Nuclear family is broken warns parents' group:
The traditional nuclear family has irretrievably broken down and it will soon become normal for children to be raised by relations other than their parents, the head of a Government-funded parenting group has predicted.
Aunts, uncles, grandparents and even siblings will take on increasing childcare responsibilities in a form of “communal parenting” to cope with the effects of marital breakdown and growing pressures in the workplace, according to the Family and Parenting Institute.
Rising divorce rates, fewer marriages and the growth of civil partnerships mean that the traditional family model is no longer “the norm” and Government efforts to rescue it are futile, according to Dr Katherine Rake, the organisation’s new chief executive.
...it was Pius himself who was largely responsible for the momentous changes of 1969. It was he who appointed the chief architect of the new Mass, Annibale Bugnini, to the Vatican’s liturgical commission in 1948.(Emphasis added)
Bugnini was born in 1912 and ordained a Vincentian priest in 1936. Though Bugnini had barely a decade of parish work, Pius XII made him secretary to the Commission for Liturgical Reform. In the 1950s, Bugnini led a major revision of the liturgies of Holy Week. As a result, on Good Friday of 1955, congregations for the first time joined the priest in reciting the Pater Noster, and the priest faced the congregation for some of the liturgy.
The next pope, John XXIII, named Bugnini secretary to the Preparatory Commission for the Liturgy of Vatican II, in which position he worked with Catholic clergymen and, surprisingly, some Protestant ministers on liturgical reforms. In 1962 he wrote what would eventually become the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the document that gave the form of the new Mass.
Many of Bugnini’s reforms were aimed at appeasing non-Catholics, and changes emulating Protestant services were made, including placing altars to face the people instead of a sacrifice toward the liturgical east. As he put it, “We must strip from our ... Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren, that is, for the Protestants.”
How was Bugnini able to make such sweeping changes? In part because none of the popes he served were liturgists. Bugnini changed so many things that John’s successor, Paul VI, sometimes did not know the latest directives. The pope once questioned the vestments set out for him by his staff, saying they were the wrong color, only to be told he had eliminated the week-long celebration of Pentecost and could not wear the corresponding red garments for Mass. The pope’s master of ceremonies then witnessed Paul VI break down in tears.
Swiss voters have supported a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets, official results show.
More than 57% of voters from 26 cantons - or provinces - voted in favour of the ban, Swiss news agency ATS reported.
The proposal had been put forward by the Swiss People's Party, (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which says minarets are a sign of Islamisation.
Many people – and bodies – presented as experts actually have little or no knowledge of the science involved. Gullible politicians and gullible media men and women have repeatedly fallen for it.
Hucksters, profiteers, world-government fanatics and, of course, the EU (always searching for an excuse to increase its power) have latched on to it.
Huge public subsidies, including the carbon-trading racket and the tragicomic building of hideous, worse-than-useless windfarms, now depend upon it.
But take, just for example, the famous picture of polar bears on a melting ice-floe, supposedly doomed victims of global warming.
The USA’s ex-Vice President, the propagandist Al Gore, got audiences going ‘Aaah!’ by saying the bears had ‘nowhere else to go’. Really? The picture was taken in August, when the Alaskan ice always melts. The polar bears were fine. Think about it.
They can swim and they weren’t far from land. Recent studies show that most polar bear populations are rising.
The world was warmer than it is now in the early Middle Ages, long before industrial activity increased CO2 output, a fact that the warming fanatics have worked very hard to obscure.
Oh, and the most important greenhouse gas by far is not CO2 but water vapour, which is not influenced by human activity at all.
Meanwhile, an English court of law (despite buying the CO2 argument) has identified nine significant errors of fact in Gore’s Oscar-winning alarmist film An Inconvenient Truth, ludicrously being inflicted on children in British schools.
Among these: sea levels are not going to rise by 20ft any time soon; there’s no evidence that atolls in the Pacific have been evacuated because of rising waters; the Gulf Stream is not going to shut down; the drying-up of Lake Chad, the shrinking of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro and Hurricane Katrina were none of them caused by global warming; the only polar bears that have drowned were four that died in a storm.
