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While campaigning in Indianapolis for her mother, Chelsea Clinton was asked by a male student if her mother’s [Hilary] credibility had been hurt as a result of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Chelsea had this to say:

“Wow, you’re the first person actually that’s ever asked me that question, in the, maybe 70 college campuses that I’ve been to,” Clinton bitterly said at Butler University. “And I don’t think that’s any of your business.” (source)

I suggest you read the article, the comments left on it are amusing as hell. Now for my two cents. Was this something that should be asked, let alone asked to the daughter? Does it have any bearing on the situation at hand?

While I found it to be admittedly tacky that the question was asked to the daughter, the fact remains that she is a twenty-eight year old woman who should have had the grace to either calmly put the question to the side or give it the attention it deserved. Chelsea Clinton, welcome to the big league. If you want to go on the campaign trail for your mother to show that “family support” that the Clintons are said to have, then you have to accept the responsibility that goes with it. You are going to be asked the questions you do not want to answer, that’s a proven fact. Your parents have done a remarkable job of shielding you from the press, while allowing you to dance in the limelight at your leisure - a double standard that few celebrities have been able to manage for their children. If you want to step up on stage then be prepared for the consequences.

With regards to the question, I do feel it had merit. Hilary is a public figure, and how she handles situations is imperative to know when selecting a leader. Not to mention, I’d say it’s fair play considering how her staff simply would not let go of the Rev. Wright matter. Talk about a dog with an old bone!

Chelsea, you need to learn when you’re out of your league and when to bow out gracefully. That’s all there is to it. Instead of looking like the 28 year old woman and Oxford graduate that you are you came off as a childish brat throwing a tantrum. Instead of the snippy retorts trying taking a page from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ book.

The Iraq government has failed time and time again to hit the benchmarks that have been set for it so now President Bush is forced to call in the big guns.

July 17, 2007 - Increasingly frustrated by the Iraqi government’s failure to meet a series of defined benchmarks, President George W. Bush today proposed sending a group of giant robots known as the Transformers™ to Iraq.

When questioned about his decision, President Bush had the following to say:

“I’d like to see what would happen if Al Qaeda tried to attack one of our tanks, and instead the tank got up on its legs and turned out to be a robot and started shooting at them,” Mr. Bush said. “That would be so cool.”

(full article)

HONOLULU - A dozen surfing protestors temporarily blocked the first-ever passenger ferry service among the Hawaiian islands as it tried to complete its second voyage, saying the craft could harm marine life.

Hours after the Hawaii Superferry’s maiden voyage from Honolulu to Maui and back, it was stalled for more than an hour outside Kauai’s Lihue harbor before Coast Guard patrol boats cleared away the surfers and escorted the 349-foot vessel to the dock. Cars were still being driven off the ferry when it was scheduled to be on its way back to Honolulu.

The four-deck, double-hulled ship, named Alakai, turned back from the Lihue harbor to the cheers of several hundred protesters beating drums and shouting Hawaiian chants along a seawall, witnesses said. The protestors, who paddled out to within a few yards of the ship, objected to the ferry’s failure to obtain an environmental impact report before launching.

Read The Full Article

Typically I’m all for making one’s life easier, especially when it comes to one’s daily commute, but I find myself a bit chagrined with what’s going on here. Boats are a serious threat to marine life and in area where tourism threatens the local ecosystem on a daily and regular basis I can’t help but to see the addition of a ferry traveling back and forth as an unnecessary evil in this case. What really gets me is that this has launched despite not having followed the proper procedures and channels. Why? How was this allowed?

I’m not a fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton, that’s a well known fact. I would love to have a female president some day but Hilary Clinton is not who I would like to see take that honor and duty. But seeing this just really burns me up:

WASHINGTON - They were high school friends from Park Ridge, Ill., both high achievers headed East to college. John Peavoy was a bookish film buff bound for Princeton, Hillary Rodham a driven, civic-minded Republican going off to Wellesley. They were not especially close, but they found each other smart and interesting and said they would try to keep in touch.

Which they did, prodigiously, exchanging dozens of letters between the late summer of 1965 and the spring of 1969. Ms. Rodham’s 30 dispatches are by turns angst-ridden and prosaic, glib and brooding, anguished and ebullient — a rare unfiltered look into the head and heart of a future first lady and senator and would-be president. Their private expressiveness stands in sharp contrast to the ever-disciplined political persona she presents to the public now.

(Full Article)

I’m a bit torn up on this, certainly there is nothing in these letters that I find to be damaging really, though I’m sure many will drag up what they need from them. What I can’t help but to see here are correlations between Clinton today and what happened back then to Geraldine Ferraro. We certainly don’t see college letters surfacing by “friends” for other candidates but when we have a female candidate the proverbial dirt is already being dug on her up before any other candidate.

Are we ready for a female president or is our nation already taking steps to keep t from happening?

Many lawmakers, along with advocates for low-wage workers, are celebrating the first increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade. Yet many acknowledge that raising it from $5.15 an hour to $5.85 will provide only meager help for some of the lowest-paid workers.

About 1.7 million people made $5.15 per hour or less in 2006, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The reality for a minimum-wage worker is that every penny makes a difference because low-wage workers make the choice between putting food on the table and paying for electricity or buying clothes for their children,” said Beth Shulman, a former vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

“Saying that, it’s clear going up to $5.85 is not enough to really make sure that people really can afford the things that all families need,” said Shulman, the author of “The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans.”

Minimum-wage workers will get an additional 70-cent boost each summer for the next two years, ending in 2009 at $7.25 an hour. That comes to slightly more than $15,000 yearly before taxes for a 52-week work year.

Today, someone in such a job and earning $5.85 an hour would bring home $12,168 a year before taxes. The federal poverty level is $10,210 for singles, $13,690 for couples and $17,170 for families of three.

(Full Article)

I for one am glad to see the minimum wage go up across the board, it’s great that some relief will be coming to workers but here’s the thing that many people also seem to beforgetting. The cost of living is also increasing accordingly as well. Many local establishments, especially locally owned ones, have already increased the prices of their services to compensate the extra that has to go to payroll.

So is this really going to help anyone?