Muhammad: you're all going to hell, thank you, come again

"Jesus, unlike Muhammad, had interesting things to say. He proposed a revolutionary way of looking at the world: love you neighbour, love your enemy, be kind to people, the meek shall inherit the Earth. Muhammad had nothing to say to the world other than, 'If you don't believe in God you will burn forever.'"
Sebastian Faulks in The Sunday Times Magazine.

Actually, its slightly worse than that. The Jews that Muhammad chased out of Mecca DID believe in God- their great crime was not to believe in Muhammad. And indeed, the same thing is true today. Both Christians and Jews believe in the same God as muslims. You wouldn't think so though would you?

Indeed, if you read their websites and their blatherings, they see Christians and Jews as their MAIN ENEMIES. Not Hindus who believe in all sorts of wonderful gods, or Buddhists who believe in a man and God. You won't get that out of Prince Charles, but its true nevertheless.

PS:
"But that a camel-merchant should stir up insurrection in his village; that in league with some miserable followers he persuades them that he talks with the angel Gabriel; that he boasts of having been carried to heaven, where he received in part this unintelligible book, each page of which makes common sense shudder; that, to pay homage to this book, he delivers his country to iron and flame; that he cuts the throats of fathers and kidnaps daughters; that he gives to the defeated the choice of his religion or death: this is assuredly nothing any man can excuse, at least if he was not born a Turk, or if superstition has not extinguished all natural light in him."
-Voltaire, Letter to Frederick II of Prussia, December 1740

Malaysia - soon to be focus of Human Rights mob relentless criticism for sure

'In Malaysia, Islam is the state religion. Higher education, the bureaucracy and vast swathes of the economy are operated as a kind of spoils system almost exclusively for Malays, whom the state defines as Muslim. Race and religion determine everything from your odds of getting into medical school to the amount you're expected to put down for an apartment. The conversion laws, based on sharia, bring to mind the Eagles' classic "Hotel California": You can check in (to Islam) any time you like, but you can never leave.'

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/30/malaysia-islam-religion-opinions-contributors-sadanand-dhume.html

My brain stuttered, and for a moment, I read 'Israel' for 'Malaysia', and 'Judaism' for 'Islam'. And for a brief period of time, I could here the desperate screeching of the so-called Human Rights Fanatics as they did their two-minutes of hate thing about Israel. 'Aparthied state' they screamed. 'Racist society' they screeched. 'Religious zealots' they insulted.

But then the moment passed and I realised how silly it all was. After all, non-Jews can get ahead perfectly well in Israel. Medical schools have many Arabs, and how much you pay for an apartment is entirely dependent on where the apartment is, not whether you are a Jew or not. Vast swathes of the economy are owned by Jews, true. But there are increasing amounts of it owned by rich Arabs. So really, to equate Malaysia with Israel is quite silly.

UN move to Congo

'On New Jersey's determination to keep Qadhafi out during his U.S. visit:

We have a treaty under which we have to welcome these miscreants.

This is not the first time. It happened with Castro, with Iranian leaders, with PLO leaders. There is only one solution, and that is to terminate the agreement to have the U.N. in the U.S., kick them out, and have them in Kinshasa where they won't get a lot of press and the damage done in the U.N. will be vastly decreased.…

And it would free up a lot of [New York] parking spaces.'

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTA3YzI3MjIzMDRjNjA2Mjk4MTljMTc4Y2NkZjQ2NTU=

I love Charles Krauthammer. Not in a gay way, but I do love him. Listening to him is like watching a surgeon- precise, methodical, quiet but absolutely spot on. He virtually never waffles, virtually never fails to rip away the coarse outer layers and get to the pure guts of the issue.

I'd vote for the the UN in Kinshasa. Paid for by the Congo and Zimbabwe, preferably.

James Carville spots a cunning plan

'Dear [redacted],

If you ever feared that Republican operatives were sitting in some dark room plotting how to destroy the Democratic majorities and progressive policies we've worked so hard to create, your fear is real.

At the beginning of this month, more than two dozen Republican candidates met in Idaho for a three-day conference where they plotted behind closed doors to steal back political power, using a Karl Rove-style scheme to specifically target governorships.

Republican operatives have been very clear about their intentions. They believe that if they can win the two governors' races this year, they can win a whole bunch of the 37 races next year ... and they can use that to take back Congress.'

Email from James Carville. Who knew winning elections was stealing from the Democrats? I think we should have been told before now...

And boy, grade A prime machiavellian scheming, Repub dudes! Their plan is to win two races this year and then 37 next year? Did they sit up all night deciding that? I hope not. I can understand why Mr Carville might think that would happen. Any third-grader looking at the poll numbers and extrapolating them to the next 40, 50, 100 elections would almost certainly come to the conclusion that its going to be a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time until a Dem wins another one.

But keep those emails coming James! I need a good laugh.

Thats some weird-ass democracy, lady

Surreal:

'In the appended video, Shea-Porter can be seen instructing security to remove a man for standing to ask a question without a ticket. Shea-Porter previously held a lottery to determine who could ask questions.'

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/30/video-shea-porter-has-constituent-arrested-at-town-hall-forum/

Cast your mind back- if any single Republican had DARED pull a stunt like that during the last eight years, the New York Times and the Washington Post would STILL be talking about it. A lottery of Golden Tickets to determine who can speak at a public meeting?
Is she ****ing kidding?

BBC: getting crappier by the day

'The bodies of 30 suspected militants have been found in Pakistan's Swat valley, local people say.
The bodies all have gunshot wounds and local residents say they are believed to be of militants from Bajnot and other areas near the town of Mingora.
Corpses began appearing several weeks ago and more than 150 have been found in the region over the past month.
Security forces deny carrying out extra-judicial killings as part of their anti-Taliban offensive.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8230267.stm

Er, what now? Extra-judicial killings? On a battlefield? The laws of war state that armed combatants found on the battlefield with no uniform nor insignia are liable for summary execution. These are perfectly judicial killings. How stupid do the BBC think we are?

Obviously, the BBC flatheads like the Taliban, they are ideologically opposed to the people killing the Taliban, but a simple fact is a simple fact. The laws of war are intended to protect innocent populations from one of the worst aspects of war, by allowing combatants to easily identify who is a combatant and who isn't. A bullet to the back of the head is what the Taliban are due, according to those laws. Does the BBC have a lawyer to hand who would like to contest that? Yeah, thought not.

Tommy sees

'After waiting for so long, the sniper team decided to try something new to flush out their targets. Rue — a smallish, slight military brat with a clean-shaven head and world-weary brown eyes — whispered into his radio to his headquarters, about a mile away.

Bring some helicopters overhead, he said, and make a low pass. The guys over the compound wall might start shooting at the helos. And then we’ll have proof of their hostile intent. The helicopters — already circling over another group of Marines engaged in a firefight — began to swoop in towards the snipers’ position. They made their pass.

But the men on the other side of the wall didn’t take the bait. If they had guns, they didn’t bother shooting them at the Cobra gunship and the Huey attack chopper.

Staff Sgt. Doug Webb was getting sick of waiting. The tattooed, twitchy Long Island, New York, native wanted to figure out if these guys were Taliban or not. Right now.'

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/08/danger-room-in-afghanistan-a-close-range-fight-and-a-couple-of-miracles/

Some superb down-in-the-dirt reporting from Afghanistan. Britain has tens of thousands of young men and women in Afghanistan, experiencing similar sorts of action on a day-by-day basis. So I thought I would try to find similar reporting to this on the BBC website. I have spent the last hour trying to find even one.

There are lots of stories about how corrupt and useless the recent Afghan elections were. There are lots very short stories, saying one or two or three of our soldiers have been killed, and giving their names, ranks and serial numbers. There are a few stories about Gordon Browns visit to Afghanistan, and his promise to send more troops. There are lots of stories about know-nothing idiots in Britain complaining that the troops in Afghanistan don't have the right equipment- how they can tell from 8,000 miles away is a real poser. There are a few 'what I did on my very brief trip to Afghanistan' correspondent yawnathons.

But I could not find a single example of the Up-on-the-front-line reporting I quoted above. Not a single one. There are no stories about our troops smashing the taliban, getting stuck in and fighting- i.e. what they are in Afghanistan to do. None.

That is disgusting. Remember, three point two billion pounds each and every year. To sit around on their metrosexual thigh bones. Does the BBC care at all about our soldiers, marines, airmen? I mean, one little bit?

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

"I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o'beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's ``Thank you, Mister Atkins,'' when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's ``Thank you, Mr. Atkins,'' when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy how's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

Tommy, by Rudyard Kipling

Guns at Town Hall meetings

I was just watching some feeble 'satire' on YouTube mocking 'right-wingers' (read: normal, average Americans) for shouting and bringing guns to town hall meetings. Strangely, they didn't mention anything from before about November of last year. I wonder why?

