Funniest (saddest?) article from the great V.D.Hanson!

I couldn’t stop laughing but, at a certain point, wasn’t sure if I was laughing or crying:

Here’s a tutorial for up-and-coming thugs abroad:

DRESS MATTERS
Remember: Wear anything but a suit and tie. The Iranian no-tie look impresses a lot of Americans, as it “makes a statement” that you are not part of a global conformist class, but instead deliberately challenge the norms of bourgeois dress.

DON’T FORGET GROOMING
Try the perpetual three-day beard, Arafat-style, as if you’re always shaving in the field with your comrades. Next best is mangy facial hair, à la Ahmadinejad, which suggests you once were an artist, novelist, or dissident of some sort.

MILK THE U.N.
Get on as many U.N. committees as possible. The more slots you have on the Human Rights Commission and its appendages, the more you can imprison. Send a few goons to serve on a U.N. peacekeeping force. They’ll like the money and sex, and it wins you cover later on.

Jew-hating is always a win-win situation: Don’t laugh: “The Jews did it” still works. Ask Ahmadinejad about last week.

Read it all!

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

Obama's trip to Moscow: The main issue was missile defense and on this Putin/Medvedev didn't budge.

Despite the MSM celebrations of an historical “resetting” of relations between US and Russia, Obama’s visit to Moscow was not a success. The main issue was, of course, missile defense, and on this Putin/Medvedev didn’t budge.

Furthermore, the negotiation of a new arms control treaty to replace the 1991 Start I pact which expires in December that could see the two countries reducing their nuclear warheads by up to a third has been hailed as a “breakthrough”, but it is mostly fluff: 1^st, it has not been ratified by Congress and therefore it is no binding and 2^nd, the announced “cut” would have been achieved anyway by the Moscow Treaty of 2002 by 2012.

A concession on Afghanistan though: Russia agrees to allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, allowing it to avoid using supply routes through Pakistan that are attacked by militants. No big favor, this: Russia is more than happy to leave the problem of Islamic fundamentalism at his southern border to others.

What is extremely worrying is the possibility of Obama running Poland and other allies under the bus (dropping the missile shield programme) in his hopeless quest for help from Russia against a nuclear Iran.

#iranelection Did the Toppling of Saddam Hussein Lead to Recent Events in Iran?

Many Iranians go as religious pilgrims to the holy sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran's regime doing less and less well). They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media. Meanwhile, an Iranian mullah caste that classifies its own people as children who are mere wards of the state puts on a "let's pretend" election and even then tries to fix the outcome.

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

#iranElection I find this quite revolting: "Despite Crisis, Policy on Iran Is Engagement"

In an interview with the NYT, a day before his scheduled departure for Moscow on Sunday, Mr. Obama said he had “grave concern” about the arrests and intimidation of Iran’s opposition leaders, but insisted, as he has throughout the Iranian crisis, that the repression would not close the door on negotiations with the Iranian government.

“We’ve got some fixed national security interests in Iran not developing nuclear weapons, in not exporting terrorism, and we have offered a pathway for Iran to rejoining the international community,” Mr. Obama said.

This attitude denotes, in my opinion, a total lack of flexibility, an incapacity to adapt to changing scenarios and take advantage of positive developments, almost an ideological fixity that resents anything that departs from the agreed “script”.

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

#iranElection Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...

From my 20 June 2005 blog:

Iran Moderate Says Hard-Liners Rigged Election: Duh! Even the NYT gets it!

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

#iranElection Khamenei is under pressure, and he is not well equipped to deal with it.

There is no longer room for new prisoners in Tehran’s jails;  they are now using sports arenas as holding areas…

Meanwhile, the American Government was sending conflicting signals to Tehran.  On the one hand, it seems that Obama will be going to the upcoming G8 conference with a request that there be no new sanctions on Iran.  This comes at a time when the Europeans, for the first time, seem inclined to get at least a little bit tougher on the mullahs, and it effectively demolishes the myth that this administration intends to do anything to support the Iranian people in their life and death struggle for freedom.

At the same time, Vice President Joe Biden three times said the United States would do nothing to prevent an Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear targets.

So apparently we’re prepared to let the Israelis do our dirty work. A real standup sort of policy.

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

An excellent analysis of the situation in #Honduras by Douglas Farah

Douglas Farah:

The Honduras situation leaves the United States with difficult options. How the Obama administration handles this challenge against a government that was in the process of breaching the constitutional order will have powerful repercussions across Latin America. Similar challenges could appear in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Ecuador as the Bolivarian governments move to consolidate their hold on power and meet resistance.

It is tempting to see the restoration of Zelaya as the democratic imperative, and most of the international community is pressing for this outcome, while not endorsing Chávez's threats of violence. The Organization of American States is set to impose a series of crippling economic sanctions if Zelaya is not allowed to return in some form. But it is worth looking further at the implications of the Boliviarian revolution writ large.

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

"China Sends 'Internet Addicts' to Boot Camp". This must be the equivalent of "psychiatric institutions" in the USSR

There are no “internet addicts” of course; there are only “addicts” (If not to the internet, it would be to something else) and stupid journalists always searching for a shocking headline. I doubt the Chinese ignore this, so I am very suspicious of such statements:

In a fenced off area on the edge of Beijing, an authoritarian sergeant is drilling a group of plump young people. They are not young recruits, but internet addicts who have been locked up on this military terrain for rehabilitation.

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

#honduras #iranelection We should never hesitate to roar our defiance, and contempt, in the faces of dictators.

A very relevant post from Michelle: They have no more right to rule the people of Iran, Honduras, Cuba, or Venezuela than they did to rule Germany, Russia, or France. The language of freedom cannot be properly spoken by appeasers, manipulators, or international socialists. It is the speech of eagles and lions.

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

This is a moment when the U.S. ought to be on the side of the rule of law, which the Honduran court and Congress upheld.

Mr. Zelaya's violations of the rule of law in recent months were numerous. But the tipping point came 10 days ago, when he led a violent mob that stormed a military base to seize and distribute Venezuelan-printed ballots for an illegal referendum…

If Washington does not reverse course, it will be one more act of appeasement toward an ambitious and increasingly dangerous dictator.

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

I am testing my new blog @ http://captainmarlow.posterous.com

I will have both domains active (Blogger and Posterous) for a while and then I’ll decide which one to keep. I’ll inform you asap. Thank you!

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

Fantastic Mark Stein: Obama was supposed to be "cool." But he isn't. He's square.

