Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Hitler Invaded Sudetenland, Now Putin Invades South Ossetia
On October 3, 1938, Adolf Hitler's armies marched into Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia. Germany said it was responding to separatist demands from the large German population that lived there and that she was merely honoring their desire for reunion with Germany. Hitler's tanks took over a vital part of an independent country that had largely rejected his overtures and allied itself with the West.
Neither Britain nor France nor the United States did a thing to stop him.
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[the most important thing for Americans to understand about this entire affair is that it was enabled by our suicidal energy policy: Europe gets most of its energy from Russia, it will do noting. And thanks to years of American created scarcity, Russia has gotten rich from its petro-dollars - and now owns our debt - we've no 'soft power' options.]
Georgia on our Conscience
Though the order ''Lights, camera, action!'' was given by Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, the wartime drama now unfolding in the Caucasus was devised, scripted, directed, and produced in Moscow by Vladimir Putin and his fellow siloviki (or former KGB kleptocrats.) For almost two decades Russia has sought to divide and destabilize the new independent states in its former backyard by helping to establish, finance, and protect “breakaway” ethnic statelets
[you know, just like jihadists do....]
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Russia 'conducting cyber war'
Several Georgian state computer servers have been under external control since shortly before Russia's armed intervention into the state commenced on Friday, leaving its online presence in dissaray.
While the official website of Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian President, has become available again, the central government site, as well as the homepages for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defence, remain down.
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Bill Richardson Self-Destructs on CNN [?]
Team Obama has GOT to get Bill Richardson away from cameras.
He's on CNN right now. He said that "a President Obama would have a good strong relationship with Russia, and this sort of thing wouldn't happen." (paraphrased; I'll check against the transcript when it's available.)
Richardson just said that McCain is "irrationally make threats" by urging the G8 to expel Russia, and "that's only gonna make matters worse."
Of course. Russia has killed thousands, turned tens of thousands into refugees, they're advancing on the capital, the airport's been bombed, the pipeline is endangered, and the Georgian navy vessels are sinking to the bottom of the Black Sea. But throwing Russia out of the G8 - that will be the true disaster.
He has once again called for going to the United Nations Security Council to get a ceasefire.
RUSSIA HAS VETO AUTHORITY ON THE UNSC.
Of course, if Russia wanted a ceasefire, they could just... cease firing. The Georgians are begging for a ceasefire.
[the question is did Richardson 'self destruct', or just tell it like a 'citizen of the world' sees things?]
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Jihad Comes to China
Muslim terrorists and their apologists insist that violent jihad is a justifiable reaction to their targets’ support of Israel. Since China is most definitely not an ally of the ''Zionist entity,'' how will Islamist apologists spin the jihadist attacks that have marred the Beijing Olympics? (Snip) Many of the area’s tens of thousands of mosques have been financed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
[GWOT]
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No Women on Saudi Olympic Team
When the delegation of Tuvalu enters the Olympic stadium in Beijing on Friday evening for what will be its debut Games, the tiny Pacific island nation of just 11,000 people will be represented by two athletes and a weightlifter – two men and one woman. (Snip) Saudi Arabia, with a population of 28 million, will field a team – athletes, equestrians, swimmers, shooters and weightlifters – that doesn’t include a single woman.
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CNN Avoids Mentioning Islam in Segment on 'Honor Killings'
Quite a feat: CNN has pulled off the MSM equivalent of describing a spiral staircase without using one's hands. It has managed to produce a segment on "honor killings" and related violence in the UK . . . without using the word "Muslim" or "Islam." CNN Newsroom anchor Don Lemon introduced the segment this afternoon at 1:37 PM EDT.
The network deserves some credit, I suppose, for airing the subject at all. But CNN's failure to mention by name the religion that lies at the root of the problem constitutes a particularly craven political correctness.
[in medicine it's called 'treating the symptoms', and never results in a cure - that requires addressing the cause...]
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Alarm on carbon trading scheme
ONE of the world's best-known economists, Jeffrey Sachs, has warned Australia against using an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change, saying it would never win global support. On the eve of the Rudd Government releasing its blueprint for emissions trading, Professor Sachs said the concept was "highly disliked" by China and other developing countries, and they would never agree to it.
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Liberals to stall on carbon emissions trading scheme
[Australia]
KEVIN Rudd faces a delay in the introduction of his carbon emissions trading system until after the next election.
The Opposition Leader told The Australian that the Prime Minister's plan to begin emissions trading in July 2010 was a threat to the economy and the Coalition would reject legislation allowing trading until it was clear whether China, the US and India would join a global pact to reduce their emissions. [it already is clear: two of them are too smart to ever join it - snip]
A growing chorus of exposed industries - including airlines, petrol refiners, LNG exporters, cement manufacturers and aluminium smelters - has voiced concerns in recent days that billions of dollars of investment risk being lost overseas. Their concerns tally with AWU fears that thousands of jobs would be lost on the tide of outgoing investment... [snip]
Climate Change Minister [? and I thought having a Goracle was bad] Penny Wong said government assistance to industry would have to be gradually reduced over time. "To do otherwise would be economically irresponsible" [then why do it in the first place?][snip]
[BTW:] Government sources have made it clear Mr Rudd sees little chance of compromise with the Greens, who want his $500 million taxpayer-funded investment to research clean coal technologies scrapped...
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Where’s the Energy?
Locked up, thanks to Demacrat Speaker Pelosi.
We are the nation of Velcro, the light-bulb, the microwave, the Ford Model-T, and the Wright Brothers. We fought and defeated tyranny and fascism. We’ve walked on the moon. Where others see impossibility, our nation sees a challenge. Pessimism and hopelessness are not American characteristics. As the price of gas climbs higher and higher, doomsday scenarios are playing out in the media. Americans aren’t buying it, they’re demanding a solution.
