Nobody Listens to Women

... especially those women who have something profound to say but aren't part of the Western grievance industry:

Despite it being a long distance call and a bad line, I can detect the frustration in her voice. ''Women? No one listens to women''.

Hamida Hussan* is a young Afghan woman from Kabul, who has just spent four whirlwind days in Washington DC speaking to congressmen and women, addressing conferences and lobbying whoever she can corner. She's exhausted and sounds like she's about to cry.

Just hours before our late night conversation, a suicide bomber has killed 17 people outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Most were civilians. Gruesome footage posted on the internet shows a passerby pulling a severed leg out from under a car. We both search news websites for more information and find nothing.

''A dog or cat dies in this country (the US) and they put it on TV'', she says in exasperation, ''And yet no one knows or cares about these people killed today''.

I want to tell her that the problem is one of ''compassion fatigue'' – that the world has seen it all before. Instead, I just tell her I'm sorry.

Hussan is one of a growing band of gusty, young Afghan women - mostly single, childless and in their 30s - who are doing everything in their power to try and ensure the international community doesn't turn its back on Afghanistan. They are terrified that history is about to repeat itself and that Afghanistan will once again be abandoned. Talk of ''targeted counter-insurgency'' and the US ''reducing its footprint'' in Afghanistan, and negotiations with so called ''moderate'' Taliban, has them lobbying hard against troop withdrawal.

... keep reading.

Fear of Global Warming is a Mental Disorder

image: Canada has been virtually uninhabitable on and off for 100,000 years.

It always amuses me when individuals speak of a warmer planet in terms of death and destruction and suffering ... when any halfwit knows that a cold planet spells true misery and death on a massive scale. Even more ironic is when fellow Canadians speak in quivering tones of the horrors of a "warmer" planet when they have carved out a country on the northern fringes of human civilization ... truly, Western decadence must have infected their brains and caused a degree of retardation (hopefully temporary).

Thank your lucky stars to be alive on Earth at this time. Our planet is usually in a deep freeze. The last million years have cycled through Ice Ages that last about 100,000 years each, with warmer slivers of about 10,000 years in between.

We are in-betweeners, and just barely — we live in (gasp!) year 10,000 or so after the end of the last ice age. But for our good fortune, we might have been born in the next Ice Age.

Our luck is even better than that. Those 10,000-year warm spells aren’t all cosy-warm. They include brutal Little Ice Ages such as the 500-year-long Little Ice Age that started about 600 years ago. Fortunately, we weren’t around during its fiercest periods when Finland lost one-third of its population, Iceland half, and most of Canada became uninhabitable — even the Inuit fled. While the cold spells within the 10,000 year warm spells aren’t as brutal as a Little Ice Age, they can nevertheless make us huddle in gloom, such as the period in history from about 400 AD to 900 AD, which we know as the Dark Ages. We’ve lucked out twice, escaping the cold spells within the warm spells, making us inbetweeners within the inbetween periods. How good is that?

... more.

Everybody is Green

Until it comes time to pay:

On climate change, the EU is keen to reach a united position ahead of December's United Nations Copenhagen summit, which aims to hammer out a new global climate treaty to replace the UN Kyoto Protocol.

Mr Reinfeldt called on EU leaders to agree a "fixed sum" that would open the way for other rich donors like the US and Japan to make similar aid pledges to help developing nations cope with the effects of climate change.

But just hours before the talks, Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai said sharing the aid costs equally between all 27 EU nations was out of the question. "The burden-sharing proposal is not acceptable in its current form," Mr Bajnai said.

The Polish finance minister, Jacek Rostowski, told the BBC that nine Eastern European nations were ready to block a deal unless they were allowed to contribute according to their means, not to how much they pollute.

"There are countries there like Bulgaria and Latvia, which are considerably poorer than Brazil, and which would be expected to help Brazil in its adjustments to climate change," he said.

AGW: A Golden Slacks World

It's common knowledge in North America that Goldman Sachs stands to profit massively from any carbon trading schemes set up in the US, and in Canada, TD seems to be positioning itself to become the Canadian Golden Slacks through it's support of eco-fascist nonsense ... now we find that Australian bankers are upset ... that their plans to rape the public purse are not moving ahead as quickly as they'd like:

AUSTRALIA’S ambitions to establish itself as an Asian carbon trading hub risk being dashed because of delays in the emissions trading scheme….

This was the assessment of bankers, lawyers and investors yesterday at the second Carbon Markets Expo on the Gold Coast. The expo has experienced a sharp decline in delegates this year, with numbers down from 1200 in its inaugural year to 750…

“As much as people talk about Australia creating a new carbon finance hub, I don’t think it will happen,” said Optim Legal’s Cameron Kelly, a lawyer specialising in carbon markets and credits. “If the CPRS does not get up, we’ll miss the boat.”
So a lawyer is afraid we’ll miss the boat. Which boat? That would be the boat-full of money from Australian workers that’s headed for major international banks, right?

(Isn’t that the kind of boat we would want to catch, but with a tactical nuclear sub and an armed SWAT team?)

I wonder who's got the Australian government's ear ... the voters or the banks?

NICHOLA Ahern has drafted a statement on behalf of all Australians which will be read by world leaders at December's Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

The simple 32-word statement demands immediate action on global warming, including a new legally binding global agreement to limit temperature increases.


It is being sent on behalf of all Australian citizens to the COP15 summit, where US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Chinese President Hu Jintao are among those expected to attend.

Say What?

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When the Sharia Police Come Calling

... there is a simple answer:

I laughed. And the guy said, "Oh, you think that’s funny?" And I said, "Yeah, that is funny, that is really funny, because we’re not going to move the bar just because you discovered we’re serving booze." Can you name one restaurant in New York that doesn’t serve booze? I said, "This is the United States of America and we’ll do whatever the fuck we want." He said the mosque had suggested it couldn’t control the behavior of "a few bad eggs"; i.e., we could get a brick through our window.

... that's right; we'll do whatever the fuck we want.

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Progressives: All About the Little Guy

Progressives ... helping the poor by helping themselves:

Many Obama bundlers have secured slots on federal advisory panels and commissions. Still more have benefited from the time-honored patronage tradition of rewarding political benefactors with ambassadorships. Clinton did it. Bush did it. And despite all his fantastical, Balloon Boy-level rhetoric of bringing a “new politics” to Washington, Obama’s done it, too.

His ambassador to London, Louis Susman, is a Chicago crony with no diplomatic experience who bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for Team Obama and is known as “The Vacuum Cleaner” for his fundraising prowess. His ambassador to France, entertainment mogul Charlie Rivkin headed up Obama’s California fundraising operations, raking in $500,000 for the campaign and another $300,000 for the inaugural. His ambassador to Spain, Boston money man Alan Solomont, also bundled the same amounts for the campaign and inaugural.

In June 2008, candidate Obama railed: “We need a President who will look out for the interests of hardworking families, not just their big campaign donors and corporate allies.” Immediately after the speech, he headed to a campaign fundraiser at the Manhattan headquarters of Credit Suisse, one of the major investment companies caught up in the subprime lending debacle. President Obama collected another $3 million last week at another Manhattan fundraiser after carping about Wall Street’s “self-interestedness.” Audacity is his middle name.

