[Quote:]

The 860,000 Irish voters who rejected the Lisbon Treaty in Friday’s referendum aren’t to blame for the union’s latest crisis. The stalled reforms are the fault of the politicians who for years have been pursuing their own interests at the expense of the European project.

[..]

On the day the Irish rejected the Treaty of Lisbon in a referendum, the Eurocrats in Brussels were as mad as hell. This is the last time, they must have been thinking to themselves — those Irish will never be allowed to vote again. Let’s put an end to these referenda. They’re just too complicated for normal people.

[..]

They treat Europe more like a shell game than the political project of the century. What they themselves decide in Brussels is then shamelessly sold to voters back home by the ministers of agriculture, finance, economics, the environment, finance and transportation as something created by “the people in Brussels,” the second it starts to appear unpopular.

On top of this political duplicity, there are also the Eurocrats’ tricks. The experts in Brussels, as well as Merkel’s advisers in Berlin, were so proud of their clever idea to rewrite the draft constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters to the point that no normal person could ever read it. They were essentially able to rewrap the constitution in the packaging of the Lisbon Treaty without anyone noticing — at least not straight away.

The European train had already left the station, and it would get to its destination no matter what — even if nobody knew what that destination might be. The most important thing was keeping the train running — that was the motto as far back as when Europe enthusiast Helmut Kohl was still the German chancellor. In the long term, though, that cannot work.

[Quote:]

President George W Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House.

Defence and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. “If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place,” said a US intelligence source.

If he had wanted the world a safer place, he would have done this 7 years ago. His legacy is more important than a safer world.

Here’s how the media looks at Obama..

Happy Birthday, habeas corpus!

[Quote:]

Imagine yourself back in the third grade. It is recess, and you are with your classmates on the playground. There is a teacher in the vicinity, but the supervision is fairly minimal. Suddenly, a group of 6 or more children approach you and say something along the lines of, “Have you been saved?” You are not sure what to make of the question, so other questions about your religious beliefs and experiences follow. Without understanding the consequences, you tell them that you and your family are atheists, Jews, Catholics, Buddhists, non-fundamentalist Protestants, etc.

The children start calling you names and hurling insults at you. If you happen to be Jewish, you will hear things that would make neo-Nazi’s proud. You are a sinner. You are going to burn in a lake of fire. You will rot in hell. They form a circle around you, holding hands to make sure you can’t easily escape. They tell you that the only way you can save yourself is to accept Jee-zuhs. They begin praying around you loudly to “save your soul.”

The teacher, if he/she even notices what is happening shrugs it off. Maybe he or she cannot see that you are crying by now. It does not look like the children are touching you, so there seems little cause to disrupt the activity. Maybe the teacher even approves of what the children are doing. After all, he or she may have been raised in this culture of intolerance.

This, dear reader, is a prayer circle.

There have been calls for Ireland to simple do another referendum (and presumably another and another, until the answer is satisfactory. Here’s the answer from Libertas:

[Quote:]

Around them, Libertas campaigners relived the highlights of the campaign and wondered about what they would do if there were a second referendum on the treaty. “Our posters would simply read, ‘No means No’,” one said.

[Fuck it, we're doing it anyway:]

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has urged European Union countries to continue ratification of the EU Treaty despite its rejection Thursday by Irish voters.

[Quote:]

I know what American Express charges for interest on a Platinum Card. A fiscally responsible household should probably sell some of the million of Anheuser-Busch stock they own and stop paying that 17% ARP on $500,000 worth of Amex charges. There are some other stark contrasts between the McCains and the Obamas. The McCains have a net worth around $40 million, almost all of it from Cindy’s holdings. The Obama’s net worth is closer to $4 million, most of it earned from Barack’s two recent books. Instead of going into debt they have managed to put $250,000 in a college savings account for their two daughters.