It’s beginning to look that whatever happens in Ohio and Texas, democratic nomination will go to Obama! It’s only for reasons of Media bias that keeps Clinton, a candidate who lost 11 contests in a row, in this race and presents her as a formidable contender! Just imagine what would happen if the fortunes were to be reversed and Obama was the one losing those contests…

This is a good development. Cooler heads have indeed prevailed! ps--One can’t compare Somalis with Kenyans; Somalis are primitive with their attitude toward governance! Kenyans are not!

Juje, I really don’t know who killed the late General. But it’s clearly a senseless killing in many ways. Al shabaabs are there for a reason. And they have a legitimate cause to fight for! Wishing them away is just that --- a wish! Condemning them for isolated incidents like this is also wrong. As I said before Somalis need to take a hard look at the present reality. Current fighting in Xamar is not gonna liberate our country as some suggest. For our country is lot bigger and larger than Xamar! These killings will not help us unite. Rather it will deepen our divisions. We can (I can) understand why al shabaabs target those in the current entity. But I don’t believe killing dabo dhilifs as some here would like to call them will resolve any thing. So was the killing of this particular fellow wrong? Yes it was in my view! Does it make al shabaabs a dangerous group that need be wiped out from the face of the earth as you judged? No it does not! What should Somalis do? They should reconcile first before they take on their enemy!

Juje : why are you so sure that the late General was assasinated by al shabaabs?

^^Fish habitats that matter and have economic significance are exclusively ours adeer!

A very timely call...

1. All persons holding Puntland nationality constitute the people of Puntland. Only my subclan constitute the people of Puntland. 2. Every person born in the territory of Puntland or whose parents or one of them were born in the territory of Puntland shall be deemed as a national of the Puntland State.. Every person born in the territory where our subclans camel graze or whose parents or one of them were born in the territory where our subclans camel used to graze shall be deemed as a national of the Puntland State

^^ And what do you know about “madhabka Wahaabiya ah” yaa Che? Alshabaabs are good assets for future battles! They are highly idealistic in their approach and at times come across agnostic to the majority of Somalis immediate concerns! The sad thing is they come a bit earlier for me, and perhaps for Somalia as well! Don’t condemn them though for isolated mistakes here and there! One can’t, if justice is considered, measure these men and what they stand for by such incidents i.e. an excited soldier taking an innocent life…

^^And here's why she should do that! ============================================ Hillary Should Get Out Now Clinton has only one shot—for Obama to trip up so badly that he disqualifies himself. By Jonathan Alter NEWSWEEK Updated: 1:39 PM ET Feb 23, 2008 If Hillary Clinton wanted a graceful exit, she'd drop out now—before the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries—and endorse Barack Obama. This would be terrible for people like me who have been dreaming of a brokered convention for decades. For selfish reasons, I want the story to stay compelling for as long as possible, which means I'm hoping for a battle into June for every last delegate and a bloody floor fight in late August in Denver. But to withdraw this week would be the best thing imaginable for Hillary's political career. She won't, of course, and for reasons that help explain why she's in so much trouble in the first place. Withdrawing would be ****** if Hillary had a reasonable chance to win the nomination, but she doesn't. To win, she would have to do more than reverse the tide in Texas and Ohio, where polls show Obama already even or closing fast. She would have to hold off his surge, then establish her own powerful momentum within three or four days. Without a victory of 20 points or more in both states, the delegate math is forbidding. In Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22, the Clinton campaign did not even file full delegate slates. That's how sure they were of putting Obama away on Super Tuesday. The much-ballyhooed race for superdelegates is now nearly irrelevant. Some will be needed in Denver to put Obama over the top, just as Walter Mondale had to round up a couple dozen in 1984. But these party leaders won't determine the result. At the Austin, Texas, debate last week, Hillary agreed that the process would "sort itself out" so that the will of the people would not be reversed by superdelegates. Obama has a commanding 159 lead in pledged delegates and a lead of 925,000 in the popular vote (excluding Michigan and Florida, where neither campaigned). Closing that gap would require Hillary to win all the remaining contests by crushing margins. Any takers on her chances of doing so in, say, Mississippi and North Carolina, where African-Americans play a big role? The pundit class hasn't been quicker to point all this out because of what happened in New Hampshire. A lot of us looked foolish by all but writing Hillary off when she lost the Iowa caucuses. As we should have known, stuff happens in politics. But that was early. The stuff that would have to happen now would be on a different order of magnitude. It's time to stop overlearning the lesson of New Hampshire. Hillary has only one shot—for Obama to trip up so badly that he disqualifies himself. Nothing in the last 14 months suggests he will. He has made plenty of small mistakes, but we're past the point where a "likable enough" comment will turn the tide. When Obama bragged in the Austin debate about how "good" his speeches were, the boast barely registered. He has brought up his game so sharply that even a head cold and losing the health-care portion of the debate on points did nothing to derail him. Hillary's Hail Mary pass—that Obama is a plagiarist—was incomplete. So if the Clintonites were assessing with a cold eye, they would know that the odds of Hillary's looking bad on March 4 are high. Even Bill Clinton said last week that Texas and Ohio are must-win states. If she wants to stay in anyway, one way to go is to play through to June so as to give as many people as possible a chance to express their support. While this would be contrary to the long-stated wish of many Democrats (including the Clintons) to avoid a long, divisive primary season, it's perfectly defensible. But imagine if, instead of waiting to be marginalized or forced out, Hillary decided to defy the stereotype we have of her family? Imagine if she drew a distinction between "never quit" as it applies to fighting Kenneth Starr and the Republicans on the one hand, and fellow Democrats on the other? Imagine if she had, well, the imagination for a breathtaking act of political theater that would make her seem the epitome of grace and class and party unity, setting herself up perfectly for 2012 if Obama loses? The conventional view is that the Clintons approach power the way hard-core gun owners approach a weapon—they'll give it up only when it's wrenched from their cold, dead fingers. When I floated this idea of her quitting, Hillary aides scoffed that it would never happen. Their Pollyanna-ish assessment of the race offered a glimpse inside the bunker. These are the same loyalists who told Hillary that she was inevitable, that experience was a winning theme, that going negative in a nice state like Iowa would work, that all Super Tuesday caucus states could be written off. The Hillary who swallowed all that will never withdraw. But in her beautiful closing answer in the Austin debate, I glimpsed a different, more genuine, almost valedictory Hillary Clinton. She talked about the real suffering of Americans and, echoing John Edwards, said, "Whatever happens, we'll be fine." She described what "an honor" it was to be in a campaign with Barack Obama, and seemed to mean it. The choice before her is to go down ugly with a serious risk of humiliation at the polls, or to go down classy, with a real chance of redemption. Why not the latter? Besides, it would wreck the spring of all her critics in the press. If she thinks of it that way, maybe it's not such an outlandish idea after all. NewsWeek