Old Havana Attacking a blogger might seem an unnecessary strategy in Cuba, where access to the internet is amongst the lowest in the world and only a small number of carefully vetted individuals are allowed to have internet accounts at home. Ms Sanchez believes her roughing up was a signal that the days of tolerance of Cuba's embryonic blogging community are over. "The Cuban government is currently nervous, as a result of the dire state of the economy", she said.
When Raul Castro took over the reins of power from his ailing elder brother, Fidel, three years ago, there were high hopes that the changeover might usher in an era of greater political freedom and economic growth. Instead, the younger Castro is now at the helm of a country which appears close to bankruptcy, the global economic crisis having left the country facing shortages not seen since its chief benefactor, the Soviet Union, collapsed in the early 1990s.
Punch a terrorist -- head for the brig.
Welcome to America's thoroughly modern military.
The notion beggars the imagination, but three Navy SEALs who helped capture one of the most notorious terrorists in Iraq now face courts-martial -- because the terrorist acquired a bloody lip after the takedown.
Ahmed Hashim Abed organized the brutal 2004 attack on four US civilian contractors working as security guards in Fallujah. After murdering the guards, terrorists dragged their bodies through the city, burning and hanging two of them over the Euphrates Bridge.
Fast forward to this past summer: Navy Petty Officers Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe and Julio Huertas were part of a SEAL team that captured Abed.
Abed complained that he was punched on Sept. 1 during his initial detention. A fat, bloody lip was offered up as proof.
Imagine that.
Now McCabe is charged with assault, dereliction of duty and making a false statement; Keefe is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement; Huertas has the same charges as Keefe, plus one of impeding an investigation...
And so the SEALs will be arraigned on Dec. 7 -- another reason for the date to live in infamy.
Mr Obama is in a hard place. Health care hangs over him, and if he is lucky he will lose a close vote in the Senate. The common wisdom that he can't afford to lose is exactly wrong—he can't afford to win with such a poor piece of legislation. He needs to get the issue behind him, vow to fight another day, and move on. Afghanistan hangs over him, threatening the unity of his own Democratic congressional base. There is the growing perception of incompetence, of the inability to run the machine of government. This, with Americans, is worse than Obama's rebranding as a leader who governs from the left. Americans demands baseline competence. If he comes to be seen as Jimmy Carter was, that the job was bigger than the man, that will be the end.
The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at in the first place, and how even now a single view is being enforced. In short, the impression left by the correspondence among Messrs. Mann and Jones and others is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start.
According to this privileged group, only those whose work has been published in select scientific journals, after having gone through the "peer-review" process, can be relied on to critique the science. And sure enough, any challenges that critics have lobbed at climatologists from outside this clique are routinely dismissed and disparaged.
The Pope is to waive his own rules so he can preside in person over the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman during a papal visit to Britain next year, according to sources close to the Vatican.
Pope Benedict XVI will personally take charge of the ceremony to declare the Victorian convert Blessed when he visits England in early September at the invitation of Gordon Brown.
The Pope has previously insisted that all beatifications are carried out by a Vatican official in the diocese in which the candidate died, which in Newman's case is Birmingham.
But because the Pope has such a strong devotion to Cardinal Newman and his theological writings he has decided to break his own rules and beatify the cardinal himself.
Throw a dart at the Senate tome:
- You’ll find mandates with financial penalties — the amounts picked out of a hat.
- You’ll find insurance companies (who live and die by their actuarial skills) told exactly what weight to give risk factors, such as age. Currently, insurance premiums for 20-somethings are about one-sixth the premiums for 60-somethings. The House bill dictates the young shall now pay at minimum one-half; the Senate bill, one-third — numbers picked out of a hat.
- You’ll find sliding scales for health-insurance subsidies — percentages picked out of a hat — that will radically raise marginal income tax rates for middle-class recipients, among other crazy unintended consequences.
The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool.
MOUNT LAUREL, New Jersey - The state-to-state march to legalize gay marriage across the left-leaning northeastern United States has lost more momentum since a major setback three weeks ago at the ballot box in Maine.
Since then, legislatures in New York and New Jersey have failed to schedule long-expected votes on bills to recognize the unions in those states.
"If they are unable to pass gay marriage in New York and New Jersey, combined with the loss in Maine, it will confirm that gay marriage is not the inevitable wave of the future," said Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which mobilizes social conservatives to fight against same-sex unions.
