The Democrats' Nurmeburg Rally Begins

And it will feature strategically placed "real people", specially trained and scripted.

Pickler reports that the Obama campaign “formally invited these people” (um, “people?”) to Denver, “providing airfare, lodging and great seats to watch Obama accept the nomination from a circular stage on the 50-yard line at Invesco Field.”

“Great seats” to the (sold-out) Obama Show, Pickler says! (Why let “the GOP” have all the fun with “characterizations of [Obama] as an out-of-touch celebrity?”)

Lest you think the “real people” will be keeping it real (“real?”), Pickler writes that “professional speechwriters are helping prepare their remarks…And just like any senator or other VIP speaker, an assigned staff member will oversee their schedules and logistical movements, including media interviews, speech coaching and on-stage rehearsals.”

The AP story which ended up getting picked up far and wide was purged of any reference to them being flown in, trained to speak publicly in a "real" sounding way, and given tactically structured and timed scripts.

As usual, their tack is an attempt at impersonating actual Americans. All I can see by way of the coverage is that the press simply doesn't question anything about the left. As awkward and implausible as it all looks, they play along. Michele Obama is suddenly transformed into someone who has never harbored a negativity for America, people with Kennedy signs suddenly appear from somewhere - "spontaneously". Suddenly we are a nation of people who may pity ourselves because we proudly and meekly suffer working 9 jobs, etc., etc., etc.

Like the last however-many Democrat candidates have come up with of course, Barack Obama, a confused pacifist, is implausibly compared to John F. Kennedy, a war veteran who stared the Soviets down, and lowered taxes. No questions are asked, in spite of an otherwise inexplicable 240 point drop in the Dow.

There MUST be a Connection

But alas, I can't seem to find it, although it must be somewhere. There must be a wat that Bu$hChimpyHitlerBurton and the United States of AmeriKKKa must have created, funded, blah-blah-blahed, these darling revised examples of the innocent, idyllic pastoral, "noble savage" of the leftist mind.

Nguema flattened the cocoa plantations, outlawed fishing in an island nation, and destroyed all the industry. He had 10 of his original 12 cabinet ministers killed, banned Western medicine, and let cholera run amok in regions whose political support he doubted. He declared that "intellectuals are the greatest problem facing Africa today" and then forbade use of the word "intellectual." He established links with the Soviet Union and kidnapped foreigners for ransom. He referred to himself as "God's Unique Miracle," shut down nearly all the country's schools and churches-in the overwhelmingly Christian country-and once, according to the Financial Times, "unskillfully hanged" 150 people in a soccer stadium "to the strains of Mary Hopkin singing 'Those Were the Days' over the loudspeaker system." A bit showy, you think? Perhaps, but it was Christmas.

The evil genius-idiot must have had a way to control these people's arms and legs, surely.

Man Meet Buffoon

Starry eyed, well off American jets off to Europe to dine off the teat of the British taxpayer. She seems unaware to have discovered something called the voucher, something she surely railed at while stateside.

EURota responds.

Earth to Norks: Fear This

Peacekeeping, Russian Style

Via This is London

Proud to be Ineffectual

But there are lessons we can draw from this crisis. First, the European Union rose to the occasion. At the behest of the French presidency, Europe put itself on the front lines from the outset of hostilities to resolve this conflict -- the third on European soil since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Throughout the first phase of this latest crisis, Europe's commitment was decisive: It was the European Union, through France, that created a space for diplomacy by quickly proposing reasonable terms for a cease-fire and rendering the political cost of pursuing war exorbitant for both parties. If our efforts finally paid off, it is because Europe -- despite a few differences in tone -- did not limit itself to condemnation.

- Nicolas Sarkozy, from Le Figaro on
Sunday-17/Monday-18 August

Three is a consolidation of numbers, of course... That he means the US is obvious, and no, the US did not limit itself to condemnation. It made sure the door for talks remain while a limited demonstration of support for the Georgians could clearly be seen by the Russians, and in a manner that didn’t appear unrelated to Georgia in any way. THAT is how one doesn’t escalate but communicates an opinion.