When Obama inveighs against Wall Street greed and politicians beholden to Big Business, remember this: The Wall Street gamblers that Obama and his wife carped about on the campaign trail shoveled money to his campaign hand over fist. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, hedge funds and private equity firms donated $2,992,456 to the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle. No fewer than 100 Obama bundlers are investment CEOs and brokers: nearly two dozen work for financial giants such as Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, or Citigroup.

Obama happily accepted more than $200,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager James Torrey, more than $100,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones and more than $50,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin, chief executive officer of Citadel Investment Group in Chicago. Another notable: Chicago investment banker James Reynolds, who raised more than $200,000 for the Obama campaign while chief executive of Loop Capital Markets. The municipal bond specialist was a longtime friend of Obama—feting the rising star in his Hyde Park home and convincing friends and associates to open up their wallets more than a decade ago.

Canada: Helping Americans Kill Obamacare

Canada has offered Obamacare blow after blow. Canadians should be proud, as they are contributing mightily to the forces seeking to crush Obamacare:

Canadians seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment are enduring a median wait time of 16.1 weeks, roughly the same delay they experienced in 2000-2001, even though governments have made substantial increases in health care spending since then, according to the Fraser Institute’s annual report on hospital wait times.

“After nearly 10 years of spending increases, Canadians are still waiting 113 days, on average, for medically necessary treatment, just as in 2000-2001. While that wait time is shorter than it was last year, it is still a far cry from what Canadians should expect from their expensive health care program,” said Nadeem Esmail, Fraser Institute Director of Health System Performance Studies and author of the 19th annual edition of Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada.

“Throwing more money at a fundamentally broken system will not solve the wait time problem. Canadians deserve health care they can depend on, and it’s time for politicians of all political stripes to admit the current system is a failure.”

A Soldier Speaks to Canadians After He was Killed

"Before he left, I told him he was a gallant warrior in the 21st century because whether it was leading a combat operation, doing house renos or changing a poopy diaper, he knew what to do," said Boyes, who was emotional, but composed.

Flanked by family members, Boyes said her husband was a devoted father and a "pillar of stability."

She also mentioned that the young soldier had been frustrated by what he saw was a lack of support on the home front.

"Justin and I believe in the mission in Afghanistan. One of the things that frustrated him was the lack of support from the Canadian citizens he lived to protect," she said. "He said recently 'We're not losing this war, but if we do, it's because we lost it at home first.'"

Source

The Hippocratic Oath and Politics

Politics can take one who has done something as noble as take the Hippocratic Oath, and turn them into a partisan hack:

Caroline Bennett is a medical doctor, and she should know better than to contribute to the climate of fear in the country. An inveterate heckler herself, she claims now not to be playing politics, but it's been hard for some time not to see the look of contempt bordering on hatred that, no matter what the issue, invariably appears on her face when she rises in the Commons to ask a question of the mild-mannered Aglukkaq. And it's impossible to ignore this report of "a household flyer that attacks the government's handling of H1N1 among aboriginals with the slogan "No vaccines, just body bags ... mailed as a message from Liberal health critic Dr. Carolyn Bennett, [which] features a picture of body bags in a lab and a sick aboriginal child" -- for which Dr. Bennett apologized yesterday.

... so it stands to reason, that common sense conservatives can turn into hacks that bribe Quebec and GTA voters with tax payer's money, and attempt to become the "natural governing party" by morphing into big spending liberals.

The New White House Alibi

It appears that the intellectual geniuses at the White House have finally come up with a brilliant new way of deflecting criticism:

"Edmunds.com has released a faulty analysis," the (White House) blog post said. "This is the latest of several critical analyses of the Cash for Clunkers program from Edmunds.com, which appear designed to grab headlines and get coverage on cable TV."

... that's right, anything Big O and crew don't like must be made for cable ... therefore irrelevant ... brilliant!

I think I might use the technique in all debates from now on.

[fill in the blank] is an irrelevant point because it's obviously made to grab headlines on cable TV.

Will the UK be the First Eurabian Beirut?

... or Kabul, or Bali, or Islamabad:

From a domestic (UK) point of view, the growing instability in Pakistan has massive implications. Already under strain from Moslem immigration, much of it from Pakistan, with a growing and highly voluble fundamentalist faction, civil war – or something approaching it – this could trigger another wave of immigration, which would be hard to contain. Current EU rules would prevent us from excluding members of extended families, which collectively could number hundreds of thousands.

And, with regional passions high, we could see the various factions fight out their battles on British turf, the violence spilling over into the streets of England. Kabul and Peshawar may seem distant but this is the "global village" in practice, with faraway events, and policies of which we take little notice, coming back to haunt us in unpleasant and dangerous ways.

Green Slaughter

picture: Eagle killed by green fantasy.

Greening the planet with a sea of corpses:

This is the ugly, dirty secret of the powerful prop-turbine wind industry. It’s the sorry story that you won’t see on the ‘feel-good’ TV commercials or read about in industry-sponsored ads and skewed ‘research’ papers.

The employees at wind farms have been instructed to not talk about the staggering numbers of dismembered bodies accumulating at the bases of these turbines.

There is big money invested here, and big profits. When people have large investments they do what they need to in order to justify and protect that investment.

Even if it’s wrong.

I love raptors (even if they occasionally buzz my backyard bird feeders and snatch up a chipping sparrow or finch) ... that's why the above story makes me sick. To think that "green" energy will have any less of a negative impact than contemporary energy is just a green ... wet dream.



... the discussion.

Far Left M.O.

I've learned over the years that there are some truths about the far left that seem to be a constant.

One is that leftists hide behind strident accusations. It works simply like this.

Whatever unsavoury or dubious thing the left is already doing, it will accuse the opposition of doing. In this way, the left tries to distract from itself and remove scrutiny (Alinsky would be proud). After all, how can one who is constantly accusing someone else of racism, be racist? How can one who constantly berates the other of collusion with "the corporation", be colluding with the corporate elite? How can one who screams about "rightwing violence", be violent?

Yet, after decades of observation I've learned that the louder the left accuses, the more likely it is of doing exactly what it is accusing the other of doing ... it's simply its modus operandi:

"But I want to tell you, when you talk about what they've done - they've created an atmosphere and they've been unrelenting in their propaganda," Dobbs said. "Three weeks ago this morning, a shot was fired at my house where I live. My wife was standing out and that followed weeks and weeks of threatening phone calls."

Dobbs detailed the event, the notification of law enforcement and threatening phone calls he had received after the fact.

"And, as I told the state patrol, and by the way, the New Jersey State Patrol is absolutely terrific - they responded instantly. But this shot was fired with my wife not, I don't know, 15 feet away and we had threatening phone calls that I decided not to report because I get threatening phone calls," Dobbs continued. "I now - it's become a way of life - the anger, the hate, the vitriol, but it's taken a different tone where they've threatened my wife. They've now fired a shot at my house while my wife was standing next to the car. It's become something else."

The CNN host later took a shot at the "national liberal media," which he claims has taken a side on the immigration issue and has created this sort of reckless environment.

"But we've got to start being honest," Dobbs said. "Instead, the national liberal media has chosen sides and they've decided that they're going to focus on the liberal view, which is that they will embrace illegal immigration - no matter who is harmed, no matter how many laws are broken or how few consequences there are for breaking those laws."

... perhaps it's been "tea baggers" attacking Dobbs.

Oops! They Did it Again

Every psychopath I've ever known took constant liberties with the truth; so much so, that when caught, they had a set pattern for dealing with the light of day.