President Barack Obama was supposed to be "cool." But he isn't. He's square. Not just mildly so, but embarrassingly square. He's squaresville squared. It's like you're having a party with your friends, and he's the cringe-making middle-age parent who wants to show he digs where the young people are at by grooving around in the middle of the dance floor all night long. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/percent-obama-government-2483574-spending-warming.>

Posted via email from captainmarlow's posterous

Obama: Tyrannosavior Rex (#iranElection #honduras)

Obama’s foreign policy to date has been so erratic, so inconsistent, so egregious that it could mark the end of Realpolitik for ever (and good riddance!).

Still brainwashed after all this time…

The residual scum we are still seeing on the world scene like the Iranian “Supreme Leader”, Mugabe, Castro, Kim Jong Il and other “comrades”, are leftovers from the cold war and have survived so long only because of the cold war.

Nevertheless, so many people have been brainwashed during that period by the extremely effective and implacable Soviet propaganda machine (remember the anti-war movement during the Vietnam war that transformed so many young people and naive celebrities into unwilling enemy agents) that they still treat these douchebags with white gloves.

Even today, some idiot of a “journalist” will often be apologetic of Saddam’s regime (if only to better hit Bush). No article about Mugabe is complete without some kind of self flagellation for the “Colonies” (arguably the best thing that ever happened to Africa) or a scathing critique of poor Mr. Smith (a very good if impolitic man). No BBC show discussing poverty and famine in DPK will ever mention that 40 years of communism – not draught (or sanctions, goodness forbid!) – have reduced that country to a beggar state. And no article about the ongoing revolution (let’s hope it succeeds) in Iran can be free of a bit of Shah bashing.

Can we please get over it without having to wait for the “Vietnam generation” to die? Can we treat a clenched fist salute the same as a fascist salute (that is, ban both salutes and parties)? Can the West, instead of stupidly apologizing for real or often invented crimes, admit that, were it not for America, it had almost fallen again for another totalitarian myth? Or is this the reason why many “intellectuals” do not want to pay the price of gratitude and would rather maddeningly insist in their discredited theories?

Enough.

NB: Before some smartass with a Che T-shirt who thinks he knows everything because she/he reads the Huffpo or Reddit questions my credentials, let me say that yes, I was in Iran before the 1979 revolution. Yes, in Zimbabwe I have witnessed many times people in the street paying their respects to Mr. Smith (he usually came to Harare for some shopping and to go to the Post Office) with women curtseying and clapping their hands in the shona custom; he was very much loved by the people (not so Mr. Mugabe, who was never elected democratically and stole even the fist election though violence and intimidation). And yes, I was also in Iraq before and after the liberation….

You can imagine my feelings when I watch today’s phony fake slanted biased news…

The end of Europe or “Ending with a Whimper II”

Or “Ending with a whimper II”:

The UK government's official anti-terror law watchdog says that the thousands of people are being stopped and searched by the police under counter-terrorism powers simply to provide a racial balance in official statistics.

#iranElection The difference between a man and a jellyfish

Reagan had impressed upon his aides that he wanted to be kept well informed on Polish developments. "Less than two weeks after his inauguration," O'Sullivan relates, "Reagan met with his senior foreign policy advisers to discuss how to undermine Communist power in Poland and discourage Soviet intervention."

#iranElection A barefaced Christiane Amanpour

From my old blog: Monday, January 16, 2006

Poor Oriana Fallaci! She must be puking when she watches CNN! Her good friend - former, I hope - Christiane Amanpour, once a decent reporter, is now openly defending Teheran's regime (for love of her husband or his career? Return to her origins? Who knows?).

This morning she was broadcasting from a Teheran hotel room wearing an improbable and unwarranted green veil on her head, twisting facts and presenting them from the point of view of Ahmadinejad (and it's not the first time). Are we seeing a recurrence of the infamous CNN coverage of Saddam's regime?

And look at her now:

Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent and a native of Iran, arrived back in London on Tuesday after her one-week Iranian visa expired.

#iranElection Do it, President Obama, please. Take the side of democracy.

During the campaign you mocked those who belittled your rhetoric as “just words.” Well, what you’ve offered so far is less than just words. You’ve put a fresh coat of whitewash on Iran’s sham “democracy.” On Monday, you proclaimed yourself “troubled” by the events in Iran, before hinting that you’d negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad no matter what an official investigation into his “landslide” victory found. (Would you trust Mafia internal audits, too?).

#iranElection Another interesting site

http://tehranlive.org/

When following Iran’s elections on MSM, never forget this:

CNN admits that knowledge of murder, torture, and planned assassinations were suppressed in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau.

In a shocking New York Times opinion piece, CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan has admitted that for the past decade the network has systematically covered up stories of Iraqi atrocities. Reports of murder, torture, and planned assassinations were suppressed in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau.

I want to blog and tweet at the same time. I need to make sure that each blog post start with something that makes sense as a stand alone tweet…

The BBC these last two days has been broadcasting about some Romanian families in Belfast having to be relocated following intimidation and violence from local residents. As much as I find repulsive such an occurence, I would think that the BBC, instead of limiting itself to denounce the fact as racism, could tell us why this is happening. Perhaps they ignore that Romanians are hated all over Europe as many of them quickly turn or return to criminal activities in their new "homes".

This is not to say that all Romanians are criminals of course, but it would help if they themselves were to sanitize their communities, at least to show some responsibility.

Unfortunately these phenomena are less and less rare and are caused by the uncontrolled immigration policies that the left so actively promotes and the BBC loves. Since everybody understands that these policies, far from having humanitarian motives, are only a means to an end (that is, getting more votes), it is surprising that the left should continue in this charade.

Perhaps the hammering they took in the last European parliamentary elections will teach them a lesson.

The urgency of the Cairo address

I believe there is very little doubt that 9/11 and George Bush following policies have changed the Middle East forever. Results of the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq will of course take years to become evident and their influence in the rest of the Region will take even longer. From this comes the urgency, for the Democratic party, to deny this merit to Republicans as quickly as possible and be able to claim ownership of “we changed the Arab world", we and Obama with his historical speech in Cairo did it”.

The “historical speech”, although better than I expected (apart for a couple of horrible blunders of which I will write sometime in the near future and the usual stupid apologies, could have been straight out of Bush’s mouth), was full of good intentions and scarce on solutions; if Obama thinks that he can turn around the Arab world with nice words, he better think again. Arab regimes survive on lies and by redirecting hatred (as he bravely mentioned); not one of them however, will commit political suicide because a black man (which they despise and still enslave in many Muslim countries) asks them to forget the past and embrace the future.

We will have to wait and see, but in my opinion the best we can expect is business as usual. As for the worst…I don’t even want to think about it.

PS: For the religious authorities of the Cairo university from which Obama launched his kumbaya message, he is an apostate and according to the Quran should be killed.

