Putin controlled Vest News reports in Russian today that Ukraine is close to deploying its own antimissile systems “Sevastopol” and “Mukachevo”. It is very interesting to note that Russian authorities state in the article [in Russian language edition] that the systems are of little value to the West.

Interpretation, they are not ready yeat to take on the Ukraine in a Georgian like power grab–not yet.

My August 4th article entitled, “Deaffirming Action Tricky” reports on recent national polling on affirmative action.

Ward Connerly, the former University of California regent who is bankrolling the Arizona initiative and similar measures in Nebraska and Colorado to ban affirmative action is a black man who opposes affirmative action calling it counter productive.

The initiatives would amend the state constitutions to ban any hiring practices, university scholarships and other public programs that favor one group over others. Arizona and Nebraska officials are still verifying petition signatures while Colorado has the initiative slated for the November ballot.

Connerly’s group, the American Civil Rights Initiative, already has been successful with similar initiatives in California, Washington and Michigan. And he plans to continue four years from now in other states. Ultimately, Connerly said, “the goal is to try to get either the Supreme Court or the Congress to get the policy changed at the national level.”

Connerly said his ballot initiatives would attack programs like the Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise Program in Tucson. It allows minority and women-owned businesses to bid more for city contracts than other groups and requires prime contractors to make a serious effort to hire them for work.

“Those clearly would be outlawed,” Connerly said of the Tucson program. “Any standards that are applied to groups based on race. Any jobs where there are different standards for admissions.”

Connerly’s opponents in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska criticize him for billing the initiative drive as a civil rights cause. They say thousands of voters were likely duped into signing petitions because the initiatives were described as a ban on discrimination instead of an attack on programs that help women and minorities.

Pro-affirmative action activists from Detroit have filed for an injunction in Arizona to keep the initiative off the November ballot.

Presumed Republican Presidential nominee John McCain focused national attention on Connerly’s efforts in late July, saying on ABC’s “This Week” that he endorsed the Arizona initiative — although he added that he had not read the details of the proposal.

Santa Barbara Buzzing Over Edwards’ Bastard Daughter Local Connection

The Santa Barbara News Press reported Friday, August 1 that former Democrat Senator, Gore VP candidate and 2008 Presidential contender John Edwards’s bastard daughter Frances Quinn Hunter was born at local Cottage Hospital at 9AM, February 27, 2008. The local rumor mills have been buzzing for weeks about a Santa Barbara connection to the story the local newspaper investigated after an Inquirer story broke this week naming the hospital and citing details.

An informational birth certificate confirming the birth to one time Edwards campaign worker Rielle Java James Druck, 44, who signed the birth certificate Rielle Hunter. No father is listed. According to the newspaper report Hunter and baby were driven from Santa Barbara to meet with Edwards last week at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel where he was confronted by an Enquirer reporter, and seen running from Hunter’s room at 2:35AM by Hotel security.

Main stream media ignored the story until the UKTimesOnLine broke it last weekend when the defecation hit the impeller.

Rielle and child are said to be ensconced in a luxury home behind high security gates and is somehow being paid $15,000 a month. Edwards has been married for 30-plus years and has four children with wife Elizabeth whose breast cancer returned earlier this year.

The Huffington Post writes about why the MSM is not reporting the Edwards “story.”

Simple, THEY DON’T HAVE TOO YET.

Because, you, the blogging community, are playing the part of the Minor League Media (MLM), aka the reporters of the ‘undernews,” will flesh out these stories, so to speak. You will do much of the dirty work cleaning up the dirty National Inquirer, and “find all the links that you are better at” paraphrasing Jonathan Alter, aka MSM man, pre renaissance.

Great article at the Huffington Post right HERE.

Two things seem obvious. One, there are certainly hypocrites at work here, even though I do not know who he, she, it or they may be, and two, an overpaid consultant could not have come close to creating the MSM Motto of “Not Till We Have Too.”.

According to Sarah Lai Stirland, blogging on wired.com the great Wiki is struggling with the issue too.

If this [Iranian] regime becomes nuclear, that we (Israel) will have to act because for us that is a question for the survival of our Jewish civilization

Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident who spent more than a decade in the communist Gulag now an Israeli citizen told Newsmax. com editor Ruddy “It is very alarming for me the way Senator Obama voted, the way he spoke about his desire to negotiate with Ahmadinejad, and the way some of his advisers think.” Sharansky a former Knesset member and deputy prime minister also told Ruddy,” if this [Iranian] regime becomes nuclear, that we (Israel) will have to act because for us that is a question for the survival of our Jewish civilization.” Sharansky’s comments carry great weight here and for policy-makers in the West. Though he resigned from the Knesset as a stalwart Likud backer in 2006, he has remained active in the political debate.

Sharansky is dubious of Obama saying, “He is definitely a big concern for me. Reflecting how many others feel he said Obama has “a little record or almost no record, while the one who he is competing with is McCain, and we know for sure his principles.” Natan also said “If Iran will not change, Israel will have to act. I think it will be very tragic if Israel has to act alone.”

