Talking freely about the society we want

'Liberals can never say exactly what they want because it’s scary. That’s why they don’t work on talk radio. If they say what they’re goals are unfiltered, it even scares themselves. Look at college campuses; if liberals were unrestrained, is there any doubt their final goal would be socialism and fascism? They inch into any control they can have about our finances and behavior and clamp down on it like wolverines never letting go, but they never talk about their ultimate goals except in the vaguest terms (”Change and happiness!”) because they’re well aware of how much it would freak people out. They want socialism and government control, but they just don’t want to state it that way.'

http://www.imao.us/index.php/2009/05/dont-hide-from-the-message/

Absolutely right. The Obama campaign in a nutshell. The mask slipped a couple of times, but nobody except conservatives was watching. Shame, because we were 100% correct.

'Conservative ideals can be stated frankly, though, and not send people running. It can be a little scary - freedom and responsibility is scary - but it’s an argument people will accept. So while liberals dance around what they want, we need to state frankly what our goals are. Lay out a real vision for the future to inspire people.'

I would call this the Mark Steyn\Rush Limbaugh\Daniel Hannan conservatism. Free from self-doubt, shame and timidity; plain spoken; un-fased by the constant lies told about them by the socialists. And most importantly, confirmed in their beliefs by the great mass of evidence around them. When you are trying to persuade people of something, it helps if your words are confirmed by the world itself. If you can point to things all around that confirm your view of the world, most reasonable people will accept what you are saying.

This is something the democrats/socialists/labour can't do. Every time they have their way, the wheels fall off in dramatic fashion. Compare 1979 Britain with 1999 Britain, if you don't believe me. 2009 Britain is returning to 1979 Britain, but then you have the same fu**ing morons in charge. When will the electorate learn? Actually, its worse than 1979. As I pointed out a few days ago, most of our soveriegnty now resides in the hands of the European Commission (unelected). We can't even sack the bastards. Just may have to be the bullet rather than the ballot . Oh well, freedom has ALWAYS been worth fighting for.

Getting Pakistani terrorism wrong

'Pakistan is the powder-keg of the contemporary world.

I said this six years ago, in my investigation of Daniel Pearl's death.

I repeated it on September 12th, 2003 in a piece published by the Washington Post. Its thesis was that the war in Iraq would persist because it was a grossly miscalculated target, one of the worst strategic errors ever to have been committed by the American administration.'

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22602.html

The first statement is a commonly agreed truism. The second, a much repeated bit of pundit folk-wisdom. "I told you the Iraq war would be a disaster!! See what a clever boy I am!" Trouble is, the Iraq 'war' is over and the Iraqi government/US won; despite the best efforts of Al Qaeda, Jaysh-al-Mahdi, the Sunni tribes, the Irainian government, the Syrian government, the French government, the Spanish government, the Russian government and many many more. What a spectacular victory, won with a staggeringly low casualty count by historical standards, and despite the utterly depraved actions of the enemy such as constantly bombing mosques and marketplaces.

Mr Henri-Levy, like most pundits of the same view, fails to state why the Iraq intervention was a strategic error. To generically assert that this or that intervention is a strategic error is asinine- answer the question why if you want to be even vaguely legitimate. I can list at least ten good strategic reasons to invade Iraq and get rid of Saddam Hussein. Can you list ten good reasons why it shouldn't have, Mr Henri-Levy? I bet you can't.

1. To get rid of Saddam Hussein, and his hideous, beastly tyranny
2. To create a focal point for islamist terrorists that was NOT the continental United States; to gather them up and kill them; a killing ground if you will.
3. To put a 155,000 man army on the border of Iran, with the obvious implications for the Iranian government.
4. To put a 155,000 man army on the border of Syria, as above.
5. To indicate to China and the other emergent powers that the American military is not limited to sitting in its bases, and will be used for advancing American strategic objectives.
6. To show Saudi Arabia that the US would not allow Iran and Iraq impunity to attack it.
7. To create a showpiece democracy in the Middle east, friendly to the US.
8. To ensure that the flow of oil from easy-extraction countries was not interfered with.
9. To turn the US military from a bloated, relatively low-morale, unblooded bureacracy into a hardened veteran, legitimate fighting force with high morale.
10. Most importantly, to counteract the world-wide perception that the US did not have the stomach for a fight any more.

Sadly, most of these strategic gains derived from the hard graft and sacrifice of American soldiers, marines and airman have been squandered by the intellectual giant in the White House.

'And where lie the roots of this disturbing Pakistani situation? There is, first of all, the fact that when we refer to the “Taliban” in Pakistan, we are talking about Al Quaeda, and literally Al Quaeda, since the constituent elements of its sphere of influence – groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Lashkar-e-Janghvi, or Jaish-e-Mohammed – comprise the hardcore of Bin Laden’s organization itself.'

From everything I have read about Pakistani terrorist groups, that is a deformation of the actual situation. For example, Lashkar-e-Toiba is the main vehicle for Pakistani terrorism and destabilisation operations in Kashmir. It's been around a very long time, much longer than Al Qaeda. Lumping together all islamic terror groups as simply elements of Al Qaeda provides no insight whatsoever. The Taliban government in Afghanistan were happy to host Al Qaeda, but they weren't Al Qaeda. The Afghani Taliban had very different goals. They were happy to have Afghanistan as their scope for action. Al Qaeda have always seen the whole world as their stage. The Afghani Taliban were the Stalinists, Al Qaeda Trotskyists, if you will.

Not only that, a very large part of both Afghani and Pakistani Taliban motivation is Pakhtun culture, the Pahktunwali. They are proud mountain warriors, and they despise the farmers and traders of the lowlands. They have always lived by the gun and extortion. In contrast, Al Qaeda are the islamist fascist vanguard, spoiled children of middle-class muslims from all over, but especially the richer countries. They see it as their role to murder their way to world domination in the name of a stark, puritanical wahhabist islam.

Indeed, Al Qaeda is a hodge-podge of malcontents from all over, whose main unifying principle is murderous intent. Most of the groups named by Henri-Levy have very different goals indeed. Laskar-e-Toiba want Kashmir in toto to be ruled from Islamabad. Where is the cross-over with Al Qaeda? There is very little. Most of the groups named are also creatures to some extent of the Pakistani government, and act as its proxies. Al Qaeda is not. It is useful to no one, really, due to its rediculously extreme positions and 7th century ideas, and habit of murdering other muslims. How many of the rank and file of the Taliban, Laskar-e-Toiba etc want the return of a caliphate, the destruction of America, the re-conquest of Al-Andalus, and all the other Al Qaeda holy grails, in any other than a very theoretical way? Their goals and aims are far more concrete and local.

There is no question that the whole of Pakistani society provides a friendly pond in which ALL islamist terror groups can swim. The police will only very infrequently interfere with them, and the man on the Islamabad omnibus is heartily in favor of their goals. This does present the rest of the world, but in particular India and Afghanistan with a depressing long-term problem. Al Qaeda may be an unwelcome guest in Pakistan, but most Pakistanis will do nothing to help destroy it.

The question in my mind is this: will myopia in Pakistan eventually lead to the almost complete destruction of Pakistini civil society from within, and invasion by its neighbors enraged by the constant attentions of the Pakistani government proxies? There is a strange symmetry here between the arc of Al Qaeda, and the country of Pakistan. Initial success before the victims determine the real intentions, followed by long-term defeat, indeed annihilation. Lets hope for the sake of millions of disinterested ordinary Pakistanis that thats not true.

What is a moderate?

'Obama picks off another moderate

President Barack Obama’s decision to appoint Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China doesn’t merely remove a likely challenger — it strips the Republican Party of one of its few voices urging moderation.

Obama’s pick leaves the GOP without an obvious centrist presidential candidate two years before the primary jockeying begins in full. By dispatching Huntsman to Beijing, Obama is effectively trying to determine the sort of Republican he and his top advisers would like to face in 2012.'

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22636.html

RINO. Statist. Big governmenter. Indistinguishable from euro-Dems. Against the use of American power to do good in the world. Unwilling to fight Islamist fascism. Thats a moderate.

Politics is very often about the use and misuse of language. As the wretched out-dated, long-debunked 20th century policies of the Democrat/Socialists/Big staters have grown ever more shop-worn and pathetic, the geniality of the debate has succumbed to desperation. Given what they are selling, the Dems have to lie A LOT. They have to use every dubious strategem of misdirection, Big Brother Newspeak, covering evidence, manufacturing evidence and the politics of personal destruction.

I'm going to make a prediction. The internal idiocy of the Dems current position, trying to sell the 20th centuries worst ideas as 21st century hip, snazzy novelties; will bring about one of the shortest periods of dominance for a major political party ever. By early 2010, the Obama white house, the Pelosi House of Representatives and the Harry Reid Senate will be busted flushes.

Don't forget to check back in.

Bed, Bath and Beyond Gift vouchers?

'Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to meet Obama

Mr Netanyahu and his wife Sara arrived in Washington on Sunday
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is due at the White House for his first meeting with US President Barack Obama.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8055105.stm

I wonder what hastily bought tawdry crap he can expect?

Disgusting misdirection of the public debate

'Can MPs recover from expenses row?

Can politicians recover from the expenses row?
The Speaker of the House of Commons is to make a statement to MPs on Monday, amid growing calls for him to quit over the expenses scandal. Has politics been permanently damaged?

The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has called for Michael Martin to resign while MPs from all parties have signed a motion of no confidence.

After the latest revelations in the Daily Telegraph, Downing Street says an inquiry will be launched into claims that Labour MP Ben Chapman was given permission to claim allowances for mortgage interest he no longer paid.

