Mittens Has Been Planning War for 4 Years ...

... and he and the GOP have the narrative down. But is it accurate:

It’s an article of faith among many Republicans that Mitt Romney is the most electable candidate in the GOP field. But it’s not clear that this assertion is actually true. In fact, if one were going to design a Republican opponent tailor-made to President Obama’s liking, that opponent would be uniquely vulnerable to Obama’s main rhetorical thrust (making class-warfare arguments), uniquely unsuited to take clear aim at Obama’s least popular action as president (spearheading the passage of Obamacare), and uniquely strong in states that are unlikely to matter in the general election race. In all three of these ways, Romney is made to order for Obama — while his chief rival, Newt Gingrich, is not.

... keep reading.

Oopsie

The NASA genius

I'll Go

Communist Capitalism

Not a contradiction ...but an ugly fact of life:

Ten years after Beijing insinuated itself into the World Trade Organization, Chinese corporate monopolies and crony-capitalist empires still enjoy protectionist tariffs and anti-competition laws that have rendered the whole idea of liberalized global trade a sick joke. The racket has engorged Chinese industrial barons with the booty of a sixfold increase in Chinese exports that have cost millions of North American workers their jobs and transformed what was an already fraudulent "socialism with Chinese characteristics" into an increasingly vile regime.

Fully half of China's billion citizens subsist on sub-Saharan incomes of less than $2 a day, and they're growing increasingly impatient with the corruption, oppression and persecution that has accompanied the stuffing of Beijing's foreign-reserves treasury.

But the dozens of unelected billionaires who now dominate the People's Congress that pretends to be a parliament have decided they will not put up with backchat from Chinese patriots and essayists or with "mass incidents" of the kind that broke out in Wukan and Haimen. Over the past five years, Congress deputies have doubled military spending, adding to a vast and growing security, surveillance and prisoncomplex apparatus with an annual budget that now hovers in the neighbourhood of $200 billion.

The uncomfortable part comes in admitting that Canada depends more on China for positive GDP, than on any other country on earth.

They Built a Giant Wind Farm

... but forgot to plug it in:

On December 6 he received an urgent message from Leonhard Birnbaum, RWE's chief commercial officer, and Fritz Vahrenholt, who heads up the company's renewables division. The two men expressed their serious concern that "the timely realization of grid links" for offshore wind farms had become "dramatically problematic," thus seriously jeopardizing the expansion of the sector and therefore also the government's plans. "This development puts us in an extremely difficult position," the two RWE managers wrote.

Taxing the Rich to Save Ourselves

... is a dead end road:

If we look at tax revenues and income in a practical way, we find "tax the rich" will not close the widening $1.5 trillion gap between Federal revenues and spending.

Clearly, $1.5 trillion annual Federal deficits to fund the Status Quo--fully 10% of the nation's GDP--is unsustainable. Eventually, the ad hoc "solutions" currently being pushed by the Federal Reserve--zero interest rates to keep borrowing costs artificially low and money-printing operations that buy Treasury debt--will encounter political and/or market pressures which will limit the marginal effectiveness of these interventions, and the real cost of these historically unprecedented deficits will trigger a host of unintended consequences--all negative.

The Best New Year's Resolution ...

Ever!

Ecocide

No ... really ... they're serious:

There is a push to have “ecocide” made illegal as a fifth crime against peace. I am at a loss to figure out how harming the environment could be constituted as such, unless you consider nature to be the equivalent of a sovereign nation that the horrible corporate world is waging war against.

Cannibals

Civilizational Resistant Muslimococcus Aureus:

The number of women from Britain's ethnic communities stepping forward to report honour- related violence has more than doubled in three years, new figures have revealed.


Figures from the Metropolitan Police show that in the 12 months to April 2011 there were 443 incidents reported as cases of honour violence or forced marriage in London alone, more than double that in 2007-08.

From the World's Authority on Reality

More than 2,400 permit holders were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, excluding traffic-related crimes, over the five-year period, The Times found when it compared databases of recent criminal court cases and licensees. While the figure represents a small percentage of those with permits, more than 200 were convicted of felonies, including at least 10 who committed murder or manslaughter. All but two of the killers used a gun.

... oh really?

Blue

Elvis Presley & Martina McBride - Blue Christmas by goldrausch

The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayres

Is Number 4:

Barbarians

Wherever Islam holds a plurality, it imposes its barbaric practices on others unless prevented from doing so by more powerful forces ... there are no exceptions:

International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that the Ethiopian Christians who were arrested seven days ago in Saudi Arabia for holding a prayer meeting are now being charged by Saudi officials with mixing with the opposite sex. In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal for men and women (non-family) to be in the same room together.

... and often, when it is stymied, it lashes out:

A Muslim man who punched a nurse for trying to remove his wife's burqa during childbirth has been jailed in France.

Nassim Mimoune, 24, had already been expelled from the delivery room for branding the midwife a 'rapist' as she carried out an intimate examination of his wife.

... no kidding?

Update: A Little more Muslim supremacist behavior for you ... and for our sensitive "progressives" readers, what about kaffir bitch don't you understand.

Islam: Eating Their Own Before They Eat Others

Cannibals:

In a textbook for 10th-graders, printed for the 2010-2011 academic year, al-Ahmed said teenagers are taught barbaric practices. “They show students how to cut (the) hand and the feet of a thief,” he said. In another textbook, for ninth-graders, the students are taught the annihilation of the Jewish people is imperative. One text reads in part: “The hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. ... There is a Jew behind me come and kill him.”