Gyrating to come with any kind of fake cease-fire that the EU could show off for people, Super-Sarko announces a recovery from the previous hoodwink the Russian put him through. Monday (18-AUG) was supposed to let the world see Russians withdrawing from “Georgia proper” as it’s just been redefined through European acquiescence and clearly without the Euro-warm-fuzzy of “meditative” consent with the Georgians, but it seem that all we know by Wednesday that Russians troops are joyriding around, and Tbilisi is still cut off as if to be offer the Russians the option of turning it into another Sarajevo, and Georgian access to the sea has been effectively cut off.

If anything, this exercise has shown the world where the Russians stand – both on their plans to dismantle Georgia’s independence, and the lack of seriousness with which they take any sort of diplomacy that requires anything of them. Ah! But they AGREE to things. They’ll sign anything, and that seems to be good enough for Europe’s aging children.

What HAS slowed the Russians down was the unanimity the nations on its borders took. Much as the Russians have traditionally feared being surrounded by enemies, its’ done a nice job of ensuring that they remain enemies. Those states – the Ukraine, Poland, and others who have a fear of becoming Russian satellites again, and being battered around by others, were quite clear. The sent official to Georgia as the only sort of meaningful human shield there ever was, and demonstrated their desire to deny the Russians their prize of intimidating them. Ukraine reaffirmed its’ desire to join NATO, and Poland signed a missile deal. Even the BBC which was fond of being imprecise about who and how many in Poland supported the effort, said this morning that there was a longstanding majority for it.

It’s funny how statistics can change.

Back to Sarkozy and Kouchner, and what was actually a noble attempt to use what their power and office could let them – it was a classical diplomatic move that was actually quite effective at keeping the issue alive – give the aggressor a way to back off. Knowing that there are forces against a back-off, let them show themselves for who they are to clarify for the rest of the stakeholders what’s going on. Out of this, one historically found alliances and agreements of opinion if not some agreement on a course of actions.

The mystery with Europe is what it is they think a course of action is, and whether or not it’s just intended to prevent domestic criticism in the form of a nagging criticism over Scerbenica or Rwanda.

Man Ray Wednesday

Man Ray Tuesday

Hey! It's for the People Person

I wonder if the NYT's editorial board is reporting this with envy?

President Hugo Chávez is using his decree powers to enact a set of socialist-inspired measures that seem based on a package of constitutional changes that voters rejected last year.

Beyond the second year university student notions of land redistribution, elimination of cash money, fist-pumping “peace”, and other permanent population repressants, EU Rota is all over another under-reported feature of the budding poop-stain's exploits like white on rice: while railing at supposedly abusive and unaccountable corporations, he's nationalizing his way into making the state become one itself (and little else). It comes complete with the Communist obsession with materialism, and the usual inability to actually provide for that illusion of a people as a monolith. Good luck "people", you're building a bridge to the late 19th century.

Man Ray Monday

Yum yum, eat ‘em up.

In Ethno-Class Warfare Obsessed EUtopia, this will Surely Cause Confusion

Declarations, Always Positive, Never Flawed. No Reflection Ever Required.

Never has been being told to mind your own business been so beautifully stretched.

Handshakes and congratulations were offered all around. But by the time the sun was up, Russian tanks were advancing again, this time taking positions around the strategically important city of Gori, in central Georgia.

It soon became clear that the six-point deal not only failed to slow the Russian advance, but it also allowed Russia to claim that it could push deeper into Georgia as part of so-called additional security measures it was granted in the agreement. Mr. Sarkozy, according to a senior Georgian official who witnessed the negotiations, also failed to persuade the Russians to agree to any time limit on their military action.

And always declared a success, and promptly forgotten. Sarkozy’s rapprochement to Putin/Medvedyev was brushed off on one level, and employed against it’s own purpose on another one. In Europe, the need to prove something about their culture and flaccid incapacity to effect action is so great, that it’s declared a success.

