Judging from the news coverage

you would think cardinals had never before elected a new pope.

There’s our boy, John, exercising his right to be stupid

“CAIRO – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promised Sunday to give Egypt $190 million to help the government pay its bills …”

"’The United States can and wants to do more,’ Kerry said.”

“Kerry also announced that the United States would give $60 million for ‘direct support of key engines of democratic change.’ Those groups would include liberal and secular groups that have opposed Morsi's government and what they call the monopolization of power by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist society through which Morsi rose to prominence.”

(Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute. We, the US of A, will give $60 million ($60,000,000) to groups that oppose the dude we just promised to give $190 million ($190,000,000)? Is there a logic there I don’t see?)

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/04/5233308/kerry-gives-morsi-funds-challenge.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

Link from americanthinker.com.

Winning hearts and … other organs

“’Give every Afghan man a Macintosh computer and unlimited Wi-Fi bandwidth, and they’d be too busy watching porn to even think about becoming insurgents,’ one witty ex intel agent told me. And the numbers work. Instead of spending $12 billion a year training the Afghan police and army—about the annual budget of the Israel Defense Forces, including their air force and submarines—we could have bought a thousand-dollar computer for every adult Afghan (about twelve million people).”

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/ann-marlowe/winning-hearts-and-minds?utm_source=World+Affairs+Newsletter&utm_campaign=06bfdee996-Blog_Marlowe_Kara_Murza_Motyl_3_4_2013&utm_medium=email

Obama Justice: Children do not need mothers

(Except initially.)

Arguing against California’s Proposition 8, Obama’s Department of Justice argues: “children need neither a father nor a mother and that having two fathers or two mothers is just as good as having one of each.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/doj-children-do-not-need-and-have-no-right-mothers

Link from maggiesfarm.

Connecticut considers 'hoarder tax' on saved money

In a conservation years ago, an Army lieutenant said he had his great-grand father’s helmet from World War I.

“He was a sergeant in the Prussian cavalry,” the lieutenant said. He then mentioned his grandparents as having “grown up in the Hitler years.” He said, “They didn’t agree with what Hitler did to the Jews.”

From his tone of voice, I waited for the “however.” Some things you know there is a “however.”

“But they saw the Jews with all the money, and the Jews weren’t sharing their money.”

Enter Michael Moore, economist and historian:

"’They're sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it,’ Michael Moore told Laura Flanders of GRITtv.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/03/02/moore_on_wealthy_peoples_money_thats_not_theirs_thats_a_national_resource_its_ours.html

Link from http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Spending-Good!-Saving-Bad

on story of Conn. General assembly considers “imposing a ‘hoarders’ tax’ on money that the state’s corporations are retaining rather than spending and then using the proceeds for job-creation programs.”

Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter “notes that while the Connecticut General Assembly's target is corporations, the real ‘hoarders’ are, in fact, individuals and nonprofits,” who will be targeted by the elected assembly.

(A Harvard-educated Ph.D. in a graduate history course on colonial America said a major reason Americans revolted against the English government was the idea “The things they are doing to us now, who knows what they will do later?” In these days, we have a better idea of what the government will do … Not necessarily later.)

‘Liberals: Force immigrant women to work’

“The Liberal Social Affairs Spokesman Eyvind Vesselbo says enough is enough after a survey has shown that almost 6,000 immigrant women have been on social security for more than 10 years out of the past 15.

“’It’s probably more an unwillingness to do something about it because a large part of the government sees these women as weak, as people who cannot speak Danish and who don’t have the requirements. I don’t agree. They have been in Denmark for more than 10 years, so it can’t be right that they don’t speak Danish,’ says Vesselbo, adding that these women should be forced to work.

”’The idea has never been that people should remain on social security year after year and that parents should let their children grow up in families where their permanent income is social security,’ Frederiksen tells Jyllands-Posten.”

http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1902184/liberals-force-immigrant-women-to-work/


Gates of Vienna.

Cyprus doesn’t have enough bird sanctuaries, could face court, EU says

"(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 21 — The European Commission is asking Cyprus to extend its sites for Natura 2000, Europe’s network of protected natural areas. Under the Birds Directive, Member States need to designate the most suitable sites as special protection areas (SPAs) for the conservation of bird species. Cyprus originally designated only 7 SPAs, significantly below the 16 required under the Important Bird Areas (IBA) inventory used by the Commission to assess whether Member States are complying with their obligation to classify SPAs. The Commission opened infringement proceedings in 2007, and although more SPAs are now in place, the Commission is not convinced that the coverage of the areas protected is sufficient to provide adequate protection for a number of important species. The Commission is therefore sending a complementary reasoned opinion (the second stage of the infringement procedure), giving Cyprus two months to reply. In the absence of a satisfactory response, the Commission may refer the Member State to the EU Court of Justice."

http://ansamed.ansa.it/ansamed/en/news/sections/environment/2013/02/21/EU-Commission-asks-Cyprus-boost-protection-birds_8285900.html

Gates of Vienna.