Testimony of 4 Severely Wounded Afghanistan Veterans

En 2010, en Afghanistan, les blessures diffèrent des autres conflits. Elles touchent les membres, à reconstruire entièrement. Les amputations sont nombreuses. La cause : les engins explosifs improvisés déposés sur les routes par les talibans. "On amène beaucoup plus de blessés vivants au bloc. Mais leurs blessures sont beaucoup plus graves", explique Emmanuel Rigal, chef du service de chirurgie orthopédique de l'hôpital Percy (Clamart, Hauts-de-Seine). A l'avant, les techniques médicales et la logistique ont progressé. On va plus vite. Un soldat qui avait sauté sur une mine en fin de matinée en Afghanistan a été opéré par les Américains sur place dans les premières heures.

Nathalie Guibert has a story in Le Monde about four soldiers (severely) wounded in Afghanistan. Interestingly, it turns out that France is like the United States in the sense that she makes the same point as Frank Gaffney, Jr, i.e., that most civilians know next to nothing about the military.

Pour quoi et pour qui [le sergent Jocelyn Truchet, 25 ans,] a-t-il laissé cette jambe ? La question l'embarrasse. "J'espère que je ne l'ai pas laissée pour rien, répond-il après un silence, que tout ça servira à ce que les Afghans prennent en main leur pays."

The Hero of the European Left Shows the Way

Venezuela's Chavez blames capitalism for deluges: Chavez blames rich countries for climate problems

He seems to have forgotten that the capitalist west is the one that started the environmental movement, created all the of technology to clean the environment, created the efficiencies that allow for clean industrialization, despite the uninformed howling of the closet authoritarians of the “green” movement, and that the Marxist-Leninist regimes of old that he lionizes were so poisonously polluted and so willing to choke their own populations with toxic waste, that it was the one form of opposition that they couldn’t rationalize silencing.

The amateurishly operated Chernobyl nuclear plant and the cover-up of its failure was, of course, some sort of capitalist plot too, I imagine.

Re-branding the narrative

So, we won't have "Bush-era tax cuts for the rich" to kick around anymore. Statists simply love having a new narrative to play with, how does this one sound, "Obama-era tax cuts for the rich"?

The Occurrence of an Ad on the Internet

Part of an ad campaign for Occurrence, "specialists in evaluating communication issues"…

Une pub dans une campagne pour l’équipe Occurrence, "Spécialiste de l’évaluation de la communication"…

Spank-a-delic!

426 Berlin merchants are finally catching on to a very American thing.

Cold War at France's Answer to CNN Takes On Air of a John le Carré Novel

"Ce n'est pas une guerre des chefs, mais une affaire criminelle !"

The feud at France 24 takes on the air of a spy story, with Christine Ockrent trying to fight back by denouncing des "insinuations intolérables"…

"Elle n'a plus de protection et Alain de Pouzilhac a obtenu le permis de chasse de l'Elysée, qui suit le dossier de près", note un journaliste de France 24.

Gerhard Schröder is a Hypocrite

Background:

January 2002: "Germany Softens Anti-War Stance"

February 2002: "German Government Signals Support for Iraq War"


Precis:

They were all so hysterical about the US, with or without it's post-9-11 foreign policies, and so besotten with pandering to the constructed Bush-hatred in their electorates, that they will lie to save face, if needed, over their positions, statements and actions. Domino no. 1 is Gerhard Schröder, founding member of the axis of weasels.

Intervening himself, indicating that there was a rather person sense of his convictions, the story goes on to report:

Prior to the new year the German government, a coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, definitively abandoned its previous posture of categorical opposition to a war against Iraq. When asked by Spiegel magazine whether Germany would vote against such a war in the United Nations Security Council, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (Green Party) replied, “This cannot be decided in advance, because nobody knows how and under what circumstances the Security Council will deal with this issue.”

This statement provoked angry protests within the membership of the SPD and the Greens, but Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) immediately backed his foreign minister: “One only decides on one’s vote in committees when one knows the background to the decision,“ he told Spiegel.

In his Presidential memoirs, George Bush presented this matter as it was reported then with an open hand, (not a Poka face.)

Now the predictable German passive aggression point to a rather militant covering maneuver, with the very same publication, Spiegel openly calling George Bush a "liar" and supporting without interspection or curiosity the former Chancellor's specious assertion. In a strange attempt to impart more importance to Schröder and Germany with more relevance than it really had or has, they character as "an ongoing emnity", as if it was really there.

On Tuesday, the day that Bush's own presidential memoirs, "Decision Points," finally hit the shelves, Schröder went even further. "The former American president is not telling the truth," he said on Tuesday in Berlin.

Schröder was referring to a passage in Bush's memoirs in which the former president described a meeting that took place between the two leaders in the White House on Jan. 31, 2002. Bush writes that, when he told Schröder that he would pursue diplomacy against Iraq but would use military force should the need arise, the German leader responded, "'What is true of Afghanistan is true of Iraq. Nations that sponsor terror must face consequences. If you make it fast and make it decisive, I will be with you.'"

Bush continued: "I took that as a statement of support. But when the German election arrived later that year, Schröder had a different take. He denounced the possibility of force against Iraq."

I'd shed a tear for any nation that looks to the likes of Schröder to lead it, but it isn't worth it.

Can she fend off the assaults of fanatical White House officials and Hezzbollah commandos in time to write and deliver her column before deadline?

(Thanks to Hervé who is… "speechless")

Channeling al Jezeera sur Seine

Call me when your moral compass stops spinning.

While belittling the death of American civilians is nothing new, this cartoon published on the web page “All Voices”, one which purports to reflect the opinions of “a world that has no other outlet,” it displays quite plainly that to many out there the WikiDump is not about “transparency”, but another quietly celebrated missile fired at Americans and at the United States.

Good-Bye, Friend

Hugh Prather, 1938-2010

NATO and Russia at Lisbon Summit: You just might want to put off a decision on sharing a system to defend against a nuclear threat from Iran

Alexander Golts, a Russian security and military affairs analyst with a reputation for considerable integrity and cheek … writing in The Moscow Times about his view of the [Lisbon] summit’s ultimate futility, insisted that, since the fall of the Soviet Union, grand notions of deep cooperation between Russia and NATO “inevitably” fall apart.

Thus reads John Vinocur's latest column in the International Herald Tribune.

Is that unreasonable, or just undiplomatic? In truth, there are seriously limiting elements both to the NATO-Russia relationship’s possibilities and to NATO’s own flexibility in acknowledging and confronting its members’ most serious security concerns:

• Russia, in its official military doctrine, continues to designate NATO as its prime external threat. …

• Iran was not discussed at the Lisbon meeting or mentioned in any of its documents, or in a message to Europe from President Barack Obama that preceded the conference. This may have been out of U.S. deference to Turkey and Russia, which do not explicitly acknowledge Tehran’s push for a nuclear weapon. Still, the silence appeared so mousy to President Nicolas Sarkozy that he said, “In France, we call a spade a spade” (well, sometimes), and, in a news conference, singled out Iran as the basic “threat” behind the need for missile defense.

