President Obama will keep his Blackberry.

Wanting to have some privacy in communication with close friends and advisors sounds reasonable. But since it is a way to bypass the normal official communication channels, it will have to raise questions of access and openness. Perhaps more importantly, any kind of mobile device is vulnerable to hackers, who are not necesarily the most scrupulous persons when it comes to protecting the privacy and interests of others.

Microsoft laying off workers for the first time (?) and shares down by almost 8%.

Samsung, which accounts for about 20% of South Korea’s total exports, records its first ever quarterly loss.

via Tim Blair, this story from the Australian ABC. Hamas leaders declare victory, having defeated the zionist entity. So why are they still in hiding?

If the right person were pressured out just because of the family she comes from.

I’m not sure that Caroline Kennedy has had a fair run from the media, although she certainly hasn’t been subjected to the kind of outright malice directed at Sarah Palin. I’m not suggesting she was the right person. Cuomo certainly has more experience. But there seems to have been an assumption that she considered herself entitled to the senate seat simply on the basis that she is a Kennedy, and had nothing else to offer. I can see no reason to believe that is so.

And nearly three million displaced. There were angry protests around the world about Israel’s attempts to disarm Hamas. Where are the protests about the real genocide in Sudan?

Banning torture makes good headlines. But what is the point if it wasn’t being done anyway? It seems to me this is another case of trying to take the moral high ground, not by doing anything different or better, but by subtly suggesting that others were doing something bad that you needed to stop. My understanding is that for all the fuss about torture, water-boarding had only been used three times, and not at all since 2003.

Of course that still begs the question about when discomfort and embarrassment become torture, and under what circumstances making someone feel uncomfortable or embarrassed in order to obtain information might be acceptable. Comments welcome.

Again, comments from friends that “I must have been moved by Obama’s speech.” Well, no. Not really. 

Apart from generic expressions of hope for the future, with about as much depth of thought as a placard I saw someone carrying that said “Our Future Starts Now,” there was nothing in the speech to suggest a well thought out programme for making the world, or even the US a better place. It was like listening to a series of readings from Helen Steiner Rice greeting cards.

But the crowd and media reaction! Pretty much like the response of the congregation in the last verse of this delightful poem by SJ Forrest:

He preached about the Trinity and how the world began;
Explained the Incarnation and the Destiny of Man.
He carefully expounded every detail of the Creeds,
And tried to show their relevance to modern human needs;
He brilliantly upheld the Christian heritage of Truth,
And sought to make it lucid and acceptable to youth.
They listened with correctitude, but everybody said,
‘He’s far too theological, and quite above our head.’

He gave an exposition of the Church’s means of Grace,
Revealing how the Sacraments revive a fallen race;
Of self-examination and the ways of Mental Prayer,
And why we need Communion, and how, and when, and where.
He spoke of Bible-reading, and to make it all complete,
Gave practical instruction on the value of Retreat.
And everyone agreed that it was logical enough,
But only suitable for those who like that kind of stuff.

He chose the Ten Commandments as the basis of a Course,
He amplified their meaning and emphasized their force;
He took the eight Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount,
And spoke of Christian stewardship and rendering account.
He did his best to penetrate beneath their toughened skins
With pointed expositions of the Seven Deadly Sins.
They felt a little slighted to be led across this ground,
For morals in suburbia are basically sound.

One day, in disillusionment, believing no one cared,
He flung at them a homily completely unprepared,
Endeavouring his customary quarter-hour to fill,
With sentimental platitudes that meant precisely nil;
Returning to the vestry in the grip of horrid fears
That people would consider it insulting to their ears.
But no, they were enraptured and devoured every word:
‘Oh, Vicar, it was lovely! Quite the best we’ve ever heard !’