^^lol@the priests! MMA is making one argument quite firmly: Xamar belongs to all Somalis. He also touched another argument, which I believe brought you here in this thread, and that’s dismembering Somalia has a very slim chance of succeeding. Scoffing at those who believe such a bad dream is part of routine debate maneuverings here on SOL, and we are all guilty of that adeer! On merits, both arguments have solid grounds. PS. Blessed lady is exceptional nomad BUT I have not seen where MMA insulted here and called her names as you suggested!

^^^That came from the wrong cavity methinks! Quick points: 1- Mogadishu security is not improving. 2- MMA has a valid point 3- Those who spare no efforts to dismember Somalia have no point 4- Being moderator does not prevent one from voicing his/her views

Obama’s campaign is being a bit sensitive on this pic! This aint gonna have traction...

Turkey's leader backs head scarf change Leader approves of wearing of Islamic scarves in universities The Associated Press updated 12:51 p.m. CT, Fri., Feb. 22, 2008 ANKARA, Turkey - President Abdullah Gul on Friday approved a set of constitutional amendments that would allow female students to wear Islamic head scarves at universities. Parliament, dominated by members of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party, passed the measure earlier this month. But the legislation faces another hurdle: The secular opposition has vowed a legal challenge to the amendments on grounds that they violate Turkey's secular constitution. The head scarf issue has polarized Turkey and exposed once again a deep gap between the Islamic-rooted government and the military-led secular establishment. Gul, an observant Muslim, whose wife and daughter wear the Islamic style head coverings said the amendments did not violate the republic's secular principles. The changes were approved by 411 out of a 550 lawmakers "representing some 80 percent of the population," he said. Gul said the government should put in place measures to alleviate the concerns of the secular population. Some fear the government might also try to lift the ban on head scarves in schools and government institutions. "There is a need to understand the fears of some of our citizens and to bring to life measures that will remove these fears," a presidential statement read. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