• In comments about possible cooperation on a joint strategy (against the effectively whited-out Iranian nukes), Russia has insisted on “absolute equality” and murmured warnings of no deal otherwise. …

With this tone and level of noninformation, you just might want to put off a decision on buying a used car, not to mention sharing a system to defend against a nuclear threat from Iran. …

A coda: the high-pressure gush at Lisbon was successfully slip-streamed by France so that in the midst of all the self-congratulatory talk no one uttered a word about French efforts to sell the Russian Navy two helicopter-carrying assault ships, a NATO first. The French could certainly cheer, Long live Mr. Obama’s reset!

Former PM Michel Rocard: Villepin Identifies Himself with Napoleon, Whereas He Is More of a Cyrano de Bergerac Character

Sarkozy l'Américain is often criticized by the French for having opposed Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin's policies on the Iraq war, but as the WikiLeaks trove make clear, the future French president was hardly the only French politician upset with the duo's excesses in the mid-2000s; former prime minister Michel Rocard pointing out that Villepin identifies himself with Napoleon, whereas he is more of a Cyrano de Bergerac character…

Whatever Gave You That Idea?

Former external relations commissioner Chris Patten in 2004: The EU will never be a real power

Mr Patten expressed his scepticism that the EU will ever become "a real power," because "there is always someone in the room who is overly cautious, and will insist on looking at matters 'sensibly'," the cable reads.

They haven’t been “ready for prime time” for what seems like decades now. This, of course, as they’ve held one fake celebration after another inferring that their founding on paper half a century ago was serious or significant.

It’s a hard thing to believe, because they still aren’t serious or significant.

"To be a real power, Patten said, a country must be ready and able to adopt and implement a policy, even if the rest of the world considers it unwise. Europeans may agree or disagree with US policy, but they admire that the US is ready to carry out the policies it thinks best, no matter what the rest of the world thinks."

Sensible, meaning providing enough time and enough cover to enable inaction.

Quite the Role Model

Hey, Kids! This could be you!



It’s a sterile*, lonely unicorn†.
(The one on the right, dingus)

* rainbow love means never really making any little Unicorns
† They never existed outside of the imagination

EUtopia’s “Sustainable” Future

Global warming strikes again: Europeans, normally so fond of lecturing all passing sundry that they deal so handily with everything while whoever they’re standing in front of can’t, struggle to deal with 8 measly inches of snow.

Shops running out of basics as lorries struggle to deliver.

Every male, no matter what his age, thinks that he’s Fritz the Cat, but gets arrested with apoplexy by the prospect of having to shovel the walk in front of the Cat pad.

Just put a dress on them. What a bunch of pansies. To think that they pretend to be humanity’s bold, wise oracles.

A Bush Admirer, Sarkozy Told W About His Coming Presidential Candidacy 16 Months Prior to His Formal Announcement

L'homme fascine les Américains autant qu'il leur raconte être fasciné par l'Amérique

writes Rémy Ourdan about WikiLeaks' Sarkozy revelations in Le Monde.

Il est le "président le plus pro-américain depuis la seconde guerre mondiale". … On découvre dans ces mémos que Nicolas Sarkozy et ses conseillers fréquentent assidument l'ambassade américaine de Paris, ainsi que les dignitaires américains de passage en France.

Signe de cette proximité, Nicolas Sarkozy, qui n'avait certes pas fait mystère qu'il pensait à la présidentielle "pas seulement en se rasant" et qui ne masquait pas ses ambitions, annonce sa candidature aux Américains le 1^er août 2005, soit seize mois avant qu'il ne l'annonce, le 29 novembre 2006, au peuple français. "Je vais être candidat en 2007", confirme M. Sarkozy à l'ambassadeur Craig Stapleton et au conseiller économique du président Bush, Allan Hubbard. Pour la France, c'est déjà à l'époque une évidence, mais encore non déclarée. Pour les Américains, cette confirmation avant l'heure est une marque de confiance.

…Nicolas Sarkozy fait, lors de ce rendez-vous, une véritable déclaration d'amour aux Américains. "Sarkozy a exprimé son admiration pour le président Bush, écrit l'ambassadeur. Sarkozy a dit que, comme le président [Bush], lui aussi mettait un point d'honneur à tenir sa parole et à affronter honnêtement les problèmes réels de son pays."

Le ministre de l'intérieur n'hésite pas à critiquer la position diplomatique française devant des officiels étrangers. "Sarkozy s'est lamenté de l'état troublé des relations entre les Etats-Unis et la France au cours des dernières années, écrit le diplomate. Affirmant que c'est quelque chose que lui 'ne ferait jamais', il a évoqué l'utilisation, par Chirac et Villepin, du veto de la France au Conseil de sécurité [de l'ONU] contre les Etats-Unis en février 2002 [sur l'invasion de l'Irak] comme étant une réaction injustifiable et excessive."

…Nicolas Sarkozy, toujours à l'occasion du passage d'Allan Hubbard, devient plus personnel. "'Ils m'appellent 'Sarkozy l'Américain', a-t-il dit. 'Eux considèrent que c'est une insulte, mais je le prends comme un compliment'. Sarkozy a souligné à quel point il 'se reconnaît' dans les valeurs américaines", écrit le diplomate. "Il a raconté que, lorsqu'il était enfant, il a dit à son père qu'il souhaitait devenir président. Son père d'origine hongroise a rétorqué 'dans ce cas, va en Amérique, parce qu'avec un nom comme Sarkozy, tu n'y parviendras jamais ici'. Prouver que c'était faux, a dit Sarkozy, est la pierre angulaire de ses efforts à la fois pour réussir [à devenir président] et à transformer la France."

L'ambassadeur en conclut que "Sarkozy est viscéralement pro-américain" et qu'"il voit sa propre ascension comme étant le reflet d'une saga à l'américaine".

Needless to say, Le Monde's French readership is hopping mad by Sarkozy's free market tendencies, by his pro-Americanism, by his "poodleness", and by his "treason" (to Chirac and de Villepin), leading Un "imbécile" to declare:

Noel avant l'heure pour les eminents commentateurs du Monde: antiamericanisme et antisarkozysme se rencontrent, livres sur un plateau par le compte-rendu pas-tendancieux du Monde. C'est vraiment trop, il ne fallait pas. Le millieme commentateur qui sort les memes cliches gagne le Grand Prix de la Previsibilite.

Proud, So Proud of their Miscellaneous, Parenthetical Factoids

Bertelsmann is a near-monopoly player in German publishing. Despite sitting in that sort of catbird seat, they are pretending to do the world a favor while trying to pry open new markets abroad. One way they’re doing this is by running a think-tank in DC. It’s director, Annette Heuser, previously of their international dealmaking unit, rather transparently describes it thus:

We want to position the Bertelsmann Foundation in the highly competitive and fast-moving market of think tanks and foundations in DC by defining ourselves as a "Center of European Excellence." By this, we mean to showcase European best practices for confronting challenges that afflict all our societies.

Which is to say, to propagate their ways not by example, but by making great news of what others should be doing to be more European.

What fine examples to they have for us to live by and admire them for? News about themselves:

Europe’s Fight Against Human Trafficking
Middle East: Difficult Negotiations Ahead

As if some European that they can put a claim on were intimately involved in any of these things in an effective way. We can see how well a decade of European negotiation with Iran has gone: they were chumped – used as cover to build nukes. They are proud of their role as willing idiots that enabled an aggressive buffoon who gets a woody thinking of genocide.