Have you lost faith in politicians? How can MPs regain your trust? Is it enough to pay back the money claimed on expenses? Have these revelations put you off voting?'

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=6430&edition=1&ttl=20090518122245

When the general public and the massed ranks of the underemployed, over excitable big media get over their flamboyant hysteria over this 'scandal', there may well be some red faces. From so many angles, this is a non-story. Britain has ceded something like 84% of its sovereignty to the EU. That means that Westminster parliamentarians are responsible for the other 16%. Which by my reckoning makes them pretty unimportant, apart from the residual affection the public have for their legacy parliament. Even if our MP's are complete rubbish, it doesn't really matter to Britain. We are governed from Brussels, Strasbourg and Frankfurt. Enormously greater sums of money are wasted by the EU institutions than our 569 MPs.

Enormously greater sums of money are wasted by the grotesquely bloated UK government, with all its massive benefit regimes, quangos and socialist boondoggles. But since the Tories stopped discussing socialism in public, those topics have disappeared completely from public discourse in Britain. Now, apart from a few lonely voices like Daniel Hannan, the statist world-view envelopes all. Discussing a few hundred pounds of expenses when hundreds of billions of our wealth are disappearing down the toilet is not just obtuse- its obscene. I tell you what- we'll get back to discussing the MP's expenses just as soon as the state is removed from education provision, health provision, 'job creation', enabling dependent lifestyles and fixing the economic playing field.

The Real Barack Obama slides into view

'Obama could have had a one-time stimulus, then vowed to balance the budget. He might have praised wind and solar as he asked the carbon industry to ‘get us through.’ He could have politely disagreed with Bush, but framing differences in the tragic notion of no good choices. He might have cooled the overseas apologies, savvy that other nations have more to apologize for than his own. Obama should have established zero-tolerance for tax avoidance at a time of record tax increases. He could have remonstrated with Wall Street, and sought to rein in excess without Europeanizing the financial sector. He could have proactively reformed entitlements with bipartisan support, rather than, as will happen, drastically address them in the 11th hour.'

http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/929/2/

Possibly the best way of analysing Obama I have yet read. I think of it like this: if Obama was the man he told us he was, he would have done what the superbly clear Victor Davis Hanson describes.

George W Bush II

"Obama 'to revive military trials'

US President Barack Obama is expected to announce on Friday that he is reviving military trials for some of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8051275.stm

New boss, same as the old boss, as Instapundit would say.

Far from Obama showing us a piercing and original intellect, over and over again he demonstrates that his hifalutin sermonizing during the electoral campaign was based on no serious analysis. He has no replacement for Guantanamo Bay, he has nowhere to send the terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, and he has no legal solution to the status of the terrorists in Guantanamo Bay other than the one already devised.

He is a hollow vessel. His denunciations from 2008 now fall upon his own head, and are revealed as the specious cant that we said they were at the time.

Madness in the Westminster Village

I don't know about swine flu- it looks like mad cow disease is back. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkk!

Somali pirates not a shower

'The Somali pirates attacking shipping in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean are directed to their targets by a "consultant" team in London, according to a European military intelligence document obtained by a Spanish radio station.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/11/somali-pirates-london-intelligence [Hat Tip: Dustbury.com, also simplyjews.blogspot.com]

Why didn't I hear about this from the big media? I don't really consider the Guardian big media. Once upon a time, maybe. But this is really one of those WTFF? moments. Like most folks, I imagined the Somali pirates being parallel to most things in Somalia- extremely low tech; mad, bad and dangerous but thoroughly disorganised and shambolic. Appears not.

Of course, if WE know this much, our security services must have a firm grip on the situation... right?

Seeing eye to eye

'“If the U.S. solves three problems,” the general said, “American-Arab relations will be very good. First, resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Second, promote democracy in the Arab world. Third, destroy the Wahhabis. If you solve these problems, all will be well.”'
General Nasser, Iraqi Army.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/05/the-future-of-i.php

Same page, my man, same page.

There ARE far more important things

'He said there were "far more important things going on in the world" - but became agitated when Ms Gracie asked why Mr Martin had tried to block the publication of expenses.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045414.stm

If I had written this in first year English, I'd have been assaulted by my teacher. In what way is the statement 'became agitated when Ms Gracie asked why..." in any way a dependent clause of the first? Its not. Its intention is to destroy the impact and importance of the statement. And this is the pivotal statement in this whole story.

MP's expenses are utterly unimportant. Not only would most of them pass the reasonable man test, but the amounts of money are pitifully small. In relation to all British government expenditure, they are a tiny fraction of a droplet in the ocean.

Our MP's are not by any standard corrupt. By world standards, they are cleaner than clean, and thank God thats true. So why this demented witch hunt by the newspapers and TV news people?

There are two answers I can think of, both unpalatable. First, there is nothing going on for the newshounds (if only they were) to get their tiny baby teeth into, so this made-up story will do for cheap thrills. The second is worse- it is a cynical ploy to destract the population of this country from scrutinising the positively stupendous amounts of taxpayer wealth being thrown at various dubious projects up and down Britain.

Last year, it was revealed that the NHS spent 100 million pounds per year on translation services, so it can provide 'free' healthcare to somalis and bangladeshis and every other dreg that washes up on these shores in their own language. A hundred million pounds would cover the MP's expenses in toto, and much much more. Those translation services actively militate against immigrants assimilating here, and becoming useful and productive. A dismal lose-lose situation for the poor bastards paying the ginormous tab.

So the next time a whole NewsNight is spent chewing over some poor MP's claim for curtain rods, try to remember the big picture...

Fight smoulder with fire

In the comments:

peterike:

'This is the Jon Stewart-ization of “comedy.” The poison-tipped arrows always fly in one direction, with occassional powder-puffs tossed the other way to “prove” they “poke fun at everyone.”

Same old model. Take a non-fact and spin it into a vicious joke. Repeat ad nauseum. And it works. Stewart, Colbert, Maher etc. did as much as anybody to destroy Bush and get Obama elected.

Really, some enterprising Republican (hah!) should look into suing them under Federal election law (double-hah) for illegal campaign contributions in kind (triple hah).

Why don’t conservatives have people infiltrate the audiences of these shows in order to boo resoundingly? That’s the kind of media guerilla fighting we need.'

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/05/10/a-laughing-matter/

Somebody called Wanda Sykes did some 'jokes' at the White House Correspondents annual shindig at the Belmont club. It wasn't humor, so much as a bitter tirade against people no longer in power. Watch it if you don't believe me. I found this in the comments, and it seems to be exactly the oppposite of whats needed. People watch Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert because they are funny. They may agree with the heavy dem slant, but they watch because the jokes are actually jokes.

What the conservative/libertarians need is funny people to do the same from their perspective. Go out into the by-ways and highways and FIND PEOPLE WHO ARE FUNNY, for goodness sake. Get them on TV to take the piss out of all the Dem sacred cows. Sheesh. Have I gotta come over their and do it for you? You don't want that...

Obama and the press

'Obama's high level of public support is largely a product of his positive image the media have crafted.'
http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/05/dijongate-what-have-we-learned.html

I was happily reading through this relatively standard analysis of DijonGate, something you may well not have heard about. To nutshell, DijonGate was a tiny, teeny little bit of media manipulation which caught the keen eye of the conservative/libertarian blogosphere. The President and Vice President of the United States went for lunch at a burger place, Rays Hell-Burger, in Arlington, Virginia. Thats very close to DC. Its meant to have really mean burgers. They aren't cheap by US standards at $6.95, though. Anyhoo, when President Obama ordered his, he asked for Dijon or some such mustard.

BFD right? Strangely, his request for Dijon mustard never made it on air. MSNBC, which happened to have cameras on hand at the restaurant BEFORE the presidential visit, were in the frame for eliding it out. Hmmm, thought all the people who were in the restaurant, he definitely said it. Why did MSNBC not want other Americans to hear their president asking for Dijon mustard? As usual, the cover-up caused much more stink than the comment itself.

But the reason for my post is to contest the assertion I direct quoted above. I do not believe that hundreds of millions of Americans love Obama because they read that they ought to in the LA Times, or were asked to on MSNBC. Some public figures are just beloved. I may not like them, I may not agree with their policies, but I will accept that millions of people disagree with me, for reasons I may never understand. And to delude yourself that millions and millions of people are the simple dupes of the big media organsitions is to start down a stone-cold dead-end.

As far as opposing the Obama policies, both tradition and common sense dictate that the man and his electorate are treated with respect while the policies are roasted with appropriate vigor. Being a loyal opposition can require great reserves of patience and a very thick skin. But in societies that don't want to use 7.62 rounds to solve their political differences, it is absolutely essential to deploy them.

The media may well love Obama, but that doesn't mean he is their creation.

Dark path

'The names of some of the people barred from entering the UK for fostering extremism or hatred have been published for the first time.

Islamic extremists, white supremacists and a US radio host are among the 16 of 22 excluded in the five months to March to have been named by the Home Office.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8033060.stm

This is no longer a free country. This is not the Britain of old. This is not the home of liberty. This is not the home of robust free speech. We have to do something about this. This isn't even a left/right issue.

Jon Stewart gets scorched

http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_/Jon_Stewart%2C_War_Criminals_%26_The_True_Story_of_the_Atomic_Bombs/1808/

This is absolutely superb argumentation. Textbook, or at least, should be. If you care about historical veracity, and the increasing dominance of revisionist lies, you will want more of this.

Pete Seeger, lovely old communist

A session with Seeger

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8027215.stm

Imagine if you will, that Pete Seeger were an ageing Nazi, whose songs eulagised Hitler and the delights of the Nazi philosophy and way of life.

'Affection for Pete was not always so widespread.

