Saturday, October 31, 2009

Yay Rex!!

Don't turn up the heat on the West
"It will shape a whirlwind of political discontent, set the West against East, and far from incidentally have deep repercussions in the many other provinces that have their citizens working in one capacity or another in the oil patch. The fury over the national energy program may be spent, but its memory – pardon the word – is green. That fury, I reiterate, will be as nothing compared with the political fury of a second attempt to “stall the West.” Should some global warming action plan attempt to put the oil sands and Western energy development at significant disadvantage, or draw taxes out of the economies of the Western provinces to pay for adventures in global warming policy, we will be playing with Confederation.

That is a prediction it takes no computer modelling to make. If Alberta in particular, and the Western provinces more generally, come to be portrayed as villains in the global warming morality play, more than the climate a century hence is at stake."
[---]
"Big Green – and there is a Big Green as much as there is a Big Oil – knows the game. Find a symbol. Find one project that, superficially, can stand for all others. The oil sands, despite the hundreds or thousands of less scrupulous and governed energy projects all over the world, despite China's spectacular use of coal, or the accelerated developments all over the Third World, will be the emblem of choice for the eco-warriors."
"It's only a number of weeks ago, remember, that the great crisis in the auto industry called forth billions to rescue the great manufacturing base of Central Canada. The West will note the contradiction. Spend billions to save an industry that runs on petroleum – it's here in Ontario – hit the source industry to “save the planet” – that's in the West."
Not that I would mind if the West separates. Dizzy May might have a conniption fit, though, but then that would be so much fun to watch, it's almost worth it just to see that.

Keep Going Iran

Iranian students plan return to street protests
"Students across Iran are planning to lead a huge day of protest this week against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime, in a defiant commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the US embassy takeover by radical students in Tehran.

Thousands of green flyers and posters, drawn by anonymous artists, are circulating on the internet, inviting ordinary Iranians to join the student protests, planned for Wednesday."
[---]
"Iran's police chief, Ismail Ahmadi-Moghadam, has warned demonstrators to stay off the streets, but activists predict one of the biggest days of protest since the height of the green marches.

A student of civil engineering at Amir Kabir University in Tehran, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "The officials are very afraid of the student movement, that's why they are preparing to crack down on 4 November. The protests in Iran have not cooled off, they're just beginning.""
[---]
""It is amazing," he (a teacher in a Tehran school) said, asking not to be named. "In the school where I'm teaching, students show their opposition in any way that they can find, whether it's by wearing a green wristband, green shirt, doing homework in green pen or writing slogans in toilets, on their desk or on the blackboard.""
RTWT. It's very encouraging.

For Those Canucks Among Us Who Are Willingly Blind

This includes folks like the mangy mutt Dr. Dawg and the king of cultural relativism, Balbulican.

Those arrests aren't about terrorism - yet
"Imam my arse: The late Luqman Ameen Abdullah was a convicted criminal (felonious assault and carrying a concealed weapon), born and raised in Detroit, who is better known as Christopher Thomas.

Mosque my arse: The Masjid Al-Haqq belonged to a group that called itself "Ummah" which was founded and headed by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, also known as H. Rapp Brown, the former Black Panther who is currently serving a life sentence for shooting two police officers."
[---]
"The group allegedly had as its mission the establishment of "a separate, sovereign Islamic state" within the borders of the United States. Members were, it is alleged, stealing goods (TVs, laptops, fur coats, energy drinks, cigarettes and power tools) to sell for the mosque, a practice that Imam Luqman said was condoned by the Koran so long as Islam benefits. According to the complaint, he also encouraged members "to carry a firearm and information obtained ... indicates that many of Abdullah's followers are usually armed."
[---]
"The final thing is that on Jan. 20, the mosque was evicted by the City of Detroit from its Joy Road location for non-payment of property taxes. The Detroit police stopped by and confiscated two firearms, 40 knives and martial arts weapons from the imam's apartment there.

The FBI also executed a search warrant, and found evidence corroborating information that the mosque had been used for firearms training. "There were empty shell casings on the basement floor," the complaint alleges, "and large holes in the concrete wall of the shooting range."

If all that is true, then there were a whole lot of clues about what was going on in that mosque. It begs the question - does one have to have a criminal record to be an imam in this particular Ummah, or does the willingness to acquire one suffice?"
Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

Here's Something Refreshing

Legitimate Student Protest

Posted on Revolutionary Road Facebook account yesterday.



From the comments:
Ali Irani
THEY ARE SAYING THAT YOU CAN NOT HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH WITH BEARDS, REFFERING TO THE BEARDS OF THE MULLAH
Giorgio Arrighi
We MUST remember Neda,We MUST remember Iran situation Ww MUST remember freedom !!!
Keep. Going. Iran.

More From Al Gore's Arch Nemesis






Why don't we support the real Greens instead.



English summary of last video is here.

The Bloody Face Becomes the Story

Back to our CBC reporter, Janyce McGregor, here is what she had to say in the comments of her own story about the magical "now you see it, now you don't" blood on Jeh Custer's face:
"OK, stop the presses.
I've just been reviewing the video again at home. And curiously, one of the protesters escorted off the Hill in our footage somehow gets MORE blood on his face between the time he left the Hill and the time he was interviewed by Evan Solomon.
Watch the two clips and compare -- I believe it's the same person talking to the camera in the 3rd of the raw ENG video clips, and he most definitely does not have blood all over his face as security escorts him down the Hill.
When Solomon interviews him later in the afternoon he looks like he just lost a bar fight.
Over to the protesters to explain this one."
Much to what I'm sure is the disappointment of our young radical-chic protesters, the bloody nose has taken the lead and become the headline. I wonder why?

I'll tell you why. These, quote, "young people", demonstrated all the hallmarks of your typical garden variety youthful anarchist that surfaces with every generation. Full of themselves, eagerly lapping up any and all anti-establishment rhetoric, convinced of their righteousness and that it absolves them from responsibility for the consequences of their actions, they walk right into it every time. And of course, they can't resist throwing in a few extra fashionable causes from the anarchist bag of UN tricks designed to take digs at Western civilization, like the rights of indigenous peoples. You'll notice, in the interview with Evan Solomon, how Custer repeatedly tries to bring the interview back to what he wants to focus on, but seems totally oblivious to the fact that his own behavior, and that of his merry band of pranksters, has already derailed the project and there is no getting it back on track.

It is clear, though, that they genuinely believe in an impending Armageddon In other words, they have swallowed the United Nations' warmmongering propaganda - they want the government to "put us in line with what the scientific community is calling for", they say - and that at least some among them are truly frightened for the future. Note, for example, the emotional reaction from the Prince Edward Islander about the assumed fate of islands around the world.

All told, they reveal an astounding degree of naivete. As if standing in the parliamentary gallery and shouting while the elected representatives of the people are conducting the business of the nation will get your point across. As if offering stiff resistance to the security officers whose job is to remove them for disrupting the proceedings will convince the as yet to be convinced. It never has, folks and it never will.

