Thursday, 10 February 2011
Catechism For Neocons...........from Dan Friedman
“The Turkish people brought terrorist supporting Islamists to power. The overthrow of the Shah brought the Ayatollah Khomeni to power. Elections in the Palestinian Authority brought Hamas to power. Thanks to its elections, Hezbollah is now running the table in Lebanon.”
more at A Conversation with a Neo-Conservative about Egypt
News...........
Carbon pollution - the movie
Congress: Act or Fail
Blasphemy Sentence Sparks Riot
Iranian Ballistic Missile Scores a Direct Hit on a Target Ship
Homemade Revolving Shotgun
Starlings leave holiday park with £10,000 bill
Top 10 most-ordered hotel movies in 2010
What Turns Men On? The Smell of Pumpkin Pie
Congressman resigns amid Craigslist scandal
Are women over 40 really getting the best parts of their lives?
Saudi oil stock exaggerated by 40 percent
Consensus on global warming challenged
Malaysian states plan Valentine's Day crackdown
The last Japanese man remaining in Kazakhstan: A Kafkian tale of the plight of a Japanese POW in the Soviet Union
Not again! Icelandic volcano set to erupt dwarfing last year's devastation
Michael Buerk: presenters should not be recruited to fill quotas of lesbians or Asians
China in Africa at a glance
China in Zimbabwe: what does it mean for Robert Mugabe?
No Street, No Square, No Respect: What Does Berlin Have against Ronald Reagan?
Living on US dole, Pakistan builds fourth plutonium reactor
Indiana Officials Fear Building Will Be Late-Night Punchline if Named After Ex-Mayor
Watch video released by Detroit police showing police station gun battle
and finally......
LA cricket: Club helps tame Compton's mean streets
Seven-year-old boy buys fighter jet on eBay H/T JMH
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Short Attention Spans
By Alan Caruba
The American Revolution, from the day in 1773 when tea got dumped in Boston Bay to the day in 1781 when the British were defeated at Yorktown took eight years. If it had been on television, the ratings would have fallen off in about two weeks.
My point is that, by the end of the second week of the turmoil in Egypt, it mattered less and less to those in the West that a million Egyptians were showing up in Cairo and Alexandria to demand Mubarak’s resignation or that demands for real freedom, real liberty in the Middle East are a very big deal!
Mubarak says he intends to stay in office until the election in September. He appointed a vice president, gave a pay raise to government workers, and has patiently waited for the crowds to grow tired of singing, chanting, listening to speeches, and to get on with their lives.
These events are cultural in nature.
Despite common ties with England, the colonists had been quite distinctly “American” for a very long time and didn’t like being treated poorly by the British crown and parliament. “No taxation without representation” became their rallying call.
Egyptians have been around a lot longer than Americans; several millennia in fact.
They have been Muslims since the religion was “introduced” by its early zealots in the seventh century A.D. Designed to appeal to Arabs in particular, but proclaimed as a universal faith to which everyone would have to submit, Islam put its stamp on Egyptians, just as it would on Persians and others throughout the Middle East, northern Africa, and into India..
It wasn’t that long ago that Egyptians were ruled by a monarch, King Farouk, crowned at age 16 and ruling until 1952 when a coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser forced him into exile in Monaco. The defeat Egypt had suffered in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war would lead to the end of the king’s reign. Until then, from around the 1800s, the British had been deeply involved in Egypt, eventually wresting control of the Suez Canal from the French while the monarchy increasingly became a figurehead.
The British literally modernized Egypt, but by the end of World War Two, depleted in wealth to maintain their empire, they watched it drift away into new, independent nations. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956 and continued to engage in wars with Israel. When Nasser died his successor, Anwar Sadat, made a cold peace with Israel and, shortly after, was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Seated beside him that day was Hosni Mubarak, an air force general and, when he came to power shortly thereafter, he clamped down on the Muslim Brotherhood who wanted to turn Egypt into the same kind of hellish regime that was later imposed on Iran in 1979. As in Turkey earlier, Egypt installed a secular government whose military ensured that it stayed that way.
