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POPS..and One Rumour Obama Cannot Dispel "Fact: Obama is eighth cousin to Cheney, according to research by the vice-president's wife Lynne. The two men share a common ancestor in a 17th-century French immigrant." Crikey, I think I would shoot myself if I shared common ancestry with war monger Cheney.
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POPSMoney spent on war vs cost of health care reforms According to the Center for Defense Information, the total cost of the war in Afghanistan will reach $439.8 billion by the end of 2009. The United States, which spent exactly 10 times more on Afghanistan in 2008 ($140 billion) than it spent in 2002 ($14 billion), increased such efforts by $33 billion in just the last year. Obama's escalation, largely overshadowed by the health reform's incendiary spectacle, has been swift and significant. It's also showing no signs of slowing down. On Thursday, a Senate subcommittee approved 2010's $636.3 billion defense appropriations bill. Of this, $128.2 billion has been set aside for "overseas contingency operations." Simple multiplication tells us that the cost of maintaining this rate of defense spending for the next decade would eventually make Afghanistan $300 billion more expensive than the health care overhaul's projected cost. And that's just dollars and cents...
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POPSSmile on the face of the tiger - John Pilger The day after Baby Zu’rob died in Gaza, President Barack Obama made his “historic” speech in Cairo, “reaching out to the Muslim world”, reported the BBC. “Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” said Obama, “does not serve Israel’s security.” That was all. The killing of 1,300 people in what is now a concentration camp merited 17 words, cast as concern for the “security” of the killers. This was understandable. During the January massacre, Seymour Hersh reported that “the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ‘smart bombs’ and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel” for use in Gaza.