Artisans

How do we generate the jobs needed to sustain our middle class and pay for new infrastructure? It would require a different kind of politics — one that doesn’t conform to either party’s platform. We will have to raise some taxes to generate revenue, like on energy or maybe a value-added tax, and lower others, on payrolls to stimulate work, and on multinational corporations to get them to bring the trillion dollars they have offshore back to the U.S. for investment. We will have to adjust some services, like Social Security, while we invest in new infrastructure, like high-speed rail and Internet bandwidth; the U.S. ranks 22nd in the world in average connection speed. And, most of all, we will have to have an honest discussion about how we got in this rut.

How we got into this rut is no secret. We compensated for years of stagnating middle-class wages the easy way. Just as baseball players in the ’90s injected themselves with steroids to artificially build muscle to hit more home runs — instead of doing real bodybuilding — our two parties injected steroids, cheap credit, into Wall Street so it could go gambling and into Main Street so it could go home-buying. They both started hitting home runs, artificially — until the steroids ran dry. Now we have to rebuild America’s muscles the old-fashioned way.

How? In the short run, we’ll probably need more stimulus to get the economy moving again so people have the confidence to buy and invest. Ultimately, though, good jobs at scale come only when we create more products and services that make people’s lives more healthy, more productive, more secure, more comfortable or more entertained — and then sell them to more people around the world. And in a global economy, we have to create those products and services with a work force that is so well trained and productive that it can leverage modern technology so that one American can do the work of 20 Chinese and, therefore, get paid the same as 20 Chinese. There is no other way.

Sure, more countries can now compete with us. But that’s good. It means they’re also spawning new jobs, customers, ideas and industries where well-trained Americans can also compete. Fifteen years ago, there were no industries around Google “search” or “iPhone applications.” Today, both are a source of good jobs. More will be invented next year. There is no fixed number of jobs. We just have to make sure there is no fixed number of Americans to fill them — aided by good U.S. infrastructure and smart government incentives to attract these new industries to our shores.

But not everyone can write iPhone apps. What about your nurse, barber or waiter? Here I think Lawrence Katz, the Harvard University labor economist, has it right. Everyone today, he says, needs to think of himself as an “artisan” — the term used before mass manufacturing to apply to people who made things or provided services with a distinctive touch in which they took personal pride. Everyone today has to be an artisan and bring something extra to their jobs.

For instance, says Katz, the baby boomers are aging, which will spawn many health care jobs. Those jobs can be done in a low-skilled way by cheap foreign workers and less-educated Americans or they can be done by skilled labor that is trained to give the elderly a better physical and psychological quality of life. The first will earn McWages. The second will be in high demand. The same is true for the salesperson who combines passion with a deep knowledge of fashion trends, the photo-store clerk who can teach you new tricks with your digital camera while the machine prints your film, and the pharmacist who doesn’t just sell pills but learns to relate to customer health needs in more compassionate and informative ways. They will all do fine.

But just doing your job in an average way — in this integrated and automated global economy — will lead to below-average wages. Sadly, average is over. We’re in the age of “extra,” and everyone has to figure out what extra they can add to their work to justify being paid more than a computer, a Chinese worker or a day laborer. “People will always need haircuts and health care,” says Katz, “and you can do that with low-wage labor or with people who acquire a lot of skills and pride and bring their imagination to do creative and customized things.” Their work will be more meaningful and their customers more satisfied.

Government’s job is to help inspire, educate, enable and protect that work force. 

Friendly Fire

Sarah Palin is disgusting ... I have been trying to avoid political topics lately, but this was infuriating ... 

Sarah Palin spoke in San Jose yesterday, where she engaged in her usual faux-military cheerleading speechiness. Never mind that in Alaska Palin was known for being disdainful and disrespectful of many vets who served her, this is a narrative about the great Divider who waves the flag and loves blood, so naturally she has to mix God and war together. In the course of this, she felt compelled to bring up Pat Tillman since he was from San Jose.

“One of those heroes was from right here in San Jose, who gave up the money and the glamor and think what he sacrificed and his family sacrificed, giving up pro-football career to serve his country and he ultimately giving up his life for our freedom. Remember to thank god every day for Pat and for the thousands like him….”

The problem is, Pat Tillman did not believe in God and nor does his family. His brother, Richard, expressed his disgust for people talking about God at Pat’s funeral on Bill Maher’s show just weeks ago. And Pat Tillman did not want to be used as a political weapon and most certainly not as war propaganda. His death was covered up by our military and made to look like Tillman had died “fighting for our country,” when in fact he had been killed by friendly fire.