Comedy Central

Former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on the orders of the special death squad formed by former US vice-president Dick Cheney, which had already killed the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafique Al Hariri and the army chief of that country.
The squad was headed by General Stanley McChrystal, the newly-appointed commander of US army in Afghanistan. It was disclosed by reputed US journalist Seymour Hersh while talking to an Arab TV in an interview.

A number of websites around the world are suspecting the same unit for killing of Benazir Bhutto because in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV on November 2, 2007, she had mentioned the assassination of Usama Bin Laden, Seymour said. According to BB, Umar Saeed Sheikh murdered Usama, but her words were washed out from the David Frosts report, he said.
The US journalist opined that it might have been done on purpose because the US leadership did not like to declare Usama dead for in the case the justification of the presence of US army in Afghanistan could no more be there, hence no reason for operation against Taliban.

Ending with a whimper

German politicians recently tried to outlaw paintball, a sport employing guns that use compressed air to fire 17mm paint balls at other players in contests simulating firefights…

…But that's why many German politicians wanted to outlaw the sport, calling it "immoral" and a "disgrace."

Europe today…

Hypocrisy

Can someone please explain to me the meaning of today’s TimesOnline article title?

Fears of mass suicide as Tamil Tigers face final defeat

Kick her out…now.

Together with her cronies: the revolting, lying ruffians Reid, Dodd, Frank, etc.

Beating them at their own game

Let’s hit back! The politically correct idiots can be beaten at their own game!

LANDLADY Kerry Fenton is using a legal loophole so regulars can smoke inside her pub.

Kerry’s tap room has been turned into a “Smoking Research Centre” after pal James Martin studied the law and discovered a get-out clause. It means the nationwide smoking ban could be reduced to ashes if other pubs and clubs cash in on the idea. All Kerry’s punters have to do is fill in a questionnaire asking how many cigarettes they smoke and if they like a smoky atmosphere. Then they can sit back and enjoy a fag with their pint.

I just love the idea of using newspeak to really free people from the nanny state nightmare!

And his ploy seems to have confused Whitehall. The Home Office said: “It’s the Department of Health’s responsibility.”  But the Department of Health  insisted: “It’s up to the Home Office to enforce the law.”

Of course they are confused! “weren’t we the ones supposedly enslaving freeing people?” they are thinking…

I am almost sorry I quit long ago…

Double standards

There is no doubt in my mind that the beginning of the end of the Western civilization started with the adoption of Article 33 of the Refugee Convention (against refoulement, or the expulsion or return of a refugee to a place where his life or freedom would be threatened) which of course is a double edged sword.

Anyway, let us forget my dire predictions for a moment and pretend everything is honky dory:

Italy has just introduced a policy of returning boatloads of migrants to Libya before they can claim asylum. The move has attracted criticism, with the UN's refugee agency and the Vatican both saying the move was a breach of international law.

So  the UN saying: don’t return them to Libya, they could be treated badly or even tortured! How come then that Libya has been the chairman of the infamous UN Human Rights Council for three years?

The BBC's Duncan Kennedy, in Rome, says many Italians believe their country is being left on its own by the European Union to deal with the problem of immigration.

Again, isn’t it funny? How many criticisms have you heard directed at Sarkozy’s ordering police to shoot on the crowds in the banlieues (more concentration camps than suburbs)? Or Zapatero repatriating 350,000 immigrants last year or his “Guardia civil” killing people trying to climb Ceuta’s fences?

Perhaps Italy, now that it has a serious government, is not part of the “club” anymore?

Kremlin: Battles over energy may lead to wars

Well, duh!

While emerging countries continue to exploit their resources to ensure development and growth, the West fiddles with global warming, polar bears, and slowly dies of a political correctness overdose.

Indonesia’s Voters Retreat From Radical Islam 2

On 11 May 09 The director of the National Survey Institute, Umar S Bakry, said the legislative election results with the secular Democratic Party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono tripling its share of the vote in parliamentary election results announced over the weekend, shows support for religious parties has nosedived in Indonesia. Official results from last month's vote show that support for the main Islamist parties declined from 39% five years ago to just 24% with experts attributing the decline on more modern, urban voters viewing Islamic parties as intolerant. (Republika/AP)

Very good news indeed; this confirms the trend indicated in my earlier post.

Like a Prayer

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is marking today's National Day of Prayer [7 may]-- but not publicly.

The president has signed a proclamation about the day in private. There'll be no public ceremony involving prominent clerics, lawmakers or prayers, as there was when George W. Bush was in the White House.

Just like a dream, you are not what you see
Just like a prayer, no choice your voice can take me there…

Jokes, bitterness and lack of class

It would seem that under Obama’s regime it is not acceptable to make a joke about Nancy “I forgot” Pelosi:

…if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.

Which, apart from being funny is also very true (Feherty had to apologize), but it is perfectly all right to wish death to Obama’s critics (the Dear Leader will even laugh with you):

But she wasn't done. "Rush Limbaugh says 'I hope the country fails." I hope his kidneys fail. How about that? He needs some waterboarding, that's what he needs."

Well… you can’t expect class from people who shamelessly exploit their race and your guilt, can you?

Well, well, well…

If you don’t want to puke or at least spoil your week-end, just skip this post. Straight from the WAPO (of all places):

DEFENSE SECRETARY Robert M. Gates earned modest headlines in the United States this week for playing down the possibility of a "grand bargain" with Iran after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (ed.which of course is what he is trying to pull off)…

The Obama administration, which has rushed to embrace Egypt's 81-year-old strongman, would do well to consider why al-Jazeera -- not known for pro-American sympathies -- would choose to trumpet that report.

Mr. Gates, like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton before him, heaped praise on Mr. Mubarak while making clear that the new administration will not trouble him about his systematic and often violent repression of the country's liberal politicians, bloggers and human rights activists.

Yet, as al-Jazeera well understands, Mr. Mubarak and his fellow Arab autocrats are widely despised across the region -- and the United States is blamed for unconditionally propping them up. In fact, Mr. Bush won credit from many Egyptians for pressing for democratic change; he was criticized because he failed to follow through. Now, Arabs around the region are learning that the Obama administration is returning to the old U.S. policy of ignoring human rights abuses by Arab dictators in exchange for their cooperation on security matters -- that is, the same policy that produced the Middle East of Osama bin Laden, Hamas and Saddam Hussein.

Congratulations B.O.! Continue on this road and George Bush will be the new Reagan in six months (and in terms of foreign policy, that would only be fair).

Way to go, B.O.!

Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Atta Qassim said the resurgence of Al Qaida was fueled by the U.S. release of nearly 4,000 insurgents in 2009. Qassim said the released insurgents have been returning to both Al Qaida and organized crime.

But…but…they always told me it was because they didn’t like Bush!