Via

Talking About the New Satan

Levin:

The list goes on and on. Coulter is undoubtedly aware of all of this. How can she or any sensible person, let alone conservative, advocate for or defend this? She backed Chris Christie, telling me that if Mitt Romney is nominated he will lose as John McCain did, and it will be my fault (along with Rush's and Sean's). Now, she insists that only Romney can win and the conservatives in the field cannot. Perplexing.

via

Signing Onto the F-35 Without Knowing the Cost

Japan:

How much does an F-35 really cost? The answer is that it depends who you ask. A Lockheed Martin spokesman said the day before the Japanese procurement was announced that: “The average recurring flyaway cost of an F-35A, in 2010 economics, is approximately $65 million.” But hours later, the Japanese Ministry of Defense confirmed that it was paying JPY8.9 billion ($114 million), or JPY9.9 billion ($127 million) including spares, for each F-35. It’s unclear why the two figures are so far apart, but it’s easy to understand why potential partners like Australia have lost trust in the numbers.

... and more reading here.

CTV Becomes a Fund Raiser

For Idiots:

Two young Canadian adventurers are bundling up in parkas and embarking on a once-in-a-lifetime trip chosen from the throw of a dart.

And, as luck would have it, they are on a mission to bring awareness to the great phony Global Warming polar bear vanishing act.

Eco-Fascists Extend Their Greedy Reach

After all, the science is settled:

U.S. air carriers failed Wednesday to block an EU law charging airlines flying to Europe for their carbon pollution, yielding to a sweeping measure intended to curb climate-changing emissions from international aviation.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg dismissed arguments that imposing the European Union's cap-and-trade program on flights to and from European airports infringes on national sovereignty or violates international aviation treaties.

The lawsuit was brought by U.S. and Canadian airlines acting through the industry trade organization Airlines for America, but the protest was supported by China, India and other countries with international carriers.

Scientists Discover North Asian Genetic Phenomenon

It would appear that unlike other humans, North Koreans weep without actually shedding tears:



As for us, we may be tempted to weep simply because the world will be a much less humorous place now that "Dear Leader" is gone. One of the world's greatest butt of jokes and sources of ridicule has passed.

Bummer

A South Carolina man's brother died after police said he was forced to eat cocaine hidden in his brother's backside.

The mayor of Saskatoon once said in a speech ... "criminals are basically stupid and lazy".

Yep.

The Re-Making of Saint Al

Sustainable Capitalism:

No doubt his handlers have given Al Gore the word: go easy on climate warming (aka climate change). The issue has little traction. You are the wrong voice for the cause. Solyndra. Climategate 2.0. Winter snows…. Not now, Al.

Take it up a notch! they must be telling him. Think bigger. Subsume the issue…. And so Gore’s new piece in the Wall Street Journal barely mentions his pet issue of (man-made) climate change but something much larger and amorphous.

“A Manifesto for Sustainable Capitalism,” coauthored with David Blood, calls for “abandoning short-term economic thinking for ‘sustainable capitalism’.” Such is code for that subjective, holistic, anything goes doctrine of corporate social responsibility, which I elsewhere questioned as follows:

Oh the Shame ...

... I'm a brain damaged skepticemic:

If you are down a blind alley searching for that perfect Christmas gift for your climate sceptic friend, you could do worse than slinging them a book on Emotional Intelligence. Why? Research is mounting that your friend is the victim of one of the brain’s many computing glitches. More particularly, he has been derailed by an emotional response that is at best unhelpful and at worst catastrophic. He has capitulated to the pleasure of the here and now.

The Brains Behind Harry Reid

... and please "click" before commenting.

Eric Holder Has an Epiphany

Ever the intellect ... Holder has a moment:

“This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

Mousing

We Are the Problem ...

Brought to you by RP:

The Islamic Conundrum ... Cannibalism

Islam's barbarism is often held in check by equally barbaric regimes. The choice for Muslims is between brutal police states and brutal Islamic regimes ... in the end one must ask ... which pile of guano smells best? 

Although I greatly sympathize with Egyptian protestors, I have to wonder if they realize that they are simply going to switch tyrants if they win.  Everywhere Islam abides it eats its own.

Taking On Water Fast

Glug Glug Glug:

"France and Germany need to be prepared to foot the bills that are coming due and, by ‘France and Germany’, I mean Germany because, with a budget deficit of 7.1%, and debts of 83% of GDP, France WILL be downgraded shortly and will be in no position to chip in to the EFSF as their own ship begins to take on a serious amount of water in the shape of rising borrowing costs. That leaves the intransigent Germans. With a budget deficit of 4.3%, a record of having exceeded the mandated deficit limit in seven of the past eleven years a debt-to-GDP level of 85% and climbing, not to mention an economy that is on the verge of a recession (I told you not to MENTION that), Germany may soon have to go and sit somewhere quiet in order to reflect on what to do next."

Canada's Greens ... Lavishly Funded from Abroad

Moose and Squirrel:

Since 2007, Geneva-based Oak Foundation, set up by British billionaire Alan Parker, has divided almost $2.6 million among six groups for campaigns against the “tarsands.”

Irony

Why don't those damn "immigrants" stay in the box ... who the hell taught them to colour outside the lines:

I think most readers already know how politically correct Modern Multicultural Norway is. Like so many Western Europeans, Norwegians are devoted to the cult of Diversity, and no party in the country is more immigrant-friendly than the Labour Party.

That’s why the article below from The Local is so surprising — the Labour Party is unhappy with the high number of immigrants who won election to the Oslo city council. The culture-enrichers now hold a majority on the council, and that is apparently not the result envisioned by the mandarins of the party.

Yeah ... Islam is Barbaric

Zippers:

International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Saudi security forces arrested 42 Ethiopian Christians at a prayer gathering in Jeddah on Thursday. The location of the detained Christians is unknown.

On December 15, Saudi police and security officers raided an evening prayer meeting at the home of an Ethiopian Christian in the Al-Safa district of Jeddah. Those attending the service were reportedly beaten and threatened before being arrested.

