Nigeria. Shell Oil.
Read about it.
Nigeria. Shell Oil.
Read about it.
Simon McNeil
___________________________________________
Be on the lookout for the Black Trillium, a post-apocalyptic wuxia novel released by Brain Lag Publishing available in all major online booksellers now.
Visit me at Simon McNeil - the Blog for thoughts on books and stuff.
The reason this Democrat will vote for John McCain (even though he will probably lose)
Obama is an enemy of free trade and lies about it:
- MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY, Wall Street JournalAfter the final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama last week, the media lost no time digging for dirt on Joe the Plumber. Too bad a similar level of scrutiny was not applied to the slanderous remarks Mr. Obama made against Colombia.
Barack Obama gets his facts wrong during the presidential debate. The Americas columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady explains the gaffe to Kelsey Hubbard. (Oct. 20)
Joe, in case you've been hiding under a rock, is the working-class, well, Joe, from Toledo, Ohio, who last week delivered a neat summation of the Obama economic plan: Increase taxes on successful risk-takers and use the money to expand the welfare rolls.
Joe was practicing what I call the audacity of veracity. He made the Harvard-trained candidate look bad. For that the media decided he needed to be taken down a notch. Meanwhile, the fourth estate walked away from any serious discussion of Mr. Obama's slander of the finest U.S. ally in Latin America.
To be fair, Mr. Obama probably did not set out on Wednesday night to insult millions of Colombians and revive the notion many U.S. neighbors have of the Ugly Gringo. But when Mr. McCain pointed out that opposing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement doesn't make sense -- because the U.S. is already open to imports from Colombia and because the agreement will open new markets for U.S. exporters during rough economic times -- Mr. Obama was caught flat-footed.
He reached into his memory bank for whatever he had been told to say about Colombia. He seems to have found his hard drive loaded with Big Labor talking points. Here's what it spit out: "The history in Colombia right now," he said, "is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination, on a fairly consistent basis, and there have not been prosecutions."
Mr. McCain should have blown the whistle right there because bearing false witness against your neighbor, who also happens to be a friend, is a foul. Labor killings in Colombia have gone down sharply in the past five years and convictions have gone up. Mr. Obama was wrong. Moreover, Mr. McCain missed an opportunity to ask Mr. Obama how he squares his antagonism toward Colombia -- whose president has an 80% approval rating -- with his promise to boost America's image abroad.
An American politician ought to know better than to deliver a morality lecture to Colombia. American demand for cocaine, which funds Colombia's worst criminality -- including the bloodthirsty Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) -- has nearly wrecked that beautiful country. Colombians, who have bravely cooperated with the hapless U.S. "war on drugs," have paid a steep price.
By the time President Alvaro Uribe took office in August 2002, Colombia was almost a failed state. That year there were 28,837 homicides nationwide, making it one of the most dangerous places on planet Earth.
There were also 196 union members killed that year. Their deaths were not unrelated to the political violence sweeping the country. The dominant public-sector unions have their roots in a revolutionary ideology that they share with the FARC. This has put them on the left side of Colombia's violent politics for decades. On the other side have been those who took up arms to oppose guerrilla aggression.
Mr. Uribe has worked to restore peace by strengthening the state. This has been bad for both sides. But as the rebels have been pushed back, FARC sympathizers have run to Washington to discredit Mr. Uribe. Democrats have welcomed them. Meanwhile the death toll has dropped dramatically, and union members have especially benefited from improved security.
As a Journal editorial on Friday explained, from 2002 to 2007 the number of murdered Colombian union members dropped by almost 87%. By any fair standard that is progress, especially considering the pattern Mr. Uribe inherited. In 2000, 155 unionists were murdered and in 2001, 205 died. The numbers only started to come down when he took the helm.
In October 2006, the president created a special investigative unit inside the attorney general's office to handle union murders. The unit began operations in February 2007, and it says that as of this August "some 855 cases have open investigations" and that "179 security preventive detention measures have been issued, 61 cases are ready to be referred to court for trial, and 115 suspects have been convicted in 75 sentences."
It is far safer to be a union member today in Colombia than to be a member of the general population. This is a fact, and it would be interesting to know why Mr. Obama has repeatedly refused to acknowledge it.
Is it because of his heavy reliance on campaign contributions from the antitrade AFL-CIO? Or perhaps, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Obama has an ideological bias in favor of Colombia's hard left. If it's the latter, then it is worth asking whether an Obama presidency would change U.S. foreign policy to look more favorably on insurgents of the FARC variety.
Protectionism and isolation are what extended the Great Depression, those policies are the last thing we need now. Unions are Obama's special interest, and they only represent 7% of the American workforce. Unions keep us less competative, force our industries closed and our unemployment high, all through greed disguised as good intentions.
This is the issue that has changed my vote.
Bless you
It might help to read the opening sentence of the second paragraph:
"Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn't seek to re-impose this regulation"
These people never give up.......I'm surprised they haven't came out and asked why Obama has never called a press conference and denied being a child molestor!
When given the choice between big business and big government, choose big business. Big business never threw millions of people into gas chambers, but big government did.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" -Samuel Adams
When given the choice between big business and big government, choose big business. Big business never threw millions of people into gas chambers, but big government did.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" -Samuel Adams
When given the choice between big business and big government, choose big business. Big business never threw millions of people into gas chambers, but big government did.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" -Samuel Adams
News Flash:
This is the sign of a twisted mind:
"Obama, if elected, might be prone to kicking dogs."
Yes, Obama has never admitted to animal abuse but with this guy it's better to be safe than sorry!
Tyson Foods... they provide meat to the least healthy fast food restaurants. They attempt to impose religion upon their employees. They have illegally dumped untreated wastewater in missouri, they settled out of court large over a more recent charge about the sale of chicken-based fertilizer that may have led to the phosphorous pollution in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Tyson Foods is a major employer of illegal and undocumented migrant workers and a class-action lawsuit was launched in 2006 over the issue of wage depression caused by use of these workers. They are also under investigation for violation of RICO laws.
Then there was the issue of racial discrimination (whites only signs on bathroom door for instance) at Tyson Foods plants that led to another large out of court settlement package to resolve.
Oh yeah... and the chairman lost $140,000 that he had secreted home when his daughter hosted a party and one of the guests stole his briefcase.
Real strong example of corporate citizenship there 1bad.
Simon McNeil
___________________________________________
Be on the lookout for the Black Trillium, a post-apocalyptic wuxia novel released by Brain Lag Publishing available in all major online booksellers now.
Visit me at Simon McNeil - the Blog for thoughts on books and stuff.
When given the choice between big business and big government, choose big business. Big business never threw millions of people into gas chambers, but big government did.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" -Samuel Adams
When given the choice between big business and big government, choose big business. Big business never threw millions of people into gas chambers, but big government did.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" -Samuel Adams
When given the choice between big business and big government, choose big business. Big business never threw millions of people into gas chambers, but big government did.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" -Samuel Adams
Except they didn't get away with it.
Besides which... glass houses, stones, have you SEEN the corruption scandals the Bush administration has been involved in?
I mean... HALIBURTON!
Besides which the corruption of one person who was so conservative I would have been hard pressed to vote for him, corruption aside, hardly stacks up to the legacy of private armies, murder, extortion, forceful relocation and promotion of a culture of corruption that Shell and BP propagated in Nigeria. The example of corporate citizenship, nearly to the letter, that you asked me for.
Simon McNeil
___________________________________________
Be on the lookout for the Black Trillium, a post-apocalyptic wuxia novel released by Brain Lag Publishing available in all major online booksellers now.
Visit me at Simon McNeil - the Blog for thoughts on books and stuff.