Why the desire to pull the troops out of Iraq in the first place?

*posted first on Friday Feb. 10, here*

In the Australian today:

NO sooner did President Barack Obama welcome home American troops from Iraq and laud that country’s stability and democracy than an unprecedented wave of violence across Baghdad and elsewhere revealed the severity of Iraq’s political crisis.

Unfortunate, yet hardly surprising, even to the most casual of observers.

And whilst I can understand (yet not agree with) the Left’s position not to send troops into Iraq in the first place – an argument, largely moot, for another day – what I don’t understand is their fervish desire to pull the troops out.

It always smacked of idealism, ideology, rather than hard-nosed practicality.

After all, what was so bad with having a US troop presence there to help maintain Iraq’s fragile democratic stability?

One could argue that I am biased because a) I am centre-right politically and b) because I live in South Korea, a nation that has had a US troop presence – some 37,000  28,000 or so currently – since the armistice between North and South Korea and have seen what a permanent US troop presence looks like.

I am happy to accept those labels and can gladly tell you that such a presence ain’t that bad.

By and large,  US bases in Korea – and Japan for that matter – haven’t been a problem.

Sure, issues pop up from time to time, but if one looks at the big picture, then a strong US presence here can only be seen as a good thing, a safe option, a pretty darn good insurance policy against North Korea trying anything major on.

Almost 60 years we’ve had US troops over here without any major problems. In fact, many major problems (a full-scale Nork attack comes to mind) have arguably been averted thanks to this presence.

So, why the rush to leave Iraq essentially free of any US military  before even a decade is up and before, as is clear now, the job is done?

OK, so perhaps it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges. US troops in Korea, aside from those stationed at the DMZ, aren’t on active duty as they were in Iraq.

However, it’s not a completely dissimilar situation. Perhaps a good analogy would be to compare mandarins and oranges.

US troops not only provided safety and stability in the fledgling democracy that is Iraq – a country still steeped with sectarian and tribal rivalries – but surely they also provided a deterrence to anybody or any groups who want to destabilise the nation.

What takes years to build can take mere seconds to destroy, and I fear a lot of hard work is being undone on the whim of a flawed, feel-good, ideology.

So why?

The only practical reason that I can see for Obama pulling his troops out of Iraq is that with an Iranian confrontation looming which includes action needed in Syria, Iraq frankly isn’t important enough any more or at best, an impractical option for a potentially over-stretched military.

Of course, Obama – a man of the progressive Left – can’t actually come out and say that but it is reasonably well-known to those who don’t just get their news from the MSM that Obama is actually more of a war-time president than Bush was, having committed more troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and for a longer period of time.

So whilst the MSM might play along with the “bringing the troops home” narrative, the evidence indicates this simply isn’t the case.

Some 20,000 marines, seamen and air crews from half a dozen countries, a US nuclear aircraft carrier strike group and three US Marine gunship carriers are practicing an attack on a fictitious mechanized enemy division which has invaded its neighbor. It is the largest amphibian exercise seen in the West for a decade, staged to simulate a potential Iranian invasion of an allied Persian Gulf country and a marine landing on the Iranian coast. Based largely on US personnel and hardware, French, British, Italian, Dutch, Australian* and New Zealand military elements are integrated in the drill.
Bold Alligator went into its operational phase Monday, Feb. 6, the same day as a large-scale exercise began in southern Iran opposite the Strait of Hormuz. This simultaneity attests to the preparations for a US-Iranian showdown involving Israel behind the words on Feb. 5 of US President Barack Obama (“I don’t think Israel has decided whether to attack Iran”) and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 3 (“The war itself will be ten times as detrimental to the US.”).

(*BTW, I don’t recall Aussie PM Gillard highlighting that one.)

And this:

As the US and Israel carried on bickering over the right time to strike Iran’s nuclear sites, their war preparations continued apace. debkafile’s military sources report that flight after flight of US warplanes and transports were to be seen this week cutting eastward through the skies of Sinai on their way to Gulf destinations, presumably Saudi Arabia, at a frequency not seen in the Middle East for many years.

Add into this mix reports that China will reportedly help Saudi Arabia build a nuclear bomb, and that both China and India have started paying Iran for its oil in gold thus helping thwart current US/UN sanctions (more of which were recently thwarted by Russia and China), then we see a stage set for a showdown and we see the reality that rhetoric aside, Obama won’t be bringing many troops home at all.

To someone who doesn’t know any better, it’s as if Russia, India, and China – all wannabe first chickens to the trough – are ganging up on America.**

PS Who wouldn’t love to be a fly on the wall listening in to what the US is really saying about China? Their ever-expanding use of soft power is in many ways, stuffing it all up for America. China must surely be becoming an ever-increasing pain in the neck.

This leaves Australia in an interesting position. Our main export partner is China. Our main ally is the US. We send China our goodies to help them get rich and rival America. We practice shooting our guns with America to help keep America on top.