In fact, the only time Muslims aren't backward ancients is when they are forced to operate under a dominant non-Muslim culture. We'll see if Iraq devolves ... maybe it'll be a first. In the meantime, even Turkey is devolving, now that the secular military has been subdued; it looks like it won't be long and Turkey will be just another human rights abusing Muslim dung heap.

A Hero of Western Democratic Values Passes

Not only for Czechs, but for all who hold the values of Western Liberal Democracy ... Vaclav Havel was a giant.  And, unlike so many others in the artistic and "progressive" community, Havel greatly valued America's overt role in bringing freedom to tens of millions trapped behind the Iron Curtain.  He experienced personally what it was like to desperately struggle for freedom inside the communist hell, with often the only light shining in being that of United States funded covert and non-covert organizations.

Havel, was the un-Chomsky.

Havel assisted Czechs in negotiating the conversion from communist tyranny to liberal democracy so effectively that the Czechs did so better than any other former East Bloc country.

Canadians may want to consider one of Havel's greatest accomplishments.  Instead of clinging to a Slovakia chaffing for economic and national autonomy, Havel cut the Slovaks loose faster than even the Slovaks could comprehend.  In his wisdom, he knew that being shackled to a disgruntled population would lead only to needless national expense and electoral manipulations and vote buying.  Had Havel been the Canadian PM ... Quebec would have long ago been cut loose ... whether it wanted to or not.

Vaclav Havel:

Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who wove theatre into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War, has died. He was 75.

Havel died Sunday morning at his weekend house in the northern Czech Republic, his assistant Sabina Tancecova said.

Havel was his country's first democratically elected president after the nonviolent "Velvet Revolution" that ended four decades of repression by a regime he ridiculed as "Absurdistan."

As president, he oversaw the country's bumpy transition to democracy and a free-market economy, as well its peaceful 1993 breakup into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Even out of office, the diminutive Czech remained a world figure. He was part of the "new Europe" -- in the coinage of then-U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- of ex-communist countries that stood up for the U.S. when the democracies of "old Europe" opposed the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Luboš:

was a red [pro-communist] guy until my 7th or 8th birthday. That changed approximatetly when my paternal grandmother returned from West Germany where she was allowed to meet her son i.e. my uncle (father's brother who emigrated to West Germany in the early 1980s). I was invited to West Germany many times, including the time when my other uncle (mother's brother) who emigrated to Australia in the late 1960s visited Munich, Bavaria as well. Of course, the communists never allowed me to go there.

My grandmother could share lots of experiences – and great products (when I think about the religious treatment that was given to a bitter low-quality kiwifruit, something I bought for $0.05 a piece yesterday, it makes us sure that we're living in a totally different era) – and that was the time when I began to be interested in the differences between socialism and capitalism in a little bit more informed way. ;-)

About a year later, when I was 10 years or so, I managed to catch Radio Free Europe on my radio. I was totally excited. It just happened that I was recording everything on that day. So the first 5 minutes in my life when I heard RFE were recorded on my tape and I pretty much memorized them because of that. ;-)

And even more.

National Review: A Critique

I respectfully dissent from National Review’s Wednesday-evening editorial, which derided Newt Gingrich as not merely flawed but unfit for consideration as the GOP presidential nominee. The Editors further gave the back of the hand to the bids of two other prominent conservatives, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann — a judgment that is simply inexplicable in light of the frivolousness of its reasoning and of the Editors’ embrace of Jon Huntsman, a moderate former Obama-administration official, as a serious contender.

... keep reading.

From the Archive: The Slum

... an oldie, but a goodie and still relevant in every Canadian city:

The joke I have among friends is that there is one statistic not covered by official sources, but which can be seen anytime one drives down 20th Street or parts of 22nd Street in Saskatoon. These streets have the highest “limp” rate in Canada … that is, I’ve never seen so many people who limp, hobble, or shuffle along in my life. I feel sorry for some of them, as they are the blamelessly dispossessed such as schizophrenics or physically disabled through no fault of their own. But … and it’s a big “but”; many are victims of vice … drinking, fighting, crime, and impaired operation of vehicles. If you’ve worked or lived among this “class”, you find out pretty fast that most “limps” go hand in hand with the battle scars and rap-sheet.

Anti-Sharia-in-Chief

"Stealth jihadis use political, cultural, societal, religious, intellectual tools; violent jihadis use violence," Gingrich said. "But in fact they're both engaged in jihad and they're both seeking to impose the same end state, which is to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Sharia."

... Newt.

Peter Remembers Christopher

How odd it is to hear of your own brother’s death on an early morning radio bulletin. How odd it is for a private loss to be a public event.

I wouldn’t normally dream of writing about such a thing here, and I doubt if many people would expect me to. It is made even odder by the fact that I am a minor celebrity myself. And that the, ah, complex relationship between me and my brother has been public property.

I have this morning turned down three invitations to talk on the radio about my brother. I had a powerful feeling that it would be wrong to do so, not immediately explicable but strong enough to persuade me to say a polite ‘no thank you’.

... keep reading.

Did US Government Hide Climate Data

re your tax dollars helping hide global warming data from the public? Internal emails leaked as part of “Climategate 2.0” indicate the answer may be "Yes."

The original Climategate emails -- correspondence stolen from servers at a research facility in the U.K. and released on the Internet in late 2009 -- shook up the field of climate research. Now a new batch posted in late November to a Russian server shows that scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit refused to share their U.S. government-funded data with anyone they thought would disagree with them.

... keep reading.

Michelle Bachman Pisses Her Pants

... over Newt:



One may be excused from despising politicians ... any little change in circumstances is reason for these scum to reverse course.

Perhaps the rarest of qualities found among the political class is gravitas ... it may even have vanished altogether from the sub-species we now recognize as politico. (homo sapiens sapiens politico)

For the rest of us, changing course happens, but if it does with the seamless ease exhibited by politicos, we'd call it flaky ... or confused ... unreliable ... and above all, dishonest.