And then it struck me. Why is the 2nd Amendment of the US constitution, the right to bear arms, in the constitution at all? Why did the founding fathers of the United States feel that it was important for every citizen to own a gun and know how to use it? Well, its because they wanted the citizenry to have the capability to stand up to illegitimate over-mighty government; and if necessary remove that government if it became too over-mighty and illegitimate.

Going to a town-hall meeting with your gun is completely and entirely appropriate. It is a concrete message to congressmen and senators about the fundamentals of American government. It tells them who is actually in charge, and what will happen if congressmen and senators forget that they are congressmen and senators, and start to imagine that they are landed European aristocrats, or permanent communist commissars. Its not a subtle reminder of where power actually resides, but then subtlety does not seem to be the strong point of said congressmen and senators.

I would advise every person going to a town-hall meeting to pack something. Many of the guys at the town-hall meetings fought in one of Americas foreign wars and I'm sure they can still shoot straight. The sight of so many American citizens happy to take up arms against a democratic coup d'etat will be a bracing counterpoint to much of the driveling that has gone on on the Democrat side.

What Obama is doing in power is 180 degrees contrary to what he ran on. His real intentions, to socialise America, have only become apparent to the general population since his election. That is a democratic coup d'etat. That is a con foisted on unwary voters. If need be, violence will need to be resorted to. Obama needs to be made aware of that. It was with heavy hearts that the original American, the founders of the United States, rebelled against the British government; but it was with clear and steady minds. The exact same thing is true in 2009.

Less than 10% of the US population agrees with the Obama socialist agenda. But because of a lucky trick of the electoral cycles, he has about two years with absolute majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives. He can almost certainly pass massively unpopular entitlements and 'gifts' of public largesse during that time that will politically be extremely hard to reverse once given. He can create unfunded entitlements that will go a long way to dragging the US into the same morass as most european nations.

Are Americans going to sit around and allow that to happen, twenty years after the Soviet Union, the great exemplar of those economically suicidal policies, ground to a dead stop?

Who cares if its a lie?

'Lesbians given equal birth rights

Women in same-sex relationships can now register both their names on the birth certificate of a child conceived as a result of fertility treatment.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8225158.stm

Its a lie, but a popular one so who cares?

Had to laugh at this photo caption: "Many lesbian couples have used fertility treatments to start a family". And how many lesbian couples have successfully started a family WITHOUT fertility treatments?

Its like a grown-up version of that beloved childrens game 'lets pretend'.

But Israel equals nazis or something

'Hamas slams UN over 'Holocaust classes' in Gaza

Islamist group condemns UN for planning to teach Palestinian children in Gaza about Nazi atrocities. 'We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists' says Hamas'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3769461,00.html

Do you ever get that feeling of lots of different bits of information running around your brain, crashing into each other?

Many of the same people who support the poor ickle palestinians also are avid global warm-mongers. People who deny anthropogenic global warming are called global warming deniers, a PARALLEL to holocaust denial. But if its ok for Hamas to blatantly deny the holocaust, where does that leave the moonbat pali-lovers? Presumably if the palis deny the holocaust and its ok, denial is ok. Holocaust denial is no longer verboten.

Isn't there some kind of head-explosion thing when this stuff builds up in your unconscious?

Another No Shit Sherlock moment

'...President Obama’s foreign policies reveal a clichéd vision of the world, consistent with anti-American stereotypes disseminated by the Soviet propaganda during the Cold War, which he may have absorbed in his formative years.

A radical departure from American values, this vision compels him to correct what he perceives as America’s “wrongs” by regressing to Cold War-era mythology...'

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-cia-did-it-conspiracy-theories-in-the-service-of-the-common-good/2/

May have absorbed? May? Barack Obama is replete with a full set of the marxist bullet points spread around the world since the late forties by the Soviet Union and their running dogs in western europe. Those bullet points aren't meant to be history, or factual analysis, or reasoned punditry- they are the vicious lies of people engaged in what they believed was a no-holds-barred fight to the death.

If you want history, you can read it. Every single interesting episode of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (and even some in the twenty first) is written up in copious detail in history books if you actually care. George Clooney, Sean Penn and Barack Obama could have spent years reading up on twentieth century history until they could discern what was substantial fact and what was invented slander. But they didn't. They don't care. The marxist orthodoxy as encapsulated in the bullet points will do fine thanks! No need for all that boring reading!

American politics has always given a safe home to the style-heavy, content-lite politician. There was always a danger that one day a Barack Obama would come along. Someone who is not just superficial, but whose superficial learning was deeply inimical to the United States, its interests and its traditions. All I can say is, it is the solemn responsibility of every American to ensure that he does the least amount of damage in the next three years. And next time you vote for some tall dark stranger, make sure you do some elementary research on him.

Michael Steele: doing everybodies job but his own

'Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele opposes a government-run health care system, as do most members of his party. While most health care overhaul proposals assume big savings by reworking Medicare, Steele tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that Medicare needs to be protected and not cut in the name of health insurance reform.'

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112281170&ps=rs

In British politics we have the concept of shadows. There is the Prime Minister, leader of the party with most members of parliament, and then there is the shadow Prime Minister (more commonly called Leader of the Opposition), leader of the party with the second-largest number of seats. As insurance against a sudden election, the shadow Prime Minister gets to see most of the same information from civil servants and the security services that the Prime Minister sees.

America doesn't have anything like that. There is no 'shadow President'. Strangely enough, Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele thinks he is! The Republican Party Chairman is the guy who is supposed to keep the Republican party ticking along, make sure it runs its campaigns properly, makes sure it does its fund-raising properly, makes sure it complies with the law and all that logistical stuff somebody has to do. For all the 20th century, most Americans would not have known who the Republican Party Chairman was, because he/she was doing dull logistical work.

So why is Michael Steele on TV every hour of every day doing interviews, and giving policy statements? Who cares what he thinks of how Obamacare is funded? Why isn't he doing the job he took on?

Not only that, but his views on everything are decidedly RINO. He apparently doesn't have a conservative bone in his body. Its time for the Republican party to get a Chairman. A real one.

You lot invented the game, but now we're all going to play

Most of this piece by 'liberal' Ron Rosenbaum is an admission that Sarah Palin was both right and tactically astute with her remarks about "Death panels".

He then wanders off onto this territory:

'Of course the overreaction by genuinely ignorant right-wingers (”I don’t want the government to mess with my Medicare”) and the thuggish, lynch mob behavior at town halls (boasting of shouting others’ down and other mob tactics, Hitler mustaches etc., rather than making rational arguments and respecting other citizens) including the terrorist tactic of bringing guns to town hall meetings, showed that the right could squander an advantage in legitimate debate by making an ugly spectacle of itself.'
http://pajamasmedia.com/ronrosenbaum/2009/08/28/how-sarah-palin-rope-a-doped-all-too-many-liberals/2/

Lets think about the point being made. Rosenbaum is saying that the right had a lead in the factual debate which it has 'squandered' by making an ugly spectacle of itself. Is this right?

What happened in America over the last five, six years politically? Most people on the right had a decent understanding of why America intervened in Iraq. They made those arguments in a detailed way, explaining the historical reasons why the United States had to ensure that Saddam Hussein came to the end of a long, tortuous career of murder and aggression. That, and why it was in Americas strategic interest to turn Iraq into a stable democracy. How did that debate go? Nobody on the left was interested in having a debate at all. They paid no attention to the historical or strategic arguments. They proceeded to scream and barrack and slander and lie in every forum possible about Bushitler and his evil crew of machiavellian criminals, focused their arguments on a few specious pseudo-legal assertions about 'the lies that took us into the war', and shout down debate in every forum. Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore made sure to get in the faces of everybody they considered the criminal actors in starting and running the 'war', hurling the most toe-curling abuse, provocation and slander.

The right put up with this because they are democrats- they believe that in a democracy you are always going to get a certain amount of deranged lunacy. You put up with it, ignore it mostly, and get on with doing what needs doing. They also noted how the tactics of the left managed to turn the whole of public perception and thinking about the Iraq intervention slowly but surely against the enterprise. Not, you will note, their quiet and reasoned debate, but their tactics of repeating a set of lies over and over and over and over until like in 1984, they drummed out all other thoughts. The lefts tactics worked. And the right noted.

People copy what works from other people. Even things which we may, from a standpoint of Olympian objectivity, wish they would not learn. The right has seen that if you scream and shout and repeat and repeat and repeat, and get on TV every night of the week, the bovine masses eventually pick up on what you are repeating, and that becomes the accepted narrative.

How cheeky and and full of chutzpah for Ron Rosenbaum to complain when the right takes not just a leaf from the lefts playbook but the whole goddamn book! 'Look,' he is saying 'when we do it, its just us getting on with business the way we is taught. But when you do it, its just not fair!!!! Stop using our tactics, and succeeding!'

Nothing the Tea Partiers and the town hall meeting protesters have said and done comes anywhere close to the extremes of vileness Code Pink and the other commie groups did. But by using the tactics the latter created, the former are going to 'win' this debate. Thanks for playing, Ron!