And yet China and America are also so deep in each other’s pockets. America buys China’s goods. China buys America’s debt.

Fun times.

** I highly recommend reading The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom. Part of the book talks about the pecking order of nations.

Extreme Keynesianism meets extreme green in Germany.

I read today of an extremely strange decision in Germany to shut down the largest single contributor to their power supply.

“Angela Merkel has committed to shutting down all of the country’s nuclear reactors by 2022, a task said by one minister to be as mammoth as the project to reunite East and West Germany in 1990.”

Nuclear energy in germany accounts for somewhere around 23% of their power supply, the single biggest component above even coal. Given that Gerbil worming is the “greatest threat to mankind”, evah!! how does it make sense to remove a non greenhouse gas producing asset?

 “It gives the country just over 10 years to find alternative sources for 23% of its energy.”

This has apparently been brought about by the Fukushima plants problems, which, to date havent killed anyone despite experiencing at least a partial meltdown. So the worst scenario possible, in a decades old plant, caused by a catastrophe well outside its design tolerances is reason to shut off 25% of a nations power?

It smells fishy, regardless of the power of the greens party in Germany (a major player there), so what could be driving this push into idiocy?

Greens mothership come to take them away??

The answer seems to be Keynesianism ratcheted up to 11..

The EU is currently experiencing a massive financial crisis, Germany, traditionally a modern bedrock of financial stability is lashed to the mast of the Euro, therefore exposed to the PIGS financial woes. At the moment they are bailing out the PIGS, but this seems top be staving off the crisis not preventing it from spreading.

Germany has done extremely well out of the Euro, in the past the Deutsche Mark would have appreciated hugely against the PIGS currency, severely hurting Germany’s export ability within the EU. As it stands they can “export” internally into the EU without worrying about currency fluctuations.

The PIGS get german goods, paid for by borrowing Euros from Germany, which then drives its own economy by selling products into its captive markets.

All nice an neat, until now…

Germany is preparing for 2 likely scenarios, both of which will potentially tip them into recession, the nuclear announcement is a call for stimulus spending on an unprecidented scale.

Scenario 1: The bailouts continue.

Germany continues to support the Euro, this requires austerity measures within Germany itself, and would be almost certain political suicide for Merkel, unless she can sell it as part of a “grand coalition” action supported by all parties.

Merkel presented the results to the center-left Social Democrats and Green Party on Sunday evening, in an uncharacteristic appeal for opposition support. But it remains unclear whether the opposition will back the new approach.

Scenario 2: The Euro is allowed to fail, national currencies re-emerge.

This would be the easy political fix, but the resulting strength of the new Deutsche Mark would effectively cripple the competitive advantage the Euro gave of a “captive market”, to Germany’s export sector.

Wheres Keynes come in?

“Energy firms warned that the decision – a total policy reversal – would require significant investment in energy infrastructure. Philipp Rösler, new head of the FDP party, which rules in coalition with the CDU, agreed, likening the task ahead to that which faced Germany in 1990 after reunification. A study in 2009 showed that €1.3 trillion (£1.1tn) had been transferred from the West to rebuild the East.”

Germany is considering bailing on the Euro, they have to find a way to prevent the mass layoffs which are sure to result. They have to find a way to soak up a few million people in their own internal economy.

The highly inefficient renewables sector is a way of employing a large number of people to generate the same amount of power as Nukes currently provide. In the meantime Germany will import power from France/Eastern bloc countries to meet any shortfall. This may actually be cheaper for Germany than the current arrangement, given the likely strength of a new Deutsche Mark.

All opinion and kite flying of course, but I can’t see any underlying logic behind this decision.

EU threatens the UK.

Read this article and see if the EU seems a little less than….friendly when they arent allowed access to a nations funds. 

Europe tells Britain not to ask for help in a crisis 

   

Officials from both euro and non-euro countries said Britain should not ask for help if it runs into trouble because it had not signed up to a £378 billion support fund. 

French, Swedish and many Brussels officials have predicted that it is only a matter of time before Sterling is hit by the same market turbulence that came close to destroying the euro at the weekend. 

An EU spokesman, yesterday.

 

Shades of the piranha Brothers there, “Nice currency you’ve got there Guv, pity if my hammer should accidentally slip and smash it eh”? 

Jean-Pierre Jouyet, a former French Europe minister and the current chairman of France’s financial services authority, yesterday predicted only “God would help” a rudderless Britain after it snubbed its euro zone neighbours. 

“There is not a two speed Europe but a three speed Europe. You have Europe of the euro, Europe of the countries that understand the euro … and you have the English,” he said. 

Yes damn those English for not spending their money to bail out our currency!! 

“The English are very certainly going to be targeted given the political difficulties they have. Help yourself and heaven will help you. If you don’t want to show solidarity to the euro zone, then let’s see what happens to the United Kingdom.” 

