Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut, Says Aliens Are Among Us

From the Huffington Post and the New York Times today:

Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, appeared on a British radio show to say that he was “privileged enough to be in on the fact that we’ve been visited on this planet and the U.F.O. phenomena is real.”

Listen to this YouTube Audio. This is startling.

Now Ted Kennedy Will Endorse and Campaign For Barack Obama

Photo credit: Stephen Jaffe/Agence France-Presse

When Bill Clinton was president, he and his wife sailed with the Kennedys off Cape Cod. In this 1997 outing, the former president is at the helm, Hillary Rodham Clinton is second from left and Senator Edward M. Kennedy is to her right.




January 28, 2008
Kennedy Chooses Obama, Spurning Bill Clinton Plea
By Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Senator Edward M. Kennedy, rejecting entreaties from the Clintons and their supporters, is set to endorse Senator Barack Obama’s presidential bid on Monday as part of an effort to lend Kennedy charisma and connections before the 22-state Feb. 5 showdown for the Democratic nomination.

Both the Clintons and their allies had pressed Mr. Kennedy for weeks to remain neutral in the Democratic race, but Mr. Kennedy had become increasingly disenchanted with the tone of the Clinton campaign, aides said. He and former President Bill Clinton had a heated telephone exchange earlier this month over what Mr. Kennedy considered misleading statements by Mr. Clinton about Mr. Obama, as well as his injection of race into the campaign.

Mr. Kennedy called Mr. Clinton Sunday to tell him of his decision.

The endorsement, which followed a public appeal on Mr. Obama’s behalf by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, was a blow to the Clinton campaign and pits leading members of the nation’s most prominent Democratic families against one another.

Mr. Kennedy, a major figure in party politics for more than 40 years, intends to campaign aggressively for Mr. Obama, beginning with an appearance and rally with him in Washington on Monday. He will be introduced by Ms. Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy then heads west with Mr. Obama, followed by appearances in the Northeast. Strategists see him bolstering Mr. Obama’s credibility and helping him firm up support from unions and Hispanics, as well as the party base.

The endorsement appears to support assertions that Mr. Clinton’s campaigning on behalf of his wife in South Carolina has in some ways hurt her candidacy.

Read the entire article here.

First posted 1-27-08 on the original Whistling Dog.

Caroline Kennedy Endorses Barack Obama

January 27, 2008
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
A President Like My Father
By Caroline Kennedy

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.

Read the entire editorial here.

First posted 1-27-08 on the original Whistling Dog.

NY Times Praises Obama, but Endorses Hillary

The New York Times Editorial Board , as was earlier rumored, has endorsed Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee for president. This endorsement comes with a few caveats, however. Here are a few select paragraphs from today's editorial in the Times' Opinion section.

The potential upside of a great Obama presidency is enticing, but this country faces huge problems, and will no doubt be facing more that we can’t foresee. The next president needs to start immediately on challenges that will require concrete solutions, resolve, and the ability to make government work. Mrs. Clinton is more qualified, right now, to be president.

We opposed President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and we disagree with Mrs. Clinton’s vote for the resolution on the use of force. That’s not the issue now; it is how the war will be ended. Mrs. Clinton seems not only more aware than Mr. Obama of the consequences of withdrawal, but is already thinking through the diplomatic and military steps that will be required to contain Iraq’s chaos after American troops leave.

On domestic policy, both candidates would turn the government onto roughly the same course — shifting resources to help low-income and middle-class Americans, and broadening health coverage dramatically. Mrs. Clinton also has good ideas about fixing the dysfunction in Mr. Bush’s No Child Left Behind education program.

Mr. Obama talks more about the damage Mr. Bush has done to civil liberties, the rule of law and the balance of powers. Mrs. Clinton is equally dedicated to those issues, and more prepared for the Herculean task of figuring out exactly where, how and how often the government’s powers have been misused — and what must now be done to set things right.