Otherwise, the their object lessons for humanity are all about Europeans dealing with Europeans: as if their internal matters were any more remarkable that anyone else’s internal matters, and that we’re somehow supposed to be proud of the fact that after a millennium of slaughtering one another, that they are, historically, in an “operational pause”.

So what is it exactly that can make people like this go away and take their underhandedness with them? Applaud them, continually, in the manner of a faked orgasm until their self-satisfaction is sated? Or should we tell them that their peace, that remarkable example of the absence of them being their usual selves, is founded on two things:

1. Their apathy, and
2. The rest of the world having had to nation-build them into a functioning society that stops dragging the rest of humanity into their blood-bathes, they fantastice social ideas that include collectivist-learned helplessness, Marxist-Leninism, and Fascism. You know... because they’re “efficient”.

They should be deported for mendacity, if not their surreal naiveness:

But on the macro-level, the greatest challenge for Europe and the US is demonstrating that democracies can deliver in today's world. We must demonstrate that democracies have the power to guarantee their citizens equal access to health care and education, and provide security on a local, national and even international scale.

As if that’s what democracies are, or are for, or that the same thing was accomplished by any past or present non-democracy.

Some of it rises to the kind of pedantry that we’ve all heard first hand for decades. All the while waiting for the European side of this imaginary great love/friendship/partnership to demonstrate ANY action founded on their words, even WITHIN the European orbit. Take, for example, the years of absolute unwillingness that they had for removing the thuggish regimes of the former Yugoslavia: people had to cross an ocean to do it for them. Even today, they had to hire the Eulex staff in the classifieds because no European government was initially willing to commit a single staff person themselves if there was much of any risk involved... and that’s IN EUROPE.

Right now, Americans shoulder a greater portion of the military responsibility in the alliance. For Europe, the true recipe for successful transatlantic burden sharing requires comprehensive, pragmatic diplomacy enforced by European military power, if needed, in a conflict. Europeans also must demonstrate more convincingly that they share the ultimate objectives of the Americans even in cases, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, in which both sides want different approaches.

Prove it. Prove to the world that your beer-drinking German louts in Afghanistan have accomplished ANYTHING rising to the level of the number of troops that are there.

Are we to admire ANY of the things they do, take it as an example, and THANK THEM for it? The European view, quite simply, is that there is greatness in what we are to SUPPOSE about them, generically, as a people in a far off idyllic well-managed and programmed glass and steel utopia. None of it is plausible because it’s entirely undermined by their stagnant and stubborn way of never actually doing much of anything for other cultures, much alone for each other, while telling us all how well we should think of them.

Otherwise they HAVE to keep prattling on about a Trans-Atlantic alliance, because it’s all about them. It IS their defense, and it IS their access to any plausible form of relevance in the world, all 500 million of them – the wealthiest entity on earth.

Delusions arise from believing what you continually repeat. Theirs’ is that they’re relevant and indispensible to humanity by mere virtue of their being, or their history, or any number of things other than their inaction and misguided attempts to compete in the human-intervention business with rest of the world not for the sake of those they’ll help, but for the sake of those they think they’re showing up.

And if that fails, pretend that it’s all about co-operation and it’s a small world after all internationalism. Like this bit of coercion and blackmail:

The legislature's rejection earlier this year of the interim SWIFT agreement with the US was, Barker writes, partially motivated by a desire to establish a more active role in policymaking. This was also a reason for the parliament's opening a liaison office in Washington, DC, making the EP the only legislature with its own presence in the US capital.

What do they try to call that dynamic? “Transatlantic Power House.” Their use of power, your house.

Wikileaks - A primer

Regardless of your thoughts on the the leaking of US documents via Wikileaks, you are undoubtedly curious as to how it all works on the inside. You can spend your time plowing through thousands of mind-numbing cables -or- you can take the quick and very accurate path to see how it all works (far more funnier as well - in a cringing way for those who have been there and done that):

"Sarkozy identifies with America; he sees his own rise in the world as reflecting an American-like saga"

…on Tuesday Mr. Sarkozy told cabinet ministers that the release of the documents was “the height of irresponsibility”

writes Katrin Bennhold regarding the WikiLeaks scandal as well as the release of documents pertaining to French diplomacy and to the French president.

President Nicolas Sarkozy is an unusually solid French friend of America. He is also a “mercurial” man operating in “a zone of monarch-like impunity” surrounded by advisers often too fearful to give honest counsel, according to leaked cables from the United States Embassy in Paris. …

Five years of correspondence between Paris and Washington chronicle a spectacular post-Iraq turnabout between one of the West’s most complicated diplomatic couples. Mr. Sarkozy, who took office in May 2007, was described even last year as “the most pro-American French president since World War II” and a “force multiplier” for American foreign policy interests. …

Paul Patin, an American Embassy spokesman, said Tuesday: “President Sarkozy has proved, time and time again, that he is a true friend of the U.S. France is one of our closest allies, and our partnership has only gotten stronger during his presidency.”

In general, few foreign policy disagreements surface between France and the United States under Mr. Sarkozy. … The delight among American diplomats at the arrival of a self-professed pro-American candidate after years of difficult relations with Jacques Chirac was evident in correspondence well before Mr. Sarkozy’s election.

In 2005, Mr. Sarkozy, then the interior minister, told Craig R. Stapleton, then the American ambassador, that although he would have advised against the Iraq invasion he still felt it “personally when American soldiers die in combat.” Mr. Sarkozy said he took it as a personal responsibility that “no U.S. Embassy or Consulate was so much as touched” in anti-American protests.

“Very much unlike nearly all other French political figures, Sarkozy is viscerally pro-American,” said a cable signed by Mr. Stapleton. “For most of his peers, the U.S. is a sometimes reviled or admired, but decidedly foreign, other. Sarkozy identifies with America; he sees his own rise in the world as reflecting an American-like saga.”

The kids are alright ........ really.

At every presser all we hear is that our Iberian brothers and sisters not only don't need any help with their financial problems, they are positively thriving. Odd then this selection from today's news:

Spain and Italy, the countries that with Portugal appear most at risk from being enveloped by the euro zone's deepening debt turmoil, are leading an effort to spur more decisive action from the European Central Bank in order to prevent the crisis from spreading further.

A €67.5 billion ($88.2 billion) bailout plan for Ireland that European Union governments signed Sunday has offered little relief from the crisis, dashing the hopes of European leaders. Since then, borrowing costs for the three governments rose sharply.

No worries at all, "panic" now being a sign of everything being alright.

Amen

They’re Nothing but a Bunch of Whores

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – European governments negotiating with the US on the resettlement of Guantanamo Bay inmates asked for money and meetings with Barack Obama, while others refused to accept Chinese Uighurs for fear of upsetting Beijing, diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks show.

That’s some serious droits de l’homme, you’re sporting there as you codpiece, studly: give me the ones that won’t make you look bad, or anger a REAL epirious totalitarian regime like China. I can smell the bravitude from here.

