I heard Orin Hatch say on the news today is that the Taliban is gaining strength and could very well take over both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan has nuclear capabilities.
I've always supported military action in Afghanistan --- mainly because the Taliban is so horrible to people -- to women in particular -- and because I wanted to get Bin Laden. I wish we'd concentrated there early on instead of Iraq.
I think this is a new day for the ELCA. We will move to a more progressive and open form of Christianity.
Although I wasn't part of the conservative movement of old...at least it had some class -- unlike today.
According to Steven F. Hayward of the Wash Post, "During the glory days of the conservative movement, from its ascent in the 1960s and '70s to its success in Ronald Reagan's era, there was a balance between the intellectuals, such as Buckley and Milton Friedman, and the activists, such as Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Weyrich, the leader of the New Right. The conservative political movement, for all its infighting, has always drawn deeply from the conservative intellectual movement, and this mix of populism and elitism troubled neither side. Today, however, the conservative movement has been thrown off balance, with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas. The leading conservative figures of our time are now drawn from mass media, from talk radio and cable news. We've traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100103889.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
I believe that Beck will overreach at some point. He has truly damaged the conservative movement.
Lindsay Graham recently said in an interview that Beck is in the party of cynicism.
I have 3 male cats. We don't let them out. Our cat before them kept bringing up dead animals and continuously grossed us out every morning! So, we did the unusual thing (for us) of making our cats totally indoor. They'll live longer, but the cat box is pain! I guess my mindset has always been that cats were indoor/outdoor animals and that it wasn't a big deal to let them roam free. Now you'd need to live way out in the country to have that luxury. Still, I don't understand why other peoples' cats roaming would bother anyone. But then, I love cats and don't mind them! I'm just thankful that I don't have the type of neighbors who would set a trap for a cat. What a waste of time and energy...
Many thanks to Mr. Burke and Awni Sammakia for their reasoned voices.
I love our Christian country!
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Brainchild