It used to be a lot simpler. As E.C. Bentley deftly summarized it in 1905:
“Geography is about maps.
But Biography is about chaps.”
But that was then, and now Biography is also about maps. For example, have you ever thought it would be way cooler to have been born in colonial Kenya?
At the link he ties Warren and Obama together in a neat little package.
- Aggie
The truth about the Arab Spring makes it to the mainstream media.
To those who hail the “Arab Spring” and the first free elections in Egypt in 60 years, a prominent Israeli responded, “Remember Mussolini, remember Hitler.”
Two years after seizing power in 1922 with a march on Rome, one-time socialist Benito Mussolini’s fascist party won 64 percent of the popular vote and 374 seats out 535 in Parliament.
Once in power, Mussolini outlawed left-wing parties. His coup inspired Adolf Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, which failed. But in 1933, Hitler legally came to power in a free election.
For Zalman Shoval, 81, twice Israel’s ambassador to the United States, a member of the Knesset for 40 years and close adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the “Arab Awakening” is an “anti-democratic, anti-human rights movement camouflaged as a victory for human rights.”
Most Arab elections, warned Shoval, will produce anti-U.S., anti-Israel parliaments.
Twenty years after the Cold War, he says, “Israel is facing the longest erosion of its strategic environment” while “America’s strategic environment is also eroding.”
In Egypt, said Shoval, 87 million hungry people can’t be fed, so a perfect geopolitical storm is generated to divert the people toward “enmity toward Israel.”
The usual media trick: “one-time socialist Benito Mussolini’s…” as if real socialism didn’t involve shutting up people that disagree. The far left and the far right are the same thing in the end. But, aside from that, he is pointing out the reality that Egypt cannot feed itself. And that is a problem for everyone.
Hezbollah, said Shoval, has 30,000 missiles and Hamas, the no-peace-with-Israel regime in Gaza, is also dominant in the West Bank.
“Today everyone is more concerned about Iran and its drive for nuclear weapons and it will seek hegemony irrespective of a Palestinian settlement,” he explained.
Islamist advances in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia “have made the next six, 12, 18 months totally unpredictable,” Shoval said.
Arab-Israeli negotiations are at a dead end, he argued, “Because the Palestinians do not wish to negotiate. They ask for a freeze on settlements in the West Bank but the settlements are only 1.1 percent of that territory.”
He was presumably referring to the settlements that lie beyond the 420-mile wall of separation. Everything between the 120-mile 1967 border and the wall is now presumably annexed to Israel.
The 1.1 percent refers to Jewish settlements between the wall and the Jordan River. And those will presumably be dismantled in a final settlement, much the way 21 Jewish settlements with 9,000 people in Gaza were abandoned in 2005.
But Shoval made clear Israel will also demand a physical security presence for the Israeli military along the Jordan River.
The Palestinians believe time is on their side, Shoval said. But “security cooperation between Israel and the U.S. is at the highest level in memory.” And the $3 billion Israel receives yearly from the United States for defense is a tiny fraction of America’s $3 trillion budget, “which enhances stability and makes it less likely the Arab world would start a new war. And the $3 billion goes back to U.S. (defense) jobs.”
“The Middle East is increasingly topsy-turvy and there is only one stable ally who shares America’s values. The U.S. has pre-positioned dual-use equipment in Israel and this should be expanded as it doesn’t cost any money.”
“The debate on the solidity of the U.S. relationship is key to understanding that if we stopped building settlements and returned the entire West Bank, it still would not be Scandinavia,” Shoval said, adding that he didn’t see “any erosion in the U.S. relationship.”
The world has paid a huge price for the naivete of the American public and of the current administration. It isn’t just Israel; it is the developing hunger in Egypt, and the loss of whatever freedoms they may have had. We tend to focus on the misery that Obama has caused us domestically – doubling of inner-city youth unemployment, unemployed friends and neighbors, a real sense of a loss of regard for the Constitution and for one another as human beings. The constant pitting of one group against the mob. Perhaps the history buffs out there will tell us if we recover from this gracefully, or if we balkanize.
Here’s a bit more of the pain that we imposed on Egypt by our ill-advised policies:
n Islamist majority in Egypt’s new Parliament — 37 percent for the Muslim Brotherhood and 24 percent for the ultra-radical Islamist Nour (“Light”) party — is a given. The radicals, known as Salafists, want to turn the clock back to the behavior of the first Muslim converts. They are violent, demand a ban on alcohol (which would kill the tourist industry — 15 percent of the economy) and a dress code for women that make them look like ambulatory tents.
Salafism is the key religious ingredient in jihadism. In normally moderate Tunisia, the Salafi message is circulating freely, unimpeded by now dismantled censorship.
