"He Should Have Been Decorated for His Sense of Humor"

In the Bush-bashing "No one seems to think of what would have happened had the hooligan thrown a shoe — or anything — at Saddam (or at anyone) during the Saddam Hussein era" department, the French are scandalized — scandalized, I tell you! — that the Baghdad shoe thrower (who could have gotten 15 years behind bars and who was once reported as having been mercilessly tortured) has received a three-year sentence! How dare they? How dare they?!

More Evidence for Europe's More Humane System (Its Penal System, Its Health System, Its Economic System, etc, etc, etc, etc…)

More fodder for Frenchmen bragging about their irrefutably superior system to clueless Neanderthal-like Americans: Another inmate (this one a 17-year-old teenager) commits suicide in a French prison, writes Le Monde.

Support Your Local Dictator

I’m sure he’s saying: We are the change we’ve been looking for.” Whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.

Turnout Sunday was 99.98 percent, with all voters backing the sole candidate running in their constituency, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

Museum of Saddam's Horrors

(Shookhran to David)

You’ll Just Have to Understand, That’s All.

A multiple target terror attack has been foiled in the Netherlands.

Seven people have been arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of planning a terror attack on an Ikea furniture store and a number of shops near the Ajax stadium in the capital Amsterdam.

It might have something to do with that distant and vapid sense of style, the silly kids’ names given to the inanimate objects sold at Ikea, or the “hypocritically cheap” batteries and lightbulb-lectures, or what with all the featureless forms and sag-prone bookcases, but I doubt it.

In the course of Thursday morning, the Ikea store and a number of other shops in the area were evacuated. The shops are on Arena Boulevard, named after Ajax's Arena football stadium which is nearby.

The shops and the Heineken Music Hall remained closed all day on Thursday

One of suspects picked up and later released was connected with people of interest the Madrid train bombings. Inasmuch as it’s the Netherlands we’re talking about, debate, debate, and yet more debate will turn to profiling, and that should keep people sufficiently busy and too distracted to consider the harm that could have been done by the attack.

The motive, beyond scaring Europeans from inside their own safe little cocoon, seems even stupider than that considering Ajax’s team nickname:

Instead, Ajax Amsterdam is struggling to stamp out the bizarre tradition by which its most devoted fans call themselves "Jews", even tattooing themselves with Stars of David and waving Israeli flags, although they are not Jewish and know little of Judaism.

The dispute has escalated into the latest test case for Dutch tolerance

Although one can only wonder why it is that the natives’ “tolerance” itself is a problem when you’re dealing with people who are disturbed by Ajax fans calling themselves “Superjoden”, or “Super Jews” while they are statistically about as likely to be Jews as Netherlands’ immigrants from Morocco. The name, apparently, is enough to make the aboriginals a target for death and destruction.

It used to give rise to a rather strange form of “side taking”, but fans of their opponents, even the ones that nickname themselves “the SS” probably didn’t go so far as to terrorize the public with attempts at mass murder.

Oddly enough, the social habits of the garden variety European, sports fans included, besides infecting the stupidest terrorists on earth, seems to lack “nuance”.

More recently, the issue has become a significant social problem in that in an increasingly bizarre and racist way, opposing supporters specifically use anti-semitism to express their antipathy towards Ajax. This is expressed in chants such as Hamas, Hamas/Jews into the gas (Hamas, hamas, joden aan het gas) or producing hissing sounds that imitate the flow of gas.

The irony is that had the bombers been successful, while they would subject the innocent to their death penalty, the guilty themselves would never have to hear that hissing sound.

What a Bunch of Morons

What better way for disinterested, meddling foreigners to free-ride on a “historic” US presidency by linking Obama, who I understand is a black man, with fried chicken?

To employ cheapness of thought similar to that of this Germany-based company and virtually all European critics of anything assocated with anything American, we’d like to point out that their plant happens to be situated 198 km from Bergen-Belsen, and 120 km from Westerbork, NL where there was no fried chicken to be found. See? We're just as culturally sensitive as your average cultural-halo-ensconced European. So there.

By the way, the same company sells horse spunk, presumably at the same address.

Have a nice day.

Surprised?

Relational databases don’t lie. Biased-BBC is a good place to discover why Radio 4 listeners have an affinity with the Hermit Autocracy.