So Mr frog would like the shaky coalition leading England’s first financial move to be a massive bailout of the EU’s currency? Would he like their first born children as well droit de signer over their wives perhaps? 

But despite supporting a rapid response EU financial “mechanism” to the tune of £13 billion, Britain declined to offer another £50 billion of loan guarantees in order to help “European partners” that get into trouble. 

   

13 Billion pounds pissed up the wall already, plus England running a deficit of 1/2 a billion pounds a day, Im sure they are falling over themselves to save the Euro…. 

Germany’s cabinet yesterday opened a political battle after it approved a new £106 billion German contribution to the EU bail-out, a sum which is over five times larger than last week’s deeply unpopular payout of £19 billion to Greece. 

   

Any one want to guess how many seats this will cost Merkel? 

The controversy over Greece cost Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, her government majority in regional elections on Sunday and the latest EU cash demand has threatened to tear her government apart. 

“We want the details,” said Otto Fricke, a budget spokesman for Mrs Merkel’s coalition in the parliament. “Where will the money for the EU’s first instalment come from, if and when it comes? There are many ifs and buts.” 

 

So the money is to be just given to Brussels for them to use?  FFS this will see the disintegration or impoverishment of the EU if it allows it to go ahead. 

The German press has reacted with fury after Mrs Merkel cancelled popular tax cuts in order to pay for the new EU bail-out burden on German taxpayers. 

“Europe’s jerks once again!,” declared the headline on yesterday’s front page of Bild, Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper. 

   

If I was Poland Id be nervous about now, grumpy Germans have never been a good omen for them in the past. 

Heres Businessweeks take on the crisis. 

“Europe’s jerks once again!” ran the headline today on the front page of Bild, Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper. “750 billion for bankrupt neighbors, but tax cuts canned,” it said. “It’s beyond belief!”

US Citizen? Sign the petition against cap n’ trade

If you’re a man-made global warming sceptic, or if you think the science perhaps isn’t settled, or if you are worried about a potential communist world government, or if you are worried about giant non-sovereign world taxes being imposed on all of us, or if you think the governments of this world already have too much power, or even if you’re not convinced yet either way, and don’t want a road paved that there’s no turning back on in just two short weeks, then sign this petition.

SIGN HERE

People literally right now are speaking at Copenhagen presenting the other side to this man-made CO2-driven man-made climate change/global warming argument. They will also be speaking tomorrow. Time is of the essence.

UPDATE

This post differs from the original. It came from watching the latest Monckton videos (the end of Part 4 of which part 1 was posted by 1.6 below), about a GLOBAL problem – but unfortunately only US citizens can sign that petition. Hence, first update removed, replaced with this.

Climate Rage: The Bottom Has Fallen Out of Copenhagen

The continuing saga of Climategate has finally dropped both boots on Copenhagen, as The Times of London has pronounced the gathering a funeral.

“Exactly a fortnight from today, the United Nations climate change conference opens in Copenhagen. Its purpose is (or was) clear: to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012…

Mr Brown’s Copenhagen objective will, happily, not be achieved…

[T]he scientific basis for global warming projections is now under scrutiny as never before. The principal source of these projections is produced by a small group of scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), affiliated to the University of East Anglia.

Last week an apparent hacker obtained access to their computers and published in the blogosphere part of their internal e-mail traffic. And the CRU has conceded that the at least some of the published e-mails are genuine.

Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals…

[W]hat is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay.

It is against all this background that I am announcing today the launch of a new high-powered all-party (and non-party) think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (www.thegwpf.org), which I hope may mark a turning-point in the political and public debate on the important issue of global warming policy. At the very least, open and reasoned debate on this issue cannot be anything but healthy. The absence of debate between political parties at the present time makes our contribution all the more necessary.”

UPDATE: Viscount Monckton weighs in.

“This is what they did — these climate “scientists” on whose unsupported word the world’s classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights.

The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud — for fraud is what we now know it to be — tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years — and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.

Worse, these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset — the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.

Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and “global warming” profiteers — for that is what they are — have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists — they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.

I am angry, and so should you be.”

Read the whole enchilada.

UPDATE II: Senator Jim Inhofe (R- OK) wants The United States Senate to investigate “Climategate”:

“Today, I will discuss something else – scientific integrity and how to improve it. Specifically, I will discuss the systematic and documented abuse of the scientific process by an international body that claims it provides the most complete and objective scientific assessment in the world on the subject of climate change – the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.”

Listen to his call-in to a conservative talk radio show.

“Now that was four years ago; so we knew they were cooking the science back then…”

The cat is out of the bag, and he’s pissed.

Paying Unassimilated Muslim Immigrants to Leave

The tide has shifted. Even many liberal-left Democrats are beginning to tire of government enforced, “cultural diversity” when the subjects in question are Muslim immigrants who refuse to assimilate, and do nothing but breed on the dole and threaten their hosts with violence… and often enough, act out on those threats.

