₦airaland Forum

Seun is a 26 year-old recent graduate of the Yale Law School. He is also trying to make history as the first Nigerian delegate to compete in the Winter Olympics, in which we would compete in the sport of skeleton.


In June 2009, he was diagnosed with two rare and aggressive forms of cancer: lymphoblastic lymphoma and stem-cell leukemia.

Most likely, his only chance for survival is a bone marrow transplant, but he is facing grim odds. African-Americans comprise only 8% of the registry, and receive transplants in the US only 17 % of the time. Overall, only three out of ten patients find the match they need for a life-saving transplant.


His goal is to recruit 10,000 new donors with the help of DKMS but he needs our help. Please join me in the bid to save Seun's life. Make a donation today. 100% of money raised will be used for donor testing.


Many thanks for your support -- and don't forget to forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate too!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0xdgvUcodA

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=app_2392950137&gid=237024704499#/group.php?gid=237024704499&ref=mf

Have a go at this NYtimes Op-ed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/opinion/31krugman.html?em

Health Care Realities

By PAUL KRUGMAN
At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.”

It’s a funny story — but it illustrates the extent to which health reform must climb a wall of misinformation. It’s not just that many Americans don’t understand what President Obama is proposing; many people don’t understand the way American health care works right now. They don’t understand, in particular, that getting the government involved in health care wouldn’t be a radical step: the government is already deeply involved, even in private insurance.

And that government involvement is the only reason our system works at all.

The key thing you need to know about health care is that it depends crucially on insurance. You don’t know when or whether you’ll need treatment — but if you do, treatment can be extremely expensive, well beyond what most people can pay out of pocket. Triple coronary bypasses, not routine doctor’s visits, are where the real money is, so insurance is essential.

Yet private markets for health insurance, left to their own devices, work very badly: insurers deny as many claims as possible, and they also try to avoid covering people who are likely to need care. Horror stories are legion: the insurance company that refused to pay for urgently needed cancer surgery because of questions about the patient’s acne treatment; the healthy young woman denied coverage because she briefly saw a psychologist after breaking up with her boyfriend.

And in their efforts to avoid “medical losses,” the industry term for paying medical bills, insurers spend much of the money taken in through premiums not on medical treatment, but on “underwriting” — screening out people likely to make insurance claims. In the individual insurance market, where people buy insurance directly rather than getting it through their employers, so much money goes into underwriting and other expenses that only around 70 cents of each premium dollar actually goes to care.

Still, most Americans do have health insurance, and are reasonably satisfied with it. How is that possible, when insurance markets work so badly? The answer is government intervention.

Most obviously, the government directly provides insurance via Medicare and other programs. Before Medicare was established, more than 40 percent of elderly Americans lacked any kind of health insurance. Today, Medicare — which is, by the way, one of those “single payer” systems conservatives love to demonize — covers everyone 65 and older. And surveys show that Medicare recipients are much more satisfied with their coverage than Americans with private insurance.

Still, most Americans under 65 do have some form of private insurance. The vast majority, however, don’t buy it directly: they get it through their employers. There’s a big tax advantage to doing it that way, since employer contributions to health care aren’t considered taxable income. But to get that tax advantage employers have to follow a number of rules; roughly speaking, they can’t discriminate based on pre-existing medical conditions or restrict benefits to highly paid employees.

And it’s thanks to these rules that employment-based insurance more or less works, at least in the sense that horror stories are a lot less common than they are in the individual insurance market.

So here’s the bottom line: if you currently have decent health insurance, thank the government. It’s true that if you’re young and healthy, with nothing in your medical history that could possibly have raised red flags with corporate accountants, you might have been able to get insurance without government intervention. But time and chance happen to us all, and the only reason you have a reasonable prospect of still having insurance coverage when you need it is the large role the government already plays.

Which brings us to the current debate over reform.

Right-wing opponents of reform would have you believe that President Obama is a wild-eyed socialist, attacking the free market. But unregulated markets don’t work for health care — never have, never will. To the extent we have a working health care system at all right now it’s only because the government covers the elderly, while a combination of regulation and tax subsidies makes it possible for many, but not all, nonelderly Americans to get decent private coverage.

