Ha! If throwing money and Prozac at the problem doesn't work, we are doomed. Nothing left but hard work and doing business honestly. Tough adjustment for the Wall Street crowd.:)

I have to say, the one thing that annoyed me in his speech was that he referred to the unity of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus (for some reason Hindus made it into the list), and non-believers'. don't know where that puts all the Buddhists, Wiccans, Zoroastrians, and etc...

minor point, but still... :o

if only that guy BROWN had heard about this. he seems determined to sink the ship rather than admit that he hasnt understood whats going on, and then have the guts to face up to the banks and do the job he has been entrusted with. this is to look after the country, rather than kowtow to a bunch of greedy bankers.

I thought the Zoroastrians were gone with the ancient Persians :D
But yeah, that part felt really awkward....

I know a Zoroastrian, originally from Mumbai (Bombay), India. They were driven out of Persia (now Iran) eons ago and settled in Bombay where there is still a thriving community.

I think he named off the religions for which there is a substantial US presence. No one could name all the religions that flourish in the world today.

They are generally known as Parsis or Parsees for that reason, and I dare say that Felix has heard of them under that name.

They are few in number, but not altogether obscure. The Tata industrialist family you will have heard of; the conductor Zubin Mehta; Indira Gandhi's husband; the founder of India's nuclear programme; the actress who played Lt. Ilia in the Star Trek movie; all of Britain's three first Asian MPs; and Freddie Mercury. Salman Rushdie puts Parsis in his books.

... and which have political significance. Though I agree, I'm not sure why Hindus, in the US, though Hindu-Muslim friction within India is a big issue. Moreover, rhetoric usually uses threes, not fours.

Quite!!! Even if there were, say, only thirteen religions on Earth, then naming them all would have wrecked the cadences of the speech. Naming a religion of which not everyone had heard, even more so; you don't want a "Come again?" in an inaugural. :)

My American friends who are atheists, which is practically all of them, were thrilled to bits over the "non-believers" bit.

Eh, I'd have been happy with an 'and other faiths' line slipped in before the non-believers bit - I just object to the implication that non-Christian, non-Jew, non-Muslim, non-Hindu people are equivalent to non-believers. I'm sure he had something like that in his original draft, but then Justice Stevens got him tangled up again. somehow... :rolleyes:

I would have gone, "Christians, Jews, Muslims; people of all faiths and of none". Better cadence too, I think.