Cry wolf

Many people,when I suggested that the MSM had contributed to the Swine flu hysteria and that there was no reason to be afraid, replied: “but the WHO raised the pandemic alert rating to 5!”. It seems that the WHO has realized that, following blindly their alert criteria only fed panic material to the media:

The World Health Organisation is considering an overhaul of its pandemic ratings system amid growing criticism that it provoked unnecessary alarm by rapidly escalating its warnings over swine flu…
…Media organisations initially seized on the raising of the alerts in front page headlines around the world, but as it has emerged that the death toll has stayed relatively low, so the criticism has mounted. As of Thursday morning the WHO had confirmed 2,099 cases in 23 countries, including 44 deaths….

Unfortunately this comes at a critical moment and could give ammunition to either sides of the aisle, preventing an objective decision to be taken:

The Obama administration is weeks away from a critical decision on whether to trigger mass production of swine-flu vaccine, which could affect the bottom lines of big vaccine makers as well as public health.
Besides determining whether a vaccine would be effective and safe, government officials and private laboratories will need to answer practical and financial questions: Does it make sense to order hundreds of millions of doses and organize a mass vaccination campaign for a virus that, so far, isn't widespread and doesn't seem particularly lethal?

Keep him in this time

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The suspected leader of a radical Islamist group linked to the 2002 Bali bombings has been arrested 15 months after he escaped from a high security prison in Singapore, the government said on Friday.

Mas Selamat Kastari was the alleged mastermind of a plot to hijack a plane and crash it into Singapore's Changi Airport.

Singapore authorities have also accused him of planning several truck bomb attacks across the island state.

So long and thanks for all the feeds

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch expects News Corporation-owned newspaper Web sites to start charging users for access within a year in a move which analysts say could radically shake-up the culture of freely available content.

I think blogs will have an enormous boost if newspapers go ahead with this silly move.

Lost in translation 2

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday played down tensions with Russia over Georgia…

Translation: you want Georgia, NATO? No problem, you can have whatever you want; you see, our foreign policy is collapsing on all fronts, at least we can show we are making some progress…

…Obama told reporters: "We have an excellent opportunity to reset the relationship between the United States and Russia on a whole host of issues."

Translation: let’s try again…

They keep helping him

THE gorgeous 18-year-old involved with breaking up Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s 30-year marriage calls him "Papi," or "Daddy," because he really is her father, according to a rumor circulating widely in Italy.

I just love it! The retards of Italian opposition plus those of the BBC, The Economist, etc. usually band together to attack “the man the left loves to hate” and, with clockwork precision, give him a huge boost in the polls. Mr. Di Pietro, head of the IDV (Italia dei Valori) party, a notorious fraudster and con man, one day communist the other fascist, has gone so far as to hint that Mr. Berlusconi might be a pedophile.

This time the timely fabricated scandal might give Mr. Berlusconi’s party (il Popolo della Liberta’) a big push in the forthcoming European Parliament elections.

Iran Policy

Jane “I was in Vietnam but I am still a coward” Kerry’s contradictory ramblings seem directed at further confusing the issue of what to do with Iran' terrorist activities, nuclear proliferation and continuing killings of Americans in Iraq and elsewhere:

The United States has stepped back from the notion of "regime change" in Iran…
…"Just as we abandon calls for regime change in Teheran and recognize a legitimate Iranian role in the region, Iran's leaders must moderate their behavior…
…Kerry praised the Obama administration's focus on diplomacy with Iran, adding that "engagement alone is not a strategy and talks are not an end in themselves."…

Interestingly, the Country Report on Terrorism, released at the end of April 2009, states, among various trends, this:

Iran "remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism".

Can anyone see where all this is going? I can’t…this is the only result I can see and of course the only alternative at this point would be this: Israel would inform, not ask U.S. before hitting Iran.

Best job in the world

…can’t type…tears of envy flooding keyboard…

Lost in translation 1

President Obama says that his meetings with the leaders of both Afghanistan and Pakistan were 'extraordinarily productive.'

Translation: a waste of time, back to square one. This is not working, don’t know what to do now…

US President Barack Obama has said after meeting his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts that they are united in the goal of defeating al-Qaeda.

Translation: they couldn’t agree on the time of day. Finally, and it was hard work, they found something they could share: the Earth is round (most of the time).

Getting your priorities right

Afghanistan's only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats, because people are worried it could infect them with the virus popularly known as swine flu.

I don’t know why but this is the saddest, most depressing thing I have read this week…I feel a fatwa coming…(h/t bravelittlememe)

Looking the other way

In my earlier post on piracy (Pirates? Poppycock!) I asked a simple question: why are we passively suffering piracy and why don’t we take the simple initiative and actions required against such a relatively modest threat ? (please look again at the photo in my old post; we are not talking about South East Asia Malay vagabonds attacking fishermen)

Today I ran into a great article that both answers my question (and many others) and highlights how low the West has come and how it is now unable to confront any enemies at all:

It has become fashionable to present reports on piracy that are wrapped in a tranquilizer. It is suggested that the solution of the problem is in Somalia. Save Somalia (throw money at it?) and all will be hanky-dory. One is tempted to suspect that the popularity of the mantra has to do with the trick of attaching an otherwise threateningly soluble problem to a precondition that cannot be met. The benefit is that, succumbing to the West’s luxurious self-doubts, a good reason is given to persist in doing the unreasonable. Thereafter it becomes easy to desist from solving the solvable.

Read it all.

Israel under the bus

…His (Obama’s) administration is proceeding on the entirely false analysis that a state of Palestine is the solution to the Middle East impasse and the route to peace in the region…
…But the ordinary American people are a different matter. They do value and support Israel. They do understand that if Israel is thrown under that bus, the west is next…
…This is shaping up to be the biggest crisis in relations between Israel and America since the foundation of Israel six decades ago. Those who hate Israel and the Jews will be gloating. This after all is precisely what they hoped Obama would do. To any decent person looking on aghast, this is where the moral sickness of the west reaches the critical care ward.

Melanie, as usual, gets her priorities right…read it all.

Georgia Says It Has Uncovered Russian-Planned Military Coup

Defense Minister David Sikharulidze said an "attempt at a military coup" had been uncovered and the commanders of the Mukhrovani military base had been dismissed and soldiers confined to barracks.
The Interior Ministry said one person had been arrested.
"It was aimed at disrupting the NATO military exercises and an attempt at a military coup," Sikharulidze told Georgian Rustavi 2 television.
The Interior Ministry said Russia was involved in the coup plot.

This must be the ‘reset’ button at work…

Breaking news!!!

Obamas take a walk, holding hands in the evening.

F^&%#*g unbelievable…

Global warming doesn’t sell

This is a blatant case of Newspeak; brainwashing at its best. Change the offending word and they will swallow whatever trash you want to feed them:

EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders…

The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”…The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

BTW, I would like to ask Al Gore if he’s ever wondered why Greenland is called Greenland…

Can we be free?