Now Mr. Obama basically proposes using additional regulation and subsidies to make decent insurance available to all of us. That’s not radical; it’s as American as, well, Medicare.

The rains came pouring again today
We breezed past them in haste
Splashed and sped away
Anonymous behind the tinted shades

Boys, men, pulled up their pants,
Walking right through the flood
Women, girls raise their skirts,
Wading through the murky waters

Oh God, it’s in their houses too
Living rooms sunk in rain water
Beds, mats, sheets, drenched in flood
Nowhere else is home, and tonight they return to it

They suffer, yet they smile
Oh the kids, they play in this water?
Littered, pest infested, contaminated fluid,
Our children bathe in this at their peril

Tried shutting the curtain, turning my back
But it is here too, and there, and the other place,
Oh it’s everywhere,
The prickly heat of poverty, its reeking stench

Oh the children!
They stab me with those needy eyes
The frail legs, the big tummies
They are in my head, my sleep, my dreams

Who will fight for these ones? Who is on their side?
Mr. President you steal their future
Mr. Governor, you have their hope
Give it BACK! DO SOMETHING!

This is their Nigeria too.

To the powers that be,
President, Governors, LG Chairs, elected officials
Look around you, and this time without the shades
This place, leaders is your report card

Job well done.


At your mercy,
The helpess.
By FF

The rains came pouring again today
We breezed past them in haste
Splashed and sped away
Anonymous behind the tinted shades

Boys, men, pulled up their pants,
Walking right through the flood
Women, girls raise their skirts,
Wading through the murky waters

Oh God, it’s in their houses too
Living rooms sunk in rain water
Beds, mats, sheets, drenched in flood
Nowhere else is home, and tonight they return to it

They suffer, yet they smile
Oh the kids, they play in this water?
Littered, pest infested, contaminated fluid,
Our children bathe in this at their peril

Tried shutting the curtain, turning my back
But it is here too, and there, and the other place,
Oh it’s everywhere,
The prickly heat of poverty, its reeking stench

Oh the children!
They stab me with those needy eyes
The frail legs, the big tummies
They are in my head, my sleep, my dreams

Who will fight for these ones? Who is on their side?
Mr. President you steal their future
Mr. Governor, you have their hope
Give it BACK! DO SOMETHING!

This is their Nigeria too.

To the powers that be,
President, Governors, LG Chairs, elected officials
Look around you, and this time without the shades
This place, leaders is your report card

Job well done.


At your mercy,
The helpess.
by FF.

olanmuis:
God use me to give my country, Nigeria, GOOD LEADERSHIP, this is the vessel need to convey us as a people to the promise land.

Amen for you!

I stopped praying for Nig long ago. Our excessive spirituality and over-dependence on religion many times rubs the personal agency to be responsible. If we all made one change in ourselves or our surrounding, it would go a long way.

I don't mean to attack you, but a lot of people pull out the God-thing a little too fast. Common sense and regard for others would make even the most secular society more like heaven.

Very pathetic, isn't it?

