Zigzagging on Afghanistan

Richard Cohen-

 

Foreign policy realists question whether any effort in Afghanistan can succeed. Possibly they are right. The interventionists, if I may call them that, suggest the realists are being unrealistic -- that Afghanistan matters and it matters much more than Iraq or, before that, Vietnam ever did and that we can prevail. Possibly they are right.

 

But the ultimate in realism is for the president to gauge himself and who he is: Does he have the stomach and commitment for what is likely to continue to be an unpopular war? Will he send additional troops, but hedge by not sending enough -- so that the dying will be in vain? What does he believe, and will he ask Americans to die for it? Only he knows the answers to these questions. But based on his zigzagging so far and the suggestion from the Copenhagen trip that the somber seriousness of the presidency has yet to sink in, we have reason to wonder.

Homophobic, meet Islamophobic

Mark Steyn-

 

There'll be a lot more of this in the future:

French Gay Soccer Team Snubbed By Muslim Team

The gay team has accused the Muslims of homophobia. But isn't accusing Muslims of homophobia a bit Islamophobic?

 

Obama's moral compass

Hello, Thugs. Hello, Unions.
Goodbye, Dalai.

Rush Limbaugh schools BBC's Katty Kay

It's drôle!

Leftists fail again to turn lead to gold

At last,somebody discovered a government program that actually worked!

That is like fulfilling the supreme quest of alchemy to transmute lead into gold. Deserves at least a dozen Nobel awards all at once. From the fertile brain field of BHO and the Democrats came this wonderful piece of goodness for the economy and the environment -Cash for clunkers. Wise man Joe Biden called the program “an unqualified success”.

 But hold on to those Nobels yet-

Cash for clunkers had two objectives: help the environment by increasing fuel efficiency, and boost car sales to help Detroit and the economy. It achieved neither. According to Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, at best "the reduction in gasoline consumption will cut our oil consumption by 0.2 percent per year, or less than a single day's gasoline use." Burton Abrams and George Parsons of the University of Delaware added up the total benefits from reduced gas consumption, environmental improvements and the benefit to car buyers and companies, minus the overall cost of cash for clunkers, and found a net cost of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Rather than stimulating the economy, the program made the nation as a whole $1.4 billion poorer.

The basic fallacy of cash for clunkers is that you can somehow create wealth by destroying existing assets that are still productive, in this case cars that still work. Under the program, auto dealers were required to destroy the car engines of trade-ins with a sodium silicate solution, then smash them and send them to the junk yard. As the journalist Henry Hazlitt wrote in his classic, "Economics in One Lesson," you can't raise living standards by breaking windows so some people can get jobs repairing them.

In the category of all-time dumb ideas, cash for clunkers rivals the New Deal brainstorm to slaughter pigs to raise pork prices. The people who really belong in the junk yard are the wizards in Washington who peddled this economic malarkey.

Now can anybody name any government program that works?

"No Global Warming in 351 Year British Temperature Record"

 Offered without comments-

No Global Warming in 351 Year British Temperature Record

The Central England Temperature (CET) record, starting in 1659 and maintained by the UK Met Office, is the longest unbroken temperature record in the world. Temperature data is averaged for a number of weather stations regarded as being representative of Central England rather than measuring temperature at one arbitrary geographical point identified as the centre of England.

A Scottish statistician, Wilson Flood, has collected and analysed the 351 year CET record. Here is the comparison of the 18th Century with the 20th Century:

Wilson Flood comments:

“Summers in the second half of the 20th century were warmer than those in the first half and it could be argued that this was a global warming signal. However, the average CET summer temperature in the 18th century was 15.46 degC while that for the 20th century was 15.35 degC. Far from being warmer due to assumed global warming, comparison of actual temperature data shows that UK summers in the 20th century were cooler than those of two centuries previously.”

(emphasis mine)

New York Times does Pravda again

The Soviet journalists at least had an excuse -they had a perpetual gun held to theirs and their families' heads.

What excuse do the journalists and editors of the still free world have?

New York Times scrubs quotes that are embarrassing to Obama.