The Obama - Gingrich Debate

Newt: "Mr. Obama, here's your ass."

O': "Thanks."

Newt: "You're welcome."

O': Hey Newt, here's your ass."

Newt: "Hey Buckwheat, that's the same one I just handed you."

O': "DOH!"

via Right Scoop

London Fog

... making sense of all things Euro is becoming almost impossible ... especially when the key players don't make sense themselves:

It is fair, I would assert, to ask whether anyone really knows what is going on in "Europe". Certainly, it is very easy to detect the bullshitters who don't have the first idea.

A more than adequate demonstration of that came last night on the Andrew Neil show, when the egregious Portaloo was asked to comment on the fate of the Cameron, eliciting the now standard comment about the prime minister being the first ever to veto an EU treaty.

Last week's episode has at least done that for us – given us a ready guide that enables us to pick out the very few who know what they are talking about, as opposed to the derivative claque, which is spewing out extruded verbal material.

... keep reading.

Not Trying Hard Enough

via

Incredibly Comfortable ...

... in his own skin:

Giuliani Unloads

In an extended rant against Romney, Giuliani said the Republican hopeful switched from pro-choice to pro-life; pro-gun control to becoming an NRA supporter; pro-cap and trade to being against cap and trade, among other shifts.

“He figures out there are embryos and changes” his mind on abortion, Giuliani said. “He was pro-mandate [for health care] for the whole country, then he becomes anti-mandate and takes that page out of his book, and republishes the book.”

Giuliani said that these flip-flops will make for electoral disaster.

... read it all.

A Moment of Clarity

Crime Pays ...

... in Fwance:

Popular former French president Jacques Chirac was convicted of graft on Thursday but escaped jail, receiving a suspended two year sentence for running ghost workers at Paris city hall.

The Education of Mr. Harper

Eventually, just maybe, it'll sink into the brain-trust that runs the Canadian PMO that appeasing your enemies doesn't make them your friends no more than playing dishonest games with the left side makes them your base.

The topic, of course, is Global Warming. Not that long ago our dear PM was of the opinion that the Global Warming movement was simply a concoction dreamed up by globalists and superanational bureaucrats to a) pilfer the wealth of developing nations b) ensconce more power in the transnational UN and NGOs. Mr. Harper was absolutely correct ... and if anything, Climategate 1.0 and 2.0, and IPCC malfeasance have proved the point beyond a doubt.

Mr Harper, though, has since flip flopped in a completely flawed belief that Canadians needed to be tricked into thinking that the CPC was green enough to vote for. The PMO thus embrace the Global Warming scam ... at least in word. In deed, however, it has done little but tread water.

Well, the chickens will eventually come home to roost and some may peck hard enough to score points. You can't play both sides against the middle and bait and switch forever ... eventually your true enemies ... the green fascists ... will catch you flip flopping once too often and will launch an effective counter attack.

The sooner Harper and his band of merry chess players come out of the closet, the sooner the Global Warming realists of the world ... the true heroes ... will be able to claim an entire first world country as an ally, and mark my words, the scam will be out.

And perhaps, it is in that point that my dismay with Harper's dishonesty is peaked ... thousands of very good individuals have combined their efforts via the new media to slay the green fascist one little bit at a time; but all the while Mr. Harper dances with that very same green fascist, even taking on the devil's cause, clothing, and terminology.  And, he does so simply because too unimaginative and too steeped in the machinations of Ottawa are those who govern us from behind the sandbagged bunker of the PMO to realize that in the end they have gained nothing.

The green fascists will, one way or another, force Mr. Harper's hand:

As the rhetoric heats up, an environmental bureaucrat says it isn't obvious to him that just because Environment Minister Peter Kent has announced a Kyoto pullout, his office is free of its legal mandate to update Parliament on progress in meeting Kyoto targets.

"I think now there's a lot of work available for lawyers to determine the impact of Mr. Kent's announcement," said federal Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan.

He expects to have a plan in place for what comes next in "the next week or so."

... one must admit though, that the contradictory stance of the PMO makes for some entertaining fireworks!

How to Think

... a guide:

The second group are those who continue against all evidence to believe that the Conservative Party is in fact conservative. In many cases, they believe this out of habit, and increasingly out of a fear (which they seek to suppress) that it is not true. For if it is not true, they might have to think and act – and anything is preferable to that.

These are two typical barriers to thinking. One, a received opinion held out of laziness and fashion, not deeply rooted in knowledge or reason, which lashes out at dissent with crude mockery. The other, a tribal clinging to a forlorn hope, held in place by fear of discovering that the truth is much less comforting than the illusion.

Behold the Cement

... that passes for a brain in Syed Soharwardy's head:

A Calgary-based Imam says Muslims are being attacked in the same way Jews were before Hitler ordered their extermination.

Syed Soharwardy, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, says a regulation change requiring Muslim women to remove their niqabs and burkas when swearing the oath to become a Canadian amounts to Muslim bashing.

From intimidating and bad-mouthing the Muslim faith and belittling the Koran and Muslim beliefs, he drew a parallel with the treatment of Jews in Germany.

Racism ... The New Progressive Cool

... more.

Doing Business and the Bureaucratic Swamp

A graphical description:

The Canadian Decade

While Europe and the United States face a possible lost decade, Canada's path may be paved with gold:

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney says the advanced economies of the world are facing a massive challenge with debt, but Canada may be in position to take advantage.

In a speech to a business group in Toronto, the central banker warned Monday an historic era of deleveraging -- paying off debt -- is being forced on European countries and the U.S.

The task is so large that Carney compares it to what occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and is by no means assured to go smoothly.

... keep reading.

Mitt versus Newt

From the comments at Hot Air:

NG: allied himself with Ronald Reagan in 1980.