What would happen if traffic lights were suddenly switched off? Would there be gridlock or would the queues of frustrated drivers miraculously disappear?

This is an extremely interesting experiment and worth following; the political implications are staggering.

Going “casablanca”

This week-end I am “going casablanca” which is, if you really don’t know, exactly the opposite of “going walkabout”.

The concept is simple: lock the door, power off your cell, get a cold six-pack of your favorite brew and pick an “oldie” or two to watch with your feet up.

See you on Monday!

Give us Boris!

As much as I dislike Gordon Brown, Cameron’s program sounds even more stupid/scary:

So let’s get this right. We have Stalin’s nervous breakdown going on in Number 10, the British economy smashed to pieces, world war three about to erupt courtesy of Pakistan and Iran, the implosion of the taxpayer model of public service, and the institutionalized intimidation and bullying of citizens upholding the values of right and wrong as a result of the dominance of group rights and minority pseudo-‘victim’ culture – and the Tories propose to shimmy around on neo-Marxist and nihilistic rainbow coalition marches as they take us back to a pre-industrial peasant economy, with Iain Duncan Smith tacked on as camouflage for the final disintegration of normative values, common sense and national survival.

A conservative opposition? More like a Weimar cabaret act.

Obama not doing so well

If you think the triumphant headlines about Obama’s first 100 days are suspicious, if you find that MSM praise is fishy, don’t doubt your judgment; you are right. In fact, compared to previous presidents, he is doing poorly:

Gallup reports that 56% of the public believes that Obama is doing an excellent/good job. Gallup reported 62% approved of George W. Bush's job performance after the first 100 days.

Here are the numbers for other presidents:

April approval ratings in first year in office

Bush now 62% 
Clinton, 1993 55
Bush, 1989 58
Reagan, 1981 67
Carter, 1977 63
Nixon, 1969 61
Sampling error: +/-3% pts

The same discrepancy can be found in the celebration of Michelle popularity. 79% approve of her performance compared to 85% that approved of Laura Bush.

The more they lie and cover for him now, the more they will turn against him later.

Anything for a friend

Iran and Venezuela signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on bilateral defense ties on Thursday. Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and his Venezuelan counterpart Ramon Carrizalez signed the document in Caracas, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The contract underlines an expansion of defense cooperation in education and exchanging experiences on defense issues, according to the report.

Najjar expressed Iran's readiness to assist Venezuela in developing its defense capabilities, it said. Najjar also met Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who highlighted Iran's "positive and constructive" role in the Middle East and its position in the foreign policy of Venezuela, according to the report.

Foot in mouth disease

Following my two earlier posts on Swine flu [influenza A(H1N1) as of yesterday], I confess I forgot to mention perhaps the most important point of all:

Never, never listen to poor Joe Biden!

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs turned into a stand-up comedian today when tap dancing around Joe Biden’s controversial remarks this morning on the flu. If you didn’t hear about Biden’s appearance on the Today Show, he basically said that in order to remain safe from the flu, people should avoid cars, planes, classrooms, trains, subways, and confined spaces. Where should they go? Biden said the “middle of a field” was pretty safe. (You can read more about it here).

He must have taken his collar off again!

Obama’s Syria policy

Ok, let’s see…

• Besides having a falafel sandwich, Clinton's signature moment in Lebanon was a promise that "There is nothing that we would do in any way that would undermine Lebanon's sovereignty.

and

• Clinton urges fair, transparent Lebanese elections

but

• Hillary Clinton offers handshake of friendship to Syria

and

• U.S. Plans New Talks With Syria

in the meantime

• Syria's Credit Rating Sees Unique Boost
• Turkey and Syria conduct military drill, Israel disturbed
• Suspects in Hariri’s Death Released

so that

• Hezbollah, allies eye election

It will be interesting to watch how the various players respond to “the dialog” …

Cutting off your nose…

Stratfor on Obama’s decision to release four classified memos from former President George W. Bush’s administration that authorized “enhanced interrogation techniques.”:

Unlike in television shows like “24,” it is not uncommon in the real world for a meeting called to plan a counterterrorism operation to feature more CIA lawyers than case officers or analysts. These staff lawyers are intricately involved in the operational decisions made at headquarters, and legal issues often trump operational considerations.

I have seen it in other countries as well and I don’t understand it; as a revenge against previous administrations, is rather masochistic! A Secret Service should be secret, period. This fake moral posturing is so transparent (I mean, nobody believes for a second that any president/politician would give a damn about “enhanced interrogation techniques.”!) that it is not worth the price of tying the hands of your own country’s intelligence service. The disadvantage is equivalent to losing the arms race to your enemies.

Swine flu again

I am touching on this issue again because I have noticed that a lot of people do not know how to react to the bombardment of news they are subjected to; I was surprised (and a little revolted) by the time that was given by the Media yesterday to the death of a Mexican child in Texas which, sad as it is, should have been better employed to inform the public.

A few points that might help you interpret correctly what is going on:

• between 250,000 and 500,000 people die every year of seasonal flu
• normally, the more dangerous the virus is to its host, the less it will spread (e.g. Ebola)
• understand the difference between Case Fatality Ratio (CFR), virulence and mortality rate
• Mexico’s numbers are, for the moment, almost useless to determine any of the above (in fact yesterday Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease…not 150 as circulated before)
• relatively recent epidemic/pandemic fears like Mad Cow disease, SARS and Avian Influenza have had a beneficial effect in promoting awareness, stockpiling of anti-viral drugs and preparation of contingency plans; however, authorities must balance these advantages against crying wolf too many times.
• the 1918 pandemic that killed 50 million people is often quoted; remember though that at the time the world was just coming out of  World War I and no anti-viral drugs or antibiotics (to cure respiratory complications) were available.
• take also into account, that vested interests, political agendas, snake oil salesmen must be factored in when reading or watching news about swine flu (or anything else for that matter)

One lie after another…

Before someone accuses me of not being objective, I will quote the AP, a notoriously liberal and anti-bush source:

OBAMA: "Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit.... That wasn't me.
THE FACTS: Congress controls the purse strings, not the president, and it was under Democratic control for Obama's last two years as Illinois senator.

Pathetic, like a kid who has broken a vase…read it all, it’s one lie after another…as usual.

History repeats itself

The German Near and Middle East Association (NUMOV), an NGO whose honorary chairman is former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, is promoting billions of euros of trade between German companies and Iran.

Why am I not surprised?

Gurkhas as tough as ever

Thanks to my previous post (you wish!) the government has been defeated on the Gurkhas’ settlement rights:

“All Gurkhas are welcome in the UK … they fought for us”

People Magazine makes a sick joke

 

…Christina Applegate made the cover of People magazine's 100 most beautiful people issue on Wednesday in a list that welcomed newcomers U.S. first lady Michelle Obama...

