Great reviews of Obama's speech
Source:
http://www.americablog.com
Friday, August 29, 2008
John Aravosis (DC) · 8/29/2008 10:55:00 AM ET

MSNBC Pat Buchanan – “It was a genuinely outstanding speech. It was magnificent. It is the finest – and I saw Cuomo’s speech, I saw Kennedy in ‘80, I even saw Douglas MacArthur, I saw Martin Luther King – this is the greatest convention speech, and probably the most important because unlike Cuomo and the others this is an acceptance speech. This came out of the heart of America and he went right at the heart of America…”

FOX Bill Kristol – “Barack Obama faced very high expectations tonight and honestly I think he met them and I honestly think he exceeded them…He eloquently explained America’s promise. He explained why the Bush Cheney administration had fallen short of that…I thought it was an awfully impressive performance.

CNN David Gergen – “In many ways it was less a speech than a symphony…It was a masterpiece”

MSNBC Tom Brokaw – “It was a wonderfully crafted political speech and the Republicans I’m sure were looking in and wondering what they’re going to be able to do next week to match it”

CNN Paul Begala – “He went fearlessly at John McCain’s greatest strength, national security. He went proudly into the social issue terrain that Democrats are usually so afraid of. He went boldly attacking the status quo of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and then he went very comfortably in your living room…This is my ninth convention, it was as very nearly a perfect convention speech as I can imagine…”

MSNBC Chris Matthews – “I thought it was amazing – I’ve written speeches all my life, of course nothing like this…It was a great way of throwing back the other side’s best shot and saying it’s full of crap”

CNN Campbell Brown – “If anybody ever thought that Barack Obama was not tough enough to run against John McCain this speech should really put an end to that…”

FOX Chris Wallace – “I thought it was an exceedingly smart speech in which Barack Obama played offense and defense very effectively.”

CNN – Sen. Clinton delegates on Obama’s speech:

Jessica Yellin: “I have three people who as you say have been following this for a long time. Two of these women are Hillary Clinton supporters and I wanted to ask you first…

Woman: “Were.”

Yellin: “Were Hillary Clinton supporters. What turned you tonight?

Woman: “His speech, and I like her enjoyed it all but the end is what got me. You know, it’s a dream and it’s going to come true we gotta’ work for it. That’s what I got out of it.”

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Barack Obama | The American Promise
Thursday 28 August 2008
by: Barack Obama

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation;

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest – a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours -- Hillary Rodham Clinton. To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

SOCHI, Russia (CNN) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of orchestrating the conflict in Georgia to benefit one of its presidential election candidates.

In an exclusive interview with CNN's Matthew Chance in the Black Sea city of Sochi Thursday, Putin said the U.S. had encouraged Georgia to attack the autonomous region of South Ossetia.

Putin told CNN his defense officials had told him it was done to benefit a presidential candidate -- Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are competing to succeed George W. Bush -- although he presented no evidence to back it up.

Kabul - A United Nations team has found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed in US-led air strikes last week, the body's representative in Afghanistan said Tuesday.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) human rights team was sent to the western province of Herat after local claims that scores of civilians were killed in Friday's strikes.

"Investigations by UNAMA found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men," special representative Kai Eide said.

Aug 10 (Reuters) - Georgian forces pulled out of the breakaway South Ossetia region on Sunday after three days of fighting and Russian troops took most of the capital.

Here is a chronology of events in South Ossetia:

November 1989 - South Ossetia declares autonomy from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, triggering three months of fighting.

December 1990 - Georgia and South Ossetia begin a new armed conflict which lasts until 1992.

June 1992 - Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian leaders meet in Sochi, sign an armistice and agree the creation of a tripartite peacekeeping force of 500 soldiers from each entity.

WASHINGTON — After four years pursuing one former Army scientist on a costly false trail, F.B.I. agents investigating the deadly anthrax letters of 2001 finally zeroed in last year on a different suspect: another Army scientist from the same biodefense research center at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md.

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, is worried about the giant mercenary firm's latest foray into private intelligence. "They're marketing their services to not only foreign governments, but to Fortune 500 corporations," he recently told an interviewer.

The forthcoming paperback edition of Scahill's book on Blackwater, which appeared in hardcover in February 2007, will include 100 pages of new material, including a discussion of last September's shooting spree in Baghdad by Blackwater operatives -- which killed 17 Iraqi civilians but for which nobody has ever been charged.

Dear Senator Obama,

We write to congratulate you on the tremendous achievements of your campaign for the presidency of the United States.

The president knows, as his own administration has stated, that the impact of any new drilling will be insignificant -- promising savings of only pennies per gallon many years down the road. Americans know that thanks to the two oilmen in the White House, consumers are now paying $4 a gallon for gas.

The Drake Landing Solar Community is the first community to be completely solar powered in all of North America. It is located within the town limits of Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. This development is a prime example of how simple living a greener lifestyle truly is. Located throughout the community you’ll notice over 800 solar panels on garage roofs, they are responsible for the production of 1.5 mega-watts of thermal power during the summer and work to supply heat to the district heating system. The entire system meets 90% of the annual heating and hot water needs of the community’s residents.

Before the largest crowd of his campaign, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago.

Levees holding the Rio Grande appear to be safe; 12 inches of rain forecast

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Hurricane Dolly slammed into the South Texas coast Wednesday with punishing rain and winds of 100 mph, blowing down signs, damaging an apartment complex and knocking out power to thousands before weakening over land.

Petroleos Mexicanos, struggling as oil production declines, may drill for crude outside Mexico for the first time unless lawmakers approve hiring foreign partners for domestic offshore projects.

Chief Executive Officer Jesus Reyes Heroles said the company, known as Pemex, may court partners on the U.S. side of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Cuba and in Latin America unless Congress adopts oil reforms proposed by President Felipe Calderon. Pemex needs foreign help because it doesn't have the technology to drill in water deeper than 500 meters (1,640 feet), he said.

``If we can't learn it here, we have to learn somewhere else,'' Reyes Heroles, 56, said in an interview in Mexico City. "We could partner with other companies."

...Seeing the video of a 20-floor building submerging into the asphalt as if it was liquid is something that belongs to a sci-fi movie. The stunning process--called daruma-otoshi--is not only almost surrealistic but it helps to reduce the environmental impact...

...How do they do it?

PARIS (AFP) - New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday.

Images taken by its Envisat remote-sensing satellite show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is "hanging by its last thread" to Charcot Island, one of the plate's key anchors to the Antarctic peninsula, ESA said in a press release.

Artist Trevor Paglen's time-exposure photographs show the streaks of light left by classified satellites.: Photo: Trevor PaglenERKELEY, California -- For most people, photographing something that isn't there might be tough. Not so for Trevor Paglen.His shots of 189 secret spy satellites are the subject of a new exhibit -- despite the fact that, officially speaking, the satellites don't exist.

The Other Night Sky, on display at the University of California at Berkeley Art Museum through September 14, is only a small selection from the 1,500 astrophotographs Paglen has taken thus far.

In taking these photos, Paglen is trying to draw a metaphorical connection between modern government secrecy and the doctrine of the Catholic Church in Galileo's time.

"What would it mean to find these secret moons in orbit around the earth in the same way that Galileo found these moons that shouldn't exist in orbit around Jupiter?" Paglen says.

Crude oil has risen 700 percent in seven years; the lack of oversight has allowed companies like Phibro to pull in huge and questionable profits.

Seizing Laptops and Cameras Without CauseA controversial customs practice creates a legal backlash Returning from a brief vacation to Germany in February, Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C.

Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change

It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.