In the meantime, their rush to solve all the problems in the world and create peace and harmony has been sabotaged by their own righteuos stupidity. I mean not even singing "Which side are you on?" did the trick and how much more "righteous" can you get than that! The blood on the face is both literal and figurative. Perhaps if they watch this they might be able to wipe some of the embarrassing blood stains from their reputations and relax a bit about Prince Edward Island. Here is Nobel Laureate, Lord Christopher Monckton, massacring their cherished beliefs:



But, alas common sense will prevail.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Extra Double-Double Good

Copenhagen heads for a crash
"Angela Merkel is blocking aid commitments for climate protection and risking the failure of a global deal in Copenhagen. The chancellor is squandering an opportunity to demonstrate European leadership and show Barack Obama what it really means to be a "citizen of the world."

She was once celebrated as the "Climate Chancellor" and seen as an important campaigner for the environment on the international political stage. Now it appears that it is Angela Merkel, of all people, who is dealing a death blow to international climate deals -- by navigating a shortsighted course within the European Union."
Good for her. All the power to ya, sister!

The whole article is worth a good laugh. What a bunch of pantywaist sop.

More On Climate Hysteria

First of all, if you haven't already, go watch the video clips that CBC put on their website of the recent protest in Ottawa, especially this one: Watch and judge for yourself. There's several little gems in there illustrating, among other things, the extent to which climate change fraud has worked its way into the minds of the ranks of the idiocy fringe. (I might do a separate blog entry later today just on the gems in those videos that our CBC Pravda reporter could have worked into her story, but didn't. So, do come back later.)

Then, come back and read this: Politics of Climate Change: Selective Research, Ignored Facts.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Are You Dead Yet

...oh you master of war?

Michael Ledeen suspects the old goat may be very close to meeting his maker, if he hasn't already, and provides considerable evidence to support this view. Great remarks in the comments from a Jessam Othman, too.
"Michael, your forum is always OPEN to everyone, even to those who criticizing you and to those fools who are good in throwing a lies and apathy. Please let them Bark, the barking dogs seldom bite. I would like to tell them: “freedom and democracy will prevail in the Middle East willy-nilly”, because there are MILLIONS in the Middle East wants peaceful future without fundamentalist Islam, and without tyrannical regimes!!!" (Emphasis mine)
That pile of crap in the Mullah establishment's drawers must be reaching massive proportions. November 4th will be the day to watch.

Another Reason to Dismantle Monopoly...

...marketing boards.

This is a couple of years old, but still, it's astounding. All those northern Aboriginal people put out of a job. Imagine what the loss of self-reliance in those communities did to them. Damn those people who believe still, after all this time, in this socialist big-brother-knows-best ideology.

Yup. No Corruption Here!

FSIN elections

"Among the winners was a familiar name in Saskatchewan First Nations politics: Dutch Lerat. He was elected third vice-chief.

Lerat was once the chief executive officer of a corporation known as the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority, which oversees a number of First Nations run casinos in the province.

Lerat was fired after a scandal erupted over spending by the agency. It was revealed that hundreds of thousand of dollars had been spent, on items ranging from trips to vehicles. Some of the spending was not authorized and some money was never accounted for.

Lerat said on Thursday that he was happy to be back in a leadership role with the FSIN."

Why, it was just earlier this week that I linked to a report from First Nations member Don Sandburg saying the same thing as I say.

CBC Pravda

Don't ya just love it when Pravda proves its bias over and over again.

Once again, it's a darling in the CBC Ottawa bureau that does it.

First there's this report, filed by Janyce McGregor at 6:14 pm, October 26th:

Watch and judge for yourself

Then, the same reporter files this one at 9:57 am the next morning:

About that blood

and then finally, later the same day, she files this report at 5:55 pm:

Blood on the video

Let's review these reports, shall we.

In the first report, "Watch and judge for yourself", she says:
"The good thing about being broadcast journalists is that sometimes we can stay quiet and let the tape tell the story."
Right, Janyce. No need to do any actual investigative journalism, is there. After all, when the protesters themselves hand you a video that tells their side of the story, it has to be taken without question. Any CBC journo knows that.

Then she suggests the "looks on the MPs faces" in one of the video clips in her article is supposed to be telling. Telling of what she gives us no idea, but I think it's safe to presume she feels that when protesters begin shouting the moment an MP from the Conservative side begins answering a question from Jack Laytoon, they are not supposed to have somewhat annoyed expressions on their faces as they are looking up into the gallery where a ruckus that was clearly meant to disrupt the Conservative MP immediately developed.

Keep going, Janyce. We know the CBC Pravda is officially opposed to any political party to the right of the Natural Governing Party of Canada, that in the past has generously provided funding for your sorry-assed CBC salaries.

While she admits that the cacophony began as soon as Jack Laytoon had finished his question, it appears she opted to make no conjecture, never mind investigation, about any possible connection between that little factoid and the "yelling" that ensued. After all, the NDP have never gone to bed with the Libs before, now have they. Very dutifully done, my girl. I'm sure a promotion is on its way.

In the second article, after it has been revealed that the protester had no blood on his face prior to his interview with CBC journo, Evan Solomon, but was all bloodied up at the time the Solomon interview took place, she says:
"As those of you who read my tagged-on comment to my raw video post yesterday already know... re-viewing some of the CBC's footage later last evening revealed this discrepancy.
I'm not going to speculate further about it, because I think the onus is on the protesters to explain this."
Of course not, Janyce. After all, you let them do your job for you the day before and now that your "speculations" concerning their video have been somewhat bloodied themselves, why would you not blame them for the blood on your face, too? I mean, really. Shame on them for not doing your job properly.

In the final article, she at least has the courage to post an audio clip from another CBC reporter who actually did some real investigative journalism. I wonder if Janyce will be relocated to the Toronto bureau where she can get "more coaching" from Krista Erickson? We all know that CBC Toronto is completely bias free, now don't we.

Actually, the funniest part of this whole story is Saskboy's hysterical reaction to it. Gotta get some greens in Parliament one way or another. Useful idiot protesters will have to do.

And by the way, doesn't that photo of the protester with the bloody face make him out to be barely old enough to shave? I wonder if he knows what a ballot box is.

One thing you gotta love about Jean Chretien. He knew how to handle idiotic protesters:

UPDATE: BWHAHAHAHAHA!! This one is from SDA. Geeze. You miss all the fun when you're on the road and way from the 'puter.

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Monday, October 26, 2009

What a Terrible Loss

...not.

Confusion over Libyan visas for Canadians

"Media outlets were reporting Sunday that Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi had told officials to refuse visa applications from Canadians.

The move came in an apparent reprisal for Canada's near tongue-lashing of Gadhafi. He cancelled a planned stopover in Newfoundland last month after the Harper government made public its intention to scold him over the hero's welcome Libya gave a man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing."
I wonder if Donald Trump is now blacklisted, too.

This move comes after his stellar performance at the United Nations, which annoyed just about everyone, but especially the translators.