MR: “Look, I was an Independent during the time of Reagan/Bush. I am not trying to return to Reagan/Bush.”

NG: In congress, he led the Republican Revolution taking the majority for the first time in 40 years.

MR: “Romney arrived on the scene with great promise, but is leaving the Republican Party here in shambles. Not only are the Republicans yielding the governor’s office for the first time in 16 years, but registered Republicans have fallen by 31,000 since Romney took office, and their legislative presence is at historic lows. But it worked out fine for him: He is now chasing the prize he really covets, the presidency.” - Boston Globe 11/8/2006

NG: As Speaker he passed the Contract with America

MR: Romney on the Contract With America – “Not A Good Idea” and “A Mistake”

NG: cut taxes

MR: Romney raised taxes on business by a total of $309 million

NG: reduced the deficit, balanced the federal budget,

MR: Romney did this as well

NG: blocked HillaryCare,

MR: enacted Romneycare

NG: reformed welfare

MR: Under Romney’s Car Ownership Program, the state paid out one year’s insurance, inspection, excise tax, title, registration, repairs and a AAA membership for cars that were donated to welfare recipients. Under the plan, those who lost their jobs and ended up back on welfare were allowed to keep their free wheels.

NG: fought President Clinton

MR: I think that’s a mistake. I think instead that if you wanna get something done in Washington you don’t end up picking teams with Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other entering into a contract and saying ok were all gonna do this and if course then that works then the other side feels like they are the loser, but if it wins they feel like they are the winner. I don’t like winners or losers in Washington…”

“Hillary Clinton Is Very Much Right, It Does Take A Village, And We Are A Village And We Need To Work Together In A Non-Skeptical, Non-Finger-Pointing Way…”

The Eurozone: A Saga

The best blow by blow description yet:

As events unfold on the great "phantom veto" charade, I think we're getting to the point where we can collect all the disparate pieces and, with a few more recent additional reports, have a fairly good stab at putting the whole story together in one, semi-definitive piece. So here goes.

... keep reading.

Food Fight!

Don't you love it when ninnies dish out girlie-slaps:

"For a long time we have thought the French right the stupidest in the world," he continued.

"I think, in this case, the British right has shown that it can be the stupidest, in that it has served not its national interest but purely the interests of high finance," he declared.

Betting $10,000 Crisp Monopoly ...

... that the Romney run is over:

Like it or not, in politics perception is sometimes more important than reality. Gerald Ford didn’t really mean, “There is no Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe”–he meant to say that the U.S. would never recognize the Soviet dominance. Nixon’s refusal of make up during the first debate with JFK made him look sweaty and sickly, so that (according to legend) TV viewers thought JFK won, while radio listeners praised Nixon. George H.W. Bush’s debate half-answers, his habit of checking his watch and picking lint off his suit, gave people the impression that he was disinterested. And Al Gore’s sighs during his debate with George W. Bush was seen (correctly) as arrogance.

No matter why Romney tried to make a $10,000 bet last night, it made him look like an out-of-touch, privileged man trying to show people how rich he is–a losing perception in this (or any) presidential campaign season.

How Newt is Different

 C. Edmund Wright offers up a thoughtful piece as to why Newt's day has come:

Generally, the only persuasion we see today is the phony attempt to make voters think the politician agrees with them. This normally happens after some shallow political hack has persuaded some soulless office seeker that this is the way to win the precious moderates and independent voters.

[...]

Too many folks running for office are merely thermometers, hiring a consultant to take the electorates pulse and then attempting to reflect it. True leaders are like thermostats. They set the temperature and bring the electorate to them.

[...]

And of course Reagan himself was the great communicator -- er, persuader, and that was the magic of Reagan. He never won a single moderate or independent vote by pretending to agree with the moderate. He persuaded them that he was right -- or in some cases at least trustworthy enough in his convictions -- to get their support. The elites had a similar visceral hatred and fear of Reagan.

Newt, the un-Harper indeed. Time will tell though, if after two successive majorities, Mr. Harper will be able to bring the Canadian public along with incrementalism ... or if the CPC will spend 8 or more years simply treading water and leaving the vast Canadian progressive regime intact ... waiting for the the next and eventual progressive government.

Update: Newt/Huntsman debate

The Great Canadian Healthcare Farce

Canada has the only single payer healthcare system in the developed world ... how's that working for you?

Canadians who needed surgeries or other treatments in 2011 had to wait longer than they have in close to two decades, says a new report from the Fraser Institute.

Canadians with chronic conditions are frequent users of the health-care system, but a new report shows many experience considerable difficulty getting the medical treatment they need.

Update: Medicare Malpractice (read and ask ... what will the roll of private for profit care be?)

Ode to the Man's Man

Blatch:

But holy smokes, I am wearying of the male as delicate creature. I am wearying of men who are so frequently in touch with their feminine side they, not to mention me, have lost sight of the masculine one. I’m just plain sick of hugs, giving and getting, from just about anyone, but particularly man-to-man hugs.

And the novelty of being the toughest guy in the room – and by this I mean me – is getting really old.

The Evils of Capitalism

Newt-tastic

Praise the Lord !

EU leaders have moved away from the sovereignty destroying notion of "fiscal union" ... instead, they are said to be pushing for a "stability union":

Leaders must restore "credibility" to the euro currency, she said. "It is important for me that the euro regains its credibility, that the treaties are changed in such a way that we head towards a stability union". So it's official. We are not getting fiscal union. It is a stability union.

I finally realize why our betters are "elites", while we are just "Proles". We ... the great unwashed, don't spend thousands of hours a year debating which single words or phrases are most apt when issuing communiques.

After all, Proles should simply stick to their knitting.

The Big Brother to Canada's Own National Disgrace

... the BBC:

To be fair though, as the girlie culture has pervaded the organisation, it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between bias and incompetence. Untrained and ignorant reporters so often get things wrong simply because they do not know any different.