The Bulgarian interior ministry, for instance, expressed willingness to accept two men, on condition that the US got rid of visa requirements for Bulgarian tourists and businessmen and helped with relocation expenses.

These were the Europeans who were begging to “shut down Gitmo”, and were trying to tell humanity that they were begging the US to just purdy pleeeez give them a Jihadist of their very own to hug and squeeze and call George. They promise to walk and clean up after them too.

The reality?

Even the Germans joined in the haggling, though Berlin had been particularly strident in calling for the closure of Guantanamo. Wolfgang Schäuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the country's interior minister until late October 2009, repeatedly rejected American overtures.
Berlin was particularly reluctant to take 17 Uighurs, originally from China, despite the fact that 500 of their ethnic brethren already lived in Munich, the largest such community in Europe. The Uighur community in Munich expressed a willingness to accept them into its midst. But Germany wouldn't allow it.

Oh, the poor innocent darlings! Victims of big, bad AmeriKKKa!

Islamists from Guantanamo are too dangerous, Schäuble insisted.

"The coldest start to December for centuries": Global Warming Worsens Across Europe

[In Germany] it was the coldest start to December for centuries

The urgent need for global warming talks in Cancún is felt across Europe as the situation grows worse…

In the Russian capital, Moscow, temperatures dropped to -23.6C, the lowest on record for 1 December since 1931.

In Poland the mercury dropped even lower, with the eastern city of Bialystok registering temperatures of -26C. …

In Britain, thousands of schools were closed and police in the southern county of Surrey described conditions as the worst they had ever seen. …

Thick snow across Germany blocked roads, and caused flight cancellations and school closures. Bild newspaper said it was the coldest start to December for centuries, with some areas reporting temperatures as low as -18C.

The Boîte Noire is in Charge

As if they haven’t spent the past century trying to convince French society to rise up in arms against “the system” and trying to scare them into the belief that there is a Capitalist under their beds, Propagantastaffel now propagandizes that, to the contrary,

The new far right not only exerts a growing influence on national governments, it is also organising at a European level and could soon weigh heavily on the very workings of the EU, warns French columnist Bernard Guetta.

Otherwise when not “saving the people”, the strange complex includes the notion that they are some sort of better-knowing elite that otherwise “hate the people”.

Buoyed by a wave of social discontent that has swept across the continent, it is in the process of mounting a platform that brings together the defence of the welfare state, an aspiration for protectionism, and an attachment to liberal values that are supposedly threatened by Muslims. Represented by pleasantly urbane leaders, who appear wholly contemporary, it has attracted a hefty swathe of the working-class and urban youth vote.

In other words, since it smacks somewhat of the lefts class-warfare bogeyman routine, and they supposedly have that copywritten, one is supposed to not just oppose it, but not notice pretend that the left’s crash-testing of civilization is to go unremarked.

The candidate pool for Hollywood's chief lobbyist is filled with Democrats because it reflects the political leanings of Hollywood power players

A Brooks Barnes article in the New York Times on finding the film industry's chief lobbyist in Washington reveals some not-so-hidden truths about Hollywood.

The job, as chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, is supposed to be one of the most coveted gigs around. … The late Jack Valenti held the position for nearly four decades, and he not only wielded incredible power but also found time to maintain a Malibu tan.

Yet three studio chairmen, aided by headhunting firms, have been trying for almost a year to find a new leader to replace Dan Glickman, the former nine-term congressman from Kansas [who was secretary of agriculture during the Clinton administration and] who stepped down earlier this year after succeeding Mr. Valenti [who earned his political stripes by working as an adviser in the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson] in 2004. …

The search committee came close over the summer, zeroing in on Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska and president of the New School. But negotiations fell apart.

Now a new round of interviews is under way … one candidate is Christopher J. Dodd, the powerful Democratic senator from Connecticut, who is retiring. Bill Richardson, the exiting governor of New Mexico, is also in the mix, this person said.

One of the more out-of-left-field names under consideration is Vickee Jordan Adams, a former executive at the communications firm Hill & Knowlton and daughter of Vernon Jordan, the senior adviser to former President Bill Clinton. (The candidate pool is filled with Democrats because it reflects the political leanings of Hollywood power players.)

You can be sure that the New York Times would not be speaking so flippantly of an industry if the contenders for a similar post were all Republicans, nor would its alarmists (where evil conservatives are concerned) be minimizing the reason for the similarity of their background by hiding them inside a pair of parentheses…

Breaking News from the Land of Milk and Honey

Brussels says first ever citizens' petition does not count

"We've always said that we take their opinion very seriously but it's not an ECI as the legislation is not yet in place," Michael Mann, the commission's administration spokesman, told this website on Tuesday (30 November).

Once the obfuscating starts, expect it to continue.

First Came the Bail-Out

And then came the bale out.

Why Don’t They Just Go Back to Getting Hysterical about Google Street View ?

I really hope Europeans whip themselves up into their usual frothing impotent rage over the crumbs of hate that have been sprinkled by Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. Observing Hermann:

In an embarrassing embarrassment following Wikileaks’ leak of leaked US despatches, US diplomats in Germany have been caught making the very same derisive remarks about leading German politicians that Germany’s critical media makes.

The New York Times, one of members of the provisional wing of Wikileaks, calls what Wikileaks is doing an exercise in “seeking transparency."

Transparency, my ass.

If they were seeking transparency, they would publish ANY NATION'S confidential documents, but they aren't. Their actions are more than mere tacit support of al Qaida and the Taliban. Their mission has been to undermine the standing of the United States, and the United States alone, and they are doing it in close coordination with a small coterie of press operations.

To begin with, those with access to SIPRNET and the Diplomatic Communications network who have been giving Wikileaks the documents are breaking the law, and are being openly treasonous. Wikileaks on the other hand, is at the very least violating copyright and trafficing in stolen goods to such a great magnatude that they have committed a high crime.

Wikileaks intention is to introduce so much doubt inside the practices of the staff of the State Department, DoD, NATO states' governments, even the Pakistani governemnt, that it will tip the balance of power in favor of Iran, Syria, al Qaida, the Taliban, and their network. Nothing else.

It’s this simple: if I had ever even so much as lost a confidential document, I would have been in serious violation of Federal Law and the UCJ. Some pendejo Pfc having a drama and is mad about "Don't Ask Don't Tell" who feeds a nihilist like Assange a quarter of a million classified documents gets a smug nod, and acclimation by the detached commentariat that would, if they had a nutsack, kill US soldiers for recreation themselves in a fit of anti-Vietnam-War-protest emotional nostalgia.

That the cables are not big news is irrelevant. In fact if you put it in contrast to the polite and diplomatic statements of the State Department and DoD, you immediately see the contrast between them and the European governments who seed highly slanderous characterizations of foreign parties through the press all the time. i.e.: Spiegel getting opinionated, libelous, and clearly mendacious German government commentary about George Bush, coupled with the citation of one statement about Gerhard Schroeder which was broadly accepted in the press at the time, with a retort today that "Bush was a liar" when it's quite clear that Gerhard Schroeder is the liar trying to build himself a legacy.

