Leo the Lion in His Element

BRILLIANT response. Cagey, too. Taps into what most viewers felt. Delivered in North Carolina, not Pennsylvania. He's got game. And then there's this:



I bet Obama's campaign headquarters have been bombarded with donations since last night.

Live Blogging - The Philadelphia 'Debate'

9:46 - Final questions. Superdelegates. How do you make the case? Yawn. Nothing on terrorism, torture, education, poverty, education, trade. ABC should be ashamed to call itself a media outlet. That was the worst debate of the season in front of the biggest audience and all we're left with is judging the candidate's demeanor and personality. Nothing was said that would make any undecided voter move toward or away from either candidate. So much for all the enthusiasm of this primary election. It's definitely a movie that has gone on too long.

9:40 - How would you use Dubya Bush in your administration? Hillary would have to think about it. Barack would use H.W. Bush's foreign policy philosophy.

9:33 - Affirmative action time. Barack repeats his belief that quotas based on race or gender don't work. A whole picture of the person needs to be taken into consideration. Hillary gives a policy wonk answer, but no philosophy. Running out of time and now they're talking about gas prices. Hillary is rushing. Can't catch her points really. Windfall profit tax. Talks about infrastructure rebuilding. She has a plan for energy independence, of course. So does Barack. Price gouging. Market manipulation. Windfall profit tax. Fuel efficiency standards raised. Renewable energy projects. Blah, blah, blah.

9:24 - It's gun time. An issue important to Pennsylvanians to be sure. But a wedge issue. No blanket statements will suffice. Hillary invokes Mayor Nutter and violence in Philadelphia. Will bring back the cops program and the assault weapons ban. She talks about balance. Protect rights of lawful gun owners but keep guns out of the wrong hands. I can't imagine Barack feels any differently. He doesn't. But he puts on his constitutional lawyer hat and he nails it. But there's no difference between the candidates on this. Next.

9:12 - It's social security time. Barack defends raising the cap for the social security tax of $97,000. Hillary invokes her husband's administration. Blah, blah, blah. More posturing. Campaign rhetoric. And still no discussion of urban issues. This debate is a non-event.

9:04 - It's economy time. George starts with a McCain gaffe about the "audIcity" of hope and Hillary cackles. Now she's going to talk about the 90s. Yup. Thought so. Promises not to raise taxes on the middle class. Blah, blah, blah. Another website plug. Barack's turn. Offset payroll tax to give tax cuts to the middle class. Other stuff we also heard before. Who are these moderators? These are not questions. These are talking points with no creativity behind him. Now Barack is being asked about capitol gains taxes. Here's where Barack talks about making the tax code more fair. Pay as you go. He really reminds me of Bill Clinton. Without the slime. That's why they want to destroy him. He's doing Bill Clinton better than Bill Clinton. Leos don't like to be upstaged. Especially by other Leos. Hillary starts in with all the buzz words that are supposed to get middle class votes. But she's not actually saying anything. She praises Gov. Rendell. For what I'm not sure.

8:57 - Barack's turn. The President sets the mission. The generals and our troops carry out that mission. He will always listen, he says, to the commanders on the ground regarding tactics but the buck stops with him as commander-in-chief. George asks about Iran. Barack will do whatever is required to keep Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons. This debate is whacked. The control freak moderators who told the audience that they couldn't engage in the debate with any applause for the responses has drained the energy out of this talk fest. Now Hillary is blabbering about diplomacy in the Middle East and I'm not following it. Not because it's Hillary talking (I didn't follow Barack's foreign policy chatter either), but because we've heard some version of all of this before.

8:52 - It's war time. Do the candidates have a real plan to get us out of Iraq? a voter asks. How is that going to happen with what's going on on the ground? Charles asks if the military commanders came around on day one and advised against a withdrawal, would she order the troops home? She says yes. The civilians control the military. She will begin withdraw troops within 60 days. No matter what. She talks about intense diplomacy. She has been convinced and clear about her troop withdrawal plan. She's making up debate time (Barack was talking a lot) and chattering a lot about Iraq and Afghanistan.