Discussing the NHS sensibly

'The Patients Association highlighted 16 cases in England where people, often the elderly, were left lying in faeces and urine and were not helped to eat.
The group's president Claire Rayner, an ex-nurse, called for "bad, cruel nurses" to be struck off.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8223710.stm

Fascist! Traitor! She should be shot! Kill the bitch! Unpatriotic festering scab! Etc etc.

I am trying to learn the new mode for discussing failings in the NHS. How am I doing?

Stop taking the money then

'Pakistan concern over aid from US

Shaukat Tarin says aid should be delivered direct to Pakistani agencies
US financial aid to Pakistan is "unacceptable" if it is linked to monitoring of its nuclear arsenal, Pakistan's finance minister has said.

In an interview with the Financial Times newspaper, Shaukat Tarin also said half of the aid pledged is likely to be wasted in administrative costs.

He urged the US to channel its aid through Pakistani agencies.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8223939.stm

Of course alternatively, you could NOT TAKE AMERICAN MONEY.

"‘You should know that we hate all Americans,’ ” Ms. McHale said Mr. Abbasi told her. “ ‘From the bottom of our souls, we hate you.’"
http://blog.american.com/?p=4165

Right, got that. So why take American money? Clearly, the best thing for Pakistan to do is stop taking any money, arms, etc from the United States as of today.

I mean, surely Pakistan doesn't NEED infidel money, what with its massive economy, state of the art infrastructure and advanced technology. Right?

Senator Ted Kennedy loved children and hated bad stuff apparently

'"Senator Edward Kennedy will be mourned not just in America but in every continent.
"He led the world in championing children's education and healthcare and believed that every single child should have the chance to realise their potential to the full..."'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8221801.stm

Yeah, because the rest of us are dedicated to making sure that children just can't achieve their potential...

Thats like saying 'Ted Kennedy believed that people shouldn't be turned into mincemeat.'; 'Ted Kennedy believed red hot pokers shouldn't be jabbed up peoples bums for fun'; 'Ted Kennedy believed no one should ever be subjected to more than two Andrew Lloyd-Webber musicals in a lifetime'. No shit sherlock. I imagine even Hitler probably thought 'every single (aryan) child should have the chance to realise their potential to the full'.

What is missing in these mellifluous blatherings is actual deeds accomplished. What did Ted Kennedy achieve during his lifetime? Crickets chirping, crickets chirping.

Run the bums out of town

'Last week we attended Congressman Lincoln Davis’s Town Hall Meeting. It was the most unsatisfying event I’ve ever attended. It was packed, and the doors were locked prior to the start. The County Mayor and the Sheriff were turned away! And they are Democrats! We were there early, and had seats. For 3 hours, Davis sat on the stage with a foot high stack of paper in front of him (one of the proposed bills), while dozens of citizens lined both aisles to speak. Five people were pro-Obamacare, and all the rest were opposed. Tort reform and insurance sales across state lines were suggested by many. There was one 85 year old nut that called Obama an a**hole, but that was as ugly as it got – and he was lightly booed. Several people had read the proposed legislation, and quoted page and line, then explained why they were opposed. Also, many people pointed out that he was sent to represent middle Tennessee, not the Democratic party. These were normal middle-class people of all ages – the young were as concerned as the seniors.

At the end, Davis had the opportunity to win friends and respect by just acknowledging that he understood their concerns. He chose to ‘recognize’ a guy in the audience from his hometown, and asked if the guy remembered his grandad, who had a 50 caliber gun. Then he said that he was a big supporter of gun rights, and that he was a Baptist, and would never support a health care bill that stated that abortion would be government funded. It was unbelievable – he may as well have patted everyone on the head! He didn’t address the concerns of the group, and I will surely work hard for whoever runs against him next time.'

Kathie Fuston

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/84079/

American needs a new set of politicians, from top to bottom. When I lived in Alabama, I met quite a few US politicians. Al Gore came to our campus, Senator Richard Shelby too, even the very recently deceased Sen. Ted Kennedy came to the Space Center. Shelby impressed me, but even way back in the mid-eighties Gores vanity was in full flower. Ted Kennedy (I'll try not to speak ill of the dead) seemed like an empty suit rather than anything else. But my overall impression was that almost universally the great country that is the United States was not led by great men and women. Some representatives seemed of below normal intelligence, had very poor reasoning skills, and appeared very poorly educated. Why? I have no idea.

But what has happened over the last couple of months is a huge grass-roots re-engagement by many Americans in their own governance. And they have noticed the very poor quality of their representation. Many of them are probably thinking right now, hell, if thats the standard I could be a representative! And they are absolutely right. Many ordinary American citizens have a firmer grasp of the essential facts than do thier representatives. Many of the long term incumbentocracy in the state capitals and Washington DC are just not used to having to pay attention. Their lives are blissfully easy. They know that 99% of the time, whispering sweet nothings to the electorate plus name recognition will get them yet another term twiddling their fingers in a cushy, well-paid sinecure. As the Lil' Abner song says, 'Sittin around on their thigh-bones, sittin around on their you-know-whats in the great congressional parking lot'.

Obama's campaign repeated many of the stock promises that Presidential hopefuls always trot out, about a clean sweep of Washington, getting rid of the sleazy nests of lobbyists, greater transparency of the government etc etc. But he dwealt long and lustily about changing the way that Washington did its business. Has anything changed? Absolutely nothing. The lobbyists don't pay court to the Republicans anymore, thats true. They pay court to the Democrats. But thats not changing how business is done, thats just turning your chair around to face the other way...

Most Americans by now realise that the torrent of sincerity that poured forth from Barack Obama was a simulacrum. Know the old saying? "The most important thing is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made". Little old ladies all across America fell in love with the deep-voiced tall handsome sincere Mr Obama. Shame he's a fake. Shame that 99.9% of what he said he doesn't actually believe and won't actually follow through on. And those little old ladies will be sharpening their pencils awaiting an opportunity to pay him back for his deception.

I hope that many of the people discussing openly running for office next time round do so- Bill Whittle, Joe the Plumber and thousands more across the US. There are no prerequisites needed, other than a modest gift of intelligence, a commitment to public duty, and the common moral underpinning that Americans have taken into public office for at least 230 years. Go get 'em!

Michael Yons Embed status cancelled by MOD

Just read this:

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/michael-s-dispatches/

Yesterday, I read this and was impressed again by how superb Mr Yon is at bringing the reader right into the room or the field or the compound he is in.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/bad-medicine.htm

Why the goddamned MOD has cancelled his embed I can't imagine. What a bunch of arsefucks!

You should take Daniel Hannan seriously

'Why we should take Hannan-ism seriously

by Sunder Katwala
August 17, 2009 at 8:43 am

Here are three reasons why Hannanism matters rather more than some of its slightly more moderate supporters will want to admit last weekend.'

http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/08/17/why-we-should-take-hannan-ism-seriously/

There is such a thing as Hannanism? Ok. This is a very well written piece of analysis, and I got all the way down to '...Boris Johnson’s London Mayoralty, with its equality strategy and centrist noises, demonstrate the difficulties of Hannanism in power' before I found something to disagree with. It is hard to say what, if any, school of political thought Boris Johnson associates himself with, but Hannanism would be the last one I'd associate him with. He is definitely not a conservative, and most of the opinions I've heard him express would place him squarely in bizzaro-eccentric-liberal territory. The policies he has pursued in London, such as his campaign against bendy buses, are trivial wastes of time and mainly done to spite Red Ken. What do they signify about Hannanism? Absolutely nothing.

'Cameron is something of a dispositional Conservative: he doesn’t want his party to become narrowly libertarian, fearing that a Toryism “that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing” is inadequate.'

Of course, a Toryism that doesn't understand structural issues like public versus private ownership, and doesn't act to counter the remorseless growth of bureaucracy and state monopoly, is much worse than inadequate.

I would not disagree with Katwala's analysis on any substantive point, but conclusion is shaky. '...So Dan Hannan has dug in for the long-game. He surely knows that he will never entirely prevail. But that may be to miss the point. He can already claim to be the party’s most influential backbench voice, all the more impressive when billeted between Brussels and Strasbourg and not in Westminster.'

British politics, and discussion of British politics is mired in what I would call 'process obsession'. Katwala presumably believes Daniel Hannan is in this 'game' to further himself and his agenda, like some political chessmaster. But this is my guess as to the truth: Daniel Hannan knows that on one side of the political debate is a huge mountain of evidence that the traditional principles conservatives hold dear produce wealth, freedom, good governance and a healthy society; and that on the other, the one that David Cameron is flirting with, is an equally huge mountain of evidence that the statist/socialist/communist principles beloved of Labourites produce poverty, slavery, terrible governance and a sick society. And he is probably equally firmly convinced that David Cameron has about as much chance of finding the ludicrous Third Way as Tony Blair had.

A good read though.