In the 1950s he was blacklisted for his former membership of the Communist Party, and his performing career seemed all but over.'

You can hear the implied tutting from hundreds of miles away. Oh, and by the way, the word 'former' in that sentance is a lie. There is nothing 'former' about his membership. It is very current.

'Typically, he refused to go away. In 1955 he declined to co-operate with the Un-American Activities Committee which was investigating radical activities of public figures.'

What a hero! He refused to go away. Unlike, for instance, a huge swathe of the Russian officer corps, the intellectuals and the upper reaches of the communist party, who went away anyway. Never to return. But then America is implacably evil in a very very benign not-evil sort of way. Weird that.

'He was sentenced to a year in prison for contempt, although a smart lawyer spared him imprisonment.

I asked Seeger if he ever came to resent his country in what he calls "the frightened fifties".'

If only those aforementioned core of Russian society had had smart lawyers (and a couple of hundred armoured divisions, just in case). "The frightened fifties". Can't these commies get their stories straight? I thought we were SUPPOSED to be afraid, because we are bourgeois exploiters of the down-trodden masses?

'"America's treated other people much, much worse. I've spoken frankly about once being a member of the Communist Party. Should I apologise for it? Well, a lot of apologies are due.

"White people in the US should apologise to native Americans for stealing land - and to African Americans for slavery. Europeans could consider apologising for centuries of worldwide conquest. On the other hand, let's look ahead!"'

Quick, get out the highly highly highly abridged bumper book of world history, the one with only American 'crimes'. Thats the one! Now read to me again of the peculiar awfulness of those yankees.

'His energy and optimism is characteristic. He remains as fascinated by the world as he must have been as a young man when he dropped out of Harvard.'

Shouldn't that be 'are characteristic'? I'm guessing the energy and optimism are what keep him focussed so intently on Americas evils. There just isn't time for any analysis of communisms deadly fruits. 'He remains fascinated by the world as he must have been back when he was a commie'. 'He remains ossified in the rancid bitterness of the pampered children of wealth and privilege.' Thats what Vincent Dowd meant to write, but his pen slipped. 'Seeger came from a prosperous middle-class family but was inspired by the singer Woody Guthrie, seven years his senior, to explore America's folk tradition.' Prosperous middle-class family? Really?

'Seeger has always believed words and music will help make society better.'

Of course, he has always believed communism would make society better, so I'm not sure we can trust his judgement.

'In part, the New York concert is an apology for how the US once treated him - though Seeger would be the last person ever to seek such a thing.'

Read that sentance a few times, and mull over those thoughts for a minute. The United States should apologise to a rich old communist for not putting him in prison, not killing him or his family, and allowing him a long and gratifying (for him) career. Don't wait up for his apology for supporting the biggest mass murderers in history.

You could not publish in any mainstream forum an ecomium like this to an ageing Nazi. So why is it ok to do so with the other ideological abhorrence of the 20th century?

We want to be like Russia!

'Free enterprise is culturally mainstream, for the moment. Asked in a Rasmussen poll conducted this month to choose the better system between capitalism and socialism, 13% of respondents over 40 chose socialism. For those under 30, this percentage rose to 33%. (Republicans were 11 times more likely to prefer capitalism than socialism; Democrats were almost evenly split between the two systems.)'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124104689179070747.html

I am almost speechless. Almost. A third of young Americans think socialism is a better system than capitalism. I wish they could meet my wife. Her views on socialism, like those of most Russians, are not fit to print in a family blog. First hand experience has a way of bringing stuff to your attention which obviously eludes pampered little shits living light years away from the nearest actual socialism. Still, what do they teach in US schools? Presumably zero twentieth century history. And half of ALL democrats prefer socialism over capitalism. How many of them have lived in a socialist society?

It is shocking. Even from the point of view of sheer self-interest, socialism is the worst of all possible worlds. And that would be the ONLY reason for socialism. If you are a humanitarian, a caring sort, an altruist, socialism should be absolute anathema. The first thing socialists do in a revolution is kill all the smart intellectual types, the people who went to university under the old dispensation, and who are the establishment. You know, the sort of people who tend to be democrats in the US. Yoo hoo, wakey wakey you fucking morons.

Actually, better idea. Let them have what they wish for. Socialist in haste, repent at leisure.

Global warming: is it bollocks?

'Experiments in natural science show that one-sided observations, those that take no account of the multiplicity of factors determining certain processes in the geo-system, lead to unwarranted simplifications and wrong conclusions when trying to explain natural phenomena. Thus, politicians who rely on incomplete data may take wrong decisions. It makes room for politically correct lobbying, especially on the side of business marketing of exceptionally expensive, so called eco-friendly, energy technologies or those offering CO2 storage (sequestration) in exploited deposits. It has little to do with what is objective in nature. Taking radical and expensive economic measures aiming at implementing the emission only of few greenhouse gases, with no multi-sided research into climate change, may turn out counterproductive.'

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Polish-Academy-of-Sciences-Questions-Gores-Man-Made-Global-Warming-Theory-43618922.html

It is not widely known that at the beginning of the 20th century, large numbers of scientists were convinced that cranium size and shape determined intelligence, and that the white northern races had skulls with more brain in them than southern black skulls. Then, as scientific knowledge advanced, as 'multi-sided research' was performed, it was realised that skull shape had no determining influence on brain size nor intelligence. Obviously, scientists don't bring this up much, as it makes them look awful. Scientists can get caught up in a frenzied way, like the rest of humanity does, and lose their objectivity. They have over 'global warming', and so far, seem resistant to calming down and being scientists again.

We're waiting.

Pelosi and Torture

'“The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists,” Goss wrote. “I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues.”

Pelosi dismissed such criticism, telling reporters the 2002 briefing was strictly classified, and she was hamstrung from raising objections with officials or even sharing information with other lower-ranking committee members.'

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21724_Page2.html

Nancy Pelosi, a bird-like woman with a permanently surprised look on her face, always comes across to me as someone not just promoted above her level of competence, but promoted WAY above her level of competence. Watch this video of her 'answering' questions about her knowledge of the use by US agents of waterboarding. Its funny AND sad. I'm not sure whether she has the same lawyer as Bill Clinton, but it comes across as about as convincingly as 'I never had sexual relations with that woman'.

Question: the CIA asked legal counsel whether waterboarding constituted torture or not. What did Nancy Pelosi think they wanted to know that for?

Somebody somewhere has the minutes of that briefing. Ms Pelosi better hope they are still classified.

But its the 'she was hamstrung from raising objections with officials' that made me laugh out loud. Democrats in the CIA spent most of the last four years leaking stories to the press in the hope of making the Bush Presidency look bad. Remember Valerie Plame and the Yellow cake? She got outed because she used her position in a completely corrupt way, for political mischief-making. Sadly for her, that was a double-edged sword. But there was nothing poor little ranking member of the Intelligence Committee Pelosi could do about this 'nightmare'? Not even one teensy weensy quiet word to the right journo?

Yeah, she didn't do that because in 2002 everybody wanted those bastards tortured. Its only now, in hindsight that the political benefits of being against the 'torture' seem so attractive, that Ms Pelosi has realised that she was never complicit in the waterboarding decision-making. Pathetic. Nobody will believe her. But its part of a much wider attempt by the Dems to whitewash their behaviour from 2001/2002, when they got on board with all sorts of thing they now wish they'd been against. "Hey, lets invade Afghanistan!". "Well, alrighty then!". "Hey, lets torture the high-level Al Qaeda people we capture!". "Sure, seems like a plan!". "Hey, Saddams a festering scab with dangerous friends. Lets invade!". "Like your thinking, he IS dangerous!". And so it goes...

Pants on fire

'Conservative leader David Cameron has pledged to "replace Labour's spendaholic government with a new government of thrift"...

"On my watch it will be simple: if you do more for less you get promoted; if you do less for more, you get sacked."'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8018783.stm

Oh yeah, thrift. I remember that. About a thousand years ago, the Conservative party believed in that, and as I recall, actually tried to practise it while in government. Ah, those days of yore. But lo the many years now we have got used to Conservative ministers led by Mr Cameron frantically outbidding Labour, and promising to spend our money on this and that absolutely necessary thing. And that was consistent right up til about last week. So, first of all, I'm getting an 'Obama promise' sort of feeling here. You know, the ones that virtually never actually pan out in real life. Promises that aren't even really worthy of being called aspirations- more like vague gesturings towards.

I believe that today, when David Cameron got up, he really really wanted to lead a thrifty government. Just like a year ago he got up wanting to lead a green government, and a few months after that he wanted to lead a compassionate government; and a few months after that he got up wanting to lead a financially competent government. But I believe in my secret heart of hearts that David Cameron just wants to lead a government. Any old government. And I bet you all our money that when he gets into No 10, he forgets all about that old thrifty bollocks.

David Cameron is not a conservative. He doesn't seem to emanate any sort of conservativeness at all. Like George W Bush and John McCain and the US treasury, he doesn't seem to mind whether our tax pounds get spent at a greater or lesser rate. Just doesn't impinge on his daily musings at all. After all, its just revenue right? Revenue gets adjusted, yada yada. The simple basic truth that they are taking OUR money, and spending it as THEY like doesn't have any impact any more. When a reasonable sounding request comes in for expenditure, these guys just tick the box. The revenues will come in, and if they aren't sufficient, we'll make the pips squeak a little bit more. No biggie.

So, do I regard David Camerons serious-face lecture on thrift important and interesting? Not even a bit. Listen to this:

'... the "culture of thrift" must also apply to the civil service, promising "a new fiduciary responsibility on senior civil servants - a contractual obligation to save the taxpayer money" and a "proper finance director" for every government department...'

