Bush goes to college

As reported in this post President Bush was scheduled to addresses the graduating class at Calvin College at Grand Rapids, Michegan. Yesterday he did the deed and in doing so, failed miserable in politicising the event as forecast be the MSM and certain left-wing pundits He urged the graduates to consider service to the community in their post-grad lives, saying;
This isn’t a Democratic idea. This isn’t a Republican idea. This is an American idea,”
and
“As your generation takes its place in the world, all of you must make this decision: Will you be a spectator or a citizen?”
He received warm applause but some Democrat voters protested;
Several dozen people (from a student body of over 4,000) protesting outside the event and a few graduates at the ceremony wore stickers that said: “God is not a Republican or Democrat.”
Meanwhile George shows he has a sense of humour with this closing line;
“Some day you will appreciate the grammar and verbal skills you learned here,” quipped the president who is not known for his eloquence. “If any of you wonder how far a mastery of the English language can take you, just look what it did for me.”
On the face of it, the speach sounded like any other graduating day speach. MSM and the left must be so dissappointed.

Fiddling with themes

I took the header photo at Yellow Waters, Kakadu, Northern Territory last year and I’m sure I will eventually work out how to get my name back up there (I hope). I plan to insert long term articles by myself and others in the third column after I give the photos the flick. UPDATE: I do listen to my readers. This setting should suit 800×600 viewers and those on ‘dial-up’. I will display photos through some other means.

Bush beat-up

Along the lines of Ripley’s Believe it or Not Tim Dunlop has found a liberal arts educational institution with some staff and students who don’t like Bush!
George Bush, also known as the President, is giving a speech there soon, so you’d expect the usual sort of pro-God, pro-Republican tautological sucking up, right? Well, to the eternal (and I do mean eternal) credit of their faculty and students, not so much:
Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Missouri describes themselves as;
…distinctively Christian, academically excellent liberal arts college that shapes minds for intentional participation in the renewal of all things.
Running Scared posts that one third of the faculty members have signed a political add that will appear in the local rag on the day Bush visits at a cost of $2600 and more than 800 students, faculty and alumni have also placed a political add in the local rag on the same day to the tune of $9,600. Calvin College has 4,300 students so roughly a fifth have been convinced to back some of their teachers in this political exercise. The other 80% might like to ask where the $12,000 is coming from. In this startling, revelationary post Tim has so far established that a percentage of staff and students in a college in the US vote Democrat. As that would be the case on every campus in the country it’s hardly a scoop. I Googled Calvin College+Grand Rapids and studied the College’s website looking for Anti-Bush sentiment. Mmmm…a bit sparse. If Tim and Running Scared are to be believed you would think that if Students, faculty and alumni are forking out over $12,000 it would be all over the website. I did find some negative vibes but hardly a groundswell The front page of the students newsletter, the normal source of campus radical thought, offers little in the way of providing another source for the story. The College President says;
… that the response of alumni to news of the president’s coming has been overwhelmingly positive, although he has had a few alumni who object.
Provost Carpenter says;
In response to rumors of possible protests, [he]… responds that although the event will unavoidably have political dimensions to it, it is “important to be good hosts and to show the personal and institutional maturity of being able to extend hospitality and a civil audience to someone whom we may disagree with.â€?
No, I don’t know what the appointment ‘Provost’ is either but at least he hints at some political dimension to the visit. It all looks like a couple of bloggers have sat down and thought ‘ How can I put down on Bush today? They should have picked a better example, if there is one. 20% of the student body and one third of the staff disagreeing with Bush’s visit is hardly an election winner.

Shanahan’s slant on the news

Dennis Shanahan tends his weekly beat-up of the Liberal leadership fight that starts and ends with his columns but in another article stems the flood on anti-Indonesian feeling in Australia about Corby and the Bali Nine (and counting). Dennis also has an article on the ALP’s response to the budget claiming Stephen Smith claims five reasons for happiness in justifying Labours strange reaction to the budget but after having written the article he sat back and thought..now where can I insert a mention of the liberal leadership fight. He managed it;
Just a week after the most frazzled budget in the history of the Howard Government was finalised and bitter relations between John Howard and Costello were destined to overshadow the budget…
I’m just surprised that he didn’t slip in a ‘bitter relations’ line in the Bali piece. If you only read Dennis you could be forgiven for thinking there was a leadership split happening next week. He wishes.

Schapelle will be doin’ time

Bill Nicholson writes to the Editor of the Courier Mail saying everyone he talks to thinks Schapelle Corby is innocent and adds;
…If she is found gulity, the sentence will be seen as an obvious miscarrige of justice and will be deeply resented by almost all Australians.
I’m glad Bill included the rider ‘almost’ as everyone I talk to thinks she’s guilty. Bill needs to talk to more people, get out and around more and stop asking silly-weed smokers for their opinion. As much as I would like to think she’s inncocent I have yet to read or hear of anything that proves this is the case. Nine days to go for a verdict. UPDATE: The Jakarta Post quotes Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda who said;
… that he had not received a formal letter from Australia regarding a prisoner transfer, but that his government would consider it. “In the practices of international relations, the handing over of convicts to their original country is not a strange thing,” Hassan said. “We are open, but what is needed is an agreement on transfer of prisoners that is effective in general.”
The newspaper also mentions that the case is attracting a lot of press in Australia.
However, the government of Prime Minister John Howard has been under intense pressure to act Corby’s behalf. The case has received massive media attention in Australia, where most respondents to television station polls saying they believe Corby is innocent.
Must be talking about the Ch 9 poll.

Torture Recommended

John Quiggin raises the issue of a SMH report that reports two Australian academics are advocating the legalisation of torture. In the SMH Mirko Bagaric says;
“Let’s say that straight after the first plane hit in New York you had a person in custody who admitted they had overheard the [September 11] organisers’ plans and knew there were going to be further attacks, but then refused to say any more. “In those circumstances you would start with a minimum degree of harm; if that didn’t work, you would escalate it. And if that unfortunately resulted in an innocent person being killed, in those circumstances that would be justified. I think as a society we would accept that one person being killed to save thousands is legitimate.”
I’m sorry, I don’t see what’s wrong with that statement, although killing the guy is a bit counter-productive. Hard to get life-saving info from a corpse. For all the bleading hearts about to attack…you will simply never know just how much of this type of thing has contributed to the society that you enjoy today.

Another step

Kuwaiti women win political rights
Kuwait’s parliament has granted women the right to vote and stand in elections for the first time in the Gulf state’s history.
Could be goos good news. Wonder where they got that idea from?
The decision on Monday, finalised after several years of debate, was passed by a 35-23 vote after one legislator abstained.
Not unanimous but hey, it’s a start,
1 31 32 33 34 35 36