Does anyone out there NOT think that Erdogan ISN'T a bufoon? Or that Sarkozy ISN'T practicing the usual haxagonal irrelevant self-importance? Or that Putin isn't a simpleton pulling moronic international stunts as a result of the impotence that blunts his megalomania?

And as to Westerwelle: why does anyone think the rest of humanity need the approving smile of a disinterested non-actor in risky and relevant security affairs such as the German Foreign Minister? It's like caring terribly about needing the approval of the 3rd Consul at the Albanian embassy in Rome. I’m sure THEY think that THEY matter, but the rest of humanity doesn’t agree with them, and just nods as long as their checkbook is open.

What does Assange want? A world where governments exist in order to be accountable to the image-based reputations and opinions of some like him, but are unable to protect their populations. While he migh think that this will all turn us into Luxembourg, it is more likely to turn Luxembourg into Transnistria.

So as far as I’m concerned, let the bitches in Europe’s “grand nations’” “grand capitols” get worked up about a few mild little comments. It took them 5 years to get past ONE incantation of the term “old Europe”, and ONE little utterance of the words “Freedom Fries”, so let them pop a blood vessel. It will make a nice break from them beating off to the sounds of their own voices.

While our leaders discuss the fight against climate change in Cancún, hundreds of UK schools are shut down by global warming

This is the worst we've seen in 20+ years [2nd video]

While world governments gather in Cancún in order to fight climate change, global warming hits the United Kingdom:
"The UK has been experiencing the earliest widespread snowfall since 1993 … One Rothbury resident describes it as the worst weather to hit the region in over 20 years [and the motoring organisation named the] AA said it was on course to have one of its busiest days in its 105-year history."

We're gettin' a little bit fed up with it now, you know, I mean it's taken me an hour and a half to dig myself into the shop this mornin'…

"The coldest place in the UK on Sunday night was Altnaharra in northern Scotland, which recorded a low of -16.1C (3F).

"The temperature in Llysdinam, which saw Wales's coldest ever November reading on Saturday of -18C (-0.4F), was -12.9C (8.8F) on Sunday night.

"The temperature at RAF Northolt in west London was -2.2C (28F) but on Dartmoor it was -7.9C (17.8F)."

This is the worst I've ever seen it for time of year, without a shadow of a doubt. I was here in '63 and I remember 1963 and it wasn't anything as bad as this!

We must hope that world leaders in Cancún soon come up with a workable plan, because global warming has also been causing Scotland to struggle, with forecasters warning

that the cold snap will get worse this week, with temperatures plunging as low as -20C.

The coldest overnight temperature in the UK was Altnaharra in northern Scotland, which recorded a low of -16.1C.

(Cheers to Instapundit for the link)

Update:

In Britain, thousands of schools were closed and police in the southern county of Surrey described conditions as the worst they had ever seen. …

Thick snow across Germany blocked roads, and caused flight cancellations and school closures. Bild newspaper said it was the coldest start to December for centuries, with some areas reporting temperatures as low as -18C.

¡No Pasarán!

Unlike our betters, we don't make it up as we go along:

When European leaders set up the €440 billion ($583 billion) European Financial Stability Facility following the Greek crisis in June, they hoped it would never have to be used. But the Irish bailout has dashed that hope. If the rescue is finalized in its current form, the EFSF will have to issue bonds to lend as much as €17.7 billion to Ireland—with the likelihood of much greater issuance if other euro-zone members have to be bailed out. But who will buy these bonds? And how will they be priced?

The Washington Post Protests that Barack Obama Has Affirmed "American Exceptionalism" on "Many Occasions"

"American exceptionalism" is a phrase that, until recently, was rarely heard outside the confines of think tanks, opinion journals and university history departments.

In a Washington Post piece about m and how the phrase has been taken on by Republican contenders for the 2012 election, American exceptionalism and how the phrase has been taken up by Republican contenders for the 2012 election, Karen Tumulty manages to pull out the ol' people-who-criticize-leftists-are-traitorous-or-at-best-misinformed-and-now-allow-me-to-get-the-full-facts-out-to-you spiel, although arguably in a rather subtle fashion.

Well… maybe not that much. First, Karen Tumulty wonders about the evil that lurks, hidden, in the hearts of conservatives, comparing them to the so-called truthers — "making an insidious suggestion about the president himself" — and in the process stating as a fact that "assertions" that put into doubt the Dear Leader's narrative about himself (or his policies) are, and can only be, "false".

With a more intellectual sheen than the false assertions that Obama is secretly a Muslim or that he was born in Kenya, an argument over American exceptionalism "is a respectable way of raising the question of whether Obama is one of us," said William Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Having thus put into doubt the integrity of the individuals, and of the movements, opposing the Great Helmsman (or of whomever they make the ill-founded choice of associating themselves with, directly or indirectly), she goes on to "demonstrate" — again, as a given — that the reasoning of the opponents, if not "insidious", is at best false or misleading.

Much of this criticism harkens back to a single comment that Obama made at a news conference a year and a half ago in Strasbourg, France, during his first trip overseas as president. … The president's answer [to Financial Times correspondent Ed Luce] began: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

Karen Tumulty goes on to state that what "provided ammunition for Palin and other Republican critics" turns out to be wrong.

…while the opening sentence of Obama's answer sounded dismissive, the president's full statement was [in fact] more complex than that — and was indeed an affirmation of American exceptionalism…

To prove this contention — although she has no choice but to call the Apologizer-in-Chief's 2009 affirmation "arguably a qualified one" — she refers to the "many occasions" on which Barack Obama has made speeches in which he affirmed "American exceptionalism".

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer noted that Obama has declared exactly that on many occasions [that "American exceptionalism refers directly to the grant of rights asserted in the Declaration of Independence," and that it is a term "which relates directly to our unique assertion of an unprecedented set of rights granted by God" (Newt Gingrich)] — including in his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the moment that first brought the then-Illinois state senator to national attention.

Unfortunately, this contention is belied by two things. First, the 2004 speech is the only one of "many" perorations that Karen Tumulty (or that Dan Pfeiffer) specifically bring up. Couldn't either of them have mentioned (at least) one other speech as well, notably a more recent speech, say, one made after Obama entered the Oval Office? Or even one after he became the Democratic candidate for president?

Indeed, this brings us to the second point: the entire argument against Obama is that all the "good stuff" that he said when he needed to say them, while he was running for the top post, and what he has been saying once he got to the top post, is entirely different, and that what Obama has said, and what he has done, since becoming leader belies entirely what he said, and what he did, as a candidate (or, as far as the 2004 speech is concerned, as a candidate-in-waiting)…

"That was Quite an Outburst!"

Has Ireland Just Signed a Huge Teaser-Rate Loan?

Qualified statements and obfuscation are what one should generally refer to as "clues" that something is up. What is the difference in these two statements:

A) The European Union has approved an €85 billion rescue package for Ireland which, if drawn down in its entirety today, would attract an average interest rate of 5.83 per cent.

or,

B) The European Union has approved an €85 billion rescue package for Ireland which carries an interest rate of 5.83 per cent.

The difference being A talks about draw down conditions and average rates; B states the interest rate is a straight-forward 5.83 per cent, full stop. A is what the Irish have signed up for, a conditional teaser-rate loan.