A Hole in McCain’s Defense? An apparent contradiction in his response to lobbyist story. By Michael Isikoff Newsweek Web Exclusive Updated: 11:33 AM ET Feb 22, 2008 A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist. On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station. Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint." While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper. McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual." The issue erupted again this week when the New York Times reported that McCain's top campaign strategist at the time, John Weaver, was so concerned about what Iseman (who was representing Paxson) was saying about her access to McCain that he personally confronted her at a Washington restaurant and told her to stay away from the senator. The McCain campaign has denounced the Times story as a "smear campaign" and harshly criticized the paper for publishing a report saying that anonymous aides worried there might have been an improper relationship between Iseman and McCain. McCain, who called the charges "not true," also told reporters Thursday in a news conference that he was unaware of any confrontation Weaver might have had with Iseman. The deposition that McCain gave came in the course of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of his landmark campaign finance reform law, known as McCain-Feingold. The suit sheds no new light on the nature of the senator's dealings with Iseman, but it does include a lengthy discussion of his dealings with the company that hired her, including some statements by the senator that could raise additional questions for his campaign. In the deposition, noted First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams (who was representing the lawsuit's lead plaintiff, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell) grilled McCain about the four trips he took aboard Paxson's corporate jet to campaign events and the $20,000 in campaign contributions he had received from the company's executives during the period the firm was pressing him to intervene with federal regulators. Asked at one point if Paxson's lobbyist (Abrams never mentions Iseman's name) had accompanied him on any of the trips he took aboard the Paxson corporate jet, McCain responded, "I do not recall." (McCain's campaign confirmed this week that Iseman did fly on one trip returning to Washington from a campaign fund-raiser in Florida.) At another point Abrams asked McCain if, "looking back on the events with Mr. Paxson, the contributions, the jets, everything you and I have just talked about, do you believe that it would have been justified for a member of the public to say there is at least an appearance of corruption here?" "Absolutely," McCain replied. "And when I took a thousand dollars or any other hard-money contribution from anybody who does business before the Congress of the United States, then that allegation is justified as well. Because the taint affects all of us." Elsewhere McCain said about his dealings with Paxson, "As I said before, I believe that there could possibly be an appearance of corruption because this system has tainted all of us." Abrams's purpose at the time was not especially damaging to McCain. The lawyer's argument, which he later unsuccessfully made to the Supreme Court, was that the "appearance of corruption" was relatively commonplace in Washington and therefore too amorphous a standard to justify the intrusion on free speech that Congress made by passing a law that restricted big-money campaign donations and last-minute campaign advertising by outside groups. In his deposition McCain got the opportunity to emphasize some of the same points his campaign made in 2000 and again this week about his letters to the FCC at Paxson's behest: that he never pressed the agency to rule in Paxson's favor, only to make a decision one way or another. "My job as chairman of the committee, Mr. Abrams, is to see that bureaucracies do function," McCain said. "Bureaucracies are notorious for not functioning and not making decisions. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint. Not about whether the commission acted favorably or unfavorably, but that the commission act." But despite McCain's own somewhat detailed descriptions of his conversations with Paxson about the matter in the deposition, his campaign Thursday night stuck with its original statement that the senator never discussed the issue at all with the communications executive or his lobbyist. "We do not think there is a contradiction here," campaign spokeswoman Ann Begeman e-mailed NEWSWEEK after being asked about the senator's sworn testimony five and a half years ago. "We do not have the transcript you excerpted and do not know the exact questions Senator McCain was asked, but it appears that Senator McCain, when speaking of being contacted by Paxson, was speaking in shorthand of his staff being contacted by representatives of Paxson. Senator McCain does not recall being asked directly by Paxson or any representative of him or by Alcalde & Fay to contact the FCC regarding the Pittsburgh license transaction. "Senator McCain's staff recalls meeting with representatives of Paxson, and staff was asked to contact the FCC on behalf of Senator McCain," Begemen continued. "The staff relayed to Senator McCain the message from Paxson's representatives. But we have checked the records of the Senator's 1999 schedule and it does not appear there were any meetings between Senator McCain and Paxson or any representative of Paxson regarding the issue." There appears to be no dispute that Paxson lobbyist Iseman did indeed contact McCain's top communications aide at the time about the Pittsburgh license issue. Mark Buse, who then served as McCain's chief of staff at the Commerce Committee and is now chief of staff in his Senate office, recalled to NEWSWEEK that Iseman came by his office, talked to him about the issue before the FCC, and left behind briefing material that he used to draft the letters under McCain's signature. He said there was nothing unusual about this. "That's Lobbying 101," Buse said. "You leave paper behind." But the campaign's insistence that McCain himself never talked to Paxson about the issue seems hard to square with the contents of his testimony in the McCain-Feingold case. Abrams, for example, at one point cited the somewhat technical contents of one of his letters to the FCC and then asked the witness, "where did you get information of that sort, Senator McCain?" McCain replied: "I was briefed by my staff." Abrams then followed up: "Do you know were they got the information?" "No," McCain replied. "But I would add, I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue." "You were?" "Yes." Abrams then asked McCain: "Can you tell us what you said and what he said about it?" McCain: "That he had applied to purchase this station and that he wanted to purchase it. And that there had been a numerous year delay with the FCC reaching a decision. And he wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I said, 'I would be glad to write a letter asking them to act, but I will not write a letter, I cannot write a letter asking them to approve or deny, because then that would be an interference in their activities. I think everybody is entitled to a decision. But I can't ask for a favorable disposition for you'." Abrams a few moments later asked: "Did you speak to the company's lobbyist about these matters?" McCain: "I don't recall if it was Mr. Paxson or the company's lobbyist or both." Abrams: "But you did speak to him?" McCain: "I'm sure I spoke with him, yes." NewsWeek

