US 08: Children of the Revolution

I suspect that a Democrat U.S. president in 2009 who turns out to have a similar foreign policy and anti-terrorism stance as a Republican president in 2008, will come as no surprise to the British and Australian national governments.
However, I suspect that it will come as a big surprise to many across the blogosphere and more than a few hopeful idealists around the world.

So it was good to see Jeff Sparrow of the Overland Magazine writing in Crikey yesterday remind us that Obama is no 60's peacenik:

But the Bush presidency hasn’t been the work of a single idiot. There’s plenty of smart people behind W., making decisions that by and large reflect the concerns of the US elite. Had a Democrat occupied the White House for the last two terms, US policy might have been sold better, but it’s doubtful that decisions have been very different.
Pick any of the Bush administration’s most heinous policies and you’ll implicate a Democrat. "Extraordinary rendition", for instance, was pioneered under Clinton, with that cuddly environmentalist Al Gore playing a leading role.

And Derek Shearer quoted in The Age observes:

"One of the interesting things about the Obama campaign is almost all of the policy advisers are former Clinton administration people — so many of my good friends are involved day to day," he said.

From the latest published Gallup poll of registered voters, I doubt whether it will come as any surprise to the American children of the 60's revolution, as they have currently settled down to what is basically a statistical tie between Democrat Obama at 45% and Republican McCain at 48% preference in their age group.

Update:

According to the New York Post today.

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

Monsanto's role in "Fat Boy" A-Bomb

It is nice to see that Mr. Monsanto still follows North Coast Voices and clicks on to read what we may have to say on biotechnology.

So as not to disappoint this reader, here is the following from Wikileaks which suggest that Monsanto apparently had a contract with the US Government team when the atomic bomb Fat Boy (which eventually devastated Nagasaki) was being created at Los Alamos:

Scale of American effort where known Appreciable;

Monsanto contract on Po. Chem. 1-2 Physicists 3-5 chemists at Los Alamos

From MetroActive:

1939-1945--Monsanto conducts research on uranium for the Manhattan Project in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Charles Thomas, who later served as the company's chairman of the board, was present at the first test explosion of the atomic bomb.

From Dayton Daily News in February 2007:
While they worked on the atomic bomb in the 1940s, employees of Monsanto Chemical Co.'s Dayton Project unknowingly were exposed to radiation that would be a carcinogenic time bomb for some of them.
Now, thanks to a federal decision this month, dozens of cancer- stricken Cold War workers and their widows may finally be compensated for on-the-job toxic exposures they sustained some 60 years ago.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt has approved special status for the Monsanto workers, meaning they don't have to prove an occupational link if they have suffered from any of 22 cancers known to be caused by radiation.

Yes, GM seed giant Monsanto really has a corporate track record to be admired.

It truly inspires confidence in their assurances that genetically modified crops are always benign and will be so in Australia.

Photo of Fat Boy from Google Images

Two faces of the Australian pensions debate

A well-fed and expensively attired Leader of the Opposition displays his hypocrisy when debating his futile and belated wedge in support for an increase to old age pensions.

Photo from The Australian

Australian bloggers display their heartlessness.

Tuesday 9 September 2008, 3:58 pm #Wah
Farmers should shut the f**k up and grow things. And pensioners should accept that they are now useless to society thus should only get the crumbs. In the animal world they would know when to just f**k off and die - it’s about the herd, not the individual. [edited to avoid filters]

NSW Inc. - Rudders whistles in the wind

Poor old Rudders. Opinion polls still going his way nationally, but the entire ball of wool unravelling at state level.
The Prime Minister wants NSW Premier Rees and Co to get their act together and go to the next election with a fighting chance.

Problem is that more than one or two senior members of the NSW ALP are now openly saying that the only way to fix factional problems and lack of political talent, or ensure true generational change, is for Labor to "spend some time on the Opposition benches".

That remark has been echoed by party members on the NSW North Coast and could be overheard outside local government election polling booths last Saturday.