Most of this is unknown history to Americans who have already tired of seeing Egyptians in Cairo’s main square and, if they have paid any attention to the White House, know that President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary of State Clinton have managed to say conflicting things about the uprising, looking and sounding clueless and foolish in the process.
Freedom, however, is not a joke and, thanks to the Internet, a lot of Egyptians, a lot of Iranians, a lot of Tunisians, a lot of Yemenis, and, in general, people through northern Africa, the Maghreb, and elsewhere in the Middle East would like to vote in legitimate elections where there are real choices among candidates and parties. They would like to live without secret police and other forms of oppression.
We tend to forget that George W. Bush’s aim when invading Iraq was to depose a dictator, to bring about democracy there, and to spread the message throughout the Middle East.
Mostly, the Egyptians would like to be rid of the endemic corruption that authoritarian regimes establish among a small, ruling elite that, in turn, discourages everything from owning a deed to one’s own home to being able to start a business without paying off several levels of bureaucracy and waiting a very long time.
The Egyptians want real opportunity, an energetic economy, and some form of actual democracy. Concessions are being made, but progress is likely to take a while.
The Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all the other Islamists are in a race to gain control over the nations of the Middle East before freedom breaks out everywhere.
© Alan Caruba, 2011
Who am I?...........from Rico
- I don't engage in accounting fraud.
- I don't 'miss' Quarterly earnings.
- I'm not affected by Obamacare.
- I don't lie about my balance sheet, or balance sheet problems.
- I don't chase stupid M&A deals.
- I don't go out of business.
- I don't need a bailout to stay in business.
- I don't need insider trading.
- I don't get front-run by HFT algorithm trading programs or in-house trading teams.
And I don't default.
I am bullion. Precious metals.
- Gold.
- Silver.
Hard-ons for "Democracy"...............by Dan Friedman
When someone whispers the word “democracy” into the ears of many neocons, their reaction brings to mind the mandatory yellow flag in Viagra ads:
“Priapism is an erection that continues hours beyond, or is unrelated to, sexual stimulation. Priapism is a medical emergency. So in the rare event of an erection lasting more than 4 hours, seek immediate medical help to avoid long-term injury.”
Judging by the current contretemps raging among conservatives, a lot of these stiffs arrived at the emergency room DOA. Recall, these were the same preppy pushovers who swooned over Israel’s exit from Gaza and pushed for – and got - free elections there. The unintended, though widely predicted, consequences are well known by now. Practically overnight, the Judenrein strip became Hamastan and led Israel into two costly indecisive wars. After that debacle, you’d think these “friends of Israel” would “whoa, down boy!” for a moment and entertain a few healthy second thoughts. But to my knowledge, they never have. In fact, their dean, Charles Krauthammer, still defends his support for disengagement and recently commended Obama for his handling of the “peace process” (a few days before it collapsed).
Now, the perpetually priapic crowd has heard the siren’s song again. They’re flogging the same formula for failure but want to apply it to Egypt, where the stakes couldn’t be higher for the region and the world. And as though to prove their fixations are bipartisan, this time around they have been lured into bed by a leftist Islamophiliac whose entire agenda (sans one item -“democracy”) is repugnant to each and every one of them. These are the symptoms of political nymphomania.
Nevertheless, the cooler heads among us should take a deep breath to remember that thanks to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, and America’s largesse, the Egyptian armed forces are among the best-equipped and -trained fighters in the world. And when the ancien régime is history only a yellowing piece of paper will stand between Egypt, a shredder and a state of war with Israel. Those tanks in Tahiri Square look familiar, don’t they?
Finally, to bolster a paper-thin argument and assure us democratic stability is on the way to Cairo, much is made of the military’s Western leanings and the high regard the average Egyptian has for his army. But drill down one layer and you’ll find much of that esteem stems from the belief the Egyptian army won! the Yom Kippur War.
During this historic turning point, we simply can’t afford to fall into old traps or chase rabbits down a hole. Let’s think with our heads, not our nether regions. Neither America nor the Free World can afford blind passion to triumph over experience in the Middle East again.
News.............