What price did we pay for convincing him to give up his WMD program? This snake can find a way to stick it to the West, no matter what we do. He knows that we will do almost anything to keep him from reactivating his program and he takes every opportunity to rub it in our faces. Where's Ronnie, when you need him?

Don Sandberg

...on Band Council corruption.

He's right on.

(I'll be away until Thursday, so blogging will be slow, or non-existence.)

Speaking of Laughable

From the Frontier Center for Public Policy:

The End is Nigh
"There is a pretty dismal history of experts making predictions about the end of the planet and other such frightening catastrophes. Most predictions, including those of the climate zealots, have religious overtones."
[---]
"The New Testament tells us (Matthew 16:28) that the world will end before the death of the last Apostle. The world didn’t end. In 992 AD, the scholar Bernard of Thuringen confidently announced that, from his calculations, the world had only 32 years left. The world did end for Bernard, who died before the 32 years elapsed. The Last Judgement was to take place 1000 years after the birth of Christ. As the world was to end, it was not necessary to exert energy and effort planting crops in what were subsistence cultures. Many didn’t plant crops. In 1000 AD the world ended for many because there was famine. The astrologer John of Toledo circulated pamphlets in 1179 AD showing that the world would end at 4:15 pm (GMT) on 23 September (Julian calendar) when the planets were in Libra. This was taken so seriously that in Constantinople the Byzantine Emperor walled up his windows and the Archbishop of Canterbury called for a day of atonement. Walling up windows worked. The world did not end."
And that's just the beginning! At the link you'll find a rather longish excerpt from Ian Plimers new book Heaven and Earth.

Lord Monckton's speech delivered in Winnipeg earlier this month.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

If It Wasn't So Sad...

...it would be laughable.

Check out an Iran TV show's 7 - er, make that 9 - reasons for forgetfulness.

Gotta Love It



That's a cause I can get behind.

Breitbart.tv

Listen to Lord Monckton.

Oh Dear, Oh-Bama!

Obama: Iraq attacks an attempt to derail process
"President Barack Obama said Sunday's "outrageous attacks" outside government offices in the Iraqi capital "reveal the hateful and destructive agenda of those who would deny the Iraqi people the future that they deserve."" (emphasis mine)
Right. You and your Demoncrats invested every ounce of your energy trying to do the same thing, albeit not with violence, but never the less, with all the gusto and bluster a party can possibly muster.

Hypocrites.

Hardy, Har, Har

Online poll goes horribly wrong. Look near the top right corner for the results so far. The AGW hoaxers are eating dust by a ratio of 7 to 1.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Saskboy finally discovers something he doesn't want taxpayer's money to pay for!!!
"...the massively taxpayer funded Olympic Winter Games"
What a relief!!

Let's Hope So!!!

Canadian PM Stephen Harper may simply ignore Copenhagen's climate change scam
"...the UN has managed to leverage the evangelicals to create support for a whole new wealth transfer scheme that will require productive countries to hand over their cash to those with a proven track record of p—ing it away."
[---]
"...like anything else “managed” by the United Nations, it will give birth to a whole new system of pocket-liners, fraudsters and corruption."
[---]
"Worst case scenario: Everyone can sign this thing, then just ignore it just as Canada and some other countries are doing with the Kyoto agreement. It’s “enforced” by the United Nations. What are they going to do? Invade Canada?"
You go, Harper!!!

Saturday, October 24, 2009

The BNP Verses the Elites: A Lesson for All

Is Political Correctness cracking up? Sure hope so.

I barely know anything about the British National Party but they have managed to be the subject of a good bit of editorializing and not all of it shrieks with horror.

Consider Melanie Phillips excellent piece from a few days ago:
"And that is what the political class is getting so badly wrong. For the strategy being adopted to contain and destroy Griffin [leader of the BNP] is to attack him for being a racist. Which he is.

But that is not the reason for his appeal. Those who support him do not in the main do so because they are racially prejudiced. It is because he also opposes mass immigration, Islamisation and the loss of sovereignty to the EU.

These are all legitimate concerns which are widely held by people who fear the loss of Britain's historic identity - but which are stigmatised as beyond the pale by an intelligentsia which considers any such expression of nationalistic sentiment to be a form of racism."
Sounds familiar, doesn't it. Then today, there is this:

The BNP can be dismissed but their constituency can not
"A party that received a mere 6.2 per cent of the vote at the European elections has dominated the national news agenda, culminating in eight million people watching its leader's appearance on Question Time. Even on the programme itself, the BNP was driving the agenda. This was a Question Time with no discussion of the economy, education or health. The postal strike that started last week was ignored.To be sure, the evening was not an unalloyed success for the BNP. Griffin looked particularly absurd when he said that he couldn't explain why he had changed his mind on the Holocaust, and he failed to land any blows on his fellow panellists or deliver any memorable one-liners. But this frenzy of publicity has given the BNP oxygen that other minor parties can only dream of ...
[---]
"But because legitimate feelings about national identity are also deemed to be racist, Griffin has been able to present the entire political mainstream as a conspiracy against the interests of ordinary people.

By cleverly sanitising the BNP message over recent years, he has thus been able to pose as a victim of political correctness."

[---]

"What a terrible indictment - that the only party which allows people to express their patriotism is one that exploits and manipulates such feelings for other, unsavoury, ends.

The mainstream parties seem principally concerned to demonstrate their own virtue by competing to be the loudest to denounce the BNP as vile and despicable.

This, however, conceals a devastating reality - that the people who are truly responsible for the rise of the BNP by abandoning and demonising the ordinary decent people of Britain are none other than themselves."

Most delicious of all are these ones:

'Christians should reject BNP'
"Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has called on Christians to "stand shoulder to shoulder" in rejecting the British National Party and its leader Nick Griffin, who he branded a "squalid racist"."
[---]
"His comments came as a poll suggested that a number of controversial BNP policies on immigration, sex education and Islam have resonance with significant numbers of voters.

The survey in the News of the World found that almost two-thirds of voters feel the mainstream parties have no credible policies on immigration. But only 6% said the BNP had the best policies on the issue and just 10% agreed with the far-right party that there should be a halt to all future immigration."
BNP revolt at BBC
"She [Sue MacGregor]is the most prominent broadcaster to question the BBC’s judgment over the way Griffin’s appearance was handled. Other senior journalists also said the handling of the programme may have backfired.

An opinion poll conducted after the programme was aired found that 22% of people would “seriously consider” voting for the BNP. The BBC has also had 243 complaints that the show was biased against Griffin, compared with 114 complaining about him appearing on it."
As Kate at SDA would say, something must have gone horribly wrong.

