In Sevastopol? And I don’t mean the similar-sounding one in California.
We do need to recognize that we’re in a new Cold War with Russia, though many of the former “Republics” in the Soviet Union will now be (in fact have been) on our side, which will make it more manageable, but also more dangerous, with more trip wires.
A report from Michael Totten.
It’s a shame that we can’t wave a wand and make oil worthless. Perhaps the only other solution is to take it away from them. There’s something wrong with a system that gives people so much wealth who have done absolutely nothing to earn it or create it, and use it to subvert the rest of the world.
From Carolyn Glick:
I generally try to stay as far away as I possibly can from people who say they can make oceans recede. Our paths didn’t cross. In fact, I managed to be out of the country on Wednesday.
…Obama acts like a European leader in his treatment of Israel. On the one hand, he professes this profound respect for Israel and the Jews, and goes on and on about how our security is important to him. On the other hand, he espouses policies that undermine Israeli security and threaten its survival, and demands that the Jewish state become the only state that turns its other cheek towards our enemies as they try to kill us. This is the same sort of message that we hear from all Europeans leaders. And it is tiresome and insulting.
Beyond that, Obama is in a unique situation because of the adulation he enjoys from the U.S. and Western media. The media is willing to ignore all of the substantive contradictions inherent in his policy pronouncements and to base their support for him on a quasi-religious faith. I don’t remember this ever happening before in an American election — at least not to the same extent. It is an interesting sociological phenomenon that is worthy of academic research. On a political level, it makes debate very difficult since Obama is treated more as a symbol than a politician. And it is hard to debate a symbol.
How long before this bubble pops? Robert Bidinotto thinks it may have already started.
If true, this has to be a Secret Service nightmare:
According to security officials coordinating deployments of forces with the PA for Obama’s Ramallah visit, members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah’s declared military wing, have been called upon by the PA to participate in the protection of Obama, particularly in securing the perimeter during a scheduled meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas…
Hey, maybe Obama could also get Khaddafi’s female ninja bodyguards to help out.
That’s the briefest review of the new Batman flick that I’ve seen.
I’ll probably wait untll the DVD. I’m not that big a fan of dark movies.
Iowahawk has gotten a hold of the latest hirabi recruitment brochure:
As you have possibly heard by now, Team Satan and their subsidiary Iraqi Security Forces have made several key market acquisitions in the last few months. In order to meet Q3 Return-on-Mayhem targets and maximize stakeholder value, we need to refocus our client-facing resource model. As we are currently seeking a 17th round of venture funding, budgets are extremely tight, and this will require reducing our internal work team payroll load through adaptive right-sizing on a go-forward basis. Accounting estimates indicate that much of this will be achieved via natural attrition and Apache Hellfire missiles. Still, in order to achieve costing targets, we will need to engage in involuntary outboarding.
The Communications department will be most directly effected by this initiative, as we continue transitioning of our day-to-day public relations efforts to low-cost offshore service providers like Huffington Post, DailyKos, and Democratic Underground.
Hey, you get what you pay for.
Wretchard says perhaps:
Time will tell whether the Six Party talks will succeed in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula or whether it will founder, as did the Agreed Framework before it, on some new difficulty. But two factors make the new agreement more robust than the 1994 agreement. First, the multilateral format means that any North Korean double-cross would alienate not only the United States, but South Korea, Japan, Russia and most importantly, Pyongyang’s patron China. North Korea has a lot more to lose by welshing on the Six Party Talks than it did on the Agreed Framework.
Secondly, because their fissile production line will effectively be dismantled — the Yongbon cooling will be demolished — North Korea’s remaining blackmail leverage consists of a mere handful of low-yield nuclear material. And with the United States positioned to watch Pakistan and Iran, the future of any clandestine program is in serious doubt.
Expect complaints from the Bush deranged in the peanut gallery, though.
This would be an interesting development:
As Father Dall’Oglio warns darkly, Muslims are in dialogue with a pope who evidently does not merely want to exchange pleasantries about coexistence, but to convert them. This no doubt will offend Muslim sensibilities, but Muslim leaders are well-advised to remain on good terms with Benedict XVI. Worse things await them. There are 100 million new Chinese Christians, and some of them speak of marching to Jerusalem – from the East.
As Spengler notes, the Muslims should be worried. That truly would be the first real challenge to them, if not since the founding of the religion, at least since the Crusades.
Whose side do you think that the left will take? How many guesses do you want?
[Evening update]
In comments, Carl Pham asks:
What’s to be appalled about in the Crusades, eh? Is this just regurgitating some politically-correct pap y’all were fed in public school?
I’m only appalled by the Crusades in the same sense that I’m appalled by the Middle Ages in general (I don’t actually recall learning about them in public school, which in itself, regardless of the learning content, is an interesting commentary about public school in the sixties and early seventies. It’s no doubt worse now, since it’s better to know nothing of the Crusades than to be mistaught them).
And in being appalled, I’m judging it by modern sensibilities. As I said, Islam was more (much more) appalling in its behavior.
Then. And more importantly (and even more), now.
But I’m sure I’ll get more Anonymous Morons in comments, whom I’ll take great pleasure in appropriately naming, unwittingly making my point about which side the leftists will take.
Also:
If you want to look for unpleasant proselytizing by Christian nations, take a look at South and Central American under the Spanish in the 1500s and 1600s. The Crusades do not quality. Islam is only pissed about them because they coincided with the high-water mark of Islam’s own effort to conquer the world.
Agreed. Latin American’s dismal state is a consequence of having been colonized by Spain (and it was a Christian Spain). It continues to be mired in a feudal culture, which has only transmogrified into a socialist/fascist one, as exemplified by “liberation theology.” Which is (unfortunately) not that far off from the “black liberation theology” of Senator Obama’s former church.
I’m sure that Ian McEwan will be arrested presently:
‘As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist.
“This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist.
‘And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on – we know it well.
It will be interesting to see if the authorities come after him for this bit of politically incorrect truth telling. He’s lucky he doesn’t live in the police state of Canada.
Speaking of which, Professor Reynolds has a pithy comment:
When the stormtroopers wear clown shoes instead of jackboots, it’s easy to forget that they’re still stormtroopers.
And so far, the circus up there continues.