For our part, we'll take Rush over Soros

[A] Fox poll taken Jan. 16-17, 2007, asked respondents about the surge in Iraq: "Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?" An astounding 34% said they did not want the surge to succeed. Among Democratic Party leaders the percentage was probably close to 100%.

Thus reports Investor's Business Daily (which added, regarding Newsweek's Rush Limbaugh cover, "So much for disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it [—] Voltaire could never be a contributor to Newsweek").

If, as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says, Rush Limbaugh "is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party," it is only fair to ask: Who is his Democratic counterpart?

Our nominee is George Soros, the Hungarian billionaire and former Nazi sympathizer who helped fund MoveOn.org, the radical group that smeared Gen. David Petraeus with its "General Betray Us" ad last fall.

Through his Open Society Initiative and personal contributions Soros has funded many liberal causes and many Democratic candidates with the intent of undermining democracy and capitalism. His ultimate goal is to create a global socialist collective where we hand over our money and/or freedom and sing "Kumbaya."

For our part, we'll take Rush over Soros.

If the Jews ARE Trying to Commit Genocide, Then the Jews Are Schmucks!

Evan Sayet is back (thanks to Valerie): Hating What's Right: How Modern Liberals Wind Up On The Wrong Side of EVERY Issue

When They Color the Story, and When they Don’t. A Primer.

Depends on where the story takes place. With thanks to commenter Jan, we discover the art of political water torture. A sociopath in Germany kills 10 in a school, and it elicits sadness. A sociopath in the USA kills 9 and it prompts a condescending trope.

Just who is it who’s employing innocent victims to prove to themselves something about their own opinions? The same culture that always does: the germans are said to be shot, the Americans are “killed in a murderous folly”. The usual reaction, as ever, is for people to tell themselves that “at least we’re better than those Americans”.

The dead were not sought for comment, and I don’t think their parents and loved ones would take any pleasure in the lives of the victims being used in that way. But in the land of kindness and social leveling, they seem especially eager not to think that way.

When they are considered actual victims, the reports try to play it straight.

It was reported Wednesday that At least ten people were killed Wednesday morning in a shooting at a school near Stuttgart (in southwest Germany).

Eight of those killed were shot in the school, and two outside, according to the newspaper. Authorities evacuated the school and warned motorists traveling in the area.

In reality, it was 16, even though each story cited the same local sources.

However the intellectual necrophilia creeps out when under the influence of attitude, not one person in specific societies is considered a victim.

Murder in the United States: he killed nine people and committed suicide.

It was in Samson, in southern Alabama, that he took his first victims. He entered in three different homes in the city and killed six adults and a child, before returning by car to the nearby town of Geneva.

On the road, he killed two more.

Then the crazy killer fled into a business, Reliable Metal, where he was surrounded by police.

It seems Germans can’t be called crazy. THAT would wrong, since we don’t know if he was an abused child, or just though he was sticking it to the man or something. Unlike someone who reminds them of Mad Max or Nicholas Cage in Raising Arizona, someone who kills that many European children might need to be understood.



I guess they call this “news you can use”

It isn’t about being American either, but it helps. It’s about conforming to a simplistic, trained in concept of who may be a victim and who may not by dint of the image their culture has, and it’s all expressed in the ‘tude. Compare this report to this silence. Surely the Guardian reading types are reserving their comments until an appropriate rationalization minimizing the wrongness of the behavior of their fellow travelers can be constructed. THAT is far more important to them that the straight reporting of events, especially when you see the victims of thoughtless hatred characterized this way:

The Royal Anglian Regiment, known as the ¬Poachers, paraded through Luton town centre at midday yesterday.

The protesters, dressed in Islamic clothing, were initially kept away from the marching soldiers and union flag-waving locals by police. They shouted abuse and waved placards with slogans including "Anglian soldiers: cowards, killers, extremists" and "British government, terrorist government". Later the protesters had to be protected by the police

But they were only “dressed that way.” It’s not like you can deduce their opinions or establish what propaganda they’ve been fed, and by whom. After all, they needed to be protected themselves, and the occasion is good to bring out the worst possible sounding nickname of their target, calling them the “Poachers”. I mean think about the animals in Blighty’s verdant (if not paved over) pastures, will ya!?!