Here are some quotes from the interview via the Guardian UK:

“….Richard’s courageous response (captured on video) to religious comments made by Maria Shriver, wife of California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arizona senator John McCain as part of the eulogy delivered at his brother’s funeral.

“He’s not with God, he’s fucking dead,” asserted Mr Tillman. “Thanks for your thoughts but he’s fucking dead.” Mr Tillman, who has a low tolerance for lies was clearly offended by the sentiments, stating that his deceased brother “was not religious.””

He was clearly OFFENDED by the sentiment. Get the idea, there, Sarah? Not everyone agrees with you, Sarah. There are people who believe different things than you do. It’s a big world out there. Richard continued:

“I found it offensive. It’s like, I don’t go to a church and say, ‘This is bullshit,’ so don’t come to my brother’s service and tell me he’s with God. He’s simply not with fucking God.”

And Palin shouldn’t go to San Jose and think that just because she’s in the city where Pat lived, she can or should co-opt his death for her pro-war propaganda. Is there nothing sacred in Palin’s mind or heart? Palin thinks her religion trumps everything and everyone else, so much so that she would rather use Pat Tillman’s memory for her own purpose than to be respectful of him and his family.

Furthermore, as she should know (I realize she doesn’t read, but The Tillman Story is in theaters around the country) the Tillmans have a rather large issue with the military for the way they were lied to about their son’s death. They were originally told he died “fighting for his country” but he didn’t. He died by friendly fire.

Why would Sarah Palin go on about how he gave his life for our “freedom”? No, he didn’t Sarah. His life was stolen from him and while we do not know the circumstances, we do know that ‘blue-on-blue’ fatalities account for a significant percentage of all battlefield deaths – a tragedy, a reason to AVOID war if at all possible, not glorify it. Pat himself had decided that he would not have a military burial as he didn’t want his death to be used as a publicity tool.

Naturally, Sarah Palin took that as a sign that she should co-opt his death for her own publicity. And so she gave her usual glorifying war speech and used Pat Tillman for the local touch.

Maher asks Richard about the evidence suggesting that Pat Tillman was “deliberately attacked by his fellow troops”. Richard said, “I wish he would’ve just lit these fucking idiots up with his own gun. ‘Cause he knew that they were shooting at him. I wish he didn’t have so much character, and he would’ve shot his own guys.”

That’s what Richard thinks about the glory of war.

Palin is on video talking about how these wars are holy wars. If that isn’t glorifying war, I don’t know what is. Palin is a puppet of the propaganda machine and hence, by her very existence, she is an insult to people of integrity and thought, but in this case, an even worse insult to people dealing with having been lied to about their son’s death for the administration’s propaganda purposes.

Most people who have had to face the unrelentingly grim, gritty reality of war understand that war is a terrible thing, not to be entered into lightly. Honoring our troops for their sacrifices need not glorify war. The two are not the same, but of course, thought doesn’t sell wars. If Palin were President, she would have us at war with Iran by now. She isn’t one who can weigh disparate ideas and sift through complexities. She thinks in bumper stickers.

Sarah Palin used Pat Tillman. One can’t help but wonder if Palin is so unaware of her own reputation amongst those paying attention as a fundamentalist Dominionist that she thought she was going to get away with using Pat Tillman to make herself sound like the faithful. She couldn’t have been more deeply disturbing if she had tried.

Sarah Palin doesn’t really care about the troops. She’s a good cheerleader for war, though. There is, of course, a huge difference between the two. Palin is a moral and ethical coward who is not above using someone else’s son and brother to prop herself up a notch in the eyes of her rabid followers. She calls this loving America, but she is wrong.

Palin doesn’t love her country or the troops or she wouldn’t spend so much time dividing us (right after the Tillman freedom lie, she launches a jealousy grenade at the First Lady, driving the wedge just a bit deeper because that’s what we need in this country right now) and recklessly painting all Muslims with the brush of terrorism while our troops are trying to engage in a counter-insurgency strategy in Muslim countries.

Using Pat Tillman like she did puts Palin within shouting distance of the horrid and selfish Westboro Baptist Church. Sarah is a war coffin chaser. Anything she can drape a flag on and pose next to is game. If she missed the actual event, she’ll just use it in a speech. She’s a shameless publicity seeker, a cheap stunt, and an unworthy opponent. She insulted the Tillman family and this country with her used care salesmen platitudes and utter insensitivity to the real Pat. It’s as if she doesn’t get that these are real people, not just props for her to abuse. But why would Pat Tillman be treated any differently than Palin treats her own son?

Palin is nothing but the GOP’s latest propaganda tool, spouting off bumper sticker slogans about freedom from her $92,000 jet. Palin doesn’t know the first thing about freedom, because she suffers from an intellectual inability to comprehend what freedom really is. Freedom is not war.

