Keeping the light on: Jolie visits Baghdad to address refugee crisis

So the risk of Angelina's visit to the well-guarded Green Zone of Baghdad may have been a little over-hyped, but put it into perspective: Angelina is on the ground, where many a journalist, myself included, are dying to be. UNHCR cannot reach Baghdad for security reason, so their notorious celeb ambassador is doing some leg work.

While in Baghdad, Jolie gave an exclusinve to CNN in which she discussed her mission with CNN's Arwa damon. Although the interview was lacking in substance a bit, Jolie managed to hit all of the talking points: The potential instability created by the refugee crisis, the need of the global community to respond on a human-to-human basis, the need for internal security to provide an envirnoment in which reconstruction can begin without continues conflict, the devestation facing refugees, 4.2 million globally displaced and the undue burden being placed on neighboring contires such as Jordan and Syria, and the immigration debate in the United States (the US State Department has agreed to admitt 1,200 Iraqis refugee status in the United States this year. Last year, a similar promise only saw the admission of a handful of Iraqis).

It is essential that attention continues to be paid to this issue for, as Jolie said, the return of the Iraqi people is what will instill stability in the entire Middle East and the world at-large.

Props to the sexy star for getting her hands dirty and getting in the faces of the many officials who are trying desperately to depersonalize the war in Iraq.

One problem with the timing of her her mission was the lack of insight into internal politics. Just this week, there have been cries heard 'round the world that the Iraqi ministries are ill-fit to serve their purposes. Positions previously held by Baathists have been filled with incompetitent leaders who are unable to handle the level of beauracracy associated with their positions. This should make it interesting to see how well her message is recieved.

Name one accomplishment by Obama

This is from a segment on FNC in which Frank Lutz, a renowned pollster, conducted focus groups with undecided Republicans and Democrats. In the Democratic focus group, the majority of the discussion surorunded the positive and negative attributes of each candidate, but did not include any discussion of credibility, experience or substance. So, Sean Hannity posed this question to the group, and the response was funny, but not shocking.

It's wonderful to make promises of change, but tell me how you intend to accomplish it. Otherwise, you're blowing smoke in places where the sun don't shine.

Back to Back Supers - That's, well, Super

First it was the Super Bowl. A game which somehow managed to rise from the ashes at the end of the third quarter and redeem itself going from one of the poorest played Super Bowls in history, to the most exciting in recent memory. Allow me to say that I was the opposite of impressed by the lack of passion or desire to win on both sides of the ball, until suddenly, with 15 minutes left on the clock, both teams showed up and decided they were ready to play football. And the Giants final drive... there are no words for the miracle that emerged there: Eli Manning suddenly became a walking advertisment for "I Can't Believe It's Not [Covered In] Butter" and as I said at the moment that Plaxico Burress caught that pass with his head, he now has footage to post on a 42" plasma playing in loop in the entry way of his home.

With such a surprise finish in the first Super of the Week, I assumed that Super Tuesday would be anti-climactic at best. Refreshingly, it was not. I was not only ecstatic to see that the media covered it with thorough analysis and discussion rather than the typical horse-race style coverage that has become synonamous with Election Night, but the results were intriguing.

Hillary proved her abality to lock in middle-aged, white and Latino women, both groups which vote heavily. This victory in this market succeeded in making her a significant threat - more so than anyone had really thought previously.

Obama picked up the Southern, white male vote, particularly in Georgia. Wow. I won't elaborate for fear of being labled a racist (thank you Enterprise).

McCain was able to secure significant victories in extremely conservative states. Most important to mention was a solid victory in Oklahoma. Reports were that OK is the most conservative state not holding a large Mormon population - Bush won every single county in this state in 2004. Also interesting though was his narrow victory in Arizona. It should be interesting to see if this is more a result of an alienated conservative base, as many Republicans are saying, or if it was his flip-flop in the last week on immigration: Suddenly there are no more promises of amnesty coming from his camp... hmmm.

Romney was surprising for his lack of influence. Many thought that he had protential to carry more weight in conservative states considering his highly conservative platform. The lack of support given to him at the polls maybe a tell-tale sign of a shift in the Republican powerbase. But equally important, and perhaps even more surprising was the turn-out in favor of Huckabee. He was not expected to win anything, let alone five states. All five were conservative Southern states, which was more damaging to Romney than to McCain, but it does leave us asking, where do those votes really go in the event of a two-man race?

Most surprising to me, above all of the other rhetoric, was the voter turn-out ratios. Democrats came out with more than twice the strength of Republicans in every state except Montana which only saw roughly 1,500 voters yesterday. This is a sign that, not only are the Democratic candidates more charasmatic, they are generating more interest and excitement. They were able to lock in the so-called "youth vote", which was stunning. Young people represent a demographic that has a lot of opinions which rarely translate into votes since they have a tendency to stay home, not show up at the polls. Yesterday, they showed up. This leaves for some interesting questions: Do Republicans have the strength to compete? And, can they win over any young supporters?