Oprah's influence

As elections draw closer, and the primary's wind down. Things start to take shape, and people start to back their candidates with more veracity, passion and contributions. This marks the first time in history that Oprah Winfrey is backing a candidate in one of the most extreme primaries to date. The Democratic party is in chance dealing with a split in vote with the emergence of Hillary and and Barack. The fact that backing Barack does not only represent a huge step for Oprah, as she has never placed her weight behind any candidate, but it shows how much faith she places in a candidate who has no prior experience with running for a position of this magnitude.
The influence of Oprah, is often overlooked as she has a show which constantly ranks in the top 30 every year, magazines and countless other methods to get her thoughts and words out. This emergence of backing a candidate not only speaks volumes to the masses of people which view her has a symbol of American hope in terms of climbing out of poverty and establishing themselves. But as an iconic figure which is bolding stating that she has faith in a candidate for the first time in the public's eye. This faith is not only being placed in a candidate which has no prior experience other then serving in senate for two terms. Of course Oprah's view is stated clearly in this quote:

"The amount of time you spend in Washington means nothing unless you are accountable for the judgment you made," Winfrey said. She said from the beginning Obama "stood with clarity and conviction against this war in Iraq."

She clearly understands what is at stake in this election, and what type of candidate she wanted to back for the first time. But one question is left unanswered, what type of president can we expect from Obama regradless of the fact of him not backing the war. Is he able to make tough decisions? I for one think he is due to fact that i have read his book and understand his stance on the unity of this country:

"The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

His mentality is to unity the country and bring everyone into fighting for a cause which will help all americans

Writers Strike

Often times there are stances that people take to represent their views, this can be through strikes or refusel to work etc. Well this instance of the strike starts out with not working to state a point. This is with regard to teh writes strike which has just gotten underway this past week. The issue with the writes striking stems from the fact that the writes do not share profits from the DVD sales of shows which are extremely successful. Thus leaving the studios with large profits on these DVD season sales etc. This obviously does not make sense as the writing material really is due to the intelligence from the writers rather then the production process from the studios taking the profits completely. John Stewart has been rumored to be paying his writers through his own production company. The validity of this statement is more on the border of speculation rather then fact, but none the less that John stewart even maybe thinking about this represents more for care of the content of the show.

The Article is listed below : http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2007/11/05/stewart-will-keep-striking-daily-writers-afloat

State of the country

First off let start of by stating that I support the troops in every way, but i do not support the reasons they are there. This may seem a little odd, but it stems from the fact that they have no say in weather they get deployed or not. Our wonderful president does that one. I was reading this article a few days ago regarding the Cost of the war :

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-warcosts22sep22,0,234891.story?coll=la-home-center

Spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is to rise from $173 billion this year to about $195 billion in fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1.In 2004, the two conflicts together cost $94 billion; in 2005, they cost $108 billion; in 2006, $122 billion.

This put a staggering total spent on the war at about 500 Billion, thats FIVE HUNDRED BILLION folks not million. That is just ridiculous, and the upcoming budget for the war is going to increase to 195 Billion for 2008. This is funding htat is going to be taken from else where or structured into the program by going more in to debt. People often times state its money we owe to ourselves, while this maybe true it results in a reduction of the value of the dollar due to how much is being barrowed against it.
This is shown in the value of the Euro Reaching 1.41 for one EURO. This alone should show how much of a impact the war is having on our future value. This war by no means is going to end soon, but there should be a exit stratagey starting to take place or atleast being thought up off. neither seems to be unfolding as of now with both parties. Thus the point i wanted to make was that this war is result in the value of the dollar decreasing as well presenting no end in sight with neither party representing a solution but rather pointing fingures. The way Politics always seem to pan out. with that i leave you with an interesting picture:



~Aditya

The world as we know it

There are many ways to describe the state of our present world, we can state things that have occurred or are in the process of occurring. Things we feel may result in change and things that we feel may result in nothing significant. Up on this entire middle ground, one has to realize we hear about all the changes that need to occur, but for some reason nothing results. The reason i speak of this is because look at where our world is in terms of technological advancement?
First example:
The Size of one Gigabyte in 1987 Vs. One Gigabyte in present sizes
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Now how about something with correlation with specifics events in the world(particularly US):
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/21/car.nooses/index.html?=cnn

Two arrested in noose incident near Jena, Louisiana

Summary:
A Louisiana city that hosted many of the "Jena 6" protesters Thursday became the site of a racially charged incident of its own.

A photo taken by I-Reporter Casanova Love shows a noose hanging from a pickup in Alexandria, Louisiana

Authorities in Alexandria, less than 40 miles southwest of Jena, arrested two people who were driving a red pickup Thursday night with two nooses hanging off the back, repeatedly passing groups of demonstrators who were waiting for buses back to their home states.

I mean when you read both these articles or view the pictures, you have to ask yourself how can one race be so intelligent and robust yet be so backward as to base a persons worth and respect on ones skin color and not intelligence and merit even in 2007. Think about it.