8:38 - A voter asks Barack about how he feels about the American flag because he doesn't wear a flag lapel pin. (Hillary isn't wearing one either, by the way.) Barack gives a brief remark about how his story couldn't have happened in any other country except this one. And then says he expresses his patriotism through working for veterans and making sure the economy takes care of people. And then William Ayers and the Weather Underground comes up. Barack cussed George out. Hillary pounces. But he served on a board with Ayers. She's not right. But I knew that already. Barack slammed her. He was ready. She wouldn't pass her own vetting process because her husband pardoned two members of the Weather Underground before he left office. Her face cracked. Next.

8:32 - It's Tuzla time. A voter who's no longer voting for Hillary asks how she can get his vote back since she lied about what happened. Her attitude is outrageous.

8:22 - It's Wright time. Charles asks about what Obama knew about his statements that caused him to rescind his invitation to introduce his candidacy. Blah, blah, blah. Now Hillary is asked about it. She's agitated. But she has to say that for Pastor Wright to have given his first sermon after 9/11 and to have blamed it on us would have been intolerable for her. Just a personal reflection that regardless of whatever good is going on, you choose your pastor and she would not have stayed in the church. George jumps in and asks if Wright loves America as much as he does. We're almost half and hour in, and there are no questions about issues related to Philadelphia or Pennsylvania specifically. Yawn. (Hillary tries to make the Wright, Farrakhan, Hamas connection to make Obama look like a radical anti-Semite who supports Palestine. Yawn.)

8:16 - George steps in. Asks Hillary about her conversation with Bill Richardson. "Can Senator Obama beat John McCain." Hillary doesn't answer directly. Speaks about being on the receiving end on what the Republicans dish out. George asks again. "Can he win.?" "Yes. Yes. Yes. But I can do a better job." Barack says that he believes Hillary can win too. Talks about being a person of faith and a candidate who has reached out more to people of faith than any other candidate. And then he smacks Hillary. Tells us that she's using the same tactics she's learned when under attack by the Republican machine. Hillary rebuts (not very well, mind you - Barack came to fight) with a weak argument about getting every vote. Then turns to her passion for empowering people. Talks about respect and connection.

8:12 - Bittergate on the table. Barack concedes that he understands why people were offended. Clarifies for the umpteenth time (nervously, I might add). Hillary rebuts with her biography and uses the word "cling" several times.

8:07 - Gilbert asks about the voting in many states. He asks to no one that they commit to each other as running mates as Cuomo suggesting. Obama bites first. Says its premature to discuss running mates.

8:04 - Hillary opens with a discussion about the promise of America. She's wearing a soft green. She pumps her website. Says we the people can keep the promise.

8:00 - The National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gilbert introduces the debate, who are standing behind podiums away from each other. This could get ugly. Obama goes first. He speaks about the frustrations of Pennsylvanians in his preamble. About changing it into something more hopeful. He's wearing his usual dark suit and light tie.

7:52 - The debate begins in less than ten minutes, and I'm calmer than I expected I would be. I don't like presidential debates. Never have. And if their basic format doesn't change, I never will. One of the reasons is because the questions tend toward "gotcha" than they do anything actually relevant to my concerns and my life. Since Obama has weathered yet another smear campaign and Hillary Rodham Nixon is getting blasted in the polls while it turns out she told her husband to "screw" southern working-class whites, corporatists are getting nervous. Obama could lock down this nomination sooner rather than later. Corporatists are getting nervous. Corporatists will do anything to hold onto their power. See: Bill and Hillary Rodham Nixon. See: the mainstream broadcast networks. See: ABC, the hose of tonight's debate. Expect to hear a lot about Rezko and Wright and Ayers and Farrakhan and bitter guns, but not that much about Tuzla and Columbia and $109 million and "Screw 'em." And I don't trust George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson. We'll see.

