———-

Transcript:

Bill Weir: “We turn to politics now and the story of a bonafide grassroots sensation. Ron Paul is the only Republican to post notable fundraising gains last quarter. [He] managed to pull in five million dollars, mostly online, a lot of it from the troops and it puts him on par with John McCain. [The] Congressman and doctor now joins us from Dulles airport in Virginia. Good morning to you sir.”

Ron Paul: “Good Morning. Thank you for having me.”

BW: “Our pleasure. So, why do you think you are the only Republican to call for an end to this war? To break from the president.”

RP: “Well, uh, I think its a message that people want to hear and, uh, I’ve been talking this way for a long time and now we’ve finally got some attention and the people are rallying behind us and they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is and the campaign keeps growing so we’re very pleased with whats happening.”

BW: “You don’t do any hand ringing when it comes to how we leave Iraq and what it means for our future and our relations in the Middle East.”

RP: “I-I’m sorry I didn’t that last — that sentence.”

BW: “[There is] so much concern about how we pull out and the Iraq we leave…”

RP: “Oh yeah, I don’t think its complicated. I mean, we just went in, we went in erroneously, we went in without the proper authority, we went in under a false pretense and all the conditions that were claimed didn’t exist — its just going badly. So I think we should just leave because staying there makes things worse. It endangers us, it increases the dangers of terrorism. There used to be six hundred Al-Qaeda [in Iraq], before we went in there, now theres probably six thousand. We don’t know. So everything we’re doing there is backfiring on us. It’s, uh, theres too many unintended consequences. So the very simple thing is that we ought to come home and mind our own business and save a lot of money and take care of problems here at home.”

BW: “You are an old school libertarian. You want to do away with Social Security, the Department of Education, the Drug Enforcement [Agency], and Abolish the IRS. How do you pay the bills then?”

RP: Well, you just spend a lot less money. You know, how did we pay our bills before 1913? We didn’t have a warfare state. We didn’t have an empire to take care of and we didn’t have a welfare state that was undermining our prosperity. So, I would say, why don’t we look to our history and look to our traditions and look to see how markets work and look to see how freedom works and pay attention to the Constitution? We really don’t need an income tax. I mean, if you didn’t have an income tax, you would have the same amount of income you had about seven years ago. So its not like its the end of the world. But you do have to cut back spending. The easiest place to cut back politically is overseas. We are spending over a trillion dollars overseas maintaining an empire which does nothing more than get us in trouble and undermines our national defense.”

BW: “Well you can see why you are a big hit on Facebook. You’re right below Paris Hilton and right above Mario Lopez on blog searches. How do you take this to the next level? How do you compete with the big money guys?”

RP: “Well we keep staying on the trajectory. I mean we’re, uh, we doubled the amount of money we raised last time. We had about 40,000 new donors. The average donation was forty dollars. So we keep doing this and we run a frugal campaign. The other campaigns are wasting their money. We have less personnel and we have more money in the bank than what we raised last quarter. We have five point three million dollars [in the bank]. If we keep doubling this we’re going to have plenty of money to advertise in the primaries. So I would say, keep doing what we’re doing. And the more people that here this message, the more they rally around us. It’s such a great message, the message of freedom and what America is all about and prosperity and hop.”

BW: “Thank you congressman, we appreciate your time. We’ll let you catch your plane”

RP: “Thanks you.”

BW: “Ron Paul. Thanks”

———-

The US military, in an attempt to win over the Afghanistan populous, decided to give soccer balls to local school children. The balls were inscribed with the name of Allah; a major no-no in the Muslim religion. They really dropped the ball on this one.

The balls were dropped, via helicopter, over the Khost province of eastern Afghanistan on Friday. They contained a small picture of the Saudi Arabian Flag which has the names of Allah and the prophet Muhammad written on it in Arabic script; something most Muslims are not too happy about kicking around.

The balls were meant to make the villagers like the American presence, a goal which quickly backfired.

The local population reacted strongly, taking offense to the notion that anyone could find it appropriate to kick a ball with Allah’s name inscribed on it.

The International Herald Tribune Reports:

Villagers were “upset and angry” when they saw the ball, said Khost governor Arsalah Jamal

“They wanted to demonstrate, but we explained to them it was a mistake,” he said.

The balls were purchased in a Kabul market and were made in — you guessed it — China. They featured the flags of many countries, one of which was that of Saudi Arabia.

Muslims often display what can be seen as extreme reactions to religious insensitivity. An example of this can be seem in the bloody protests over a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad.

Some locals had this to say:

“This ball … carries a message with it which, like an atom bomb, can cause carnage and insecurity in all parts of Afghanistan,” a leading Afghan private daily, Cheragh, said on Monday.

Fawad Ahmad, a shopkeeper in Kabul, said: “Americans themselves create insecurity by ignoring religious sensitivity, it is against Islam.

The attempt at pleasing the locals has seemingly backfired and caused even more tensions between the US soldiers and the Afghan population.

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I found this great series of YouTube videos of Ron Paul debating the war over at LewRockwell.com.  Go check it out!

Three armed robots, nicknamed SWORDS, have begun patrolling the streets of Iraq. The robots “haven’t fired their weapons yet,” says Michael Zecca, the SWORDS program manager, “But that’ll be happening soon.”

Robots on the streets of Iraq is far from a new occurrence. In fact, they have been there since the beginning of the occupation. This is, however, the first time in the history of armed conflict that the patrolling robots have been equipped with weaponry.

SWORDS, an acronym meaning “special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system”, are equipped with M249 machine guns.

Robots, in the past, have mainly been used for surveillance and bomb-disposal.

The SWORDS were originally declared ready for duty in 2004 but safety concerns kept them off the streets. Some of the machines had a problem where they would inexplicable spin out of control.

Hopefully these problems have been fixed.

The ‘bots now have kill switches and electronic and manual safeties to help prevent any disastrous mistakes.