Oooooh- fiduciary responsibility- that'll fix things! Thats not new and different. New and different is what Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan propose in their book "The Plan". Raise the revenue locally, and spend it locally. Don't let it anywhere near Whitehall. Allow local authorities to govern again. Don't tax people nearly so much in the first place. That would be a significant change. Will David Cameron do that? I'll let you be the judge.

Hunting the torture-mongers

'The CIA's use of waterboarding to interrogate terrorism suspects was approved by Condoleezza Rice as early as 2002, a senate report reveals.

As national security adviser, Ms Rice consented to the harsh interrogation of al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, the Senate Intelligence Committee found.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8013759.stm

Eyes widen in shock, long-drawn-out oohs and ahhs. What did she know and when? We sternly ask, seeing ourselves as the latter-day Woodward and Bernstein, intrepid seekers after truth. Thats the truth being hidden by THE MAN, in case you were wondering. There is nothing as tenacious and dogged as a lefty seeking some hideous new evil performed by Americans, Britons or Europeans.

I am currently reading 'United in Hate', Jamie Glazovs somewhat crazed diatribe about the psychology of western fans of Communism/Fascism and now Islamism. What the book lacks in clear and scholarly argumentation, it somewhat makes up for in anecdote and episode. I only understand dimly the psychological arguments being made, but what is clear is that for lovers of Communists/Fascists in the twentieth century, and Islamists in the twenty first, our crimes always mushroom to dominate all available space, and the crimes of the objects of their affection diminish down to virtually nothing.

As I've mentioned before, General Pinochet in Chile killed 2,279 people, mostly communists and labour organisers. At exactly the same moment, Pol Pot was killing 1.5 million (some estimates say 2.5 million) Cambodians in the name of communism. Guess who still crops up incessantly as one of the most murderous men of the 20th century, in words that denote special evil? I'll give you a clue- I haven't heard Pol Pot mentioned for years.

Al Qaeda in Iraq murder whole villages because they won't hide them or cooperate with them- they are Patriots, don't you know? Freedom fighters, defenders of their homeland just doing what the MinuteMen did back in the late 18th century. Meanwhile, the US tortures a few very, very bad men; gets excellent demonstrably useful information out of them which saves lives, and what happens? The US and international left want war crimes tribunals and congressional investigations.

If you were a dazed survivor of one of those tragic Iraqi villages, and you happened to read about these shenanigans in the New York Times, you probably wouldn't be able to work out how the priorities and broad-brush realities came to be so out of kilter. They wouldn't be alone.

BBC abuse of language

'The initial signs are that Mr Zuma will promote a new conservatism in South Africa, digging deep into the nation's cultural and religious roots and threatening Western-styled liberal values enshrined in the constitution.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8012903.stm

Conservatism means evil to the squishy shits of the BBC website. Liberal means good.

So, lets see what the morons regards as conservative:

- offering prayers to ancestors
- denouncing same-sex marriage as a "disgrace to God"
- promising a referendum on the death penalty
- condemning political rivals as "witches" and "snakes"
- and defending polygamy as "African"

Uh huh. Offering prayers to ancestors? Not something the Conservatives in Purley would get on board with... Same-sex marriage- most people in the world other than tiny elites in Europe and America think same-sex marriage is a disgrace, whether they invoke God to give it emphasis is really by the by. Same goes for the death penalty- a great majority of the world believe in it. But democracy isn't democracy when the elites know better. Condemning political rivals as witches and snakes? Our politicians call each other much worse things, but they use euphemisms, and name calling is definitely not just a conservative thing. Why is polygamy conservative, whereas gay marriage isn't? If a straight man can get ten wives, why shouldn't he? If we are going to be all liberal about it, I mean? If I want to marry a goat, why would a 'liberal' protest? I mean, why stop with butt buddies?

I am so sick of the blatant and childish bias of the BBC website. They just can't help using loaded and pejorative language. I despair for a once great institution.

It takes two to reset

'Pushing the 'Reset Button' on Russian Relations
But the question remains: "reset" to what?

Barack Obama's meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the G-20 summit in London has been hailed by many as a first step toward repairing the damage in the relationship between the United States and Russia, after several years of escalation toward a "new Cold War." '

http://reason.com/news/show/132813.html

It really shocked me when super lightweight Hillary Clinton gave Sergei Lavrov the reset button. Its the kind of thing a 3rd grade teacher would think was a great idea 'to get things off on the right foot'. To the men at the top in Russia, hardened by the hand-to-hand combat of Russian power politics, it must have seemed beyond surreal.

What has driven Russia's anti-US and anti-NATO hostility over the last four or five years? President Bush insisted on treating Russia as it actually is- a large country with virtually no real power. Rather than do what Britain did to France in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and helpfully maintain the glorious illusion that it was still a great power by handing it bits and pieces of territory to govern; President Bush treated Russia as it is- a paper tiger, full of rusting old factories and huge armies of drunks. And boy, the truth hurts. As soon as Putin could afford a few thousand rubles for some aviation fuel, he started the 'probing' cold war-era overflights of British airspace with ancient prop planes, just to show 'em! How sad and how indicative.

I presume the new Obama doctrine is to salve the wounded pride of the Russians by pretending they are not a regional nuisance but a real world power. Given all the reasons given in this piece about why it is convenient for the mafiocracy in charge of Russia to stoke anti-Americanism, the new policy should get the US exactly nothing. I can only assume that Obama and Clinton don't actually care what Russia does or thinks, and that the reset gimmick was purely for internal US consumption. See what we're doing, folks? We're showing the Russians its OK to come out and play now that the dastardly Bush has been stabbed through the heart with that stick.

Trouble is, that gimmick will soon be forgotten as the litany of unfriendly and provocative acts from Moscow continues. So why bother? Russia is not getting more powerful, and the men running it aren't getting more legitimate. A far more principled policy would be to hold Russia to the same standards over Chechnya as Clinton, Reid and Pelosi have held Bush over Iraq. But that would take bottle and a genuine commitment to human rights. Clinton knows the flinty faced apparatchiks of the Kremlin would probably have thrown her out into the parking lot if she'd come with that message. Still, it would have made good TV...

India- peeved by the American oaf

'All of these concessions and wasted opportunities would be brilliant maneuvers if they actually yielded anything; after all, the point of Realpolitik is to get the most from other countries while giving the least from one’s own. It’s all right to give as long as you get. Instead, the story of the early Obama Administration’s foreign policy is one of apologies and concessions for nothing in return, as others have noted. Pakistan and Afghanistan are merely pointless fronts in this aggressive policy of preemptive surrender.'

http://newledger.com/2009/04/obamas-india-pakistan-mess/ [Hat Tip: Instapundit]

Ooooooooooouch. It gets worse.

'Obama had three foreign policy goals for the region: First, win the war in Afghanistan (and Pakistan, when he focused on the topic); second, shore up the global economy there with his emphasis on government spending; and, finally, bringing China and India on board with a global carbon emissions scheme.

Today, Obama is negotiating with warlords with $25MM bounties on their heads in Afghanistan and, in an unsurprising move, disavowing “victory” there; giving up fiscal stimulus to bow to the developing world’s demands for handouts; and, oh yeah, China and India have rejected any carbon limitations scheme.'

First, having just been to India, I second all Mr Badeauxs compliments about India- it is very much a first-world democracy in the making. It is far from perfect, but it has a massive core of good intention and humanitarian values. It is exactly the kind of country the US and the EU should have as a close ally. Pakistan on the other hand is highly dysfunctional and getting more so. Pakistan is enormously devious. It has managed to play a very cunning game so far, and has yet to pay any price for it. I predict that it will, but perhaps not during Obamas brief and tedious stint in office.

Day by day, Obama is showing the veneer-thin understanding of the world which the right said would make all this stuff inevitable. Better luck next time, voters.

How I built a school in Afghanistan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7991937.stm

My name is Ian and I'm here to help!

'The day started badly with a rabid policeman waving his Kalashnikov menacingly at us, screaming "where's your card - get back!".

My mistake had been, foolishly, to try to drive to the front-gate of the American Embassy where we had been invited to go on a press trip.'

Imagine if news reports were written by a hybrid of Joan Collins and Abdel Bari Atwan (editor of Al-Quds, hater of Jews and Britain, where his newspaper is written and printed). You'd get something like this.

'The city keeps building ever more layers of barbed wire, blast walls, checkpoints, guns and angry policemen.

The US and the rest of Nato keep telling us how the security situation in the capital has improved.

But they are unwilling to practice the confidence they preach.'

See, its not about the actual place and the actual stuff going on- its all about those lying bastards the Americans and their blatant lies about how things are improving and whatnot. I've been in town for forty minutes- easily long enough to suss stuff out and still have time for a Pimms.

'Now whole streets of Kabul are off-limits to the majority of us who don't have "the card".

I have not actually seen "the card" but rather like the "golden ticket" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I believe it does exist and grants almost magical access to the lucky holder.'

If the Americans had only given me "the card", I could have spent more of my dreary little trip actually writing about Afghanistan and whats going on there!

'The press officer at the US Embassy came to our rescue and persuaded the Kalashnikov-waving guard to let us through.'

Ok, I'll fess up- not having a card meant nothing at all. A press officer came and I went straight in. What do you mean, why am I still whingeing? I might have been delayed.

'We had been invited to go on a trip to Balkh Province in the north, for briefings and interviews on counter-narcotics.'

Balkh province, for those of you whose Afghan geography is rudimentary, is as far away from the shooting and IEDs as it is possible to get in Afghanistan.

'The plane arrived in good time but it became immediately clear that the US team were less keen on briefings and more on palming us off on the Afghan officials.'

I just don't know why the Americans would not want to spend massive amounts of their time with a whingeing arsehole like myself. Shocking.