Perhaps the media and other establishment institutions, such as the Church of England, will soon understand that it can't look down its collective noses at ordinary people, presuming the right to censor what the great unwashed can see or hear, and not expect a backlash. This whole phenomena has the feeling of the attack on the power of the church in Rome as the Protestant Reformation picked up steam. In a democracy, the elitist snobs will always fall, no matter what they do to prevent it from happening. The intelligence and capacity of ordinary folk to make up their own minds, is just far too powerful. They are not children. There is no need to "protect" them from uncomfortable or disturbing ideas. Worst of all, it is folly to assume their perception of the issues that press upon them in their own neighbourhoods and in their day to day lives are expressions of bigotry and nothing else. The chains of political correctness must come off and people must be allowed to speak and be respected for it.

For the Music God

He's Like Me!!

If the news is Canadian, Harper's not watching

Although, I think there's a typo here. It should read "If the news organ is Canadian....".

Besides, Canadian politics is pretty boring, most of the time. International politics is far more interesting, and in that regard, I am interested in what Canada is doing. But given the current mixture of world powers and what not, the US, Britain, Russia, China and the whole Middle East and Asian Sub-continent is a heck of a lot more intriguing than what the CBC or the Toronto Star offer up, namely America/Harper bashing ad nauseam.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Did You Really Think Otherwise?

Iran delays reply on atom deal

"Iranian officials gave a more negative message earlier on Friday by saying Tehran preferred to acquire enriched uranium abroad rather than send out its own under the U.N.-drafted plan accepted by the United States, Russia and France.

Their remarks suggested that instead of engaging with the IAEA's draft, Iran was following a well-tested strategy of buying time to blunt Western pressure for harsher international sanctions while it presses on with nuclear research."

[---]

"Buying enriched uranium abroad would not only fail to reduce the domestic stockpile worrying the international community, but also require sanctions imposed on Iran since 2006 to be waived to allow it to import such sensitive nuclear material."

As Winston says, this is Saddam Hussein all over again.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Keep Going Iraq!!

Death Watch for the Old Goat

Faster, please.

Gotta love this bit:
"He has had only one important visitor outside his immediate family and advisers: Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanese Hezbollah. Nasrallah flew in, I believe on Thursday night, went to the clinic, saw Khamenei for two-three minutes, and came out of the room “in tears.”"
Oh boo-hoo.

More Russell Peters

Try As They Might...

...they just can't pick an issue that has any legs.

Conservative Party is still leading in the polls.

God, it must have pained the CBC to report on that one, especially since it was released exclusively to them. The temptation to deep six it must have been very strong. They seem to be getting part of the message, at least, but obviously not all of it.

Global Warm-mongering Losing Steam

... or should that be water vapor.

Imagine that!! In 2009 49% believe human activity has no impact whatsoever on global warming, and of that, 33% don't believe the globe is warming at all. Up from 37% for the first question and 17% for the second. That's quite a blow! What ever is a warm-monger to do about those 31,000 scientists who blew the whistle? No wonder Al Gore is so angry. His cash cow has gone dry.

Wakey, wakey, politicians. It's our money you are throwing down this ridiculous pit.

And It's About Time..

...we saw this:

"One of the human rights is to remain alive."
"In an interview with Israel's president, Shimon Peres, Adrian Blomfield of the UK's The Daily Telegraph cluelessly accused Israel of an unnecessarily harsh and disproportionate reaction during its defensive invasion of Gaza last winter.

In response Peres reminded Blomfield that for over eight years Israel suffered through more than 12,000 rockets and missile attacks launched from Gaza which fell on homes, schools, hospitals and other civilian areas, killing, injuring and traumatizing thousands, numerous attempts by terrorists to sneak into Israel to kill, including kidnapping a soldier, who is still held hostage, and other acts of war from Gaza. And then he bluntly told Blomfield.

"One of the human rights is to remain alive."
[---]
"We didn't initiate it (the war in Gaza). We never went to war on our own initiative. We were attacked, in 61 years nine times, with full-fledged wars and endless terrorist attacks. But if a terrorist does not respect the lives of children, the children of ours and their own children, if they don't respect the lives of civilians, our civilians and their own civilians, and they don't respect mosques and they don't respect ambulances, what can the law do?" "
RTWT, oh you pathetically ill informed lefties.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

I Could See This Coming

Human Rights Watch denounced by its founder
"[Robert] Bernstein says that Human Rights watch has lost "critical perspective" on the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict and that "Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields." He calls Iran's policy "incitement to genocide" and a violation of " the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."

He also takes the organization to task for them being fully aware of Hamas and Hezb'allah tactics that make war from populated areas, and that HRW turns a blind eye to the arms flowing into the region that will only serve to start the violence all over again."
Regrettably, it's not the only human rights watchdog that has been infiltrated with left-wing nihilists. Amnesty International is just about defunct in my book, and of course, the UN human rights agency, despite its recent rebuild, is still a den of grossly human rights violating dictators.

Sad, really. Some of these agencies used to do good work, even if it didn't result in much change. At least they once were responsible for calling attention to the real genocidal regimes on the planet, not inverting logic by accusing those who actually did the heavy work of overthrowing these tyrannies.

Hah!!

Sure. Change the colour of its lipstick. It's still a pig.

Changes coming at CBC News

Fiddle. Rome. Burning.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Her Majesty Considers

Good!

Hope Fades for Comprehensive Climate Treaty

With any luck by the time they get around to organizing another one, this whole global warming/climate change scam will be well and done - dead in fact. Hopefully the current crop of politicians who are supporting this nonsense with our taxes will be turfed out over the next several months.

And maybe the UN too. (Hope, hope, hope.)

Brilliant Piece from Glavin

...about the disputed Afghan election. Head on over and read it.

Pajamas Media: Nail-Head, Every Time

I'm a subscriber to Pajamas Media and I would recommend it to anyone wanting insightful analysis from informed people on matters of politics, race and international relations.

As a subscriber, I also get an email every morning with links to three new delicious rants by one or another of their principle analysts. This morning's was one of the best I've receive to date. To give you a taste, here are the links from this mornings mailing. So make your breakfast, bring it to the keyboard, crumbs and all, and watch 'em. It'll take you only 20 minutes but it will put you in the right frame of mind for the day ahead:

Terror in a community organized by Obama: Speeches won't defeat thug culture

Rather reminds one of the Indian Industry, no?

ZoNation: The Liberal Slave Ship

So much for political correctness run amok. Now for the third one.

This man is a history buff's dream. You know that old saw: "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it." Bill Whittle single-handedly and tirelessly works to remind us of the past and its relevance to today's world:

Warmongers or Peacemakers: Who Will Be Responsible for Scorching the Earth

Monday, October 19, 2009

Study in Contrasts



More Climate Hysteria

h/t Sleepy Old Bear with links.

