on ted kennedy

UPDATE:  Seems appropriate to re-post this today… and let Konservo speculate on what this means for Kennedy’s future.  Originally posted May 22, 2008.

Cal Thomas has as good a column on reacting to Ted Kennedy’s illness as I have read on the Conservative side.

Kennedy said: “I am an American and a Catholic; I love my country and treasure my faith. But I do not assume that my conception of patriotism or policy is invariably correct, or that my convictions about religion should command any greater respect than any other faith in this pluralistic society.”

What student or advocate of the First Amendment would disagree with that? Is that not what the Founders had in mind when they prohibited a federally established religion while simultaneously guaranteeing its free exercise? Kennedy continued, “When people agree on public policy, they ought to be able to work together, even while they worship in diverse ways. For truly, we are all yoked together as Americans, and the yoke is the happy one of individual freedom and mutual respect.”

Again, not bad. He added: “Separation of church and state cannot mean an absolute separation between moral principles and political power. The challenge today is to recall the origin of the principle, to define its purpose, and refine its application to the politics of the present.”

saving the fairies

Apparently the Aussies are giving their fairy penguins a little help against the forces of evolution. Since Brock Samson is unavailable, professional snipers will have to do.

more about “untitled“, posted with vodpod

My favorite part from the accompanying article:

The main suspects are dogs and foxes. At 40cm tall, the world’s smallest penguin species is clearly no match for such aggressive enemies.

To even up the fight, two snipers have been deployed as bodyguards. [emphasis mine -melo]

via BBC News

overkill

I wonder why this is stuck in my head.

4th of July DC Tea Party

I attended today’s Tea Party near the Capitol Building in DC.  Here’s a few of my pics that I scaled down and posted at PJTV.

hooray for france

Didn’t think you’d see that as a title here, did you? After our own President made such a weak speech in Cairo (see Let Women Wear the Hijab), it’s nice for a leader to call a spade a spade.

Nicolas Sarkozy says the burqa is ‘not welcome’ in France

“We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity,” Mr Sarkozy told the special session in Versailles.

“That is not the idea that the French republic has of women’s dignity.

“The burqa is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. [emphasis mine -melo] It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic,” the French president said.

No one should be forced to spend their life attempting to navigate the world from inside a tent with only an eye slit from which to view it.

a tree grows in galilee

Good on Schreiber and Watts for planting trees in Israel with the Jewish National Fund. Sadly, the comments at the Huff ‘n’ Puff are what you’d expect.

because every day is caturday

more about “Cat “Army” Guards Treasures“, posted with vodpod

another morality saver from iran

Since Iran’s regime shut off access to social networking sites during the campaign, I guess this comes as no surprise.

Cell phone service appears to have been cut in Iran’s capital after a disputed election that the government said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won.

…

Iran has already blocked the use of text messages and most Web sites affiliated with Ahmadinejad’s top opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, were blocked. Other Web sites including Facebook were not accessible but it was unclear if they were blocked.

via Y!

Surely this is another case where the regime is attempting to protect the morality of its citizens and has absolutely nothing to do with silencing unhappiness over what might politely be called “election abnormalities.”  yeah. 

on iran and facebook

For those worried that our friendly Iranian fascist regime would be denying access to Facebook to keep youngsters from getting bright ideas about voting for reform candidates, never fear.  Why even the “reformist” candidate claims it’s merely for moral purposes.

“As far as I know the blocking of this website was due to problems of morality but during this pre-election period, many issues are interpreted as political,” opposition and reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi said in a briefing to the media in the Iranian capital,Tehran.

via AKI

Yeah.  I’m sure that’s it.  Everybody knows that keeping people isolated and ignorant protects the morality of the state. 

good grief, 1984 edition

Those wacky Brits are at it again… and yeah, Orwell must be taking another spin in the crypt.

At the end of April, Caroline Cartwright, a 48-year-old housewife from Wearside in the north east of England, was remanded in custody for having “excessively noisy sex.”

..So how did Cartwright’s expressions of noisy joy become a police case, which later this month will be ruled on at Newcastle Crown Court, one of the biggest courts in the north of England?

Because, unbelievably, Cartwright had previously been served with an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO)—a civil order that is used to control the minutiae of British people’s behaviour—that forbade her from making “excessive noise during sex” anywhere in England.

Read it all at reason.

It appears that these ASBOs are even more horrid than Canadian human rights tribunals.