Have at it, dear people – I can’t think of anything to write at the moment.

A bit of an antidote to Obama’s speech yesterday:

Christendom might quite reasonably have been alarmed if it had not been attacked. But as a matter of history it had been attacked. The Crusader would have been quite justified in suspecting the Moslem even if the Moslem had merely been a new stranger; but as a matter of history he was already an old enemy. The critic of the Crusade talks as if it had sought out some inoffensive tribe or temple in the interior of Thibet, which was never discovered until it was invaded. They seem entirely to forget that long before the Crusaders had dreamed of riding to Jerusalem, the Moslems had almost ridden into Paris. – G K Chesterton

Still a long way to go before election day, but heartening none the less:

Fresh from his primary victory over Steve Lonegan, Republican Chris Christie enjoys a double-digit lead over Democrat Jon Corzine in the New Jersey Governor’s race.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state shows Christie with 51% of the vote while Corzine is supported by 38%.

It will take a lot of hard work and dedication on the part of New Jersey and national Republicans to win this race – Corzine has vast resources and Democrats will pull out all the stops from smears to voter fraud to try and pull out a win. New Jersey was one of the harbingers of 1994, and Democrats are determined that there not be a repeat in 2010. So, get ready for the fight and if you live in New Jersey, go volunteer.

A few things I’ve noted:

I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

We can’t have justice in the Moslem world as long as the Moslem world – outside of Iraq and Afghanistan – remains unfree. No justice, no peace – but, no freedom, no justice. All human beings like justice, but most Moslems have no chance at it as they labor under various tyrannies.

As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities — (applause) — it was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

Obama is a pretty poor student. This is the grab-bag of achievements Islam is supposed to have done as a means of denigrating the real source of Europe’s Renaissance – Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, East and West, which preserved the Greco-Roman heritage and instructed Europe in those universities invented by the Church to promote deep learning. I mean, come on, Barry – I think there was a German named Gutenberg who had a bit more to do with printing than any Moslem did…especially given that it was centuries after Europeans started printing books before any Moslem nation would tolerate a printing press. As for majestic arches and soaring spires – didn’t stop in any Gothic cathedrals in your European travels, huh? Racial equality – tell that to the black Africans enslaved in Moslem countries right up to today…

As a salve to wounded Moslem pride – they have a hard time understanding how they fell so far behind when they were allegedly once so far ahead – this is good stuff. As a statement of truth, it falls very far short.

And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States.

Anyone have the name of any American who was Moslem in 1776?

Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; our progress must be shared.

Shared by whom? By the American people and the Moslem governments, corrupt and wicked? Or by the America and Moslem peoples? That is the crux of the matter, Mr. President – are you working for our peoples to get together, or for our people to accommodate their leaders?

And that’s why we’re partnering with a coalition of 46 countries. And despite the costs involved, America’s commitment will not weaken.

A coalition of 46 countries? I thought we were going it alone over the past 8 years? Whence comes all these countries in the coalition?

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that’s how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel’s right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. (Applause.) This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop. (Applause.)

Please note, Mr. President, that you got no applause when you talked about Palestinians renouncing violence and building a government, but got applause when you condemned Israeli communities living in what radical Islamists consider to be Moslem territory. These Islamists consider Tel Aviv to be Moslem territory, Mr. President. Unless and until you can get applause for both ending settlements and ending Moslem violence, your efforts here are wasted.

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.

Well, its really a matter of Moslem rulers being tolerant as long as their power is unchallenged. As soon as Moslem powers start to crumble, tolerance goes right out the window.

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.

I think its more of a fact that we will live together in peace – as soon as we accept God’s laws about the inherent dignity of all men…and this means we must end abortion, Moslems must end suicide bombings and all of us must strive mightily to cease viewing each other as objects for personal gratification. I know, your speech wasn’t about this at all – in the end, it was about nothing…but you almost reached a point where you could start talking.

And then you stopped.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: Finally got to read Obama’s speech tonight… It’s hard to know where to begin, but, I guess the only thing to say is that I found it to be another apologetic speech, making bizarre comparisons (the Holocaust comparison was beyond insulting),  harsher on America and our past actions than on Iran or other Muslim countries and their actions. Any positive things said about the United States, coming from him, seemed to be more boilerplate rhetoric you’d expect from any American leader speaking overseas, than genuine sentiment… especially when you consider his willingness to defecate on this country for applause.

