Rev. Wright is Wrong - Obama

It took him a while, but U.S. presidential hopefull Barak Obama has finaly made our "Winner of the Day!"

Democratic US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has expressed "outrage" yesterday at comments made by Rev Jeremiah Wright. He said that any relationship he had with his former pastor "has now changed" as a result of the comments.

Mr. Obama was responding to a series of recent public appearances by Rev Wright, in which the pastor refused to back down from the controversial statements made in his sermons.

In two recent speeches, to journalists and African-American activists, Mr Wright has attempted to hit back at his critics, saying that attacks on him were attacks on the black church and that his six years of service in the military was proof of his patriotism.

In his comments on Tuesday, Mr Obama said: "I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black Church.

They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs."

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Mr Obama told reporters.

The Illinois senator described Rev Wright's comments as "divisive and destructive" and said they "end up giving comfort to those that prey on hate".

Reverend Wright initially stayed silent when footage of old sermons containing politically-charged remarks were first circulated on television and online in March, but now that he has briefly held the spotlight it seems to have affected his rhetoric and his comments are getting more radical.

(In one clip, from a sermon delivered after the attacks of 11 September 2001, Mr Wright suggested that the US had brought the attacks on itself through its own foreign policy. And in a passage from a 2003 sermon, he said black Americans should condemn the US because of continuing racial injustice, saying: "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.")

"The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago... Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this," Obama said.

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com

NAFTA Rhetoric vs Reality

We have all heard that old joke; "How do you tell if a politician is lying?" To which, of course, the answer is; "If his/her lips are moving!"

Banana Rama and Hillary Clitoris are both on a wild rampage in the northern States about how they are going to rip up the North American Free Trade Deal.

(Never mind that it was her husband who helped implement it to begin with!)

The bottom line in the whole thing is that both politicians are making hay by claiming that NAFTA has cost jobs in the US and they are absolutely right.

What they fail to tell anyone is that for each job lost, about two were gained in other sectors of the economy! But, that wouldn't make good politics now, would it?

Both Banana and Clitoris want to rip up the deal and re-negotiate it so that it's all in the U.S.'s favor, but as we all know, in the real world things don't work that way. Just in politics.

Canada still has to be careful, because as we all know from the U.S. - Canada softwood lumber deal, the States has no compunctions about ignoring a treaty if they have enough pressure from lobby groups, but all in all, NAFTA seems fairly safe for the following reasons.

Free Trade has been hugely beneficial to U.S. works too. For 36 of 50 U.S. States Canada is the leading export market.

This includes Michigan, Ohio and New York! The only big one's that do more business elsewhere are California and Texas. And don't get me started on how there seems to be more Canadians than Americans in Florida.

In 2006, the last year for which data is available, Ohio alone exported $18 Billion worth of goods to Canada and bought $4.2 billion worth of Canadian crude oil.

As a matter of fact, Canada provides about 18 percent of the United States foreign oil supply while Saudi Arabia only supplies about 15%.

We also supply just about ALL of America's natural gas supplies without which the lights would already be out in California!!!

Just between energy and auto's alone, trade between the two nations is so vital that no one would dare jeopardise it to any great degree. Even the idiot who suggested putting up a fence between Canada and the U.S. like down Mexico way.

The only thing we have to worry about in Canada is that someone doesn't get the bright idea of just annexing Canada and then all the oil and water is free!

Of course this would only happen with a Democratic administration because Canada is mostly "small l" Liberal and the Republicans sure as hell wouldn't want another 33 million Democrats to contend with.

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com