Obama and Singh

[trevelyanl85a2.livejournal.com]

*copied from my personal LJ/commentary LJ*

So tonight, President Obama is hosting his first state dinner.

Black tie affair, blah blah blah, guests from his early supporter list including Rahm Emanuel's brother in Hollywood, blah blah blah....

Here's the main kicker:

it's with India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, a well respected economist and supporter of expanding India's free-market policies, and the father of India's economic reform that helped get it out of bankruptcy in the 1990s.

Here's to hoping he doesn't fuck up the Indo-US Alliance anymore than he already has done so far this past year, basically tearing up all the legwork and groundwork that President Bush did.

*puts in Indian carrier for LJ pic for reference*

People may not like PResident Bush for some things, but for me, one of the reasons I still respect him was that he did more to improve relations between the world's oldest democratic republic (USA) and the world's largest democratic republic (India) and emerging power than any other US president in history. He recognises the value India is to the US as an ally. Obama seemed to write off India like many other Democrats have in the past, only focusing on Pakistan -_-.

So yea, here's to him not fucking things up.......

This.. is insanity.

[andric.livejournal.com]

Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist

What. The. Hell.

(no subject)

[andric.livejournal.com]

For those up on the news about ClimateGate..

We also need the laugh after the BS with the news that keeps being given.

Re: Sarah Palin

[ccr1138.livejournal.com]

I know a lot of folks here adore Sarah Palin. I can see why -- she's charismatic, has a folksy, genuine charm, and her politics are unashamedly conservative.

However, I am worried that her reputation has been sullied too much to be a viable candidate. I am looking at it from a moderate's point of view. When she entered the race, I was excited. McCain was too moderate for my tastes, and Palin spiced up the ticket immensely. Then I watched her make a complete fool of herself with Katie Couric and I despaired. Palin was not ready for that interview, and it hurt her, badly. I know it did in my eyes, and I was predisposed to like her.

So, my question is, if people really think Palin has a shot in 2012, how do you think she can redeem herself in the eyes of the moderates and undecided voters who view her as a bit of an idiot, not ready for prime time, etc.? Because those are the folks she is going to need to convince if she is to have any hope of winning -- folks like me, a Ron Paul supporter who's willing to vote for anyone right of center if it means we can kick Obama to the curb.

Another article on Ft. Hood - questions from Chuck Baldwin

[lucy-chronicles.livejournal.com]

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=376

I'm not usually a big fan of Chuckie but admire the questions in the article. We will probably never get to the bottom of the Ft. Hood massacre. His points are solid. Take a few minute to READ it and post your thoughts/questions PURSUANT TO THE ARTICLE below.

"Here I stand. I can do no other."

[shezan.livejournal.com]

FANTASTIC post by fpb on the European Court of 'Human Rights' 's decision to forbid crucifixes in Italy's classrooms, and the country's united reaction to it.

Excerpt:

You may have heard about the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (which actually has nothing to do with the EU, although I have no doubt that its decision was welcomed by parliament and commission) to order the crucifixes to be removed from all Italian classrooms. What you will not have heard is the response to this decision. The country appears to have clenched itself like a fist, and the general feeling appears to be that if the eminent and learned judges want the image of the Crucified removed from our schools, they can bloody well do it themselves - and face the consequences.

I spent the 90s in an enthusiastic pro-European happy daze. Europe would fix what was wrong with my country (France, not Italy) - the inflationist temptations, the less-than-always-democratic police procedurals, the absence of a level playing field in economic competition, the corrupt politicians. And it did, to a point. But Europe's unelected leaders and bureaucrats, and the whole ballooning cloud of assorted unmoored institutions like the ECHR, started thinking they had a mandate to run our countries, when we'd only lent them the keys for a regular spring cleaning. Unaccountable to the European Parliament, the Commission spread its tentacular legislative arm in every direction (80% of national legislation now is taken in answer to a Brussels directive or other), dancing to an increasingly ideological agenda, jerrybuilt of political correctness and nanny-statism. Every objection was answered by accusations of wanting to destroy the entire enterprise, which you had to swallow whole, no exemptions or discussions allowed.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing - a former French president strong in pretensions (*) but weak of backbone, for whom the expression "too clever by half" seems to have been expressly coined - let himself be bullied, in his guise as the architect, or more accurately the scribe, of the new European Constitution, into omitting any reference to Christianity in its preamble, never mind that the European past and culture are properly incomprehensible without a grounding in Christian history and belief. (Cathedrals, Mozart, half the pictures in our museums and the wars between our nations, the motivations of our literature and the very shape of our languages being only the most obvious.)

fpb had nailed the precise moment when a European nation refuses to give up, literally, its soul. He will forgive me to headline his account from a Catholic country with a Martin Luther quote, and understand the common spirit that moves both. More from him:

Not a single voice has been raised in favour of this decision. Dozens, maybe hundreds of mayors have passed ordinanze (town laws) that required the placing of the Crucifix in every classroom. In red Tuscany, Italy's home of atheists of the left and right, mayors have been sending the Carabinieri around to check that every classroom had its little crucified Christ well on display. In Lecco, a city in Lombardy - the part of Italy where religious practice is lowest and social mores most like those of non-Christian countries like France - a high school teacher who tried to remove the image from his own classroom faced a classroom revolt; when he ordered the students out, and furiously threw the crucifix into his dustbin, one of his students saw him, reported him to the headmaster - and the headmaster inflicted ten days of unpaid leave on him and told him to count himself lucky he did not report him to the professional authorities.

I am not surprised. Indeed, what surprised me was my own fury at the news of the sentence. I have been in six different school buildings in my life in Italy - good schools, bad schools, state schools, church schools; in not a single one do I ever remember the Crucifix not being there. It also decorates every Italian courtroom, and most private homes. Contrary to what you might think, the country of Dolce&Gabbana, of Versace and of Rocco Siffredi is in no way overwhelmingly religious; but it is attached to certain symbols, and that symbol of a naked, suffering, unjustly condemned man in whom all that is good and worthy of worship and respect in the world is centred, is the most deeply buried in our soul of them all. It is not a large or overwhelming presence; it is ordinarily small and dark - made as it is of almost black wood and of bronze or pig iron - and barely noticed. Indeed, it is intended to be unobtrusive; the Italian feeling, if I can trust my own intuition, would be that large and impressive crucified Christs are for the altars of churches, and that to place them elsewhere would be, in a sense, like putting oneself forward - an act of bad taste, as much as arrogance.

Go read his full post and comment!

(crossposted)

(*) Instead of writing his memoirs, Giscard has committed two saccharine novels, the most recent purporting to tell of an affair between a French president much like himself and a "Princess Patricia of Cardiff" not a million miles from Princess Diana. As we say, le ridicule ne tue pas.