Some screamed and ranted and denied.

Some just changed the story to a more accurate version without skipping a beat. It was simply a matter of getting away with what they could, then begging "I must've made a mistake", when caught. There was no emotion, no excitation, and no big explanation ... just "oops, I did it again", and then business back to normal with more lies and fabrications.

I wonder, can a whole administration suffer from psychopathy?

An early progress report on President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials promise will be corrected in future reports.

The government's first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by least 5,000 jobs, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts.

The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.

For example:

... keep reading.

Canadian Terrorist

It's so easy to forget that there is a war on where Muslim terrorists constantly plan on killing civilians; that in Canada, at this very moment, are vile individuals who fantasize in killing civilians in the name of Allah and perhaps only hold back because of strategic reasons.

Since 911 scores of plots have been stopped ... but we must never forget the adage that we have to get it right 100% of the time while they just have to get it right once ... and you have carnage:

Two American citizens who have been indicted for plotting terror attacks overseas have direct connections to a senior al Qaeda commander and two Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives.

Chicago natives David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana have been charged in federal court with plotting to conduct attacks against a newspaper in Denmark, according to a criminal complaint that was unsealed today at the US District Court in Chicago. Headley was in contact with al Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri and two unnamed Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives.

Headley, who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, was detained on Oct. 3 after he attempted to travel to Pakistan. Headley has been charged with "one count of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the United States and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to that overseas terrorism conspiracy," according to a press release written by the US Department of Justice.

Rana, a Canadian citizen from Pakistan, was detained on Oct. 18. Rana was was charged with "one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorism conspiracy that involved Headley and at least three other specific individuals in Pakistan."

... keep reading Long War Journal.

Junker writes from Afghanistan:

Thankfully these jihadi's are so incompetent. It is much like Afghanistan, for every detonated IED (most detontations don't kill anyone), we find and disarm many others. They get the occaisional kill only through mass employment of the weapon ... rarely is it cunningly used. The same, luckily, seems to apply so far with these domestic plots. They are inneffective killers. New York, Bali, etc seem to be the exceptions to the rule.

Bad Canada

... you've been a naughty girl:

"Sometimes there is a misunderstanding in Canada and the United States that this is just a piece of cake for EU politicians," Ms. Hedegaard said in an interview in her office with The Globe and Mail.

"Well, let me assure them, it is not."

Ms. Hedegaard said when countries such as Canada decide not to force businesses to operate under stricter CO2 limits, it causes problems for politicians trying to impose those ceilings on firms within their own countries.

"How am I to convince Danish companies that they should go from 20-per-cent reductions in their CO2 emissions to maybe 30 per cent by 2020, if their American and Canadian competitors are not part of that?

"It's not that easy for European politicians to keep together all 27 member states if they cannot see that their competitors are also going to be part of the same rules."

Ms. Hedegaard's point serves as a perfect illustration of why so few people believe that countries attending December's UN conference here will be able to find common ground on any number of outstanding issues to produce an internationally binding agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in two years. A failure to craft at least a framework of an accord, the minister said, will represent a lost opportunity that may not present itself again for years.

If the conference does end without an agreement, it certainly won't be for a lack of effort on the host's part. There are few, if any, environment ministers anywhere as passionate about the climate crisis and who believe that governments need to begin putting the planet's interests ahead of their own political ones.

... keep reading.

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Bear Mountain Sports

Journalists

... and why I so often spit in their general direction.

No offense of course, is intended to those rare eagles among the turkies:

...Agincourt’s status as perhaps the greatest victory against overwhelming odds in military history — and a keystone of the English self-image — has been called into doubt by a group of historians in Britain and France who have painstakingly combed an array of military and tax records from that time and now take a skeptical view of the figures handed down by medieval chroniclers...

...the most telling gauge of the respect being given to the new historians and their penchant for tearing down established wisdom is that it has now become almost routine for American commanders to call on them for advice on strategy and tactics in Afghanistan, Iraq and other present-day conflicts.

... more.

Overwhelming odds eh?

I'll see your Agincourt and raise you a Queen Boudica.

Technological Killing in Detail

Just a few years ago the fuzzy thermal images of targets about to be obliterated seemed like star wars. Back then (Gulf War), it was difficult though, to connect the glowing images on the screen to flesh and blood humans ... so fuzzy were the images.

Today the images being captured are incredibly detailed, so much so, that in some cases actual "characters" can be identified from facial features or other attributes.

Like I've said scores of times ... only a lack of will would cause us to lose ... as you watch this, see if you can pick out the ever present domestic dogs running to and fro in the middle of battle:

How Bad Have We Been Played?

... much much more.

The "Fill in the Blanks" Consensus

Here's a take I haven't read before ... yet it's so logical.

Since we are told that there is consensus among scientists that humans are causing global warming, it only goes to ask ... consensus on what?

In the case of global warming, the “putatively trustworthy sources” would be the consensus of the world’s scientists. The scientific consensus, after all, says that global warming is…is what? Is happening? Is severe? Is manmade? Is going to burn the Earth up if we do not act? It turns out that those who claim consensus either do not explicitly state what that consensus is about, or they make up something that supports their preconceived notions.

If the consensus is that the presence of humans on Earth has some influence on the climate system, then I would have to even include myself in that consensus. After all, the same thing can be said of the presence of trees on Earth, and hopefully we have at least the same rights as trees do. But too often the consensus is some vague, fill-in-the-blank, implied assumption where the definition of “climate change” includes the phrase “humans are evil”.

Don't Forget to Turn out the LIghts When you Leave

But it is changing, coming apart, quietly, slowly -- let’s not look too closely, we mustn't pay too much attention -- the streets, the schools, the hospitals, the ability to speak the truth about things, about life as it is lived, la vita vissuta as they like to say in a neighboring country. Dominique de Villepin always knew there was nothing to worry about; he was born, after all, in Salé, next to Rabat, even spent a few years of his infancy there; of course he knows his Arabs, his Muslims. And surely Eric Rouleau, who for decades in Le Monde was the resident expert on the Middle East (he was so knowledgeable that he never had to so much as mention the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunna), surely he knew everything, didn't he? And those French translations of Edward Said that denounced with such passion the Islamophobia, and those vicious cliches with which the blind and rotting West has always caricatured the Arab Muslim world. Oh, we have been so terrible to the Arabs, we colonialists, we French, we Westerners. And then there is the never-ending outrage of Israel, that running colonial sore. Of course, they have every right, those Muslims, to come here to France. We went to their countries once, now they come to ours. And they have every right to hate us, don’t they?

... more.

The Hyperpoodle - in - Chief

The most powerful political weapon in a democracy is ridicule ... and these days, there's more than enough ammo to go around:

The trouble is it isn’t tough, not where toughness counts. Who are the real “Untouchables” here? In Moscow, it’s Putin and his gang, contemptuously mocking U.S. officials even when (as with Secretary Clinton) they’re still on Russian soil. In Tehran, it’s Ahmadinejad and the mullahs openly nuclearizing as ever feebler warnings and woozier deadlines from the Great Powers come and go. Even Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is an exquisite act of condescension from the Norwegians, a dog biscuit and a pat on the head to the American hyperpower for agreeing to spay itself into a hyperpoodle. We were told that Obama would use “soft power” and “smart diplomacy” to get his way. Russia and Iran are big players with global ambitions, but Obama’s soft power is so soft it doesn’t even work its magic on a client regime in Kabul whose leaders’ very lives are dependent on Western troops. If Obama’s “smart diplomacy” is so smart that even Hamid Karzai ignores it with impunity, why should anyone else pay attention?