Adventuring for Gaia
Killing Americans - Mexico's New Sport? Missionary shot dead for no apparent reason
Karzai: NATO Reconstruction Bases to Go
Chart: Owing more than home is worth
Tea Party movement to have own magazine
KARL ROVE: Head Snapping Hypocrisy From Reid and Obama On the Debt Ceiling
Mark Zuckerberg -- I Fear My Facebook Stalker
Man in China refused entry by wife for not bringing enough money home
New York slaughters 1700 geese to protect planes
The Maharajas and Their Magnificent Motor Cars - in pictures
Britain faces dementia catastrophe without 'aggressive' research drive
Google Ocean: Has Atlantis been found off Africa?
North-South Korea talks stall
Belgian senator calls on 'sex strike' until political deadlock is broken
Donald Rumsfeld reveals pre-war Iraq strike plan
British woman dies after injections to enlarge buttocks
Finns to revive beer from 19th century shipwreck
Hitting the Slopes on the Roof of an Incineration Plant
Domestic car sales up 26%, bikes 15% in January
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Update on Palin Derangement — In the Mold of Ronald Reagan Edition
From the lead letter to the editor, at today's Los Angeles Times:
Only one ReaganThat's pretty classic Palin derangement, and it's especially interesting that the Times gave this woman's letter top billing in today's edition.
Re "Palin casts self in Reagan mold," Feb. 5
Sarah Palin's attempt to cast herself in the Reagan mold is laughable at best. Her anti-intellectual position is nothing more than another of the ad hominem, bandwagon, emotive arguments for which she is so famous, stirring up "mob mentality" by attacking the present administration.
The "small government" Palin advocates would be far more authoritarian than anything proffered by the Obama administration. Indeed, a Republican (or "tea party") government would basically annihilate Social Security, Medicare and the Environmental Protection Agency, remove a woman's right to choose and promote some extremist brand of Christianity, autocratically removing more and more of the freedoms we currently enjoy.
Palin stands for nothing more than promotion of Sarah Palin. The fact that so many people are actually convinced by her brand of argumentation is truly frightening. She is most definitely not Ronald Reagan.
Rebecca S. Hertsgaard
Palm Desert
Also interesting is the latest CNN poll out today, "CNN Poll: Republicans want winner over ideology in 2012" (via Hot Air and Memeorandum). And I'll be perfectly honest: If Palin's a candidate I'll personally pull out the stops for her to win the nominiation. Yet, while others might not say so, I do have some concerns about her general election viability. I spoke with my department chairman yesterday, mentioning that I was attending CPAC, and he didn't flinch in announcing Palin as his pick for the nomination. But we both agreed that she could have some problems winning voters at the middle of the spectrum. At any rate, the CNN survey shows some weaknesses for Obama. He's got just 25 percent of voters that would definitely vote for him, and a majority of 51 percent said they think he'll lose reelection in 2012. As for Palin chances, a new Rasmussen horse-race poll shows that right now Obama beats Palin 49 to 38. Of the prospective GOP hopefuls cited, only Mitt Romney currently leads Obama, 44 to 42 percent. See, "Romney, Huckabee Even With Obama, Other GOP Hopefuls Trail."
Bottom line: Obama's deeply vulnerable, and Sarah Palin would be a fool not to announce her candidacy. The electorate will sort things out, and there's still lots of time for things to develop.
More later ...
RELATED: "Heading to CPAC Tomorrow!"
Cross-posted from American Power: "Palin Derangement Syndrome — In the Mold of Ronald Reagan Edition."
GENERAL VO NGUYEN GIAP
General Giap was the brilliant, highly respected leader of the North Vietnam military. The following quote is from his memoirs currently found in the Vietnam war memorial in Hanoi :
"What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi . You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battle of TET. You defeated us!
We knew it, and we thought you knew it.
But we were elated to notice your media was helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!"
General Giap has published his memoirs and confirmed what most Americans knew. The Vietnam war was not lost in Vietnam - it was lost at home. The same slippery slope, sponsored by the US media, is currently underway. It exposes the enormous power of a biased media to cut out the heart and will of the American public.
A truism worthy of note:
Do not fear the enemy,
for they can take only your life.
Fear the media,
for they will destroy your honor ! ! !
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