Telling Half the Story
"By now, I think most readers of this site have seen the asymmetry in reporting of changes in sea ice extent between the Arctic and the Antarctic. On the exact same day in 2007 that seemingly every paper on the planet was reporting that Arctic sea ice extent was at an “all-time” low, it turns out that Antarctic sea ice extent was at an “all-time” high. I put “all-time” in quotes because both were based on satellite measurements that began in 1979, so buy “all-time” newspapers meant not the 5 billion year history of earth or the 250,000 year history of man or the 5000 year history of civilization but instead the 28 year history of space measurement. Oh, that “all time”."
Sinking Fast
"AGW zealots are indeed now facing a nightmarish conundrum. What to do to save their reputations and glittering careers as Chief Scientists, Presidents of the Royal Society, Government Ministers for Climate Change, Failed US Presidential Candidates Turned Nobel Prize-Winners, Journalistic Would-Be Stringers-Up of AGW-Deniers, green NGO empire-builders and professors whose entire livelihoods and academic status have accrued from more than two decades of peddling the biggest anti-science scam of all time but which is now threatening to expose them all to ridicule on an epic scale as global temperatures cool?

The answer is that they pretend that this is not happening."
Related:

What would you do if you were asked to sign a petition to ban di-hydrogen monoxide?



h/t Climbing Out of the Dark

BWHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!

Gordon Brown says we have 50 days to save the planet!!

Maggie, why don't you come out of retirement and tell Gord that is was all a hoax designed to put the screws to the coal industry's unions.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Well, Duh!!

Can't Be All That Bad

Bomber kills top Iranian commanders
"A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard and at least 26 others in an area of southeastern Iran that has been at the centre of a simmering Sunni insurgency, state media reported.

The official IRNA news agency said the dead included the deputy commander of the Guard's ground force, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander for the area, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh. The other dead were Guard members or local tribal leaders."
More than five fewer Revolutionary Guard members gone to their virgins in the sky is a good thing, no?

[---]
"President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to strike back at those behind Sunday's attack, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“The criminals will soon get the response for their anti-human crimes,” IRNA quoted him as saying. Ahmadinejad also accused unspecified foreigners of involvement."
Snort!

Ahmadinejad vows to strike back at those behind suicide bombing
"Iran accused the US and Britain of being behind Sunday morning's attack.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the United States condemned what he called an "act of terrorism." Reports of alleged US involvement are "completely false," he said."
Double snort. Better hurry up and start those talks, Obama. Seems they haven't changed their minds yet.
"Official television channels in Teheran quoted a security official as saying that the British government was directly involved in the attack, having organized the bombing, provided equipment and recruited terrorists.

Press TV had earlier said that the US was involved, as part of its efforts to topple the Iranian regime.

"It was a terror attack planned long ago by people linked to the US and other countries that want to destroy Iran's central government," said Iran's state television network.

The Revolutionary Guard itself blamed Sunday morning's attack on what it called the "global arrogance," a reference to the United States.
"The global arrogance, with the provocation of its local mercenaries, targeted the meeting of the Guard with local tribal leaders," said a Guard statement read out on state TV.

Iranian officials have often raised concerns that Washington might try to incite members of Iran's many ethnic and religious minorities against the Shi'ite-led government, which is dominated by ethnic Persians."
They're not likely to either. Having Americans to blame for everything, is just too good to give up.

Related:

"...it took days for the Obama administration to condemn the brutalization of democracy demonstrators in Iran, but that condemnation of attacks on the brutalizers was nearly immediate."

Friday, October 16, 2009

The Mobs on the Street

...are just so good at proving the point. Never fails:

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Shame, Shame, Shame

Sweetness

Remember the Johns Hopkins Medical School's Lancet publication that greatly exaggerated the death toll in Iraq. Well, today the Iraqi government once again confirmed that Lancet had it completely wrong. An official count was released that put the death toll at 85,694.
"A report by the Human Rights Ministry said 85,694 people were killed from the beginning of 2004 to Oct. 31, 2008 and 147,195 were wounded. The figures included Iraqi civilians, military and police but did not cover U.S. military deaths, insurgents, or foreigners, including contractors. And it did not include the first months of the war after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion."
I've written about the Lancet fiasco here, here, here, here, here and here.

Ghaddafi: Up to His Usual Tricks

Libya releases 88 terrorists with al Qaeda ties

This guy is acting more and more like Saddam Hussein before he was taken down. Let's hope the same fate awaits the flamboyant one. But then again, this is the new era of international diplomacy and what we see unfolding could be said to be the results of "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples", so it probably won't happen.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

And This One..

..is very believable:

Egypt jails family members of Hamas high-ups living in Cairo

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report : October 13, 2009, 8:09 AM (GMT+02:00)

Gen. Omar Suleiman - fed up with Hamas

High-ranking Hamas officials in Gaza keep their sons, brothers, wives, cousins living in comfort in Cairo. Monday night, Oct. 12, Egypt's Mukhabarat (security service) began quietly rounding up hundreds of these Gazans and throwing them into jail for "questioning," DEBKAfile's Middle East sources report. The crackdown was ordered by intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman, who finally got fed up with Hamas and its stubborn refusal to sign a reconciliation accord with rival Fatah and its leader Mahmoud Abbas. Egyptian sources are sure Iran and Syria are behind the Islamic extremists' non-cooperation.

Gen. Omar has spent long months in strenuous effort to bring the Palestinians together for a unity accord that would open the way to a unified delegation for negotiations with Israel. The latest signing date at the end of this month had to be cancelled for the umpteenth time after Hamas said its latest no was final.

President Hosni Mubarak then gave his intelligence minister permission to remove the gloves and start discreetly punishing the recalcitrant Islamic extremists where it hurt, i.e. their close kin.

Our Egyptian sources report that the Hamas community resident in Cairo includes senior military and political officials and businessmen, as well sons enrolled as students and other close family members. Neither Egypt nor Hamas has released word of the crackdown.

What Do You Believe?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report : October 12, 2009, 10:09 PM (GMT+02:00)

Munitions store blown up at Hizballah's South Lebanon command center

A big explosion hit Hizballah's main command HQ in South Lebanon, near Tayr Felsay east of the port town of Tyre, at 0800 Monday night, Oct 12, DEBKAfile's military sources report. Senior Lebanese sources said there were at least 8 people killed or injured in the blast. The command center was located in the residential compound of senior Hizballah operative Saeed Nasser.

Israel complained to the United Nations and demanded UNIFIL investigate the presence of weapons stores in South Lebanon.

Under the terms of the truce which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizballah and UN Security Council resolution 1701, Hizballah was forbidden to maintain armed forces or weapons in South Lebanon. To avoid confirming their non-compliance with these terms, Hizballah sources Monday night leaked a story that old munitions left over from that conflict caused the blast.

This was the second explosion in four months of a large Hizballah arms dump in South Lebanon. The first blew up at Hirbet Salim in South Lebanon On July 25.

And While We're On the Topic

...of Darwin Awards. What does this say about the dreaded climate change? Remember all those hysterical cries about increased numbers and ferocity of hurricanes?

Quiet Atlantic hurricane season a boon for insurers
"If the full season, which runs from June through November, ended today, it would be the lowest number of storms since 1997. The last time an Atlantic season produced only two hurricanes was 1982."
[---]
"So far this year, only named storms Bill and Fred reached 74 miles per hour (119 km per hour), the threshold for hurricanes. Fred fizzled in the mid-Atlantic without causing damage while Bill raced through Canada's Atlantic provinces as a Category 1 hurricane, the weakest type, causing few problems."
Hmmmm. Big insurance. Must be the same as big oil.