Smashing

'While Axle worked, I asked about times when he “smashed” the Taliban. British soldiers like to use the word “smashed” when talking about the Taliban. When Axle would finish talking about one fight, I would ask about another. Finally, Axle said, “You Yanks are great. You like to hear stories about us smashin’ the Taliban but people at home want to know how much we miss our families.” We both chuckled, and I asked, “Really? They don’t ask you about smashing the Taliban?” “That’s right,” then Axle said something like, “They only want to hear how sad we are.” Axle and I got along great because I didn’t care if he missed his family and he didn’t care if I missed mine. This part is about smashing people who would help those who smashed the World Trade Centers and blew up people in London and Bali and Jakarta and Israel and Spain and the Philippines and anywhere else they can reach.'

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/bad-medicine.htm

Mixing ice cream and dog poop

Famously, Mark Steyn said of the United Nations that it was like mixing ice cream and dog shit- the result was always going to be more like the latter than the former.

So, with its enormous influx of ignorant Mexicans, are the Mexicans becoming Californian, or is California becoming more like Mexico?

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=MWFhYjhiODFiOGZmNTc1ZTQxMzlkNjNkNjIzNDg2YWU=

Yep. The obvious one. When twenty million immigrants enter your state, they don't just transform into stoner dudes, pretty starlets and hard-bitten businessmen overnight. In fact, they don't ever transform into them. When twenty million Mexicans come to your state AT THE SAME TIME, they remain exactly what they are- ignorant Mexican peasants. And your state becomes part of Mexico, with all the attendant joys and successes of that nation...

In Britain, we had a huge influx of pig-ignorant pakistani hillbillies, and now parts of England resemble pakistan. Yay.

Truthiness about Honduras

'Mr Zelaya has been in exile since 28 June when he was forced from office amid a power struggle over his proposals for a public consultation on constitutional change.
His critics said the move was aimed at removing the current one-term limit on serving as president and paving the way for his re-election.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8217393.stm

See now, the words 'power struggle' denote two power-hungry individuals or groups fighting equally illigitimately for power outside the bounds of constitutionality and legality. Julius Ceasar vs Pompey = power struggle.

Manuel Zelaya against the Honduran constitution, Supreme Court, Army, Congress and mass of the population = not a power struggle. 'His critics'? The Supreme Court, Congress, Army and mass of the population you mean?

See how the BBC does that? If Manuel Zelaya had been a rip-snorting anti-communist capitalist right-winger, desperately trying to make himself Presidente por Viva, how would these articles be written? Can you imagine the outrage of the little pipsqueaks who write the BBC website? 'Crazed Fascist tries to change constitution to create a Horrific FASCIST DICTATORSHIP!!!! For life!!!! Keel heeeem!!!'

They still can't bring themselves to actually recount the events of Zelayas last few months in office- in particular the whole getting his illegal ballot papers printed in Venezuela by his leftie mentor business. Oh well, thanks again BBC for your commitment to Truth truthiness.

Who cares if he's weak?

'Is Obama making tactical retreats to gain better position on these hard cases -- or is he, well, weak?

It is an odd question to ask about a man who tenaciously fought his way to the presidency against enormous odds, then dazzled the country and much of the world in his first six months in office.

But it is one inevitably raised by Obama's conciliatory manner, his appeals to sweet reason and high morality, and his soaring rhetorical promises when he has to adjust means, goals or both. And it will dog his presidency if he does not demonstrate quickly that he is as good at handling adversity as he has been at exploiting initial success.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082102309.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

Hang on, hang on- 'tenaciously fought his way to the presidency against enormous odds' and then 'demonstrate quickly that he is as good at handling adversity as he has been at exploiting initial success'. I thought he already did the whole 'handling adversity' thing?

The trouble with the dem story of Obama is that it is full of godawful contradictions and logical nonsenses. Obama tenaciously fought his way to the Presidency against enormous odds? Really? Tenaciously fought against a Hillary Clinton forever associated in tens of millions of American minds with the dismal sexual shenanigans of her husband, and considered to be a cynical shrew by even more? Tenaciously fought against John McCain, a RINO who most conservative Republicans loathed? Tenaciously fought against a 2008 Republican party that couldn't find its arse with both hands? Tenaciously fought against a Republican party associated with the Iraq intervention, George W Bush and the Katrina 'disaster'?

The fact is, pretty much anybody who chewed with his mouth closed and didn't have sex with children was going to beat that lot. Think of it as the perfect storm in reverse- the perfect millpond. All Obama had to do was look sexy, talk in banal cliches, and not reveal his true characteristics. Which he did. And won. Despite being the least qualified, least ideologically appropriate candidate of all time. A decidedly centre right country has ended up with a far-left president, because he hid from the electorate that he was far-left until he got into the job.

Obama has been successful from the point of view of the far left: he has damaged the US economy enormously via cap and trade, he has enlarged the US government enormously via nationalisations of the banking and auto industries, he has damaged long-term prospects of the US dollar by printing absolutely vast numbers of dollars, he has tried to nationalise medical care and he has pretty much promised all round the world to Americas enemies that ITS ALL OUR FAULT. All of these things are in the far-left playbook- they want a weak, guilty, economically defunct, helpless United States. After all, everything evil and wrong in the world is because of the mere existence of the United States.

However, if you are a moderate voter in the mid-west, and you voted for this charming, beefy, well-educated, post-racial moderate black guy, the shock has been stupendous. They aren't asking if Obama is weak- its a non-sequitur question. What they want to know is, where is that Obama guy who came by my town last July, and gave that speech? Where the fuck is that guy???

Even Swiss banks can't hold that much stolen money

'Africa seeks climate change cash

By Matt McGrath
BBC News science reporter


Africa is set to suffer the worst impacts of climate change

The leaders of 10 African countries are gathering in Ethiopia to try to agree a common position on climate change...'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8217449.stm

I wonder what they'll come up with?

'...Proposals for discussion include the suggestion that developed countries should cut their emissions by at least 40% by 2020, and that the richer nations should provide funds of $67bn (£40bn) a year to help the least well off cope with the impacts of rising temperatures.'

I really actually laughed out loud when I read that. Given what happened to the previous $67 billion given to Africa 'to help the least well off', I foresee some truly enormous Swiss-bank account balances.

Fantasies of Africa

'The desolate, dusty town of Pibor on South Sudan's border with Ethiopia has no running water, no electricity and little but mud huts for the population to live in.
You would be hard put to find a poorer place anywhere on earth.
I went there as part of a journey across Africa to ask the question "Why is Africa poor?" for a BBC radio documentary series.

I was asked to investigate why it is that every single African country - with the exceptions of oil-rich Gabon and Algeria - is classified by the United Nations as having a "low" broadly defined Human Development Index - in other words an appalling standard of living for most of the people.

In Pibor, the answer to why the place is poor seems fairly obvious.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8215083.stm

Wow I thought to myself- finally somebody is going to reveal to British readers the truth about African poverty- that it is poverty of the mind, of the soul and of culture. But then I read on...

'...The people - most of whom are from the Murle ethnic group - are crippled by tribal conflicts related to disputes over cattle, the traditional store of wealth in South Sudan.'

Hmmmm. Bullshit. Nobody fought each other with such gay abandon as Europeans, generation after generation, and it didn't seem to result in African levels of poverty. Even if it did, within a few generations, the Europeans would have rebuilt everything and been wealthier than before. Vast areas of Germany were simple rubble in 1945. Been to Germany lately? If anything, the technological developments resulting from war made Europeans technological leaders of the whole world.

So obviously, war can't be the reason. I read on.

'...South Sudan is potentially rich.

"It's bigger than Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi combined," the South Sudan Regional Co-operation Minister Barnaba Benjamin, enthused.
"Tremendous land! Very fertile, enormous rainfall, tremendous agricultural resources. Minerals! We have oil and many other minerals - go name it!"
The paradox of rich resources and poor people hints at another layer of explanation about why Africa is poor.

It is not just that there is war. The question should, perhaps be: "Why is there so much war?"'

Oh my God, leave off about war already!!! That's not another layer you bozo!

'...And the headline question is in fact misleading; Africans as a people may be poor, but Africa as a place is fantastically rich - in minerals, land, labour and sunshine.
That is why outsiders have been coming here for hundreds of years - to invade, occupy, convert, plunder and trade.'

Translate the jaundiced lefty idiom, and here you find an important truth. The attitudes of many Europeans (and Chinese) is 'Well if you aren't going to use this bauxite/fantastic agricultural land/timber for anything yourselves, I guess we will'.

But then we get bogged down in the STANDARD EXPLANATION FOR ALL EVIL IN THE WORLD.

'...But the resources of South Sudan, for example, have never been properly developed. During colonial rule South Sudan was used as little more than a reservoir of labour and raw materials. Then independence was followed by 50 years of on-off war between the south and north - with northerners in Khartoum continuing the British tactic of divide and rule among the southern groups.

Some southerners believe this is still happening today.'

Marxist bilge in the pure. Despite the mountains of evidence that Africa was both desperately poor AND addicted to warfare before a white man set foot on the continent, somehow those two things are all a British invention. As analysis, its very very poor. And if used as a predictor of future events (get rid of the terrible British influence and everything will suddenly come right), truly useless.