David Frum says the speech was worse than feared

Charles Krauthammer called the speech abstract, vapid, and self absorbed..

Karl Rove:

http://foxnews1.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/foxnews1-foxnews-pub01-live/current/videolandingpage/fncLargePlayer/client/embedded/embedded.swf

UPDATE II, by Mark Noonan: You gotta know it sucked if Huffington Post thinks it was bad. On the whole, I’d say there hasn’t been a more damaging speech made by an American President since the Carter Administration.

UPDATE III, by Mark Noonan: The more I think about it, the more ashamed I am that President Obama thinks it important for we here in the West to accept Moslem women wearing the hijab…its a symbol of subjection, not of modesty. Its a fraud perpetrated on Moslem women as even Mohammed’s wives weren’t required to wear it. Its a disgusting cover for Moslem men who insist upon their women being subordinate, but then go out and try to pick up foreign men in various flesh-pots around the world, even in Moslem countries (yes, I’ve seen them with my own eyes – behind the ornate decor of western-style hotels, off the ground floor, kinda ’round back…where the common schlubs can’t go…). American women don’t put up with that sort of nonsense…

Imagine if a GOP President had appointed someone who had once said, “We have to quit being afraid of the gay rights movement. We also have to quit – I’m trying to find a way to say this. I’m trying not to say, ‘F**k ’em!’ which is what I want to say, because I don’t care what they think!” – think the liberals would be ok with such an appointee? Of course not – they’d be demanding such a person not only not be appointed, but be hounded out of public life for all time to come and that everyone who ever worked with him be cast under a cloud of suspicion. But given that it wasn’t a GOPer who said that, but a gay rights activist, liberals will be calling the man a hero:

The plan seems to be clear. President Obama proclaimed June as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.” He and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have also nominated longtime homosexual activist Kevin Jennings as the Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Department of Education’s Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools.

We are in the midst of another alteration in the terrain of American culture. The goal is the affirmation of license with regard to disordered sexual cravings and the rejection of the Natural Law…

…LifeSiteNews.com reported that Jennings had been quoted as saying members of the “religious right” were “hard core bigots” who comprised about 20 percent of the electorate at Marble Collegiate Church.

“We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. We also have to quit – I’m trying to find a way to say this. I’m trying not to say, ‘F**k ’em!’ which is what I want to say, because I don’t care what they think!” Jennings told his audience, which pealed with laughter. “Drop dead!”

We’re all too used to the exceptional nastiness of the left, but do we really need such people to be running the show in the Department of Education? I mean, isn’t there some ACT-UP demonstration where Jennings’ particular talents would be more useful? Certainly, the political sewer has lots of openings so Jennings won’t lack employment. Why do we taxpayers – including the Christians he hates so much – have to pony up for him?

I know that liberals wish to make politics odious to anyone who doesn’t live and breath politics all the time, but I do hope that Obama will take a step back and realize that he can advance his agenda without hiring people who need a bit of psychological therapy and a course of prayer in order to be fit for decent society.

From The New Republic:

According to the CBO, enacting President Obama’s FY 2010 budget would yield annual budget deficits averaging 5.3 percent over the next decade, with a steadily rising trajectory after 2013 (“A Preliminary Analysis of the President’s Budget, March 2009, Table 1-4, p. 10). The administration has consistently argued that the key remedy for this unsustainable path is comprehensive health care reform-specifically, the cost containment measures for which universal coverage is the precondition.

The impressive analysis of “The Economic Case for Health Care Reform” issued today by the President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) sheds new light on this claim. Some time ago, the administration set a goal of reducing the annual growth rate of health care costs by 1.5 percentage points, which is the maximum that most experts think would be feasible. According to today’s CEA report, if health care reform measures were able to achieve these savings in full, starting in 2010, the deficit would reduced by only 1 percent of GDP by 2020 (Figure 14, p. 26), leaving the deficit at nearly 5 percent of GDP. (By the way, few experts believe that the health care cost curve could be made to bend as quickly as the CEA analysis assumes.)

