Touch Down Africa

Pope Bededict XVI touched down yesterday in Cameroon.  According to the AP, this is the Pope’s first trip as pontiff to Africa. “For Benedict, whose only previous stop in Africa was in Kinshasa in 1987 as a cardinal, the continent presents major challenges and opportunities. He is expected to address them in meetings with Muslim representatives, bishops, health workers and women’s advocacy groups.”

This is the first day in his seven day pilgrimage. The Roman Catholic Church is booming and blooming in Africa. “Africa produces priests at a higher rate than anywhere in the world but finds itself in competition with Islam in Cameroon..”

“Benedict said he wants to invigorate the growing church in Africa. ‘I intend to confirm Catholics in their faith,” he said, and ‘proclaim the peace entrusted to the Church” by Jesus. Benedict said that as he sets out for Africa, he has in mind ‘the victims of hunger, disease, injustice, fratricidal conflicts and every form of violence which unfortunately continue to afflict adults and children, without sparing missionaries’ and volunteers working on the continent.”

“The Catholic Church has been one body that has been consistent in the development of the African continent not only spiritually, but in the provision of quality education, health care, caring for the neglected and victims of natural and man made disasters. It has also spoken up against corrupt and inept leaders in a fearless and constructive manner. The Church is only fulfilling its mandate to bring light to a darkened world and needs to continue this mission unceasingly. Africa definitely needs the Church. Osayawe Ogieva, Nigeria”

Come To The Tea Party – Endorses Gingrich

Newt’s on the bandwagon says Instapundit.

American Solutions for Winning the Future today ” announced their endorsement and support of the Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party, an event spanning the nation in over 150 cities and towns across America on April 15….”

“The American people are fed up with Washington’s irresponsible spending spree,” said Newt Gingrich, General Chairman of American Solutions. “There are better solutions than big government and higher taxes to create jobs and get the economy moving again.”

Leading the Parade – Spirit of St. Patrick, of Course!

The Anchoress will catch this first-hand, but for the rest of us, have a look-see:

Writing for newsday.com,  John Valenti says, ” More than 1,100 soldiers from the New York National Guard’s Fighting 69th kicked off Manhattan‘s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade Tuesday morning along Fifth Avenue……With its largest parade contingent ever, the Fighting 69th was led by Ranger Seth Morgulas, 38, of Manhattan, an NYPD mounted contingent, a bagpiper and four formations of troops dressed in Army desert fatigues and black berets adorned with boxwoods — in remembrance of plants worn by unit soldiers for the North back in the Civil War.”

Click here to see the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade photos -newsday.com


The 69th, first formed in 1849 as the 9th Regiment of the New York State Militia, is an Irish-heritage unit — and has anchored the nation’s best-known St. Patrick’s Day celebration since 1851. Legend in battle dating to the Civil War, where its soldiers harkened a battle cry of “Fág An Bealach” — Gaelic for “Clear the Way” — the contingent from the Fighting 69th this year included 319 soldiers who returned in January from Afghanistan.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade.com: “The parade marches up 5th Avenue, clan by clan, from 44th to 86th streets starting at 11am on St. Patrick’s Day (Tuesday, March 17th)…..The first official parade in the City was held in 1766 by Irishmen in a military unit recruited to serve in the American colonies.”


Porklulus Party Favors Must End

Cinncinnati  pours…out onto the streets that is.  Tea parties are the “in” soiree of disgruntled tax-payers.Michelle Malkin reports:

The Cincinnati Tea Party organizers told us it was going to be big. And it was. Organizer J. Binik-Thomas e-mails this evening that 5,000 folks turned out for the protest and more than 1,600 people signed a petition to ask local governments to reject porkulus funding.

Photo credit: Malkins reader Melissa)

Photo credit: Malkin's reader Melissa)

Instapundit has this great aerial view of the doings and more.

Tea Party Hardy!

Camelot for the Masses – “Obamalot”

According  to Hot Air, the Washington Times found “the motherload.” Says Hot Air, “While publicly identifying with the nation’s have-nots, the Obama administration has been cultivating the Beltway social elite behind the scenes.”

In the vernacular of the tax-paying masses, Obama’s hobb-nobbings are just another “loada’ __.” Obama seeks to ingratiate himself with high society despite the imprinted image of  just-plain-folk representing “the humble masses yearning to breath free.”  Not much free for the tax-paying middle class,while the air of  neo-Camelot-ary reigns in Obamalot.  While Obama reaches into our pockets, his “outreach to the luxury lifestyle glossies, which cater to the region’s highest socioeconomic strata with knowing coverage of everything from the choicest real estate and most exclusive parties to the plushest resorts and spas, is not the only recent evidence that the Obama administration is eager to forge ties with the nation’s social and style arbiters.”

Says Hot Air:

Charming the local (and not so local) power structure is good, smart politics, as is having dozens of interest groups aligned on your side coordinating their message with a daily phone call. And just as conservative groups could never get away with that without dark media insinuations about the “right-wing noise machine” building a wall of propaganda around the White House, George W. Bush could never have gotten away with holding a strategy session on how to glad-hand the D.C. glitterati while issuing near-hourly warnings about how we’re on the brink of Great Depression II. I can just picture the mocking nut-roots YouTube clips, destined to be recycled on “Hardball” and “Countdown”: First a quote from a story about Bush’s interest in socializing, then a clip of him and Laura dressed in finery and dancing at an inaugural ball as graphics about the market’s implosion and this year’s $1.75 trillion deficit roll merrily by. They’re … out of touch, you see. Exit question: Couldn’t the meeting have been postponed until, oh, say, after Geithner came up with a bank rescue plan and Treasury had been staffed? This isn’t going to reassure George Will or Tom Friedman about Obama’s ability to prioritize.

Expansion of Human Embryo Experimentation.

Thoughts of the Great Unwashed point  here for a read on the label given Obama as the “abortion president”:

One of the most outspoken abortion opponents in Congress labeled President Obama the “abortion president” on Friday in response to news that Obama intended to sign an executive order Monday lifting restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., accused Obama of launching two attacks on pro-life measures. In addition to lifting President Bush’s stem cell restrictions, Obama intends to lift regulations from the Bush administration that allow health care providers and institutions to refuse to participate in abortions on grounds of conscience.

“Why does the president persist in the dehumanizing of nascent human life when better alternatives exist? Human embryo-destroying stem cell research is not only unethical, unworkable and unreliable- it is now, demonstrably unnecessary,” Smith said.Smith labeled Obama’s stem cell policy an expansion of “human embryo experimentation.”