'...Almost every African I met, who was not actually in government, blamed corrupt African leaders for their plight.
"The gap between the rich and the poor in Africa is still growing," said a fisherman on the shores of Lake Victoria.
"Our leaders, they just want to keep on being rich. And they don't want to pay taxes."'

And? This is neither ground-breaking information, nor of any possible help. Corruption is a game virtually every African plays. The rulers of African countries may be disproportionate beneficiaries of it, but corruption is present down to the lowliest policeman and public official, and in virtually all commercial transactions too. The culture of corruption inhabits the whole of African society; indeed, it is a cast-iron piece of bantu culture.

'...Even President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia came close to this when she told me she had underestimated the level of corruption in her country when she took office.
"Maybe I should have sacked the whole government when I came to power," she said.
"Africa is not poor," President Johnson-Sirleaf added, "it is poorly managed."'

I'm a bit of a fan of Johnson-Sirleaf, especially as she beat George Weah, international footballer and nincompoop in the general election. But her statement is completely wrong. If Africa was simply mis-managed, it would be vastly easier to fix its problems than is in reality the case.

'...Kenyan architect and town planner Mumo Museva took me to the bustling Eastleigh area of Nairobi, where traders have created a booming economy despite the place being almost completely abandoned by the government.

Eastleigh is a filthy part of the city where rubbish lies uncollected, the potholes in the roads are the size of swimming pools, and the drains have collapsed.

But one indication of the success of the traders, Mr Museva said, was the high per-square-foot rents there.
"You'll be surprised to note that Eastleigh is the most expensive real estate in Nairobi."
He added that if Eastleigh traders trusted the government they might pay some taxes in return for decent services, so creating a "virtuous circle".
"It would lift people out of poverty," he said.
"Remember, poverty is related to quality of life, and the quality of life here is appalling, despite the huge amount of wealth flowing through these areas."'

What do you suppose the odds are of ever getting that "virtuous circle" thing off the ground? So a few individual Africans get immensely wealthy, while surrounded on every side by extreme poverty. What is bizarre is going to Africa to ask Africans for solutions to African problems. Europeans are rich because of European culture. Africans are poor because of bantu culture. But of course no BBC correspondent is EVER going to say something like that. EVER.

'...Then the young Kenyan architect echoed the Liberian president, some 5,000km (3,000 miles) away on the other side of the continent.
"Africa is not poor," he also said.
"Africa is just poorly managed."'

Well, there we are then. That's that sorted out. Its simply an issue of managing stuff better, innit? Just the kind of answer a BBC correspondent wants!

It ignores history, economics and the vast range of material facts, but whatever- the Guardian-reading BBC editor will love it! And lets face it, we're not REALLY interested in Africans living well, and prospering.

Until Africans recognise the terrible effects that tribalism, ethnic hatred, a lack of respect for laws and public institutions, superstition, greed and macho callousness (all derived from bantu culture) have on African lives, nothing will change. Trying to blame white colonial invaders is a pathetic sop, and only distracts from the real solutions. Most of the things which work in Africa were built by white people; and as white people have been chased out of many African countries, those countries have slipped back into shambolic poverty and awfulness.

But don't let the truth get in the way of a good narrative, BBC!

Well, in a sense we're all mass murderers, aren't we?

'The Brits Are Okay with It [Jonah Goldberg]
Well, that's a shame. Katy Kay:

'...The overwhelming majority of his 270 victims were American, but 11 people, two entire families in fact, did die on the ground in Scotland, and one might expect, in Lockerbie if nowhere else, outrage similar to that expressed by American relatives. But not so. Perhaps it's because Brits, with their experience in Northern Ireland, are, more inured to terrorism, whereas, before Lockerbie, Americans had never really been exposed to this kind of attack, and so it became a watershed event that shattered America's sense of invincibility. Perhaps it’s that more in Britain question al-Megrahi's guilt to start with. Or is it just a more confident American sense of wrong and right?

It's not entirely clear to me why the outrage gap is so pronounced on al-Megrahi's release, but it definitely is, and I don't think it's just a question of numbers. The people of Lockerbie seem to support Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, in his view that the West's identity rests on mercy as well as justice, and that even in the case of a mass murderer that value still applies. As one of the residents of Lockerbie told my colleague, "We just don't see these things in black and white."'

To that last ominous statement, you could add "dead and alive, murdered and not murdered, enemy and friend, immoral and moral, monstrously evil and tolerably good". When you can't even see the cold-blooded murderer of two hundred and seventy people as evil, you have no moral bearings, you have no moral fixed points, you are no longer recognisably moral in any sense.

The West has an identity as merciful? Pompous self-righteousness and disgusting cowardice, perhaps, but merciful? The West sat by while the peoples of Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya and Iraq were murdered in their millions, within the last couple of decades. Very merciful. When the United States and Britain finally went into Bosnia and Iraq, the result was massive protests ON BEHALF OF THE MURDERERS. In Bosnia, Dutch troops sent to protect the muslim population scampered off at the first sign of men with guns, to get drunk a few hundred miles away. Thats why its called Dutch courage.

If the West has a reputation for anything, it is gutless posturing and doing business with the mass-murderers. How many German, French, Italian and Spanish companies are doing business in Russia? You know, the country ruled by a dictator who blew up some of his own people in apartment buildings so he could start a war to get popular by? Nobody knows how many people died in the siege of Grozny. But the Scots are so merciful that they don't give a shit.

The West is not merciful, and it very much does not see things in black and white. It feels smug and superior while at the same time sensing its own vulnerability. In its decadence, though, it can't be bothered to do anything about it.

The first sharp blow to it, and it will collapse like a termite-eaten fence-post. And like all decadent things, it will not be mourned by those who are not decadent.

The Burka is not clothing

Banning the Burka debate:

'...the Liberal Party, which is the senior partner in Denmark's coalition government, rejects the idea of legislating about citizens' clothing, provided they are not employed in a public function.

"It's going too far if we start legislating on what sort of clothes people can and cannot wear. The burqa and covered faces should not be allowed if you work with people in the public sector -- but that is where we draw the line," says Liberal Party political spokesman Peter Christensen, who adds that it is important that politicians know where to draw the line in introducing policy.'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,643490,00.html

The Burka is not clothing- it is a statement of ideological conformity. Do this simple mental experiment: what would happen if I turned up at work on Monday dressed as an German SS concentration camp guard, in full uniform, complete with deaths head symbols and concentration camp name. According to this argument, anything you wear is simply clothing. What happened to Prince Harry when he wore that Nazi uniform to a fancy-dress party? I don't remember everybody saying 'its just clothing, no biggie'.

Burkas are a very distinctive part of the whole islamist/wahhabist project of returning the whole world to about 670 a.d., complete with primitive arab dress. We absolutely do not have to allow that in our societies. Just like we don't accept people dressing in public as SS prison warders.

Can't wait for the huge demos over this

Amazing change of policy by the US government, one which I heartily endorse by the way.

'Kill or Capture' in Afghanistan

Shared via AddThis

Yes, the US military in Afghanistan are going to kill the Heroin kingpins. They are going to seek out these guys and pop a few caps in their booties.

Imagine, if you will, this happening under the George W. Bush administration. You would have been able to hear the screeching and gnashing of teeth on the moon. The ACLU would have sent their crack team, every lefty organisation would immediately make this their number one chant at their rage-fests, and all the big news channels would be berating the administration with the volume at eleven.

Weirdly, under the Obama administration, none of that stuff has happened. The same heroin meisters will die, by the same bullets, and with the same legal (or not) justification, but the response from the Great Champions of Human Rights won't even get up off the sofa.

Hilariously, the ding dong giving the low-down on this to the VERY-CONCERNED-LOOKING presenter has a dig at the Bush administration for not being VICIOUS ENOUGH! How is that for chutzpah?

I love you Obama but get oughta my face

'Mr. Obama engendered such passion last year that his allies believed they were on the verge of creating a movement that could be mobilized again. But if a week’s worth of events are any measure here in Iowa, it may not be so easy to reignite the machine that overwhelmed Republicans a year ago.

More than a dozen campaign volunteers, precinct captains and team leaders from all corners of Iowa, who dedicated a large share of their time in 2007 and 2008 to Mr. Obama, said in interviews this week that they supported the president completely but were taking a break from politics and were not active members of Organizing for America.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/health/policy/15ground.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

What is clear from this piece, and from other articles like it I've read, is that the Obama phenomenon was not about America- it was a beatification of one man. Many of the people who fell in love with Obama don't give two hoots for his policies. He could have run as the Popcorn Chicken candidate, or the Gold Standard candidate, or the Blue Cheese moon candidate, and these people would still have fallen in love. Most of them are still in love, apparently, but find all this political malarky a bit boring and tiresome.

It may well bring the love affair to a premature end too, if Obama keeps on shoving politics down the craws of his lovers. There are some things that really take the sheen off a love affair...

We know who you are now

'So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both.'

