From the UK Telegraph, an outraged statement from across the pond.
Excerpt:
Barack Obama may have rolled out the red carpet for David Cameron at the White House last month, flown the Prime Minister on Air Force One to Ohio, and lavished him with a state dinner, but he still won’t back America’s closest ally over the Falklands, sticking to a policy of “neutrality”.
[…]The President and his Secretary of State refuse to back the right of self-determination of the Falkland Islanders, and have not said a word condemning the increasingly belligerent stance and actions of Buenos Aires, including its threats to blockade the Islands and isolate it economically. The State Department has given no indication whatsoever that it has moved away from its support for direct negotiations between Argentina and Great Britain over the sovereignty of the Falklands. In fact, far from being neutral, the Obama administration has been siding with Argentina’s position for the last three years.
For all its PR spin during the Cameron visit, when the prime minister was blatantly used as an election prop and a fundraising foil for Obama’s re-election campaign, the Obama administration could not care less for the Special Relationship. If Mr Obama really believed in the alliance with Britain he would be actively siding with the British people over the Falklands, instead of continuing to appease Buenos Aires and its South American cohorts, including Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.
Britain is standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States on the battlefields of Afghanistan and in the wider war against Islamist terrorism, and on countless fronts is an indispensable ally to Washington. Yet the current US president can’t even bring himself to support the right of 3,000 overwhelmingly British Falkland Islanders to continue to live under the protection of the Union Jack, 30 years after their liberation from Argentine occupation. A stance of “neutrality” is an act of cowardice by Barack Obama in the face of Latin American pressure, and another slap in the face for Britain.
You can read more about the special relationship between the USA and the UK here, in case you are not familiar with the term.
This administration has done everything possible to support our enemies (like Iran) while simultaneously stabbing our allies (like Israel and Georgia) in the back.
From CNS News, a conversation that was never meant for the public to hear.
Excerpt:
President Barack Obama told Russia’s leader Monday that he would have more flexibility after the November election to deal with the contentious issue of missile defense, a candid assessment of political reality that was picked up by a microphone without either leader apparently knowing.
Outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he would pass on Obama’s message to his successor, Vladimir Putin, according to an audio recording of comments the two leaders made during a meeting in Seoul, South Korea. Obama and Medvedev did not intend for their comments to be made public.
Thirty-four lawmakers sent a letter to the White House on Thursday in response to news reports that President Obama had ordered his staff to study the option of reducing America’s nuclear deterrent by 80 percent—down to as few as 300 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The United States currently has a cap of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads under the so-called New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the controversial arms control pact with Russia that passed the Senate in December 2010.
The concerned lawmakers—who are led by Republican Congressmen Buck McKeon of California, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), and Mike Turner of Virginia, head of the HASC’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces—question whether the president is taking into account the full range of threats that face the United States in its allies. In the letter, they caution against further nuclear cuts given “the growth in quantity and quality of nuclear weapons capabilities in Russia, the People’s Republic of China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and, perhaps soon the Islamic Republic of Iran” and “the divestment of U.S. conventional military capabilities under [Obama’s] recently announced defense strategy.”
The Obama administration disclosed on Tuesday that it is considering sharing some classified U.S. data as part of an effort to allay Russian concerns about a controversial antimissile shield.
The administration is continuing negotiations begun under former President George W. Bush on a defense technical cooperation agreement with Moscow that could include limited classified data, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Brad Roberts told a House of Representatives’ Armed Services subcommittee.
He gave no details on the sort of data that might be shared under such an agreement.
U.S. officials have confirmed to Fox News that images aired by Iranian state television do in fact show the secret U.S. drone that went down last week in eastern Iran.
“Yep, that’s it,” one senior official told Fox News. “And it’s intact.”
U.S. officials had been expecting the video to appear. The footage, which shows the aircraft intact, confirms the Iranians have custody of the drone but appears to refute Iranian claims that it shot down the RQ-170 drone.
With early knowledge that the aircraft had likely remained intact, the senior U.S. official also told Fox News that President Obama was presented with three separate options for retrieving or destroying the drone. The president ultimately decided not to proceed with any of the plans because it could have been seen as an act of war, the official told Fox News.