Sweden, a country I love – OK, I really love the women – and have lived in, is paying the return trip for asylum seekers who have been turned down. Note that the countries listed are all Muslim countries, that a higher percentage are now being refused, and that applications are also dropping as the people back home get word that the public teat is running dry.

Denmark is going that one better, as they are paying unassimilated Muslim residents about $20K US to… ahem… get the fuck out. The something that is rotten in Denmark is the unassimilated Muslims, and the natives want them gone.

Expect this to spread. Peace-loving citizens of western nations – who will readily self-identify as libertarians if the terms are properly defined for them – are fed up with this malignant ideology parading as a religion, and they bloody well want their countries back.

Here in the US, the solo terror attack by Nidal Hasan is being called a terror attack in newspapers that were formerly allergic to the word. Deniers are being shouted down, and even their hearts aren’t into their arguments anymore.

Not only that, but there are now calls for the abjectly ridiculous Clinton-era gun ban for military bases and posts to be rescinded. This is major big progress. I grew up a military brat on Air Force bases in the 60’s and 70’s: My dad carried a .357 revolver around with him whenever he was flying, and nobody ever gave it a second thought. It’s a military base for fuck’s sake! Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines are supposed to be fucking goddamned ARMED! Expect this to change, and soon. Even lilly-livered generals don’t like to be caught with their pants around their ankles while their unarmed soldiers are mowed down by lunatics.

There will also be an end to this kind of malfeasant shit. Hasan’s superiors wondered if he was a bleeding psychotic nut-case, but nobody wanted to take the heat for accusing a Muslim of being a danger. A hearty fuck that to that noise. That’s gone soon as well, and three cheers.

Westerners are long-suffering because we’re civilized, and we’d like more of the world to share in our prosperity and standard of living, but if you invite a dog into your house and he refuses to stop shitting on the carpet, well, you’ll rid yourself of the cur sooner or later, no matter how much you wish he’d shape up.

That’s what’s happening now: Muslims have been shitting on the carpets of western countries too long, and the owners of those carpets are tired of cleaning up after them. We’d like to walk on those carpets barefoot without worrying about stepping in a pile of Muslim shit.

Perhaps in another few centuries Muslims will be ready for civilization, but they aren’t now.

Send them back to their bat-shit filled caves and their flea-infested sand dunes. That’s where they belong.

Let the Muslims shit on their own carpets.

Steyn ponders liberty in the technological era

For those of you who don’t read Tim Blair, here’s Mark Steyn on the radio.

LINK

Fat chance

“The United States is ready to do its part, and we hope that Europe will join us…”

Yeah, sure. And how much has Europe lifted it’s game since OB got in? European troops are just swarming into Talibandland.

Meanwhile, an earnest “questioner” from the first link hopes the Guantanamo Gang will be accommodated in hotels… Holder joked, probably hoping the stupid leftist funk crew doesn’t realize yet Prez. Change, if he goes ahead with it, will probably have them holed up somewhere like this.

This is where we’re at, folks. Oprah will find a diet that sticks before the MSM scrutinizes the Obama Crew properly… let alone how they “scrutinized” the other guy.

Meanwhile, lest there be any more cause for concern, good ol’ New Socialism is at work!

Europe: give us money, give us more soldiers

Hey Strasbougians!

…

What? No good?

Hey, climate change! We care about that. We love you Europe!

Europe! Please help!

Bush couldn’t sell it, but you love me, right? Guantanamo? Torture? Aww shucks. I knew you’d come on board!

Right???

Lessons of the past? Naww, mistakes!

Young ignoram1, come to Obama!

PS I know half of you couldn’t understand me, but shucks I’m handsome… just ask the Korean girls!

Early Link (apparently he mentioned something about nukes in there somewhere)

Video will come when available – was just live on CNN

UPDATE

Good or bad, he HAS gone without the teleprompter in the Q & A section of this townhall meeting.

UPDATE

He finishes it up by again calling on the Europeans to step up to the plate with regards to Islamic terrorism.

Overall, I have to give him the thumbs up. Look, at the end of the day, he just might succeed on getting the Europeans on board finally with regards to Al Quaida.

Hey, he DID plead for cash re the economic crisis but his crunch definitely was terrorism. He’s selling it well.

Ooops, he’s one more point…

When that video’s up, it’ll be up here.

UPDATE

Gotta go out. Hopefully the vid will be up when I get back. In the meantime, enjoy the soothing sounds of Air Force One’s approach into Strasbourg.

Watch This Guy

Although not given much attention by the UK Press, MEP Daniel Hannan’s recent speech in response to Gordon Brown’s address to the European Union is nearing 2 million hits on Youtube, and one can see why. Wish we had him.

Russia Backs Return to Gold Standard

It’s sort of a modified, limited hang-out, but Russia is promoting at least a partial return to the gold standard for international currencies.