And freedom certainly isn’t a bumper sticker.

Blood on the Motorway


In the past four decades, 459 deaths and 41 attempted homicides are believed to be linked to serial killers who are using the nation's highways to find and dispose of their victims.

A passerby found the severed head on Feb. 10, wrapped in two plastic bags and stuffed inside a backpack in Barstow, Calif. Authorities still haven't identified the victim or her killer, but the circumstances point in a particular direction.

The teenage girl likely had been killed days earlier, Barstow police say. Her head lay a few hundred yards from a truck stop just off Interstate 15, not far from I-40. To authorities, the proximity to the truck stop and the interstates suggests that the slaying might have been the work of a distinctive type of criminal: a serial killer operating along the nation's highways.

During the past four decades, at least 459 people may have died at the hands of highway serial killers, FBI statistics show. Investigators do not know how many people may be responsible for the killings but at least one such case — of murder, attempted murder or unidentified human remains — has been reported in 48 states, along roads as far north as Alaska and as far south as Key West. They believe the killers find their victims and dispose of the bodies along highways, sometimes near quiet roadside rest areas or at bustling truck stops.

Often, the victims are prostitutes, abducted in one state and dumped in another. And the killers? Authorities say they have 200 suspects; almost all are long-haul truck drivers. To date, the FBI says it has helped local authorities arrest at least 10 suspects believed to be involved in more than 30 of the killings.

That still appears to leave hundreds of killings unsolved, and the cases continue to mount. Not every killing along the nation's roadways is related, but since the FBI went public with the Highway Serial Killings initiative last year, local authorities have been sending information about unsolved slayings that fit the profile to FBI analysts.

Their hope: that the analysts can offer leads or find connections to other killings that may have happened years ago or several states away. Some of the killings recently added to the Highway Serial Killings database date back several years. Others, such as the one in Barstow, are relatively new.

"We seem to have one a week that comes in," says Michael Harrigan, the special agent who oversaw the FBI's effort for the past three years. "It could be a killing that's 30 years old. It could be one that happened a week ago." Whether the oldest and coldest cases can be solved, Harrigan is uncertain. But he's hopeful.

Harrigan and other law enforcement authorities believe serial killers still operate along some of the most well-traveled roads in the nation.

"They're out there," he says.

Even so, the FBI won't divulge the names of the victims, the dates the victims were abducted or discovered, even the locations where the killers either found their victims or dumped the bodies — places motorists might wish to avoid.

Despite President Obama's pledge of a more transparent government, Harrigan says the bureau is bound by its promise to local law enforcement not to disclose any details of the slayings — even basic information that is public record. The FBI makes such a promise so that local agencies will share details of the crimes with the bureau, Harrigan says.

Through a Freedom of Information Act request filed this year, I sought those details. "Many families drive from state to state and need accurate information to determine where they should and should not stop," I wrote.

The FBI denied the request, even though the bureau had posted on its website a small image of a U.S. map last year that shows the general location of many of the highway slayings.

Harrigan says a typical motorist isn't in danger. At least 234 victims were prostitutes, he says, and stranded motorists represent "a very, very small" number of the homicide cases. But Harrigan will not say how many, and he acknowledges that investigators know "nothing" about 130 of the victims. Among the mysteries are more than 80 cases — including the February case in Barstow — in which authorities couldn't identify the remains or recovered only body parts.

"It's creepy," says Keith Libby, the police detective in Barstow, Calif., who is handling the severed-head case. Libby says the victim appears to have been white or Hispanic, and police have released an image of how they think the victim looked. Beyond that, Libby says, investigators are hoping for help — from the public and from the FBI.

"We have nothing," he says. "Nothing."

A dangerous subculture

Although the FBI launched the serial killer initiative in 2004, violence along the nation's highways is hardly new. Stopping crime at the thousands of rest areas, truck stops and travel plazas, however, remains difficult. In part, that's because the responsibility for policing rest areas varies from state to state. That often means no consistent records are kept about the rate of crimes, and no single agency takes ownership for fighting it.

But crimes also are difficult to stop because of the location of the rest areas — along major roadways. That makes getting away easy; just jump onto an interstate and speed off. At some locations, private security guards try to keep watch or police cruise through. Elsewhere, cameras monitor the area. Neither of those approaches offer any guarantees.

Sometimes, the crimes at these stops along the highways are orchestrated by sophisticated criminals. Some deal drugs. Others sell sex. And, like weary travelers, other dangerous criminals might use rest areas for the purpose for which they were intended: to rest. The Beltway Snipers, who terrorized the Washington, D.C., area for weeks in 2002, were caught after they pulled into a rest area to sleep. (Whether the snipers, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, are suspects in any of the highway killing cases is unclear. Muhammad was executed last year; Malvo remains in prison.)

