The Obama administration's let's-talk-to-the-bad-guys-without-preconditions offensive continues apace:
"In a major departure from previous policy, the United States will join direct talks between U.N. and European powers and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, the State Department announced Wednesday. The Obama administration has asked the European Union's international policy chief, Javier Solana, to invite Iran to new talks with the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. Washington, which does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, has stayed out of those talks to date. "If Iran accepts, we hope this will be an occasion to seriously engage Iran of how to break the logjam of recent years and work in a cooperative manner to resolve the outstanding international concerns about its nuclear program," Wood said."
Of course, so far the Iranians have done little but thumb their noses at us. Could it be they see these endless Obama overtures as signs of weakness, and thus are holding out for more?
UPDATE: indeed, just today Iran has expressed its willingness to work with the U.S....by arresting an American journalist and charging him with espionage.
Bad news for American society today:
"Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers, according to data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, of 4.3 million total births, marked a more than 25 percent jump from five years before. Statistics such as these, which include for the second year in a row a bump in teen pregnancies, after a 14-year decline, leave Sarah Brown concerned. She worries about the children born to unwed parents -- about the disadvantages they often face, including increased likelihood of poverty and greater high school dropout rates."
Of course, a major problem we face is that many elites and intellectuals in our society see absolutely nothing wrong with this trend.
BUCK UP, REPUBLICANS Dept: Dodd is in trouble, Corzine is in trouble, as polls have shown recently...and now a Gallup Poll reports that support for a ban on handguns in America is at an all-time low.
BASEBALL DIARY: still no good news for the Tigers so far--they lose again last night to Toronto, 5-4. The good news: new Tiger starter Edwin Jackson, acquired in the off-season from Tampa Bay, was outstanding. The bad news: the Tiger bullpen, a worry coming into this season, blew what was once a 3-run lead in the 8th and 9th innings, specifically Brandon Lyon, the guy we hope will be our closer. This year still feels like last year.
Meanwhile the Cubs lost to Houston in 10 innings, 3-2. They got a very good start from a pitcher they'll again be counting on this year, Ryan Dempster. But the Astros' Wandy Rodriguez silenced Cub bats.
It was bound to happen: the Obama White House is trying to deny something, something however that obviously happened: that President Obama bowed to Saudi royalty at the recent G-20 summit. I mean, there are pictures which clearly show the bow (go to the link I provided above); a columnist in a Saudi-backed newspaper took it as a bow. But I guess the Obama people are now wishing he hadn't done it. Hey, if they want to look silly, they can have at it...
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE DEPT: ah, yes, you had to expect it--liberals and leftists from America go down to meet a leftist dictator (in this case, it was liberal congressmen meeting with Fidel Castro), and the words of praise begin to flow...:
"It was quite a moment to behold," Lee said, recalling her moments with Castro. “It was almost like listening to an old friend,” said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Il.), adding that he found Castro’s home to be modest and Castro’s wife to be particularly hospitable. “In my household I told Castro he is known as the ultimate survivor,” Rush said."
Ah, it's been 9 decades or so now since Lincoln Steffens went to Lenin's Soviet Union and claimed "I have seen the future, and it works"; it hasn't been quite as long since Walter Duranty of the NY Times hushed up stories about Josef Stalin and his mass killings; and there's been even less time elapsed since Western intellectuals went and heaped praise on Khrushchev, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Daniel Ortega, etc etc etc. They were wrong every time, their praise exposed for the foolishness it was once the massive human rights abuses and other crimes of each of the supposedly benevolent peace-loving benefactors of the people were exposed. But today's Castro love-fest perpetrated by the latest crop of progressive Americans reminds us, once again, that some things never change.