“Arkady Dvorkevich, the Kremlin’s chief economic adviser, said Russia would favour the inclusion of gold bullion in the basket-weighting of a new world currency based on Special Drawing Rights issued by the International Monetary Fund.

Chinese and Russian leaders both plan to open debate on an SDR-based reserve currency as an alternative to the US dollar at the G20 summit in London this week, although the world may not yet be ready for such a radical proposal.”

Too funny: Having money backed by real value is “radical.” No, it isn’t, it’s moral… but you can be sure the Russians and Chinese are not proposing this for positive moral ends, rather they have designs on taking advantage of the US mountain of debt that Obi-One has buried us under to weaken us economically. Still, I’m glad they brought this up, because it will strike fear into a lot of arrogant hearts, or it ought to.

If some countries return to the gold standard, international financiers and financial institutions will flock to those currencies and the US dollar and other unbacked fiat currencies will plummet into worthlessness. If that doesn’t worry you, it should. The US, GB, Australia and other western nations are in no position to return to the gold standard: Too much money in circulation and nowhere near enough gold to hitch to it.

Still, at some point this is going to happen, even if it takes a total global financial meltdown to achieve it… and it just might.

The choices will come down to this…

…or this.

European Carbon Markets Collapse, Making it Cheap to Pollute

I’m filled with malevolent joy! Schadenfreude!!! Europe’s carbon markets have collapsed, making dirty old coal cheap to pollute with again!

“Roll up for the great pollution fire sale, the ultimate chance to wreck the climate on the cheap. You sir, over there, from the power company – look at this lovely tonne of freshly made, sulphur-rich carbon dioxide. Last summer it cost an eyewatering €31 to throw up your smokestack, but in our give-away global recession sale, that’s been slashed to a crazy €8.20. Dump plans for the wind turbine! Compare our offer with costly solar energy! At this low, low price you can’t afford not to burn coal!” …

That there exists something called carbon trading is about all that most people know. A few know, too, that Europe has created carbon exchanges, and traders who buy and sell. Few but the professionals, however, know that this market is now failing in its purpose: to edge up the cost of emitting CO2.

The theory sounded fine in the boom years, back when Nicholas Stern described climate change as “the biggest market failure in history” – a market failure to which carbon trading was meant to be a market solution. Instead, it’s bolstering the business case for fossil fuels.”

LULZ! EPIC FAIL!!!

If a green fails in the woods, does it make a sound?

LOL UPDATE: The question should have been, if a carbon-sniffing satellite falls in the ocean, does it make a sound?

“(CNN) — A NASA satellite crashed back to Earth about three minutes after launch early Tuesday, officials said…

“We could not make orbit,” NASA program manager John Brunschwyler said. “Initial indications are the vehicle did not have enough [force] to reach orbit and landed just short of Antarctica in the ocean.”

“Certainly for the science community, it’s a huge disappointment.”

The satellite, which would have monitored greenhouse gases to study how they affect the Earth’s climate, was launched on a rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 1:55 a.m. PT (4:55 a.m. ET)…

The $273 million satellite, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, would have collected “precise global measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere” to help better forecast the changes in carbon dioxide “and the effect that these changes may have on the Earth’s climate.””

Well, the OCO is now the LOCA: Lost Oceanic Clam Attractor. It’s hard not to conclude that God hates climotards, as it is when one ponders all of the icy weather that accompanies Al Gore around the planet.

McCain’s Perfect Choice for a Running Mate: Governor Sarah Palin

While most of the pedantic, two-dimensional, inside-the-box-thinking, conservative political hacks are touting Tom Ridge for the slot (Not a bad guy, but…), David Freddoso notes a far superior choice has been proposed: The Republican Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

I believe this is a truly inspired idea. Gov. Palin ran as an anti-corruption outsider, and handily defeated a corrupt and entrenched Republican political machine. Plus, at 44, she would almost totally wipe the “age issue” McCain has off the slate, and since Obama is only two years her senior, there is no way they could attack her for her youth and inexperience: She has much more executive experience than Senator Obama has.

Not to mention the fact that, she’s a gorgeous woman who exudes mass quantities of charisma…

and has a super-solid family life.

Dibs on the eldest daughter! LOL!

This inspired choice would allow McCain to actually capitalize on his “maverick” persona, as Gov. Palin shook Alaska politics to the core: She’s a charming, charismatic woman, but she can also play with the big boys and kick ass.

What say ye?

UPDATE: Things are looking optimistic!

UPDATE II: Welcome to all 4500 8000 40,000 in the past few hours (so far!) people visiting us from Google. We’re a fairly opinionated right-wing blog, and you might like to take a look at our “About” page. You might also be interested in our other coverage of Sarah Palin and whether she becomes a prospective Vice President of the United States. You can find this coverage here and here. Personally, I hope she does, but you can feel free to debate the idea in comments below. All first comments are moderated, but unless you either insult or use severe profanity (and I mean severe by my standards, which generally only means the C U Next Tuesday word or the implication that someone has had a rather enjoyable erotic experience with someone who has borne a child), however if you come up with a new one, I may simply delete your comment. I, and all other contributors to this blog are more than fair in what we permit.

