OT: never forget

[Robatoy]

[BobS]

for "more Scotch....", wash up the old fatigues, clean the iron and "damn the torpedoes".

BobS.

[DS]

or four years of someone dedicated to the forced redistribution of wealth, or someone dedicated to Africa AND the forced redistribution of wealth.

Wish we had a reset button. I'd like both parties to just say "oops, we didn't mean to do THIS", and start the nominations all over again.

[Robatoy]

Dedicated to Africa??? WHO is in Africa right now?

[DS]

There being as much misinformation as there is about Sen. Obama's religious affiliations, you can clear that up for yourself by visiting the web site of his church. One of the churches basic tenets (number 4 of their 10 point vision statement) is "non-negotiable committment to Africa".

They state that they're committed to adoration, salvation, biblical education, cultural education, historical education of african people in diaspora [sic], liberation, and restoration. They're also preaching salvation, and working towards economic parity. However Africa is the only one that they state a "non-negotiable" committment to.

There's no mention of the United States. The only people they're specifically concerned about in their mission statement and the rest of the site are those of african descent.

Not much on this site to appeal to a non-racist, non-black person.

[Robatoy]

It is about time somebody made a difference over there. A lot of the world's riches are over there, currently dominated by thugs.... and I'm including DeBeers. To stop genocide is a good thing, I think. And of course all the free sand. (I joke.) Fighting AIDS and malaria are noble things too.

Besides, we need all the rare and precious metals. And some yellow cake from Nigeria.

You know what's funny about this? When my church in The Netherlands, along with the Catholic Churches world-wide sent missionaries into the jungles of Africa, it was a good thing. =2E =2E but I digress.

[DS]

Perhaps I'm a bit jaded. I think that if we've (US and others) learned anything from trying to be global police, (and we SHOULD have learned SOMETHING by now) it's that we can't make other societies act as we would have them. For the most part, African nations have the governments that the people of those nations put into power. Yet they're surprised when the latest military rebel commander turned president turns out to be another despot with little interest allowing his people to feed and care for themselves.

I'd love to see things change in Africa too. Such a rich and beautiful continent, yet the fighting and greed based mainly on tribal and religious differences make it all but impossible for many people to live a decent life. I just don't think that real change comes from without. Africa has the human and natural resources available to lift themselves out of this pit and become a group of first world nations. We can't make them do it.

Agreed. Neither of which require a foreign presence in Africa. There are many African medical professionals capable of inoculating and educating their fellow people. And there is a lot of financial aid and medical expertise being donated. Where does it go?

Exporting one's religion to another culture is just the church serving itself. It does nothing to help the converted.

[Charlie Self]

I think there's a lot more wrong in Africa than we'll ever list, never mind cure, on this site. But I do tend to agree with most of what you say. God knows, Bush's export of what he calls democracy to the Middle East has been a bust that should have been expected, given the region's history. Now, the guy is trying to pump his legacy into positive figures by going to Africa and declaring its need for democracy.

I wonder how many millions of bucks his useless little trip cost U.S. taxpayers? Or the trips the rest of the politicos take around the world to view problems that are thoroughly covered on-line, on TV, and in the papers and news magazines, not tomention in various CIA and other intelligence reports. Rough guess: those useless trips cost almost as much as all the extra holidays various government employees get.

[bob kater]

No place for a write in vote anymore either.

[DS]

Reset button. We need that.

[Tanus]

I think, for the most part, I agree with that last statement. However, I don't know what the balance was in the long run of missionary work in the 18th and

19th centuries and even into the 20th. I know that some good work was done by selfless individuals, but I also believe that there was a strong motivation from the Mother Ship to evangelize the "heathens" which in itself, wasn't necessarily a great stroke for mankind.

Even here in Canada, there is still bad press towards both the Catholic and Anglican churches for their local missionary work in the North.

Other than Satanism, I'm not sure that there is a "bad" religion, just ones that are different from what we're accustomed to. That seems to really bring out the worst in some folks.

[Smaug Ichorfang]

As much as I hate politics in a non-politics newsgroup, I feel this deserves mention because the guy gets *so* much bad press he doesn't deserve. Please see:

wraps poorly as do many long urls. It's not a video file as the name might imply.

[Charlie Self]

see:

l

No matter what I do to it, I get a Page Cannot Be Found.

[Doug Brown]

[Charlie Self]

Quite probably he deserves good press for what he's doing in Africa, but, let's face it, both the budget and his attention devoted to that cause are peripheral to his other deeds in scope. I'm delighted to find he's not quite the total asshole I thought he was, though it is truly odd how the press gets blamed for the info release policies of his adminstration. The Bush admin is pissed at the press? That is amusing coming from the adminstration most manipulative of information release in history.

[Fred the Red Shirt]

Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen Baghdad Bob and Scott McClellan in the same room at the same time?