Thing is i am not a big fan of international football. I guess i should get someone to join me on this blog to atleast cover that end. That's strictly for international football buffs.
Alot has been happening arround the world and we of course are not immune to its effects. The US presidential elections is less than 3 weeks today and we are all so excited, even more than when we have our own elections in Nigeria. Before i forget, Lagos had a Local Govt. council election last weekend and it all showed why we are more excited by the US elections than ours. The AC contested their elections alone and won alone. No be me talk am oh!
talk about the US elections, i am bringing that up. Today the washington post endorses Barack Obama Over senator John Macain for president.
It is now almost certain Obama will be president as the last debate has done little or nothing to change the positions. Obama still leads with 5 points.
A black man is soon to lead the worlds most powerful country. This shows that a lot about to change about this world and soon, Color wouldn't matter anymore we hope.
Below is a full text of the washington post Endorsement.
THE NOMINATING process this year produced two unusually talented and
qualified presidential candidates. There are few public figures we have
respected more over the years than Sen. John McCain. Yet it is without
ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president.
The choice is
made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his
irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It
is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and
the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. Yes, we have
reservations and concerns, almost inevitably, given Mr. Obama's relatively brief
experience in national politics. But we also have enormous hopes.
Mr. Obama
is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and
evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building. At home, we believe, he
would respond to the economic crisis with a healthy respect for markets tempered
by justified dismay over rising inequality and an understanding of the need for
focused regulation. Abroad, the best evidence suggests that he would seek to
maintain U.S. leadership and engagement, continue the fight against terrorists,
and wage vigorous diplomacy on behalf of U.S. values and interests. Mr. Obama
has the potential to become a great president. Given the enormous problems he
would confront from his first day in office, and the damage wrought over the
past eight years, we would settle for very good.
The first question, in
fact, might be why either man wants the job. Start with two ongoing wars, both
far from being won; an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan; a resurgent Russia
menacing its neighbors; a terrorist-supporting Iran racing toward nuclear
status; a roiling Middle East; a rising China seeking its place in the world.
Stir in the threat of nuclear or biological terrorism, the burdens of global
poverty and disease, and accelerating climate change. Domestically, wages have
stagnated while public education is failing a generation of urban, mostly
minority children. Now add the possibility of the deepest economic trough since
the Great Depression.
Not even his fiercest critics would blame President
Bush for all of these problems, and we are far from being his fiercest critic.
But for the past eight years, his administration, while pursuing some worthy
policies (accountability in education, homeland security, the promotion of
freedom abroad), has also championed some stunningly wrongheaded ones (fiscal
recklessness, torture, utter disregard for the planet's ecological health) and
has acted too often with incompetence, arrogance or both. A McCain presidency
would not equal four more years, but outside of his inner circle, Mr. McCain
would draw on many of the same policymakers who have brought us to our current
state. We believe they have richly earned, and might even benefit from, some
years in the political wilderness.
OF COURSE, Mr. Obama offers a great deal
more than being not a Republican. There are two sets of issues that matter most
in judging these candidacies. The first has to do with restoring and promoting
prosperity and sharing its fruits more evenly in a globalizing era that has
suppressed wages and heightened inequality. Here the choice is not a close call.
Mr. McCain has little interest in economics and no apparent feel for the topic.
His principal proposal, doubling down on the Bush tax cuts, would exacerbate the
fiscal wreckage and the inequality simultaneously. Mr. Obama's economic plan
contains its share of unaffordable promises, but it pushes more in the direction
of fairness and fiscal health. Both men have pledged to tackle climate change.
Mr. Obama also understands that the most important single counter to
inequality, and the best way to maintain American competitiveness, is improved
education, another subject of only modest interest to Mr. McCain. Mr. Obama
would focus attention on early education and on helping families so that another
generation of poor children doesn't lose out. His budgets would be less likely
to squeeze out important programs such as Head Start and Pell grants. Though he
has been less definitive than we would like, he supports accountability measures
for public schools and providing parents choices by means of charter schools.
A better health-care system also is crucial to bolstering U.S.
competitiveness and relieving worker insecurity. Mr. McCain is right to advocate
an end to the tax favoritism showed to employer plans. This system works against
lower-income people, and Mr. Obama has disparaged the McCain proposal in
deceptive ways. But Mr. McCain's health plan doesn't do enough to protect those
who cannot afford health insurance. Mr. Obama hopes to steer the country toward
universal coverage by charting a course between government mandates and
individual choice, though we question whether his plan is affordable or does
enough to contain costs.
