Do we really need another President that will embarrass the heck out of America again and again and again?I don’t know what’s going on.Is McCain on the brink of senility, is he a simpleton or has he gone back to the future to 2015 where Czechoslovakia has reunited?
For the second time in two days, John McCain has referred to current events in “Czechoslovakia”– a country that officially ceased to exist on January 1, 1993.
“And I regret some of the recent behavior Russia that has exhibited, and I’ll be glad to talk about that later on including reduction in oil supplies to Czechoslovakia after they agreed with us on a missile defense system, etcetera,” said the presumptive Republican nominee at a New Mexico town hall Tuesday.
Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved by its parliament and split into two nations – the Czech Republic and Slovakia over 15 years ago!The Czech Republic and the Slovakia Republic sits south of Poland in central Europe.
On Monday, the Arizona senator made virtually the same statement about recent Russian moves that troubled him, citing that country’s attempt to reduce “the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia.” What is McCain talking about? The country doesn’t exist, how can Russia reduce energy supplies to them?
McCain’s campaign issued a statement correcting his mistake yesterday evening and then McCain made the same exact mistake today!
This is déjà vu all over again — it’s just like when he mixed up Shiites and Sunnis and brushed it off as a slip of the tongue.
I always knew that McCain was no savant but this is ridiculous and embarrassing. This is no slip of the tongue, this is his habit – he is not knowledgeable.He must know his intellectual limitations so why would he run for President? He obviously doesn’t know enough to be President.
This is potentially the person who will have complete and undeniable access to our nuclear weapons.Is this the person you want to be making executive decisions for you and for America this time next year?
Xinhua, BEIJING — If bad weather threatens the August 8 opening of Beijing’s Olympic Games, then meteorologists may change the weather, according to a Chinese meteorology official. CHINESE scientific research weather experts say they have stopped the rain from falling in experiments aimed at guaranteeing a dry opening ceremony at Augusts’ Olympic Games.
With no roof on the showpiece Bird’s Nest stadium, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau has been charged with developing methods of preventing wet weather spoiling what promises to be a spectacular start to the Games on the evening of August 8.
“Our experiments with rain mitigation have been aimed at light rain,” said Zhang Qian, head of weather manipulation at the bureau.
“With heavy rain it is more difficult. The results with light rain have been satisfactory.”
Ms. Qian said different strategies were used to stop rain on different types of clouds, but both had proved not to harm the environment.
“For cold clouds below zero degrees, we use a coolant made from liquid nitrogen to increase the number of droplets while decreasing their mean size,” she said.
“As a result, the smaller droplets are less likely to fall and precipitation can be reduced. For clouds above zero degrees we use the seeding agent silver iodide to accelerate the droplets’ collision and coalescence, producing a downdraft which suppresses the formation of clouds.”
China has long used weather manipulation to increase rainfall in the parched north of the country, firing seeding agents into the clouds using anti-aircraft guns.
This method might also be used to prevent wet weather at the stadium by inducing the rain to fall before it reached the target area.
The weather bureau is also working hard on preparing for one of the pre-Games highlights, the ascent of the Olympic torch to the top of Mount Everest.
“We will have very detailed forecasts,” Mr. Wang said. “We will be able to tell the organizers: the winds are too strong, you cannot do it on this day, or, you can do it on this day.”
Barack Obama on Tuesday called the controversial New Yorker cover that unflatteringly depicts him and his wife an unsuccessful attempt at satire that will likely fuel misconceptions he has long battled over the course of his presidential campaign.
But in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Larry King, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate downplayed the impact of the illustration — which depicts him in Muslim attire in the Oval Office, with wife Michelle carrying a machine gun.
“It’s a cartoon…and that’s why we’ve got the First Amendment,” Obama said. “And I think the American people are probably spending a little more time worrying about what’s happening with the banking system and the housing market, and what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, than a cartoon. So I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about it.”
Obama will appear on Larry King Live tonight at 9pm EST.
As he prepares to head to the Middle East and Europe Senator Barack Obama will deliver a speech on Iraq and national security at the Reagan Building today, where he will outline his goals to make the United States safer. According to excerpts released by the campaign, the goals include ending the war in Iraq, wrapping up the fight against al Qaeda, securing nuclear weapons from rogue states, achieving energy security and rebuilding alliances.
“As President, I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy – one that recognizes that we have interests not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi, in Tokyo and London, in Beijing and Berlin,” Obama is expected to say.
Obama’s speech will largely focus on the need to redeploy troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, where nine U.S. soldiers were killed on Sunday. While emphasizing that the Taliban is in control of parts of Afghanistan and Al Qaeda is expanding in to Pakistan, Obama will say, “If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned. And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan.”
The situation is increasingly bleak for Wachovia Corp. and the bank’s mortgage portfolio will continue to lose value, “seriously jeopardizing” the company’s ability to generate earnings, an influential analyst warned on Tuesday.
The latest note of caution came as the government moved to reassure people their money is safe in the nation’s banks. Yet fears about the system persisted and financial shares were broadly lower Tuesday, signaling another tough day for the stock market.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is scheduled to brief Congress Tuesday on the economy, which has been walloped by high energy prices and fallout from the housing slump and credit crunch. The testimony also comes amid a backdrop of rising oil prices and a slumping dollar, and as stock markets overseas tumble amid worries about the U.S. financial system.
Bernanke will also specifically address a rescue plan crafted over the weekend for mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which hold or guarantee more than $5 trillion in mortgages — almost half of the nation’s total.
On Monday, shares of U.S. banks and financial companies swooned on concern that the government plan to shore up Fannie and Freddie would not be enough to keep them from failing, which could undermine the U.S. and global financial system.
National City Corp. shares fell nearly 15 percent on rumors of financial trouble, even though it said it was experiencing no unusual activity.Washington Mutual Inc.’s shares fell 35 percent amid worries about whether it had enough cash to handle the mortgage market downturn. WaMu said that it did.
Banks in Colorado, Maryland, Georgia and California top privately-prepared lists of troubled banks being circulated on Wall Street and in Washington.
While the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is keeping secret its official list of 90 troubled banks, ABC News has obtained other lists prepared by several research groups and financial analysts.
The lists use versions of the so-called “Texas ratio” which compare a bank’s assets and reserves to its non-performing loans, based on financial data made public by the FDIC in March.
Analysts say banks with a ratio over 100 per cent would be the most likely to fail, based on what happened to Texas savings and loans during the 1980’s.
“That a fair measure,” said Hal Scott, a Harvard law school professor specializing in banking law.
“It doesn’t mean every one of those banks is going to become insolvent, but if you have more bad loans than assets, it’s not a bad way to judge what could happen.” List of troubled banks below:
Do we really need another President that will embarrass the heck out of America again and again and again? I don’t know what’s going on. Is McCain on the brink of senility, is he a simpleton or has he gone back to the future to 2015 where Czechoslovakia has reunited?