Suheil Azam was sitting in a coffee shop in east London last month when one his friends began a debate on whether it was permissible under Islamic scripture for Muslims to wish their non-Muslim friends happy Christmas. As a 23-year-old professional who socialises widely, Mr Azam had never considered the possibility that someone in his community might frown upon him for going round to his neighbours at Christmas or partying during New Year. But his friend, who had become increasingly devout, was adamant that such behaviour was haram (forbidden).
"Personally I think he's wrong," explained Mr Azam. "But it's difficult to argue against him because all the information he gets is taken from the internet and it makes him sound very knowledgeable."
Such a debate between two young British Muslims would have been almost unthinkable two decades ago. But today it is frequently the internet that young Muslims turn to when looking for spiritual advice. And what they find in cyberspace is often shockingly intolerant. "Do not congratulate [the unbeliever] on their festivals in any way whatsoever," warns one prominent site. "That implies approval of their festival and not denouncing them."
I certainly don't expect the New York Times to admit that one of their greatest bogeymen turned out to be correct about Iran's nuclear game-playing. However, the Times Editorial Board did once say "John Bolton is right. Kofi Annan is wrong."
Unfortunately it wasn't about the Iran nuclear issue they were talking about - it was about his opposition to the UN's ineffective Human Rights Council.
Nevertheless, someone needs to say it now. John Bolton was right.
When the Obama Administration proclaimed victory on October 1st by announcing that a break-through had been reached in Geneva and that Iran had committed to shipping 2,600 pounds of fuel to Russia, expert Iran watchers were appropriately cynical. Bolton cautioned, yet again, that the Iranians had used some of the same diplomatic nuances they had been using for years to successfully buy more time to continue enriching uranium and fake cooperation with the international community.
Usually, the Europeans were the first to take the bait but this time the Obama Administration got hooked first. Bolton, however, was the first to stand up and call the Iranian pronouncement a sham - and he did it within hours of the announcement.
The controversy surrounding the global warming scandal today deepened after a BBC correspondent admitted he was sent the leaked emails more than a month before they were made public. Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate change expert, claims the documents allegedly sent between some of the world's leading scientists are of a direct result of an article he wrote.
In his BBC blog two days ago, Hudson said: 'I was forwarded the chain of emails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the world's leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article "Whatever Happened To Global Warming".'
That essay, written last month, argued that for the last 11 years there had not been an increase in global temperatures. It also presented the arguments of sceptics who believe natural cycles control temperature and the counter-arguments of those who think it's man's actions which are warming the planet.
Gordon Brown today sparked controversy on the eve of the Commonwealth summit by suggesting he backs the sweeping away of 300-year-old laws that prevent Roman Catholics ascending to the Throne ...The law in question is the Act of Settlement of 1701 which was passed to prevent the return of the Catholic Stuarts.
Mr Ainsworth took the unprecedented step of publicly criticising the US President and his delays in sending more troops to bolster the mission against the Taliban.
A “period of hiatus” in Washington - and a lack of clear direction - had made it harder for ministers to persuade the British public to go on backing the Afghan mission in the face of a rising death toll, he said.
Obama's 'dithering' hurts Afghan mission, British sources say.
Senior British Government sources have become increasingly frustrated with Mr Obama’s “dithering” on Afghanistan, the Daily Telegraph disclosed earlier this month, with several former British defence chiefs echoing the concerns.
But Mr Ainsworth is the first Government minister to express in public what amounts to personal criticism of the US president’s leadership over the conflict which has so far cost 235 British lives.
Ah, Switzerland, its Alpine pastures, its milk chocolate, its army knives and… its minarets. You might get that impression from the poster above. It is featuring in a campaign for one of those people's votes that only the Swiss come up with. The whole country votes on Sunday on a move to ban minarets from the country.
The controversial poster is not visible in the orderly, picturesque streets of Berne, the capital, where I have been talking to parliamentarians this morning, but it nevertheless represents an idea that a sizable minority of the Swiss agree with, according to the polls. There are too many Muslims in Switzerland and they should not be allowed to impose their religion in public, the argument goes. It is one of those Swiss paradoxes that the country which is most associated with tolerance, democracy and consensus should stage such a provocative referendum.
Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.
The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.
Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.
Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.