Windows XP Mode for Windows 7

Years ago, I asked Robert Scoble (at the time he was still working at Microsoft) why they didn’t develop a legacy-free “parallel” Windows to make a lighter, faster and modern (cutting edge modern, I mean) OS. He replied that the customer base was so huge that there was no way Microsoft could risk such a move.

It seems that the time has come though, and Windows 7 could be the fist step in the right direction; Paul tells us how:

…why bother tying down new Windows versions with legacy deadwood when you can seamlessly and effortlessly run older Windows applications inside of a hidden virtualized environment?… by removing the responsibility of legacy application compatibility from the core OS, Microsoft can strip deadwood technology out of future Windows versions more quickly and create a system that is, by default, even smaller, lighter, and more secure than Windows 7 is today.

The Great Game: continued

 

The Taliban scored the first major victory in the nascent battle of Buner today after its fighters captured 60 Frontier Constabulary and policemen.

Of course the first mistake was to give (tolerate?) any kind of autonomy to the The Federally Administered Tribal  Areas (FATA) in 1947…(click on image to enlarge)

Arabs defending Israel

It’s good to know that at least someone has his feet firmly planted on the ground:

It is true that you can't help but get a funny feeling when you see the Arabs defending Israel from American criticism. But with the Obama administration's Middle East policy firmly grounded in La La Land, what choice do they have? They understand that today all that stands between them and enslavement to the mullahs is the Israel Air Force and Binyamin Netanyahu's courage.

Cap and trade, taxing photosynthesis, and other amenities

Not all students of climate favor legislation and some point out the dangers of over-regulation. Here are a few points by Arthur Robinson from the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons:

• First, man-made carbon dioxide is an insignificant greenhouse gas; water vapor is the major factor.
• Second, the sun’s cosmic rays have the most significant influence over global temperature and weather.
• Third, if all nations’ carbon dioxide emissions were halted the impact would not be significantly measureable.
• Fourth, the imposition of control would be catastrophic, adversely affecting the emerging nations of the world.
• Finally, climate alarmists are motivated by politics and finances, and if the controversy would end, thousands would be unemployed.

Is Britain Finished?

Now…why would anyone say that…

The first 100 days…again

It wasn’t only me then: 100 days, 100 mistakes…

Bless John Howard!

In 2007, Prime Minister John Howard changed the name of the ministries of the Australian government.  What had been the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs became the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Today on Uncommon Knowledge, I ask the former prime minister why.

The whole idea of immigration is to make citizens.  Multiculturalism is a very confused credo. (h/t instapundit)

Excellent analysis of the “AfPak” situation; past, present and future

Required reading, these days …

Too good to pass :-)

Joke of the Day

I recently asked my friend's little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up. She said she wanted to be president some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were president, what would be the first thing you would do?"

She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people." Her parents beamed.

"Wow...what a worthy goal." I told her, "But you don't have to wait until you're president to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house."

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy go over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party." (link)

Indonesia’s Voters Retreat From Radical Islam

You mean … Bush was right?

Welcome the Gurkhas!

A government decision to limit the number of Gurkha veterans allowed to settle in the UK faces a parliamentary challenge from the Liberal Democrats.

The UK should welcome the brave Gurkhas with open arms; this is another idiotic, uninformed and insulting decision by Gordon Brown, who apparently doesn’t even realize where UK’s and his own interests lie:

… immigration Minister Phil Woolas said "It has never been the case that all Gurkhas pre-1997 were to be allowed to stay in the country. With their dependants you could be looking at 100,000 people," he added.

That’s exactly the point, moron, put them in charge of security if you get my drift …

(403) Forbidden

I have been struggling to get around what I thought was a bug of the excellent Windows Live Writer; when trying to publish a post to my Blogger blog, I would get the above error message.

After reading dozens of fora, Q&As, and finding complicated solutions, patches and the like, I added the program to Windows Firewall as an exception and it works.

If you have been having my same problem, try for the simplest solution first before tampering with code!

Swine flu: useful links and tips

Mashable has a few useful links to follow the developments of this latest disease outbreak to which I would like to add my own suggestions. A word of caution, though: there are many vested interests involved and, consequently, a tendency to exaggerate and unnecessarily scare the public; keep this in mind, especially if you follow MSM sites (popular blogs are usually more reliable) or public timelines, and don’t panic!

1)  Get a twitter account: yes, twitter is the gossip and celebrities micro-blogging platform of choice but, if used correctly, also the best real-time news search engine there is. Once you have an account, you want to follow these:

redcross
breakingnews
emergencynews
reutersflash
cnnbrk
ntarc

While on twitter you can also search for #swineflu (with a pinch of salt, see above).

2) Google is of course also a good resource: you may want to set up a search (and relevant email alert) as follows: “http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=%22swine+flu%22+OR~H1N1&scoring=n”

3) Detailed maps of the outbreak can be found here.

4) Of the official specialized sites, I would follow CDC (at the moment the most reliable) and WHO (pinch of salt here, too).

And Spengler is ...

“Spengler”, after years of mystery, has revealed his identity to the world; he is David P Goldman, associate editor of First Things.

Although I am not a religious person, I have followed for years, as thousands of readers have, his brilliant articles and essays on Asia Times; furthermore, we share a great admiration for Pope Benedict XVI.

Why did he use a pseudonym? He tells us:

I needed to tell the Europeans that their post-national, secular dystopia was a death-trap whence no-one would get out alive. I needed to tell the Muslims that nothing would alleviate the unbearable sense of humiliation and loss that globalization inflicted on a civilization that once had pretensions to world dominance. I needed to tell Asians that materialism leads only to despair. And I needed to tell the Americans that their smugness would be their undoing.

Read it all.

What happened to Speakers’ Corner?

Nile Nardiner: Sadiq Khan MP, the U.K.’s “Cohesion Minister” (what the f*&^? You’re kidding me!), has called on the British government to distance itself from recent U.S. drone strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban positions on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border…Khan also urged Britain to distance itself from American foreign policy in the region, in order to win over ‘hearts and minds.’

This idiot is an MP? What happened to Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner?

They should put him in the same padded cell with George Galloway and throw away the key!

Pirates? Poppycock!

I have been reading a lot about this issue and of course I don’t believe a word of what has been written; this photo should explain my skepticism:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can anyone tell me how a bunch of idiots riding floating coconuts can take huge tankers hostage?

Who’s behind it? Insurance companies? Terrorists sympathizers? Have we completely lost it?

