Obama the Pragmatist

Obama has been accused of being a flip-flopper for his dubious stands on NAFTA, gun control, FISA, and public campaign financing. I for one don't mind the flip-flopping, if you can call it that. Obama has always claimed to be a pragmatist, not an ideologue. Instead of clinging to very liberal positions to please a narrow base of hardcore activists, he has decided to take more practical positions that will appeal to democrats as well as independents and perhaps disgruntled republicans. If he keeps this pragmatic approach, I think he will get a lot done once he is elected president. Pols in Washington will hopefully learn to take on less partisan and more practical approach to their work as well.

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Distribution of Wealth in the US

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I heard this statement quite a bit lately particularly in light of the sub-prime mortgage and general housing crisis in the US. The country has enjoyed significant economic prosperity and both Clinton and Bush boasted economic growth under their reign. Unfortunately, the beneficiaries of the economic boom are not people from all economic backgrounds, but rather the top 10%. To make things worse, Bush gave tax cuts mainly targeting the top 10%. Being more of a numbers guy, I always wanted showing the validity of the-rich-get-richer-n-the-poor-get-poorer statement. Thanks to Wikipedia , I have finally found it!! Both the mean and median net worth of families for the bottom 50% of the population has remained absolutely flat while the 75th-90th percentile see a decent growth and the top 10% enjoy the most appreciation on their net worth. So, if you factor in inflation, the-rich-get-richer-n-the-poor-get-poorer probably holds true. The g...

An Exercise in Obstinacy, Deception, and Self-Destruction

There is no other way to describe the policies of the current leadership in Eritrea. Please watch this appalling interview of the Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki with Riz Khan of Aljazeera and come up with your own series of adjectives to describe that incredible exchange. The fact that Eritreans are dying under the oppressive and misguided dictatorship of Isaias Afeworki frightens and saddens me very much. The fact that there is no immediate hope is downright depressing.

Victim of Asylum Roulette

Not too many stories resonate with me as much as the plight of legitimate asylum seekers whose desperate plea to find refuge in the US is ultimately decided by the questionable preference, judgment and mood of a single asylum officer (with some oversight from a regional asylum director) on one fateful day. That decision, according to numerous credible and through studies, depends largely on the location of the regional asylum center, the legal representation of the the applicant, the gender of the asylum officer just as much as the merit of the asylum case, while in fact the legitimacy of the asylum case should be the only relevant factor. This phenomenon has become so real that researchers at the Georgetown University law school have dubbed it the Refugee Roulette . Why am I so sensitive about this subject? My most devastating tragedy of late has been the denial of my legitimate and honest application for political asylum at the Chicago Asylum Office. When I applied believing the ...

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