As the current holders of the EU presidency, the French were always going to be at the forefront of the EU's efforts to mediate between Russia and Georgia.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has shown a flair for the high-profile diplomatic intervention.

His latest success comes on the back of much-heralded diplomatic triumphs –

- Thx to OMMAG

European Moral Weight: Good for 36 Hours of Appeasement

It seems that as long as you keep repeating the word “peacekeeper” and make it so that their governments don’t have to do anything, Europeans will quietly fall into line.

Troops waved at journalists and one soldier shouted to a photographer: "Come with us, beauty, we're going to Tbilisi!"

After doing a nice job of buying the Russian narrative, and ignoring the state-sponsored propagandized uniformity of thought that it came out of Russia with, critic tried to make hay of the EU “brokering a peace” between Russia and Georgia immediately, as though the Russians’ behavior could be programmed or their motives trusted. It was broken within hours.

Buffoons. The Russians permitted the Europeans to show up and seem like statesmen because it bought them more time, and gave them a way to sanitize their image. Since then they broke the deal and rolled deeper into Georgia, within one hour’s drive of Tbilisi.

People ratting on about how this was intended as a slap against the US have lost their marbles. The thrust of the opposition to Georgia taking part in the NATO Membership Action Plan were Germany and France. THAT is what gave the Russians the sense that a disagreement on the issue within the NATO states would give them enough time to take a bigger bite out of Georgia, a nation they’ve been chipping away at since they moment they both got their freedom from the Soviet Union.

What can the US do about it, knowing that Europe see no problem with these modern-day echoes of the invasion of Sudetenland?:

South Ossetia is not, as some have suggested, tit-for-tat payback for American and European recognition, over Russian objections, of Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Russia has been "at war" with democratic Georgia for some time. Driven to distraction by Mr. Saakashvili's assertiveness and Georgia's desire to join NATO, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin first tried to bring the country to its knees through economic warfare beginning in 2005. He cut off access to Russian markets, expelled Georgians from Russia, quadrupled the price of Russian energy to Georgia, and severed transport links.

Georgia failed to collapse. To the contrary, it has flourished: After the Rose Revolution of 2003 ended the corrupt reign of Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, Georgia instituted far-reaching reforms to its governing structures, cleaned up the endemic corruption that infected every facet of pre-Rose Revolution life, and found new markets for its products in Turkey and Europe. It persevered with some of the most profound and thorough economic and pro-business reforms ever undertaken by a developing country -- slashing taxes and government regulations, and privatizing state-owned enterprises. All of which is reflected in Georgia's meteoric rise on the World Bank's Doing Business indicators. The irrelevance of Russian economic sanctions to Georgia made the ideological challenge that the Rose Revolution posed to Putin's vision of Russia even more profound.

[snip]

The real payback for Moscow's decision to invade Georgia should be the sweet revenge of a strong, prosperous and fully independent Georgia. Building on the strides Georgia has already made, Brussels and Washington should give Tbilisi a clear road to NATO and EU membership.

The question put to the US by the same Euro-natters that would find any sort of action by America “frighteningly aggressive” is that America HASN’T acted boldly. Well – where IS Georgia anyway? On America’s immediate neighborhood? If not, why the childish demands and goading from critics in Europe about what others should/shouldn’t/are/aren’t doing?

The Russians could just as easily toy with the sovereignty of EU member states and potential ones too. So what exactly are they going to do about it?

Soviet Quality Construction for the Supreme Soviet

Generation sneer: American Architects always have to listen to it travelling in Europe. It’s the stock lecture about shabby this and that, blah, blah, blah... how European tradesmen are just better and just plain superhuman. Until their shabby meal-ticket work falls down.

- Qwayassss! to Are you sure

And to top it off you see crap like this pictured on the left. A building construction site (not road, utility, or bridge work) in Belgium where trucks are tracking mud out onto a public road - not once but permanently. In the US, the county eviro-pinkertons would shut your ass down, charge you to remediate it, and possibly make you resubmit your permit with a watershed impact study. But as we all know, the Europeans are just better at you name it - which is to say whatever subject at hand happens to be.