Be afraid, be very afraid…

But the strategic consequences of the last “offensives” inside Pakistan are boundless. By reaching a distance of 70 miles or so of the capital the Taliban are putting the government under their direct menace. Pushes elsewhere are expected southbound and northeast bound. The army is deploying around public buildings; that is a bad sign. I’d also project a Jihadi push along the Kashmir borders with India. The hydra is expanding gradually, preparing for a massive squeeze.

We should be concerned about two titanic effects on international security: Obviously, the nukes of Pakistan are on the minds of the Al Qaeda leadership, hidden comfortably in the belly of the Taliban. But also the US-led coming campaign in Afghanistan. The Taliban are attempting to change the landscape inside Pakistan and along its northwestern borders so that when the new push begins in Afghanistan, the Taliban would already have a deep hinterland east of the borders and so that the Pakistani Army busy is protecting the government, not in encircling the jihadists. The war room of the terror forces has begun fighting America’s new terrorism strategy before the latter starts. I can only characterize it as a “jihadi preemptive war.”

I am sure you all remember when they were pushing and screaming for Musharraf to resign (not that he was a saint, but certainly better for Pakistan than anything before or after), or when they said that Zardari should give in to Sharif to solve the political stalemate (and Sharif has been sleeping with terrorists for a long time). Whatever happens now should not be a surprise for anyone.

Not only that…

Melanie Phillips quotes an interesting article by Bret Stephens of the WSJ:

Why, for instance, do high-profile Western writers like Portuguese Nobelist José Saramago make ‘solidarity’ pilgrimages to Ramallah, but not to the Chechen capital of Grozny? Why do British academics organize boycotts of their Israeli counterparts, but not their Russian ones? Why is Palestinian statehood considered a global moral imperative, but statehood for Chechnya is not? Why does every Israeli prime minister invariably become a global pariah, when not one person in a thousand knows the name of Chechen ‘President’ Ramzan Kadyrov, a man who, by many accounts, keeps a dungeon near his house in order to personally torture his political opponents? And why does the fact that Mr. Kadyrov is Vladimir Putin's handpicked enforcer in Chechnya not cause a shudder of revulsion as the Obama administration reaches for the ‘reset’ button with Russia?

He has an answer: racism, with which Melanie seems to agree:

I have a hypothesis. Maybe the world attends to Palestinian grievances but not Chechen ones for the sole reason that Palestinians are, uniquely, the perceived victims of the Jewish state.

While this is certainly true, and sadly anti-Semitism is spreading again in Europe, I would like to add another reason to explain the selective behavior of the hypocritical left:  if they attempted to do or say to the Russians (or Sudanese, Arabs, Iranians, North Korean, Chinese) what they do and say to Israel, they would be castrated, quartered, dissolved in acid and shipped back to their countries in a jiffy.

Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Obama is musing about extending the political reach of the criminal law. If he does so, he will find he has opened a new front of political warfare that will not soon end.

After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush drew a curtain of oblivion against all the errors and mistakes that had led up to the attacks. There was accusation and counter-accusation in the media, but at the official level there was no recrimination against President Clinton's decision not to kill bin Laden when he had the chance, no action against those who had failed to stop the 9/11 hijackers from entering the country.

If Obama proceeds to take legal action against those who did what they thought was right to defend the country, all that will change. Prosecutions launched by Obama will not stop when Obama declares "game over." If overzealousness under Bush becomes a crime under Obama, underzealousness under Obama will become a crime under the next Republican president.

And

At least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

No need for Nostradamus

Cause and Effects:

Blasts kill 78 in Iraq's bloodiest day in a year.

Taliban advance eastward, threaten Islamabad.

Just as the Obama administration was reaching out to Iran, the Islamic Republic sentenced an American journalist to eight years in prison and leveled a heated new attack on Israel as racist.

Fidel Castro says that President Barack Obama "misinterpreted" his brother Raul's sentiments toward the United States.

Venezuelan court orders arrest of Chavez opponent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

North Korea says it will try detained US journalists.

And it’s only the beginning.

South Africans Go to the Polls

I don’t envy the poor guys…they have to chose between the ANC (who has not delivered any relief from crime, corruption and poverty and it’s unlikely to do it under Zuma almost certain leadership but will nevertheless win comfortably) and the new Congress of the People (Mbeki’s old guard). The Democratic Alliance, like the ANC, has increased its share of votes in the past but it remains to be seen if and how much COPE will erode its quota.

Obama vs. P2P

Even liberal geeks won’t like this: “In the wake of the Hollywood and major record label attack on Swedish search engine The Pirate Bay, P2P file sharers and enterprises set up to serve the P2P communities can expect a massive upsurge in hostilities.”

First comment!

I welcome my first commenter and appreciate her/his civil – if misinformed – rebuttal; it also gives me an opportunity to clarify a couple of points of my earlier post.

She/he touches on two important points, in my opinion: honesty of the new administration and the damage of Bush legacy.

About the first, there is nothing I can (or wish) to say: hope, like faith, is something that you either have or not have (I must admit I rather admire the pure souls who have this gift).

Besides, if the AIG bonuses pantomime (signing the bonuses, then denying the fact, then going on tv trying to look surprised and revolted by the “scandal”) hasn’t confirmed to all and sundries that politicians – no matter their message – are corrupt by definition (some more then others, of course), there is nothing an old cynical bastard like me can say to shake her/his faith/hope.

The second point is funny in its own way because it is based on a mantra that the dems have – apparently with success – repeated for years; that is, the world hated Bush and therefore America.

It is funny because it is totally baseless and relies more on Bush’s lack of personal warmth and communications skills than anything else. It is not the first time that I encounter this argument and I thought about it a good deal. I believe the answer I have come up with could be useful (perhaps the NYT, The Huffington Post, The Wapo, the BBC might want to adopt it) if some good blogger has the time to develop and publish it.

Here it is: take pen and paper and draw a divider (no pun intended) like a T on the sheet (like an accountant’s debit and credit graph); go back in your mind to a few months or few years ago. On the left column start listing Bush’s foes and on the right his friends/allies; you will immediately realize that the list on the left contains the names of tyrants, dictators, madmen, fraudsters, corrupt politicians, etc. (Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, the Castro brothers, Chavez, Morales, Chirac, Schroeder, Saddam Hussein, etc., etc.) and the right mostly the names of heads of state of democratic countries (Israel, Sarkozy, Merkel, Harper, John Howard and now Rudd, New Zealand, Iraq, etc., etc.). You will admit that to be hated by the scum of the earth is rather a nice compliment, no?

PS: Since I mentioned heads of state and their feelings towards Bush, I would also like to remind my commenter that the main culprits for boycotting the coalition against Saddam (who would have quietly gone into exile without a shot being fired had he seen a united Security Council) were Chirac, Schroeder and Martin, who all played the card of opposing the Iraq liberation war in the hopes of being re-elected. Lo and behold, the Bush haters were kicked out of power!