How Doctors Die

Of course, doctors don’t want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. And they know enough about death to know what all people fear most: dying in pain, and dying alone. They’ve talked about this with their families. They want to be sure, when the time comes, that no heroic measures will happen—that they will never experience, during their last moments on earth, someone breaking their ribs in an attempt to resuscitate them with CPR (that’s what happens if CPR is done right).

... very thoughtful ... read it all.

Sand ...

Putting the Micro ...

... into management:

So no Mr. Flaherty you shouldn’t get more power to veto bank decisions. You should instead stop forcing me to bail them out of the bad decisions. I am not even sure why you think you are such a mastermind that you can do a better job at producing a secure banking system than the market anyway. Or for that matter why you assume your successor will be as brilliant as yourself. It isn’t like government decisions have never lead to horrific disasters at any point in history.

Machinations

Climate deal by 2015 ... cough:

"We're now talking about needing some sort of signal that all of the parties are prepared to work towards a negotiation of a new climate change regime with a target date much closer than 2020," Kent said in remarks reported by The Globe and Mail website.

"We're talking 2015."

There is not a greenie nor centrist alive who believes the crap oozing from the Harper PMO ... yet the Canadian people gave the CPC a majority. Does anyone who functions outside the sandbagged bunker within the PMO believe for a minute that backing away from the AGW fraud would endanger the CPC's grip on power ... or, cause us any more grief than we are now getting from the world's green fascists?

So fixated on dishonest shadow boxing is this PMO that it is incapable of seizing a moment; of knowing when to stick the knife in or when to deliver the coup de gras.  Instead, the brain-trust tap dances with the devil ... hoping that American conservatives take the White House and do the job that the cowards within the PMO won't do.

Or ... just maybe ... the Harper PMO actually does believe in the Great Global Warming Fraud and is salivating at the revenue potential it offers.  Is that why it continues to dance with the devil?  In that case, like it or not, some form of carbon penalty is in our future anyway.

Time to Kick Ass and Chew Bubble Gum

... and somebody is all out of bubble gum:



I would think that that's it then ... this much red meat/minute is going to be almost impossible for Mr. Enigma to overcome, especially when the best he can do is dredge up cowardly mush like this.

The World's New Tyrant

Canada

Once again let me remind Mr. Harper ... Pleasing your enemies does not, and never will, make them your friends.

So let's stop the dodging, the overt machinations, and let's kill the beast.

Others are already showing the way.

Closing thought ... who the hell is that foreigner speaking in The House of Commons at the beginning of the Sun News Video?

Today in History ... Tora Tora Tora

Extra Extra ... Read All About It

Time Mag provides the laugh line of 2011 with its Top US News Story of the year ...

Is it the state of the economy? Nope

Is it the European debt crisis? Nope

Is it the Gabby Giffords shooting spree? Nope

It's ... *****

... and the second prize laugh line goes to Karen Hanks.

Newt: Gives Politicians Dancing Lessons

... and live on TV to boot. Those who dislike Newt will find it arrogant; those who admire him will love the dance:

A Long Deserved Gloat

Global Warming Reality Check ... A to Z PDF

Mega-Gov Fights Back

Two mega-crises ... one real but caused by mega-gov; the other as phony as any oil ever sold by a carny barker:

The foundering this week of not one but two experiments in megalomanic government pretension — the Kyoto Protocol and the European superstate — should provide cause for reflection about the limits of government. Instead, what we are seeing is desperate attempts to paper over the yawning policy cracks.

Both the Durban Kyoto meeting and the eurozone summit are meant to unveil new master plans on Friday. Neither is likely to have much credibility, since most of the details will be “to follow.” The difference is that Durban is about proposing unworkable solutions to what may well be a phantom problem, whereas the euro crisis is both genuine and immediate.

Who Voted for the WWF?

This is rich ... NGOs now advocating for global taxes:

I am writing from the COP17 negotiations in Durban, anonymously because I can’t be identified due to working for a government here. Your readers might like to know that Oxfam is writing the negotiating strategy for Bolivia on financing. They are proposing a massive tax on shipping (bizarre for a land-locked country!). Oxfam have even got their consultant actually speaking on behalf of Bolivia in the negotiating sessions.

His name is Antonio Hill and he is listed under the Bolivian delegation in the official list of participants. Their proposal could have a bad impact on the shipping industry and global trade, ironically hitting shipments to least developed countries the most – try and expose this!!

Goes to show how powerful various NGOs have become ... time for a mass extinction, me thinks.

Pakistan: Barbarians at Our Gate

via

Break Out ?

Passing Wind

Before you read the piece below let us get one thing straight ... wind and solar electric generation are NOT new technologies.  They were, not that long ago, but after a couple of decades of flogging their supposed miraculous strengths, we now know that wind and solar are for the most part an expensive green dream:

If wind and solar had a valid argument we would have heard it by now. They’ve both had more than a century of competing with coal-fired electricity, and a long time to try and edge out gas, yet remain mired in facially absurd incantations like that run by the WSJ Letters page on Saturday.

They still call themselves “new technologies”, they absurdly demand merely “a chance to compete”, and then admit they are still where they started with the line “isn’t it time we began investing in…” After billions squandered over decades protecting these losers from actual competition they admit they’ve made immaterial progress. Next!

We are Saved!

According to Rooters ... anyway:

Thus, it is wholly bizarre that a supposedly reputable news agency such as Reuters should be raising expectations in this way. In the terms presented, the "European leaders" can only fail. The task they have been set is unachievable.

If though, the Reuters report represents market expectations, then we are in for a torrid time. Once the news of the failure has been digested, we should expect upheaval, a rupture of the common currency and global economic fallout.

Is this what the news agency wants? It is certainly doing its best to achieve it.