I am not the one to defend the VOA outlet. But if truth were to be boldly told, the comparison between the pairs is quite wide of the mark. Awke and Harari are veteran and seasoned reporters while Aynte and Shiino are just beginning to hone their anchor skills. And in that verse, the pairs are no equals . I am sure with time they (Aynte and Shiino) will shine in their careers. For now though the two have long way to go before…

Originally posted by Je Jey: naag muslim ah kawaran hadu nin gaal ilmihiisa caloosha ku qaado ? ^^A very relevant question indeed! I didn’t know there is a faqiihah in the room! Womb for hire…sounds like a disturbing thought!

Smith sucks as a online debater! Seeing his Youtube clips, however, I can attest to his oratory skills. My advice to him: do your speechifying thing and have your surrogates defend your message! It may work for you.

There is a pattern. If I understand it you could duck quite predictably without moving your mouse for the first 11 seconds. I cant blve this is a test for US Air Force folks.

Thanks [edit]Soma_inc. this is a good practice for my son !

Libaax, this is the Clinton strategy to bounce back: A Clinton Strategy? By Katharine Q. Seelye If you listened in on a nearly hour-long conference call with Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign officials this morning, you could see at least an eight-point strategy for trying to bounce back after 10 straight losses to Senator Barack Obama: 1. Use two upcoming debates between now and March 4 to draw a strong contrast with Mr. Obama. “We’ve seen dramatic changes when that’s happened,” said Mark Penn, her chief strategist and pollster. (Translation: expect her to unload everything she has on him.) 2. Hope “new information” about Mr. Obama will emerge and discourage voters from supporting him. (Translation: see above.) 3. Repeat those bits of “new information” that have already emerged: that Mr. Obama has “lifted” portions of his inspirational speeches from other politicians; that he backed out of a promise to take public financing for his campaign; that after a year of not remembering the details, Mr. Obama did recall that before he bought his home in Chicago, he toured it with Tony Rezko, a fund-raiser who was known to be the subject of a grand jury investigation, to get his opinion of the property. 4. Replay repeatedly an embarrassing television clip of a supporter of Mr. Obama being unable to name any legislative achievements by Mr. Obama. 5. Hope that Senator John McCain, the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee, can raise serious doubts about Mr. Obama’s experience and readiness to be commander-in-chief. 6. Have Mrs. Clinton focus intensely on the economy and drive home her plans to create jobs and jump-start the economy in an attempt to retrieve the blue-collar voters who form her natural constituency but who have been deserting her in the last few contests. 7. Explain previous losses by saying the Obama campaign outspent them and use this as a plea for more money — even $5, which she asked for today. 8. Not be drawn into the Obama camp’s assessment that Mrs. Clinton needs to win 65 percent of the vote in Ohio, and not even saying that they have to win Ohio, only that it is “critically, critically important.” Several questioners noted that the campaign has already been doing a number of these things and that they haven’t worked. The campaign officials brushed past that idea. Harold Ickes, a top adviser who is rounding up delegates for Mrs. Clinton, said that — by their estimation — she trailed Mr. Obama by about 75 delegates now but predicted that strong showings in Ohio and Texas on March 4 would help her “close the gap substantially” by the time Puerto Rico votes in June. At that point, he said, neither candidate would be able to clinch the nomination without superdelegates, or, as he calls them, automatic delegates. He was not asked about a report in Politico in which Roger Simon said the Clinton campaign was planning to raid delegates already pledged to Mr. Obama. (Reporters asked about it repeatedly during Tuesday’s conference call and the campaign spokesmen denied it - to wit, “We have not, are not, and will not pursue the pledged delegates of Barack Obama,” Howard Wolfson said. Though as of late yesterday, Mr. Simon was sticking to his account about their intent to go after the so-called pledged delegates — not the superdelegates — who in reality are not pledged at all.) Summing up the forthcoming strategy, Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, put it this way: “Senator Obama is not running on legislative achievements, he’s not running on his preparedness to be commander-in-chief, he’s not running on his experience in government. He’s running on the power of his oratory and the strength of his promises. And then voters see his oratory being lifted, his promises being broken and surrogates being unable to name any legislative accomplishments.” ny times

lol@Gediid. Marra waaxidah...

lol@ Me and FB’s laments Libax, This piece is rubbish! Shabeele’s spin though is bit better! I posted it here

Wax kaluu qarinayaayye wax naag lagu furo ma sheegin...

That would be a good thing...

^^You can still mail the sadaqah yaa Ibti...