Thinkations

Well, today was my split day so I started out at Heritage and worked on some of the entries for the Index of Economic Freedom. Then I helped host a mtg of various conservative people inside the beltway that work on Latin American issues—lots of state dept people and others from various think tanks, congressional staffers etc… It was fascinating and stimulating. I was wowed by the knowledge of these guys who’ve been around forever. The discussions centered around current crisis in LA, upcoming elections and contenders in various countries, US policy on Venezuela etc… I felt so behind in terms of knowledge—I can’t even name every current president much less the past 10 in any given LA country! I loved it though, watching the debates fly back and forth and voices get raised…lots of opinionated and passionate people discussing topics I find intensely interesting. I took lots of “look this person up” or “find out what this is about” type notes since I periodically found myself lost. It was fun though and 2 hours very well-spent—I learned a ton!

Then I came back to State== the Ambassador decided at 5am to postpone his trip by a day cause he hadn’t gotten done everything he’d plannedto do before leaving. I stuck around to do last minute stuff until about 8pm.

I’m very excited about tomorrow. I just realized today that tomorrow is the Supreme Court oral arguments for the ACLU vs ACLJ case about the Ten commandments being displayed in Ky. I got permission to take the morning off and try to go over and hear the arguments, which are open to the public if its not too crowded to get in. I’d already hoped to get to hear a case argued before the Supreme Court while I’m here, and since this one came up I want jump at the chance to hear such an important argument. Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ is arguing the Ky county judges’ case defending the display of the Ten commandments from the attack of the ACLU. I printed out and read up on the briefings a little (a couple hundred pages all together) so I know what’s going on in the case. This is there one short chance to make an argument before the court. Actually, the Supreme Court only hears oral arguments a few days out of the year between Oct-April so its rare to get to hear them anyway. Even getting to see them will be a really big deal.

Random moments today that made me laugh….

At Heritage I overheard a new dad announcing his daughters is named Reagan. Only at Heritage.

At the mtg today one of the guys was lamenting the US’ soft stance on China and said, “We have too many panda huggers at the State Dept”…

In the mtg someone announced there was an opening for a position in Caracas. I thought about looking into it for a minute until he added that body armor was included…