No Deal, No Pictures, No Dinner

Israeli Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu had a rough ride in Washington this week. According to the Times it culminated with the American President walking out on Netanyahu and leaving him stranded while Obama ate dinner without his guest.
Relations between the two governments have become increasingly strained in recent weeks. One American official, reported by Israeli news source Debka File, notes that the friendship between the US and its Israeli ally is at a 54 year low. The spat appears to have escalated over a building permit Israel recently approved for 1600 homes in east Jerusalem. Obama apparently wants to force Israeli to divide Jerusalem up and give half of it to the proposed Palestinian state. Israel regained control of the city in 1967 after more than 2500 years and regards Jerusalem as its eternal indivisible capital. The Hebrew scriptures note that Jerusalem will become a heavy stone for all peoples, that all nations will align against Jerusalem but that the God of Israel will intervene to defend Jerusalem.
According to Debka File the underlying reason for the spat is that Israel has so far refused to give America an undertaking that it will not take military action against Iran’s growing nuclear program. Israel is arguably most at risk from Iranian nukes especially since Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, continues to make threats against Israel. However according to the same news source two other America allies Saudi Arabia and the Unite Arab Emirates are said to be unhappy with Obama’s “do nothing” response to Iran’s ongoing nuclear program.
Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear facility in 1981 and Obama is clearly afraid that Israel may target Iran. So afraid that he intends to overthrow the Netanyahu administration, that’s according to Debka file. The Washington Post notes that Netanyahu is being treated like an unsavoury thrird world dictator. Obama did not pose for photographs with Netanyahu apparently because the Israeli refused to issue a press release dictated by the White House.
Some Israeli’s took a somewhat lighter view of the whole affair….

A “Dodgy” Way to Pass a Law

America’s ruling Democratic party is involved in a desperate rush to get a Health Care Reform bill through Congress.
Earlier this week one of America’s leading newspapers described the process that the Speaker of the House is planning to utilize as “dodgy.”

The process involves the House of Representatives passing a very lengthy amendment to a version of the controversial Health Care Reform Bill passed by the US Senate at the end of December 2009. Normally when two differing versions of a bill are passed in the upper and lower houses of Congress (the Senate and the House of Representatives) a reconciliation bill is then passed in both houses. In this case Democrats have lost a crucial seat in the Senate and as a result they do not have a big enough majority to overrule a delaying tactic known as a filibuster. The Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has come up with a plan; on Sunday March 21st Congress will vote on a reconciliation bill that was only released to the public on Thursday March 18th. In voting for that reconciliation bill Democratic party leaders say Congress will have been “deemed” to have passed the Senate bill without actually voting on it. The Washington Post points out that all of this is “contrary to Democrats’ promises of transparency and time for deliberation.”

Meanwhile President Obama has been jetting around the country attempting to drum up support from the fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats. Some “Blue Dogs” also lean towards a conservative “pro-life” position on abortion and are concerned that the Senate version of the health care bill does not guarantee that federal money will not end up being used to pay for abortions. The vote could be tight and Obama is so concerned that he surprised the White House Press Corps on Thursday by canceling a planned visit to Indonesia in order to address Democrats ahead of Sunday’s vote.

The Washington Post are not alone in expressing concern, a huge groundswell of Republicans and others including doctors organizations continue to oppose the bill. Conservative Christian leader James Dobson went so far as to tell radio listeners on Tuesday that Obama and Pelosi were lying about the provisions in the bill. Dobson says if the bill passes, “it will result in federal money being used in support of abortion.” He encouraged listeners to call their congressional representatives before the Sunday vote. Dobson also expressed concern that the Health Care Bill would result in rationing of medical services and in bureaucratic decisions about who will and who won’t get care.

The Health Care Bill would dramatically increase the number of Americans eligible for federally funded medical programs and would require most other uninsured Americans to purchase insurance or face a tax penalty.

Palin Address Carried Live by Major Networks

Sarah Palin gave the keynote address at the first national convention of the Tea Party movement. The grass roots movement is generally right wing but is regarded as being considerably broader than the Republican Party.

Civil Rights Music at The White House

President Obama hosted Bob Dylan, Jennifer Hudson, Smokey Robinson, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and others for a celebration of music from the Civil Rights Movement on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day The White House hosted a workshop for high school students with John Legend, Smokey Robinson, John Mellencamp, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon.

Sweet Sixteen Yachtswoman Sets Sail

Her brother completed a circumnavigation of the world last summer and held the record as the youngest round the world yachtsman for just six weeks, now Abby Sunderland is aiming to retake the title for the family.

Super Bowl Sunday

Americans are in for a national party this Sunday as the National Football League championship game takes place in Miami Florida. This year the New Orleans Saints will face off against the Indianapolis Colts. The New Orleans Saints have never been to the Super Bowl before, the Colts won in 2007.  TV adverts for the Super Bowl game are the most expensive in America and according to Wikipedia, food consumption on the day is second only to Thanksgiving Day.

More Winter?

On the second day of February in what has become an American folk tradition a furry beastie known as a groundhog is given the responsibility of forecasting just how much longer winter will last.

The prediction is made on the basis of whether the said groundhog can see his shadow when he crawls out of his burrow on February second. If there is no shadow winter is over, if on the other hand he sees his shadow the groundhog crawls back into his burrow and tradition says winter will last a further six weeks.

The groundhog also known as a woodchuck is a rodent of the ground squirrel family. Technically it is a type of marmot.

The tradition of Groundhog Day is associated with German immigrants to state of Pennsylvania and became widely known after a 1993 comedy film of that name.

The film featured Groundhog Day celebrations in the town of Punxsutawney  (pop.c7000) in North Western Pennsylvania. As a result the town’s own groundhog forecaster Punxsutawney Phil became known around the world. According to Wikipedia he is said to live in the town’s library with a female groundhog known as Phyllis. Punxsutawney Phil is taken to the top of a nearby hill on February second to perform his annual forecast.

Phil’s predictions are now available on the web by text and even on Facebook. This year Punxsutawney Phil apparently expects six more weeks of winter but several other groundhog predictors disagree.

Obama’s State of the Union Address

George Washington gave the first State of the Union address in 1790. At that time there were just 12 states in the Union.  North Carolina had acceded to the constitution the previous November. It is a report  given to both houses of Congress by the President. The President typically also uses it to set out his legislative agenda.

It will be given at 9PM Eastern Standard Time tonight, that translates into 2AM on January 28th for viewers in the United Kingdom.You can watch it live on You Tube by following this link.

Go Tell That to the Marines – A Journalist Advises on Military Intelligence

He watched a video of an American  victim being beheaded in Iraq and it made him so angry he volunteered for the U.S. Marine Corps. At the time Matt Pottinger was a foreign correspondent with the Wall Street Journal stationed in China. Now a Captain, assigned to assist a U.S Army Major General, responsible for military intelligence, Pottinger has co-authored a controversial report issued by his boss, General Michael T.Flynn,  outlining a way the U.S. military can improve its intelligence gathering operations in Afghanistan. Amongst other recommendations the report encourages military commanders to consider open source information from a broader range of resources not all of them military. “The Cold War notion that open-source information is “second class” is a dangerous, outmoded cliché,” according to the Flynn Report. Now that is a lesson that the world of journalism has already begun to put into practice. In recent years major news organizations have begun soliciting pictures, video and even stories from members of the public as this CNN web page demonstrates.

Returning to Dirt Roads?

America has more than 1.4 million miles of dirt road but according to this story at the Daily Yonder that number may be increasing as the recession bites!