joke. Hollywood prop makers beware. Don't make those props too realistic. Hmm..maybe a Sphinx body with the head of a rabbit. Ridiculous. It's just another "Pyramid Scheme".
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The draft bill comes amid recent complaints in Egyptian media about money being made by the pyramid-shaped Las Vegas Luxor casino.
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Egyptian lawyer Hossam Lutfi, an expert with the U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization, said the draft may be baffling since the authors of the works in question are long gone.
