What Is This World Coming To?

Hmmm… a little article from January worth reading. It explains in very simple terms how this “recession” might not even be real.

Is America headed inevitably toward recession? Maybe; probably; who knows? If anyone could accurately predict the economy, they’d be billionaires in no time.

One thing is certain, though: Simply hearing about the possibility of a recession can bring it about. This is due to a combination of two distinctly non-economic factors: psychology and the news media. This is nothing new; sometimes in the process of reporting about a problem, the media actually makes that problem worse.

No, the media isn’t in the tank for Obama. That’s a myth made up by the vast, right-wing conspiracy now that they don’t have Hillary to kick around anymore. . . . This just in from the respected German news magazine, Bild

I Worked Out With Obama!” As thousands waited at the Sieges Saule monument in Berlin to hear Obama’s sensational speech, a BILD reporter met Barack all alone – in the gym! Here’s the incredible account of Judith Bonesky’s meeting…

Obama (with toned arms and a strong back) puts on his headphones for his iPod to listen to pop music. He hums quietly. Then he jumps on a fitness bike. He pushes three times on the pedals – but then can’t be bothered with it.

He goes and picks up a pair of 16 kilo weights and starts curling them with his left and right arms, 30 repetitions on each side. Then, amazingly, he picks up the 32 kilo weights! Very slowly he lifts them, first 10 curls with his right, then 10 with his left. He breathes deeply in and out and takes a sip of water from his 0,5 litre Evian bottle.

What an incredible account! OMG, OMG, OMG! What a man! Or is he just a man? Maybe he’s more than just a man. . . . From the London Times Online:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organization with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.”

Noted this Associated Press dispatch about Obama’s Triumph of the Will in Berlin:

“In this city where John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all made famous speeches, Obama will find himself stepping into perhaps another iconic moment Thursday as his superstar charisma meets German adoration live in shadows of the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. He then travels to Paris and London where he can expect to be greeted with similar adulation.

“It’s not only Obama’s youth, eloquence and energy that have stolen hearts across the Atlantic. . . . Obama has raised expectations of a chance for the nation to redeem itself.”

Seig Heil! “A slam-dunk success,” in the words of Time’s Joe Klein; “a real grand slam,” as Salon Editor Joan Walsh put it on “Hardball.”

Obama “confidently walked onto a stage at the foot of Berlin’s Victory Column to intermittent chants of ‘Obama, Obama, Obama!’ Some in the crowd compared the address to the rock concerts and sports events that sometimes draw hundreds of thousands of people to the Tiergarten.”

The Chicago Tribune says the setting “evoked historic addresses by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan,” and “offered an opportunity” for Obama “to demonstrate his capacity to represent American ideals to the international public,” and USA Today says Obama “is betting he can win votes at home by proving he can win hearts abroad.”

All three networks led with the story last night. NBC Nightly News reported, “As one local journalist here put it, if the election were held today, Barack Obama could sail to victory by a margin of seventy percent or more as president of Germany, perhaps even all of Europe.”

The CBS Evening News reported, “They’ve been calling this the ‘Obama Show’ in Berlin. His appeal here, part exotic politician, part rock star. And a rock festival-sized crowd of more than 200,000 gathered to see him.” Obama “told them a lot of what they wanted to hear, that Europe and the US had drifted apart and that he would pull them back together.”

“The Obama phenomenon is so much the better story — an obscure African American senator from Illinois, little known to most Americans two years ago, emerges as very probably the next president,” says Terence Smith, a former correspondent for CBS and PBS.

“That is a fantastic story. Of course it’s going to get two or three times the space and attention and airtime of John McCain, who, while he may be a very appealing semi-maverick on his bus, is a much more conventional candidate.”

Last week, Obama penned an op-ed piece for the New York Times that outlined ‘his vision’ for America. It was free campaign advertising thinly disguised as ‘opinion’. Later that same week, John McCain penned a rebuttal to Obama’s piece and submitted it to the New York Times. The Times rejected it.

“We don’t use the Op-Ed page for people to respond directly to articles in the paper or other Op-Eds. That’s what letters to the editor are for,” said NYTimes editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal.

So write a letter to the editor, John! Who do you think you are? Barack Obama?