A hunch says that, once the details are known in the next day or so, Irish citizens will find that the real interest rate they are being saddled with is far more than 5.83 per cent.

Any takers?

The Carter/Obama parallel: Both were exciting new candidates who ran for office using the word "change"

Both were exciting new candidates who ran for office using the word "change". Both appeared to grow disillusioned with the U.S. One was taken down by Ronald Reagan, what will happen to the other? Reporter Frank McCaffrey and ALG's Don Todd examine the Carter/Obama parallel.

Of course, a number of us made the Jimmy Carter comparison back during the 2008 election…

Deplorable Reasoning

”Firing back” at an idea with an unrelated trope has become the gold standard in (anti) intellectualism by intimidation.

Two books have shaped German debate this autumn. Thilo Sarrazin's book "Deutschland schafft sich ab" (Germany is abolishing itself) and "Das Amt und die Vergangenheit" (The Foreign Ministry and the past). On first appearances they would seem to have little in common, other than they are both published by Random House. Actually, though, these books are intricately bound up with one another, two souls in the breast of the politically-minded Bildungsburger or member of the German educated classes.

After all, both arguments somehow become equal because they came out of the mouths of “a class”, a sorting mechanism from people outside of those being assigned to one class or another.

Somehow, Sarrazin’s mention of the disinvolved and least educated not participating in the larger society’s social and economic life, and a collection of essays about the largely now deceased staff of Germany’s postwar foreign ministry whitewashing its’ past are to become about something else entirely. Were those Ausenministarium folk really elitists? Maybe. But was it their class and education that drove their moral failure? This is a question that one may not ask in a post-you name it society.



Which “class” is it right to appear to be after today, all you Besserwisser types out there?

Where then, should we arbitrarily deposit out judgment on the likes of that elite “class” called opinion journalists such as the article’s author, Welt journalist Alan Pösner? We may not judge right nor wrong in an individual for fear of sanction or being held to account for our words, which is how constructing invective for a constructed class develops so much appeal.

A look ahead to the week in Bruxelles

Never forget, the show must go on...

The Idefatigable Kate Smith

- A guest post by Jack

I don’t know if you remember, or ever heard Kate Smith, but she was one very special woman. Here is her story and her song.

In case you don't know it, this is the person that is referred to as "The Fat Lady" in the trite verbalization of "It's not over till the fat lady sings". Kate Smith was born and grew up in Columbia, Missouri.

In early 1940, Kate Smith, a fiercely patriotic American, and the biggest star on radio, was deeply worried about her country. She asked Irving Berlin if he could give her a song that would re-ignite the spirit of American patriotism and faith. He said he had a song that he had written in 1917, but never used it. He said she could have it.

She sat at the piano & played it and realized how good it was. She called Mr. Berlin and told him that she couldn't take this from him for nothing. So, they agreed that any money that would be made off the song would be donated to the Boy Scouts of America . Thanks to Kate Smith and Irving Berlin, the Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties.

This clip is from the movie "You're in the Army Now". You will see a familiar face (near the very end) in this one that we are all very proud of. This “familiar face” was quite patriotic himself and went on to inspire the whole country and could be touted as changing the world with his dedication to freedom and the “American Way”. We digress.

Frank Sinatra said that when Kate Smith, whom he considered the greatest singer of his age, first sang this song on the radio, a million guys got 'dust' in their eyes and had to wipe the tears the 'dust' caused.

Obama is hoping to capitalize on our ignorance of the men and women in uniform who defend this country and of the phenomenon known as forced intimacy

It is a sad, and potentially fatal, fact that most Americans know virtually nothing about the United States military

writes Frank Gaffney, Jr.

That astounding reality is all the more incredible given that our very survival ultimately depends on the men and women in uniform who defend this country.

Such ignorance is, ironically, a testament to the success of what is known as the All Volunteer Force. It is also a national defect, one that may soon be the undoing of a system based on the willingness of a few to protect the rest of us at great risk to themselves.

…President Obama is hoping to capitalize on our ignorance of these folks and the reality of their lives in uniform — notably, the phenomenon known as "forced intimacy" that is inherent in communal bunkrooms, showers, latrines, shipboard sleeping compartments and foxholes. He is insisting that the United States Senate accede during the post-Thanksgiving lame-duck session to his demand for the repeal of a 1993 law prohibiting homosexuals from serving in the armed forces.

In 2010 civilian America, the idea of self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals being entitled to equal job opportunities and social treatment has become widely accepted. Polls are endlessly cited that suggest most civilians are sympathetic when LGBT activists demand that the military must conform to this practice.

Suddenly, however, just as the Obama-led campaign to foist the radical homosexual agenda on the U.S. armed forces is reaching its denouement, the American people are getting a taste of forced intimacy — and they don't like it. In airports around the country, they are being subjected to intrusions on their personal space by people and machines of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Being forced to submit to a privacy-rending body scan or pat-down — unpleasant as it may be — is not likely to compare to the trauma that can flow from being forced to submit to showering or sharing a bunkroom with someone who finds you sexually attractive. Still, as the traveling public is now beginning to understand, "virtual strip-searches" and officially sanctioned groping is offensive. So is the TSA response that those who don't want to "submit" to it can always elect not to fly.

The question occurs: How many of our servicemen and women will decide they also don't want to submit to a "zero-tolerance" enforcement of the new homosexual- friendly regulations that will be promulgated if the present statute proscribing LGBT service is repealed?

…Every American who finds themselves bridling at the invasion of their privacy by TSA should think long and hard about forcing our all-too-often unsung and unrecognized heroes to submit to far worse. And their elected representatives, who often know little more than their constituents about our military, should refrain from imposing such hardships on those who keep us safe and free — especially in a lame-duck session that leaves no opportunity for deliberation and debate about the predictable, real and toxic repercussions of such actions.

I am reminded of the episode recounted by James Mitchener in his autobiography (for the record, Mitchener was a gay-rights friendly progressive and, obviously, the episode is a — highly — unusual one), in which a Marine captain's authority over his detachment on a tiny Pacific island (Matareva) during World War II is slowly but surely entirely undermined by a "confirmed homosexual", a "vicious" staff sargeant who, it is true, had a particularly "malignant power" and who "began a systematic campaign to entice the younger marines into his net", persuading "one after another of these young men to engage in sexual acts with him" and turning the base into "a homosexual riot".

France's Brain Drain: "The notion of competition, the acceptance of competition is more in harmony with the American culture than the French one"

Academics are increasingly leaving France for the United States, which carries the risk of a “brain drain” in France, according to a report this month by an independent study group.

Thus starts Maïa de la Baume's article in the International Herald Tribune, which points out that many French scientists say that the "French lifestyle, which puts a higher value on quality of living and less emphasis on competition and getting ahead, is no longer sufficient to keep talented researchers in France".

The report, by the Institut Montaigne, a leading independent research group in Paris, found that academics constitute a much larger percentage of French émigrés to the United States today than 30 years ago. According to the report, between 1971 and 1980, academics represented just 8 percent of the departing population; between 1996 and 2006, they represented 27 percent of the departing population.

“The acceleration of French scientific emigration to the United States is recent and worrisome,” said the report, called “Gone for good? The expatriates of French higher education in the United States.”