Among the options the U.S. considered were sending in a special-ops team to retrieve the drone; sending in a team to blow up the aircraft; and launching an airstrike to destroy it.
The most senior retired military officer to back President Obama’s run for the White House says the president is making a “real mistake” in terminating F-22 production.
Retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, who was the Air Force chief of staff during the 1991 Operation Desert Storm and who credited air power with winning the war, was the first four-star officer to endorse the one-term senator in his presidential campaign. McPeak traveled with Obama to bolster the candidate’s commander-in-chief credentials, much to the chagrin of the general’s fighter pilot colleagues.
But now McPeak is breaking with Obama on the president’s most contentious defense budget decision: ending production of the Air Force’s top-line fighter at 187 aircraft.
“I think it’s a real mistake,” McPeak told FOXNews.com. “The airplane is a game-changer and people seem to forget that we haven’t had any of our soldiers or Marines killed by enemy air since 1951 or something like that. It’s been half a century or more since any enemy aircraft has killed one of guys. So we’ve gotten use to this idea that we never have to breathe hostile air.”
McPeak’s comments come as Obama is in the throes of a major battle with Democrats and Republicans who have voted in committee to fund seven more F-22s.
Obama sent a letter to Congress Monday with a blunt warning.
“I will veto any bill that supports acquisition of F-22s beyond the 187 already funded by Congress,” Obama wrote. “To continue to procure additional F-22s would be to waste valuable resources that should be more usefully employed to provide our troops with the weapons that they actually do need.”
Worst. President. Ever. Unless you are an enemy of the United States, in which case he’s the best president ever!
I found this article from a talented Christian blogger named Eric Chabot while perusing Brian Auten’s latest weekly apologetics bonus links. You might want to bookmark his blog if you haven’t already. His topic this time is how to remedy the anti-intellectual climate that exists in the church.
Introduction:
Over the years I have had the opportunity to teach apologetics. Apologetics is the branch of Christian theology that offers reasons for the truthfulness of the Christian position/worldview. Most of the classes I have taught are about 8 weeks long. After the first class I can guarantee that the hands will go up. Several students lament that their local congregation has zero interest in apologetics. When we start to discuss the reasons for problem, one issue that always surfaces is that there is little emphasis on the discipleship of the mind. It is apparant that many in the Church have been taught to that it is more spiritual to be simple- minded. In other words, don’t think so hard. God is only pleased by simple faith.
That’s tough talk.
And here’s an excerpt I really liked:
It could not be more evident to me that one of the reasons that Christians are discipled into anti-intellectualism is because of poor exegesis.
Let’s look at some of the Scriptures that can be misunderstood as speaking against anti-intellectualism:
[…]2. Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” Some have concluded from this passage that Paul is commanding people to avoid secular studies or philosophy. If we look at this passage in context, Paul was dealing with a proto-Gnostic philosophy that was threatening the Colossian church. If Paul had not had a vast understanding of philosophy, he could not have addressed the problem in the Colossian church. It is important to note that Paul quoted pagan philosophers in Acts 17:28.
Some people in the church make a big fuss over this passage, insisting that all thinking is to be discouraged. I find that sort of evasiveness very self-serving since the passage is clearly a warning against bad philosophy. One wonders if the people who take this passage as a justification for lazy emotionalism would pass on all food if I told them not to eat the spoiled food. One of the best ways to distinguished good philosophy from bad philosophy is to study philosophy.
More:
4. Matthew 18:3-5: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.”
In interpreting this passage, it is important to note that Jesus challenged his followers to be like children morally, not intellectually. Christians are called to exhibit childlikeness in being sensitive to evil and sin, in being humble and contrite in spirit. Jesus contrasts the need for humility with tough-mindness in Matt. 10:16, when He says, ” Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.” (3)
Read the whole thing, send it to your pastor.
By the way, if you would like to read my post on this topic, which I think is really worth reading as well, then just click here. Send that to your pastor, too.
WINTERY KNIGHT 