... keep reading, Mr. Tough Guy.

At Some Point the Public Snaps Out of It

... and sighs, "Wow, these people really are nuts!"

Much of the newly stirred public suddenly assumes two things from the Obama administration: that the president himself will periodically say something racially insensitive or unwise; and that his supporters will call opponents of his policies racist. If we have wearied of all that in nine months, think what four years of it will do to the public mood.

In just nine months the phrase “Chicago style” has gone from something old-time that evokes Al Capone or Mayor Daley to something very real, contemporary, and scary -- as David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett, and others try to strong-arm the opposition, demonize the media, and manipulate government largesse to either penalize or reward recipients on the basis of their degree of support for Obama.

Could the most imaginative right-wing political operative have invented the idea of a National Endowment for the Arts official gleefully considering quid pro quo grants, administration officials trying to persuade other media outlets that a network critical of Obama is “not a news organization,” or an administration communications director bragging about how her team sandbagged the American media and took them to the cleaners? We can believe there might be one statement like Van Jones’s slander of “white people,” or Sonia Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” boast, or Anita Dunn’s lengthy praise of the mass-murdering Mao, but not an entire series of them. At some point, the American public snaps out of it, and sighs, “Wow, these people really are nuts!”

... VDH has a lot more.

Just for Fun

The Pigeon - in - Chief:



... I pray that "pigeon" isn't a racist slur.

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The Truth

All the Men vs Little Rifqa

When burly agents, who don't have a clue, interview a tiny, frightened, young women:

Rifqa Bary: Uh, I am sorry but aren't I supposed to have like lawyers here or anything like that

Agent DL: You're the victim (chuckle)

Rifa Bary: Oh, really? Okay.

Agent David Lee: You know the difference in a victim and a subject?

Rifqa Bary: Yeah, I do. I do.

Agent: Okay.

[....]

Rifqa Bary: .... I have people that want to testify ...my friends.

[...]

Rifqa Bary: Here's the thing you need to understand. I almost feel like I had two lives. I was straight A, a lot of people knew me at school, the cheerleader, the good student, the goody two shoes kind of girl that did nothing wrong.

DL: Okay.

RB: But at home it was a very different lifestyle. I have two groups of friends. One at school and one that knew the truth about me.
And that was my faith and how I was hiding and those are church affiliated people.

... keep reading, and while you do, ask yourself:

What's it with people like Obama, Hillary, and the Asshole Agent in this transcript, who laugh at the most inapropriate times?

Owning the Rubble

image: Bush stepped up and owned it ... Obama simply wants to ignore it ... or worse yet, pass it off as yesterday's mess.

Recently G. W. Bush spoke in Saskatoon. He talked about playing the hand you are dealt, no matter how distasteful it is. Bush didn't want 911 ... his campaign had been all about Educational and Social Security reforms ... not about war. Yet when dealt the card of 911, Bush stepped up and kept America safe for 8 years and in the meanwhile freed 50 million Muslims from tyranny.

Now, it is Obama's turn, but it would appear that the frat boy who became president is finding it hard to play the card he's been dealt. It was supposed to be a Cinderella story ... a 4 to 8 year cake-walk where the adoring masses would allow "The One" to bring in socialist reform upon reform. Afghanistan and "the economy" were going to simply be sideshows, easily dealt with and perhaps even springboards to even greater adulation.

But then, nothing works out as it's supposed to ... especially for those so assured in their own greatness that they allow their very essence to be poisoned with hubris.

Noonan gets specific:

At a certain point, a president must own a presidency. For George W. Bush that point came eight months in, when 9/11 happened. From that point on, the presidency—all his decisions, all the credit and blame for them—was his. The American people didn't hold him responsible for what led up to 9/11, but they held him responsible for everything after it. This is part of the reason the image of him standing on the rubble of the twin towers, bullhorn in hand, on Sept.14, 2001, became an iconic one. It said: I'm owning it.

Mr. Bush surely knew from the moment he put the bullhorn down that he would be judged on everything that followed. And he has been. Early on, the American people rallied to his support, but Americans are practical people. They will support a leader when there is trouble, but there's an unspoken demand, or rather bargain: We're behind you, now fix this, it's yours.

President Obama, in office a month longer than Bush was when 9/11 hit, now owns his presidency. Does he know it? He too stands on rubble, figuratively speaking—a collapsed economy, high and growing unemployment, two wars. Everyone knows what he's standing on. You can almost see the smoke rising around him. He's got a bullhorn in his hand every day.

It's his now. He gets the credit and the blame. How do we know this? The American people are telling him. You can see it in the polls. That's what his falling poll numbers are about. "It's been almost a year, you own this. Fix it."

The Graveyard of Empires ... Afghan Empires

We've all heard the refrain that Afghanistan eats up and spits out those who try to conquer her, as if that fact alone is enough reason to pull our forces out. To bad for those who push this line of reasoning ... it's not really true and amounts to little more than a simplisitc view of a very complex and long history:

Afghanistan has been called the “graveyard of empires.” That is some impressive IO phrase. It makes us fear failure in Afghanistan because it foreshadows the collapse of the whole western world -- not just Afghanistan. As scary as that prospect is, this specter is a figment of our imagination.

I think what is never mentioned is that the greatest empire that went to grave was the Afghan Empire itself. The British themselves smashed the Afghan Empire when, in 1837, it formed an alliance with the Sikhs in order to prevent the Afghans from retaking its former empire which went to Peshawar and Quetta. Thanks to the British, the sun would permanently set on the Afghan Empire, never to rise again.

Yes it is true that the British did have some setbacks in Afghanistan, but I think we need to examine the motives of the British with regards to Afghanistan. Afghanistan was in fact, nothing more than a buffer between its “jewel” India and the Russian Empire. It never intended to colonize or control Afghanistan. Dividing the Pashtuns along an artificial border represented a classic strategy to ensure that not only would the Afghan empire remain smashed but would also facilitate a cross border insurgency to prevent a Russian expansion south of the Hindu Kush. It worked superbly in the 1980’s.

Previous ... The Young British Soldier.

Mr. Dithers 2.0

Former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin became known as Mr. Dithers for his inability to make difficult and timely decisions ... it would appear that the POTUS is cut from the same cloth.

Cheney fires broadside after broadside:

We should all be concerned as well with the direction of policy on Afghanistan. For quite a while, the cause of our military in that country went pretty much unquestioned, even on the left. The effort was routinely praised by way of contrast to Iraq, which many wrote off as a failure until the surge proved them wrong. Now suddenly – and despite our success in Iraq – we’re hearing a drumbeat of defeatism over Afghanistan. These criticisms carry the same air of hopelessness, they offer the same short-sighted arguments for walking away, and they should be summarily rejected for the same reasons of national security.

Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission.

President Obama has said he understands the stakes for America. When he announced his new strategy he couched the need to succeed in the starkest possible terms, saying, quote, “If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.” End quote.

Five months later, in August of this year, speaking at the VFW, the President made a promise to America’s armed forces. “I will give you a clear mission,” he said, “defined goals, and the equipment and support you need to get the job done. That’s my commitment to you.”

It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.

Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.

