Healing Thailand, Hezbollah Proves Irrelevant, Gay Nazis

Ruth Marcus
Dana Milbank
Michelle Bachmann
Kofi Annan

"For the last few weeks we’ve heard that the Obama Administration is going to focus its attention once again on jobs. Great, because we’ve seen how well that’s worked in the past, spending hundreds of billions of dollars to see our unemployment rate skyrocket to 10%" - Michelle Bachmann

"Republicans want to take over the House in the fall, but there's a problem: They don't have an agenda." - Dana Milbank"

"Three unattractive Palin traits have, if anything, been amplified since the election: her unwillingness to buckle down and do the necessary preparation; her tendency to adopt what McCain adviser Steve Schmidt described as a "down is up and up is down" version of reality; and her enhanced sense of injury at the hands of what she oh so cleverly refers to as the "lamestream media."


That would include me." - Ruth Marcus

A lot of fun in the links above, and one most serious on the politics of poverty in Africa. Dana Milbank provides some of the funnier comments that people have given the House Republicans on their website, America Speaking Out. If you would like to contribute an idea or two for their political platform, by all means click on the link here. It was a bit disconcerting reading Michelle Bachmann's piece in Red State, and her making a similar case to what I have been posting about the Obama administration and jobs. Some of my viewpoints are liberal, evidently some are like the tea party, and some are libertarian; pretty much the same mix as most people who are engaged with the world. This makes me wonder if I could sit down with Michelle and have a rational conversation and finding out that there are more similarities underneath all of the crazy talk...

healing the heart of Bangkok...

One of the reasons that I love Thailand so much, is that now the protesting and rioting is over, people have gotten together to change the atmosphere of the neighborhood by praying: "Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and Hindus gathered in the upscale Rajaprasong district where the so-called red shirt protesters had camped out for weeks, for the event. The chants of 1,000 Buddhist monks mingled with the prayers of Muslim imams, Christian priests and the Hindu faithful in 10 areas, including the charred remains of Central World, one of Asia's largest shopping malls, on Wednesday."

"Things are quiet now but there is fear still within us because none of us know what can happen in the future."

"It is very important for all of us in Bangkok to forgive and move ahead,"

It is important to be able to move on. The protests didn't accomplish anything and created a lot of resentment in rural areas that may never heal. I don't know what Thaksin Shinawatra was thinking when he approved and supported the Red Shirts, but now that the leaders are all in jail and there is another warrant out for his arrest, he certainly is denying having any connections at all, the coward: “No, no, no,” he said. As evidence, he said that during the military crackdown last week when 15 people died, “I was in Paris — they sent my picture — shopping at Louis Vuitton with my daughter.” After that, as red-shirt leaders were being rounded up and arrested in Thailand, he said, he went to the Cannes film festival." Of course, if the Red Shirts had been successful, Mr Thaksin would be parading about Thailand, basking in his ego and glory instead of being on the lam... Some of the Red Shirt leaders said that they took orders directly from Thaksin, that they do feel manipulated just so he could flip off the Thai government, which has been fixated on punishing him on corruption charges ever since he left office...

return of mighty hezbollah...

It looks like Hezbollah has been feeling neglected lately, they have been out of the spotlight for the past few years, and with this week's Israeli disaster drills, it saw an opening to appear fierce and uncompromising to the rest of the Middle East. While the Prime Minister is in Washington, Hezbollah decided to suit up and march along its southern border with Israel and making loud warnings in public: "The Lebanese resistance movement will win any new war and forever change the region, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said... He warned Israel that if its military approached Lebanese shores "in any coming war," it would come under the fire from Hezbollah members "across the Mediterranean." "We shall confront the next war, we shall win and we shall change the face of this region," he concluded. No wonder there is such a hard time getting any negotiations done with idiots like this in charge. And Israel, bless their hearts, responded by making a night raid into helpless Gaza and blowing up a couple more smuggling tunnels... As for mighty Hezbollah, it must be frustrating trying to compete for funds from the rich sheiks and proving to them that you are still relevant, that history hasn't passed you by, bye, bye...


hitler's gay stormtroopers...

I can always count on TPM for a weird story concerning the fringe element. Today, it's a missive from Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association explaining that historically, gays have been much more brutal than straight soldiers, so that is why we should exclude them from military service. Evidently, Brian has been upping his meds against doctor's orders lately: "So Hitler himself was an active homosexual. And some people wonder, didn't the Germans, didn't the Nazis, persecute homosexuals? And it is true they did; they persecuted effeminate homosexuals. But Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals."

I love these alternate interpretations of history. The Brownshirts were not gay, and Bryan is looking to find a way to round 'em up and send them to the camps because of his fascination with his German heritage. The group he represents has been around for awhile: "The American Family Association, founded in 1978, is a fixture in the social conservative community. And Fischer isn't a nobody. He's currently scheduled to speak at "Values Voter" summit in September, along with Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Mike Pence (R-IN) and Mike Huckabee."


But, in a way, I can see it. After all, every military outfit makes you look like a Bondage and Sado-Masochism acolyte, someone with abnormal sexual tastes, if not downright silly...