UPDATE III: Nayr Drahcir, don’t bother even trying. You will not be published.

UPDATE IV: A lot of people must like Palin.

UPDATE V: More coverage of Governor Sarah Palin and a theme song here.

UPDATE VI: Funniest observation on the announcement yet: “Put Obama and Palin on a basketball court one on one. Winner takes all!”

UPDATE VII: [spot_the_dog] No, we do not have any pictures of “Sarah Palin + Naked,” nor do we have any of “Sarah Palin + Swimsuit.” In the past 24 hours, there have been 157 separate searches on this site for “Sarah Palin Swimsuit,” and 161 separate searches for “Sarah Palin Naked.” I repeat, we have no bathing suit, swim suit, bikini, or naked pictures of Sarah Palin. What kind of people do you think we are, anyway? 😉

UPDATE VIIa: [spot_the_dog] Ace has noticed a similar search phenomenon on his blog and has a theory…

UPDATE VIII: A well-rounded view of the selection of Sarah Palin for the Vice President Nomination can be found here.

UPDATE IX:  We got it!  YES!  Nude photo of Sarah Palin right here!  (C’mon.  You know you want to click.)

UPDATE X: Feel free to visit our main page and read the latest posts we’ve written.

“Here’s to Europe, may she go to hell in her own way”

Sometimes when I’m reading other blogs, I see a comment which just strikes an exceptional note and I think to myself, “that one’s goin’ straight to the pool room.”

This response on Tim Blair’s blog by Wm Lawrence, to yet another Lefty proclaiming how much better it would be if America would just be a little more progressive, a little more sophisticated, a little more Leftist, a little (okay, a lot) more like Europe, is one of them.

Consider it pool-roomed.

Josh,

Most of our ancestors voluntarily left Europe to escape its wars, famines, injustices and political arrangements. That some on this continent seem to yearn for a more european culture is only a testament to our political system, which has allowed them to become rich, lazy, complacent and effete.

They mistake european customs for sophistication when they are really just symptoms of the ennui of an old spent and dying civilization in the agonizingly slow process of committing suicide.

You comment that nearly all of the european political parties are of the left as if that were a net good. We don’t see it that way.

All the left is good at is stealing the wealth produced by individuals and using it to purchase political power for themselves. That power is then used to insulate the “ruling class” from the unpleasantness that their utopian dreams force upon the rest of us.

Our political system is based on the principle that the government is granted rights by the people and that it exists only to secure those rights. If that results in a system you consider to be extreme right so be it, but don’t expect an apology from me. Maybe you can arrange one from Barack, to go with all of them you got from Clinton, if we are so cursed.

The rest of the world sees individual rights as being granted by the government whose only duty is to protect itself at the expense of individual rights. I consider that Idea (with considerable evidence) to be dangerously left wing.

I suppose the illuminati of the left consider us “fascistic” or some other meaningless epithet, but let’s recall where all those ideas sprang from.

Benighted as we may be we are not the ones who are unable to utter a word which might offend a favored minority under threat of criminal action, who are unable to protect ourselves from criminals who invade our homes, or whose daughters are under threat of being assaulted in their own land for not being “modest’ enough to avoid attracting the attention of a group of “religious” thugs. At least not yet.

Here is to Europe, may she go to hell in her own way. I for one don’t think the europeans have much to teach us about how to govern ourselves and I consider those who would emulate their politics to be traitors to our constitution and unworthy to govern.

Wm Lawrence
Tue 07 Oct 08 (02:41pm)

Hear, hear.

Opposing Anti-Americanism: “America in the World”

“America in the World” is a new website set up by Europeans to counter anti-Americanism.  From the site:

AmericaInTheWorld is a London-based international alliance opposed to anti-Americanism as well as American isolationism. Via our briefings, we aim to provide the number one factual resource for those who wish to hear the case against anti-Americanism. Our goal is to increase understanding of America, to debunk some of the leading myths about the United States, and to make a positive case for a continuing leading role for America in the world.

AmericaInTheWorld is launched and funded by supporters of America in London and around the world. AmericaInTheWorld receives no American government or corporate funding.

David Cameron, leader of the UK Conservative Party, will be guest of honour at the London launch of AITW in October 2008.

We plan a launch in Washington DC soon and in other major capital cities as more and more people sign our Declaration Against Anti-Americanism.

Meanwhile…

So the Olympics Opening Ceremony is over.

An amazing spectacle with Heads of State in attendance galore.

But not Georgia’s Mikhail Saakashvili.

He’s back in Georgia watching his country being attacked by Russia right now… literally at the same time everyone else, Putin included, watched the ceremony… err, Olmpics, that is.

Who are the goodies. Who are the baddies?

Either way, back to reality.

