Various news organizations are reporting that Osama Bin Laden is dead. President Obama is expected to announce the news. Bin Laden was reportedly killed in Pakistan by an operation involving Navy Seals but the story is still unfolding. YahooReports indicate that he was shot in the head after he and his bodyboards resisted an attack by the elite unit.
Continue reading “BIN LADEN DEAD”
Category: International
After arresting hundreds of Christians for attempting to worship in unapproved services, the Chinese have turned to Buddhists for a crackdown that has reportedly taken the lives of two Tibetans. Chinese forces raided the Kirti Monastery (shown left) after accusing monks of disrupting social order and . . . wait for it . . . defaming their religion. That’s right, the government that occupied Tibet, killed Tibetan monks, sent the Dalai Lama in hiding, and destroyed countless temples has accused these monks of defaming their own religion.
Continue reading “China: Who Will Rid Us of These Meddlesome Monks?”
This morning I kissed by co-human carer and fed my companion animal before sitting down to blog on the recent publication by the Revd Professor Andrew Linzey, a theologian and director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. Linzey has denounced the use of the word “pet” and “owner” as derogatory. Don’t even get him started on references to animals as “beasts” or “critters.”
Continue reading “Pet Companion Animal Peeve: Professor Calls For the Elimination of Such “Derogatory” Terms As “Pet,” “Beast,” “Owner,” and “Wildlife””
We have previously followed the trend against free speech in the West ranging from anti-blasphemy laws (including a resolution supported by President Obama) to hate speech prosecutions for criticizing everything from religion to homosexuality to overweight people. England has been a focus of many of these stories. Now, on the Isle of Wight, musician Simon Ledger, 34, has been arrested after singing “Kung Fu Fighting” and a passing person of Chinese descent cried foul.
For those of you still marveling over Susan Boyle’s surprise performance in 2009, meet Edward Reid who took nursery rhymes to a new level on “Britain’s Got Talent” this weekend.
Continue reading “Meet Edward Reid: They Were Happy and They Clapped Their Hands”
How much do you want that really perfect cup of coffee? This article from Reddit caught me eye. It was not that Kopi Luwak is the world’s most expensive coffee at as much as $3000 a pound (though I have seen other bags offered for as little as $200 a pound, but then again, you have to ask yourself, is it pure civet poop?). It was the unique processing used to produce the beans.
Continue reading “Cacaccino: Civet Droppings Become World’s Most Expensive Coffee”
This is the quintessential French story. Anyone who has gone to France knows that you can expect that someone will be striking and shutting down parts of Paris. However, the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) police force is taking a stand on a matter of French privilege — the right to drink while on duty. After all, if the French cannot have a glass of wine while fighting terror, the terrorists have won.
Helen Beard, an English tourist in Orlando, caught more than a tan in Florida this week. Beard showed that legendary English backbone when she caught a 2-year-old child who fell from a fourth-floor balcony of at the Econo Lodge on International Drive in Orlando. Beard is an inspiration to us all and a fine representative of that stalwart people of Britannia.
Continue reading “British Tourist Catches Falling Baby in Florida”
The consumption of dogs in China has long been a point of disgust with many Westerners. Animal rights activists have a particularly difficult time in China, but succeeded this week in forcing action to save hundreds of dogs being sent to a slaughterhouse in terrible conditions on a truck from Henan province.
Continue reading “Taking Dogs For a Wok: Chinese Animal Activists Stop Truck Load of Dogs Sent To Slaughterhouse”
And we thought pork belly politics were too much in Congress. In Kyrgyzstan, legislators have sacrificed seven sheep to drive out evil spirits out of the parliament chamber.
Continue reading “Kyrgyz Legislators Sacrifice Sheep To Rid Parliament of Evil Spirits”
It is time for another entry in the category Things That Tick Me Off where I vent against absurdities or abuses that I have personally witnessed. (It is remarkably therapeutic). This week’s winner is American Airlines. Months ago, Leslie and I set out to arrange for a trip that would use our carefully saved frequent flier miles to go to England and France with the four kids. It was the trip we had been planning for years once the kids were old enough to appreciate it and we saved over 700,000 miles to achieve the dream under American’s SkyMiles program. What followed as a nightmare in dealing with American, which seems to have made the “bait-and-switch” a structuring corporate principle.
Continue reading “Things That Tick Me Off: American Airlines”
A former soldier in England has been sentenced to 70 days in prison for burning a copy of the Koran (Qu’ran) in public. While a detestable act, the prosecution of individuals for the exercise of free speech is equally detestable and part of a growing trend of such prosecutions in the West under blasphemy or hate crime laws.
Continue reading “England Continues Crackdown on Anti-Religious Speech: Former British Soldier Sentenced To Jail For Burning Koran”
U.S. Ambassador and former law professor, Douglas Kmiec, has stepped down after a State Department report criticized him for spending too much time writing and speaking about his religious beliefs. Kmiec (who I know and personally like) is a conservative who supported Obama in the election and was rewarded with the position. The report stated that Kmiec spent too much time writing and speaking about abortion and too little in being an ambassador. Kmiec’s appointment occurred at a time when Obama was turning away from growing criticism by liberals — a trend that has only increased with time. Kmiec was a law professor at Pepperdine University and legal counsel to President Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
This video has people talking about whether Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president, knowingly used the five-finger discount to take a ceremonial pen during a state visit to Chile — as 5 million people watched. You be the judge.
Continue reading “The Czech is in the Mail: Czech President Accused of Palming Pen”
Well, it now appears we are at war for regime change after all. President Barack Obama joined British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a rare article appearing in International Herald Tribune, Le Figaro, and Times of London to say that they will not accept anything less than changing the government in Libya. We are now officially parties in a civil war to overthrow a government — without a declaration of war from Congress.
Continue reading “It is About Regime Change After All: Obama Changes Rationale for Libyan War Once Again And Demands Libyans Change Their Government As A Condition For Ending Combat Operations”