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Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post on surviving in a post-American world.
Like it or not, the United States of America is no longer the world’s policeman. This was the message of Barack Obama’s presidential journey to Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iraq this past week.
Somewhere between apologizing for American history – both distant and recent; genuflecting before the unelected, bigoted king of Saudi Arabia; announcing that he will slash the US’s nuclear arsenal, scrap much of America’s missile defense programs and emasculate the US Navy; leaving Japan to face North Korea and China alone; telling the Czechs, Poles and their fellow former Soviet colonies, “Don’t worry, be happy,” as he leaves them to Moscow’s tender mercies; humiliating Iraq’s leaders while kowtowing to Iran; preparing for an open confrontation with Israel; and thanking Islam for its great contribution to American history, President Obama made clear to the world’s aggressors that America will not be confronting them for the foreseeable future.
Whether they are aggressors like Russia, proliferators like North Korea, terror exporters like nuclear-armed Pakistan or would-be genocidal-terror-supporting nuclear states like Iran, today, under the new administration, none of them has any reason to fear Washington.
This news is music to the ears of the American Left and their friends in Europe. Obama’s supporters like billionaire George Soros couldn’t be more excited at the self-induced demise of the American superpower. CNN’s former (anti-)Israel bureau chief Walter Rodgers wrote ecstatically in the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday, “America’s… superpower status, is being downgraded as rapidly as its economy.” …
GWU law prof Jonathan Turley writes on the diminishment of free speech.
For years, the Western world has listened aghast to stories out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations of citizens being imprisoned or executed for questioning or offending Islam. Even the most seemingly minor infractions elicit draconian punishments. Late last year, two Afghan journalists were sentenced to prison for blasphemy because they translated the Koran into a Farsi dialect that Afghans can read. In Jordan, a poet was arrested for incorporating Koranic verses into his work. And last week, an Egyptian court banned a magazine for running a similar poem.
But now an equally troubling trend is developing in the West. Ever since 2006, when Muslims worldwide rioted over newspaper cartoons picturing the prophet Muhammad, Western countries, too, have been prosecuting more individuals for criticizing religion. The “Free World,” it appears, may be losing faith in free speech.
Among the new blasphemers is legendary French actress Brigitte Bardot, who was convicted last June of “inciting religious hatred” for a letter she wrote in 2006 to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, saying that Muslims were ruining France. It was her fourth criminal citation for expressing intolerant views of Muslims and homosexuals. Other Western countries, including Canada and Britain, are also cracking down on religious critics. …
And an Easter message from David Warren.
It is Easter. The custom among Christians has ever been to observe this as the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord. Not quite all Christians: for I know several strict Calvinists of the Westminster Confession, who reject both Christmas and Easter as pagan celebrations. God bless them, they are fine people, and my brethren, even if separated from me by more schisms than I can count.
For that matter, as my ancient Roman Church teaches, all men are my brothers, and that includes all women and children, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, animists, atheists, etc. Even Richard Dawkins.
We must (as my Pope also mentions from time to time) categorically respect every sincere and peaceable manifestation of religious belief, no matter how seriously we may believe it is in error.
As he said at the University of Regensburg in 2006, in a lecture that was maliciously misconstrued, we must further insist that our differences be discussed without violence and intimidation, and by the light of a reason that should be accepted as the common property of all mankind. In the conditions of the modern world, there is no alternative that does not lead to cataclysm. …
WaPo editors rough up Arne Duncan SecEd for the demise of DC vouchers. Jennifer Rubin says, “Wait a minute, Duncan has a boss.”
… So if one re-reads the op-ed with “the president” in lieu of “Arne Duncan” one gets a better picture of what is going on here. The president has betrayed the kids in his hometown for the sake of mollifying the teachers’ union. It is about as far from “hope” and “change” as one can get. And it is, along with his egregious fiscal irresponsibility, perhaps the greatest disappointment of his new presidency — at least for those who were hoping he’d be a new kind of Democrat. Perhaps it is time for his hometown paper to focus on whom is ultimately and entirely responsible for this abomination.
Here’s that WaPo editorial.
Deroy Murdock writes on DC vouchers for Real Clear Politics.
Despite being “a skeptic of vouchers,” candidate Barack Obama promised this would not prevent him from “making sure that our kids can learn.” As he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, “You do what works for the kids.”
Last January 21, his first full day in office, President Obama declared, “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.”
Just 10 weeks later, Obama has broken both these promises. And poor-but-promising minority kids suffer the consequences.
These 1,714 children — 90 percent black and 9 percent Hispanic — enjoy the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. They each receive up to $7,500 for private or parochial schools outside Washington, D.C.’s dismal government-education system. Since its 2004 launch, 7,852 students have applied for these grants, or more than four children per voucher.
This program’s popularity notwithstanding, Obama stayed silent as Congress scheduled this initiative’s demise after the 2009 — 2010 academic year. Both a Democratic Congress and DC authorities must reauthorize the program — not likely. …
London Times reports on new blood test for cancer. Buried in the story is indication of cancer fighting capabilities of statins, the new miracle drug.
A drop of blood or speck of tissue no bigger than a full stop could soon be all that is required to diagnose cancers and assess their response to treatment, research suggests.
New technology that allows cancer proteins to be analysed in tiny samples could spell the end of surgical biopsies, which involve removing lumps of tissue, often under general anaesthetic.
Researchers at Stanford University, California, have developed a machine that separates cancer-associated proteins by means of their electric charge, which varies according to modifications on the protein’s surface. …
Borowitz reports salary caps are driving away Wall Street’s jerks.
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