THE GLORIOUS THIRD- by Hendrik Hertzberg- The New Yorker

Sarah Palin spells her Christian name a letter longer than the singer spells his muse’s, but her whims are likewise elusive and her motives similarly mysterious. Ever since the 2008 Republican nominee for Vice-President of the United States suddenly announced that she would resign the governorship of Alaska at the end of July, nearly sixteen months before the expiration of what was supposed to be her first term, a single question has been on every lip: What on earth was that all about?
No one knows. Speculation, some of it fact-based, abounds. She is sick of politics. Or she’s just sick of Alaska politics and wants to do her politicking in the Lower 48. Or she wants to run for senator next year. Or she wants to help other Republicans running for senator or governor in other states, with a view to collecting Presidential I.O.U.s. Or she needs time to coach the ghostwriter and promote the product of a cash-rich book project she recently signed a contract for. Or she thinks the Alaska legislature is getting stroppy (e.g., it might override her refusal to accept millions in federal stimulus funds) and figures it’s better to let her lieutenant governor take the fall. Or she wants to fish more. Or there’s an asteroid-size scandal hurtling her way, and she wants to be outside the blast area when it detonates. Or there’s no big scandal, just a lot of little ones that aren’t even true but nonetheless require the services of lawyers too pricey to retain on a government salary. Or she’s bored. Or (though she is one of the few political job-quitters in memory not to have given this as a reason, as well as one of the few who could say it plausibly) she wants to spend time with her family.
“Some are going to question the timing of this,” Governor Palin predicted in her speech. Sure enough, some did—and no wonder. The Governor made her announcement at the start of a holiday weekend. The setting—the lawn of her lakeshore home, with geese honking in the background and, for an audience, a sparse scattering of standing supporters in knit shirts and shorts—suggested haste. So did the fact that the press was given less than two hours’ notice, while her in-laws, her state’s congressional delegation, and the grandees of the state and national Republican Party, including the former running mate who elevated her to global fame, were given no notice at all.
The questioners of the timing included a reporter from Time, who, in one of the damage-control interviews Palin gave last week, asked her, “Why make the announcement on July 3rd?” and added, a little apologetically, “People assume scandal.” The Governor, after expressing indignation that anyone might think she was quitting for other than “altruistic, sincere, and articulated reasons,” replied, in part, “July 3rd is the eve of Independence Day. It is meaningful to be able to say: Look, there needs to be freedom all the way around here to progress.”
It may be inferred from this that Palin sees a certain parallel between the events of July 3, 2009, and those of July 4, 1776. And, indeed, her speech had echoes of the document signed in Philadelphia two hundred and thirty-three years and one day earlier. “Let Facts be submitted to a candid world,” proclaims Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. “I’ve given my reasons now, very candidly,” proclaims Palin’s. Both support “life”—in Jefferson’s case, as part of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” in Palin’s, as a component of “free enterprise and smaller government and strong national security for our country and support for our troops and energy independence and for those who will protect freedom and equality and life.”
Here’s Jefferson on political change:

Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Here’s Palin on same:

Government’s supposed to serve from the bottom up and not move towards this top-down, big-government takeover, but rather will be protectors of individual rights, who also have enough common sense to acknowledge when conditions have drastically changed, and they’re willing to call an audible and pass the ball when it’s time so the team can win.

In Palin’s case, the government that she was declaring independence from is the one that she herself is governor of. She was therefore in the awkward position of having to argue that she has had “so much success in this first term” (e.g., “We took government out of the dairy business”) that “doing what’s best for Alaska” requires her to abandon her post. But the bulk of the Wasilla declaration, like the bulk of the Philadelphia one, was devoted to the enumeration of what the latter’s author called “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object”—the Object being, in Sarah Palin’s case, making things hard for Sarah Palin.
The colonists’ catalogue of complaints against George III ranged from “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good” to “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”
The Governor’s complaints against “adversaries” and “enemies” were more humdrum:

You don’t hear much about the good stuff in the press anymore, though, do you?

Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt.

The state has wasted thousands of hours of your time and shelled out some two million of your dollars to respond to opposition research. And that’s money that’s not going to fund teachers or troopers or safer roads.

But the evidence suggests that she is thinking not so much about Alaska’s money (the Anchorage Daily News found that the two-million-dollar figure relies on extremely creative accounting, and that not a cent has been diverted from teachers and the like) as about her own (and not the money that she has spent on lawyers, most of which has been supplied by others, but the payday that awaits her in private life). Levi Johnston, the nineteen-year-old father of Palin’s grandchild, has offered some testimony on this subject. Last Thursday, at a press conference at his lawyer’s office (in Palin’s circle, nineteen-year-olds have lawyers and hold press conferences), Johnston recalled his then prospective mother-in-law musing about “how nice it would be to take some of this money people have been offering us and, y’know, just run with it. . . . I think the big deal was the book. That’s millions of dollars right there.”
“Levi,” a reporter put in, “say Sarah Palin ran for President in 2012. Would you vote for her?”
Johnston sighed. “No,” he said. “I think she’s a great lady and all, but after seeing what she did now—you know, this leaving Alaska—I would have to say no. I mean, obviously if she’s stressed out as governor, I mean, moving up to the Vice-President or President is huge. I just don’t think, anymore, that she’s cut out for the job.”
Back in 1776, the signers of the Philadelphia declaration pledged, among other things, their fortunes. The Wasilla rebel stands to make one. Perhaps more than that, though, being governor simply isn’t any fun anymore. And this is one girl from the north country who just wants to have fun

The guy read my thoughts only that he's infinitely more articulate.

sorry wrong location. I restarted discussion in Foreign Affairs forum.