Return of the USD

Not that long ago pundits were crowing about the end of the United States Dollar as the World Reserve Currency ... as usual, the pundits were likely wrong:

In a stunning worldwide move, the U.S. Federal Reserve in coordination with the European Central Bank, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, Swiss National Bank and China’s Monetary Authority agreed to temporarily “dollarize” the euro. Facing a vicious bank liquidity crisis and a political nightmare; the German dominated European Central Bank (ECB) agreed to the virtual outsourcing of Europe’s monetary policy to the U.S. Federal Reserve. Although described as a precautionary arrangement for political cover; the “dollarization” of Europe has re-established the U.S. dollar as the world’s only reserve currency.

Canada Withdraws From Kyoto

CTV:

Canada's federal environment minister has formally announced that Ottawa will withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol by the end of next year.

Speaking in a teleconference, Peter Kent confirmed that Canada will not make a second commitment to the agreement, which would run from 2013 to 2017.

The announcement comes a week after CTV's Roger Smith first reported that the government was planning to walk away from the Kyoto Protocol, which Jean Chretien's Liberals signed onto in 1998.

All of the 191 countries participating in Kyoto are required to cut down on their greenhouse gas emissions, a task that Canada has struggled with.

Now let's finish the deed Mr. Harper ... and quit with the lame excuses, machinations, and dishonesty.


How about this: "It is the position of the Federal Government that the science backing the theory of Human Caused Global Warming is inconclusive. Furthermore, the consequences of Global Warming, whether natural or anthropogenic, are not understood, nor is there any consensus as to whether those consequences would negatively impact Canada. Therefore, the Canadian government will not commit to policies that seek to mitigate processes that may be natural and not human caused."

It is time, Mr. Harper to stop the games.  The whole Country knows that what your government says about Global Warming can't be taken for anything but machinations. Would it be that difficult, now that the public is way ahead of you on this issue, to just come clean and show some real, honest, and bold international leadership?  Kill the beast.


Previous: Bizarro Land ... Climate Fraud Summary

Climategate 2.0: A Summary

Hayward:

If Climategate II does poor box office, it won’t be because the various internal reviews exonerated the CRU from the narrow allegations of fraud in Climategate I, but because the whole show has become a crashing bore. The latest U.N. climate summit that opened last week in Durban, South Africa, is struggling to keep the diplomatic circus on life support. Yet there is one more tantalizing detail that has been largely overlooked in the commentary so far. According to “FOIA,” the online name of the hacker/leaker behind the release of these emails, there are another 220,000 emails still out there, blocked by a heavily encrypted password that “FOIA” vaguely threatens or promises to release at some future date. Stay tuned for -Climategate III.

Go West Young Man

Saskatchewan is now the land where the shackles of the wealth killing NDP regime have been cast off and the "less government is more" philosophy of the Saskatchewan Party is driving a boom that has lots of steam left:

Saskatchewan’s popular Premier, Brad Wall, has a nice mission ahead of him — to lure to his province jobless workers from depressed places such as the United States and Ireland to support his booming economy.

While governments across the developed world are struggling with high unemployment, soaring debt and stalling output, Saskatchewan is expected to lead the country with GDP growth of 5.1% this year, according to the Conference Board of Canada.

Its unemployment rate was the lowest in Canada for most of the year. It rose to a still-tight 5.1% in November, from 3.7% in October.

The Best Debate Format Yet

Outstanding forum; outstanding results:

Cannibalism

2,823 cases in the UK alone:

A freedom of information request by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (Ikwro) revealed that nearly 500 of these were in London.

Among the 12 forces also able to provide figures from 2009, there was an overall 47% rise in such incidents.

Honour attacks are punishments on people, usually women, for acts deemed to have brought shame on their family.

via SDA

The Farce is Strong in That One

Luuuke ... Luuuke ... trust in the farce:

Even after a lifetime of working in the industry and having to deal with bureaucrats in multiple countries, one has to wonder how people like Mr. Pourbaix don’t either break down sobbing or just begin smashing his head into his desk at times like that. I know I probably would.

I Cain, I Saw, I Left

Cain ... suspended campaign.

Proof it Can be Done

What can be done ... you ask?

Why, have a politician, even in "progressive" Europe, speak the truth:

A French minister said there was no such thing as moderate Islam, calling recent election successes by Islamic parties in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia "worrying" in an interview published Saturday.

via

** After thought ... I wonder what machinations and confabulations will spew from Western governments if our new Libyan best friends end up installing an anti-civilizational, anti-human, pro-barbarian regime?

Oh ... that's right ... they had no choice because of the humanitarian crisis ... or something.

More reading.

The Bizarro Land of Global Warming Politics and Mr. Harper

So here we are, facing a Man Made Global Warming theory that is not only faulty and full of holes, but increasingly poisoned by fraud, kick-back, dirty politics, and above all ... stunningly bad science; yet the world's elites go on as if the theory is as certain as the sunrise.

What elites?  You know, those cockroaches who strut on the world stage and suck off of the public purse with all the reckless abandon of vampires raiding a blood bank.  They are the "green" NGOs, the Europhiles, the Climategate fraudsters, and "Progressive" thinkers who dream of ever more world government and power.  These very same parasites are forcing dear Mr. Harper's hand.

That would be "our" Mr. Harper, by the way ... the guy who once called AGW a scam designed to enrich bureaucrats and raid the funds of developed economies; but then he totally reversed himself.  The flip-flop was all part of Mr. Harper spending time on his knees doing ... uummm ... favors, in order to pacify the very people who always were, and still are, his enemies.

The thinking in the Harper PMO has been that by becoming double-talking snakes on AGW they'd somehow eek out a green vote or two, or in the least, take eco-mania off the table as an election issue. Yet, any logical analysis of how Harper got his majority makes it clear that Harper's phony green bonafides had nothing to do with his re-election. AGW wasn't even on the radar because according to polls Canadians over-all don't give a rip about the topic.

