( Read more... )

When the morning skies grow red
And o'er their radiance shed,
Thou, O Lord, appeareth in their light.
When the Alps glow bright with splendour,
Pray, free Swiss, Pray,
For you feel and understand,
That he dwelleth in this land.

That's the English translation of the first stanza of the Swiss Psalm, the official national anthem of Switzerland since ( Read more... )

A recent conversation made me thinking about nationalism, patriotism and all the related sentiments (including the more extreme forms, like chauvinism and jingoism).

IMO, nationalism/patriotism/jingoism is the stupidest/most-amusing/dangerous thing humankind has ever come up with. That, and those funny ass-washing bidets. That said, of course there ( Read more... )

I really value John Maxwell’s books on leadership, I find them inspiring but I think The Obama Administration needs to retool their leadership policies. They are giving too much power to their lower level staff and it is creating a culture of corruption.

• Rogue ATF officials in Phoenix caused the Fast & Furious scandal that caused the death of 200 ( Read more... )

So ever since President Obama talked about how it takes a society to build things that business uses to do things like deliver goods, send data, etc, the GOP has been hammering him for being "unamerican". Apparently, subscribing to American Exceptionalism requires the believer to refuse to acknowledge any possibility that an innovator or "job ( Read more... )

Panookah's post in t_p_nonsense already summed up my general feelings toward the day but I want to get the community's take on a deeper question...

"Why are young men(and now women) willing to kill and die for flags?"

Discuss!

( my own opinion behind the cut... )

http://m.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/2
9/superman-threatens-renounce-us-citizenship?cat=books&type=article

In a recent issue of Action Comics Superman intervined in a protest against the Iranian government which caused Iran to call Superman an agent of the US government and ( Read more... )

A storm has hit the Foriegn Office in London, England, and those legal chappies say that they are 'not legally liable ( Read more... )

Much is made about this concept of patriotism. People like to argue about it sometimes. People talk about nationalism versus patriotism. While such things can quickly degenerate into semantic quibbling, the phenomena to which they speak remains.
( Cut. )

Tomorrow it will be nine years since 20 guys with boxcutters hijacked four planes and slammed three into buildings. Two of them disintegrated entirely, the third they did not damage half as much as they would have liked to, the fourth went nowhere at all. I must confess a mixture of puzzlement and anger at how this has mushroomed into an act ( Read more... )