… The number of French scientists who leave France for the United States remains limited, but the exodus of the country’s most talented scientists could hurt the economy, the report suggested.

“Those who leave France are the best, the most prolific and the best integrated on an international scale,” said the report, which surveyed about a hundred French researchers and professors who studied in France’s top universities and elite schools like the École Normale Supérieure and the École Polytechnique.

… “The notion of competition, the acceptance of competition is more in harmony with the American culture than the French and Latin one,” … said Gérard Karsenty, a professor of genetics and and development at Columbia University in New York.

… The brain drain in French academia has been observed in other arenas, as well. The field of musical composition, for example has been hurt by the trend, and composers are few, training offers scarce and jobs rare. “We are in the process of killing contemporary music in France,” said an unidentified composer cited in the report.

Today, many French academics working in the United States say their choice to leave their country was largely motivated by an American system “where universities are larger, richer and more flexible than in France,” said … Thomas Philippon, a French economist who began teaching finance at New York University Stern School of Business in 2003.

… Upon moving to France after nine years in the United States, [said Rava da Silveira, a physicist who teaches neuroscience at the École Normale Supérieure and collaborates with researchers at Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford], his salary was cut by about two-thirds.

Like many other researchers, he agreed that the rigidity of the French higher education system and a lack of financing, infrastructure and administrative help have prevented France’s scientific talents from reaching their full potential in France.

Well, you can't say nobody told you so

Courtesy of England Expects:

The Next Boondoggle

EU says joint-up energy grid will cost €1 trillion

I’m just waiting for the “hooking all of our windmills up together” fallback argument. As to large suspicious-looking “targets”, this has become a requirement in EUtopian bombast:

"Making the EU target to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020 binding will be crucial if it is not to be missed," said French Green MEP Yannick Jadot.

Parliament's Green group was disappointed by the commission's new energy strategy however, saying it showed a "shocking pro-nuclear bias" and dubbed its energy efficiency targets as "vague."

Congress's Lightbulb Ban — The Perfect Reason That Fred Upton Should Never Head a House Committee

The man who banned Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb wants to serve as chairman of the House Energy & Commerce committee, no less…

A Handful of Terrorists Arrested in Paris; By Some Incredible Coincidence, All Four Are Young Middle Eastern Males and Sport Muslim Names

Parisian police have unraveled an attack aimed at, among other things, assassinating the rector of the Grande Mosquée de Paris. Apparently, Dalil Boubakeur was targeted because he represents an Islam that is "too moderate". Haing said that, in no case must we make facile judgments or devolve into political incorrectness. It is only by an amazing coincidence that it turns out that the four accused — they were arrested in Paris and at Roissy's Charles de Gaulle airport (one woman picked up with them was later released) — are all young males of Middle Eastern origin, that they all have Muslim names, and that a couple of them had recently made trips to Pakistan and Egypt.

Ibrahim Ouattara, 22 ans, né à Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), Ymad Bilel Benouahab, 21 ans, né à Villeneuve-sur-Lot (Lot-et-Garonne), Hakim Soukni, 24 ans, né à Aubervilliers lui aussi, et Arnaud Barotteaux, alias Abdelkarim, 25 ans, né à Paris, sont incarcérés et mis en examen pour "association de malfaiteurs en vue de préparer des actes de terrorisme", depuis le 12 novembre.

Related: In a nutshell, "Israelification" is a system that protects life and limb without annoying passengers to death

Another Exhilarating Dispatch from the Fake-Crisis Management Center

Another reason that so many Europeans need to get a life:

Last week Google Street View went online in Germany, after which isolated Google fans threw raw eggs at pixelated buildings in Essen. Enno Park defends people's wish to protect their private sphere in Blog Carta. "Street View is Google, no more and no less. Google can manipulate the service as it likes, make it payable or even take it off the Web. Of course building facades are public and can be seen by everyone, but that doesn't change the fact that these images may lead people to draw true or false inferences about my person - especially in small towns and detached house neighbourhoods. ... Now the pixelators are under general suspicion of having something to hide and are already being called crackpots, squares, sticks-in-the-mud and even fascists. Nevertheless it is precisely in its dealings with such Street View opponents that our Web culture shows itself for what it is. ... If we netizens can't come to terms with the Street View 'dissidents', then we are the ones who aren't ready for Street View."

That’s what dissent and argumentative debate have now boiled down to in the strange little world of their zeitgeists.

After decades of the sexual revolution, the pill, abortion on demand, "no-fault" divorce, "Friends" and "2 1/2 Men," marriage is still the ideal

…while [the latest Pew Research Center report, "The Decline of Marriage and the Rise of New Families"] reflects growing acceptance in practice of the radical feminist view that marriage, family life and sexual morality are just "evolving," many people are uneasy

writes Robert Knight.

They should be. Even many who have chosen unconventional paths admit that the timeless model of a married dad and mom with kids is optimal. And the wreckage of "no-fault" divorce, particularly its impact on children, is all around us.

… After several decades of the sexual revolution, the pill, abortion on demand, "no-fault" divorce, "Friends" and "Two-and-a-Half Men," we might take some solace that marriage is still the ideal.

And why not? It was created by God before any other human institution, it is universally practiced, and it remains, as the U.S. Supreme Court once noted, the "sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization."

Birds of a Feather

Aged, self-absorbed, and committed to being a evolutionary dead end:

The European Commission has launched a probe into an Elton John concert in Italy after it emerged officials spent €720,000 of EU money organising the event.

"A concert has been held ... from which the EU was paying money from the regional development fund," commission spokesman Ton van Lierop told a regular news conference in Brussels on Friday (12 November).

"A claim was made by the managing authority [in Italy]. We're looking into this. We want to know why this ... will fall under the operational programme," he said.

Do they really need to pay people to see an Elton John show? Of course not. But they know no other way of being:

"Cultural projects and cultural infrastructure can fall under the scope of the regional development fund but there are rules for eligibility," added Mr Van Lierop.

”Culture” as they broadly refer to it that requires funding and management, is not a sign of vibrancy, but of its’ stagnancy. It’s a natural progression for pasty old tarts.

From Each According to His Ability: In France, Google Learns that Marxist Welfare Mentality Also Covers the Internet

The Connexion (France's English-language newspaper) is reporting that

POPULAR websites such as Google, Facebook and YouTube should be made to pay for the amount of traffic they generate in France, France Telecom has suggested.

The telecoms operator said it was only fair that Google and other big content providers that use up a lot of bandwidth should pay some of the cost of maintaining and upgrading the network.

Director-general Stéphane Richard said France Telecom was investing heavily in improving the internet infrastructure in France and had a 10 per cent operating margin, while Google made no contribution and had an operating margin of about 33 per cent.

He singled out video-sharing website YouTube, which he said hosted the equivalent of 2,000 years of clips and consumes a large amount of bandwidth.

Mr Richard told a telecoms industry conference in Montpellier that there needed to be "a billing system at the heart of the internet whereby the big traffic-generators must support the costs of the network".

He said: "Using the network should be subject to a charge. Those who generate a lot of traffic should contribute according to the traffic they generate."

