Ron Paul for President

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul a Republican congressman from Texas has decided to run for the Presidency. A Physician by profession, he has been in politics since 1976 representing the state of Texas. According to his website:

Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency.

The following video clip is an interview conducted by MSNBC - Under the Radar
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=4oWXbxgKbh0]

The Clinton Money Machine

The Hillary Clinton campaign announced that for the first quarter 2007 new contributions to her Presidential bid totaled $26 million. She also transferred $10 million from her Senate campaign for a total of $36 million. John Edwards came in a distant but still impressive second with $14 million in new contributions. Barak Obama has not yet announced his totals but is expected to come in somewhere between Clinton and Edwards.

Clinton seems to be well on the way to achieving her goal of $75 million by the end of the year. Former Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner, a Republican, said Clinton is on track to raise a record $100 million this year. "The question is going to be which other campaign can join her at that level," he said.

Clinton's total, helped by her Senate campaign transfer and inflated by the unknown amount for the general election, exceeds the $31 million that all presidential candidates reported raising in the first three months of 2003.

Both US and Iran disliked by Arabs

In a recent poll conducted in five Arab countries (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon) both the US and Iran are seen as having a negative influence on Iraq. The negatives for the US is higher but Iran seems to be catching up as more countries become wary of the Iranian influence in the region.

Negative Views of the roles of the US and Iran in Iraq

Saudi Arabia .... US = 68%, Iran = 78%
Egypt................ US = 83%, Iran = 66%
Jordan ................. US = 96%, Iran = 73%

The new survey, which was based on interviews with 3,400 Arabs in the five countries between late February and early March, also found the greatest fear about Iraq was the possible consequences of civil war there. They feared that either the war in Iraq was going to spill over into neighboring countries or that Iraq would be split up.

Even though Iran's negatives are rising there is more support for its nuclear program:
Six of every ten respondents in that poll said they believed that Iran had the right to pursue its nuclear program even if its aim was to develop nuclear weapons

Most countries do not see Iran as a threat: Asked to name the two greatest external threats to their countries' security, close to 80 percent named Israel and the U.S. -- only six percent cited Iran as one of the two.

Arab public opinion favors a relatively quick U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: Nearly three out of every four respondents in Egypt and Jordan said they favored an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, while large pluralities in the other three countries favored that option

Saudi Arabia rebukes US

In a move that caught Washington completely off guard and sent shock waves throughout the world, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called the US presence in Iraq an "illegitimate foreign occupation". These comments were made at a two-day Arab summit held in Riyadh.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=JaHJ3dj3omg]

It marks the first time that Saudi Arabia has publicly criticised the US role in Iraq. It also appears to be a signal that the Saudis are moving to take on a more visible leadership role in the region and is not afraid to bump heads with the US to achieve its goals. They have been very active lately in tackling the problems in the region. They have held reconciliation talks with Palestinian factions, discussed Iran's nuclear ambitions and been involved in the situation in Lebanon.

The recent Saudi moves may be an effort to contain the influence of Iran in the region, which has been involved in everything from Palestinian politics to confrontation with the West over its nuclear program. It has provided financial and military support to many factions including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and Shiites in Iraq.

Saudi King Abdallah said that the United States was occupying Iraq and made it clear that he was on the side of his “brothers”.

“In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war.”

In response, the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said the term occupation has “negative implications” and is “in contradiction” to the vision of “Iraqi patriotic and national forces.”

The US, obviously taken by surprise by the King's remarks said:

"The United States and Saudi Arabia have a close and cooperative relationship on a wide range of issues," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "And when it comes to the coalition forces being in Iraq, we are there under the U.N. Security Council resolutions and at the invitation of the Iraqi people."

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told senators. "We disagree with them, we were a little surprised to see those remarks."

The public rebuke of the US by the Saudis also seems to indicate that the government of Iraq is not quite accepted in the rest of the Arab world and lacks legitimacy in the eyes of its neighbors. There are no Arab embassies in Iraq and no Arab states have formerly recognised the al-Maliki Shiite-led government. The summit has taken a tough line on Iraq, demanding it change its constitution and military to include more Sunnis and end a program of uprooting former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party. The Sunni-led governments of the Arab world have long been suspicious of Iraq's Shiite leadership, blaming it for fueling violence by discriminating against Sunni Arabs and accusing it of helping mainly Shiite Iran extend its influence in the region.

Sex on the Net

Sex has a never ending fascination for most of us. Here are some sex-related stories found on the Internet that are not your ordinary run of the mill features.

• Russian surgeons 'grow' penis on man's forearm
  
  
  
  • Sergei, 28, who lives in a village in Siberia was born with genitals so small that he was unable to have sex. He has now been given a chance at having a normal love life by his surgeon Professor Mikhail Sokolshchik. The operation involved removing the penis, stitching it unto the patient's forearm, grafting addtional flesh and tissue and re-attaching it to his groin.
    
    The 11 hour operation was an apparent success. Sergei should soon be able to have sex for the first time. He will not be able to achieve an erection, but will be in a permanent state of semi-arousal. "He has never had a partner or sex because of his micropenis," Prof Sokolshchik said.
    
    
    
    • Prof Sokolshchik, who has specialised in microsurgery and phalloplasty - plastic surgery for male sexual organs - for 13 years, said: "We've carried out thousands of operations on patients, ranging from female-to-male transsexuals to the treatment of victims of horrific accidents, and have a wealth of experience in amputation, reconstruction and surgical implants. "But this operation was highly risky because it was an amputation, reconstruction and reattachment in one go. If it had gone wrong, the patient would have ended up with no genitalia at all."
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

• Anti-rape device to hit market - and rapists
  
  
  
  • The device, known as Rapex, has stirred controversy around the world but its inventor, Sonnet Ehlers, is preparing the final pre-production phase after seven years of waiting. The controversy has raged over whether the device, which has fish-like teeth that attach to the head and shaft of the penis, is a medieval device built on a hatred of men or whether it is an easy-to-use invention that could free millions of South African women from fear of rape.
  
  
  
  




• Judge Rules in Transvestite Case
  
  
  
  • Ferris Griggs of Kansas City, Kan., sued Josie Garcia of Kansas City, claiming that Garcia had defrauded him by pretending to be a woman. Griggs wanted the judge to remove Garcia's name from a deed to a $20,000 house they co-own. Griggs also gave Garcia a $2,500 engagement ring, but didn't ask for that back. The judge eventually ruled that the house should be sold and the proceeds be split between the couple.
  
  
  
  




• Former Judge Collapses as He's Sentenced for Child Porn
  
  
  
  • Ronald Kline, 66, fell into his attorney's arms as Judge Consuelo B. Marshall was announcing his sentence shortly after noon. Court proceedings were temporarily halted and paramedics summoned.
    He was arrested in November 2001 after a Canadian hacker used a computer program to download diary entries and other images from the former judge's computers. The hacked information was turned over to Pedowatch, a Colorado watchdog group, which notified Irvine, Calif., authorities. Police searched Kline's Irvine home and seized his computer. Kline pleaded guilty and acknowledged he had more than 100 sexually explicit images of young boys stored on disks and his computer. Kline served a six-year term as a judge before bowing out of the November 2002 election. Upon his release from prison, he must register as a sex offender.