The 'Alternative' Nobel

I did not know about this award. The Right Livelihood Award is what it's called and apparently it aims to recognize people for their work in "social justice".

(*cough* *hack*)

Last year's recipients seem to be worthy enough individuals, an Indian couple who work with the low caste untouchables for their betterment, a Somali women's rights activist, a German gynaecologist who helps sexually abused woman and an American independent journalist. Sounds all motherhood and apple pie-ish, no?

This year, it has gone to Rene Ngongo, of Greenpeace, for his efforts "to protect the Congolese rain forest".

(Greenpeace, huh.)

Also a recipient this year was Catherine Hamlin, "an Australian doctor who lives in Ethiopia, for her medical research benefiting women" and a New Zealander, Alyn Ware, for his "efforts on nuclear disarmament".

(All very good, of course.)

But, apparently, Canada's own Dr. Fruit Fly was a runner up "for raising awareness of climate change".

(*cough* *hack* *spew*)
"Despite the scientific warnings about the imminent threat and disastrous impacts of climate change and despite our knowledge about solutions, the global response to this crisis is still painfully slow and largely inadequate," the Right Livelihood Award Jury said.

"At the same time, the threat from nuclear weapons has by no means diminished, and the treatable diseases of poverty shame our common humanity," it added.

"The 2009 Right Livelihood Award Recipients demonstrate concretely what has to be done in order to tackle climate change, rid the world of nuclear weapons, and provide crucial medical treatment to the poor and marginalised."
Well, that's all I need to know about that group. I'm nominating it for the Darwin Award.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Thomas Sowell Again

Magic numbers in politics

"Back in the days of the Soviet Union, two Russian economists who had never lived in a country with a free market economy understood something about market economies that many others who have lived in such economies all their lives have never understood. Nikolai Shmelev and Vladimir Popov said: "Everything is interconnected in the world of prices, so that the smallest change in one element is passed along the chain to millions of others."

What does that mean? It means that a huge increase in the demand for ice cream can mean higher prices for catchers' mitts, among other things.

When more cows are needed to produce more milk to make ice cream, then fewer cows will be slaughtered and that means less cowhide available to make baseball gloves. Supply and demand mean that catchers' mitts are going to cost more."

He goes on to talk about the current recession.

Good News and Hopeful Speculation

(added) and dumb asses.

First the good news:

Khamenei said to be in coma

Die, you bastard. (Check our the comments beneath that article. A reader named Herr Morgenholz makes this hilarious remark: "Hopefully, they can keep this one in the coffin when the time comes." He's referring, of course, to the occasion of the death the Ruhollah Khomeinei back in 1989, when the old goat's body fell out of the coffin as mourners were carrying it to the cemetery.)

Now the hopeful speculation:

Petraeus for President

And the dumb ass, literally:

Man dragged when pants get caught while mooning train

Another Study in Contrasts

Leading warmist and his embarrassing 'coming ice age' video

Canada's Kyoto view triggers a walkout - Developing nations at climate talks protest call to replace protocol
"The Kyoto Protocol binds 37 industrial countries – including Canada but not the United States – to reduce greenhouse gases by 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.

Canada, the U.S., the Europeans, the Australians and others want a new agreement to also bind big developing nations such as China and India to cut greenhouse gases."
Hey Harper, why don't we just not bother with it at all. The warmists are liars and the developing nations recognize a lucrative cash cow when they see one.

Again, from American Thinker: Excuses for lack of global warming

Note the links to long lists of scientists with impeccable credentials who have called the warmists' bluff. Warmists have been reduced to desperately trying to find evidence that they are all Christians, or have funding from "big oil" and therefore cannot be taken seriously. It must suck to be them.

Speaking of Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol

The Big Lie

Watch for it. Starting at the 2:37 mark, Juan Williams repeats the big lie about the Bush/Cheney administration:



"It's a repudiation of the Bush/Cheney administration .... that there should be some consideration given to working in a collaborative fashion with other countries around the world...."
Bush did that, Juan. In contrast to their support for Bill Clinton and the war in the Balkans, the UN wimped out. Bush assembled a coalition of thirty states willing to assist in toppling Saddam Hussein. Bush Senior also formed a coalition, Operation Desert Storm, for the first Gulf war in 1991.

Funny that none of the other participants on the panel, including the host, called Williams on his rote repetition of the Big Lie, but I guess it wasn't about Iraq. It was about Nobel laureate, Barack Obama. I liked Liz Cheney's suggestion about sending a mother of fallen US soldier to accept the prize on behalf of the US military. I also liked Bill Kristol's long list of UN corruption. The notion that a UN resolution makes any country's action "illegal", especially considering its own record, is laughable. All Bush needed was the authority given to the POTUS by the American Congress, which was granted in the bill signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1998 - the Iraq Liberation Act.

Maybe Juan should be required to review these videos from Gulf War I:





I wonder what happened to those men. I hope to God they weren't returned to Papa Saddam's care after the war was over.

A Study in Contrasts (and Brains)

First, from the Toronto Red Star: Obama's aspirational Nobel by ????? (Sounds like Antonia Zerbisias , aka Zer-biases, though, who consistently demonstrates a profound lack of intellect.)
"But back in reality, I'm still a little bewildered. It's as if the Nobel committee gave Obama the award for behaving like a normal American president, instead of like a clueless corrupt cowboy."
[---]
"I could go on: fully closing the Guantanamo prison and restoring civil liberties and compliance with the Geneva Conventions; negotiating with Iran in good faith; withdrawing from Iraq and, of course, withdrawal from Afghanistan. Escalation, or even maintaining the status quo there, would alone discredit this award in history's eyes."
Second, from Pajamas Media: Barack Alone by John Rosenthal, who has the courage to sign his name.
"Some six and a half years after the start of the Iraq war, continental Europe’s three largest and most powerful countries are all led by politicians who more or less openly supported the war and/or severely criticized the Franco-German efforts to prevent it."
[---]
"But notwithstanding the Nobel committee’s condescending pat on the back for their disciple, Obama’s European role models are all gone. He is on his own now and should his pursuit of “peaceful dialogue” give rise to a nuclear Iran and threats of greater and more terrible wars, this will be his responsibility."
Read each of them in their entirety, then tell me which one has a full grasp on the realities of real politik.