The less dogmatic Muslim Brotherhood projected moderation in the campaign but is quietly purging those who became genuinely moderate. It is also talking about revisions in Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, which it says the Jewish state isn’t respecting.
The Arab Spring was a Western construct, based on the illusory hope of real democracy.
Naive teenagers running the show. What a shame.
- Aggie
An LA teacher fired for antisemitic comments on youtube
Surprisingly, the Huffington Post made us aware of this, but the second video was done by Fox. The link above is very interesting. And one of the most interesting things about it is that the commenters all seem to be Jew-haters. There will always be a Left.
Here she really gets into it, followed by an Occupy leader who refuses to totally condemn this, and ending with a very interesting conversation with the journalists themselves:
LAUSD Teacher Fired after Anti-Semitic Comment on Camera: MyFoxLA.com
- Aggie
Doctor, doctor, give me the news,
I’ve got a bad case of hating you!
The paper, by University of Tampa professor Marcus Arvan, claims to find “significant” correlations between key antisocial personality traits and bedrock conservative views, like opposition to gay marriage and support for capital punishment. Specifically, the research claims to find elements of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism, also described as “deception,” among test subjects…
“The results should at least be a bit disturbing in a certain kind of way,” Arvan told FoxNews.com…
He said the correlation was strongest on social issues, less so on economic positions. For instance, the study claimed opposition to gay marriage correlated with psychopathy…
I don’t want to “deceive” Prof. Arvan, but I’m a self-identified conservative, an admitted psychopath (at least I play one here), who supports gay marriage and opposes capital punishment. How does that compute?
Anyway, is there a bigger narcissist than this Machiavellian psychopath?
Autocratic, dictatorial egomanic… and Benito Mussolini
Snapshots from President Obama’s efforts to improve America’s standing in the world, 923 days into his administration:
A is for the Arab world, and our standing in it: This year, Zogby International found that 5% of Egyptians had a favorable view of the U.S. In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, it was 9%.
B is for the federal budget deficit, which is estimated to come in at around 11% of GDP in 2011, up from about 3% in 2008.
C is for China’s military budget. For 2012, Beijing plans to increase spending on defense by 12.7%. The Obama administration, by contrast, proposed Pentagon cuts in April averaging out to $40 billion per year over the next decade, and Congress may soon cut a lot more.
D is for—what else—the federal debt, which grew to $14.3 trillion this month from $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008. D is also for the dollar, which has lost almost half its value against gold since Aug. 2008.
E is for energy. The average retail price of a gallon of gas hovered near the $1.80 mark when Mr. Obama was inaugurated. It has since more than doubled. E is also for ethanol, the non-wonder fuel the U.S. continues to subsidize to the tune of $5 billion a year.
F is for free trade. Bill Clinton signed Nafta in 1994, which facilitates $1.6 trillion in the trade of goods and services between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. George W. Bush midwifed more than a dozen FTAs, from Australia to Singapore to Morocco to Bahrain. Number of FTA’s signed by the current president: zero.
G is for Guantanamo, which remains open, and for Gadhafi, who remains in power, and for Greece, which offers a vision of America’s future if we don’t reform our entitlement state.
H is for Hillary Clinton, who—I can’t believe I’m writing this—would have made a better president than Mr. Obama.
I is for Israel, a Middle Eastern country the president claims to support even as he routinely disses its prime minister, seeks to shrink its borders and—why not?—divide its capital.
That is but a taste. Get thee to the link to read it all. And if you’re too lazy, I’ll give you the most depressing one of all:
Z is for zero, which is the likelihood that one of the current GOP hopefuls will defeat Mr. Obama in 2012.
- Aggie
Some comments from the Moonbat Left
The ire burned hottest online, where liberal groups such as MoveOn.org mobilized opposition and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) tweeted that the deal was “a sugar-coated Satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see.”
The White House dispatched Vice President Biden to lobby congressional liberals, and by day’s end some were reluctantly coming round. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led the way, telling ABC’s Diane Sawyer that she would support the deal despite it being a Satan sandwich “with some Satan fries on the side.”
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said he would support the deal only to prevent the “arson” that Republicans were engaging in with the credit limit. “These are lunatic demands, and I need to compromise because that’s an act of sanity,” he said.
Massachusetts voted NO. A sure sign that this was the right thing to do.
In three decades of service and thousands of votes cast in the House, Representative Barney Frank had never agonized so much over a bill.
In the end, the Newton Democrat joined six of his counterparts from Massachusetts in voting against the bill yesterday to raise the nation’s capacity to borrow. The vote was “the hardest I’ve ever had to cast here,’’ said Frank, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.
Whatever was accomplished in this bill will quickly unravel if we lurch to the Left and elect more democrats in 2012. So, be happy by try not to openly gloat.