She Broke the G.O.P. and Now She Owns It

By FRANK RICH
SARAH PALIN and Al Sharpton don’t ordinarily have much in common, but they achieved a rare harmonic convergence at Michael Jackson’s memorial service. When Sharpton told the singer’s children it was their daddy’s adversaries, not their daddy, who were “strange,” he was channeling the pugnacious argument the Alaska governor had made the week before. There was nothing strange about her decision to quit in midterm, Palin told America. What’s strange — or “insane,” in her lingo — are the critics who dare question her erratic behavior on the national stage.

Sharpton’s bashing of Jackson’s naysayers received the biggest ovation of the entire show. Palin’s combative resignation soliloquy, though much mocked by prognosticators of all political persuasions, has an equally vociferous and more powerful constituency. In the aftermath of her decision to drop out and cash in, Palin’s standing in the G.O.P. actually rose in the USA Today/Gallup poll. No less than 71 percent of Republicans said they would vote for her for president. That overwhelming majority isn’t just the “base” of the Republican Party that liberals and conservatives alike tend to ghettoize as a rump backwater minority. It is the party, or pretty much what remains of it in the Barack Obama era.

That’s why Palin won’t go gently into the good night, much as some Republicans in Washington might wish. She is not just the party’s biggest star and most charismatic television performer; she is its only star and charismatic performer. Most important, she stands for a genuine movement: a dwindling white nonurban America that is aflame with grievances and awash in self-pity as the country hurtles into the 21st century and leaves it behind. Palin gives this movement a major party brand and political plausibility that its open-throated media auxiliary, exemplified by Glenn Beck, cannot. She loves the spotlight, can raise millions of dollars and has no discernible reason to go fishing now except for self-promotional photo ops, ,


The full article - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/opinion/12rich.html?em

The guy read my thoughts only that he's infinitely more articulate,

She Broke the G.O.P. and Now She Owns It

By FRANK RICH
SARAH PALIN and Al Sharpton don’t ordinarily have much in common, but they achieved a rare harmonic convergence at Michael Jackson’s memorial service. When Sharpton told the singer’s children it was their daddy’s adversaries, not their daddy, who were “strange,” he was channeling the pugnacious argument the Alaska governor had made the week before. There was nothing strange about her decision to quit in midterm, Palin told America. What’s strange — or “insane,” in her lingo — are the critics who dare question her erratic behavior on the national stage.

Sharpton’s bashing of Jackson’s naysayers received the biggest ovation of the entire show. Palin’s combative resignation soliloquy, though much mocked by prognosticators of all political persuasions, has an equally vociferous and more powerful constituency. In the aftermath of her decision to drop out and cash in, Palin’s standing in the G.O.P. actually rose in the USA Today/Gallup poll. No less than 71 percent of Republicans said they would vote for her for president. That overwhelming majority isn’t just the “base” of the Republican Party that liberals and conservatives alike tend to ghettoize as a rump backwater minority. It is the party, or pretty much what remains of it in the Barack Obama era.

That’s why Palin won’t go gently into the good night, much as some Republicans in Washington might wish. She is not just the party’s biggest star and most charismatic television performer; she is its only star and charismatic performer. Most important, she stands for a genuine movement: a dwindling white nonurban America that is aflame with grievances and awash in self-pity as the country hurtles into the 21st century and leaves it behind. Palin gives this movement a major party brand and political plausibility that its open-throated media auxiliary, exemplified by Glenn Beck, cannot. She loves the spotlight, can raise millions of dollars and has no discernible reason to go fishing now except for self-promotional photo ops, ,


The full article - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/opinion/12rich.html?em

Much props to Okocha.

We need more rich and well-to-do Nigerians to get involved in philanthropy. Helping strangers and non-family relations is not as ingrained in the current day Nig elite circles.