The Ones Passed Over

Meet the heroes passed over for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

Dr Sima Samar, MD
"Now 50 years old, she graduated from a Kabul medical school in the middle of the Soviet invasion. She was forced to flee Kabul for a more central part of Afghanistan, where, though barely into her training she began attempting to treat patients against a background of extreme poverty, war, and harassment by the Taliban, who have virtually criminalised the delivery of reproductive health services to women and girls."
Denis Mukwege
"Mukwege has probably become the world’s leading expert on how to repair the internal physical damage caused by gang rape. He has treated 21,000 women during the Congo’s 12-year war, some of them more than once, performing up to 10 surgeries a day during his 18-hour working days."
Chinese activist Hu Jia
"...now doing a three year jail term for attempting to publicize the plight of the persecuted Falun Gong minority."
[---]
"True, the Nobel Prize was originally created to honour the person or organisation who has “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” But in recent years it has often honored people like Mother Teresa or organisations like Medecins Sans Frontieres for human rights work. (And where was Al Gore supposed to fit in?)"
Good question, that last one.

Well, Well, Well

I wonder if the Nobel Peace Prize Committee will have to reconsider its decision?

Obama approves 13,000 more troops for Afghanistan

Good on him.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Have I Told You Lately Hitch

how much I love you?

Energy Crisis Postponed

"The World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires last week was one of those events that shatter assumptions. Advances in technology for extracting gas from shale and methane beds have quickened dramatically, altering the global balance of energy faster than almost anybody expected."
Heck. Even the greens might like it.
"Natural gas has much lower CO2 emissions than coal, even from shale – which is why the Sierra Club is backing it as the lesser of evils against "clean coal" (not yet a reality). The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said America may not need any new coal or nuclear plants "ever" again."
But I'm not holding my breath.

h/t Sleepy Old Bear

Let Me See Now

Malia, honey. Come into my office and show me where Afghanistan is, will you?



I know. I know. That makes me an unabashed racist.

Far Out

...and back again.

Red-nosed circus billionaire returns to earth



A whole new meaning to Cirque du Soleil.

Who Would Have Guessed?

This is why grovelling before dictators should not be rewarded with Nobel Peace Prizes.

Iranian lawmaker questions Obama's qualifications for Nobel Peace Prize

Eeehaw!!!



All hail the Metis fiddlers. I just love this music. As I said over at Darcy's place just now I was privileged to be one of the few who heard an old and dear friend of my parents play the fiddle once at his place when my dad and I were visiting him and his mom. He went into the bedroom and came back out with his fiddle and played it for us. Edward Racette was his name, and I'll never forget it.

Another time, when I was teaching on a reserve in Saskatchewan (before they called them First Nations), I attended a dance and had the great and invigorating opportunity to dance with a member of the reserve to a great fiddle tune. Damn near made me drop with exhaustion, but it's a memory I will never forget. Whew!!! There's no better way to keep in shape. Would have been even better if I hadn't had a few tokes earlier in the evening. But that was then - 1973 or something thereabouts. Don't do that stuff now, either dancing or toking. Like I say. Most of us grew up. Still, you can't beat a good old time fiddle tune.

Speaking of Illusions

Victor Davis Hanson rips Norway, land of the Nobel Peace Prize, a new one.
"...it sits on or near enough oil to allow what is otherwise a rather insignificant country to be the wealthiest per capita oil producer in the world, and enjoy the influence that many in the Gulf have grown accustomed to. Throw in minerals, natural gas, timber, and fish and the nation sits on a bonanza of natural wealth. No wonder there are philosophers who ponder how to dispense the largess and absenteeism is a national crisis (one receives almost ad infinitum the same cash whether “sick” at home or well on the job). The population of under 5 million is largely homogeneous (90% Nordic), and is thus stable, and both rich and safe beyond its wildest dreams. It does not border a Third World country; “difference” and the “other”—even with recent Islamic immigration—is still defined as speaking Swedish or Danish.

In other words, Norway has the leisure to be utopian, and cannot quite understand why other countries are not as liberal as it has proven. So Norway loves to give award to all sorts of right-thinking frauds (Menchu), scoundrels (Elbaradei), terrorists (Arafat), Stalinists (Le Doc Tho), Elmer Gantrys (Jimmy Carter) and hucksters (Gore)— as it sits in judgment of others from Lala land."
[---]
"Norway is, in other words, the Hollywood nation. Imagine it is as the son or daughter of a movie star, one who grew up in Malibu, and feels so terribly about it that he lectures the U.S. about everything from global warming to George Bush’s assorted sins—confident that he will never have to work at Ace Hardware, and never have to live near South Central LA. That’ sums up Norway."
and offers some advise to The One:
"But can Noble Peace laureates still escalate in the short term to win a war, save thousands of Afghan lives from a Taliban take-over and ensure that “evil-doers” do not plan another 9/11 from safe havens? Will you—or tiny Norway—determine U.S. foreign policy? Is the medal around your neck a shiny medallion of honor or an albatross sent from a wily bestower?"
[---]
"Some of us had doubts about your ‘let me at ‘em’ stump speeches, and ‘go into Pakistan’ tough talk in 2008. I felt that you were posturing and politicizing the war, given your Democratic opponents’ suggestions that you were weak on national security. As I wrote then, I worried that the goddess Nemesis was watching as you sounded like Patton on Afghanistan and Chamberlain on Iraq—and that an accounting might come due once the theaters were reversed. And so they have, and so the tab is now due."
Davis concludes with an excellent analysis of the dilemma the Norwegians have lobbed into the President's court, laying out the three options he now has. Which, if any, will Obama choose? I have my hunches, but I hope I'm wrong.
--------------------------------------------------------
Afterthought inspired by someone in the comments below Davis's piece. A Norwegian Wood revenge would be nice:

Sunday, October 11, 2009

A Cultural Wasteland...

...and a Political Prison

Salim Mansur on the Arab and Muslim world:
"Any thinking Muslim with a shred of self-respect must have cringed in disgust on watching the buffoonery of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN recently.

These two leaders taking centre-stage at the General Assembly displayed the sickness that has turned the Arab-Muslim world into a cultural wasteland and political prison."
[---]
"History is a cemetery for people and cultures driven to extinction for the lack of freedom under the arbitrary rule of tyrants.

Gadhafi and Ahmadinejad are the poster images of despots in the greater Middle East, and the nature of their rule explains how their people have been crippled by the Islamist ideology at war with freedom, democracy and Israel."
[---]
"But there are many outside the Arab-Muslim world, and not merely Muslims, who entertain the illusion the sickness there results in part from wrongs done to Arabs and Muslims by the West.

Hence if the West and, in particular, the United States atone for these wrongs the Arab-Muslim world might be then sufficiently cured of its sickness.

Such illusions embolden the wicked and condemn those living inside tyranny to wither away in their wasteland without complaining."
They can also earn you a Nobel Peace Prize.

No More White People

...and other funny stuff that only brown people can get away with.



More of Russell Peters.

And here's an interesting dude:

Now is the Time...

...to take the ladders away.

Greenpeace activists occupy parliament's roof

I wonder what these people will be doing twenty years from now. They're going to feel so stupid, they'll be seeking an anonymous life somewhere far from view. That's if they actually grow up.

Okay...

..all you old horny ladies, what would you do if this hunk was sitting in front of you and you had to ask him these questions? Hmmmmm?



Ahem.

h/t Instapundit

Some Quotable Quotes..