But our can-do nation is suffering at the hands of “can’t-do” congressional leadership. After months of prohibiting a vote on increased domestic oil production, House Democrats have gone on summer vacation... [snip]
Energy solutions to provide relief at the pump cannot wait until September. Congress must repeal restrictions enacted, over the last two decades, placing our known domestic supplies off-limits. Energy producers can then increase supply and lower prices immediately while we take the necessary steps to make renewables and other alternatives commercially viable...
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Top Gas Exporters to Discuss Gas OPECin Moscow
MOSCOW —The world’s top gas-exporting countries will send ministers to a high-level forum in Moscow on Nov. 17 to discuss the possible creation of a gas charter, a source in the Energy Ministry said Friday. “The main issue of the forum is to steadily turn into an organization,”
(Snip) Russia has hinted at its interest in the creation of an OPEC-style gas group, working with Iran, Qatar, Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia and Libya, who will meet at the forum...
[read that list of attendees again and ask: we don't need develop our own energy supplies?]
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A Nation of Thieves
Edgar K. Browning, professor of economics at Texas A&M University, has a new book aptly titled "Stealing from Each Other." Its subtitle, "How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit," goes to the heart of what the book is about.
The rise of equalitarian ideology has driven Americans to steal from one another.
Browning explains that certain kinds of equality have been a cherished value in America. Equality under the law and, within reason, equality of opportunity is consistent with a free society. Equality of results is an anathema to a free society and within it lie the seeds of tyranny... [snip]
Much of the justification for the welfare state is to reduce income inequality by making income transfers to the poor. Browning provides some statistics that might help us to evaluate the sincerity and truthfulness of this claim. In 2005, total federal, state and local government expenditures on 85 welfare programs were $620 billion. That's larger than national defense ($495 billion) or public education ($472 billion).
[i.e., the nanny state is already here. It's the 'entitlements', stupid. Highly Recommended > ]
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We have enough federal programs
Uncle Sam will take care of everything, right?
Which is why taxpayers are bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two anthropomorphic bureaucracies that were supposed to protect the nation from bad mortgages.
After 70-plus years, they did the opposite by making it easier for banks and other lenders to lend money to people who did not make mortgage payments.
Another example is the U.S. Department of Energy. It was created in the Carter administration to make the nation less dependent on foreign oil.
We have doubled our dependence since that time, and the nation actually produces less oil than it did 30 years ago.
This is called failure.
It now costs taxpayers $30 billion a year to keep this failure going. [not including the 700B$/yr. going to foreign oil companies]
Let's get rid of it...
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WaPo: 'Obama Tax Plan Would Balloon Deficit'
Sunday's Washington Post carried a story by reporter Lori Montgomery with a surprising headline: "Obama Tax Plan Would Balloon Deficit, Analysis Finds." The Post is highlighting research from the "nonpartisan" Tax Policy Center, a project of two liberal think tanks, the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.
Measured against current law and against the promises of his fellow Democrats, Obama would rack up huge deficits. According to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Obama's tax plan would add $3.4 trillion to the national debt, including interest, by 2018.This is a challenge to the Obama-loving media. Network anchors like Matt Lauer and George Stephanopoulos have used the Tax Policy Center estimates against John McCain. Will they report these numbers and offer negative coverage to Obama? Will they ask him to rebut them?
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The Border Counterinsurgency
Soldiers patrolled in teams of four with weapons at the ready, wearing masks over their faces to conceal their identities from enemy surveillance. More than 40 checkpoints had been placed around the city; military forces took over for police, screening traffic and maintaining security. Occasionally, firefights broke out between various armed factions.
(Snip) I recently observed this scene unfold in Ciudad JuÁrez, Mexico, less than 50 yards from the United States...
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Perata says sales tax idea is only 'a start'
California
Democrat Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata today welcomed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed 1-cent sales tax hike as "a start," but declared budget negotiations are at an impasse and said he does not expect a quick resolution.
Perata's comments, following a Senate session, were his first since Schwarzenegger proposed the 'temporary' sales tax increase over the weekend in an effort to bridge the state's $15.2 billion deficit and bring an end to the 36-day budget standoff.
"I'm glad the governor has come around to saying publicly what we've known all along - that we have to have taxes in order to correct the problems we're in right now," said Perata, D-Oakland. "So I say it's a start."[it starts and ends with higher taxes. spending decreases? none.]
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THE BIGGEST ISSUE
Why did the United States become the leading economic power of the 20th century? As Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz describe in their book, "The Race Between Education and Technology," America's educational progress was amazingly steady over those decades, and the country opened up a gigantic global lead:
- Educational levels were rising across the industrialized world, but the United States had at least a 35-year advantage on most of Europe.
- In 1950, no European country enrolled 30 percent of its older teens in full-time secondary school.
- In the United States, 70 percent of older teens were in school.
[70's: when we expanded government's role in education. who could have guessed it? Health care anyone?]
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Home schooling grows by 80 percent in state in past decade
Sara Garman doesn't have to worry about a school dress code or the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. As one of the 2,000-plus students on the Treasure Coast who is home-schooled, the 14-year-old feels she has more of a say about what she studies. "I do think we learn more because we can do more things," Sara said. "It's not just about learning what's on a test."
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25 Hints You're Not Voting for Obama
Today's Rasmussen daily tracking poll has 80% of Democrats supporting Obama and 87% of Republicans supporting McCain. There are still a healthy number of undecideds. This conflicts with the stream of media reports that Obamacons, evangelicals, black conservatives and independents are flocking to Obama.
If you're an independent, moderate or conservative on the fence about whether to vote for McCain or Obama, here's a helpful guide...
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