'Our luggage was unceremoniously dumped on the runway and we were told the plane would leave at 2.30pm.'

And they didn't even have caviar and schnapps waiting for us in the VIP lounge...

'The US team was whisked away by beefy special agents driving super-sized armoured trucks.'

Stupid Americans with all their money and beefy guys and proper equipment!!!

'We squeezed into the back of a rather beaten-up car to make our way to see the opening of a new school, paid for with American money - donated in exchange for eradicating opium-producing poppies.'

Stupid Americans with all their humanitarian gifts and being kind to foreigners and making me feel ashamed and guilty inside!!!

'Unseemly retreat

It was now midday. We were told it would be an hour's journey. Just enough time to get there, see the project and get back to the plane.

One of the American vehicles broke down en route. Unknown to us, the agents were inside and decided to cancel the trip and beat an unseemly retreat to the airport.'

Cowardly, stupid Americans! Returning to the airport just because their vehicles didn't work! They should have run all the way, the lazy good-for-nothings.

'It actually took two hours of bone-crunching, off-road driving to get to the village. [see what a MAAAAAAAAAANNNN I am!] By the time we arrived, the whole district had gathered on either side of a long cordon to greet the Americans who had funded their new school.'

Stupid Afghans and their stupid gratitude for the stupid school built by the stupid Americans!!! GGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

'Unfortunately, I and the BBC's cameraman, Sanjay, were the only foreigners to turn up.'

Unfortunate because we didn't pay for anything in their district at all, hate the people who did pay for the school, and hate the idiot Afghans for taking the free school.

'We were greeted with silence and a look of awe and ushered through a long line of men and boys to the ribbon cutting ceremony.'

Stupid Afghans can't even tell the difference between us Queeny BBC reporters and Americans with money, muscles and decent armoured vehicles.

'Later the minister called me forward and presented me with a chapan, the full-length gold and green-striped cloak that President Karzai is often seen wearing.

I pulled it over my shoulders and smiled rather weakly for the camera.'

I didn't have the heart to tell him I've never done anything vaguely humanitarian in my life, and will be writing a hatchet-job about the people making this humanitarian gift when I get back to my cosy office in London.

'It was now past two o'clock. Our American "hosts" were absent without leave. [The meaning of the words Absent Without Leave have been changed since you last heard them, in case you were wondering] The plane was due to leave in half an hour and we were in the middle of the middle of nowhere with a story that would not even work its way onto the back pages of the local newspaper .'

Fucking bastard editor sent me all the way to Afghanistan, and all I got was this lousy gold coat... I could have been down the Groucho club doing REAL news but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

'A few frantic phone calls established the worst. [We were all about to be beheaded by crazed Mujihadeen- oh, hang on-] The plane had already departed without us because of bad weather heading our way.'

Boo hoo. Our plane left early. Wheres mummy?

'We started to drive back. We passed along river-beds and mountain-tracks, waved at by the odd rough-looking shepherd, passing through breath-taking wilderness in a place untouched by modernity.' Yada yada yada. Had to put this in or the editor threatened to send me to Kosovo.

'We saw the rusting green remains of Soviet tanks, kept by locals as a reminder of how world-class military might had been defeated by a tenacious, low-tech insurgency.' Well, actually kept because they had no way of dismantling enormous metal objects, but whatever. Its more poetic, yannow? Some idiot historian pointed out to me a) that the Soviets didn't lose, they just left and b) that there were some things called stinger missiles that encouraged them to leave and c) that it cost America quite a few billions and the destabilisation of Pakistan to get that done, but I hate those piffling accurate details.

'Two hours later we were in Mazar-i-Sharif, attending a banquet organised in honour of the minister and the now absent American agents.'

I still wake up in the middle of night screaming, every detail seared into my consciousness like a livid wound.

'Broken brakes

Despite facing the prospect of an eight-hour road trip over a snow-bound mountain pass in the dark, we accepted the invitation.

It is the Afghan way. [Us Brits, we go native like that] You see it is not enough to throw money at good causes and leave early because of a little bad weather.' You'd think I'd know what my point is here, but I really really don't.

'Here face-time and respect matter, deeply. They are the foundations upon which friendships are built and success achieved. The Americans had shown an astonishing lack of guile.' Stupid, stupid Americans with their gifts of whole schools and their guile-deficiency. What matters is showing up to the hand-shaking, gold coat wearing bits- fuck the school!

'By now it was five o'clock [and I hadn't had a single Vodka martini]. The minister kindly gave us one of his cars and a guard and we finally started to head back to Kabul.' Stupid Afghans and their stupid generosity.

'Three minutes out of town and the driver pulled into a local garage - the car's brakes were broken.' I said to the driver, what is this, an American car? You stupid Afghan! God, this never happens at White City!

'Another hour on and we left the city - again.

I finally hobbled into bed at three in the morning. My back was sore, my neck seized-up and I could barely move my head.' I'm pretty sure that qualifies me for at least the VC. The sacrifices I've made ensuring those little Afghan shits get an education.

'We had been on the road for 21 hours and were only home thanks to the good grace, generosity and ingenuity of our new Afghan friends - and no thanks to our US hosts.' I say friends- most of the Afghans thought I was a whingeing tosser with nothing to bring to the party. And funnily enough, so did the Americans...

What do they know????? They don't even belong to the Groucho club!

Confusion over conservative criticism

'Conservatives seem deliriously drunk with their cartoon picture of Obama, to whom is glibly attributed every pathology in the book. Yes, there were ambiguities about Obama's birth certificate that have never been satisfactorily resolved. And the embargo on Obama's educational records remains troubling. But I am still waiting for hard evidence about the host of other charges that are continually being hammered against him -- from his alleged fidelity to the crypto-tactics of Chicago leftist Saul Alinsky to the questions raised by right-wingers about the production of Obama's two memoirs. Out of respect for the presidency, conservatives need to put up or shut up about these issues.'
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/04/08/bow/index.html

Although some of her pronouncements are plainly intended purely to provoke and outrage, I've got a lot of time for much of what Ms Paglia says. Sadly, her list of crazed accusations launched by conservatives seems both outdated and whimsical. I have not read anywhere about Obama's birth certificate for at least a month, barring her comment. Obama's educational records? I have not read a single thing about that since the election ended. As to the Alinskyist crypto-tactics, if Obama were adhering to them, how would we know? I agree that any conservatives bashing Obama about that would be speculating with no evidence, but hardly any are doing so. Again the criticism of Obama over the memoirs was almost exclusively a campaign issue. I've picked up only a tiny drizzle of commentary about them since the campaign finished.

Missing from her list are all the issues currently dominating discussion on conservative websites- the trillions of waste in the new budget; the business-as-usual earmarks situation; the bumbling cack-handedness of the 'new' diplomacy; the divergence between Obama's publicly stated positions on things, and what actually happens in Congress and the Executive Branch; the inability to get in place credible personnel in important posts of the US government.

You might notice a discrepancy even between Ms Paglias first sentance and the things in her own list. Every pathology in the book? The main criticism of Obama from the very beginning was that he was a nothing- not experienced in any of the usual ways to take on the job he was going for. All the warnings of conservatives about that were overridden by the pompous arses of academia and big media. Of course, the conservatives were right. All the genuine conservative criticisms of Obama so far are rooted in the single great criticism: inexperience. Does Obama have time to learn? Of course not. Thats why in every election since the first one, one of the key factors in choosing candidates was age/experience. Young whippersnappers were fine, they just wouldn't get the nomination. And that was for a perfectly good reason. You don't make a two year junior lieutenant captain of the ship. You don't make a two year junior senator president. Its just stupid.

But liberals are too excited about their dreams and their fantasies about what a great black man can achieve that a mediocre white man could not. They have written a script where Obama is that great black man, and no contrary evidence is allowed to intrude into this delightful scene. Is the archetype more powerful than the facts?

Collective punishment for thee, understandable anger for me

'Human-rights groups such as the Israeli group B'tselem have described the demolition of houses as "a clear case of collective punishment which violates the principle that a person is not to be punished for the acts of another".'

Whereas murdering innocent motorists and bus passengers is apparently not collective punishment... 'Last July, Dwayat used a bulldozer to smash into cars and a bus in central Jerusalem, killing three and injuring more than 40.'

Do these people have any sense of irony?

BDS and potential ODS

For those few among you so cut off from civilisation that you don't know what BDS was (and is), it is Bush Derangement Syndrome. Somehow, the folksy, down-home preppy George W Bush sent large numbers of lefties into a rage so profound many are still fully engaged with it - see commenter on previous post. President Bush was not a complex character - he was a well-read, God-fearing gentleman with very few genuinely conservative instincts in a job that requires more front than he possessed. On most big issues he veered towards the left of centre- the non-assimilation of immigrants didn't seem to concern him, he refused a border fence with Mexico until very very late on, government spending during his terms increased dramatically, a steady drizzle of new government programs were initiated under his aegis. Only on US security was he a stalwart conservative.

So how did he manage to turn many American and international lefties into purple-faced incoherent cauldrons?

Thats a puzzle few can really figure out. Perhaps he was too close to the east coast blue-blood archetype liberal, and his refusal to keep to the script made him much more dangerous than a southern redneck ever could be...

We shall not tarry over this psychological conundrum. Suffice it to say, it has badly affected the civility and continuity of American political life.

So, will ODS emerge? Is it already emerging? Will it be paybacks for Bush, or has it got its own peculiar pathogenesis? Will it really be mostly discreet racism?