Instead, sheer horror at the idea that Jack Layton may become PM drove crowds of lazy centrist voters into the CPC camp ... period ... full stop.  The polls were stuck up and until the Orange Crush began ... on these very pages we crowed about the upcoming majority the moment the dial moved for Layton in Quebec ... common sense told little lowly us what would happen ... and we were right.  We were right, by the way, long before anyone in the media, anywhere, realized how motivating the fear of a Jack headmastership would be. No amount of machinations could've done for the CPC what the NDP surge in Quebec did ... it was a matter of dumb luck that gave us the Harper majority.  The only thing the CPC could've done to get a larger majority was to openly bash Quebec (but we'll save that for another time).

So now our dear Prime Minister is finding himself in a pickle of his own making. Having embraced the AGW farce for naked political opportunism, he is now stuck with twisting his way out simply because he would not defend the truth in the first place. Unlike his American conservative counter-parts, he can't stand up and say, "We will not abide by X,Y, and Z because Man-made Global Warming is not a Proven Fact." He can't say that, because he has already publicly accepted the David Suzuki and Pachauri positions.

Nevertheless, we now find that the Harper PMO is dishing up ridiculously transparent half-truths in order to dodge Kyoto; lame excuse upon excuse in a dance to stay one step ahead of the green devil ... the very one they've been dancing with all along.

Meanwhile, down south, the real work to dismantle the farce of AGW will take place after the 2012 elections where politicians courageous and honest enough to take on the green monster will be given the reigns.  Let's hope Harper can dance and spin until then without giving away a single penny of Canadian wealth to the crooks running the AGW scam.

It makes one wonder though, what's our top man going to say when the knew kid in the WH rejects AGW theory ... will Mr. Harper flip flop again ... or will he stand with his new best friends in the IPCC?

We all mocked John Kerry for his "he was for it before he was against it"; yet in Canada our very own Steve is setting himself up to better John Kerry.

AGW ... he was against it, before he was for it, before he was against it.  Isn't the world of hacks a wonder to behold ... it's bizarro land.

Canada, the country furthest from meeting its commitment to cut carbon emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, may save as much as $6.7 billion by exiting the global climate change agreement and not paying for offset credits.

The country’s greenhouse-gas emissions are almost a third higher than 1990 levels, and it has a 6 percent CO2 reduction target for the end of 2012. If it couldn’t meet its goal, Canada would have to buy carbon credits, under the rules of the legally binding treaty.

Canada, which has the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves, would be the first of 191 signatories to the Kyoto Protocol to annul its emission-reduction obligations. While Environment Minister Peter Kent declined to confirm Nov. 28 that Canada is preparing to pull out of Kyoto, which may ease the burden for oil-sands producers and coal-burning utilities, he said the government wouldn’t make further commitments to it.

The Imminent Collapse of the Euro: Planned All Along

When they couldn't force their superanational goals on the Euro-zone; they decided to do it one crisis at a time:

And there is the crunch issue. The "colleagues" knew full well in 2002 when the euro was launched that economic governance and pooling of reserves was needed. Romano Prodi, commission president at the time of the launch, never tired of saying so.

While absolutely essential, though, the community was not ready for these steps, so the launch went ahead with what was politically practical for the time. The "colleagues" went as far as it was possible to go, knowingly and deliberately leaving the unresolved issues to be dealt with at a later time.

In going ahead, the "colleagues" were relying on yet another technique to remedy the faults – the beneficial crisis. In the fullness of time, the inherent inadequacies of the single currency structure would show up, in a crisis situation, driving the politics and creating the political will by which the necessary changes could be implemented. This was no mistake or "error". That is the way the European Union works ... and Delors was the supreme exponent of the method.

It's Pick on Canada Time

Adler:

Canada has become a petroleum pariah. And the green fundamentalists want you to pay the price.

Emission reparations are all the buzz at the United Nations Climate Change Conference underway in Durban, South Africa. They want us to fork over a fortune to poor countries, atonement for our crimes against humanity.

Jean Chretien and the Liberal elites signed us up for this boondoggle because it was trendy. Making commitments without thinking about the financially crippling consequences.

On a side note, I find it interesting that most of the GOP front runners for the presidential ticket reject the AGW scam; or in the least, state that AGW is NOT A PROVEN FACT and that solutions to it can not therefore be imposed on a fragile economy.

Yet, in Canada we are stuck with a PM who is too smart by half ... having played along and publicly embraced the cult of AGW ... but now he must fend off the high priests of the very religion he has cozied up to.

That's the inevitable end of hacks ... they usually end up out smarting themselves. They do ... each and every one, eventually run out of rope.

For now though, Harper has miles of rope, so we'll just watch from the sidelines as he tries to duck, dive, and dodge with all the skill of a double-talking, shadow-boxing, hack.  With any luck, we'll end up with Gingrich in the W.H., the old skeptic guard, and an army of Palin inspired freshmen in The House.  That should spare Harper the need to be honest about the biggest scam that's ever been foisted on the world.

There's a thought ... some conservatives actually love Harper for the dishonest and slimy way in which he's dealt with the greatest scam in modern times.  Imagine that; dealing with a monumental act of fraud and conspiracy by embracing it ... but not really embracing it ... that, is laudable?

Democracy's heroes and great leaders of the past must vomit in their graves as they watch what passes for statesmen these days.  These giants of the past battled tyrants and monumental forces of evil, often spilling rivers of blood to protect their peoples (and sometimes losing), but in the end handing to us the greatest of civilizations ... yet our modern "betters" can't even handle a band of "green" frauds who have no army, have no country, and no longer even have science on their side.

Oh well ... Mr. Harper ... when you dance with the devil ...

Further reading about the Green Monster ... Rex.