Marines in Southern Afghanistan aren't waiting around for Washington to decide on a new strategy. Here at Forward Operating Base, or FOB, Delaram Marines are putting into action counter-insurgency tactics aimed at chasing away Taliban fighters and returning the towns and villages within this vast area of Afghanistan to some sense of stability.
Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication. The past couple of days have uncovered some shocking revelations about the baloney practices that pass as sound science about climate change.
It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.
There have been dozens of news reports exposing tens of thousands of stimulus jobs as frauds — David Freddoso and Mark Hemingway of the Washington Examiner put the number of phony jobs at about 75,000. They found more than 100 separate incidents, but these incidents can be grouped into seven categories, representing the seven biggest lies the administration is telling you about the stimulus:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.
The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family.
Sarah Robinson was just a teenager when World War II broke out. She endured the Blitz, watching for fires during Luftwaffe air raids armed with a bucket of sand. Often she would walk ten miles home from work in the blackout, with bombs falling around her. As soon as she turned 18, she joined the Royal Navy to do her bit for the war effort.
Hers was a small part in a huge, history-making enterprise, and her contribution epitomises her generation's sense of service and sacrifice.
Nearly 400,000 Britons died. Millions more were scarred by the experience, physically and mentally.
But was it worth it? Her answer - and the answer of many of her contemporaries, now in their 80s and 90s - is a resounding No. They despise what has become of the Britain they once fought to save. It's not our country any more, they say, in sorrow and anger.
Sarah harks back to the days when 'people kept the laws and were polite and courteous. We didn't have much money, but we were contented and happy. 'People whistled and sang. There was still the United Kingdom, our country, which we had fought for, our freedom, democracy. But where is it now?!'
The feelings of Sarah and others from this most selfless generation about the modern world have been recorded by a Tyneside writer, 33-year-old Nicholas Pringle.
Curious about his grandmother's generation and what they did in the war, he decided three years ago to send letters to local newspapers across the country asking for those who lived through the war to write to him with their experiences.
He rounded off his request with this question: 'Are you happy with how your country has turned out? What do you think your fallen comrades would have made of life in 21st-century Britain?'
What is extraordinary about the 150 replies he received, which he has now published as a book, is their vehement insistence that those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war would now be turning in their graves.
'I sing no song for the once-proud country that spawned me,' wrote a sailor who fought the Japanese in the Far East, 'and I wonder why I ever tried.'
VATICAN CITY – The archbishop of Canterbury held his first talks Saturday with Pope Benedict XVI since the Roman Catholic church's unprecedented invitation to disaffected Anglicans, with the Vatican saying the two sides still want to press ahead for closer relations.
Archbishop Rowan Williams and Benedict met privately for 20 minutes in what the Vatican called "cordial discussions," as part of what has clearly been a difficult visit by the Anglican leader.
The Vatican said in a brief statement that the two leaders "turned to the challenges facing all Christian communities" and the need "to promote forms of collaboration and shared witness in facing these challenges."
Referring to the recent overture for traditional Anglicans upset over the ordination of women and gay bishops to become Catholics, it said the talks reiterated "the shared will to continue and to consolidate the ecumenical relationship between Catholics and Anglicans."
ROME – A Vatican researcher claims a nearly invisible text on the Shroud of Turin proves the authenticity of the artifact revered as Jesus' burial cloth.
The claim made in a new book by historian Barbara Frale drew immediate skepticism from some scientists, who maintain the shroud is a medieval forgery.
Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, said Friday that she used computers to enhance images of faintly written words in Greek, Latin and Aramaic scattered across the shroud.
She asserts the words include the name "Jesus Nazarene" in Greek, proving the text could not be of medieval origin because no Christian at the time, even a forger, would have labeled Jesus a Nazarene without referring to his divinity.
A Thousand Words BEIJING – The Chinese have learned English from his speeches and celebrated the way he rolls up his sleeves. Now President Barack Obama is finally coming, and he's being greeted with "Oba Mao" T-shirts and a statue of him that bursts into flames...
One Beijing shop owner wanted to see what Obama could do for sales. Liu Mingjie created "Oba Mao" T-shirts, with the president wearing the uniform of the Red Guards, who caused chaos during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
So: We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda's case against America. Since that will be their "defense," the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and — depending on what judge catches the case — they are likely to be given a lot of it. The administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets. And the circus will be played out for all to see — in the middle of the war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press its case that actions taken in America's defense are violations of international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.
Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist from Adelaide University, argues that a recent rise in temperature around the world is caused by solar cycles and other "extra terrestrial" forces.
He said carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, widely blamed for global warming, is a natural phenomenon caused by volcanoes erupting.
"We cannot stop carbon emissions because most of them come from volcanoes," he said. "It is a normal element cycled around in the earth and my science, which is looking back in time, is saying we have had a planet that has been a green, warm wet planet 80 per cent of the time. We have had huge climate change in the past and to think the very slight variations we measure today are the result of our life - we really have to put ice blocks in our drinks."
Most mainstream scientists agree that the recent warming period was caused by an increase in carbon dioxide since the industrial revolution.
However Prof Plimer said the world has experienced three periods of cooling since 1850 and furthermore carbon dioxide was increasing during many of those cooler periods.
The Greek Orthodox Church is urging Christians across Europe to unite in an appeal against a ban on crucifixes in classrooms in Italy.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled last week that the presence of crucifixes violated a child's right to freedom of religion. Greece's Orthodox Church fears the Italian case will set a precedent.
It has called an emergency Holy Synod meeting for next week to devise an action plan.
Although the Greek Orthodox Church has been at odds with Roman Catholicism for 1,000 years, the judicial threat to Christian symbols has acted as a unifying force.
Some ironies are more than cruel. On the day that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan approached Fort Hood armed with two handguns, he may have passed a newsstand selling copies of the November 9 edition of Army Times. On the front page was a photograph of a Sikh soldier wearing a beard, mustache, and turban with his uniform, accompanied by the headline, “Regs Make Way for Religion — Sikh, Muslim Allowed to Incorporate Customs into Army Dress.”
Maj. Gen. Gina S. Farrisee, acting deputy chief of staff for Army personnel at the Pentagon, had granted a “religious accommodation” exception for Capt. Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi, a Sikh physician. Without providing a reason for the special treatment, General Farrisee’s October 22 letter stated that Captain Kalsi would be allowed to wear uncut hair, a turban, and a beard with his uniform.
So let's give credit to John Cassidy, part of the left-wing stable at the New Yorker, who wrote last week on its Web site that "it's important to be clear about what the reform amounts to."
Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment," he writes. "Let's not pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind."
It can by now come as no surprise that the Fort Hood massacre yielded an instant flow of exculpatory media meditations on the stresses that must have weighed on the killer who mowed down 13 Americans and wounded 29 others. Still, the intense drive to wrap this clear case in a fog of mystery is eminently worthy of notice.
The tide of pronouncements and ruminations pointing to every cause for this event other than the one obvious to everyone in the rational world continues apace. Commentators, reporters, psychologists and, indeed, army spokesmen continue to warn portentously, "We don't yet know the motive for the shootings."
Injecting itself aggressively into the health-care debate, the Roman Catholic Church in America has emerged as a major political force with the potential to upend a key piece of President Barack Obama's agenda.
Behind-the-scenes lobbying, coupled with a grassroots mobilization of Catholic churches across the country, led the House Saturday to pass an amendment to its health-care bill barring anyone who receives a new tax credit from enrolling in a plan that covers abortion, a once-unthinkable event in Democrat-dominated Washington...
The bishops' success served as a reminder that Democrats' strategy over the past two election cycles of recruiting more conservative candidates to run in competitive House and Senate seats can have unwelcome policy consequences for liberals among the party's base. About 40 House Democrats are opposed to abortion rights.
What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best-trained, best-equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that's the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy – in Afghanistan and in Texas.
Abortion: A Harry Issue...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid found his health reform efforts seriously complicated Monday by the explosive issue of abortion, as key centrist senators said they wanted to see airtight language in the bill blocking federal funding for the procedure.
Abortion threatened to derail a House health reform bill Saturday, and now it’s standing in the way of Reid’s attempts to get 60 votes as well, with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) saying he wants to see language as restrictive as the House’s in the Senate bill.
If the language isn’t clear in prohibiting federal funds for abortion, “you could be sure I would vote against it,” said Nelson, who met with Reid on Monday.