The next president is apt to have the chance to
nominate one or more Supreme Court justices. Given the court's current
precarious balance, we think Obama appointees could have a positive impact on
issues from detention policy and executive power to privacy protections and
civil rights.
Overshadowing all of these policy choices may be the financial
crisis and the recession it is likely to spawn. It is almost impossible to
predict what policies will be called for by January, but certainly the country
will want in its president a combination of nimbleness and steadfastness --
precisely the qualities Mr. Obama has displayed during the past few weeks. When
he might have been scoring political points against the incumbent, he instead
responsibly urged fellow Democrats in Congress to back Mr. Bush's financial
rescue plan. He has surrounded himself with top-notch, experienced, centrist
economic advisers -- perhaps the best warranty that, unlike some past presidents
of modest experience, Mr. Obama will not ride into town determined to reinvent
every policy wheel. Some have disparaged Mr. Obama as too cool, but his
unflappability over the past few weeks -- indeed, over two years of campaigning
-- strikes us as exactly what Americans might want in their president at a time
of great uncertainty.
ON THE SECOND set of issues, having to do with keeping
America safe in a dangerous world, it is a closer call. Mr. McCain has deep
knowledge and a longstanding commitment to promoting U.S. leadership and values.
But Mr. Obama, as anyone who reads his books can tell, also has a
sophisticated understanding of the world and America's place in it. He, too, is
committed to maintaining U.S. leadership and sticking up for democratic values,
as his recent defense of tiny Georgia makes clear. We hope he would navigate
between the amoral realism of some in his party and the counterproductive
cocksureness of the current administration, especially in its first term. On
most policies, such as the need to go after al-Qaeda, check Iran's nuclear
ambitions and fight HIV/AIDS abroad, he differs little from Mr. Bush or Mr.
McCain. But he promises defter diplomacy and greater commitment to allies. His
team overstates the likelihood that either of those can produce dramatically
better results, but both are certainly worth trying.
Mr. Obama's greatest
deviation from current policy is also our biggest worry: his insistence on
withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq on a fixed timeline. Thanks to the
surge that Mr. Obama opposed, it may be feasible to withdraw many troops during
his first two years in office. But if it isn't -- and U.S. generals have warned
that the hard-won gains of the past 18 months could be lost by a precipitous
withdrawal -- we can only hope and assume that Mr. Obama would recognize the
strategic importance of success in Iraq and adjust his plans.
We also can
only hope that the alarming anti-trade rhetoric we have heard from Mr. Obama
during the campaign would give way to the understanding of the benefits of trade
reflected in his writings. A silver lining of the financial crisis may be the
flexibility it gives Mr. Obama to override some of the interest groups and
members of Congress in his own party who oppose open trade, as well as to pursue
the entitlement reform that he surely understands is needed.
IT GIVES US no
pleasure to oppose Mr. McCain. Over the years, he has been a force for principle
and bipartisanship. He fought to recognize Vietnam, though some of his fellow
ex-POWs vilified him for it. He stood up for humane immigration reform, though
he knew Republican primary voters would punish him for it. He opposed torture
and promoted campaign finance reform, a cause that Mr. Obama injured when he
broke his promise to accept public financing in the general election campaign.
Mr. McCain staked his career on finding a strategy for success in Iraq when just
about everyone else in Washington was ready to give up. We think that he, too,
might make a pretty good president.
But the stress of a campaign can reveal
some essential truths, and the picture of Mr. McCain that emerged this year is
far from reassuring. To pass his party's tax-cut litmus test, he jettisoned his
commitment to balanced budgets. He hasn't come up with a coherent agenda, and at
times he has seemed rash and impulsive. And we find no way to square his
professed passion for America's national security with his choice of a running
mate who, no matter what her other strengths, is not prepared to be commander in
chief.
ANY PRESIDENTIAL vote is a gamble, and Mr. Obama's résumé is
undoubtedly thin. We had hoped, throughout this long campaign, to see more
evidence that Mr. Obama might stand up to Democratic orthodoxy and end, as he
said in his announcement speech, "our chronic avoidance of tough decisions."
But Mr. Obama's temperament is unlike anything we've seen on the national
stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master
of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing
points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no
small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right
man for a perilous moment.Meanwhile just like I said at the beginning, i need people who can join me keep this blog good and diversed. You must love football though. If you own your own blog, that will better so you can add your signature at the bottom of your entries to get some traffick as back to your side as pay back. I don't have money to pay. The site is monitized but is non profit. See you tomorrow.
