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When the going gets tough, Hank Paulson heads for the People's Republic of China
Sol Sanders l
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
I guess one can’t fault “Hank” Paulson for trying to put the best face on things as he set off on in early December on another trip to China, his last as Secretary of Treasury. With all the problems he temporarily leaves behind in Washington, it may help to loudly proclaim that China is a “stakeholder” and that Beijing is helping the U.S. and the rest of the world weather the credit crunch, the oncoming worldwide recession, and a welter of policy dilemmas no one is quite sure where to begin solving.
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The new U.S. soft power: Social workers to the world
Wesley Pruden l
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Barack Obama came in from the cold Monday. The man who gave us the unexpected in his team to resurrect the economy introduced his team to reorganize the world of which he sees himself as president-elect. The new message is clear - being president merely of the United States is for bush-leaguers.
Hillary Clinton, who suggested she has the equipment to be the manliest member of the entire Obama administration, invoked the campaign mantra right away, cheering an uneasy cult after those earlier appointments. She's not only for change, but "positive" change. She promised to work with the toy countries of the world to resolve global crises.
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Showdown looming between Obama and Pope Benedict
Jeffrey Kuhner l
Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama's plan to pass the Freedom of Choice Act is setting up a showdown with the Vatican.
"The first thing I will do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act," he said at an address before Planned Parenthood on July 17, 2007. And if he does, it will trigger a harsh response from Pope Benedict XVI, as well as a political revolt among practicing American Catholics.
Mr. Obama signing the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) "would be the equivalent of a war," a senior Vatican official told Time magazine last week. "It would be like saying, 'We've heard the Catholic Church and we have no interest in their concerns.' " At a recent Baltimore meeting, the U.S. Catholic bishops pledged to challenge Mr. Obama on his defense of abortion rights.
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Iran has successfully played for time and now, time's up
John Metzler l
Friday, November 28, 2008
UNITED NATIONS — The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to pursue its nuclear program despite periodic slaps on the wrist from the UN Security Council. Now we discover that what Tehran purports to be their “peaceful pursuit of nuclear power,” has progressed well beyond what they have been admitting. Not surprisingly Iran is now much closer to the capability of building a nuclear weapon which some intelligence experts believe could be a few years away.
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Rulers of China, Chinese in New York, and the NY Times
Lev Navrozov l
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
When the Venetian Marco Polo (1254-1324) visited China, the Chinese regarded China, though it was ruled at that time by a Mongol Khan, as the world of splendor where a woman wore a dress of silk, designed individually as a work of art, while the outside world was a world of savagery, where no one knew what silk was.
Not dissimilarly, that doctor’s Chinese assistant in New York regarded China as the world’s brilliant metropolitan country, no matter who ruled it, and New York as a backward province that was paying her well for her efficiency around a doctor’s office.
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Government as cancer, Obama or no Obama
Mark Steyn l
Mon, November 10, 2008
My Republican friends are now saying, oh, not to worry, look at the exit polls, this is still a "center-right" country. Americans didn't vote to go left, they voted to go cool. It was a "Dancing With The Stars" election: Barack Obama's a star and everyone wants to dance with him. It doesn't mean they're suddenly gung-ho for left-wingery.
Up to a point. Unlike those excitable countries where the peasants overrun the presidential palace, settled democratic societies rarely vote to "go left". Yet oddly enough that's where they've all gone. In its assumptions about the size of the state and the role of government, almost every advanced nation is more left than it was, and getting lefter.
Even in America, federal spending (in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars) has gone from $600 billion in 1965 to $3 trillion today. The Heritage Foundation put it in a convenient graph: It's pretty much a straight line across four decades, up, up, up. Doesn't make any difference who controls Congress, who's in the White House. The government just grows and grows, remorselessly.
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