As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.
It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by a majority of the people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.
-- G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
We know the numbers - 1 trillion dollars, 5 years, 775 detainees in Guantanamo, 935 false statements made by the administration, about 4,000 dead Americans, 30-50,000 wounded soldiers, over 100,000 soldiers with treated and untreated PTSD, almost a million dead Iraqis, 2 million internally displaced Iraqis and up to 3 million Iraqi refugees who have left the country.
But apparently this is not a problem...
...unlike the Jesus we remember this Easter, overcoming death to raise our own moral standards and free us from unproductive and selfish lives - the dead Americans and Iraqis are going to stay dead as permanent testaments to our lack of ethics, our economic barrenness, and our supreme selfishness. One thing is for sure - and maybe the mainstream media actually got it right. You can't blame Bush and Cheney, five years later.
-- Karen Kwiatkowski
The former head of Royal Dutch Shell has gone way out on a limb and urged the European Union to ban all vehicles that get less than 35 mpg, saying it is the only way to significantly address global climate change and force the auto industry to build more efficient vehicles...
Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, who spent his career working for the giant oil company, says an outright ban is needed because so-called "gas-guzzler" taxes do not work - and aren't fair because they let those with the means to pay them skirt responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions...
Moody-Stuart, who is currently chairman of the mining group Anglo American, says he is a great fan of the free market, "but like most things, they have a failing. Without regulation to channel their power, markets will not deliver things which are of no immediate benefit to the individual making his or her choice, even though they may be beneficial to society."
P.S. I just worked out my most recent gas mileage (US gallons): 12.3 mpg. (And that's with spending almost as much time on a tow truck hook as driving.) Groan.
"At the end of this solemn Celebration, in which we have meditated upon the Passion of Christ, I wish to remember the late Archbishop of Mosul of the Chaldeans, Paulos Faraj Rahho, who died tragically a few days ago. His beautiful testimony of faithfulness to Christ, to the Church, and to his people, whom he had not wanted to leave, despite numerous threats, prompts me to raise a strong and heartfelt cry: enough with the bloodshed, enough with the violence, enough with the hatred in Iraq!Benedict XVI - Angelus (March 16, 2008)
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
G.M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary.
Obama: "Biggest Mistake" Was Vote to Help Terri Schiavo
By Peter J. Smith
LifeSiteNews.comWASHINGTON, D.C., February 28, 2008 - Barack Obama, the young, dynamic contender for the US Democratic presidential nomination, is continuing to send strong signals to members of his party that he is the strongest anti-life candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
At the last Democratic debate before the March 4 primary showdown in Texas and Ohio that could effectively decide the Democratic nominee, both Sen. Hillary Clinton - a fierce abortion supporter who is aspiring to be the first female president of the United States - and Sen. Obama - who is vying to be the first black US President - were asked which votes they would take back in their senatorial careers. Clinton cited her vote for the Iraq war; Obama said his vote for Terri Schiavo.
"It wasn't something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped. And I think that was a mistake," Obama said at the debate. "And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better ... and I think that's an example of inaction, and sometimes that can be as costly as action."
Obama was referring to his vote in March 2005, when the Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent that permitted Schiavo's parents and brother to make their case before federal courts to keep their brain-injured daughter alive via feeding tube...
'Nuff said.
Makes one want to weep...