[Quote from the Washington Post]

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2009/08/rick-perlsteins-asinine-take-on-the-health-care-town-yells.html

I happened to watch The Alamo about three years ago, during the most intense period of anti-Iraq Intervention hysteria. It is full of the individual strands of thought and culture that weave together to make Americans American. There is the blunt honesty; the utter determination to be loyal and to do your duty; there is the profound love of country; there is the gentle satirical humour; there is the deep feeling of personal responsibility; there is the fierce martial spirit; and of course there is the commitment to keeping the law. There is absolutely nothing weird, bizarre or crazy about any of those things. They would have been perfectly understandable to an ancient Greek.

Apparently, the only people to whom they are a closed book are modern liberals. Rick Pearlsteins argument, that there is mutual incomprehension on both sides of this cultural clash, is clever but fallacious. For many years, normal average Americans, the kind for whom The Alamo is a living document of what Americans at their best are like, did not pay attention to the slowly growing socialist minority in their country. But that minority started electing senators and congressmen, and organising larger and larger activist groups (often paid for by successful capitalists), and promoting socialism the way socialism is always promoted, as a humanitarian crusade. And normal average Americans just didn't react, or pay attention.

It was only when it was revealed to tens of millions of them that these people now numbered in the millions, had very well developed infrastructure and had taken over the Presidency, the House of Representatives and were well represented in the Senate that they got anxious. And they began to find out who these people are, and what they want. That process is now quite advanced. Many ordinary Americans now understand the nexus between the liberal media, the liberal action groups, the liberal politicians and liberal capitalists. They are coming to understand that despite being a relatively small minority in fact, liberals are able to project a much larger profile. Liberals control important things like most of the news delivery system outside the internet; and higher education, where the leaders of tomorrow go to be 'finished'. They are beginning to understand that liberalism is antithetical to democracy because liberals know better- the liberal agenda must be forced on the bovine masses 'for their own good'. They are also starting to understand that at the heart of liberalism is revolutionary violence and destructiveness.

But deep within the American psyche is this fact: once Americans understand that a fight is needed, and what the parameters of that fight are, they are extremely hard to beat. Their determination is legendary- John Paul Jones anybody?

The truth is the opposite of what Pearlstein says- this is not just boring business-as-usual in the culture wars. A great big chunk of the population- Joe the Plumber on a massive scale- has noticed that liberalism is not just a disconnected series of annoying but essentially harmless bits of politically correct BS. That underlying it is a large-scale project to neuter America, to destroy its soul, to rip out of its cultural fabric all the things which prevent a complete socialist takeover.

Liberals don't want ordinary people to have guns. People with guns can resist an overbearing government. Liberals don't want white protestant culture to dominate- in fact they want it to disappear because it is a completely viable alternative to socialism. Liberals want to promote gay and lesbian lifestyles because that undermines protestant morals and folkways. Liberals want abortion on demand because that establishes the view that babies are not gifts from God, but bodily growths like hair or warts, dispensed with with as little thought. Liberals want the government to run everything, because then they can pump their liberal world view into every corner of society with impunity and ease. Liberals promote every cultural viewpoint but that of white protestant America, and hold them to be superior, no matter how unsuccessful, brutal and misogynistic they are.

The third of Americans who are usually uninterested in politics, and are satisfied to let others fool about with public policy, have realised that cool detachment is no longer an option if a socialist evolution is to be prevented. Their voice is new and distinctive. The tea-partiers are just as likely to excoriate useless republicans as they are useless democrats. And thats because their concerns are fundamental ones. They understand that what is going on right now is programmatic, deeply inimical to American traditions, and is much more serious than a bit of tinkering round the edges. And they are angry.

The Pearlstein take on this is the one current among most professional pundits and the professional political class- Yawn, another day in the culture wars. How wrong they are. When they say 'grass roots' they mean Republican grass roots. They aren't- they are the REAL grass roots, ordinary Americans totally pissed at what ideologues are doing to their country.

Sudden outbreak of common sense

'A ban on the wearing of the burka in France would help stem the spread of the "cancer" of radical Islam, one of its female Muslim ministers has said.
Urban Regeneration Minister Fadela Amara told the Financial Times that a veil covering everything but the eyes represented "the oppression of women".
Ms Amara said she was "in favour of the burka not existing in my country".'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8203290.stm

Now hang on a moment there little lady- you can't go imposing the white mans rules on other cultures! You can't insist on having the culture you want in your own country! You have to put up with whatever barbarities people bring with them from The Peoples Shithole of Yemen or wherever. I'm pretty sure that's how this modern dispensation works, anyway...

You have to see the wonderful tapestry of girls having their clitoris cut off with a rusty razor blade, and the marvelous diversity of women wearing a huge tentlike structure even in the swimming pool, and the healthy smack of a mans fist on the side of his wifes head, as mandated by islam. You just have to sit there and take it.

'"The burka represents not a piece of fabric but the political manipulation of a religion that enslaves women and disputes the principal of equality between men and women, one of the founding principles of our republic," she said.
France was a beacon for an enlightened Islam at ease with modernity, so it was necessary to fight the "gangrene, the cancer of radical Islam which completely distorts the message of Islam", she said.
Ms Amara, who is of Algerian descent, argued that banning the burka would help women to stand up to the extremists in their communities.
"The vast majority of Muslims are against the burka. It is obvious why," she said.
"Those who have struggled for women's rights back home in their own countries - I'm thinking particularly of Algeria - we know what it represents and what the obscurantist political project is that lies behind it, to confiscate the most fundamental liberties."'

Well, you may know what it represents, by YOU HAVE TO SHUT UP. The PC brigade will hear you and then you are done for.

Mosque targeted by muslim-haters

'Hamas fighters on Friday fired rocket-propelled grenades at Ibn-Taymiyah mosque, where at least 100 Jund Ansar Allah supporters were holed up.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8202746.stm

I await with baited breath the huge 100,000 man march against the murderers of muslims. I mean, firing RPGs at a mosque? Thats got to be worth at least six weeks of frothing at the mouth, screaming into TV cameras and violent placard waving. Hasn't it?

Oops, my apologies! All that stuff only happens when its not one muslim murdering another muslim. You can see how I'd make the mistake, though...

Give everybody everything regardless of income

'If he really could preserve all that is good about the present U.S. system, while making it available to everyone regardless of income, I would wish him all the luck in the world.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1206149/STEPHEN-GLOVER-I-deeply-resent-Americans-sneering-health-service---thats-truth-hurts.html#ixzz0OEvq4hQQ

Oh, good. A sensible suggestion from the very sensible Stephen Glover. When the Daily Mail touts socialism you know everything is lost for conservatives in Britain. It's not seen as socialism any more, but compassion. Disgusting.

Watch out! The one with the blue rinse has a .357

"It's certainly a scary time," said former FBI agent Brad Garrett, now an ABC News consultant. Garrett said the Secret Service "cannot afford to pass on anyone," and he believes "they really do fear that something could happen to [Obama]."

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8324481&page=1

A country whose Presidents have suffered eighteen assassination attempts, four of which were successful, has every reason to fear another attempt. But the wonderful thing about this article is this sentance:

'Experts who track hate groups across the U.S. are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric targeted at President Obama, especially as the debate over health care intensifies and a pattern of threats emerges.'

I have watched loads of YouTube videos on the Socialised Health Care town halls, and I have yet to hear a threat against Obama. Most people are focused solely on their representative, whether Senator, Congressman or local pol. The message, for those who want to listen, is that people are fed up with NO ONE listening. Obama is just a johnny-come-lately snazzy-pants who thinks way too much of himself. The objects of public scorn have been around since the sixties continuously in office. They are the permanent political class who KNOW BETTER.

But its just not grand enough, its just not melodramatic enough, its just not Jack Bauer enough to say 'Ernie Blimpman, representative for the 14th district, was today threatened by a little old lady who said she was going to skin him alive once her meds kicked in'. A bunch of people who have jobs and have never protested so much as a mis-placed stop sign in their lives, who don't want communism in America twenty years after it died in the USSR are being painted as a murderous Nazi gang by the very representatives they have elected to office. Up with that they will not put.

What makes a foreigner foreign

'There's already plenty in the president's biography to make nativists anxious. He spent a chunk of his childhood in Indonesia. His father came from Kenya. When young Obama did live in the U.S., it was in Hawaii, the one American state that isn't actually a part of the Americas. If you don't conceive of the United States as a multicultural nation, the president's life is reason enough to consider the man metaphorically foreign. And if there's one thing conspiracy theories are good at, it's transmuting the metaphorical into the real.'

http://www.reason.com/news/show/135152.html

To be cool and modern and hip and 21st century, you have to believe in a set of absolute goods. One of them is multiculturalism. Monocultures BAD, multicultures GOOD. Of course, being uncool, unhip, and very much 19th century, I don't subscribe.

America is not a multicultural country, thank God. It is dominated by one culture, which provides all the norms and provides the foundation which has kept it highly functional for 230 years or so. Off in the corners, you got some kooks and weirdos and satanists and other flim flam. You also have the Mexicans and the Blacks, who brought their cultures with them, but they don't make America America.

