“Indonesia” on The Daily Caller

The House Ways and Means Committee has just approved a bill that would attempt, albeit modestly, to crack down on Chinese currency manipulation, a key cause of America’s trade deficit.  The Ryan-Murphy currency bill (HR 2378) would allow the Commerce Department to treat currency manipulation as an illegal subsidy for the purpose of calculating countervailing duties intended as retaliation.  This bill has to be passed by the full House of Representatives and then the Senate before becoming law, but already the prophets of doom are squealing about the dangers of starting a trade war with China. They are wrong. (more)

As the Julia Roberts movie opens, here’s everything a regular guy should know about Elizabeth Gilbert’s mega-selling book. Bryan Curtis on the author’s slick writing, magnetic personality, and surprising spirituality. (more)

The visit Sunday to the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, cruising off coast of Vietnam, by high-ranking Vietnamese military and government officials was not a big story in the United States. Teams of U.S. military personnel have been conducting MIA-remains-recovery operations in Vietnam for 20 years. U.S.-Vietnam relations have been steadily improving since 1995 when the two countries normalized diplomatic relations. A U.S. warship visited Ho Chi Minh City in 2003. It was, however, big news in China, especially in the news reports circulated among China’s ruling elite. (more)

Like almost everything in America that exhibits a modicum of success – The Real Housewives of Wherever, the Twilight series and The Situation spring to mind – this Eat Pray Love thing has gotten completely out of hand. (more)

KALAM, Pakistan (AP) — U.S. Army choppers flew their first relief missions in Pakistan’s flood-ravaged northwest Thursday, airlifting hundreds of stranded people to safety from a devastated tourist town and distributing emergency aid. (more)

An investigation is under way in Indonesia after pornographic images were broadcast on an internal TV channel in the country’s parliament. (more)

Speaking in Turkey on Tuesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron slammed Israel and called Gaza a “prison camp.” (Apparently Gaza is the first prison camp with luxury shopping malls.) The British Foreign Office has been taking the blame for this betrayal of Israel, but they’re claiming they were as surprised as anyone. Now, a high-placed and knowledgeable source has informed me that it was Obama’s people who put the slamming of Israel into Cameron’s speech. (more)

“Hey, Frank. Can you believe it was only 18 months ago you guys announced the sale of the first piece of BP — that $10 billion Alaska plot they nicknamed Palin’s Peaks — to start paying for their Gulf clean up?  And today, they’re auctioning off their last field, that hell-hole in Nigeria.” (more)

Self-interest and humanitarianism (more)

It took Christendom centuries, but religious tolerance eventually replaced persecution.  Today it’s hard to find a Christian society that genuinely persecutes. (more)

The premiere of a film about Barack Obama’s life as a child in Indonesia is taking place in the capital Jakarta. (more)

One of Indonesia’s top celebrities has been charged under an anti-pornography law for his alleged role in sex videos which have appeared on the internet. (more)

Today is Flag Day in the United States, which commemorates the adoption of the flag. The Second Continental Congress approved the flag in 1777, but Flag Day wasn’t established until 1949. (more)

Lorie Graff married her American husband at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., in the late 1950s, before returning to Canada to apply for a green card so she could live in the U.S. legally. (more)

Orly Taitz became a household name by using whatever spare time she had from her careers as a dentist, lawyer, and real estate agent to file frivolous lawsuits against Barack Obama, on account of his being from the Kenyan province of Indonesia. She decided to make a run for California Secretary of State as a GOP primary candidate, and lost yesterday by nearly 50%. If you were watching MSNBC last night, those numbers might shock you, because for a minute there, it seemed like everyone on MSNBC prime time saw Taitz as a viable threat. (more)

A stricken British adventurer was left to die at the top of Mount Everest after fellow climbers were forced to abandon him before they too became trapped. (more)

At just the tender age of two, Ardi Rizal’s health has been so ruined by his 40-a-day habit that he now struggles to move by himself. (more)

In a previous post, in recognition of National Military Month, it was discussed how our military had improved as first defenders of America’s freedoms. This post focuses on how the military, while assuring our national security, has also in unheralded fashion improved civilian society, enhancing daily lives of people and their surroundings, in health and conservation, both here and around the world. (more)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian police foiled a plot to assassinate the president and other top officials, massacre foreigners in Mumbai-style terrorist attacks and declare an Islamic state, an official said Friday. (more)

Senior Obama administration officials recently have hinted they are running out of patience with efforts to engage Burma’s military regime. The futility of engagement with these thugs should have been obvious after the junta unveiled election laws requiring the country’s leading democratic political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), to expel its leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other jailed party members in order to participate in upcoming elections. The NLD had no choice but to boycott and now the party faces dissolution. Last week, 22 of Burma’s ruling generals—many of whom have blood on their hands—resigned from the military to form a new political party. This travesty is merely the latest step in the junta’s cynical plan to put a veneer of elected civilian legitimacy over their entrenched rule. (more)