Caravaggio is one of my favourite artists. But, strangely enough, I've never given much thought to his relationship with photography – until now. Writing captions for the Guardian's series of supplements about 100 years of great photojournalism, I've been amazed by how closely some of these photographs resemble paintings by the baroque master Michelangelo Merisi, more commonly called Caravaggio, whose life straddles the late 16th century and the start of the 17th. Again and again, whether it's in Cartier-Bresson's immediacy or Bill Brandt's sepulchral shadows, you catch hints of Caravaggio's intensely lit and passionately sensual world in the work of the most brilliant photographers.
Of course this is no coincidence. Caravaggio was rediscovered because of the camera. It was the spontaneity and directness of the photographed image, both in still prints and movies, that made people recognise the greatness of his art again.
Rather, it represents his message to Europe, a message of disdain that conveys very significant disregard for the principal allies that stood with us in the defense of Berlin, and for those behind the Wall whose courage and pressures were so very important in bringing it down. Barack Obama saw fit to detour to Berlin to make a campaign speech, and this week easily could have directed the pilots of Air Force One this week to take him to his ultimate destination via Berlin, since the world is round, if only for a short stop to demonstrate respect.
Instead, it's the cold shoulder for a man for whom Europe is "so yesterday." More "change" and less "hope" for Central Europe.
During the election campaign, Barack Obama's cool detachment was a winning quality, the "No Drama Obama" a welcome contrast with the "Mr Angry" John McCain, never mind the hot-headed "I'm the decider" President George W Bush.
A year into his presidency, however, Mr Obama seems a curiously bloodless president. If he experiences passion, he seldom shows it. It is often anyone's guess as to whether an event or issue truly moves him.
He has spent more than two months considering a troop increase but do we know how he really feels about the Afghan war?
In a sign that the Obama honeymoon truly is over, I began to hear this week the first stirrings of a wistfulness about Mr Bush. "I never thought I'd hear myself say it," one Democrat told me. "But Obama makes you feel that at least with Bush you knew where he was on something."
... More serious perhaps was Mr Obama's strange disconnectedness over the Fort Hood massacre of 13 soldiers by an Army major and devout Muslim who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had praised suicide bombing and shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire.
When the television networks cut to the President, viewers listened to him spend more than two surreal minutes talking to a gathering of Native Americans about their "extraordinary" and "extremely productive" conference, pausing to give a cheery "shout out" to a man named Dr Joe Medicine Crow. Only then did he briefly and mechanically address what had happened in Texas.
On Friday, when most of the basic facts were available, Mr Obama tried again. It was scarcely any better. He began by offering "an update on the tragedy that took place" - as if it was an earthquake and not a terrorist attack from an enemy within - and ended with a promise for more "updates in the coming days and weeks".
Completely missing was the eloquence that Mr Obama employs when talking about himself. Absent too was any sense that the President empathised with the families and comrades of those murdered.
Mr. Lieberman said that if news reports were true that Mr. Hasan had turned to Islamic extremism, "the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most-destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11."
"We don't know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act," Mr. Lieberman added.
The lawmaker said he would begin a Senate investigation aimed at uncovering Mr. Hasan's motives and asking "whether the Army missed warning signs." He also called on the Pentagon to begin an independent investigation to determine whether "warning signs were missed."
WASHINGTON – The alleged Fort Hood shooter apparently attended the same Virginia mosque as two Sept. 11 hijackers in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there.
Whether the Fort Hood shooter associated with the hijackers is something the FBI will probably look into, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
Once a year, Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao gives the Washington establishment a little jolt.
In November 2008, the nationally unknown Vietnamese community activist captured a seat for Republicans in majority-black New Orleans, becoming an instant — albeit short-lived — celebrity for the GOP.
On Saturday night, 368 days later, he handed Democrats their only Republican vote on the centerpiece of their domestic agenda, a massive overhaul of the nation’s health care system that promises to enhance coverage for tens of millions of Americans and thousands of Cao’s constituents. Now he’s a bit of a cult hero on the left — a profile in courage, Democrats say — and television bookers were scrambling to find cell phone numbers for his aides Sunday.
WASHINGTON – The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.
Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and "take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people."
The problem is that the Senate won't run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.
If a government plan is part of the deal, "as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome GOP filibusters.
"The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.