I can't help but wonder, though, if the money Okacha is putting forward could be better spent otherwise. Would it have made more sense or generated greater benefit if it was used to sponsor more kids to some Nig university? Just a thought, I won't fault Okocha for spending his money however he decides to. Unlike most, at least he is trying to help out some strangers.

Tayo-D:
@Dr D-Welz,

She has been a public servant for a long time. So you expect her to assume that people will be so mean as to be making fun of her children on national media? You think she should have anticipated that her daughter will get preganant out of wedlock?  Tell me, do you know what else is in her future that she should anticipate now? You got such insight? Every President and all public officials have their families in the public spotlight. Trying to single her out for criticim is outright disingenuous.

You are positively misrepresenting my point. I chose to think it is unintentional.

I am not asking or expecting her to anticipate anything more than any regular Joe would. Ok, she mistakingly ended up in a den with the vicious media. She has had ample opportunity into retreat to obscurity in Alaska. She should take lessons from Huckabee. But no, she flaunts around in the vicious den and expects to go unsacthed. Even rats and cockroaches know to find crevices. At the very least, there are gaping inconsistencies in her actions, expectations and professed values.

Tayo-D:
So what is your point? Running for office should be left to singles? Things change and the Press has been especially mean to her. Could she have imagined when she became Governor that the Left will be so mean? Isn't that the politics of personal destruction she was refering to?

My point is that she chose to be thrust into the national public limelight. Her very short-sighted search for selfish, sorry, self-interest actualization was a path she chose. She has not stopped to parade her family in front of cameras; and she has also decided not to keep her mouth shut. So I am confused about her whining that the media has not let her family rest. She should be woman enough to complete her term and face whatever consequences of her actions rather than becoming a crybaby mid-game.

Her actions and decisions are the cause of the media scrutiny her family is undergoing. She should have properly weighed her values before prematurely hopping into the limelight.

Tayo-D:
I mentioned Powell because he is one public figure, and a black Republican to publicly endorse someone who stands opposite to his core belief. He expressed dissatisfaction at Obama's big govt program and over-spending this past week. Why did he chose Obama over mcCain even though he knwos the glaring diffenrence between both. could it be Race? Could he be a clear representation of what the Black community is all about?

Didn't Powell give an explanation of why he supported Obama? Tayo-D a quick search of Youtube will certainly refresh your memory.

The real issue here is how far over the cliff the Republican party has drifted. Powell, a reasoning person, who happens to be African American could not keep wallowing bonkers that has become mainstream in the party.

Tayo-D:
If I recall corectly, Palin siad something like this: "When you make a decision, you don't need to explain to your friends or your enemies. Your friends don't need the expalnation and your enemies wont believe you anyway."

There were arguments at the last election that she was an irresponsible mother for running for office despite her family situaion. and here we see someone condemning her for seemingly putting her family first ahead of her political ambition. what can a girl do?

I really want to believe that she is putting her family first. But unfortunately, she also made the decision a while back to be Gov of Alaska.

If it is indeed a political move, like most think. Then she is just being plain deceptive like many of the slimy politician she detests.

And I am not looking to be convinced; I am just asking for some plain talk and direct addressing of her reasons for quitting.

I agree with you Negro_Ntns. However, I think that is just one of her many quirks.

Palin's approach is certainly not business as usual; she never ceases to amaze. I have listened to her 'resignation speech' several times and there is just a very unsatisfactory feeling it leaves me with. She very obviously skirts around her exact reasons for resigning. She claims she is making a decision that is best for Alaska; to save Alaska money; because the media is 'attacking' her kids; because she polled her kids and they said she should; because she does not want to be a lame-duck governor; and because she can help and influence issues more from the outside. That list is an abridged version of her reasons or better still pseudo-reasons; I am not quite sure who is buys any of them.

I guess if Gov Palin became VP, very important national matters would have been taken to the ultimate council of teenage and preteen kids. Imagine! "Hey kids, hold-up your paddles; are you for or against sanctioning North Korea?" OR VP Palin would say, "Those Middle Eastern nut-heads are talking about my family again, I am just going to resign and um, try to change the country and world from outside the political establishment."

Palin's move, however calculated it may be, reeks of irresponsibility and immaturity. I cannot help but see her as being unable to handle the consequences of her decisions. She chose to run for governor and is now quitting. She is quitting!

