Singapore in April

Picture of me in Singapore.
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The Five Rathas

The Five Rathas in Mahabalipuram. This is a stone monolith that took 30 years to carve in the 7th century AD.
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Hindu Temple

Hindu temple in Chennai. Rich tradition in their religion.
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Displaced Tsunami Victims

Displaced tsunami victims south of Chennai.
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Indian Countryside in April

Picture of Southern India country side from the door of the train I took overnight from Chennai.
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What Lane?

Traffic in Chennai.
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Brazil in April

View from churrascaria where we had lunch overlooking the mouth of the Port of Santos. Brazil is a really neat place. Good food, great people!
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Sandy gets away with it

How does Sandy Berger get away with lying to Federal prosecutors and Martha Stewart didn’t?  Seems like an awfully unbalanced and severe mis-carriage of justice.

Courts are troubling

Good review of the length to which our courts are usurping power from the other two branches of government.

What hits you most deeply? Odds are it's something the courts have done that affects your daily life or your beliefs. Other than the war, the issues that are Balkanizing America are those that the courts have decided to decide, usually without Constitutional imprimatur and in contravention of long-standing precedent. So what's your poisonous penumbra? Roe v. Wade? Gay marriage? The anti-constitutional hijacking of the President's powers as commander in chief? How about Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy importing European law to decide American constitutional issues? For House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the breaking point was Terri Schiavo.

Norm Coleman sizes up Kofi Annan

The Senator from Minnesota provides good insight to the shenanigans going on at the UN.  If this were Kofi was in Ken Lay’s shoes at Enron, he would have been indicted already.

What Terri's life can teach us

Terri Schiavo passed away today. Please keep her and her family in your prayers.

We should not forget the lessons the focus on the final days of her life have taught us. Regardless of where you come down on the morality of her death, none of us should sleep well for the interference that occurred in this decision. It strikes me as simply stunning that the judiciary in this country has made such a raw power grab manifested in the way they treated this woman. Are we at a point where the interests of a position taken, argued about in a court, ruled on and "judged" outweigh the importance of life and its moral underpinnings? Our forefathers created the judiciary to temper us from populist movements. How do we temper our judges?

We should all worry where we are headed next. Karen Pittman lays out an excoriation of the judges who rule by judicial fiat and the chicken littles in the statehouses and Washington who do nothing to stop this blatant power grab by the judiciary.

Ultimately, it is our responsibility to hold our government accountable. I am willing to bet this will fall off the front pages and be forgotten until the next Terri comes along. We cannot and should not let her life lesson be lost on us as a nation lest we succumb to the depravity of moral relativism and a culture of death.

Hot Cross Buns

Tomorrow is Good Friday.  I was talking with a colleague who works with some of our Australian customers.  They were eating hot cross buns today.  I was curious to know the origin.  You can find out more about them here, here and here.

The tradition of Hot Cross Buns dates back to pagan times, when the cross represented the moon and its four quarters and, when the Romans arrived in Britain, they introduced spiced buns which were marked with the sign of the cross.

 

On Good Friday in 1361 it is recorded that small spiced cakes, marked with a cross, were distributed by Father Thomas Rockliffe to the poor of St Albans in England. After this, it became traditional to make and eat hot cross buns every Good Friday.

 

It was believed by many that hot cross buns had miraculous powers. People would hang them from their kitchen ceilings to protect their homes from evil and they were used in powdered form to treat all types of illnesses. It was also said that hot cross buns baked on Good Friday would never go mouldy - although this was probably because the buns were baked so hard that there was no moisture left in the mixture for the mould to live on!

Slippery Slope to Auschwitz

Peggy Noonan gets right to the point of something that has bothering me about the Terri Schiavo tragedy. Why do so many want her to die?  We can all argue about the merits of the case.  And, many have ad nauseum.  But, there are many who are absolutely rejoicing in this woman’s death.  Call it a culture of death.  It is inexplicable to me.

Trimming the nets

The tradition of cutting down the net from the rim was started by Everett Case in 1947 when NC State beat Carolina for the Southern Conference championship.

How bloggers are keeping the MSM honest

Here is a classic example of MSM distortion, which has been corrected by the bloggers.  Looks like the MSM finally has a conscience.

Culture of Death

George Neumayr lays the wood to the Dems for their inhumanity toward man.

What they call "compassion" is jaw-dropping crassness toward the most helpless humans. The self-described party of the "little guy" is his greatest enemy, aborting him at the beginning of life or dehydrating him to death at the end of life, all the while insisting that it is for his "own good." Think of all the phony rights the Democrats will devise at the drop of a hat, yet they won't lift a finger to protect the most obvious and real right, the right to life that belongs to man by virtue of his human nature (not by virtue of his "meaningful activity"), and without which all other rights lose meaning and occasion for government protection.

GE dumps GM

Guest post from Wyatt…

From 24 years of banking experience, I can tell you that this is done only after intense scrutiny of credit risk. It is a giant slap in the face of a customer - particularly in the unregulated lending sphere.  

I imagine they will reinstate at junk bond - adjustable rates for future lines of credit (I presume this is a LOC).

However, this has been foreseeable. Think of the implications in the mutual fund market when all the GM paper is no longer attractive as part of their portfolios. This is happening in good times. Glad it is not 02 or 03  

I imagine S&P and Moody will downgrade to junk shortly.

HT:Dad

Update: Appears that the news reports may have been too fast or something leaked out that should not have been made public.  Hum!?

Emily climbs the wall! 200 feet over the fantail of a cruise ship. WOW!
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Liberal view of fighting wars

The liberals would have us fight wars through the courts.  How you do that is beyond me.  Best guess is that they want us to lose.

How shall we fight the war we're in? Who shall we take prisoner and when, under what conditions and to whom shall we release them? The Constitution permits only one branch of government to decide those questions: the executive, not our increasingly injudicious judiciary.

State to Sweet 16

NC State beats Connecticut (65-62) and advances to final 16 for firts time since 1989!