What makes crime at rest areas and truck stops unique and especially troubling is that it occurs in spots intended to be oases for travelers — places where motorists expect to be able to relax and unwind, grab a meal and use the toilet.

"It used to be the place to go. It used to be the safe haven," says Sgt. Pat Postiglione, a detective with the Metro Nashville (Tenn.) Police Department. "But now, I think the opposite is occurring."

That's not the case everywhere, says Lisa Mullings, president of NATSO, a trade group that represents the truck stop and travel plaza industry. Mullings says most of the areas remain "probably one of the safest places to stop. There's always people."

Indeed, some truck stops have become more like bustling neighborhoods — for better or worse.

"It's kind of like when you live in the big city," says Frank Silio, a long-haul trucker since 1990. "You want to make sure you look at the quality of the people there. Are they paying too much attention to you?"

At many truck stops, the area for cars is separate from the area for semi-trailer trucks. The worlds are just as distinct, especially after sundown. On the trucking side, prostitutes might wander from cab to cab, looking for business.

"It is dangerous," says Vednita Carter, the executive director of Breaking Free, a Minnesota-based group that helps women escape prostitution. "They're having sex with them in the trucks." The truckers "might drive off and say, 'Well we can't stay here,' and they'll never come back."

Truckers even have names for the truck-stop prostitutes: lot lizards or fender lizards. "Those are the terms we hear all the time. But you only hear it there," Postiglione says.

"It's almost like a subculture, to be honest with you," Postiglione says. "You've got the family going to Myrtle Beach on one side, and you have the shady-looking truckers on the other. ... You have a lot of good truckers out there," Postiglione quickly adds, but "you have other truckers who go to these truck stops and get drugs or prostitutes."

Postiglione has good reason to think as he does. On June 26, 2007, the body of Sara Nicole Hulbert was found at a Nashville truck stop off I-24. Hulbert, 25, had been shot. Her killer also had used black electrical tape to fasten a plastic bag over her head. Postiglione contacted the FBI to tell analysts about that case and another similar killing in Lebanon, Tenn. He had little to go on except some surveillance tape of trucks coming and going from the Nashville truck stop around the time of the killing.

On July 12, 2007, Postiglione was near the truck stop when he noticed a semi that "seemed familiar." He followed it to the truck stop where Hulbert's body had been found and questioned the driver. When he looked inside the cab, he noticed a garbage bag. Inside was bloody clothing. The blood, he recalls, was fresh. The clothes, however, didn't belong to Hulbert.

Authorities now believe they belonged to another woman, Carma Purpura, who had disappeared the night before at a truck stop in Indianapolis. "There were items of female clothing ... that came back with Ms. Purpura's DNA," says Denise Robinson, a prosecutor in Marion County, Ind.

The trucker, Bruce Mendenhall, 56, was convicted in May in the Hulbert killing. He's likely to stand trial for at least three similar killings, including the slayings in Lebanon and Indianapolis. Postiglione believes other unsolved cases also might lead to Mendenhall.

"He's 56 and just starts killing people at 56?" Postiglione says, incredulous. "I have to believe that he may have been killing over the years but changed his methods. There's probably another victim or two out there that we're not linking yet."

Timelines are key

That search for connections between crimes is where the FBI effort has proved useful. Analysts continue to develop timelines for each of the 200 suspects, trying to determine whether their whereabouts match any of the unsolved killings.

Technology has made that effort easier — at least in terms of the most recent killings and any possible connections to truckers. Many truck companies, for instance, track their drivers using GPS. And when a trucker uses a toll road, systems such as E-ZPass log it. Credit card records and surveillance tapes also help pinpoint who used the truck stop around the time when a prostitute there vanished.

The timelines are "tedious," FBI agent Harrigan says. "We want to look back and try to figure out, were there any other killings where they were?"

Harrigan says analysts might hear about five cases a week. They seem to fit the profile, but further investigation shows a serial killer isn't to blame. No matter, Harrigan says getting information from local law enforcement is critical. Already, the FBI has heard from law enforcement in 340 jurisdictions. Even if some of those cases turn out to be unrelated to the serial killer inquiries, others do, and those that do might be key in solving slayings hundreds of miles apart, Harrigan says.

The FBI and other law enforcement authorities also are careful not to condemn truckers as a whole. "We don't view this as some sort of indictment of the industry," Harrigan says.