What's going on with the Republican party?

Wise move? Running for Senate? Or some skeletons in the closet ready to hop out? Or concern for her family?

Very interesting.

Very interesting conversation despite the back and forth bickering.

It is not secret that the US and many other socioeconomic and politically powerful countries meddle in the affairs of other countries. The US often claims a moral high ground and superiority of ideals, but has historically had hypocritical and inconsistent international policies. However, one thing that remains consistent, is the overall goal/aim of the US government to protect the interests of Americans. You may think this a silly or very simplistic statement, but keeping that general idea in mind when analyzing the US dealing with other countries brings some perspectives. I am not claiming that the US govt is always successful at this goal; but I am saying the a priori intention is promoting the interest of its citizens.

That said, the US relations with Iran over the decades have been fraught with disingenuous motives. Many of the historical claims in the original article including pre WWII meddling, installation of the Shah in place of a democratically elected government are very well known and historically accurate. I think it a fools errand attempting to prove those facts as they aren't, in my mind, historically controversial.

The current situation in the country is far less clear-cut. Despite hypocrisy in/by the West, Iran also has its own demons to contend with. I don't think it is clear whether or not the government of Iran has as its intention to promote the interest of its citizens. I know we can spend all day debating the nebulous idea of 'interests'. In my mind intentionally limiting the access to media other that to government sponsored stations, resistance to allowing people air dissatisfaction about the government, employment of religious "police men" with poorly defined power limits and other nefarious practices, all show that the Iranian government have more important agenda than preserving and promoting its citizen's interests. It is a much easier path to blame the West of meddling and hypocrisy than it is to address the glaring inconsistencies and problems with the Iranian government; doing the latter is an unfortunate decision the Iranian government is making.

It quite disheartening reading stories like the one below. I realize that the geopolitical history of the Israel-Palestine regions is quite complicated, to say the least. Israel often claims to have the moral high ground, but with stories like these, it simply seems to be adding fresh insults to already festering wounds.

Israel approves 50 settler homes from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8124148.stm.

I want back the 10 minutes of my life I wasted reading that absolutely baseless and incoherent article. There is as much sense in that article as one would expect if one jumbled up 1000 letters and splattered them all over a page. Her facts and assertions about Africa, the British, Post-colonial Africa, Obama,  are very wrong, or at best deeply misguided. I can't begin debunking them, because it daunting figuring out where to start from. Give us a well thought intellectual critique rather than a page of bollocks, and you'll get a reasoned response.

Ibime:
just clutching at straws like a pregnant cow.

Lol! I'll have to agree with that sentiment.

Tayo-D:
So you think Clinton should be justified for adultery because he does not condemn its practice or because he does not hold others to such high standards? Think about what you are saying for a moment!

So we should all not condemn evil because we are susceptible to doing evil?

None of the thoughts in your statement originate from me. Intentionally or not, you are miscontruing my ideas. I did not attempt to justify Clinton nor adultery. I was just proferring an alternative path for the ultra conservatives. Of course, we should encourage high standards and call out evil and wrongs. However, we should also realize the inherent evil in pretense and hypocrisy.

Tayo-D:
@Richy,
I do not understand what I do; for I don't do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate. - Apostle Paul.

Hypocrisy is good. It is a testament to the fact that someone has fallen short of the ideal they hold dear.

One of the major problems with these Republicans leaders is hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is NOT good; it is insincere, dishonest and many times outright fraudulent. Going along with the stealing analogy. There are (A) those who would NOT consider stealing wrong and steal (B) those who believe stealing is wrong and do not steal (C) those who believe stealing to wrong but make mistakes here and there falling for the temptation. They have two options (C1) they cover up and pretend they are B or (C2) they are transparent about being C.

Hypocrites are C1, but unfortunately for them, they can only cover-up for so long until they get caught and exposed. I will also agree with the sentiment that many of these ultra conservative folks are very judgemental, quick to point the accusatory finger and slow to introspection. It is obviously alright to point out the ills and wrongs in other peoples actions, but when one paints them as absolutely abominable and as completely beneath them; it makes life a hell lot harder in the event that one falls.