As strongly as we back her candidacy, we urge Mrs. Clinton to take the lead in changing the tone of the campaign. It is not good for the country, the Democratic Party or for Mrs. Clinton, who is often tagged as divisive, in part because of bitter feeling about her husband’s administration and the so-called permanent campaign. (Indeed, Bill Clinton’s overheated comments are feeding those resentments, and could do long-term damage to her candidacy if he continues this way.)

We know that she is capable of both uniting and leading. We saw her going town by town through New York in 2000, including places where Clinton-bashing was a popular sport. She won over skeptical voters and then delivered on her promises and handily won re-election in 2006.

Her ideas, her comeback in New Hampshire and strong showing in Nevada, her new openness to explaining herself and not just her programs, and her abiding, powerful intellect show she is fully capable of doing just that. She is the best choice for the Democratic Party as it tries to regain the White House.

Read the full editorial here.

First posted 1-25-08 on the original Whistling Dog.

Red, White and Blue Tag Sale

If you want to know what's really going to drive the coming elections, there is no better sage than the sarcastic queen herself, Maureen Dowd, to lay it all out in easy to understand "See Dick Run" sophistication.

I recommend you read her column today (New York Times registration required). It is the perfect companion to the news article I just posted earlier today. And, I must ad, her column gave me a few bits of inspiration for the essay I posted directly before this.

Here are three apropos paragraphs from her column, entitled Red, White and Blue Tag Sale:

Two decades ago, we fretted that Japan was taking over America when Sony bought Columbia Pictures and Mitsubishi bought a chunk of Rockefeller Center. But they overpaid for everything.

Now, because of Wall Street’s overreaching, our economy depends on foreign oil and foreign loans to stay afloat.

China and Arab countries have a staggering amount of treasury securities. And the oil-rich countries are sitting on so many petrodollars that they are looking beyond prestige hotels and fashion labels and taking advantage of the fire sale to buy eye-popping stakes in our major financial institutions.

And then there's this humdinger Maureen quotes from Warren the Buffett:

As Warren Buffett has said, we are giving ourselves a party to feed our appetite for oil and imported goods and paying for it by selling off the furniture, our most precious assets.

Oh, by the way, if I am not mistaken, kiddies, it may have been Mr. Buffett, who helped get us into this mess 20-plus years ago by pushing the notion to corporate CEOs that the only obligation of public businesses was to please their shareholders -- not their employees, not their customers, nor their communities, nor even their country. He made a lot of money for himself and several thousand of his devotees before he told his children they weren't getting any of it -- oh, by the way -- more recently. A fine howdy-do that must have been.

At least Mr. Buffett is using his latter years to try to lead the rest of us out of this wasteland of milk and honey he first led us into. Sometimes I think I'd rather have a golden calf, personally. I guess his kids will have to find their way out on their own.

First posted 1-20-08 on the original Whistling Dog.

Overseas Investors Buy U.S. Holdings at a Record Pace

By PETER S. GOODMAN and LOUISE STORY
Published: January 20, 2008

Last May, a Saudi Arabian conglomerate bought a Massachusetts plastics maker. In November, a French company established a new factory in Adrian, Mich., adding 189 automotive jobs to an area accustomed to layoffs. In December, a British company bought a New Jersey maker of cough syrup.

For much of the world, the United States is now on sale at discount prices. With credit tight, unemployment growing and worries mounting about a potential recession, American business and government leaders are courting foreign money to keep the economy growing. Foreign investors are buying aggressively, taking advantage of American duress and a weak dollar to snap up what many see as bargains, while making inroads to the world’s largest market.

Last year, foreign investors poured a record $414 billion into securing stakes in American companies, factories and other properties through private deals and purchases of publicly traded stock, according to Thomson Financial, a research firm. That was up 90 percent from the previous year and more than double the average for the last decade. It amounted to more than one-fourth of all announced deals for the year, Thomson said.

Read the whole article here.


First posted 1-20-08 on the original Whistling Dog.

Looking at America

December 31, 2007
EDITORIAL

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

Read the full editorial here. Note: You must have a subscription to read this editorial.

First posted 12-31-07 on the original Whistling Dog.