Huckabee: Stimulus is 'anti-religious'

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned his supporters Tuesday in an email which was also posted on his blog against the $828 billion stimulus package. “The dust is settling on the ‘bipartisan’ stimulus bill and one thing is clear: it is anti-religious,” he wrote.
(Thanks: Sandra Kennedy Schimmelpfennig)

Yes, both the House and Senate bills have a provision that prohibits federal dollars for higher education construction grants to be used for:
“…modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities--used for sectarian instruction, religious worship…or a school or department of divinity; or in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.”
[…]
You would think the ACLU drafted this bill …
[…]
I urge you to try and answer one question: Why would Democrats add this provision into a spending bill that they say is “urgently needed” to help our economy?
The answer is troubling and predictable. For all of the talk about bipartisanship, this Congress is blatantly liberal.

Rome and Venice honor the Dalai Lama

One day after being made a citizen of Rome, His Holiness the Dalai Lama was yesterday in Venice, where he was made an honorary citizen by Mayor Massimo Cacciari.

It was a Tibetan lama who persuaded the Grand Khan to suspend the executions of 100,000 people who were thrown into the river each year; the lama was a friend of Marco Polo, […] but the past is the past and today the communist Chinese authorities have an extremely restrictive and short-sighted view,

said the Tibetan spiritual leader, accusing China of ”deliberately seeking to eliminate Tibetan people, culture and religion.” “In such a difficult period,” he added, “receiving your sympathy and feeling it passed from heart to heart encourages me and makes me happy.”

On Monday, during the citizenship ceremony in Rome, His Holiness said that “this honor of becoming a citizen of Rome is a further encouragement for me to support non-violent action. I will remain committed to non-violence to my dying day.” “I believe that the Tibetan people,” he added, “knowing that I am here in Rome to receive this honorary citizenship, will feel less alone and know that they have not been abandoned.” In welcoming the Dalai Lama to city hall, Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno said: ”Your presence here is our moral revolt against injustice, violence and oppression. A moral revolt in favor of the identity of a people and the right of each and every one of us to express their won spirituality and culture.”

Wilders denied entrance to UK

Dutch MP and leader of the Freedom Party Geert Wilders has come once again into the limelight. But this time it is not because of the low esteem in which he is held by the Dutch court which three weeks ago ordered his criminal prosecution for his “anti-Islamic hate speech,” that is for his statements against Islamofascism, considered “insulting” by the Court itself. This time, in fact, scheduled to attend the screening of his film Fitna in the House of Lords on Thursday, he has been denied access to the United Kingdom, because his presence might threaten civil order and “civil harmony.”

This would be in itself an absolutely unbelievable story. Yet, since I couldn’t say that I’ve never seen anything like this in our old, decadent Europe, I must admit that this is practically the rule, not the exception. Take the case, for example, of commentator and author Douglas Murray, who was due to chair “Islam or Liberalism: Which is the Way Forward?” at the London School of Economics on January 23, but the LSE asked him not to attend in the interest of “public safety” as his presence could provoke unrest … How sad!

See here and here for further details.