...from Thomas Sowell. h/t Indigo Red

"When politicians propose some hugely expensive new program and are asked how the government is going to pay for it, a standard ploy over the years has been to claim that they will pay for it by eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse." At a recent town hall meeting, a citizen raised the obvious question: If you can do that, why haven't you done it already?"
...............................
"The older I get, the more I learn to tolerate human shortcomings — and the less I tolerate bad attitudes."
...............................
"The way Hollywood elites have sprung to defend Roman Polanski to keep him from being extradited to the United States, despite the heinous crime he is accused of, suggests that — like other egalitarians — they consider those who are "one of us" to be more equal than others."
...............................
"What is most frightening about the political left is that they seem to have no sense of the tragedy of the human condition. All problems seem to them to be due to others not being as wise or noble as they are."
...............................
"Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Think things, not words." In words, many see a need for "social justice" to override "the dictates of the market." In reality, what is called "the market" consists of human beings making their own choices at their own cost. What is called "social justice" is government imposition of the notions of third parties, who pay no price for being wrong."

Washington Post Appoints Own Nobel Laureate

She's Neda Agha-Soltan. (h/t Winston)

If the Nobel Peace Prize is going to be politicized it might as well send the correct message, and that's not one of bowing to brutal dictatorships. It's one of recognizing and supporting peaceful liberation struggles.

And speaking of Winston, according to a posting on his twitter account, another big rally is planned for November 4th, the thirtieth anniversary of the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran by radical students/thugs. There have been an ever increasing number of rallies. They have never really stopped, in fact, since the June election sham. They've just dropped off the MSM radar screen.

How ironic that thirty years ago, when this whole thuggish regime came to power, there was another wimpish Democratic president in the Oval Office. Things have come full circle. We're right back where we started.

What a difference a new President makes. Remember the ripples that shot through the Arab world following George Bush's decision to topple Saddam Hussein? Dictatorships in the Arab and Muslim world became very frightened of what their own people might start to demand and eased up on the dictatorial mode they were so comfortable with and began to implement reforms. Now, regrettably, they are quite happy to return to their grumbling and finger pointing in the other direction, blaming their moral and political bankruptcy on the US or the West in general. That's what Obama's diplomacy has wrought .... so far.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Not So Fast

Obama, Nobel peace and Israel

Israeli columnist, Herb Keinon, argues that Obama's unearned Nobel prize may make the maintenance of Middle East more difficult for Israel:
"For just as the Saudis are unlikely to heed Obama's calls to make normalization gestures to Israel, and the Palestinians are unlikely to do as Obama says and sit down immediately with Israel to negotiate just because the Nobel prize committee awarded him its prize, surely Israel need not bend now to his every will and dictate.

Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, and government officials - with the exception of Peres - refuse to meet with him when he comes to the region.

Máiread Corrigan-Maguire of Northern Ireland, co-winner of the 1976 award, regularly rides one of the Free Gaza boats from Cyprus with an assemblage of other extreme leftists.

But still. Carter is not a sitting president, and Corrigan-Maguire - well, who really cares.

But in many corners of the world, and especially in Europe, the Nobel Peace Prize will grant Obama even more luster and moral authority than he already has, and when Israel says no to him - as it inevitably will to some of his demands - it will be portrayed as spitting in the face not only of an American president, but also of an internationally recognized champion of peace.

The Saudis and Palestinians, of course, will come under no such opprobrium for bucking Obama's will.

And then there is the question of Iran. By giving Obama the award, rather than - as The Washington Post suggested - to the Iranian democratic movement and posthumously to Neda Agha-Soltan, who was killed protesting the election there, the Nobel Committee seemed to be trying to steer Obama away from any confrontation with Iran.

Imagine the headlines in Oslo if the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner approved the launch of a preemptive military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities."

Forcefully and logically argued, albeit, but who says Obama's stature will give him more sway in the world just because the Nobel Peace Prize committee decided to break the rules and play politics with the award. Based on the reaction we've seen over the past 24 hours, I would say the Nobel Peace Prize Committee will be the biggest victim here - of its own presumption. As the opening paragraph in Kienon's piece says, he (Obama) has done nothing to deserve it and many are saying the Committee besmirched itself, perhaps beyond repair. And besides, the notion that Obama would authorize a military strike against Iran was already pretty remote, although this certainly casts a pall on his soon to be known decision regarding Afghanistan.

And Europe? I'm not so sure he has the big players in Europe correctly pegged, either. Berlusconi is practically history, beset as he is with scandal swirling around his personal life. Britain is basically leaderless at the moment and I'm reasonably certain that the Labour Party is history as soon as the next election is called (faster, please). Sarkozi certainly has no love for Obama, nor for Iran. Eastern Europe just had their defense shield taken away from him by The One so they are hardly in the mood to celebrate the Committee's decision, unless leaving them more vulnerable to the ruminations of the Russian Bear or the Iranian tyranny is considered peace building! Who's left that really matters and that wasn't already in the Western sphere? Besides, just one more year away from mid-term Congressional elections, and if my reading of the mood of the American electorate is correct, I expect we'll have a very different dynamic in Washington and after all, it is Congress that authorizes military strikes, not the President.

Hehehehehe!

No Surprise Here

Buying Green can be license for bad behavior
"Researchers found that buying green can lead people into less altruistic behaviour, and even make them more likely to steal and lie than after buying conventional products. Buying products that claim to be made with low environmental impact can set up “moral credentials” in people’s minds that give license to selfish or questionable behavior."
[---]
"Mazar, along with her co-author Chen-Bo Zhong, an assistant professor of organizational behaviour at the Rotman School, conducted three experiments. The first found that people perceived green consumers to be more cooperative, altruistic and ethical than those who purchased conventional products. The second experiment showed that participants merely exposed to products from a green store shared more money in a subsequent experimental game, but those who actually made purchases in that store shared less. The final experiment revealed that participants who bought items in the green store showed evidence of lying and stealing money in a subsequent lab game."
Hummm. Reminds me of an encounter I had with a certain counter-culture group when I was a young, hot-to-trot socialist hippy type back in the late 60's and early 70's. I hung out with folks who hung out with folks that kind of subscribed to communal living. The commune didn't last long, because they couldn't get along and one or two preachy personalities tried to dominate everyone else, surprise, surprise.

Some of them were also involved in the Saskatoon "free school"movement, which also collapsed before it even developed any roots. The kids turned out to be unabashed little brats not the least bit interested in learning unless there was a structure imposed upon them. Who would have known?? /sarc

Anywho, the whole bunch was very opposed to Western civilization and the capitalist, free market way of doing things. They were green before there was much of a green movement. Most of them were university students or lecturers with one or two full fledged professors, if I recall correctly. About the only thing they accomplished was burning up a whole lot of weed.

Anyway, one of the members of their crowd was into steeling her food from the grocery stores on principle.


It doesn't surprise me that some folks who buy green are pretty heavy into the counter-culture way of bringing civilization down, one irresponsible act at a time.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.....