The first 100 days…

I don’t believe the various theories about Obama’s dark plans, closet communism, etc.; the guy barely understands what he is doing yet. Moreover, he has shown such poor judgment in his choice of friends and mentors in the past (and more recently of team members) that I rather think he is manipulated, not the manipulator.

We’ve all known in our school days the shy kid, the insecure boy who tried to hide his shyness but regularly overdid it, upsetting tables, tripping on his shoe laces, laughing too loud, etc. Well, Obama gives me the same impression: prostrating himself to the bedouin king, jumping up to warmly squeeze Chavez hand, hitting the Queen on the back like one of his basketball pals, dismissing Brown as he would have an undersecretary of Okephenokeestan , etc..

His wife, poor thing (I wouldn’t even mention her if she didn’t play “First Lady” all the time), suffers from the opposite problem; awkward and ungainly as she is, she dresses like a clown and walks like a sasquatch, but insists on being in the forefront at all times; no class at all.

If all this explains the exotic first dog, the ridiculous arugula quote, the pathetic snobbery, with the desire to be loved and accepted by the world, it does not explain why an adult politician in Obama’s position would confuse his personal fears – in fact, himself as a person – with the US of A. Going around the world apologizing for real or imagined wrongs America committed won’t make him or the USA more loved or respected; on the contrary, it will only attract ridicule from his colleagues and embolden his and the world enemies (have you ever heard Sarkozy blame Chirac – as much as they hated each other - or Merkel publicly attack Schroeder as Obama continuously does with his predecessor?)

As for the title of this post, I will not go into the details of Obama’s performance during his induction; others have been doing it meticulously. However, I believe it can be summed up as a total disappointment so far; whatever good will was there, it was squandered by rash decisions, superficial or inexistent study of the issues and horrible choices (apart from his vetting team, which alone would merit our tears – think Joe Biden among others – the publication of the secret memos on enhanced interrogation is such a gift to wanna-be jihadists that could have been published by Bin Laden himself if he could have got his hands on them).

A lot of publicity has also been given to Obama’s new wave of  “opening”, “dialog”, “reset” with USA’s foes; just to give you an idea how much this is naïve, misguided and just plain wrong, let me quote Natan Scharansky:

the great brilliant moment [was] when we learned that Ronald Reagan had proclaimed the Soviet Union an Evil Empire before the entire world. There was a long list of all the Western leaders who had lined up to condemn the evil Reagan for daring to call the great Soviet Union an evil empire right next to the front-page story about this dangerous, terrible man who wanted to take the world back to the dark days of the Cold War. This was the moment. It was the brightest, most glorious day. Finally a spade had been called a spade. Finally, Orwell's Newspeak was dead. President Reagan had from that moment made it impossible for anyone in the West to continue closing their eyes to the real nature of the Soviet Union (emphasis mine; h/t: no-pasaran).

In my opinion, the only right thing Obama has done to date has been deciding – although belatedly – for the US not to attend the obscene “Durban II” in Geneva. (I am not sure about his role in the successful sniper attack on the Somali pirates so I cannot give him another point…).

Keep watching.

Back!?

Do sheep love to be slaughtered?

Al Qaeda, with the very likely connivance of Tehran (yes, I know they are supposed to be Shiites, but they have already corrupted their faith by con-fusing religion and politics, and they are the one who would benefit from a civil war in Iraq) is destroying Islam most holy shrines, Serbia is protecting Mladic, Syria is governed by an esoteric sect (anathema to Sunnis), &c.

Have you seen many demonstrations against these real abuses and more? No. What do Muslims do instead?

Police in Pakistan have used batons and tear gas to disperse protesters trying to stage a rally against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

If only western powers had the guts or even the intelligence to exploit these contradictions, militant Islam would be destroyed quickly and, most importantly, by the Muslims themselves. As we stand now, Islam is being highjacked by extremists and rapidly disappearing into a satanic cult.

Moral seriousness in this case means political seriousness. Insist on going ahead with the ports deal so that Arab governments who have stood with us in the war on terror are not told to get lost when one of their companies acquires port management contracts in the United States. Make a real effort to destabilize Ahmadinejad in Iran. Do what it takes to defeat Zarqawi and secure Iraq. Stand with Denmark, and moderate Muslims, against the radical mob. This is no time for dishonorable retreat. It is time for resolve--and competence.

I would love to blog during this period; unfortunately work commitments do not leave me much time. Thank you all for having followed my ramblings this far and apologies for the disappointing frequency of posts.

Islam, Muslims, Terrorism

Saddam Hussein to start hunger strike

Does anyone give a f**k?

Iraq, Saddam

Buy Danish!
Let's toast the fascists.

Denmark, Europe, Islam, Terrorism

Danish cartoons: a crisis and an opportunity

What a splendid opportunity to identify, arrest and deport all fundamentalists in Europe!

Denmark, Europe, Islam, Terrorism

Culture of hate

Iran said sending the case to the UN would mean "the end of diplomacy".

What diplomacy? Iran has been only buying time, blackmailing, lying and spying. Time to drop the mask, all of us. Can we please start taking these monsters at face value? Can we please stop responding to threats with empty statements full of "concern" and "dismay" Can we please stop turning the other cheek and ask to "clarify"? What's to clarify about "destruction of Israel"? "Annihilation of America"? "World domination"? While the West wastes time in interminable meetings the culture of hate gains precious time.

In an appalling regurgitation of relativism, Bill Clinton at Doha said:

Clinton described as "appalling" the 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September depicting Prophet Mohammed and causing uproar in the Muslim world.

The Muslim world is up in arms for some cartoons, but we just whimpered when Ahmadinejad swore to "wipe Israel off the map" or Hamas swears to destroy another nation. Let's stop this appeasing nonsense once and for all at whatever cost. I would be willing to use a bicycle and candles just so I wouldn't have to listen to terrorists' blackmailing obscenities.

In the meantime, buy Danish!

PS: Following the Dutch cartoons' Muslim fake rage, Palestinians have demanded that Danes, Norwegians and Swedes (sic) leave immediately; could Europe please reciprocate? Fair is fair. Some terrorist group have also threatened suicide attacks in Denmark.

Iran, Hamas, Ahmadinejad, Terrorism

Zimbabwe and the IMF, update

A number of NGOs and various blogs are hoping that the IMF relents and does not expel Zimbabwe, despite the abusive, incoherent and corrupt economic policies that the regime erratically pretends to implement. Some even ask for the IMF to cancel Zimbabwe's debt. Do they think that the money loaned or saved would go to benefit ordinary people instead of continuing to fatten up Mugabe and his henchmen? How naive can they be?

Corruption, IMF, Zimbabwe, Mugabe