Deleted quotes include-

And the prospect of winning was too irresistible. After all, Mr. Obama has already envisioned the day when he could welcome the world to his hometown, never mind that small matter of reelection. “In 2016, I’ll be wrapping up my second term as president,” he told a rally in Chicago in June 2008. “So I can’t think of a better way than to be marching into Washington Park ... as president of the United States and announcing to the world: Let the Games begin!”

and-

“They shouldn’t try to make politics of this,” Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff and a Chicagoan himself, told ABC News. “I think they should take some pride in the U.S.’s win, and you know, we’ll make sure they get some good seats once Chicago does host the games.”

Right out of Stalin's time -airbrushing embarrassments to the Dear Leader out of history.


Patterico-

These passages — demonstrating as they do the glaringly unfounded arrogance of Obama’s administration — have been conveniently removed from view.
And you know in your bones that, were it Bush who had gloated so, we would hear nothing else from Big Media for a week.

What made them turn into bootlickers of Obama? They viciously destroy Sarah Palin and zealously cover up Obama's mess(and there is a lot of it strewn all over the road).

Why?


Bump - oops! 'Pravada' in the title changed to 'Pravda'. Slippery fingers, impatient mind -that's me!

The Ghalib-Mr.Thomson incident

When I read this in Narayani Gupta's book Delhi Between Two Empires,pg 9,  I knew it stank (or as we say in India, mera maatha thanka!) -

Ghalib, like others, realized that the British had come to stay, and shrewdly thought that a qasida to the Queen would be a useful investment. But he went that far and no further. When Thomson, the provincial Secretary, treated him boorishly, Ghalib sacrificed the offer of an appointment at Delhi College, though he desperately needed a steady income to cushion him against his extravagances and his gambling debts.

And sure enough. William Dalrymple describes the incident in greater detail in the Last Mughal, pg 129-130 -

Ghalib, like  many writers before and since, suffered from the potentially combustible combination of expensive tastes, a keen sense of his own worth and insufficient financial resources to support either. Always precarious, his finances had become especially troubled after his sense of personal honour compelled him to turn down  the lucrative chance to become the Persian Professor at Delhi College. Ghalib had arrived at Delhi College in his palanquin having being  invited to apply for the new post. But after reaching the college gate, he refused to enter until Mr Thomason, the secretary, came and welcomed him, as he insisted his aristocratic status dictated. After a long stand-off, Mr Thomason came out personally and explained that a formal welcome was appropriate when he attended the Governor's durbar, but not in the present case, when he came as a candidate for employment.

Ghalib replied, 'I contemplated taking a government appointment in the expectation that this would bring me greater honour than  I now receive, not a reduction in those already accorded to me .' The secretary replied, 'I am bound by regulations.' 'Then I hope you will excuse me,' Ghalib said, and came away.

What a difference in the two narrartives! And I don't mean the detail.

Ms.Gupta leaves an impression of Ghalib being a victim of colonial arrogance - you know, those racist, rude British that pepper our films and stories and official histories.The truth, as in the account of  Dalrymple, appears just the opposite. It is Ghalib who in his aristocratic loftiness and vanity did himself much harm while  Mr.Thomson(or Thomason) was politely correct and rule bound.

Mr. Thomson has long left this earth, of course but I hope that Ms.Gupta would do the departed soul justice and correct her description of the events.

MISSOURAH.com has a flow-chart keeping "track of what is legitimate criticism of President Obama and what is racial hatred."-

Larger image at missourah.com.

Just in-

Chicago is out of the Olympic race despite Obama's aggressive campaigning.

That can mean only one thing -

The International Olympic Committee is RACIST!

Michael Moore shits in the trough from which he feeds

On the Drudge Report-

From the linked article-

Moore said: “Well, capitalism did nothing for me, starting with my first film.”

But-

According to Fortune Magazine, Moore’s films have grossed over $300 million worldwide.

That's a lot of nothing.
What a lying fat ass!

In Which H'wood Obliges Conservatives By Aggressively Fulfilling Every Stereotype of the Morally Unmoored Entertainment Industry Where Oscar-Winning Rapists are Defensible



Update - an amusing twitter exchange in the linked post:

@brooksbayne: "If Roman Polanski were a Duke lax player he would have been hunted down and disemboweled."
@andylevy: If Polanski were a Duke lax player he wouldn't be guilty of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.
@gpollowitz: If Roman Polanski were a Duke lax player, Duke would really suck at lacrosse.

Allahpundit tweets-

Word on the street: Polanski's next film is so good, Europe's going to let him bang an eight-year-old. It's THAT GOOD.

