Inspire Political Discourse

Dispelling Idiocy – Part 1: What were Obama's grades at Occidental College?

WTF cares?

Obama's grades were good enough to get him in to a prestigious, top 10 college, Columbia University, where he graduated with a degree in political science and a specialty in international relations.

Of note also, his grades at Columbia were obviously good enough to get him in to Harvard, where he held the most prestigious student position available at Harvard, as President of the Harvard Law Review.

The future 44th President then graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. and instead of doing what he was advised to do, and could have done, and despite the amount of debt he had necessarily accumulated while attending Harvard, he chose not to go for a clerkship with the Supreme Court, nor to join a big bucks prestigious firm, and instead, chose to help others, and devote himself to public service.

Image: 1990 Joe Wrinn/ Harvard University News/ File
Watch for Part 2 of Dispelling Idiocy, which will address myths about his career.

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Background of the Current Israeli-Hamas Conflict

For the sixty years of it's existence, Israel has actively pursued peace with neighboring countries. In point of fact, it is currently negotiating a two-state solution with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas. An elected president of Gaza, removed from power in a violent coup by Hamas¹ in 2007, Abbas currently governs from the West Bank.

Then there is Hamas¹. Funded by Iran, existing to spread a form of extremist Islam, and internationally regarded as a terrorist organization. It is fundamentally the same as Hezbollah or al Qaeda, and it is violently opposed to Israel's existence. It is also violently opposed to any peace settlement which would acknowledge Israel's existence.

PROFILES: Obama's No. 1 Science Guy, Dr. John Holdren

In his weekly radio address, Obama announced the four members of his science team. His choices indicated to the world that America is about to get serious re global warming, and that the Bush era of sneering at scientific fact, and substituting religious dogma for scientific fact, is finally over.

Dr. John Holdren will be Obama's no. 1 science adviser, and as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as well as a co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology aka PCAST, he will manage a group of approximately 40 doctorate-level experts who will assist Obama in shaping and communicating science and technology policy.

His work has focused on global environmental change, energy technologies and policies, nuclear proliferation, and science and technology policy. As one of the foremost experts on climate change  in the country, Holdren has been a strong advocate for forceful government action. In a speech at Harvard a year ago, Holdren said that “Global warming is a misnomer. It implies something gradual, something uniform, something quite possibly benign, and what we're experiencing is none of those.There is already widespread harm ... occurring from climate change. This is not just a problem for our children and our grandchildren.” 

EDUCATION:
» Bachelor's degree from MIT in 1965
» PhD from Stanford University in 1975

POSITIONS HELD
» President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
» Chairman of the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
» Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
» Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
» Professor at the University of California, Berkeley for 20+ years.
» Director of the Woods Hole Research Center.
» Chair of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
» Chair of the advisory board for Innovations: Technology | Governance | Globalization, a quarterly journal about entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges published by MIT Press.

AWARDS

» MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, 1981
» Volvo Environment Prize of 1993 (with Paul Ehrlich)
» Kaul Foundation Award in Science and Environmental Policy, 1999
» Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, 2000
» 7th Heinz Award in Public Policy, 2001