- Aggie
Atlas Shrugged is a movie based on a book of the same title. Haven’t seen the film, haven’t read the book, but the Left hates it a lot. A lot. And they hate the Tea Party too, fyi.
Can you believe it? Part 1 (of 3) of the movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged is out! In case you don’t know, for conservatives, free marketeers, predatory capitalists, and people who hate the government and the poor, Atlas Shrugged is like what would happen if the Da Vinci Code fucked the Twilight books and had a baby, and Republicans decided that baby should be the basis for running history’s most powerful country. Atlas Shrugged is the founding text that brings us the revolutionary, inspiring ideas that helping people is dumb, poor people are goblin leeches, corporations are always right, and fabulously wealthy CEOs are the smartest, hardest working, most awesome people in the world — and the government just won’t give them a fair shake.
Yes, the ideology of Atlas Shrugged, and by extension the Republican party, is misguided and disturbingly cruel. But that’s only one of the many reasons why Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 is a cold, muddled mess that even your craziest Teabagger will find hard to like. Though it’s hard to say, since those people are crazy.
I am so darn happy that we’ve turned the civility corner in this country, after Obama gave his speech about the need for more civility. Civility is important, you know?
And I might just have to go see the movie to protest the new civility.
- Aggie
Will they have the courage to defund?
The House of Representatives has scheduled a vote Thursday on a bill that would bar federal funding for National Public Radio.
The move to pull funds from the public broadcasting outlet comes after a conservative activist secretly taped an NPR executive criticizing Tea Party supporters and saying NPR would be better off without federal money.
On Tuesday, the House voted to cut $50 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps support NPR. It’s part of a larger bill to keep the government running for the next three weeks.
Separately, the House voted last month to zero out all federal funding for the CPB as part of its bill to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. But that bill failed to pass the Senate and Senate Democrats are unlikely to include the NPR provision in any compromise measure they are negotiating with House Republicans.
They are simply a snottier version of ACORN. The real journalists working there will always be in demand and the wine and cheese crowd can afford to fund itself.
- Aggie
Enough about what I think I’m worth. What do you think I’m worth?
The state’s senior senator — recently ranked the nation’s richest with $2.7 million in his campaign coffers and an estimated net worth of $239 million — is asking fellow Democrats to open their wallets yet again after they dug deep during a hard-fought election year. His extravaganza at the Boston Symphony — where tickets range from $75 to $4,800 — could be a tough sell as the party’s rank-and-file struggles through another Christmas in a tough economy.
“For Democrats, there’s a bit of fatigue — people have been giving aggressively,” said Democratic consultant Scott M. Ferson, president of the Liberty Square Group. “But we need John Kerry now more than ever. He’s one of the few (Massachusetts) Democrats left in a leadership position.”
Kerry put up $85,000 in campaign cash to rent the 2,000-seat Boston Symphony, where Boston Pops maestro Keith Lockhart, singer James Taylor and actor-director Ben Affleck are expected to appear.
If we need John Kerry we are well and truly [bleeped]. Which I think we are anyway.
Boston University political professor Thomas Whalen said the extravagant blowout — meant to celebrate Kerry’s 25 years in the Senate and 45 years of public service — could be a turnoff to struggling Bay Staters.
“The symbolism really works against him, which is typical of Kerry,” Whalen said. “It doesn’t exactly portray him as a man of the people. He could inadvertently tick off a lot of supporters given that a lot of people are going through a tough time.”
Why, whatever could he mean?
On “the issues” in these closing weeks, there really isn’t a very sharp or highly noticeable distinction to be made between the two nominees, and their “debates” have been cramped and boring affairs as a result. But the difference in character and temperament has become plainer by the day, and there is no decent way of avoiding the fact. Last week’s so-called town-hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience.
Doesn’t leave much doubt, does he?
I love Christopher Hitchens’ bare-knuckle brand of political commentary, as I think I’ve made clear, even when I don’t agree with him.
Not only do I not agree with him, I see a trend.
While the red meat masses seem to love Governor Palin (and I do mean red meat, still steaming from the field dressing), the intellectual elite of the conservative/neoconservative realm of American politics is unimpressed with her, and with John McCain with picking her.
The thrill is gone, baby, the thrill is gone.
Is it just because she mishandled a few softballs (and a couple of beanballs) from Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson? No doubt she did (I still wince at the memory), but is that the measure of a woman? What about her actual record of taking on entrenched special interests in her own party? Her clear and unshakable positions on issues important to many conservatives, like abortion and limited government? Have we forgotten how we lost our hearts to her a the convention?
Obviously, some have. But they constitute a class—and I think class is at play here. Governor Palin and the First Dude appeal to a broad range of Middle America because they act like, look like, and talk like people we know (or are embarrassed to know). Much as I admire and respect David Brooks and Christopher Hitchens—and I do, greatly—I just don’t think they dig hockey moms.