The Sick European Relationship with Power

Amazingly, this came from a Bertelsmann mock-blog of all places – one called “Sight and Sign” which normally lauds all things “culturally” European except for the occasional New Yorker or Vanity Fair article to try to give it a “global” look.

The broadcaster ZDF has co-financed the 60th birthday celebrations for the Minister President of Rheinland-Palatinate, Kurt Beck, who was also the chairman of ZDF's board of directors for many years. The blog Achse des Guten (axis of good) quotes a letter from ZDF to a viewer who had asked for more information: "Originally, ZDF had considered honouring the longstanding chair of its board of directors with a special event that would give the executive management, the members of the ZDF supervisory board, as well as the staff the opportunity to show their reverence for Kurt Beck. The minister president made it clear that personal gifts were not desired and that the expenditure for the reception should be kept within acceptable proportions. For that reason, the government of Rheinland-Palatinate and ZDF agreed to host an event together. Indeed ZDF is essentially funneling its limited contribution to this event into technical-organisational support as well as a cash contribution."

A local politician on the take, the need to “revere” his somehow, putting him on the board of one of Germany’s most influential broadcasting outfits... sure. Sounds fair that is, if you’re the type that likes to lick the boot that kicks you.

(And what form did their reverence take? Did they kiss his ring?)

Historically speaking, if that is European culture you’re talking about, then the answer would be yes.

Daily translation

While no surprise:

Higher taxes on vehicles and fuel are in store for Swedish motorists, transport companies and industry as part of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the government said Tuesday. Finance Minister Anders Borg, Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren and Enterprise Minister Maud Olofsson said in a joint statement that the measures would take the current financial slump into account.

As of 2011 taxes on diesel fuel were to be raised in two stages by 0.40 kronor (0.04 dollars), as would taxes on carbon-dioxide emissions while the forestry and agriculture sectors would be included in emissions trading schemes.

The measures that included taxes on heating were part of a pending bill on energy and enviroment, and the goal was to cut greenhouse gas emissions by a further 2 million tons by 2020.

"A price tag on climate changing emissions underlines that emissions carry a cost that have to be paid," Carlgren said.

Borg said the "changes have to be made gradually so that households and businesses have time to adjust."

Shouldn't that last sentence read:

Borg said the "changes have to be made gradually so that households do not notice yet another rise in their taxes."

Maybe They Really Are the Ones They’ve Been Waiting For

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word,” Mrs. Clinton said, handing the button to Mr. Lavrov. “Do you think we got it?”

“You got it wrong,” he replied, explaining that the Americans had come up with the Russian word for overcharged.

The Obama Administration is proving itself to be composed of incompetent amateurs. Not only can’t they figure out simple diplomatic protocol, the gestures of exchanging appropriate gift that predate the Caesars, they can’t seem to find a Russian translator. More to the point, their executive types even try using lame, cooked-up PR analogies in international relations: “resetting” this and that with bodies like the Kremlin or Damascus who simply don’t budge – ever, let alone “reset” relations.

Loony, unintelligable throw-away lines about we being the ones we have been waiting for aside, just what is it that they CAN do if the answer is the equally cryptic “yes we can”? Write advertizing taglines? Write haiku on Twitter? Waste humanity's oxygen?

The donkeys really don’t seem to have a clue as to what they’re doing, but keep in mind that if you report news for a living, you aren’t permitted to say that, or even point out the hypocrisy of their election tirades for that matter.

Lesson for the Left: You Actually Have to Win Wars to Turn Guns into Plowshares

Isn’t this the kind of Nanny State Mother-Hen crap that the left is supposed to love?

An increasing number of Iraqi detainees are refusing to leave detention centres despite being eligible for release because they want to complete studies begun behind bars, a US general said on Sunday.

"In the last three or four months we have begun seeing detainees asking to stay in detention, usually to complete their studies," Major General Douglas Stone told a news conference in Baghdad.

The US military offers a wide range of educational programmes to the 23,000 or so detainees -- adults and juveniles -- being held at its two detention facilities, Camp Cropper near Baghdad's international airport and Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.

Some parents of juvenile detainees, too, have asked that their children remain behind bars so they can continue their schooling, said Stone, the commanding general for US detainee operations in Iraq.

