Deviations From the Mean

The turmoil in Burma gives President Bush the perfect opportunity to put his “democracy and freedom” rhetoric into positive action. But will he act in a forceful effective way? One can’t count on it, especially if you are a long suffering Burmese dissident.

The ruling military junta in Burma is one of the most secretive, repressive, brutal, and plain weird regimes in the world. They are so strange that they almost make North Korea’s “great leader”, Kim Jong Il, look normal. Over the protests of the international community the junta has ruled Burma for the past 19 years.

I have not once heard that affinity credit cards are designed in such a way as to attract customers that would never apply for them otherwise. That is, affinity credit card deals offer programs that are of particular interest to certain categories of the customer base.

In other words they target individual attitudes and preferences of potential cardholders, influencing their state of mind and thus winning their recognition and love. At the same time, however, affinity credit cards, cannot boast of competitive interest rates and fees, and very often they can be rather costly for certain credit consumer type.

The new premier league season is at a good start. We can still see the same faces but what excites most football fans are the new faces on the league. Most of the teams have new additions to the force. This makes everyone think about the outcome of the matches with these new players on the team.

The new season makes me think, who among the season’s players will make it big this time around? Let us first forget about the “already big” names like Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba and the others. Let us focus on the new faces. There are players who are totally new on the premier league while some are merely new transfers. So who has the potential to establish a big name of this new premier league season?

Chuck Hagel, Nebraska’s senior U.S. Senator, is serving his second term in the United States Senate. Senator Hagel’s duties include membership on four Senate committees: Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Intelligence and Rules.

Senator Hagel knows a thing or two about military affairs. Hagel served in Vietnam with his brother Tom in 1968. They served side by side as infantry squad leaders with the U.S. Army’s 9th Infantry Division. Hagel earned many military decorations and honors, including two Purple Hearts.

Hagel is one member of the Republican Party who is willing to stick up for the military. This is from last Friday’s Real Time TV appearance with Bill Maher.

It’s very clear from this exchange between President Bush and President Vladimir Putin of Russia that Putin has lost all respect for Bush and for the Bush administration’s policies.

No world leader likes to be lectured to about how to run their country. Especially by a clumsy lecturer like Bush. Based on Bush’s performance, especially in Iraq, Putin and other world leaders will no longer remain silent when President Bush continues to try and market his program of democratization and to lecture them on how they should be governing their own countries.