As Norita Taylor, a spokesman for a trucking trade group says, millions of truckers are on the roads each day. Even if all of the highway serial killers happen to be truckers, that's still a tiny minority of the profession, says Taylor, spokesman for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

Trucker Silio hopes motorists won't stereotype. "Not all people riding motorcycles are bad people, either," he says. Others, including Nashville detective Postiglione, wonder whether the trucking profession might be a draw for someone "predisposed to become a serial killer."

With help from the FBI, David Campbell, a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office, was able to link trucker Eugene Upshaw to a year-old sexual assault near a truck stop in Castaic, Calif. In late August, authorities arrested Upshaw near Rochester, N.Y. He stands accused of beating and raping a woman and is "a person of interest in similar sexual assaults," Campbell says.

"What a perfect manner if that's what you're into," Campbell says. "What better way to mask your wrongdoings than by going from state to state doing a legitimate job?"

Angelina Valentina


She-devil

And she was ghetto

As dirty as the bottom of her high-heeled stilettos

I couldn't believe that she got as far as she got

Like fresh food, gone rotten

Angelina Valentina

A bad girl, A trick

A lover, A fighter

A cold-hearted bitch

Running through the times, leave this shit behind

She wasn't even fine, she was average

But everybody loved the way her titties and her assets

She was the classic hoe that you love to hate

Maybe that you love to date

That can make a man break

Get in close and then flip like a pancake

She told lies the same ones told to her

She was out to get everything she thought was owed to her

And if you show to her any sign of weakness,

She'll stab you in your back and leave you speechless

Angelina Valentina

She just decided that she'd fuck her way to the top

Not a bad idea for a girl who got what she got

But not just the body, the brains

Raw steel, sex appeal, it's all the same

She had a way of spitting game better than most dudes

But as soon as you get close to her heart then you're old news

That's how she rose through

A thorn on a rose who had horns on her head

And did exactly what the hoes do

She was up for sale

Not afraid to go to jail

Going through her man's mail, looking through his handheld

You could tell she was a filthy young hooker

Her mind state was crooked that's why everybody shook her

But that's why everybody loved and respected her

Daddy neglected her mama rejected her

So she lived by the code on the street

Man to man, plan to plan

Her life was cheap

Wicked foul, poisonous vixen

Black widow, little girl, who's your next victim?

Madam redemption, sexual tension

Heaven in between the walls of the fifth dimension

Voodoo woman, who do you love?

Besides your own bullshit, what are you thinking of?

Other than the surface, shallow end of the pool

Now who's the stupid fool,

Her or the one she trapped?

Long walk to the top stepping on people's backs

Angelina Valentina, she doesn't know how to act

There she comes, there she goes, I can't believe she did that

One man's queen is one man's slut

And one girl's dream is blind and twisted up

She never really knew her own purpose in life

Part-time hoe part-time wife

Angelina Valentina

My dream job.

That is all.

QUESTIONABLE CALL

[Update: Monday, July 21 -- I.R Iran's final Revue game vs. Utah Jazz was webcast on NBA.com. You can watch it here. Thanks for your support.]

Saturday, July 19 -- The Rocky Mountain Revue each year features up-and-coming basketball players in summer league competition. This year's Revue includes several NBA teams, an NBADL select team, and the Iranian National Team. So, the natural question is: Who dropped the ball on that one? Amidst the Bush administration's lengthy political wrestling match with Tehran, how did the NBA get away with inviting Iran's team to play summer league ball?

The answer is surprisingly simple. The Revue had a standing commitment to FIBA to include the Asia Continental Champion, which everyone expected would be China. Without superstar center Yao Ming, the Chinese team failed to advance, and Iran went on to defeat Lebanon in the championship. Iran? They haven't been competitive in basketball for more than 30 years.

So, the NBA, desperately needing some positive publicity (and with approval from the U.S. State Department), invited Iran to participate. And the Iranians, perhaps thinking it was all a joke, accepted. So, after more than a year of nuclear fear-mongering by the American media portraying Iran as our most imminent and dangerous enemy, we invited them to come over and play some pickup games? Brilliant!

Fast-forward to today, as the Iranians faced the Dallas Mavericks' summer league team in competition. If you have never been to Salt Lake City in July, it's 130 degrees, and there's not much going on other than the Revue. Also, it's not the most colorful town. And by that I mean it's mostly white folks out there in the desert. Usually.

But not today. Today the sand-colored crowd packed the gym at Salt Lake Community College to support Team Iran. They came from California, Florida, New York and Canada. They showed up two hours early with flags and banners and tambourines and cheered and chanted and sang until the very end. The Iranian team lost, but you wouldn't know it unless you were looking at the scoreboard. And I wasn't.

