A curious statement from Hillary Clinton

She made a peculiar claim today (h/t pogge):

Clinton went further on Tuesday, saying Iran's program threatens to dash hope of a nuclear-free Middle East.

"If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, that hope disappears," she said, "because then other countries which feel threatened by Iran will say to themselves, 'If Iran has a nuclear weapon, I better get one, too, in order to protect my people.' "

My bold. No doubt Ms. Clinton knows very well that the Middle East probably hasn't been nuclear free for a long time, but I guess there are things you just don't talk about in her position.

What the heck is with these "birthers" anyway?

No doubt you've heard of these people. They are absolutely convinced that Obama was not born in the US, and nothing will satisfy them. Here's some in action:

Via mesyn191 in this iTulip thread. Scary, no? And doesn't it occur to them that if there were any serious reason to believe that Obama was not qualified for office, that John McCain or Hilary Clinton would have dug it up? I mean, wouldn't you, if you were in their position? No doubt the birthers would say they're in on the nefarious scheme too, though.

And as others have pointed out, no previous president has faced scrutiny of this type. Nobody spread rumours about JFK actually having been secretly born in Ireland. But to a lot of people, Obama doesn't look like a real American. And an awful lot of elected officials are reluctant to discuss their views on the matter:

Via Blaque. Oh, and by the way, the birth certificate is shown here.

So it looks like Obama is it...

It was announced on the radio that it's now all but official- Barack Obama will be the Democrats' presidential candidate this fall. On balance I see this as a good thing; Obama's the best of a bad lot. If Clinton won the nomination I'd still strongly favour her over McCain; on the other hand, if they were options I would, in a heartbeat, pick Jack Layton, Elizabeth May, or probably even Stéphane Dion over Obama. After all, as my mum said of Obama, "he's still a Yankee".