Until a few days back, I didn't think there really was any ODS. Then I read a piece on the Pajamas Media website which argued that ODS was a scourge worth avoiding. Some of the commenters didn't agree:

Nomad:
The first “MUSLIM ” president Of a “CHRISTIAN NATION………. FORMED ON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES!! Notice how he speaks: “”Tally bahn”" ………”paakey stun”

Thats definitely ODS. Many of the other comments revealed people teetering on the edge of it. Does that mean that eventually tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of Americans will join up? Certainly not. But it did get me to thinking.

Then last night I was watching Glenn Beck on Fox. He had Daniel Hannan on, the British MEP currently doing a vastly better job of being a conservative than anybody on the opposition benches at Westminster. Glenn Beck doesn't like Britain. He only had Hannan on because he is a YouTube celebrity for saying things no American would or could say in public (mainly due to the disastrous state of American public speaking). At the end of his 'interview' (Beck doesn't listen to the answers to his questions), Beck insulted Hannan for daring to criticise an American President for his lofty incivility to our visiting Prime Minister. He said something along the lines of 'I liked you when you were criticising the EU.... remember, we kicked your British asses once and we might just do it again'.

Why do Americans feel they can insult Britain as much as they like, and not provoke anti-Americanism? Why do Americans feel that treating their pretty-much only decent ally like crap is a good plan? If Britons stop fighting alongside America, that will leave exactly no one who will. Does the increasingly brittle, coarse dialog in internal American politics feed into increasingly bizarre behaviour towards the rest of the world?

Today President Obama chose to shit on the heads of the rest of the world leaders at the G20 by having his own press conference. Thats right- all the other world leaders had one press conference, and President Obama had one by himself. He also gave a long answer to a question where he listed why America rules the world. Now anybody who knows this blog knows that I have fought tooth and nail against unreasoned, ignorant prejudice against the United States. But I can't defend that. I just can't. Its rude, its provocative and its a major hostage to fortune.

Here is a question for President Obama: will China always feel it is in its interests to fund Americas deficit spending on military programs and social programs? What will you do if they pull that rug from under you? What will THAT speech sound like? Will you use any of the same triumphalist rhetoric?

I will only defend an America I respect.

Obama- he's only just begun

'He slams Cheney for thinking the justice system can’t handle these terrorists, and then in the next breath admits that the justice system can’t handle these terrorists. After all, what does the justice system consist of if not Miranda rights, and treating all suspects impartially (like the shoplifter down the block), and the whole panoply of protections we offer criminal defendants? If the terrorists deserve habeas corpus rights, then why don’t they deserve Miranda rights? And who gets to decide exactly what they deserve — the president? And on top of everything, Obama even recognizes the need for preventative detention. What “mechanism to make sure that they are not released and do us harm” does he think he’s going to “figure out”? By this point I can’t even imagine what Obama thinks he disagrees with Cheney about.

The fact is that Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo has solved nothing but a cosmetic problem — just like the decision to drop the term “enemy combatants” without changing anything substantial about their legal status.

Obama is emerging as a master of cosmetics. But he shows little sign of really understanding the questions that his predecessors faced, nor of how difficult those questions are. Now he has to focus on them, understand them, and come up with answers — and he will still need to put the matter before Congress so the people can choose where to strike the balance. Let’s hope he’s precocious enough to accomplish all of that in his freshman year.'

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDEzMGE2ODA4ZjU2NDlmNDU4MzY5ZTY1NGZiNjkzMjc=&w=MQ==

Thats absolutely not good enough. Even Obamas supporters say that two years campaigning for president constitutes his valid experience for the role. He campaigned for two years without EVER considering the real facts about Guantanamo, the people incarcerated there and what other provisions for keeping those people might be available. Now, we are told, that he's in charge, he's finally got around to actually thinking about the subject. Seriously?

By now, my feelings on this subject are well known. Non-uniformed combatants who plan to, and then procede according to their plans to use innocent bystanders as cover, deserve one fate alone: a bullet in the back of the head. In every conflict since the invention of the Geneva conventions, that has been the rule. No point having rules of war if there is no downside to breaking them. A quick death by summary execution is not nearly the worst fate that could befall islamist terrorists- being a prisoner is most Arab countries can be far far worse.

Having Gitmo never struck me as sensible. Exactly as could have been predicted, all those who wish for political reasons for the west to fail and be conquered by those it has 'oppressed' use Gitmo as an example of menacing tyranny, rather than what it is: almost ludicrous civility towards an implacable enemy. To the unobservant, Gitmo is a concentration camp. In reality, it is a gentle resting place for terrorists in between periods of martial engagement. The foods great, the Korans are free, and anti-US Imams are on tap. You might have to put up with some weird light shows and loud music occasionally, but nothing you wouldn't experience at an Iron Maiden concert.

But this article clearly demarcates what the real concerns are- how to square a fight against an enemy which plays by no rules, let alone Queensbury rules with our traditions of civil rights and personal freedoms. And President Obama, the greatly esteemed law professor (hollow laughter), has no answers and no interesting thoughts that might lead to any.

Stuffed shirt. All mouth and no trousers. Take your pick...

Obama and Afghanistan: whole new ****up

'The Army’s new counterinsurgency manual explains why this works. “Ultimate success in COIN [counterinsurgency] is gained by protecting the populace, not the COIN force. If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents. Aggressive saturation patrolling, ambushes, and listening post operations must be conducted, risk shared with the populace, and contact maintained…These practices ensure access to the intelligence needed to drive operations. Following them reinforces the connections with the populace that help establish real legitimacy.”

David Kilcullen, an Australian counterinsurgency expert and advisor to General Petraeus, said something similar in an interview published in yesterday’s Washington Post when asked which lessons learned in Iraq can be applied in Afghanistan. “I would say there are three,” he said. “The first one is you’ve got to protect the population. Unless you make people feel safe, they won’t be willing to engage in unarmed politics. The second lesson is, once you’ve made people safe, you’ve got to focus on getting the population on your side and making them self-defending. And then a third lesson is, you’ve got to make a long-term commitment.”'

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/03/the-petraeus-mo.php

'President Barack Obama has said that the US must have an "exit strategy" in Afghanistan, even as Washington sends more troops to fight Taleban militants.

He was speaking in a CBS interview, as the White House prepares to unveil a comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan.

Mr Obama said preventing attacks against the US remained its "central mission" in Afghan operations.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7958447.stm

Do you think President Obama has read the new US Army counterinsurgency manual? Do you suppose he knows anything about counterinsurgency practise or the psychological conditions which must prevail for a counterinsurgency force to prevail?

President Bush's message to the people of Iraq, and secondarily the Iranians and the Ba'athist rump was 'we are not going anywhere'. The surge was the megaphone, but additionally Bush's refusal to suggest even a vague timeline for leaving was his way of clearly stating that the US was in Iraq for the long haul.

I knew I was not going to like the Obama administration. I knew that Bush was vastly underestimated. But I didn't think Obama would be quite this bad.

Britains secret army

'Thousands of UK workers are being trained to help respond to a future terror attack as part of an updated counter-terror strategy, ministers say.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said shop and hotel workers would be among 60,000 people able to deal with an incident.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7957431.stm

Now do you suppose that these people have been given glocks, taught how to use them, and how to disarm someone in three swift movements?

Or do you suppose learning how to 'deal with an incident' means learning how to tell which dismembered limb originally belonged to which body?

I know our lords and masters, and the pathetic standards they keep to.

Stock Phrases and their uses

'The Boston Globe tells us that a group of today’s leading appeasers (from Paul Volcker to Chuck Hegel) sent a letter to President-elect Obama just before the Inauguration (so that it was apparently drafted during the Gaza fighting), calling on him to negotiate with Hamas. They say that the president will speak with them, which is altogether in keeping with the current fad of seeking the talking cure to all the world’s maladies. The British Government is undertaking negotiations with Hezbollah. The Pentagon has approved talks with the Muslim Brotherhood. Vice President Joe Biden wants talks with the Taliban. And calls abound to avoid offending those who kill us. The pro-Israel Washington Institute wants to tone down the language we use, recommending we stop using phrases like “war on terror,” “global insurgency,” even “the Muslim world.”'

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDBkYmJhZDQ4NTEwNzliMjRiMmUzMzYwNGQxNTRjZTc=

The latter list of phrases is a weird concatenation- the first two are well-known western-invented imprecision's about the world situation, but the last one "The Muslim world" is not. It is equivalently imprecise, but it is not our phrase. Indeed it is a piece of propaganda I loathe. The underlying message of the phrase is that Indonesians and Iraqis and Afghans and Persians are all the same- muslims, and that trumps any national, racial or tribal affiliations. Its close cousin is "Muslim countries"- the absolutely false contention that if a country has a lot of muslims in it, everybody else doesn't count. At least a quarter of Lebanese are Christians, but the rest are muslims, so Lebanon is a muslim country. Nobody talks about France as a Christian country, just because it happens to have more Christians than anything else. France is France.

Both of these phrases help to guide the world into thinking in the ways desired of them by islamists. If you think that the 1.2 billion muslims in the world are like one enormous happy being, joined at the level of souls, you can get away with constructing sentences like "the muslim world was angry about X" or "the muslim world will never forgive us for Y". Crucially, of course, there is no muslim world.

As I and many others have detailed over time, nation, race and sect trump common religion most of the time in the so-called muslim world. Iran and Iraq fought a gruelling eight-year war, for Gods sake. Try to get a Bradford muslim to talk about that. Saddam invaded muslim Kuwait, and was going to invade the centre of world islam Saudi Arabia until a rather large US army got in the way. Pakistan uses Afghanistan, its muslim neighbor, to enhance its prestige by attempting to make it a Pakistani proxy. Thats not very ummah'ish is it?