I was looking at the screen of my laptop, trying to find the webcast of the game through the Revue's website. Alas, I was later informed that the games would be neither webcast nor televised. I was suprised, since all of the NBA summer league games from Las Vegas were made viewable online, I assumed the Revue would be also. Certainly this tournament featuring the Iranian team on the soil of the Great Satan merits a webcast at the very least.

Then I began to notice a pattern. Revue officials did nowhere mention that Iran was participating in the tournament until opening day--all event programming listed the Iranian team as "FIBA Asian Champion." If you weren't a regular fan of Team Iran, there was no word of their participation until just a few days before the tournament. And finally, the passionate pro-Iran crowd was denied witness by national audiences, or any audiences for that matter. Why?

Why invite Iran to participate, go through the trouble of arranging the media circus and maximizing the public relations opportunities when nobody outside of the SLCC gym will be able to watch the game? If this was in fact the bold offering of goodwill that the U.S. State Department claims it to be, why back off now? So far, nobody is offering any simple explanations. The Utah Jazz, which organize and manage the Revue, offered their official statement on the matter as "No comment."

To me personally, it seems that perhaps someone didn't want the nation to see its Iranian-Americans waving Iranian flags and chanting in Farsi from the Mormon heartland. Perhaps that same someone wants us to believe that Iranians are some distant, foreign enemy, and not our neighbors or pickup-game teammates. And, as Americans, perhaps we should ask why that is.

During the course of certain events, there are moments, however fleeting or seemingly insignificant, that ultimately transcend our shared humanity. Journalists have often reflected on the the role that sports play in helping conflicted people resolve their differences. In 2006, a civil war in the Ivory Coast was put on hold to allow the embattled nation's soccer team to qualify for the World Cup. I can't help but feel that if any sport does indeed wield such tremendous influence, that influence is being egregiously wasted.

Today, I watched players representing my hometown exchange gifts and hugs with players representing my homeland. Today, I witnessed two nations with a long and storied history of polar ideologies put their differences aside, and not for some grand design, but for a simple basketball game. It makes me want to believe that anything might be possible. Well, maybe anything except watching the game on TV.

Creativity + Technology = ???

Sometimes an equation can sum up to ... music!



Nude aka Big Ideas (Don't Get Any) -- by Radiohead.

Performed by defunct electronics equipment.

"A lot of times in politics you have people look you in the eye and tell you what's not on their mind."—Sochi, Russia, April 6, 2008

"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." —Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008

"Oftentimes people ask me, 'Why is it that you're so focused on helping the hungry and diseased in strange parts of the world?'" —Washington, D.C., April 18, 2008

"Take the Middle East seriously because that's the center of—that's the place where people get so despondent and despair that they're willing to come and take lives of U.S. citizens."—on advice he would give the next president, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OBGYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."—Poplar Bluff, Missouri, September 6, 2004

"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."—Washington D.C., May 23, 2004

"I welcome you all to say a few comments to the TV, if you care to do so."—Washington D.C., December 7, 2007

"If you've got somebody in harm's way, you want the president being ... making advice, not ... be given advice by the military, and not making decisions based upon the latest Gallup poll or focus group."—New Albany, Ind., November 13, 2007

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."—Washington D.C., August 5, 2004

"They misunderestimated me."—Washington D.C., November 6, 2000

"I'm oftentimes asked, What difference does it make to America if people are dying of malaria in a place like Ghana? It means a lot. It means a lot morally, it means a lot from a—it's in our national interest."—Accra, Ghana, Feb. 20, 2008

"And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those that are trying to defeat us in Iraq."—Washington D.C., March 3, 2008

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."—Lacrosse, Wisc., October 18, 2000

"I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft."—St. Louis, Missouri, October 8, 2004

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."—Saginaw, Mich., September 29, 2000

"And so the fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there's jobs at the machine-making place." —Mesa, Arizona, May 27, 2008

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal." —Washington, D.C., May 13, 2008

"There's an old saying in Tennessee ... I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee, that says, fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. Fool me twice ... you can't get fooled again."—Nashville, Tenn., September 17, 2002

"How can you possibly have an international agreement that's effective unless countries like China and India are not full participants?" —Camp David, April 19, 2008"

We want people owning their home — we want people owning a businesses." —Washington, D.C., April 18, 2008

"So long as I'm the president, my measure of success is victory — and success." —on Iraq, Washington, D.C., April 17, 2008

"Thank you, your Holiness. Awesome speech." —to Pope Benedict, Washington, D.C., April 15, 2008

"A lot of times in politics you have people look you in the eye and tell you what's not on their mind." —Sochi, Russia, April 6, 2008

"Afghanistan is the most daring and ambition mission in the history of NATO." —Bucharest, Romania, April 2, 2008

"Soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and Coastmen — Coast Guardmen, thanks for coming, thanks for wearing the uniform." —at the Pentagon, March 19, 2008

"I thank the diplomatic corps, who is here as well." —Washington, D.C., March 12, 2008

"Removing Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency, it is the right decision now, and it will be the right decision ever." —Washington, D.C., March 12, 2008

"Let me start off by saying that in 2000 I said, 'Vote for me. I'm an agent of change.' In 2004, I said, 'I'm not interested in change —I want to continue as president.' Every candidate has got to say 'change.' That's what the American people expect." —Washington, D.C., March 5, 2008

"And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq." —to Army Gen. Ray Odierno, Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008

"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? ... That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." —Washington, D.C., Feb. 28, 2008

"I'm oftentimes asked, What difference does it make to America if people are dying of malaria in a place like Ghana? It means a lot. It means a lot morally, it means a lot from a — it's in our national interest." —Accra, Ghana, Feb. 20, 2008

"There is no doubt in my mind when history was written, the final page will say: Victory was achieved by the United States of America for the good of the world." —addressing U.S. troops at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, Jan. 12, 2008

"I can press when there needs to be pressed; I can hold hands when there needs to be — hold hands." —on how he can contribute to the Middle East peace process, Washington, D.C., Jan. 4, 2008

"In the State of the Union a couple of years ago, I addressed the issue of steroids, and the reason I did so is because I understand the impact that professional athletes can have on our nation's youth. And I just urge our — those in the public spotlight, particularly athletes, to understand that when they violate their bodies, they're sending a terrible signal to America's young." —on the baseball steroids scandal, Dec. 14, 2007

"The decisions we make in Washington have a direct impact on the people in our country, obviously." —New Albany, Ind., Nov. 13, 2007

"In other words, he was given an option: Are you with us or are you not with us? And he made a clear decision to be with us, and he's acted on that advice." —on President Pervez Musharraf, Crawford, Texas, Nov. 10, 2007

"We're going to — we'll be sending a person on the ground there pretty soon to help implement the malaria initiative, and that initiative will mean spreading nets and insecticides throughout the country so that we can see a reduction in death of young children that — a death that we can cure." —Washington, D.C., Oct. 18, 2007

"All I can tell you is when the governor calls, I answer his phone." —San Diego, Calif., Oct. 25, 2007

"I fully understand those who say you can't win this thing militarily. That's exactly what the United States military says, that you can't win this military." —on the need for political progress in Iraq, Washington, D.C., Oct. 17, 2007

"My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions." —The Decider, Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007

"I got a lot of Ph.D.-types and smart people around me who come into the Oval Office and say, 'Mr. President, here's what's on my mind.' And I listen carefully to their advice. But having gathered the device, I decide, you know, I say, 'This is what we're going to do.'" —Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007

"You know, when you give a man more money in his pocket — in this case, a woman more money in her pocket to expand a business, it — they build new buildings. And when somebody builds a new building somebody has got to come and build the building. And when the building expanded it prevented additional opportunities for people to work." —Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007

"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured." —on the No Child Left Behind Act, Washington, D.C., Sept. 26, 2007

"We're also talking to different finance ministers about how we can send a message to the Iranian government that the free world is not going to tolerate the development of know-how in how to build a weapon, or at least gain the ability to make a weapon." —Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007

"All of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice." —Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007

"I heard somebody say, 'Where's (Nelson) Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead. Because Saddam killed all the Mandelas." —on the former South African president, who is still very much alive, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007

"Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction. Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit." —addressing Australian Prime Minister John Howard at the APEC Summit, Sept. 7, 207

"As John Howard accurately noted when he went to thank the Austrian troops there last year..." —referring to Australian troops as "Austrian troops," APEC Business Summit, Sept. 7, 2007

"We're kicking ass." —on the security situation in Iraq, to Australian Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile, Sydney, Australia, Sept. 5, 2007

"I've got God's shoulder to cry on. And I cry a lot. I do a lot of crying in this job. I'll bet I've shed more tears than you can count, as president." —as quoted by author Robert Draper in Dead Certain

"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th." —Washington, D.C., July 12, 2007

"I'm going to try to see if I can remember as much to make it sound like I'm smart on the subject." —answering a question about a possible flu pandemic, Cleveland, July 10, 2007

"You know, I guess I'm like any other political figure: Everybody wants to be loved." —Washington, D.C., July 12, 2007

"More than two decades later, it is hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming out any other way." —Martinsburg, W. Va., July 4, 2007

"I've heard he's been called Bush's poodle. He's bigger than that." —on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as quoted by the Sun newspaper, June 27, 2007