If you want to see what a country would look like if it was dominated by African-American culture, visit Liberia or Haiti. Make sure you take a flak jacket and hire armed guards. If you want to see what a slowly collapsing marxist dystopia looks like, go to Mexico. They've had a one party state since about 1925, and boy it shows. The reason America looks and feels like America is because it is dominated by one culture- protestant Christian white culture. The founding fathers of the United States, the ones who wrote the best constitution so far written, were to a man protestant Christian white men. Sadly, they had no wise Latinas to tell them what was what, but they soldiered on.

The great currents eddying through American political life right now should worry all Americans. Public life in America is in the hands of people who go out of their way to mock and despise protestant Christian white America, and hold it to be the source of most of the evil on the planet. Standing the truth on its head like that is de rigeur for intellectuals and intellectuals who become politicians.

'If you don't conceive of the United States as a multicultural nation, the president's life is reason enough to consider the man metaphorically foreign.' That sentance made me laugh. You don't have to have any conceptions about the United States at all to consider Obama foreign. You just have to read his life story. And listen to how he talks. And pay attention to how estranged he is from average America. Hell, he comes across as foreign to me, and I'm foreign. Transmuting transshmuting- nobody needs to do any wizardry. Obama is a foreigner in the country he rules, and so is his wife, despite what their passports say.

Thatcherism is eccentric according to genius Conservative leader

'Health Secretary Andy Burnham has accused a Tory MEP who attacked the NHS on American TV of being "unpatriotic".
Labour has stepped up its criticism of Daniel Hannan, with John Prescott recording a YouTube message to the American people defending the NHS.
Tory leader David Cameron has insisted the NHS is his "number one priority" and dismissed Mr Hannan as "eccentric".'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8200817.stm

The reason Britain is not a shambolic bankrupt ruin is because of Thatcherism. But now, in an interesting turn of events, the British Conservative Party have endorsed socialism, the absolute antithesis of Thatcherism. There is absolutely no reason why government should provide health care, just as there is no reason why it should run car factories, steel mills, coal mines, the phone company and the million other things the British government used to run extremely badly. The only people who say the government should run those things are socialists, and they have an ulterior motive.

If a demonstration were needed of how left-wing Britain has become, it is this pitiful capitulation. Essentially, the Conservative party has become just another lefty mush-fest. The newspaper of the Conservative party, the Daily Telegraph, has done the same thing. It is now pro all the things that twenty years ago all the things it was against.

I have to get away from this place. Willfully dedicating yourself to poverty and irrelavance is not my bag.

We love the huge government bureacracy

'The welovetheNHS tag has received tens of thousands of messages of support during the past few days from NHS staff and former patients after it was branded "Orwellian" and "evil" by Republican critics of Mr Obama's health reforms.
The prime minister took the unusual step of adding his voice to the campaign in a message posted from Downing Street's Twitter feed, in which he said "thanks for always being there". His wife Sarah, also sent a message of support to the campaign.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8200817.stm

Do you get the impression this frothing may not have to do with the actual provision of health care? Would someone ever start a welovetheR&C (revenue and customs department)? Why would you be in love with a government bureaucracy? Or indeed a commercial organisation? People you can love, pets you can love but a government department?

But of course, its not really about giving people the best health care. If it were, the NHS would have long ago been privatised. You only have to compare the NHS to British Telecom to know why. British Telecom used to be a byword for inefficiency, grotesque over-manning, union idiocy and a complete incapacity to innovate. Then Margaret Thatcher privatised it. Now its a world-beating company in a very dynamic telecoms market. Of course, Labour and the commies don't want the NHS to follow this pattern.

Its very difficult to stop people from making invidious comparisons like this. So Gordon Brown doesn't bother to try. Instead, change the subject. Pretend that the NHS is a much-loved British institution, part of the wonderful fabric of our lives, there for us during all our important life events. John Major famously opined that England to him was cricket, warm beer and nuns cycling to evensong in the gloaming. Add to that 'going to A&E to have my stomach pumped', and Gordon Brown would be happy.

Britain, unlike the rest of Europe, is heading further and further left. The populace at large may well suck up this bilge with pleasure. How incredibly sad.

Tactical lying

'RM3 Frisker FTN Says:
August 14th, 2009 at 12:08 am
URBAN LEGEND - Congress Exempt From Health Care Reform?

Start at pg 113, line 22 of SENATE version of the Health Care Reform Bill (http://help.senate.gov/BAI09A84_xml.pdf). This starts to describe who is and is-not covered by health care reform. The term is “qualified individual”.

If you are NOT eligible for Federal employee health benefits, as described in US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, then Health Care Reform WILL apply to you.

If you ARE eligible for Federal employee health benefits, as described in US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, then Health Care Reform will NOT apply to you.

Who is eligible for Federal employee health benefits, as described in US Code Title 5 Chapter 89?

Time to read US Code Title 5 Chapter 89 … http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/5/usc_sup_01_5_10_III_20_G_30_89.html

For purposes of US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, members of Congress, political appointees, federal employees (obviously), and many others are eligible for Federal employee health benefits.

CONCLUSION: The Senate is attempting to exempt itself from Health Care Reform. Congress, Federal Employees, and other ‘chosen’ ones will get a different plan from the one that will be inflicted upon the rest of us.

SIDE-NOTE: When critiquing health care reform, please quote chapter & verse from the bill (House or Senate version, page #, line #). Otherwise, some absolutely ridiculous claims will be put into circulation, leading to ridicule and undermining the credibility of those honestly fighting against this awful attempt to destroy one of America’s most effective industries. When reading a critique, reference the actual bill to verify for yourself it is an honest critique rather than a bogus critique.'

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2009/08/13/not-a-good-day-for-robert-gibbs/

This has probably been written up in many books on liberals/lefties, so I'll keep this short. It has come to my attention many times in the last couple of weeks that liberals/lefties launch the accusation that their opponents are lying. Over and over again, a generic accusation is made that those who oppose health care nationalisation are lying. I specifically say 'generic', because 99.9% of the time, no specific lie is evidenced. No rebuttal is made to a specific 'lie' at any point.

The person above is being extremely specific. He/she is taking on a particular debating point, and showing evidence of proof. That's what a good debater does. That's what an honest debater does.

So, what is the purpose of this constant barrage of generic accusations of lying? It appears to be a tactic. If people who are only vaguely following the debate (that covers very large numbers of people) hear both sides accusing the other of lying, they will assume that both probably are. They are not going to pick up on the fact that one side are making rebuttals like the one above, and that the other can't do that because the generic accusations of lying are themselves lies.

These are classic communist tactics. There is no need to be right- it is perfectly sufficient to confuse and complicate the debate while getting on with executing your policy. The mistake is to believe that the debate is in any way honest, and that its purpose is one of discovery of facts.

Liberal/lefty politics does not need the general population to be aware of the facts- indeed, that is the worst possible outcome. Look at the 'global warming' debate. Those presenting contrary facts are ripped into with accusations of 'denialism'. The only way that the left can enact the enormous systemic changes, like Cap-and-Trade, is to make sure that no real debate takes place. Cap-and-Trade was passed with virtually NO public debate whatsoever. The only reason the health care socialisation legislation is not already law is the unfortunate (for lefties) timing of the summer recess. They would dearly have loved for it to pass with no debate.

The vicious, vitriolic anger on the part of lefties about the current health care debate is because they didn't want to have it. And now that it's happening, their only refuge is to constantly screech 'you're lying!'.

Damn Edward the Confessor and his coal-fired power stations

'Hurricanes in the Atlantic are more frequent than at any time in the last 1,000 years, according to research just published in the journal Nature.
Scientists examined sediments left by hurricanes that crossed the coast in North America and the Caribbean.
The record suggests modern hurricane activity is unusual - though it might have been even higher 1,000 years ago.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8197191.stm

Yeah, you remember, the huge industrialisation that happened around 1000 a.d.? You remember all the coal-burning power stations built by Edward the confessor? You remember all the humvees driven by the invading Danish army?

Yes folks, those awful days are back...

When friends speak the truth

'You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.'

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/08/12/town_halls/print.html

I had forgotten that Camille Paglia existed, but then Edward Craig quoted her at length on the NRO Corner blog. And it is slightly shaming for me that I had shuttered my mind because she still has a wonderful scalpel of a pen. You have to elide the constant Bushitler boilerplate; she is after all a paid-up member of the intelligentsia. But her analysis of both the campaign to promote health care reform and the substance of the proposed reforms are gleaming paragons of precis.

I really will have to read Ms Paglia more often.

NOW you ask...

'Who Is This Guy?

Dan Froomkin re-emerges at the HuffPo and asks the same question about Barack Obama that failed to resonate during the campaign - who is this guy?

"We're finally going to get to know the real President Obama.

Once the final outlines of health-care legislation become clear, we'll know what really matters to him. Where he draws the line. How he wields the levers of power. Whose ox he gores when there's goring that has to be done.

We'll know who's really in charge.