I wonder where this is supposed to fit into that “no blood for oil” chanting and the 1970’s retread jargon about never deploying the military because it takes from the mouths of American babies and funds from schools? Or how it sits with that “only creating more enemies” taunt to get civilization to off itself?

French Court Gives Jihadists Foot-soldiers their own “Cultural Exception”

John Rosenthal reports:

Last Tuesday, a Parisian appeals court overturned the convictions of five former Guantanamo inmates who had been found guilty on terrorist conspiracy charges in 2007. The development should give pause to wonder not only about the wisdom of plans to transfer Guantanamo inmates to European countries, but more fundamentally about the very idea of treating the “disposition” of Guantanamo inmates as an issue for civilian courts, whether in the US or abroad. The five French Gitmo detainees were repatriated to France in 2004 and 2005. They were tried and convicted on charges of belonging to a “criminal association formed for the purpose of undertaking a terrorist act.” The definition of this crime in French law is exceptionally broad. Not only does it permit what are, in effect, preventive detentions, but a suspect may be convicted by virtue of merely having had “regular contact” [relations habituelles] with one or more other persons who form part of such a terrorist enterprise.

And apparently that’s the favor they say they’re going to do for America, after telling us that they’ve councilled us on the wrongness of defending ourselves. They find a court that will release terrorists into the population, and we’re considered unwise and more dangerous.

The five former Gitmo detainees, however, did not merely have casual contact with members of a terror group. All five have admitted to receiving military training in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. They were taken prisoner in the Afghan-Pakistani border region in late 2001, while fleeing the Battle of Tora-Bora

But somehow in the diseased minds of “the peace camp”, this doesn’t make them prisoners of war.



Leftist protesting nonsensically for the western liberal world to disarm itself outside a military equipment trade fair on 11-Sept-2001, while the attacks were taking place.

No new (DIRECT) taxes

Via the WSJ's ECO:nomics Conference:

A worldwide cap-and-trade system to control carbon emissions would prove more effective than a global carbon tax, Caio Koch-Weser, former German deputy finance minister and vice chairman of Deutsche Bank, told the WSJ’s ECO:nomics conference Friday.

Mr. Koch-Weser said one problem with trying to impose a carbon tax around the world is that it would be difficult to guarantee the revenues from it would be used to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A cap-and-trade system, on the other hand, relies on businesses trading credits to help keep down emissions.

Of course the true problem (from a politician's point of view) with trying to impose a carbon tax around the world is the direct nature of such a tax on the individual. We can't have that a time when the proles around the world are restless about their own economic futures. Best for government to tax them indirectly by having the costs of a cap and trade system buried deep in the price of end products for the consumer.

The current epoch of history can be called many things, "Profiles in Courage" is not one of them.

Quo Vadis

Wanting to have it both ways (as always)…

• It's an outrage! Rush Limbaugh is the de facto head of the Republican Party!

— So why doesn't Barack Obama debate him?

• Him?! Hah! Snort! Rushbo is nothing but a radio talk show host!

— If he is nothing more than that, why do they make such a big deal about him?!

• Why, you ask?! "Why"?! Because Rush is the de facto head of the Republican Party, that's why!!!

— So why doesn't Barack Obama debate him?

• Him?! Hah! Snort! Rushbo is nothing but a…

Etc… Etc… Etc… Etc…

What We Want (and What We Don't Want)

What we conservatives want is for America to prevail, to go forward — to succeed.

When (say) George W Bush does (or did) something to make America succeed, we supported him (or we supported that policy).

When GWB did something to make America fail, we wanted him (or his policy, rather) to fail.

It is exactly the same with Barack Obama — whatever party he is a member of.

If and when BHO does something to make America succeed, we support that policy (and thus the president).

When BHO does something to make America fail, we hope to see that policy (and thus the president) fail.

What on Earth (!) is so controversial about that?!?!

Didn't untold numbers of liberals want Dubya to fail for the past 8 years?!? And his administration?!? And the Iraq War?!?

Why is that fine, even laudable, while conservatives' opposition to policies is nothing short of an outrage and of treason!? Why the double standards?!