Condeezza Rice: Race in U.S. a ‘Birth Defect’

Calls Black Americans a ‘Founding Population’

CONDOLEEZZA RICE has always perplexed me. Many Black conservatives do. She's made history as the first Black woman to serve as Secretary of State. But I've never been a fan. She's a Scorpio, after all. As is Hillary Clinton. Scorpios who haven't evolved behind their need for deep secrecy turn me off. Which means I probably still won't be a fan of Secretary Rice even after she has opened up about race in America in an interview with the Washington Times editorial board yesterday. But never throw the baby out with the bath water. Secretary Rice has continued a discussion that Barack Obama began on March 18, and even though she didn't have to defend an overblown controversy in doing so, she hit the nail on the head. Here are the pertinent responses:

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I wanted to ask a question that has absolutely nothing to do with any other country. (Laughter.) We're pulling up on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. And regardless of what race we were or what class we belonged to, it was a devastating time for America, without a doubt. And there's so much talk about race in the race for the White House. What, if any, lessons do you think Americans, as a whole, have learned since then?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, it's -- America doesn't have an easy time dealing with race. I sit in my office and the portrait immediately over my shoulder is Thomas Jefferson, because he was my first predecessor. He was the first Secretary of State. And sometimes I think to myself, what would he think -- (laughter) -- a black woman Secretary of State as his predecessor 65 times removed -- successor, 65 times removed? What would he think that the last two successors have been black Americans? And so, obviously, when this country was founded, the words that were enshrined in all of our great documents and that have been such an inspiration to people around the world, for the likes of Vaclav Havel, associate themselves with those documents. They didn't have meaning for an overwhelming element of our founding population. And black Americans were a founding population. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together; Europeans by choice, and Africans in chains.

And that's not a very pretty reality of our founding, and I think that particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today. But that relevance comes in two strains. On the one hand, there's the relevance that descendents of slaves, therefore, did not get much of a head start. And I think you continue to see some of the effects of that. On the other hand, the tremendous efforts of many, many, many people, some of whom, whose names we will never know and some individuals’ names who we do know, to be impatient with this country for not fulfilling its own principles, has led us down a path that has put African Americans in positions and places that, I think, nobody would have even thought at the time that Dr. King was assassinated. And so we deal daily with this contradiction, this paradox about America, that on the one hand, the birth defect continues to have effects on our country, and indeed, on the discourse and effects on perhaps the deepest thoughts that people hold; and on the other hand, the enormous progress that has been made by the efforts of blacks and whites together, to finally fulfill those principles.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) Barack (inaudible) speech about race -- did you listen to it?

SECRETARY RICE: I did and, you know, I think it was important that he gave it for a whole host of reasons. But look, I'm not going to talk about the politics. What I'm talking about is how -- you asked me about Dr. King and race in America. And I'm telling you that there is a paradox for this country and a contradiction of this country and we still haven't resolved it. But what I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them, and that's our legacy.

My grandmother and my great-grandmother, and my father, who endured terrible humiliations growing up -- and my father in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and my mother's family in Birmingham, Alabama-- still loved this country. And I've often spoken of the Civil Rights Movement as the second founding of America, because finally we started to overcome this birth defect. But if anybody believes that black Americans love this country any less than white Americans do, they ought to go and talk to people who live under very tough circumstances, sometimes doing menial labor and doing tough jobs, and really all they want is the American dream. All they're focused on is is their kid going to be well educated enough to go to college and have a better life than they had. And one of the things that attracted me to George W. Bush, one of the primary things, it was not actually foreign policy, it was No Child Left Behind. Because when he talked about the soft bigotry of low expectations, I know what that feels like.

And so to my mind, where our understanding of and conversation of race has got to go. And I mean now, race. Black Americans aren't immigrants. We may call ourselves African Americans, but we're not immigrants. We don't mimic the immigrant story. Where this conversation has got to go is that black Americans and white Americans founded this country together and I think we've always wanted the same thing. And it's been now a very hard and long struggle to begin to get to the place that we can all pursue the same thing.

Men’s Final Preview: Let’s Have Some Fun!

by Savannah

IT CAN’T be all serious all the time. Let’s take a different look at the two men who will clash tonight in the final of the Australian Open.

There are a lot of similarities between Fernando “Fena” Gonzalez and and Roger Federer. Numerologically the numbers “1” and “10” are the same regarding their seeding. Both men are Leos. Fena was born 7-29-80 making him a Leo “2”. Roger was born 8-8-81 making Roger a Leo “8” person. Sunday, January 28, 2007 is a “1” day.

Fena’s birthday, the 29th, is a two. The number “2” is ruled by the Moon. The number “8” symbolizes Saturn, called the taskmaster by some and “an old devil” by others. By the way “1” is the number of the Sun, the ruler of Leo.