Stick it in your Fundament

If you buy this argument, somebody needs to check your freezer for human heads.

"What is the greatest threat to our way of life and democracy in the years ahead?” asks Anatole Kaletsky. For the Times columnist, the growing problem is inequality. “(T)he widening gap between the very rich and everybody else, now threatens the social consensus and political stability, not only in Britain but also in America and Europe, to a degree not seen since the terrible era before the two world wars.”

Remember, this is RELATIVE poverty that they’re talking about. In other words, no matter how much the conditions of absolute poverty improve, it will always exist as long there is anyone left who is successful to exist in “relative terms” to.

The burgeoning wealth of the rich squeezes out the middle class, who are “priced out of desirable neighbourhoods and cannot enjoy the comforts their parents took for granted, from good schools to eating at the best restaurants.

Despite their humbler tastes, lack of automobiles, Wiis, multiple flatscreen TVs, their crushinh work schedules, and without the false memories your nostalgia is feeding you.

Our latest information indicates that the poor still aren’t hiring, so as far as poverty alleviation goes, we’ll stick with giving those icky rich people a chance.

So if the best you can come up with is some idea that our REAL problem is that we suffer from aspirational hopes for the future, or affluenza, let’s hope your passive ass isn’t in charge of anyone else’s fate.

So, was it worth it?

What a difference a day makes...

Almost a Whole Thought for the Day

Never confuse movement with action.

- Ernest Hemingway

A Fan of No Pasarán Begs One of Your Webmasters to Pose for a Picture

MAM

When American expatriates boast that Obama's election makes them proud to be Americans again

I really like visiting France, even if the expats get on my nerves

writes Joe Queenan in a Wall Street Journal article entitled Mon Dieu ! You Like the New Speaker?! (merci à Gary Zuercher).

If you travel to France, as I did last week, a French dinner companion will eventually tell you: "We were all so proud of America when you elected Barack Obama president." It's a condescending thing to say, but the sentiment springs from an affectionate place, and I myself am proud that my native land two years ago affirmed its vigorously multicultural character, repudiating, if only by proxy, its racist past, something no one is likely to do in France, Italy, Germany or England anytime soon.

After that brief introduction, regarding foreigners, Joe Queenan turns to the subject of American expatriates (aka "all those America-hating left-wing expats"), and that's when he truly lets his anger show.

What I don't like is when American expatriates tell me that Mr. Obama's election made them proud to be Americans again. This not only implies that Mr. Obama's predecessors were wicked or incompetent, but that patriotism is an exclusively partisan activity. It's like only loving baseball the year your team wins the World Series. My love of country has nothing to do with who's running the government at any particular time …

Last week, just for chuckles, I had a couple of Parisian tête-à-têtes with expats about American politics. As soon as they started in with their generic Obama-pride spiel, I told them that I had never been prouder to be an American than when John Boehner got tapped to be Speaker of the House.

"He smokes, he drinks, he has a tan and I'm pretty sure he golfs," I exclaimed. "For me, he's the complete package."

Expats are incredulous when you say things like this. Their idea of America is derived entirely from YouTube clips of Rachel Maddow. Expats always repeat the vacuous cliché that they get their news from "The Daily Show," because the mainstream media cannot be trusted. To them, it is almost criminal to say anything nice about a public figure like John Boehner. No, it is criminal.

"John Boehner?" one expat demanded. "John Boehner makes you proud to be an American?"

"I didn't say Eric Cantor or Jim DeMint," I replied, somewhat sheepishly. "I didn't say Sarah Palin. But John Boehner really does it for me. I just love his Midwestern, salt-of-the-earth stolidity."

"How can you say that?" one sneered. "He's the head of the party of no."

"I've always liked people from the Buckeye State," I replied. "They've got their finger on the pulse of America. Ohio is the pulse of America. But I also like Boehner's maverick quality. The smoking. The drinking. The tan. He reminds me of the guys on 'Mad Men.'"

I usually waited until dinner was over before I expressed my burgeoning Boehner pride; otherwise I might never have gotten dessert.

From the comment section, we get these gems:

• I can usually forgive the French. They are a product of their culture. The expatriate Americans who CHOOSE to embrace that particular brand of snobbery and condescension have no excuse.

• I am … eternally ashamed of the ugly Americans. You know them. They’re the ones who frequent Paris. restaurants and are obnoxious with their loud jokes. They are also the social climbers who take anti-American positions at foreign dinner parties and portray genuine proud Americans as traitors. Or they are the ones on short-term contracts who socialize only with fellow Americans. Then they come home and speak with authority on their foreign non-experiences. But you should also know that their gracious hosts are not fooled, They know them for whom they are.

• I don't have a problem with all those America hating left wing expats. If we could just get 80 million more of them to move out we would be well on our way to fixing what is wrong with America.

Building (Another) Bridge to the19th Century

The Problem with western-Europe’s faux Wagnerian notion of itself in diplomacy is that a) it doesn’t work, and b) it does a hell of a job of selling the EU member states who actually NEED security up the river.

A study recently published by the European Council on Foreign Relations already speaks of the new architeture of European security that will be determined within the framework of a trilateral dialogue between the EU, Russia and Turkey. NATO does not enter into the equation. But the EU does not really mean Europe’s 27 member states. Merkel made promises about European policy to Medvedev without consulting her European partners, and there is no denying the symbolic importance of the Russian President’s refusal to accept an invitation to the Lisbon summit addressed to him by the General Secretary of NATO, before finally agreeing to turn up on the behest of Sarkozy and Merkel.

Writes România liberă international affairs editor Cristian Câmpeanu. It describes very nicely what the leaders of the European anthill imagine is power and brinksmanship.

Decades of buffoonish mewling by the decrepid and aging quarters of western Europe about how they “deserve” power, and if they didn’t, well, then we need a multipolar world to triangulate some power, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum. Guess what: this is what you get for your obsession with signing anything that will look good on tonight’s news, making summitry have about as much depth as the goings-on of a gossip magazine, and the like.

Romanians should get used to the idea of living in a Europe where NATO will no be longer able to guarantee their security. The Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis has left us with only one option: the United States.

Hello and welcome to the 19th century! From now on — now being the first day of the "historic" NATO summit in Lisbon — we will be living in a new historic reality and a new geopolitical era. The summit is "historic," but not for the reasons cited by NATO officials and political leaders.

Then there will be the question of “who killed NATO”. Here’s a hint: it’s whoever took a entity structured as a military deterrent and tried to turn it into just another talking shop for continental political grandstanding.

The wars in the Balkans highlighted Europe’s military weakness, and the war in Afghanistan created a rift between the US and its European allies. Their inability to make a significant contribution to victory over the Taliban or to the stabilisation of the country, and the fact that some members of the alliance seemed to be incapable of joining in the fight while others were forced to take most of the casualties, resulted in the gradual crumbling of the alliance.

To those for whom pointless never-ending summitry IS the point, I have a suggestion: move yourselves and your families to an EU member state that’s forever in play over things like energy shut-offs, manipulation of border states, and possibly even threats of force.

Then tell me just how it is that Europe’s next feeble, irritating lecture about “world peace” being some vintage that only they have the wits to know about, is anything other than selling out their brothers for their own vanity?