In fact, the islamists have had most of their recruiting and propagandising successes where islam is absolutely not the dominant force- Britain, Nigeria, Thailand, the Phillipines, Russia and the US. That's where a huge proportion of the worlds islamists reside- not in Saudi or Morocco or Indonesia or Iraq. What should that tell us?

Just like Bolshevism, islamism has never been and never will be a response by extremely poor and oppressed people to their oppressors. It is an imperial ideology fanatically adhered to by the sons of the wealthy, the bitter, ambitious, father-hating malcontents of the wealthy suburbs. Osama Bin Laden is a perfect archetype. He grew up in the lap of luxury, his head full of fantasies of religious purity and destroying the people slightly higher up the economic scale from himself. This vanguard have gone around the world busily finding people who it can exploit to achieve the ends it has fantasised about- the stupid, the impressionable, the credulous and the bitter. Why are they more successful in some countries than others? Well, how many stupid, impressionable, credulous bitter people are there in that society?

Look at Somalia. Somalia almost defines those things. Before the islamists came, Somalia was a byword for backwardness, terrible internecine feuding and ignorance. It still is, but now islamism has entered the godawful mix. Somalia is now virtually empty of professionals, middle class people and academics. Anybody with money is gone. Anybody with an education is gone. Hell, many of those with no education and no money are gone too, and are now living off the state in Germany, Holland or Britain. That's perfect for the islamists. All the kulaks are gone, now we get to tell everybody what the truth is.

I agree with the general point that we need to sharpen up our language in reference to the enemy we face- the Wahhabist islamist ideology using broader islam as cover as it spreads its reach across the world. The War on Terror was always bizarre and distracting. Global insurgency (not that I've ever seen that much) is again vague and unhelpful. If you can't name your enemy, if you are unsure who you are supposed to be fighting, you may well come to believe, as hundreds of millions in the west have already, that there is actually no enemy. They could not be more wrong.

The enemy is good at camouflage, that's all. Our language should be completely clear and precise, so the camouflage doesn't work.

The Heart of the Matter

'Which brings us to the heart of the matter: the doubts about Obama himself. His famous eloquence is wearing thin through daily exposure and because his actions are often disconnected from his words. His lack of administrative experience is showing.

His promises and policies contradict each other often enough that evidence of hypocrisy is ceasing to be news. Remember the pledges about bipartisanship and high ethics? They're so last year.

The beat goes on. Last week, Obama brazenly gave a speech about earmark reform just after he quietly signed a $410 billion spending bill that had about 9,000 earmarks in it. He denounced Bush's habit of disregarding pieces of laws he didn't like, so-called signing statements, then issued one himself.

And in an absolute jaw-dropper, he told business leaders, "I don't like the idea of spending more government money, nor am I interested in expanding government's role." '

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/03/15/2009-03-15_more_than_a_bad_day_worries_grow_that_ba.html?page=1

Dammit, people, pay attention! I said that stuff already. Actions disconnected from words- what kind of persons actions are disconnected from their words? Why, that would be the kind of person many thoughtful conservative bloggers, including me, described in the weeks and months leading up to that recent election: an ideologue, a stuffed shirt, an ivory-tower intellectual who has never run a lemonade stand. That is the person who some of us actually saw up there in front of the cameras. I feel virtually no pleasure in being right whatsoever.

Being right and having the vast bulk of Americans pay no attention is shitty. And I don't mean to my blog- many people, including folks like Glenn Reynolds were saying exactly the same things. Mr Reynolds has like 600,000 readers. Even that hefty swathe of Americans didn't manage to persuade their compatriots what the real facts were.

What is worrying is that during the election campaigning, Obama switched between different positions A LOT. None of his erstwhile supporters seemed to notice. Now he is doing that in office. On Mondays, the US economy is down a hole worse than the Great Depression, according to the White House. By Wednesday, its fundamentally sound and we should all stop being such worrywarts. By Friday, its back to being the Enormously Great Depression. These guys DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

Some honest Democrats, the ones with brains and integrity, are stating this out loud. Thats because they care about results. They do not want to arrive in two years time at elections with a completely failed executive branch. The biggest worry for these Dems is that not only is the executive branch in the hands of a know-nothing nincompoop, but that he has no discernible learning curve.

I couldn't see one during the campaigning for President- it was alleged, but I couldn't see it. All his campaign did was get quieter and quieter. All that noise and heavy breathing you heard was from the enormous Chorus in the legacy media. Whenever a blip emerged, they just clammed up and waited while the drooling media dufuses made their excuses for them, ommitted to cover the blip or changed the subject. Those strategies no longer work.

No large media outlet can hide from the American voter the enormous sums resident in the new Budget. Likewise, where that money is going. Not even Penn and Teller can make that stuff disappear.

Last night, I watched a large Russian bomber landing in Venezuela on the TV. Does that bring up any warning lights for you? During the Bush years, Mr Putin kept himself out of the Western Hemisphere. For those of you who don't know much US history, the Western Hemisphere is considered by the US to be ITS hemishpere. Hence Bay of Pigs, hence Contras Vs Sandinistas, hence US forces fighting drug cartels in Columbia etc etc. Why isn't Mr Putin afraid? Keep watching for details.

Made me laugh out loud

'Using socialism to help revive a failing economy is like putting angry weasels down your pants because you need some rest'

http://www.imao.us/index.php/2009/03/post-3435/

Read the rest- they are quite excellent.

Obama- can he do four years in this job?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR2009031202764.html

Its probably a good idea to read this whole article before reading my comments- if you don't want to, Mr Krauthammer is discussing President Obamas announcement of the change of Federal Government policy regarding the use of cloned embryos for research by harvesting their stem cells.

'The other part -- the ostentatious issuance of a memorandum on "restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making" -- would have made me walk out.

Restoring? The implication, of course, is that while Obama is guided solely by science, Bush was driven by dogma, ideology and politics.

What an outrage. Bush's nationally televised stem cell speech was the most morally serious address on medical ethics ever given by an American president. It was so scrupulous in presenting the best case for both his view and the contrary view that until the last few minutes, the listener had no idea where Bush would come out.

Obama's address was morally unserious in the extreme. It was populated, as his didactic discourses always are, with a forest of straw men. Such as his admonition that we must resist the "false choice between sound science and moral values." Yet, exactly 2 minutes and 12 seconds later he went on to declare that he would never open the door to the "use of cloning for human reproduction."

Does he not think that a cloned human would be of extraordinary scientific interest? And yet he banned it.

Is he so obtuse as not to see that he had just made a choice of ethics over science?'

When he says obtuse, is he really thinking stupid?

This brings me to a topic I have not really wanted to discuss much. How smart is President Obama? How smart is he really? Is he a highly intelligent man, or does he just play one on TV?

Last night, being bored, I managed to watch President Obama discussing things with the President of Brasil for the TV cameras. What struck me instantly was the formers unease. Famously, the TV camera always reveals most when the people in front of it are trying to hide the most. Why would President Obama be uneasy? He has the top position in US government, the most powerful office in the world. I immediately thought 'He is out of his depth'. Every single word you say when you are US President is important- sometimes breathtakingly important. If you are not up to the job, if you got the job due to your acting skills and a sad lack of real-world nous on the part of the voting public, what do you do when you have to talk about real things to real people? What if you commit the US to something absolutely ludicrous? What if you piss off people whose help you need? What if the people you are talking to suss out what a sham you are, and immediately get the better of you?

If you need a teleprompter ALL THE TIME, what does that say about your ability to think (literally) on your feet? What does that say about your mental dexterity? What does that say about your real level of native intelligence and learned knowledge?

These must be worrying times for President Obama. Can he keep all the plates in the air for four more years? It must seem like forty...

Wasting their time, not preaching the word

'More than 200 people have attended the funeral and burial in north Kent of an unknown teenage girl who was decapitated about 700 years ago.

Her remains were found by an archaeologist on unconsecrated ground next to Hoo St Werburgh Parish Church, near Rochester.

Her head had been placed by her side, suggesting she may have committed suicide or been executed for a crime.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7943831.stm

Is it just me, or is this exactly the kind of thing the Church of England does now?

Why aren't they out there in the rough pubs and the streets and towns of England spreading the word of God about Jesus Christ?

That brought to mind this quote from a famous JFK speech at Rice University:

'We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard...'

The Church of England chooses to re-bury 700 year old criminals not because it is hard, but because it is easy. Nobody in todays 'whatever you want to do we're cool with that' society is going to critisize this moronic activity. Nobody knows why this girl was beheaded and stuck outside the consecrated ground, but it probably wasn't for doing the washing up badly. Taking an evil person into consecrated ground is higher up the agenda for these idiots than actually doing the basic function of every Christian church- to teach society about Jesus.

How very sad.

Sledgehammer smashes gnat

'An Iraqi journalist hailed as a hero in the Arab world for throwing his shoes at former US President George W Bush has been jailed for three years.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7938947.stm

Leaving aside the presumably inadvertant use of the word 'hero' in this sentance, how can such a nothing be worthy of three years in jail? At absolute most, this action should have warranted a stern talking to followed by a ride home in a police car. I find it absolutely incredible that Iraq has a law covering something like this. Whats the name of the statue 'Embarrassing the State of Iraq by throwing shoes Act 2008'? If it doesn't have such a statute, what law did the guy break? 'Conduct unbecoming a journalist'? 'Possessing shoes with the intent to throw'?

At the time, I was amazed at the enormous airtime given to this utterly trivial incident, and now that the guy has been put in jail it takes the whole episode to new heights of impenetrability for me. If someone can explain to me what could possibly justify giving this rude man a three year prison sentance, I'd like to hear from them.