The conclusion is inescapable: to accomplish over the next decade what Treasury Secretary Geithner promised yesterday in Beijing, we will need a combination of spending restraints and revenue increases going well beyond what anyone has put on the table so far…(emphasis added)

Now, The New Republic – being The New Republic – implies that eventually someone in Obama-land will have to put forth the budget cuts and tax increases necessary to bring Obamunism in contact with reality. This is rather endearing – the way some liberals actually think there is rationality and honesty in anything a liberal politician is up to. Obama and Co simply don’t care about what is happening – all they want is the plaudits of the MSM, increased power and patronage for themselves and that feeling of accomplishment liberal politicians get when they are enacting vast, new spending programs. Doesn’t matter if Obama’s plans are not just false, but stupid – as long as they fulfill the needs of liberal politics, its all good. All Obama cares about regarding the actual effects of his policies is that they either help or at least don’t hinder his re-election bid in 2012.

If we have 50% unemployment in 2013, that is entirely ok, as long as Obama is President. Regardless of what happens, Obama will be lauded to the skies for all time to come by liberals and, I’ll bet, he’ll get a Nobel Peace Prize for something or other, and be proposed for UN Secretary General…Obama is set, as long as he gets re-elected in 2012 (the one nearly unpardonable sin in Liberalism is to lose an election – Carter took more than 20 years to climb out of the liberal blacklist after his loss in 1980; Gore had a quicker rehabilitation because he was smart enough to latch on to the latest fad – global warming – while also having people argue that he didn’t really lose).

Our only hope is to secure enough representation of the people in Congress to thwart the worst aspects of Obamunism. In 2010, we’ll have our chance to take back at least a lot of influence in Congress – if we fight hard and elect people who are of us and for us, we’ll soon have policies designed to help us, rather than help liberal leaders and their pet interest groups. The ball is in our court, and we’ll see what we do with it.

Indeed:

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. – James Madison

I wonder if early elections will be called:

Hazel Blears dealt a potentially fatal blow to Gordon Brown’s political authority today when she announced her departure from Cabinet on the eve of crucial local and European elections.

It was the fourth ministerial resignation in 24 hours and the second at Cabinet level after the news yesterday that Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is also to stand down. It also came as Mr Brown’s critics in the Labour Party canvassed support for a round-robin letter calling on the Prime Minister to resign.

With Labour currently being monumentally unpopular, I wonder if the Labour party will be able to legitimately hold on to office if Brown is ousted? There certainly would be a strong argument in favor of a new poll of the electorate to determine whom shall be in control of Britain’s destiny in these dark times. For Labour, it would be a calculus of whether hanging on or resigning would be best- certainly, Labour is going to lose, and lose rather badly, when the next national elections are held…but would they lose less badly now, or later? Later passions might have cooled, or gotten worse. Tricky, tricky, tricky…and hopefully a harbinger of American events in November of 2010.

Is Obama an idiot?

…the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.

We have 57 States and we’re one of the largest Moslem nations in the world…this from the supposed genius known as Barack Obama. Ok, I’ve played along for a while now, but I don’t want to play anymore – I want to know if Obama is just a moron who can read a speech well off the teleprompter. I want him given an IQ test, in public. I want to quiz him, personally, on some of the basic facts of history. I don’t trust this guy to know poop from shinola, anymore.

This certainly would be a rather large man-caused catastrophe:

U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group’s determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland.

The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by The Washington Times.

The officials, who spoke only on the condition they not be named because of the sensitive nature of their work, stressed that there is no credible information that al Qaeda has acquired the capabilities to carry out a mass biological attack although its members have clearly sought the expertise.

We’ve got AG Holder telling Georgia they can’t ensure voters are citizens, we’ve got a Secretary of Homeland Security who take a weak view of border security, and we’ve got a President who insists that making nice-nice will cause our enemies to give up the fight. Meanwhile, Mexican drug cartels daily send massive amounts of human and material contraband through our southern border. Anyone want to take bets on the chances these cartels will refuse to work with terrorists? Anyone want to take bets that American white supremacist groups won’t work with their fellow anti-Semites from al-Qaeda? Essentially, we’re back to 9/10 and we’re opening ourselves wide to another mass casualty terrorist attack. As long as we go down this road it isn’t a matter of if we’ll be hit, but when.

In the end, what we may end up doing is bringing the “overseas contingency operations” home. The murder of Private William Long might be a mere precursor to larger and bloodier deeds – and it will be unless Obama acts decisively to get his head out of the sand.