This sick bugger thinks everyone shares his perversions.

From an interview Polanski gave to Martin Amis-

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!”

Yes, Roman, we sure do.


By "young girls" he probably means unwilling 13 year olds and by "fucking" he means rape.
No wonder he has been put on a pedestal by the cultural left.They all want to do it  - and Polanski has!

Amazing!
Whoopi Goldberg, who defended child-rapist Romnan Polanski -in her universe something called "rape-rape" is a milder, gentler and perhaps a benevolent form of rape- is a Toys"R"Us spokesperson!

Watch out kiddo, Whoopi has invented "rape-rape", junior edition

Honest, I didn't know.

Via Gateway Pundit.

Is child-rape OK now, Harrison Ford?

There are occasions when something horrid and unhinged,something usually lurking just below the surface, breaks out of the fog and bog in a dramatic way -and we can see clearly the face of the beast.

Such a clarifying event has been the recent arrest of Roman Polanski.For those who care to see -and even through the moral haze of our times this issue is stark and glaring- the profound sickness in and at the heart of the elites now lies bare.

Free rape pass for the genius-boy

This is what Polanski did-

Let's keep in mind that Roman Polanski gave a 13-year-old girl(Samantha Geimer) a Quaalude(a sedative) and champagne................let's take a moment to recall that according to the victim's grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, "No," then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

Samantha Geimer in 1978

Now look at all the outpourings of sympathy from the highly decadent and decaying priests of media,arts,culture and politics-
From French ministers and the government-

France has appealed to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the 76-year-old director's immediate release from a Swiss jail as he faces extradition charges from Switzerland to the U.S. Polanski is a French citizen.

Hollywood celebrities including Woody Allen,Whoopi Goldberg,, Pedro Almodovar,  Harrison Ford (you too?), Martin Scorsese and at least 138 others -

Hollywood moguls are pressuring California lawmakers to do what they can to stop the extradition of Roman Polanski, aiming to prevent the Oscar-winning director from being forcibly returned to the U.S. to do time for raping a 13-year-old girl in the 1970s.

Arty-sharty elites in Europe-

Organizers of the Cannes film fest compiled a petition, whose signatures include fest prexy Gilles Jacob, fest director Thierry Fremaux, helmer Wong Kar Wai and thesp Monica Bellucci, to lobby for Polanski.

On  has to  wonder -what kind of people are these, these whom we idealize and idolize and go crazy over(I don't but many do)? What kind of sick bubble they live in when they come out in support of a child-rapist?
Here they are-

“We demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski,” urges the petition. “Film-makers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision… It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary film-makers, is used by police to apprehend him.”

You mean film festivals are sovereign territory where favored criminals can receive peer adulation and protection from the law?

Allahpundit-

Needless to say, this reminds me of the left’s umbrage at conservatives daring to bring up Chappaquiddick after Teddy died. Yeah, he left a woman to drown and then made jokes about it afterwards; he was for universal health care, though, wasn’t he? Same with Polanski: Dare we deny the man who made “Chinatown” an occasional drugging and raping of a child? Sure, a kid gets traumatized for life, but on the other side of the scale: “Rosemary’s Baby.” It’d be sweet if the left could come up with some sort of mathematical formula by which we could tell whether an artist or liberal politician has exceeded his quotient of moral indulgence. I’m assuming “Chinatown” wasn’t so awesome that Polanski would be excused for shooting a kid in the head at point-blank range, so evidently the film’s “worth” less than that but more than a child-rape. Let’s figure out just how much of a liberal hero you have to be to get away with certain crimes.

Ethel C. Fenig-

Apparently the real victim was not the 13 year old but Polanski who accomplished so much over the past three decades despite not being able to travel to the United States to make his movies.

These shocked 100, maybe more by now, signed a self righteous petition protesting the "astonishing news" of Polanski's arrest. So shocked were they, that they confused the reason for his arrest as a mere matter of free speech. Because superior filmmakers can ignore common morality laws designed for mere mortals and do as they please ..............................................................After all, what has the 13 year old victim accomplished in the past 30 years?

Now we see and understand the much tomtommed compassion of the cultural elites -their precious geniuses are allowed a free rape pass.

Can we now officially declare that leftism is a sickness of mind?