The Stock Democrat Response

philpotc@bellsouth.net: "I am really puzzled by the attitude of many. The vast majority of Americans set silently by and watched as Bush literally ran our Country into a depression and boldly called it a recession. Now the same public that remained passive for 8 years as America went down the tubes, are expecting that a President who has been in office for approximately 6 weeks will perform miracles and make everything better immediately. This mess was inherited by the current president and those wishing him to fail need to question if their love for their country outweighs their mean-spirited mentality. Even many in the news media cannot pass up a chance to take shots at the performance of our president. Where was this zeal when former President Bush was sending our Country on a suicide mission and our economy was spiraling out of control?"

http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/TapscottsCopyDesk/Obama-is-in-trouble-40864502.html#comments

We could call that, the standard mainstream Democrat response to criticism of President Obamas policies.

Lets Fisk it.

First, there is absolutely no mention of the policies themselves, what the policies are and what the persuance of those policies will result in.

Secondly, the situation inherited by President Obama is presented as being 100% engineered by President Bush, as though the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Redevelopment Act, securitised derivatives and a dangerous intransigent Saddam Hussein had no influence on events and outcomes.

Thirdly, it is supposed that the vast majority of the American people sat supinely by while the invasion of Afghanistan and the Iraq intervention occured because they were stupid and neglectful, rather than the much more likely explanation which was that they understood the necessity of those actions and agreed with them.

Fourthly, it conflates supporting President Obama with patriotism- after eight years of blood-curdling viciousness about President Bush...

Fifthly, it creates the straw man argument that the criticism of President Obama is that he has failed in six weeks to fix all the things in US society which are broken; whereas the pertinent criticism is that his policies have in no way ameliorated the existing situation, but have loaded an intolerable extra burden on the US economy and taxpayers.

Sixthly, trying to maintain that the media are against Obama is laughable- most of them still have man-crushes on him.

Seventhly, if the Iraq intervention was suicidal, how come the US won?

Eighthly (I don't think I've ever got up to Eighthly before), the US economy tanked right at the very end of President Bush's presidency. His personal or official contribution to the great credit crisis/economic meltdown? The Dumbocrats keep on saying the the reason for the cc/em was deregulation, but they get very vague when you ask them which specific regulation they are talking about. But they can count on most electors never getting quite that specific, sadly.

Lastly (or Ninthly), this commenter is not puzzled- he is enraged. He can't get his head around the fact that President Obama is now president, and that when he does things, they had better work, or the criticism will be loud and intense. Neither the commenter nor Obama can just waft along for the next eight years droning 'but Bushitler was SOOOOOOOOOO terrible, and he ate children, and murdered old ladies for fun etc'. You have to say bye byes to that drivel now, and get on with governing.

And trust me, after Bush Derangement Syndrome and its vile excesses, you'd better hope Obama gets everything right.

Suckers!

'...the speech to Congress was the pivot point. Before the speech, Obama was protected by a kind of political equivalent of the Star Trek Shield. His symbolizing of an historic milestone, which alone moved millions of white voters to his column, combined with his soaring rhetoric, which negated criticism from John McCain and other Republicans of the substance of Obama's proposals, to protect him through election day and into the transition.

But the magnetism of his historic moment began fading once the economic stimulus, the omnibus and the budget were on the table. As people focused more on the details and how they didn't square with what they thought he had promised during the campaign, the soaring rhetoric lost much of its power. It may even now be approaching a net negative because it throws so much more light on the inaequacies of the policies.'
http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/TapscottsCopyDesk/Obama-is-in-trouble-40864502.html

At no point in the US election cycle was I actually in the United States. And yet, thanks to the wonders of the internet and the TV, I kept up with what was going on probably better than oh, 98% of Americans. How could ANYBODY who actually paid attention to the completely shameless shifts in what Obama promised from venue to venue, region to region and primary to general election think that they were voting for a straight-up guy? He lied, he was caught sneering at the poor and the rural and the God-fearing, he changed all the time. If you paid attention, you just HAD to notice that.

He never wavered from his goals though. His goals are what he is DOING now. And I can't wait to find out what the great mass of Americans are going to do and say when they find out at long long last what his goals are. Rubes!

Amazing powers of deduction

"I look at these young men and women, I look into their eyes and I see their badges today, and I know we did the right thing," Obama said, the recruits seated behind him on stage.

He said the police recruits had faced a future of joblessness, the same "future that millions of Americans still face right now."

"Well, that is not a future I accept for the United States of America," Obama said, explaining why he signed the stimulus bill on Feb. 17.

The recruit class was laid off in January before they could even start walking the beat. Mayor Michael Coleman, a Democrat, blamed city budget problems.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBAMA_STIMULUS?SITE=TNKNN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT [Hat Tip: Instapundit]

You know, it sounds really butch and manly- 'that is not a future I accept'. Grrrrrrrrrrr!!! Up and at em', boys!

But hang on a sec; How many of the 787 billion dollars in the ludicrously named 'stimulus' bill were given their value by Barack Obama? A dollar is nothing if there is no good or service produced whose value that dollar can inherit. The 787 billion is dependent on the productive part of the economy, which in the US is under seige right now from every direction. It is being tranferred to the non-productive part of the economy- the teachers, firefighters and civil servants Obama is creaming himself over. Of course, we need teachers, firefighters etc. But no sane society prioritises them over actual productive workers- manufacturers, small businesses and those providing essential services.

"I know we did the right thing." says President Obama. Of course, he also called the price-to-earnings ratio the profit and earnings ratio. What happens when you elect a junior Senator with no experience of anything, most especially business, to the highest office in the world on a whim? We'll see.

Its just custard, huh?

Pride at Mandelson custarding

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7929500.stm

Anyone like me who watched that smug shit Leila Deen launching green custard into the face of Peter Mandelson was left wondering when physical assault became part of the Democratic process in Britain?

And surely if the eco warriors can do it to whomever they please, I can play too? Given what I think of their ideas, I should really search out Leila and her lamentable friends and throw piss in their faces. According to Leila, there is a long proud history of 'direct' action in British politics. There sure is- remember when we kicked out all the Jews in the twelth century- direct action at work, people. Direct action is the resort of those who can't persuade with words, and its a very very slippery slope, which often ends in bombs underneath the drivers seat and pipe bombs up against the front door or perhaps petrol through the letter box.

Given that Leila and her peers were brought up to not respect people by default, and given their overpowering sense of rightness, and given the absence of any restraining factor in their culture like Judeo-Christian mores, how long before they decide they just HAVE to stop the evil airlines and airports by any means necessary?

The lies, in detail

'At the very center of our economic near-depression is a credit bubble, a housing collapse and a systemic failure of the banking industry. One can come up with a host of causes: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pushed by Washington (and greed) into improvident loans, corrupted bond-ratings agencies, insufficient regulation of new and exotic debt instruments, the easy money policy of Alan Greenspan's Fed, irresponsible bankers pushing (and then unloading in packaged loan instruments) highly dubious mortgages, greedy house-flippers, deceitful home buyers.

The list is long. But the list of causes of the collapse of the financial system does not include the absence of universal health care, let alone of computerized medical records. Nor the absence of an industry-killing cap-and-trade carbon levy. Nor the lack of college graduates.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030502951.html

Charles Krauthammer is a class act. Beautiful, elegant prose, and a fine forensic mind. And of course he agrees with me. He has turned my generalised thesis into perfectly formed specifics. When I said that underneath Obamas honeyed words were lies, this is what I meant.

Whether Americas great lumpen proletariat will heave themselves off their sofas for long enough to forestall this enormous transformation of their society remains to be seen. If only it were a nation of Krauthammers...

Before Lad mags - a nostalgic moment

'Before they rush around us to take our money from the government, how about a conversation first, ask us what we want from journalism, what we like and don't like -- and don't assume you know the answer. (The journalists' answer is that we want sports, movie stars, bosoms, car crashes. You know that because that's most of what they give us. Maybe that's why no one is rushing to their defense. Just a thought.)'
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/03/02/deathOfJournalismPart3.html

'...thats most of what they give us.' I have often wondered just how 'responsive' the media in its many parts is. Back in the early nineties, I used to read GQ magazine. It had interesting articles about pretty serious stuff, excellent stuff about clothes and its intended audience was smart and upmarket (I presumed). And then one day a magazine called Loaded came along, full of tits, pictures of people being blown up, articles about getting drunk and being sick, accompanied by smart-alecky asides. Over a period of just a few months, every single magazine aimed at young single men cloned themselves on Loaded, including GQ. I was enormously pissed off, and wondered whether other readers were too.

The market for magazines aimed at single young men went from pretty excellent variety and spread to zero variety and zero spread. There seemed to be no logic to it, and I can't imagine that the readership of ALL the bloke mags increased. Certainly I have not bought GQ since. I have no problem (I suppose) with hard-headed business decisions to stop providing for one market, and move into another one. But can everybody do that? Isn't the old market worthy of ONE entrant? I don't think the decision was hard-headed business- it was sheep-like conformity and a feeling that being serious and excellent just wasn't 'modern' and 'up-to-date'.

Pakistans long slow slide into anarchy

'Former England cricketer Dominic Cork - who was providing commentary for the series - said he heard loud gunfire shortly after he arrived at Gaddafi stadium and rushed into the commentary box to see what was happening...'
"This is the end of cricket for a long time in Pakistan, maybe even the rest of Asia," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7920303.stm

He may be a bit over the top, but what does it say about a country when any white person, any foreigner is a target of determined, well-armed, fanatical murderers if they set foot in the place? This certainly doesn't fit the old 'its all the fault of colonialism' line. Pakistan has been free of colonial rule exactly as long as India, and India (as I can attest personally) is a wonderful place for people from anywhere to visit.

Pakistan is a violent cesspit, and its getting worse. How low can it go?