Maybe I Should've Stuck with my Violin Career

Military Manual: DE RE MILITARI

For those so inclined, the following is an absolutely fascinating read; with a surprising amount of relevance to our modern age. In fact, save the arms, it's amazing how little has changed:

DE RE MILITARI (wiki)

Victory in war does not depend entirely upon numbers or mere courage; only skill and discipline will insure it.

[...]

The first thing the soldiers are to be taught is the military step, which can only be acquired by constant practice of marching quick and together. Nor is anything of more consequence either on the march or in the line than that they should keep their ranks with the greatest exactness. For troops who march in an irregular and disorderly manner are always in great danger of being defeated. They should march with the common military step twenty miles in five summer-hours, and with the full step, which is quicker, twenty-four miles in the same number of hours. If they exceed this pace, they no longer march but run, and no certain rate can be assigned.

But the young recruits in particular must be exercised in running, in order to charge the enemy with great vigor; occupy, on occasion, an advantageous post with greater expedition, and prevent the enemy in their designs upon the same; that they may, when sent to reconnoiter, advance with speed, return with greater celerity and more easily come up with the enemy in a pursuit.

[...]

To accustom soldiers to carry burdens is also an essential part of discipline. Recruits in particular should be obliged frequently to carry a weight of not less than sixty pounds (exclusive of their arms), and to march with it in the ranks. This is because on difficult expeditions they often find themselves under the necessity of carrying their provisions as well as their arms. Nor will they find this troublesome when inured to it by custom, which makes everything easy. Our troops in ancient times were a proof of this, and Virgil has remarked it in the following lines:

What's in a Name

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan to be precise:

RE “War next door creates havoc in Pakistan” (Oct. 18) Eric Margolis writes that the Pashtun insurgents — who are also terrorists, note their suicide bombings of civilians — the Pakistani government is fighting are ‘wrongly called “Taliban.”

I guess Mr. Margolis has somehow managed to avoid noticing that the umbrella group for these people is called “Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan” (the Taliban Movement of Pakistan).

Seems pretty clear to me who they are. But then there are none so blind as those who will not see. And who would rather ceaselessly criticize the United States than recognize real enemies.

Mark Collins

How Multiculturalism Kills

... and then when you're done with all the apostates, you might as well do the same with each and every human who dares utter a complaint about the man himself.

Let's Be Friends with the Taliban

... after all, according to the world's most intellectual giant, Joe Biden, they aren't Al Quaeda:

Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.

Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers [more here and here], I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.

... keep reading.

Show Me Your Friends

... and I'll show you your future:

It's That Flat Line at the Bottom of the Graph

Not Evil Just Wrong

A Review:

This documentary film is an examination of the human effects of environmental alarmism, with especial reference to the still hypothetical “problem” of human-caused global warming. The film is not so much about the science of climate change as it is about explaining the sociology and politics of what is now perhaps the world’s greatest-ever scare campaign.

Not Evil, Just Wrong examines the issue by interweaving three story lines throughout: first, that of an Ugandan woman who loses her son to malaria; second, the story of workers in a small American town whose employment and wealth is largely generated from the location there of a coal-fired power station, with mines nearby, both of which potentially face closure; and third, the story of the post-Vice Presidential career of Mr Al Gore, and his failure to answer the heartfelt concerns of a young US woman regarding the damage that his policies, if implemented, will wreak on ordinary Americans.

One of the greatest strengths of the film is the archival film footage that the producers have unearthed of some of the key players in the drama. For instance, it is fascinating to see Paul Erlich in grainy black and white asserting back in the 1970s that the world had “no chance of reaching the year 2000”. And Mr Gore lambasting his audience with such gems as “We live in an age of fear” because “global warming caused by burning fossil fuels is going to destroy us and our planet”.

... keep reading.

COIN Lessons

... can be found in the strangest places:

Q: The dichotomy between the employment (and degrees) of violence wielded by insurgents and constituted authorities is a point well taken. Though in Mukiwa, you noted that an area in Matabeleland --one in which you spent considerable time and sweat building friendly relationships and sound human intelligence sources--essentially turned "red" after a violent incursion by the Rhodesian Light Infantry. Why do terrorization tactics work to the insurgents' advantage, but backfire so spectacularly when used by government forces?

A: Because on a balance of terror, they will always tend to win. We arrest people and put them in jail, the insurgents take much more ferocious action. It's the western paradox, but also it’s inherent in asymmetrical conflict. If you are going to lose in the balance of terror, then you have to be able to promise protection in return for support. If you don't have the continuity of presence on the ground to provide civilian population consistent protection then they will feel too exposed and afraid to support you, or be seen to support you. For that you need to stay out among the people, not pull back into secure fire bases, in which you are essentially isolated from the population, and which help to characterize you as an 'invading' force. To some extent the problem can be ameliorated by having Afghan forces, with NATO advisors, provide the continuous presence, but you still need the muscle to protect them because obviously, the danger of that continuous presence is that your forces (Afghan or NATO) are more exposed and vulnerable. And we’ve seen that with the increase of suicide bombing, which aims to counter exactly that mixing. In a counter-intuitive way, the use of suicide bombing is often actually a sign that the balance of conflict is against the insurgents. It’s an attempt to drive a wedge between the people and the COIN forces, to change the balance of fear audit I spoke about, by making civilians scared to be near govt or NATO forces or institutions.

The situation I described in Mukiwa that you refer to is one where we had being pursuing the strategy of cooperation etc, and then a fire force unit of our own side had swung in and carried out a scorched earth patrol against civilians who had, up until then, been cooperating. After that those people no longer trusted us to keep our word and no longer cooperated.

It is wrong to think of the population as being monolithic. Different elements of society cooperate or not for differing reasons, some might be politically motivated but most are swayed by fear or by promises of help and betterment.

Penis Envy

Especially when it comes from Russia ... click.

The greens might actually be happy about this ... as clearly no whale parts are wasted.

Canada: We Don't Stand on Guard for Thee

Image: A Canadian RG-31 limps back to base ... Only the crucible of Afghanistan and Canadian blood forced bureaucrats and politicians to spring for modern equipment like the RG-31.


Canada is an unmitigated embarrassment; a spoiled little prom queen preening and posturing about her greatness ... or worse yet, an uppity little hobbit taking pride in being better than the neighbour, when in reality there are some things Canadian that should be a source of national embarrassment.

I speak of course, about Canada’s national effort in things military. I don’t speak of course, about the men and women in uniform who are as courageous as any who have ever worn the maple leaf and who are as capable as any of their peers the world over.

I speak about the fact, that the Canada which had a vastly smaller population and was many times poorer in 1944, could field two corps (five divisions total), plus an independent armoured brigade, fly 78 squadrons, and could float the world’s third largest navy ... cannot today maintain a 2500 member Afghanistan force indefinitely, in what is an incredibly low intensity conflict. Afghanistan is, by any historic measure, child’s play. Yet, Canada’s armed forces are being pulled out not only because of a lack of will among her populace, but because the forces themselves are becoming spent by the effort.

In short, one of the richest countries on the planet, one so wealthy that it has shrugged off the second worst recession of a hundred years, and one that can provide a vast welfare state without breaking a sweat, has a tiny and in many respects, poorly equipped Army, Navy, and Air Force. And this, despite the fact that Canada has the longest coastline on the planet, is a member of NATO, and owns one of the largest chunks of real estate on earth.

Let that sink in ... a post-modern country of 30 million people which is one of the richest in human history can’t field a force of 2500 individuals without burning out the military.

