Our society goes overboard sometimes trying not to offend others. But I appreciated Cal Thomas’ column on the “War on Christmas” in today’s Eagle. Thomas wrote: “I do not care whether a mall employee wishes me a ‘Merry Christmas,’ or whether mall managers favor snowpersons over manger scenes, or erect trees they call ‘holiday’ and not ‘Christmas.’ It isn’t about their observing this event, giving us a ‘religious rush’ and creating a false sense of security that the culture is better than it is. It is about people who believe in this historic event observing it in a way that recalls the birth of the Savior of the world (not the savior of the bottom line): silently, wondrously and worshipfully.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
More evidence that Iran’s nuclear ambitions must be stopped by the international community: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week restated his charge that the Holocaust never happened and his nation’s resolve to obtain a nuclear program. He also recently said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.”
Scary stuff coming from a head of state, and it can’t be dismissed as mere rhetoric. Israel’s foreign ministry got it right: “The combination of extremist ideology, a warped understanding of reality and nuclear weapons is a combination that no one in the international community can accept.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
We’ve criticized President Bush for not taking real questions from diverse Americans (not preapproved, cheering GOP crowds) about the war in Iraq.
To his credit, he ventured out of his protective bubble Monday in Philadelphia, where after a speech on Iraq, he unexpectedly opened the floor to questions from the audience.
One woman asked about the loss of life among Iraqis. Bush cited best estimates that about 30,000 Iraqi soldiers, police and civilians had lost their lives so far in the conflict. White House officials had previously dodged the question.
Good, direct response. That wasn’t so hard, was it? And Bush gets credit for leveling with the American people merely by providing some baseline facts.
Another questioned the administration’s justification for the war by linking Sept. 11 and Iraq. No such operative link has ever been established.
“I made a tough decision,” Bush replied. “And knowing what I know today, I’d make the decision again. Removing Saddam Hussein makes this world a better place and America a safer country.”
OK — bad, dodgy response. He’d really make the same decision today, knowing what he knows about no WMDs and no link to al-Qaida? Knowing the human cost of going in? Does he think Congress and the American people would follow him?
Anyway, it’s a start. At least he’s talking.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The CIA did, in fact, abduct and transfer terrorism suspects to secret prisons in Europe “without respect for any legal standards,” according to a Swiss investigator Dick Marty (in photo), who presented his findings Tuesday to the 46-nation Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog. Marty said that he believed the United States was no longer holding prisoners clandestinely in Europe and believes they were moved to Morocco in early November, when reports about secret U.S. prisons first emerged, the Associated Press reported. Marty also deplored that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wouldn’t provide any information or explanation about the secret prisons during her European Union trip last week.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Few in this country have talked about the human rights violations in North Korea with more alarm and persistence than Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. And he makes a scary prediction in “Seoul Train,” a documentary about the Underground Railroad for North Korean refugees that aired Tuesday night on PBS stations: “We’re going to look back in 10 years after North Korea opens up. We’re going to see millions of people dead. And we’re going say: ‘Why didn’t you act? Why didn’t you do something?’ ” At the very least, especially after U.S. intervention in Iraq, why is the public debate about North Korea all about nukes rather than mass graves?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Jay Leno noted in his “Tonight Show” monologue Monday night how a student in the Turner School District in Kansas City, Kan., was suspended last month for speaking Spanish to his friends in the school cafeteria. Leno said that the student would have really gotten in trouble if he had been caught talking about evolution in Spanish.
The jokes keep coming.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Turns out the Bush years haven’t been all roses for the rich. A Worth-Taylor Harrison survey of 500 American families with average liquid net assets of $28 million found that 62 percent felt “under assault” by the media and 69 percent think wealthy people are negatively portrayed by the media. And 81 percent said they would still describe themselves “as middle class at heart.” Easy for them to say.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