What's amazing is that more than six months into a presidency that Obama vowed would be the most transparent in history, we still know so little about some basic things like how he makes up his mind and who influences him the most."

We are quite a bit past the "Let's elect him and find out" part of the getting-to-know-you process.'

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/08/who-is-this-guy.html

You gotta say uh huh to that... 'we still know so little about some basic things like how he makes up his mind and who influences him the most'. All of the things that come into my mind to say about that are extremely caustic and bitter. What role are journalists supposed to play in our society again? Just how many of the mantras repeated by Obama at his Nuremburg-like rallies were straightforward lies? Just how fake does a faker have to be before tens of millions of Americans can actually detect his fakeness?

From the same blog post:

'Dorothy Rabinowitz of the WSJ alludes to and reverses the "Who is this guy" mystery of Barack in her piece on the health care debate - in her view, Americans are also a puzzle to Barack:

"The president has a problem. For, despite a great election victory, Mr. Obama, it becomes ever clearer, knows little about Americans. He knows the crowds—he is at home with those. He is a stranger to the country’s heart and character.

...

Who would have believed that this politician celebrated, above all, for his eloquence and capacity to connect with voters would end up as president proving so profoundly tone deaf? A great many people is the answer—the same who listened to those speeches of his during the campaign, searching for their meaning.

It took this battle over health care to reveal the bloom coming off this rose, but that was coming. It began with the spectacle of the president, impelled to go abroad to apologize for his nation—repeatedly. It is not, in the end, the demonstrators in those town-hall meetings or the agitations of his political enemies that Mr. Obama should fear. It is the judgment of those Americans who have been sitting quietly in their homes, listening to him."'

Barack Obama doesn't understand the American people? Why would he? He is basically a foreigner, thats why. His father was African. He grew up outside the US and even when he did live in the US, he lived in Hawaii, which most people would probably say is spiritually STILL outside the US. Certainly native Hawaiians think so. Many Hawaiians are militantly anti-American. Its more like a much larger Berkeley, CA than say Iowa. Obama has hung out his whole life with people who hate America. His wifes church sizzles and pops with hatred against whitey and his many evils. He went there for twenty years and never noticed (apparently) how much of the time was spent making up hare-brained conspiracy theories against white America.

The most vital questions to me are, how could he possibly be expected, with a background like that, to have any insight or knowledge whatsoever of mainstream American life and politics? And given that, who in their right mind would vote the guy into the highest office in American life?

The piece ends:
'Interesting. Still, Bill Clinton also whiffed on health care, yet no list of his failings included a non-understanding of the Great Unwashed (We were his people!).'

A point I have made before. Nobody ever challenged Bill Clintons spiritual, cultural and racial resonance with the people he governed. For all his many failings and weaknesses, he never lost his popularity with the great mass of Americans. And that was because although many disagreed with particular ideas of his, he was still one of them. Obama is a fake. He is not one of the people. He is a foreigner, in mind and in fact.

I watched him yesterday speaking at a rally for State Senator Creigh Deeds. The hackneyed, cliched rubbish he was talking seemed aimed at retards with a mental age of about seven. I'm pretty sure that is his mental image of the American people- retards who he can tell pretty much anything and they'll just suck it up without question or murmur. He has some justification for viewing Americans as he does- after all, they believed all his nonsense for eighteen months on the campaign trail. But disdaining your supposed countrymen comes at a very high cost. As Obama will discover.

Huh? That cannot be right... can it?

'Eighty-two percent (82%) of Democrats say the president is doing a good or excellent job, but 57% of Republicans rate his performance as poor. Voters not affiliated with either party are much more closely divided: 39% say good or excellent, while 35% say poor.'

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/august_2009/45_rate_obama_good_or_excellent_as_a_leader_down_19_points_from_january

Two surprising statistics- 43% of Republicans rate Obama as doing a good or excellent job; and 35% of non-affiliateds say he's doing a poor job. It was the non-affiliateds who voted Obama in. How more Republicans than non-affiliateds can be positive about the shambles that is the Obama administration I can't imagine.

Regime change for Burma

'World leaders have reacted with anger and disappointment at the conviction of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi for violating security laws.
The UN called for her immediate release after she was sentenced to a further 18 months of house arrest - where she has spent 14 of the past 20 years.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8195830.stm

Wouldn't it be really cool if there was an organisation, maybe an international organisation, that sanctioned the removal of regimes like the disgusting greedy criminals that run Burma...

Oh, there is one? Well, get to it guys!

Want to check for yourself?

For anybody who wants to decide for themselves whether the anti-socialised medicine protests are faked 'astroturf' or genuine heartfelt protest, you can watch a huge slew of videos here (http://www.clubforgrowth.org/protests/). Shouldn't take too long...

BBC tentatively covers huge story eventually

'So are the "grassroots" genuinely angry, or are the protests simply manufactured "astroturf"?
That depends largely on your politics - or whether you watch the liberal MSNBC or conservative Fox News.
If you are an Obama Democrat, you will find reason to be suspicious.
Why, for example, are the protesters filming the meetings and then posting video on the internet?'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8194485.stm

I try to give credit where credit is due. Although this piece starts by laying out in detail the Dem view of the supposed 'mobs' protesting against socialized medicine in America, it then goes on to provide a number of the legitimate criticisms of the Dem view.

But is the piece as a whole un-biased? Try this thought experiment. Go back in your mind to 2006, the very height of the anti-Iraq-intervention maelstrom. Picture Code Pink and/or Cindy Sheehan suddenly revealing themselves at a congressional hearing, shouting and chanting, disrupting the whole proceedings until they are thrown out by security. Would they video it?

Anybody who knows WHY these things are done knows that videoing it is THE WHOLE POINT. You then post the video on all the video hosting sites and on your organisations website and boast about it for a month.

So why the bizarre question? How would the fact that Tea-partiers have some internal organisation and media savvy make them less genuine or legitimate? Nobody at the BBC questioned the self-promotional tactics of those protesting against the Iraq intervention. But then they almost certainly agreed with the protestors. So why in this piece?

And by the way, the first paragraph is a logical nonsense. It can be objectively determined whether the protests are astroturf or not by comparing them in detail to astroturfers of days gone by- there are plenty to choose from. Many of the 'mob' showed up at these meetings on a tide of anger with no sign, no prior knowledge of each other, and no coordination. If you look at the astroturfers, they show up in buses and vans, they have 'leaders' who shepherd the little platoons around, scripts for chants, mass produced printed signs in fonts big enough to be easily picked up by TV cameras, and matching t-shirts or even whole outfits. The astroturfers are also led by people who are trained in media tricks and who will almost certainly have many friends in the local TV stations and newspapers. If the track record of the vast majority of local news reports is anything to go on, the Tea-partiers have NO friends in local tv and newspapers.

Many of the local tv stations and newspapers ignored the Tea Party protests at town hall meetings completely if they could. They know that denying the Tea Partiers the oxygen of publicity is the best way of limiting their appeal to the public at large, and of helping the dem friends.

One very large-scale problem America faces is the enormous number of liberal arts/humanities graduates churned out of US universities, 99% of whom lean left or are blatantly socialist. They have few career choices. Up until now, one of the few careers open to a graduate in English Lit would be media, whether TV or print. So year after year, more and more dems/socialists pour into the media, whereas young republicans are much more likely to choose a career as a business-person, engineer, manufacturer, join the armed forces or a profession.

So if you work in the media, you may never meet a republican from one year to the next, and imagine in your tiny mind that they are a minute, vanishing breed. Certainly thats an opinion many of them seem to hold. When I worked at AP, I met numerous people who were shocked to discover I was a conservative. For them, it was like suddenly discovering a left-over dinosaur. Of course, the reality is, outside of the media and a few other bastions, most Americans ARE republicans, or non-committed conservatives. Most polling indicates the mass of Americans are to the right of center. Even many who vote dem are right of center, viz Hillary Clintons sudden rediscovery of her Tammy Wynette roots, gun collection and Baptist hallelujah religion when Obama overtook her in the primary race.

So it seems that the hopes of the Tea Party Protesters getting a fair hearing on either side of the Atlantic is small. Certainly the BBC don't want to give them the benefit of any doubt, but are forced to so far by their editorial system. How long can that last?

Forget your stupid facts, believe our lies!!!

'How could the left possibly be losing the debate on health-care reform when its opponent is the roundly loathed health insurance industry -- an ongoing criminal syndicate, in my view, that demands protection money from sick people?

It's because the insurance industry's demagoguery is better and smarter than the reformists' demagoguery. This is a gunfight to which the reform agenda has brought a dull spoon.'

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09221/989355-109.stm#ixzz0NmVwYkTf

See, its not about the enormous mountain of debt the US government already owes people, its not about taking another huge chunk of the private sector into public ownership, its not about the easily detectable lies being peddled by the President of the United States because he thinks ordinary people are stoopid- no no.

Its about words.

Who can say the prettiest words with the right inflections so other people actually think those words are true. Who can shape the most elegant, eloquent lies.

How revealing, in the worst possible way.