It’s no coincidence that Canada also shares a border with the most militarily powerful nation in history; a nation which would step in on a moment’s notice to defend Canada; a nation which uses its military might to not only defend and project Canada’s strategic interests, but to do limitless humanitarian work simply because nobody else can (tsunamis come to mind). I wonder if Vancouver suffered a massive earth quake, who would get there first? Or better yet, who has the capacity to get their first? I have visions of US National Guard helicopters disgorging American troops to save Vancouverites while Canada’s military winds its way through the mountains in long slow convoys made up of Cold War antiques. (I can also imagine the likes of Steve Staples, Michael Byers, Maude Barlow et al protesting against the National Guard invasion while Vancouverites died in the rubble waiting for help to arrive)

Check out the following list of military expenditures as a percentage of GDP (2005 numbers) ... it says it all:

USA .................. 4.06
France .............. 2.6
Australia .......... 2.4
UK .................... 2.4
Poland ............. 1.71
Holland ........... 1.6
Germany .......... 1.5
Sweden ............ 1.5
CZ .................... 1.46
Denmark ......... 1.3
Canada ............ 1.1

While we can be proud of our soldiers in Afghanistan, while we can support them and laud their heroism and ability, we must never forget that on the macro scale, Canada neglects her military and her responsibilities to her forces. We must never forget that our soldiers initially entered Afghanistan with a military force that had no heavy helicopters, no modern tanks, many armoured vehicles incapable of protecting against even small IEDs, no heavy lift aircraft, and no modern artillery, etc. We must never forget that the flesh and blood part of our force rode into battle astride yesterday’s castoffs, or at most, modern beasts in very limited supply. Furthermore, Canada did, and still does, depend massively on the USA, UK, and others to fill in the gaps.

Only the crucible of Afghanistan and Canadian blood forced the bureaucrats and politicians in charge to spring for modern equipment. It’s been one big race to catch up to battle field realities ... it’s been one big race to modernize a command that still in many ways lives in the Cold War and Peace Keeping eras ... it’s been one big race to do something as simple as purchase a dozen modern artillery pieces or find ways of slapping extra armour onto APCs so that they aren’t death traps. And now, after a few short years, we learn that our tiny rotating human band that fields about 2500 soldiers at a time is all but burned out. The point is, that it took Canadian soldiers dying in order for modernization to take place.

Way to go Canada!

I can’t help but believe that the only way that Canada gets away with her woeful military effort is because she lives next door to the greatest military power of all time, and that she can rely on American power in times of need. America, in fact, makes it possible for Canada to spend little on her military while spending instead on domestic goodies ... to run rich equalization schemes, to buy off Quebec, and to run the only fully universal healthcare system in The Western World. A 1.1 percent of GDP spent on the military has a way of enabling that.

In a very direct way, that’d make Canada a parasite, and America the host. How fitting, that our national bird is the Canada Goose ... which flies South each year to poop on the US of A.

"On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Update: Further reading on GDP and military economics, and historical perspective @ Unambiguously Ambidextrous.

Update 2: My December 09 Rant

Imagine if the Liberals had done THIS

Does this mean, that in order to become the "natural governing party", you have to become a bunch of dirt-bags.

Heads need to roll.

The hubris involved here is stunning. This is tax money provided by all Canadians ... not just the conservatives.

From Boy to Warrior

Incredible photo essay:

click

You Lie!

Rifqa Bary Safe for Now

From Pamela:

Rifqa will not leave Florida until the immigration papers are filed. Next court date is on the 23rd unless he furnishes the paperwork before then.

Rifqa's lawyer asks if she can see the Lorenz's one more time before she is sent home. Elahi is adamant no. They approach the bench. I don't know what happened.

... click for the blow by blow.

UK Climate Vid Redo

With a ht to Unambiguously Ambidextrous:

Recently we featured two alarmist videos which have been foisted onto the UK public by their own government.

Now, we have the remix:

Must See Video on Afghanistan Discussion (with update)

Talking Afghanistan on ABC.

I don't recall a discussion this informed, and sober, on Canadian television ... but then it doesn't matter, we are fleeing the region in 2011, while our closest allies the UK and USA are actually increasing their commitment.

It's my view that Harper et al are more concerned with Quebec votes than winning in Afghanistan ... after all, it'd be a seat losing strategy to stay the course in Afghanistan, what with Quebec being so pacifist that Canadian polls on support for the war effort would have vastly different results were Quebec left out (Quebec support runs around 25 - 30%).

It tis strange though, that Quebec has lots of defense industries ... it's one thing for the pacifists in Quebec to make a living off of war ... but another altogether to get behind the national effort. Any cut to military contracts in Quebec would spell squealing fits with calls to "separate" liberally (pardon the pun) tossed in for good measure.

And Harper and co. know this ... so being the chess players they are, the CPC are more than happy to pull out of Afghanistan ... chess in Quebec after all, is a losing game if one is trying to prosecute a war at the same time. Becoming Canada's natural governing party, a stated goal of Harper's, means winning hearts and minds ... in Quebec and not sticking it out with our allies in Afghanistan.

Update: What passes for "debate" in Canada

"Talking Afghanistan on ABC."/ "Giggles" and the MPs

I’d Rather Work for a Cranky Mongoose.

Steyn gives us Thanks Giving Day feast of one-liners:

For these and other “extraordinary efforts” in “cooperation between peoples,” President Obama is now the fastest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in history. Alas, the extraordinary efforts of those first twelve days are already ancient history. Reflecting the new harmony of U.S.-world relations since the administration hit the “reset” button, the Times of London declared the award “preposterous” and Svenska Freds (the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society) called it “shameful.” There’s something almost quaintly vieux chapeau about the Nobel decision, as if the hopeychangey bumper stickers were shipped surface mail to Oslo and only arrived last week. Everywhere else, they’re peeling off: The venerable lefties at Britain’s New Statesman currently have a cover story on “Barack W. Bush.”

Happily, there are still a few Americans willing to stand by Mister Saturday Night. “I am shocked at the mean-spirited comments,” wrote Judi Romaine to the Times in protest at all the naysaying. “I’m afraid I’ve registered into a very conversative [sic], fear-based world here but I’d like to suggest the incredible notion we all create our worlds in our conversations. What are you building by maligning rather than creating discourses for workability? Bravo to Obama and others working for people, however it appears to cynics.”

If that’s the language you have to speak when you’re “working for people,” I’d rather work for a cranky mongoose. Yet to persons who can use phrases like “creating discourses for workability” with a straight face, Obama remains an heroic figure. Like Judi Romaine, he works hard to “create our worlds in our conversations.” Why, only the other day, very conversationally, the administration floated the trial balloon that it could live with the Taliban returning to government in Afghanistan. A lot of Afghans won’t be living with it, but that’s their lookout.

[...]

Obama’s priorities lie not in the Hindu Kush but in America: Why squander your presidency on trying to turn an economically moribund feudal backwater into a functioning nation state when you can turn a functioning nation state into an economically moribund feudal backwater?

Eurabia

... note the "root causes" blindness:

Shameless Alarmist Videos

... from the UK government, no doubt:



... and some more from these dorks:



Update: Look at the bright side, the vid campaign only costs £6,000,000.

The irony of ironies is that somewhere, someday, the global warming freak show will set up a massive carbon storage project which will leak ... and kill far more people than it could have ever saved from the fiction of AGW.

