Liberal Burblings

Archive for November, 2010

A snap of the Christmas Tree outside Newbury Town Hall.

Tomorrow’s is “Not Ashamed Day“. At the behest of a friend, I have signed the “Not Ashamed” declaration, which reads:

WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ is good news for our nation. He is the only true hope and solid foundation for our society.

WE CALL on government, employers and other leaders in our country to protect the freedom of Christians to participate in public life without compromising biblical teaching and to promote in our society the values that are revealed through Jesus Christ and that have so shaped our nation, for the good of all.

UPDATE 23:16 1st December: After reading comments from Ekklesia, Bishop of Croydon and others, I have withdrawn my name as a signatory of this declaration. I should never have signed it in the first place.

See also:

http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2010/12/01/not-ashamed-you-should-be/

 http://heresycorner.blogspot.com/2010/12/are-christians-right-to-be-concerned.html

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/13680

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC host and former conservative congressman from Florida, has really laid into Sarah Palin. He’s written a remarkably withering attack in a column for Politico.

What has particularly riled Scarborough are Palin’s recent swipes on Ronald Reagan and George H.W.Bush. Scarborough says that Republicans should “man up” and tell the truth about Palin. The article is a wonderful read. It is an excorciating assessment of the Wasilla Whirlwind, using a good degree of sarcasm:

After Palin mocked Reagan’s credentials, the TLC reality show star took aim at the 41st president and his wife. Borrowing again from old left-wing attacks that Democrats used against GOP presidents, Palin channeled Ann Richards by bashing Bush and his wife as “blue bloods” who had wrecked America.

Palin was perturbed that a former president and his wife would dare to answer a question about whom they preferred for president in 2012. Perhaps her anger was understandable. After all, these disconnected “blue bloods” had nothing in their backgrounds that could ever make them understand “real America” like a former governor from Alaska who quit in the middle of her first term and then got rich.

Maybe Richards and Palin were right. Maybe poor George Herbert Walker Bush was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Indeed, he was so pampered growing up that on his 18th birthday, the young high school graduate enlisted in the armed forces. This spoiled teenager somehow managed to be the youngest pilot in the Navy when he received his wings, flying 58 combat missions over the Pacific during World War II. On Sept. 2, 1944, “Blue Blood” Bush almost lost his life after being shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire.

With his engine shattered and his plane on fire, Bush still refused to turn back, completing his mission by scoring several damaging hits on enemy targets. His plane crashed in the Pacific, where he waited for four hours in enemy waters until he was finally rescued. For his bravery and service to this country, Bush was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, three air medals and the Presidential Unit Citation for bravery while in combat.

What a spoiled brat.

I suppose Palin’s harsh dismissal of this great man is more understandable after one reads her biography and realizes that, like Bush, she accomplished a great deal in her early 20s. Who wouldn’t agree that finishing third in the Miss Alaska beauty contest is every bit as treacherous as risking your life in military combat? Maybe the beauty contestant who would one day be a reality star and former governor didn’t win the Distinguished Flying Cross, but the half-termer was selected as Miss Congeniality by her fellow contestants..

You can read the full article here

I’ve just read the Telegraph article giving full details of Prince Andrew’s brunch in some where I’ll have to Google to check the spelling and location - Kyrgyzstan. It’s in between Uzbekistan and China.

I can’t say I am in the slightest bit surprised or alarmed by the Prince’s reported remarks.

First of all, it seems that the US ambassador, who reported the remarks, is labouring under the misapprehension that the Royals have some direct power in the UK. They don’t. So they can make remarks at private brunches as much as they like, it won’t mean that the government will automatically follow their lead.

Secondly, the ambassador does not appear to understand British humour. Perhaps she should watch “Yes, Minister”. Particularly this bit:

Sir Humphrey Appleby: [talking about nuclear fallout shelters] Well, you have the weapons; you must have the shelters.

James Hacker: I sometimes wonder why we need the weapons.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister! You’re not a unilateralist?

James Hacker: I sometimes wonder, you know.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, then, you must resign from the government!

James Hacker: Ah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m not that unilateralist! Anyway, the Americans will always protect us from the Russians, won’t they?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Russians? Who’s talking about the Russians?

James Hacker: Well, the independent deterrent.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: It’s to protect us against the French!

James Hacker: The French?! but they’re our allies!

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, they might be now; but they were our mortal enemies for centuries, and old leopards don’t change their spots.

So when Prince Andrew heard about the local corruption and said “It sounds just like the French” – it’s called humour.

It sounds like he was playing to audience of adoring British Kyrgyzstan Embassy staff. They probably needed cheering up. Wouldn’t you if you were stuck out in Kyrgyzstan?

Petition is here – “target list” is here and is based simply on a ranking of the difference in percentage points between the winner of the seat and the LibDem candidate.

There are six PPCs who signed the petition who are in the “top fifty LibDem target seats”. That’s 12% of the top 50 PPCs. Make of that what you will.

The 103 PPCs represent 17.36% of the 593 seats we don’t hold. So the distribution in the top 50 is just short of a third below that you’d see with an even spread across seats of all winnability degrees.

Guido speculates on the mystery Labour minister mentioned in the Wikileaks cables as “a bit of a hound dog where women are concerned”.

The Guardian reports:

The minister, whose name the Guardian is withholding, was “forced to apologize … to a female … who accused him of sexual harassment … and has had marital troubles in the last few years”.

The confidential dispatch continued: “Contacts who know him well report he has manic depressive tendencies – ‘he’s very up one minute, very down the next’, and at least one … colleague has described xxx as a ‘bully’.”

The head of the office of intelligence operations cabled back, saying: “Washington analysts appreciate the excellent background and biographic reporting.” They found “particularly insightful and timely” the material about the minister’s “bullying, possible depression and scandals, as well as comments on the state of his marriage”.