As a side note Serena, born 9-26-1981, is an “8” person. Maria Sharapova, born 4-19-1987, is a “1” person.

For more on numerology visit here.

We can have even more fun.

Roger - 1981 was the Chinese Year of the Metal Rooster.

Metal Roosters can come off as arrogant and stuck up at times. They need a cushion for that overextended ego and someone to make sure it stays inflated. They are reasonable people who seem to analyze every decision they make and every situation they find themselves in. They are standoffish at times and can let their aggression get in the way of a blossoming friendship or romance. These Roosters should take a breather from their egos long enough to really enjoy what they have to offer.

Fernando - 1980 was the Chinese Year of the Metal Monkey

Persuasive and passionate, this Monkey is a warm person. He is successful due to his innate determination and ambitious nature. He works hard to climb the ladder of success and prefers to work alone. They are loyal employees, always prepared and tactful with answers and upper management. In love these Monkeys are just as loyal as well as loving and affectionate.

For more information visit this site.

Yes it’s a bridal site. But it’s one of the best sites for Chinese Astrology I’ve visited. And I visit a lot of them. Let’s note Serena was born in 1981 like Roger. If Sharapova’s birth year information is correct she was born in 1987 the year of the Fire Rabbit.

The Chinese New Year is late this year, 2-18-2007. The year is that of the Fire Boar. The Boar is ruled by water. The year is ruled by Fire. Water and Fire don’t mix do they?

What does all this mean?

Western Astrology
The moon will be in Gemini for the match. Gemini is an air sign. The sun is in Aquarius, also an air sign. With these two fire signs going at it the match should be exciting. Think of it this way. Fire needs air to burn. There will be plenty of excitement in this match.

By the way this could also explain why Serena, a Libra (Libra is an Air Sign) dominated the way she did over the Taurus woman Maria Sharapova who truly looked earthbound and plodding during their match.

Chinese Astrology

Monkeys can run circles around other people with ease. They are curious and clever people who catch on quickly to most anything. Monkey people generally can accomplish any given task. They appreciate difficult or challenging work as it stimulates them and makes them think.

A Monkey’s good memory and his ability to adapt are two of his most prized possessions. He is intelligent and stoic, able to pick new trades up quickly and easily. Monkeys are also able to do all the work in half the time it takes someone else, but will charge you double what someone else would charge. As such, Monkeys generally take occupations in the world of finance, such as banking, stock exchange or accounting

The Rooster is a flamboyant personality, feisty and obstinate. He is quite the extrovert who loves to strut his stuff and is proud of who he is. Outwardly confident, the Rooster is also a trustworthy, hardworking individual. He’ll tell it like it is with no qualms or reservations.

Roosters are more motivated than most other Animal Signs, making their careers a priority in their lives. They are hard working, flexible individuals able to stick to the given tasks. They are generally successful individuals who reach the top of their chosen professions.

The Element of Metal

Those born under the influence of the Chinese Astrology element of Metal are determined, self-reliant and forceful. You enjoy the good life and all it has to offer -- luxury, comfort and freedom, especially. You're like a reclusive film star: You want the acclaim, but you also want to be left alone. You create your own success, building your desired destiny with single-minded focus. Others look up to you in awe of your commanding, confident presence.

While Metal individuals are strong and virtuous, you can be a bit set in your ways. No arm-wrestling with the metallic ones, either; they might break that appendage in two! They can be stern taskmasters as well, demanding the most from yourself and those you love.

Numerology
Saturn is the co-ruler of Aquarius. Roger, an 8, has the celestial lights for him in this regard.

Conclusion
I see these two men very evenly matched coming into this final. With all things equal I give the edge to Federer only because he’s been here before. Gonzalez wilted last year in pressure situations. But if he stays focused and plays the way he has been he can give Federer a run for his money. The paying fans as well as the sleep-deprived ones are hoping for a good match. We just may have one.

For a more “traditional” preview, click here.

Happy Birthday!

MY New Plaid Pants says happy birthday to Jake Gyllenhaal. Have mercy. And a fellow Sagittarius, to boot. Oh, how we Centaurs love us some horses. He can ride mine anytime. [via FilmExperience]

tags: astrology, birthday, centaur, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sagittarius