"Amnesty means that you've got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that." —on the immigration reform bill, Washington, D.C., June 26, 2007

"This process has been drug out a long time, which says to me it's political." —discussing the controversy surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Sofia, Bulgaria, June 11, 2007

"These are big achievements for this country, and the people of Bulgaria ought to be proud of the achievements that they have achieved." —Sofia, Bulgaria, June 11, 2007

"Bush goes to Hel. That's what a lot of people want." —on his visit to the Hel Peninsula, Gdansk, Poland, Jun. 8, 2007

"There's a lot of blowhards in the political process, you know, a lot of hot-air artists, people who have got something fancy to say." —Washington, D.C., May 17, 2007

"My relationship with this good man is where I've been focused, and that's where my concentration is. And I don't regret any other aspect of it. And so I — we filled a lot of space together." —on British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington, D.C., May 17, 2007

"What I'm telling you is there's too many junk lawsuits suing too many doctors." —Washington, D.C., May 10, 2007

"You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 — 1976." —to Queen Elizabeth, Washington, D.C., May 7, 2007

"I'm honored to be here with the eternal general of the United States, mi amigo Alberto Gonzales." —Washington, D.C., May 4, 2007

"Information is moving — you know, nightly news is one way, of course, but it's also moving through the blogosphere and through the Internets." —Washington, D.C., May 2, 2007

"The question is, who ought to make that decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear — I'm a commander guy." —who apparently is no longer "The Decider," Washington, D.C., May 2, 2007

"Wisdom and strength, and my family, is what I'd like for you to pray for." —Washington, D.C., May 2, 2007

"Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed. And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not no violence." —on Iraq, Washington, D.C., May 2, 2007

"And so, what Gen. Petraeus is saying, some early signs, still dangerous, but give me — give my chance a plan to work." —in an interview with Charlie Rose, April 24, 2007

"There are jobs Americans aren't doing. ... If you've got a chicken factory, a chicken-plucking factory, or whatever you call them, you know what I'm talking about." —George W. Bush. Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"There are some similarities, of course (between Iraq and Vietnam). Death is terrible." —Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"I've been in politics long enough to know that polls just go poof at times." —Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"My job is a job to make decisions. I'm a decision — if the job description were, what do you do — it's decision maker." —Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"Politics comes and goes, but your principles don't. And everybody wants to be loved — not everybody. ... You never heard anybody say, 'I want to be despised, I'm running for office.'" —Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"I said to her, make sure the rug says 'optimistic person comes to work.'" —on his instructions to First Lady Laura Bush in choosing a rug for the Oval Office, Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"One of my concerns is that the health care not be as good as it can possibly be." —on military benefits, Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"Forms of government matter, in my opinion. It matters how — the nature of the government in which people live." —Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"My attitude is, if they're still writing about (number) one, 43 doesn't need to worry about it." —on his legacy, Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"A good marriage is really good after serving together in Washington, D.C." —Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"The best thing about my family is my wife. She is a great first lady. I know that sounds not very objective, but that's how I feel. And she's also patient. Putting up with me requires a lot of patience." —Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

"Iraq is a very important part of securing the homeland, and it's a very important part of helping change the Middle East into a part of the world that will not serve as a threat to the civilized world, to people like — or to the developed world, to people like — in the United States." —Washington, D.C., April 3, 2007

"Suiciders are willing to kill innocent life in order to send the projection that this is an impossible mission." —George W. Busy, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2007

"And my concern, David, is several." —to NBC's David Gregory, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2007

"The solution to Iraq — an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself — is more than a military mission. Precisely the reason why I sent more troops into Baghdad." —Washington, D.C., April 3, 2007

"That's why we are inconveniencing air traffickers, to make sure nobody is carrying weapons on airplanes." —Washington, D.C., April 3, 2007

"Some call this civil war; others call it emergency — I call it pure evil." —Washington, D.C., March 28, 2007

"I'm a strong proponent of the restoration of the wetlands, for a lot of reasons. There's a practical reason, though, when it comes to hurricanes: The stronger the wetlands, the more likely the damage of the hurricane." —New Orleans, March 1, 2007

"And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it." —interview on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007

"I think that the vice president is a person reflecting a half-glass-full mentality." —interview on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007

"And one thing we want during this war on terror is for people to feel like their life's moving on, that they're able to make a living and send their kids to college and put more money on the table." —interview on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Jan. 16, 2007

"The best way to defeat the totalitarian of hate is with an ideology of hope — an ideology of hate — excuse me —with an ideology of hope." —Fort Benning, Ga., Jan. 11, 2007

"I don't particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it." —Crawford, Texas, Nov. 10, 2007