Yet another reason why non-citizens should be "entitled" to vote. If we're taking worldwide action, then shouldn't illegal aliens have a say in it?

Ironically, it would be in their best interest to oppose Edwards, since money spent on foreigners in foreign countries is money that can't be spent on foreigners in the U.S.

Too bad this proposal won't be debated in Nevada.

For so many different reasons, Annie, I agree.

Wasn't the Cal win over UCLA wonderful last week?

Having FU money, tends to reveal the inner nutter.

What I really love about the not-so-Golden Bears is they win so few, that when a win does come along they celebrate it as if it is the Second Coming.

They are truly the Chicago Cubs of California.

Shell, are you trying to say that they're... "faggots"?

Nah, just losers.

I haven't come up with a name yet. It would be a new cabinet member whose responsibly would be America's efforts to fight global poverty," said Edwards.

Hint, John -- The U.S. government already has this person -- The U.S. Director of Foreign Assistance and USAID Administrator in the State Department

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/79748.pdf

Shuffling Cabinet seats isn't "transformational" == and wait until your Secretary of State nominee pushes back on taking USAID out of State..

Notes from his speech -

"It is a path in which we argue over fuel standards while global warming gets worse" -- of course, he doesn't mention it's as much the blocking efforts of the Dem delegation from Michigan and Auto Workers Union as it is Republicans on that issue

"Democratic rights allow poor citizens to force their countries to create more progressive laws, fight oppression and demand economic stability. Economic initiatives like microfinance and micro-insurance can spark entrepreneurship, allowing people to transform their own lives." -- Well, those sentiments have been foundational elements of the current administration (read both the 2002 and 2006 National Security Strategy). In fact, the backlash from other nations has focused on the current administration's point of equating U.S. national interests with U.S. national values (see President Bush's 2d inaugural address). Secretary Rice has finally started to tone down this sentiment (democracy was noticeably absent in her last discussions on the Middle East).

We've been trying microfinancing for a few years now. Although moderately successful, what seems to be absent from Edwards' discussion is the appreciation that true economic development, especially not single commodity driven, requires stability, good governance, and some basic infrastructure first. Look at the course of economic development versus development of "democracies" in the Western Hemisphere. (No, I'm not saying go back to the era of land-owning elites, but the challenges of balancing economic development with democracy transition is far more complex than suggesting democractic rights will be the cureall for poverty.)

President Bush said yesterday that reducing global poverty will be a priority-- that was in Summer 2001...Every global poverty policy initiative Edwards mentioned (except the Cabinet position) has already been adopted/tried by the current Administration...so much for transformational.

Seems like the equivalent counterpart of the Republicans' PNAC, though Steve is right about some overlap with USAID.

Edwards is a liberal, just like our President. For such people, national interests are secondary to the creed that they suppose that nation is defined by and that supercedes that nation's particular interest insofar as it conflicts with that creed.

It's become clear that for Bush conservatism is not about conserving anything tangible and historical. It is, instead, about the march of abstractions: Free Markets, Democracy, Color Blindness, Tolerance. America is redefined as a few slogans. When conservatives dare to intervene---noting that people are not all the same, are not equally trustworthy, that generalizations are sometimes called for, and that Arabs and Muslims are the demographic source of most of the terror threat we face---Bush closes his ears and questions their good faith. In immigration and airline security, the color-blind policy might endanger actual Americans whom Bush is charged to protect. But this is all no matter to Bush.

Under Bush's grandiose liberal philosophy, his role is not to advance the parochial and particular good of America, even when their interest is as basic as self-defence. It's instead to suport the triumph of these universal values. Edwards takes this liberal belief to its logical conclusion. We all are being asked to take one for the team. And the team is not our country. The team is the whole human race, which would supposedy recoil in horror if we behaved like a normal, preliberal society. Why else have we not done more to deport illegals after 9/11? Why else hasn't Bush spoken out forcefully about the Muslim overraction to a few cartoons in an obscure Danish paper? Why else do people in other nations (such as Nigerian Christians) react so differently and more predictably compared to westeners when they're harassed by Muslim minorities?

For Bush, America is the creedal nation. And the creed supercedes the objective interests of that nation in things like national security, job security, stable ethnic relations, and the dominance of the English langage and our historical Christian culture. Like so much else in liberalism, our objective decline and endangerment is justified as the supposed march of universal justice. Our meek defenses are recast as offensive "attacks." This is why James Burnham called liberalism an "ideology of western suicide." Making the interests of the world's poor--which should be a secondary consideration--a cabinet level responsibility is yet another logical manifestation of this kind of confusion.

The biggest single factor lifting the developing world out of poverty has been trade. There is nothing that an Edwards "secretary of poverty fixing" could begin to do for poverty in India (for example) that would remotely compensate for the damage done by the draconian trade restrictions likely under a Democratic administration.

I have to disagree with Roach on one thing. Jyllands-Posten may be obscure to Americans, but in Denmark it is their number one newspaper.

Annie, that just makes it the sparliest leash at the chihuahua show.

Says the guy named "Leif."

. . . who can't spell "sparkliest" with a "k."

Call Bono. He might be ready for a cabinet position in our government.