The Anti-Anti-American

Today’s excerpt from “Holidays in Hell” by PJ O’Rourke:

***

Back in London, I was having dinner in the Groucho Club—this week’s in-spot for what’s left of Britain’s lit glitz and noveau rock riche—when one more person started in on the Stars and Stripes. Eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about “Your country’s never been invaded.” (This fellow had been two during the Blitz, you see). “You don’t know the horror, the suffering. You think war is…”

I snapped.

“A John Wayne movie,” I said. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie—with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mister Limey Poofter? You’re right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They’re us. WE BE BAD.

“We’re the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock-market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them together and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars. We’re the big boys, Jack, the original giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d’Antibes. And we’ve got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.

“You say our country’s never been invaded? You’re right, little buddy. Because I’d like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who’d have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying ‘Cheerio.’ Hell can’t hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch.”

Of course, the guy should have punched me. But this was Europe. He just smiled his shabby, superior Euro trash smile.  (God, don’t these people have dentists?)

***

Okay, now who here can imagine O’Bambi giving the Euroweenies a spray like this, instead of a blowjob like this?

.

In the War Against Islamification, England is Lost

“The picture is an affront to all victims of terrorism and their families.”

This scum-sucking maggot-out-of-hell is smiling because he lives in a $1,600,000.00 US home and draws $100,000.00 US in welfare per year, all on the backs of the English taxpayer.

What. the. unholy. living. fuck?

“Abu Qatada, Al Qaeda’s ambassador in Europe, strolls along a busy London street fondling his prayer beads.

This is the first photograph of the greying 47-year-old – said to be one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist suspects – since he was released on bail from a high-security prison after the courts ordered that he could not be sent home to Jordan because his human rights would have been breached.”

Cry me a river about this shit-sack’s human rights. He’s not a fucking human being! Killing this crap-weasel would be no more reprehensible than stepping on a cockroach.

“t was taken on July 7, hours after the families and friends of the 52 innocent people killed in the London transport suicide bombings three years ago remembered their loved ones at a memorial service.

The radical cleric was freed three weeks ago when a judge ruled that there were no grounds to detain him after previous attempts to deport him to Jordan, where he was convicted of terror attacks and bomb plots, were defeated in the courts.

Described by another judge as ‘a truly dangerous individual’, he remains an iconic figure for many supporters of jihad.

Lawyers successfully argued in the Court of Appeal that Qatada could stay because evidence used against him in any prosecution in Jordan might have been obtained by torture – a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The fanatical preacher, who was 20 stone but slimmed down on prison food, was pictured on a shopping trip near the £800,000 home he shares with his wife and children.

Exact details of the location where the Qatada family are living on benefits of an estimated £50,000 a year are protected by court orders.”

I’m sure there are plenty of good people left in England, so why aren’t they breaking out the guns and overthrowing the government? Oh. That’s right. The government has disarmed them, so there is nothing they can do.

At least this century the US won’t have to send it’s best and brightest “over there” to fight and die… because there is nothing left in England and Europe worth fighting for.

Let the muzzies have the fucking retched place. That’s the message the governments “over there” are sending. I say we listen to them and not bail their miserable asses out this time.

Fuck ’em.

Jesus X. Menendez.

Children Who Say “Yuk” to Foreign Food are Racist

England has long ago gone ’round the bend, but just when you think those meddling, 45 IQ government sponsored morons who run their country can’t get any more idiotic, they lower the bar into ever increasing flatulent stupidity. That’s saying something, because the bar for government employed ninnies in England has been below ground level for quite a few years now. I’m guessing they will reach the planet core within a couple more years.

Get a load of this utter, abject, nonsense:

“The National Children’s Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says “yuk” in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can “recognise different people in their lives”.

The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: “Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships.”

It advises nursery teachers to be on the alert for childish abuse such as: “blackie”, “Pakis”, “those people” or “they smell”.

The guide goes on to warn that children might also “react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying ‘yuk'”.

Staff are told: “No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action.”

Warning that failing to pick children up on their racist attitudes could instil prejudice, the NCB adds that if children “reveal negative attitudes, the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes”.

Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council. The guide added: “Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case.””

I was forced to quote the entire article, because it is so totally and completely beyond the bizarre that it is really and truly not possible to excerpt without removing some absolutely essential inanity or other.

At what point, exactly, do the once proud and now cowardly and brow-beaten English people say, “Enough is enough!” with this way-beyond-silly bullshit? Personally, I think everyone in “The National Children’s Bureau” ought to be rounded up, dragged to the nearest bar ditch, and terminated with extreme prejudice.

I don’t suppose they have bar ditches in England. Pity. They are good places to dispose of roadkill so that the birds and creeping things can feast in peace and safety.

Ratko, World’s Smartest Cab Driver: EU= Big Yugoslavia

I’m not a regular reader of Michael Totten, but Instapundit linked to an absolutely riveting post of his that kept my attention for far too long this morning. I’m the world’s foremost authority when it comes to ADD post-reading, so that’s saying something (If a post reaches to the bottom of my 23″ monitor, I almost always skip it).