The bright side ... think of all the nice shiny new government jobs that will have been created.

To be Progressive: Is to Regress

A thoughtful essay by Charles Krauthammer:

The weathervanes of conventional wisdom are registering another round of angst about America in decline. New theories, old slogans: Imperial overstretch. The Asian awakening. The post-American world. Inexorable forces beyond our control bringing the inevitable humbling of the world hegemon.

On the other side of this debate are a few--notably Josef Joffe in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs--who resist the current fashion and insist that America remains the indispensable power. They note that declinist predictions are cyclical, that the rise of China (and perhaps India) are just the current version of the Japan panic of the late 1980s or of the earlier pessimism best captured by Jean-François Revel's How Democracies Perish.

The anti-declinists point out, for example, that the fear of China is overblown. It's based on the implausible assumption of indefinite, uninterrupted growth; ignores accumulating externalities like pollution (which can be ignored when growth starts from a very low baseline, but ends up making growth increasingly, chokingly difficult); and overlooks the unavoidable consequences of the one-child policy, which guarantees that China will get old before it gets rich.

And just as the rise of China is a straight-line projection of current economic trends, American decline is a straight-line projection of the fearful, pessimistic mood of a country war-weary and in the grip of a severe recession.

Among these crosscurrents, my thesis is simple: The question of whether America is in decline cannot be answered yes or no. There is no yes or no. Both answers are wrong, because the assumption that somehow there exists some predetermined inevitable trajectory, the result of uncontrollable external forces, is wrong. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is written. For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice. Two decades into the unipolar world that came about with the fall of the Soviet Union, America is in the position of deciding whether to abdicate or retain its dominance. Decline--or continued ascendancy--is in our hands.

Not that decline is always a choice. Britain's decline after World War II was foretold, as indeed was that of Europe, which had been the dominant global force of the preceding centuries. The civilizational suicide that was the two world wars, and the consequent physical and psychological exhaustion, made continued dominance impossible and decline inevitable.

... read the entire thing, it's a must read.

What's Good for the Plants is Good for Us

What may be needed is "more" CO2 ... not less:

A noted geologist who coauthored the New York Times bestseller Sugar Busters has turned his attention to convincing Congress that carbon dioxide emissions are good for the Earth and don't cause global warming. Leighton Steward is on Capitol Hill this week armed with studies and his book Fire, Ice and Paradise in a bid to show senators working on the energy bill that the carbon dioxide cap-and-trade scheme could actually hurt the environment by reducing CO2 levels.

"I'm trying to kill the whole thing," he says. "We are tilting at windmills." He is meeting with several GOP lawmakers and has plans to meet with some Democrats later this week.

Much of the global warming debate has focused on reducing CO2 emissions because it is thought that the greenhouse gas produced mostly from fossil fuels is warming the planet. But Steward, who once believed CO2 caused global warming, is trying to fight that with a mountain of studies and scientific evidence that suggest CO2 is not the cause for warming. What's more, he says CO2 levels are so low that more, not less, is needed to sustain and expand plant growth.

The Global Warming Debate is Hotting Up

When the BBC, perhaps the most shameless propoganda arm of the IPCC, begins to hedge it's bets, you know that things are not looking good for the alarmist camp:

So what can we expect in the next few years?

Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.

It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).

Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.

One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say its hotting up.

This, from the media giant that has used up hundreds of thousands of words, diagrams, and AV clips, trying to convince a skeptical world that AGW is real.

The Harper Two-Step

Here's a question ...

Is Canada pulling its military out of Afghanistan in 2011 ... and if not, what are Canadian soldiers with "guns" and LAVs going to be doing there?

If you're not sure, you're not alone because the very government charged with tasking Canadian troops seems not to know ... click.

The Snooty Little Girls Grew Up

... and now they must act like adults, a task that's proving to be not quite as easy as it seems:

The genius of democracy is the rotation of power, which forces the opposition to be serious — particularly about things like war, about which until January 20 of this year Democrats were decidedly unserious.

When the Iraq War (which a majority of Senate Democrats voted for) ran into trouble and casualties began to mount, Democrats followed the shifting winds of public opinion and turned decidedly anti-war. But needing political cover because of their post-Vietnam reputation for weakness on national defense, they adopted Afghanistan as their pet war.

“I was part of the 2004 Kerry campaign, which elevated the idea of Afghanistan as ‘the right war’ to conventional Democratic wisdom,” wrote Democratic consultant Bob Shrum shortly after President Obama was elected. “This was accurate as criticism of the Bush administration, but it was also reflexive and perhaps by now even misleading as policy.”

Which is a clever way to say that championing victory in Afghanistan was a contrived and disingenuous policy in which Democrats never seriously believed, a convenient two-by-four with which to bash George Bush over Iraq — while still appearing warlike enough to fend off the soft-on-defense stereotype.

Brilliantly crafted and perfectly cynical, the “Iraq War bad, Afghan War good” posture worked. Democrats first won Congress, then the White House. But now, unfortunately, they must govern. No more games. No more pretense.

So what does their commander in chief do now with the war he once declared had to be won but had been almost criminally under-resourced by Bush?

Perhaps provide the resources to win it?

You would think so. And that’s exactly what Obama’s handpicked commander requested on August 30 — a surge of 30,000 to 40,000 troops to stabilize a downward spiral and save Afghanistan the way a similar surge saved Iraq.

That was more than five weeks ago. Still no response. Obama agonizes publicly as the world watches. Why? Because, explains national-security adviser James Jones, you don’t commit troops before you decide on a strategy.

No strategy? On March 27, flanked by his secretaries of defense and state, the president said this: “Today I’m announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” He then outlined a civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

... do read it all.

The New Nobel Era of Diplomacy: God Help us All

BHO winning the Nobel Peace Prize is so beyond mocking that I wasn't going to comment on it this morning ... part of the problem was that I couldn't see through the tears in my eyes ... I was laughing so hard; part of it was that ever since Arafat got the prize, I've ignored it.

I thought however, that I'd give a quick rundown of the Diplomat - in - Chief's accomplishments in diplomacy, since that's what the prize was for:

1. BHO pulled down the missile shield in Eastern Europe as a gesture of good faith ... the result is that Putin is emboldened, has formed closer ties with Iran by supporting Iran's nuclear ambitions, and is forming closer ties with the likes of Chavez.

2. BHO has reached out to Europe. The result is no cooperation on Afghanistan, forcing the US to basically go it alone ... not to mention the mocking derision of BHO issuing from the likes of Sarkozy.

3. BHO fired the first shots of a trade war with China.

4. BHO signed a bill that discriminates against Canadian businesses, despite a longstanding free trade agreement being in place and our two countries sharing the longest undefended border on the planet.

5. BHO reached out to Iran. The result is that Iran has accelerated it's nuke ambitions.

6. BHO has bullied Honduras for simply living up to it's constitutional responsibilities.

7. BHO has sucked up to Muslims publicly and internationally. The result is an emboldened push by UN Muslim states to enact international laws that are a flagrant attack on free speech. Canada, for example, walked out of the UN HR committee.

8. BHO has been chastised by the G-20 for record debt and the US dollar is now under assault from debtor nations despite claims by them that no such plan is afoot. They have lied, openly, to the great diplomat.

9. BHO has isolated Israel, one of America's longest standing friends and the only liberal democracy in the entire Middle East.