The survival of the West depends on democracy, Sharansky argues. In his best-selling book, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.” Sharansky believes democracy does not mean unlimited freedom overnight, especially for states that have no history of democratic institutions (such as Iraq. Instead, he argues for the gradual development of democratic institutions which takes time and patience.

Looking out at the world, he says “our enemies look so dangerous because they have a strong will.” This means they have beliefs they are ready to die for. “The free world, if it does not have values for which people are ready to die, will be powerless, its people decadent. It will be doomed to failure.”

Saransky laments weakened faith and patriotism in Europe and elsewhere. When describing Europe Sharansky paraphrases, John Lenons song “Imagine”as a place where there is no hell and no paradise, no borders, no nations, in a world where there is nothing to die for. He calls Europe a tragedy, but he says of America, “in general, its society is still healthy” underscoring the need for stalwart leadership.

His argument is “if you don’t stand for something- you’ll fall for anything.”

Murderer of eight will end life in pirson.

Despite 18 of 23 witnesses urging her compassionate release California’s Board of Parole Hearings denied convicted killer and Charles Manson follower Susan Atkins, who is dying of brain cancer. Relatives of victims she brutally murdered in the 1960s, insisted that Atkins should serve out her life prison sentence. The gist of those who argued for her to die in prison as sentenced was “you’ll hear nothing from the nine people in their graves who died horrendous deaths at the hands of Susan Atkins.” Atkins was among the Manson “family” members who invaded the home of actress Sharon Tate it was Atkins who stabbed eight and one-half month pregnant Tate 16 times, then “tasted her blood” and wrote the word PIG on the front door in Tate’s blood. Adkins is also implicated in seven other murders.

Atkins, 60 has been denied parole 12 times in the 37 years she has been in prison, and is believed to have six months to live due to a terminal brain cancer.

Polls show more than 70-percent of Americans favor opening up our coastal waters for renewed oil exploration and production. Some support drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) too.

And voters say they’d vote for such a measure if it were on an upcoming national ballot.

Now, it is a matter of finding a politician with the cojones to author such a bill that would be bitterly opposed by obstructionist Democrats.

Jihadists urged to use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West

The FBI issued a bulletin to 18,000 law enforcement agencies recently warning that al-Qaeda has made new threats to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S. targets. ABC News also reported that intelligence sources have confirmed that al-Qaeda plans to release a new video on the web sometime tomorrow. U.S. intelligence believes the terror group will advise its “jihadists to use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West.”

An FBI spokesman confirmed the threat “calling for the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against civilians.” The U.S. has no “intelligence of any specific plot or indication of a threat to the U.S.,” the Bureau spokesman said. Still, the FBI has taken the precautionary step of alerting other agencies of the potential threat. It is widely believed that Syria has been hiding Saddam’s WMDs in the Bekaa Valley since 2003 and those weapons can be and perhaps already have been made available to the terrorists.

Number One: He is likely to win.

Who does not want to be with a winner? Despite the obvious Clinton-Gore tensions, even Gore would not directly and publicly endorse him before the numbers were clear to all and all primaries were over.

Number Two: He will usher in more change than any president has for a long time.

That change will not be as complete as many want nor as much as others fear. On balance, his occupancy has a better than even chance to be positive in many ways.

Number Three: He is willing to flip flop.

Any President who is not willing to consider changes based on new information is dangerous. Knowing when to change is the art of the deal on which opposing parties will never agree on.

Number Four: He would bring a gun to the fight.

And maybe he will be adept in sensitive negotiations with a better outcomes. The take no prisoners approach of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld has not worked. They really wish they had taken no prisoners.

Number Five: He will at least temporarily bring a Barack PR Bounce to the US.

That may or may not have any lasting value, but turning down the heat at least for a while will be welcome by most Americans. But he will have to deal with difficult situations, as did Bush.

62% Support Offshore Drilling

A Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll reports a delayed bounce for Barack in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio now that Hillary is out of the way. The bounce is based on young voters and blacks (90% support him) while mature White voters and especially men do not. A Rasmussen Poll released at 9Am PST Thursday still has Obama 45-McCain 42%. McCain seems glued to the 42% figure. 62% agree with McCain on ending the offshore drilling moratorium; including 61% of Floridians where Rasmussen contradicts Quinipiac finding McCain leads, and that will help him while only 27% agree with Obama’s opposition to it and that hurts him. Not unexpectedly 85% of Republican agree with McCain on offshore drilling and surprisingly Democrats are split at 45%.

52% says Congress is doing a poor job, and 30% says it Is corrupt only 11% says it is doing a good or excellent job. 64% says the Democrat control Congress, now 233 Democrat and 202 Republican, has done nothing to improve American life. 73% say member of Congress are only interested in improving their own political career.

Stop the biased reporting. Show us the real story.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project said that nearly 30 percent of adults have used the Internet to read or watch unfiltered campaign material - footage of debates, position papers, announcements and transcripts of speeches.

“They want to see the full-blown campaign event. They want to read the speech from beginning to end,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew group. “It’s a push back from the sound-bite culture.”