Views about U.S. and international politics and other events from around the world.
What is Top Stories? These are stories and articles of interest to me, hopefully also to others. They are the top stories for me. Disclaimer Any stated fact is true to the best of my knowledge, but it is not double-checked.Read at your own risk! Header Credit headerspot
Lots of people have commented disparagingly that Hillary Clinton did not simply "misspeak" about her Bosnia trip, where she said she came under sniper fire.
But with the discovery of this secret footage, we may owe her an apology. See for yourself.
There has been quite a buzz about the speech made by Hillary Clinton last week. She was talking about her trip as first lady to Bosnia. She remembered landing under sniper fire. "There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base," she said. Was Hillary under sniper fire?
She gave a vivid account that stirs the imagination with a touch of heroism. The problem is this was not what happened. She and her party arrived peacefully at the airport and there was a greeting ceremony conducted in a leisurely pace.
What she said was false - it was a lie. Did she lie intentionally, or did she, as she later said, simply misspeak? Misspeaking (what a funny word) means speaking incorrectly or inaccurately, but is neutral as to whether dishonesty is involved.
But if it was not a lie, it cannot be that she was giving an account of events, while remembering the true facts were different. She was not making two or three misspoken words or phrases. She was recounting an event.
So if it was not a lie, then her description was a fantasy. She thought it really happened when it did not. It's also not mixing up simple events, but re-creating in her own mind a dramatic and life-threatening incident which in fact never took place.
Perhaps she did it in all innocence, and it would be amusing if as a grandmother she was telling the story to her grandkids, but it's pretty scary to have a president (or should one say another president) at the White House who can be so easily possessed by false memories, fantasies and delusion.
The Clinton campaign has found a new angle: imaginary electoral college votes. It is sending surrogates out to push idea: superdelegates should vote for the candidate who would have come out ahead if the primaries were awarding electoral college votes instead of delegates. The problem is such fictitious electoral college results will have little/no connection to the eletoral college results in November. (Story from The Clinton Campaign's New Math )
Comments: The Clinton campaign is feeling desperate and resorting to tricky and desperate ways to improve their chances. This does not make the Democrats look good. In the meantime, the Republicans appear to be above all such shenanigans.
Casey Knowles, the girl seen in the Hillary Clinton campaign ad as a sleeping 8 year-old child, gives her own message in this video, with not many sympathetic words for Hillary Clinton and her campaign.
I guess Hillary Clinton really shouldn't use images of persons, even from years ago, until she finds out where they stand politically.
Amidst all the troubles besetting Pakistan, it saddens me to come across this report of a rape at the mausoleum of the country's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
The incident occurred on 15 March. A 19 year-old newly wed Pakistani female was kidnapped at gun-point by two men at the entrance of the mausoleum. She was drugged and raped by her captors and other culprits.
She was found two days later at the mausoleum still in a drugged state.
This is such an abhorrent crime, committed by thugs at the country's national symbolic site against a young woman who had gone to pay her respects to the nation's founder. Rape is a serious crime in any country, but it's amongst the worst of the worst in a Muslim country. And it's an added shame that it took place at Jinnah's mausoleum.
Pakistan faces many problems, and its capital Karachi has the further distinction of having a high crime rate. Whatever the political conflicts, what hope is there for peace and stability if there is no personal security and safety even on a visit to a national site?
Five years ago Iraq was invaded by the US. President Bush marked the fifth anniversary of the invasion with a speech hailing victory in Iraq. Politics is a power-game, but does logic and reason play any part in it?
According to Barack Obama, the answer is no. He has said the invasion was on ideological grounds and not based of reason and facts.
Except for the die-hard, it is now accepted that the "fact" of Iraq possessing an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction is a fiction, a factoid used emotionally to engender fear and support for launching an attack that was bound to and has caused many Iraqi and American lives.
The dictionary definition of "factoid" is "an invented fact believed to be true because of its appearance in print". I would add also: appearance in the media and public speeches.
Politicians often resort to factoids. They expect something to be believed because they say it is so, and surprisingly because they have said it many accept the factoid to be a fact.
Bush says that the terrorists who murder the innocent in the streets of Baghdad want to murder the innocent in the streets of American cities. Fact or factoid? Were there terrorists in Iraq before (or even after) the invasion?
"Defeating this enemy in Iraq will make it less likely we will face this enemy here at home," he also says. Fact or factoid? Was there an Iraqi enemy massing to fight in the streets of American cities?
And victory in Iraq - that may be the mother of all factoids.
Eliot Spitzer has fallen from grace and resigned as governor of New York. He was outed as being embroiled in using the services of high-priced call girls from the prostitution ring the Emperors Club, in particular with a girl called Kristen. Kristen has now been identified as Ashley Dupre. What of her now?
While the mighty have fallen, Ashley Dupre seems now to be soaring into the limelight and may well be coming into the riches that she must have been dreaming of. Magazines are lining up to make lucrative offers, some of which she will probably take up.
At 22, Ashley Dupre appears to have come from a broken home, which she left at age 17. Her singing in the shower so impressed her then musician boyfriend that she started touring and singing professionally. Yet clearly she had not quite made a success of her musical career, and somehow joined the ranks at the Emperors Club.
Is she any different from thousands of her age, who think anything goes to make a living? In America moral values are not what they used to be. Everyone can define his or her own morality.
Dupre says she does not want to be thought of as a monster. Yet will she redeem herself, or will she seize the opportunity to reap the riches that are awaiting her, justifying her decision within her own self-defined moral values?
Casey Knowles appears in an ad run by the campaign for Hillary Clinton. Casey is now almost 18. The picture used in the ad is a sleeping 8 year-old Casey.
The ad suggests that little children can sleep safely with Hillary in charge, and implies somehow that Obama would not offer the same security, perhaps because of his lack of experience. It was shown in Texas before last week's primary, which Clinton won.
The problem with the ad is that Casey Knowles is a strong supporter of and campaigner for Obama.
Casey told ABC that the ad is "fear-mongering", and a "cheap-hit".
So there we have it, a child sleeping safely in bed who supports Obama. Not the message that the Clinton campaign wanted to send.
A YouTube video has been released showing a US marine throwing a puppy off a cliff in Iraq. An angry reaction from viewers and internet users has grown rapidly with many posting comments showing their horror and disgust. The mainstream media are also getting this into their pages.
The marine has been identified by internet users. But as this has not been officially checked, I will not name names. The US military authorities have also been spurred into action and will investigate the incident. It is believed that the soldier returned home to Hawaii last year in October.
The video certainly creates a sense of shock to any right thinking person. A heartless, callous soldier is killing a small lovable puppy out of pure sadistic impulses. A small number of comments query whether the puppy was already dead, and whether the whole video is a fake.
The public outcry, if this was a real video, is certainly justified - even if the puppy was already dead before being thrown.
But putting things in context, we should not forget even more heartless and cruel acts have been perpetrated in Iraq, involving innocent civilians. Where there is war, humanity is a scare commodity.
Plans are being made for a dialogue between Catholics and Muslims to be held later this year. The Pope is expected to play a role in the talks.
These are the world's two major monotheistic religions. There are doctrinal differences but there is also much common ground between them. There are also misunderstandings.
A rift was caused two years ago when the Pope made a speech quoting some ancient text that criticised Islam. After protests all around the world, he expressed his regret.
Let us hope that the dialogue will lead to genuine improvement in relations and mutual tolerance and respect.