To quote Rush Limbaugh (at CPAC):

Now, about my still-to-me mysteriously controversial comment that I hope President Obama fails. I was watching the Super Bowl. And as you know, I love the Pittsburgh Steelers. [Cheers and Applause] So they have this miraculous scoring drive that puts them up by four, 15 seconds left. Kurt Warner on the field for the Cardinals. And I sure as heck want you to know I hope he failed. I did not want the Cardinals to win. I wanted Warner to make the biggest fool of himself possible. I wanted a sack, I wanted anything. I wanted the Steelers to win. I wanted to win. I wanted the Cardinals to fail.

This notion that I want the President to fail, folks, this shows you a sign of the problem we've got. That's nothing more than common sense and to not be able to say it, why in the world do I want what we just described, rampant government growth indebtedness, wealth that's not even being created yet that is being spent, what is in this? What possibly is in this that anybody of us wants to succeed? Did the Democrats want the war on Iraq to fail!

CROWD: Yes!

Rush: They certainly did. They not only wanted the war in Iraq to fail, they proclaimed it a failure. There's Dingy Harry Reid waiving a white flag: [doing Harry Reid impression] "This war is lost. This war is" — [Cheers and Applause] They called General Petraeus a liar before he even testified. Mrs. Clinton — [Crowd Booing] — said she had to, willingly suspend disbelief in order to listen to Petraeus. We're in the process of winning the war. The last thing they wanted was to win. They hoped George Bush failed. So what is so strange about being honest to say that I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed? [Applause]

Let me add a caveat here. My friends, I know what's going on. I know what's going on. We're in the aspects here of an historic presidency. I know that. But let me be honest again. I got over the historical aspects of this in November. President Obama is our president. President Obama stands for certain things. I don't care, he could be a Martian. He could be from Michigan, I don't know -- just kidding. Doesn't matter to me what his race is. It doesn't matter. He's liberal is what matters to me. And his articulated -- his articulated plans scare me. Now, I understand we can't say we want the President to fail, Mr. Limbaugh. That's like saying -- this is the voice of the New Castrati, by the way, guys who have lost their guts. You can't say Mr. Limbaugh that you want the President to fail because that's like saying you want the country to fail. It's the opposite. I want the country to survive. I want the country to succeed. [Cheers and Applause] [Crowd Chanting "USA" ]

I want the country to survive as we have known it, as you and I were raised in it, is what I mean. Now, I have been called -- and I can take it. Pioneers take the arrows, I don't mind what anybody says about me, any time ever. I don't have time for it. I don't give other people the power to offend me. And you shouldn't either, by the wasted time being offended.[Applause]

I mean, there's some people you can't say you want the President to fail. Ladies and gentlemen of the United States, the Democrat Party has actively not just sought the failure of Republican presidents and policies and now wars for the first time, the Democrat Party doesn't stop at failure. Talk to Judge Robert Bork or Justice Clarence Thomas about how they tried to destroy lives, reputations and character, and I'm supposed to say I don't want the President to fail? [Applause] We're in for a real battle. We are talking about the United States of America -- and there will always be an America, don't misunderstand me -- we're talking about it remaining the country we were all born into and reared and grown into. And it's under assault. It's always under assault. But it's never been under assault like this from within before. And it's a serious, serious battle.

EUtopia at a Glance

It might have something to do with building ridiculous expectations of men or being just plain insufferable, but it seems that a majority of young German men would forego their hoochie mamas for broadband and Rosey palm and her five sisters.

The New Puritanism

Gordon Brown most polluting EU leader. That said, Boeings, as opposed to brand X, are irrationally impied to be at fault.

Not unlike the songs of lider-praise that open and close the north Korean broadcast day, an unrelated requisite recitation of moral purity is tossed in at the end of the wire piece:

The EU sees itself as the world leader on environmental issues, and the bloc's member states last December reaffirmed their commitment to cut carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency by 20 percent, both by 2020, in a bid to fight global warming.

It need not be said that one must state this wherever possible because the programming is so deep that one need not write such a rule. George Romero would recognize this behavior right away. It can also be found here in this item where the matter of Europeans stiffing the 3rd world with the bill to “act on the climate change” that they’re employing transnational bodies to force them to do.

At the same time, many of those reductions committed to by the EU will not really be performed domestically, as a large chunk of the 20 or 30 percent will come from so-called carbon offsets - essentially where wealthy countries pay poorer ones to make their carbon cuts for them.

What will be especially funny is when they run out of deprived populations to project their non-existent crises on.