Tayo-D:
Granted Mark called for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, but we have to rememeber that it was not for adultery but for perjury.  This are two different things, I believe.

Tayo D. Gov Sanford's cheating on his wife is but one of his crimes. He temporarily and recklessly abandoned his state, abrogated his responsibility, intentionally misled his own staff let alone all S. Carolina residents,  I should stop listing.

I do recognize he has owned up and acknowledged his mistakes. But we should not confuse his actions for courage like some conservative pundits are claiming. This man was caught with his hand in the cookie jar; he had no other option but to come clean. You would not mistaken the fighting back of a rat caught in a corner for courage, would you? Its desperation.

Far from the Appalachian Trail, Gov Sanford was on a personal and, dare I say, romantic trip to Argentina. The whole story is quite bizarre. “Ultra conservative governor abandons State and family to elope with Argentinean mistress.” Even tabloids would find it difficult to cook up such a story.

What was he thinking? Seriously. I know it is much easy for me to sit on my high horse and point accusatory fingers, but I sure can’t pass up this temptation. Is it unreasonable for me to expect more thoughtful, more reflective and less impulsive behavior from such a figure of authority?

Just want to vent,

I don't call BofA often, because I really don't need to. However, i can't but notice how pathetic their customer service is. First I spend >5minutes on hold before I get a rude representative. My call this time around was for unintentional overdraft charges. I never, ever run into overdrafts. I don't quite know what happened, but I ended up with 6 charges totaling $210. Needless to say the transactions themselves were but a small fraction compared to the charges.
I get a representative who offers me $86 write-off. I plead for additional mercy, then decide to talk with her supervisor. I wait over 10 minutes before the guy picks up. He then proceeds to tell me, in the rudest and most demeaning tone imaginable, that he can only offer me a $51 write-off and that the prior offer is withdrawn. Have you heard of a customer service representative withdrawing a 'courtesy offer' after the customer waisted a good 25 minutes just getting to speak with him? Perhaps, it should teach me a lesson that these banks are ruthless loan sharks.
I have banked with BofA for over 9years, with an impeccable record,  Bank of America really does sucks. I am not the only one with a extensive record that BofA has mistreated. http://www.bankofamericasucks.com.
BofA carries its begging hat to the government for a bailout only to turn around and be ruthless and inconsiderate to even long term customers who are suffering from the irresponsible actions BofA and like entities.
Please spread the word until BofA gets the message. I will be leaving the bank at my earliest convenience.
http://dudedoc..com/

Good discussion! However, I don't think I am prepared to continue with the back and forth. I look forward to reading from you on other threads. It would be a relatively short post this time around, mainly reiterating some main points.

I think your analysis of the main contributors to the current financial crisis is erroneous, or at best extremely narrow. You seem to simply dismiss the factors that a majority of experts would agree are major contributors.

I also observe that your are completely unwilling to admit that there are possible ills from radical capitalism. You happily claim all the benefits from the practice of capitalism and very readily ascribe the ills to 'government.' You also don't seem to think any problems can possibly arise for ardent pursuits of ones self-interest.

I agree that the primary role of the government is to ensure fairness and justice. Under this role I would include tempering people's pursuit of their self-interest when it conflicts with the interest of society as a whole, or with another persons pursuit of his/her own self-interest. To me, fairness, justice and protection of civil society includes protecting basic human rights of the poor, protecting workers pay and entitlements even when it is in the self-interest of their employers not to, and ensuring adequate access to basic life necessities. Beyond the financial crisis, I would argue that the major failures of today's American society are from our oversubscription to radical capitalism. The failures include perpetuating socioeconomic inequalities and lack of access of millions of people to basic healthcare; these failure do not represent a civil society.

I could also not disagree more on your position on the Christian message. I am not advocating for a total disregard of one self-interests but instead a cautious evaluation and pursuit in the light of the interest of others. At the risk of beating a dead horse, I would emphasize that some overarching and radical messages of Christianity are self-sacrifice, selflessness and care for poor. Completely turning that message on its head and claiming all those are ultimately in the pursuit of self-interest, hmm, I think is completely misguided.

http://africa-onecountryaweek..com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7980951.stm

Madonna loses Malawi adoption bid