... we could go on, but the point is clear, that the Nobel committee based its decision of a "feelings".

Once we, in the West, begin to evaluate policy and diplomacy based on "feelings", we are doomed. Thank goodness that the bulk of the world has greeted the award of Nobel Peace Prize to BHO, as a joke. The Nobel committee has insulted the intelligence of the entire human species ... what a shame.

Take the Obama Doctrine Quiz

Much was made of the "Bush Doctrine", but do you know the "Obama Doctrine"?

Take a stab at it:

1) Too many nations abroad did not like us because of _________.

2) With Obama in office, they will once again be fond of America as they __________________.

3) As a result, the world at large will become a __________ place guided by _________.

The Answers from Victor.

The Battle of Camp Keating

One for the books:

The pilot of an Apache gunship who flew to the rescue of U.S. soldiers nearly overrun at a remote outpost in Afghanistan last weekend told ABC News today that he had "never seen that large of a force" attacking coalition troops in Afghanistan.

[...]

"When we first showed up and put our sensors on Keating, it was just kind of shock," said Bardwell, 35, of Liman, Wyo., who piloted one of a swarm of Apaches that rushed the base's defense. "All the amount of flames and the smoke and to see that amount of personnel running outside of their wire. It was really kind of shock."

Lewallen added, "I've been on three deployments and I've never seen that large of a force attacking one static position."

When he first arrived on the scene Saturday, Lewallen said he could see about 30 fighters just along the camp's perimeter.

The Beta is a Player

Vomit alert:

The Voice of The Base

The Walking Dead

Sometimes, the dead don't know that they are dead:

The great global warming scare is over — it is well past its peak, very much a spent force, sputtering in fits and starts to a whimpering end. You may not know this yet. Or rather, you may know it but don’t want to acknowledge it until every one else does, and that won’t happen until the press, much of which also knows it, formally acknowledges it.

I know that the global warming scare is over but for the shouting because that’s what the polls show, at least those in the U.S., where unlike Canada the public is polled extensively on global warming. Most Americans don’t blame humans for climate change — they consider global warming to be a natural phenomenon. Even when the polls showed the public believed man was responsible for global warming, the public didn’t take the scare seriously. When asked to rank global warming’s importance compared to numerous other concerns — unemployment, trade, health care, poverty, crime, and education among them — global warming came in dead last. Fewer than 1% chose global warming as scare-worthy.

Planetary Malpractice

"An Asian peasant who labors through all of his waking hours, with tools created in Biblical times—a South American aborigine who is devoured by piranha in a jungle stream—an African who is bitten by the tsetse fly—an Arab whose teeth are green with decay in his mouth—these do live with their 'natural environment,' but are scarcely able to appreciate its beauty. Try to tell a Chinese mother, whose child is dying of cholera: 'Should one do everything one can? Of course not.' Try to tell a Russian housewife, who trudges miles on foot in sub-zero weather in order to spend hours standing in line at a state store dispensing food rations, that America is defiled by shopping centers, expressways and family cars." ~ Ayn Rand

The Asian People’s Climate Court has found the world’s richest states guilty of breaking “a dozen” international agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), providing legal ground for reparation claims by poor countries hurt by climate change.

Filipino environmental lawyer Antonio Oposa Jr. said on Wednesday that an international legal team is ready to back countries that would seek damages against G-8 states for climate change-related damages following the findings of the Asian People’s Climate Court.

The Asian People’s Climate Court, presided by Thai Human Rights Commission chair Amara Pongsapich, based its verdict on the testimony of 10 witnesses, including two scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Thai and Bangladeshi farmers, a Nepalese mountain climber, a Filipino fisherman and an Indonesian women’s advocate in a two-hour mock hearing on Children of Asia and the Pacific v. G-8 on Tuesday.

“Defendants have threatened and continue to threaten petitioners’ right to life and the course of life, thus committing planetary malpractice resulting in intergenerational damages. They have broken about a dozen international agreements, for example, by breaching their duty not to cause harm or their obligations under the UNFCCC,”  Pongsapich said.

An Alpha Male Moment

The world today, outside day to day social interaction, has no room for Beta Males:

Defeating the Taliban and fostering an Afghan government and army that can stabilize the country are daunting tasks that will require years of patience. It could be that even a concerted effort, along the lines proposed by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, would fail. There should be no mistaking, however, what the stakes of this conflict are. Whether or not al-Qaeda regains its pre-9/11 haven, a Taliban victory would be a catastrophe for the United States and its allies.

On that note, let me clarify that I'd prefer one Alpha female to a room full of pontificating Beta males any day ... click.

Then there are the Alphas like Rahm ... Alphas who have climbed the political heap simply by influence peddling. That makes them hardly worth a spit storm ... in fact, they are dangerous, more adept at straddling the legal and illegal to gain power for themselves. For Rahm, the Afghan question isn't one of geopolitics, but one of "what will it do for Rahm?"

The First Signs of Vietnamistan

The first signs of a failed strategy by a modern army from a liberal democratic state is that the troops begin to lose hope ... now that the first small signs are manifesting themselves in Afghanistan, it is indeed time for Obama to become a winner, to go in big as McChrystal calls for, or go home:

“The many soldiers who come to see us have a sense of futility and anger about being here. They are really in a state of depression and despair and just want to get back to their families,” said Captain Jeff Masengale, of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion.

“They feel they are risking their lives for progress that’s hard to discern,” said Captain Sam Rico, of the Division’s 4-25 Field Artillery Battalion. “They are tired, strained, confused and just want to get through.” The chaplains said that they were speaking out because the men could not.

[...]

“We’re lost — that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here,” said Specialist Raquime Mercer, 20, whose closest friend was shot dead by a renegade Afghan policeman last Friday. “I need a clear-cut purpose if I’m going to get hurt out here or if I’m going to die.”

It is entirely possible that the Times-online piece is simply a typical hit piece, where a tiny minority view is taken and grown out of all proportion ... but I've been picking up similar echoes from some of our own soldiers, so more than likely there is a growing number of soldiers beginning to have doubts. After all, soldiers by nature are winners ... they want to see progress, and they want to win ... not just spin their wheels and die for an elusive cause.

It is my belief that Canada has a winning strategy in Afghanistan, but that strategy takes many more boots on the ground ... and I'm talking numbers that Canada can't ever supply. That means that the USA will have to, as usual, do most of the heavy lifting and providing of volume. It's all ... every last little crumb, now in Obama's hands.

The Cost of a Propoganda Stunt

... 100+ Dead Taliban:

The US military now claims that more than 100 enemy fighters were killed during the Oct. 3 assault on two joint Afghan and US outposts in Nuristan province. The military also backed away from its previous statement that a "Nuristani tribal militia" conducted the attack and said the attack was a collaborative effort by multiple extremist groups.

Several days ago, more than 300 enemy fighters launched the attack on the two remote outposts in the district of Kamdish, just 10 miles from the Pakistani border, after organizing at a nearby mosque and a village.

The US military is now claiming that more than one-third of the assault force was killed while US and Afghan forces repelled the attack. Initially, the US had said "several" fighters were killed, but various press accounts put the number at between 20 to 50 fighters killed.

"A more detailed battlefield assessment following the Oct. 3 attack in Nuristan has determined that enemy forces suffered more than 100 dead during the well-coordinated defense -- significantly higher losses than originally thought," the US military said in a press release.