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Ratko, by far the world’s most intelligent and prescient cab driver:

This brilliant man summed up the problem with the European Union in a single fractured sentence… and he claims not to speak English:

“So far, everyone Sean and I spoke to in the former Yugoslavia thought Kosovo’s newfound independence was a good thing – including the Serbs we had coffee with in Belgrade on two separate occasions. The Serbs we met, though – Filip David and Predrag Delibasic – are cosmopolitan writers and intellectuals who don’t adhere to the Serbian Nationalist line.

“Montenegro and the European Union?” Sean said.

“No!” Ratko said. “European Union…big Yugoslavia.”

No pundit anywhere has ever said it better. The EU is an attempt so fuse different cultures, different languages, and profoundly different peoples into a whole, just like the royals and later commie bastards did with Yugoslavia… and, I might add, Czechoslovakia.

Today, those former unholy amalgams have split up into the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo et al. Will the EU learn a lesson from this? Nope. And, I’ll bet real, actual money on it.

Read the whole enchelada to get a feel for this region, as Michael and crew take a sometimes harrowing trip through there. It’s one of the finest blog posts I’ve ever read.

Sack the people!

I am attending a conference in Berlin where senior EU panjandrums are reeling around clutching their heads over the ‘disaster’ of the Irish vote against the Lisbon constitutional treaty. Of course, they take it for granted that everyone will agree that the Irish vote was a disaster. This is a given here. If you say brightly that actually you think it was the best thing that’s happened for a very long time, you are looked at with total incomprehension, disbelief and distaste rather as if you had just got up and announced that paedophilia should be made compulsory. One very senior Eurocrat sighed this evening that the Irish hadn’t really studied the constitution and so the vote couldn’t really be taken as a rejection of the constitution at all. Ah yes, of course – the people deliver the wrong result, so the people must be stupid or ignorant or both. Sack the people! After all, a stupid thing like democracy mustn’t be allowed to get in the way of the behemoth of Brussels.

A German banker expressed the heretical view that the limits of integration in Europe had now been reached and that the problem was that no-one – not the political class, not the economic class – ‘owned’ the idea of Europe. I think what he was trying to say was that the idea of Europe was intellectually dishonest, politically dangerous and culturally totalitarian, but he didn’t quite put it that way. The Top Eurocrat reacted to the banker’s somewhat tentative remarks as if someone had just thrown scalding water over him, but then composed himself to console us all with the view that the banker was a committed European and so his comments had obviously reflected the deep pain he felt at what had happened in Ireland. Clearly if the banker had actually supported the Irish his feet wouldn’t have touched the ground.

Afterwards the Top Eurocrat confided to a small knot of sympathisers that there were two alternative ways of dealing with the Irish Problem. The first was to declare that Ireland had effectively left the EU. But that wouldn’t be necessary, he smiled — because all the EU had to do now was draft another constitutional treaty and say it was entirely different.

You heard it here first.

Spectator UK/Melanie Phillips

Are the Eurocrats saying, the Irish are stupid?

Number of the Month

If no one objects, I’ll start linking to John Brignell’s Number of the Month item which closes each month-by-month account of all those misleading, biased, skewed or just plain wrong numbers we are constantly being invited to swallow by the MSM and, regrettably, sometimes popular science journals (you won’t find copies of New Scientist in my waiting room, put it that way).

For May 2008, we have 1,162 – the total number of QANGOs in the UK, costing that country 64 billion pounds a year, which works out to over 2 and a half thousand pounds per household (say a cool five grand in Australian or US dollars, which are virtually equivalent now).

Brignell’s NumberWatch site focuses much on the UK and Europe, but rarely would an item bear no relevance or warning to one’s own situation. I think global warming (Brignell’s list is still growing, by the way) has been supplanted by exposing the machinations of unelected EU officials as his number one crusade. Glad I live here.

PS: how do you type the ‘pounds’ symbol?

Sarkozy calls for EU immigrant crackdown. We need this dude, in the U.S.

Financial Times

Bits:

Plans for a Europe-wide clampdown on immigration that could see asylum-seekers forced to apply for refugee status in advance and more effective deportation measures, are to be at the heart of France’s European Union presidency.

Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, is proposing a co-ordinated crackdown on illegal immigration in government documents, seen by the Financial Times, which have been drawn up in preparation for France’s EU presidency, which starts in July.

Europeans demand “the right to vote”… A CALL TO ARMS. (UPDATE)

It’s like deja-vu all over again … Once again, the Euro-weenies seem to feel that they have some sort of a right to participate in U.S. elections. The Brussels Journal reports that a 3 January 2008 editorial in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard whines, “…the world should be given the right to vote. Because the current situation is a blatant case of taxation without representation, against which the Americans rebelled in 1776.”