Rick Warren At Obama Inaguration: Guess Who's Also Mad

Obama's choice of Pastor Rick Warren to lead inovocation has drawn a lot of fire from gay rights groups and liberal democrats.

Looks like a good number of religious conservatives are angry too!

In an interesting twist, plenty of conservatives are mad, not at Obama for inviting Warren, but at Warren for accepting the invitation.

David Brody, a correspondent for TV preacher Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, reported today that he's been "flooded with emails and most of them absolutely rip Pastor Warren for doing this."

Brody doesn't seem to share their concerns -- he asks, "Why can't a pro-life pastor pray for a pro-choice candidate?" -- but he republished a variety of the angry emails. This one stood out:

"Unless Rick Warren has changed, he is very disappointing in the pro-life cause. Just ask pro-life leaders their opinion. He doesn't like to deal with it at his church. It just seems funny that he is known as 'pro-life' when he largely ignores the subject and teaches others to do the same. I fear God for these 'men of God'. We have lost 50 million babies, and most won't say a word. Reminds me of Nazi Germany or our slavery days. Very few spoke out. It was more comfortable to keep quiet."

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Given the disconnect b/w some major media and parts of the evangelical community, this controversy might have started at the same time as the gay rights groups.

Its the A word...

So Warren is not only wrong for delivering the invocation for a pro-choice president, Warren is weak on the abortion issue to begin with.

Given this new wrinkle, a cynical-campaign-PR-spinmaster would try to get a lot of ink on this twist to the story. Puts brakes on the well publicized backlash from some Obama supporters. Warren is seen as well-respected religious leaders caught between extremes, Obama looks like roses to moderates

Very Cool Video

Patrick Depallier in Ken Tyrrells unique six wheel Tyrrell P-34 doing a lap at Monaco.

Now For Some Weirdness

The Alternate History Theme Park Where Dinosaurs Fought in the Civil War

LMAO....no comments needed...

Blago Gets Busted! Bigtime...

talk about blatant influence-peddling, bullying critical media, general corruption, ego-centered paranoia!

No its not Chavez, or for that matter business-as-usual politics of many LA countries regardless of ideology.

Its the wacky reign of Gov. Rod Blagojevich in Illinois busted for trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat, shaking down the Chicago Tribune, shaking down business and individuals for contributions among other shenanigans. The federal indictment details all this fun, which has shocked even cynical Chicagoans used to outrageous behavior from politicians. Count Blagola is in for it....

Some wags have already said that US Attorney Fitzgerald should be appointed to the Senate - leaving Illinois polls in peace.

EDIT: For anyone not familiar with the Loop area in Chicago, the US District Court in the Dirksen Center where the governor was dragged in, is directly across the street from where the transition is being run...Actually they are 2 of the 3 buildings in the complex known as the Federal Central , designed by Mies Van Der Rohe.
It is this proximity that explains why the national media covered the Courthouse action so quickly, and ran back to get quotes from the President-elect. And the US Attorneys office and detention areas are also there.

Latin American Finance Ministers - Bolivia and Venezuela get trashed

Latin American business magazine America Economia has a recent special rating Latin American finance ministers, particularly how well prepared they are to deal with the current worldwide financial crisis. 140 prominent professional economists were surveyed, asking them to rate the finance ministers performance based on four criteria: macroeconomic stability; pro-competetivenes/pro-growth strategies; leadership within the government as a whole; and projecting confidence to citizens, the business community and investors.

Rated highest were Chile's minister Andrés Velasco, followed by Mexico's Agustín Carstens, Peru's Luis Valdivieso, and Brazil's Guido Mantega. Among individual categories, Guatemala's minister is rated very high (#3) in the leadership category - which focuses on how well the minister leads "in the economic plans of the government" as a whole, and how he is able to work with the "demands of his colleagues" i.e. the ministers of labor, housing, education, health.

Biggest Losers

Bolivia's El Nuevo Dia (reprinted in Petroleumworld) acidly notes that Bolivia's Luis Arce is ranked at the tail end of the survey alongside colleagues from Venezuela, Ecuador, and Argentina. Coinciding with the countries worst prepared to deal with the current crisis.

Bolivia would probably be rated worse if it weren't for the countries reserves and recent macroeconomic stability. Most Bolivian experts will quickly point out that those are "in spite of Evo", rather than because of Evo. Previous governments fiscal policy choices and macroeconomic policies bear a lot of credit. Gas revenues come largely from investment that Evo has chased away. The pattern continues with Bolivias exports and trade policy, which face an uncertain future due to the Morales government bungling of Andean trade preferences and demoralizing of the export sector. With this kind of incompetence and ideological idiocity from the top, it is hard to see how poor Mr. Arce would make the grade.

President-Elect.... Picking Strong....

From The Economist

. He has embraced his former nemesis by making Hillary Clinton secretary of state. He has outraged the left by keeping Robert Gates at the Pentagon and making James Jones, a former NATO supreme commander who campaigned for John McCain, his national security adviser. He has reassured the markets by putting Tim Geithner in the Treasury and appointing Larry Summers as his White House economics guru. And he has made history by appointing Eric Holder as America’s first black attorney-general. The Justice Department, which once spied on Martin Luther King, will now be in the hands of a child of the civil-rights revolution.

it must be the hangover of 8 years of Bush's power-hoarding White House, and the Republicans embrace of mediocrity. relief to see people with actual brains and skill getting tapped to run things now. And those on the right whining about "socialism" during the campaign, were so way off it is almost funny...

: the imprint Mr Obama is already putting on history is impressive. He has demonstrated that he is self-confident enough to surround himself with big brains and strong personalities. He is also signalling that he intends to govern pragmatically—changing America’s foreign policy by degrees, not precipitously, and focusing his energies on America’s miserable economy.

As for the whining by some netroots/Daily Kos/moveon.org types...get a clue..... Some of the more leftish loudmouths need to figure out that a lot of the rage that ate up a lot of online space was directed at the extraordinarily obnoxious administration, and was not representative of a defined ideological position. Not many people want to resurect the substance or the attitudes of 70's or 80's east-coast liberalism. Our President-elect understands that perfectly.