He's a Liar and an Idiot, not a Kenyan Citizen

The Rocky Mountain News indicated that Barack Obama is Kenyan citizen. He may not be. Under Kenya's Citizenship code, he certainly has the right to citizenship by virtue of having one Kenyan parent, but must register as an adult and would have to forswear his US citizenship.

On the other side of the coin, US law doesn't exclude legal dual nationality under Kenyan law, but it doesn't encourage or provide for it. But US law would only figure into the legality of maintaining a second nationality under US jurisdiction, and it doesn't encourage or forbid it. However, Kenyan law DOES carry exclusionary language.

Let's assume for a moment that Barack Obama IS a Kenyan citizen. After all, the code itself assumes that a minor's registration, a term not limited to a specific act of petitioning citizenship, puts in force those assumption of those that apply to a petitioner at the age of majority if it's done by the parents. That implies that a registration of birth is a registration of citizenship if the conditions of the code are met.

As an aside is something rather chilling. Considering that there are Kenyans of European and Indian heritage, this includes a requirement that one parent must be of African heritage. Should that be interpreted narrowly, it could exclude a number of Kenyans.

But back to what it means to say that what's true for an adult is true for a minor child if registered by a parent:

(2) A person shall not be registered as a citizen of Kenya under this section unless and until he has made a declaration in writing in the prescribed form of his willingness to renounce any other nationality or citizenship he may posses and to take an oath of allegiance in the form specified in the First schedule.

The parent would be the party required to elect to act in that case. Therefore under Kenyan law, if BHO is a Kenyan citizen, he may not be a US citizen. That doesn't mean that the US has to respect the condition, but they nominally are when there isn't something specifically contradicting the clause under the law of the other country – which is the US in this case.

So where does that leave someone wondering what the democratic party's presumptive nominee's citizenship really is? Assuming that he didn't actively disavow his Kenyan citizenship, and had his birth registered in Kenya, he cannot NOT be a Kenyan citizen under Kenyan law. However the recognition of US citizenship is a function of US law, which at the time of his birth accepted that if one does not demonstrate an act of citizenship under the other country's law, (such as getting a passport or voting,) that it's passively disavowed.

Therefore in the US he is a US citizen. Barring renunciation of Kenyan citizenship, he's a Kenyan when on Kenyan territory. Inasmuch as a Senator has a form of diplomatic immunity in a country with whom the United States has normalized relations which would make any sort of disputed claim moot anyway, he can now no longer be required to renounce his US citizenship in Kenya in order to remain in good legal standing if challenged to do so under Kenyan authority.

This is where he demonstrates his idiocy: since we don't know if he's renounced Kenyan citizenship, he did travel there prior to becoming Senator. If challenged, he would have been in violation of Kenyan law. Here's a second chill: just as we find with the law requiring registration under Kenyan law, it's applicable when compelled by a ministry. Were there a Kenyan birth certificate, the idea that it's applicability to a citizenship which one would later want to renounce could simply be annulled.

Where any person who, not being able to renounce his citizenship of some other country, is registered as a citizen of Kenya after making the declaration prescribed by section II, and is, thereafter, able to renounce such first mentioned citizenship, the Minister may require him to renounce such first-mentioned citizenship; and if such person fails to do so, within the period (not being less than twenty-eight days) specified by the Minister his registration may be cancelled.

May. In other words, “or may not”. This would require something diplomatically awkward to take place in that it requires an action which for many reasons couldn't remain private: should Kenya declare him a citizen, legal niceties, “global good citizenship” and all that, would require the US to ask Kenya to accept a public renunciation of citizenship, one that they're entitled to turn down, by the President of the United States. Since the present government doesn't exactly care for Senator Obama, who knows? We could find ourselves in the middle of some nutty African publicity stunt politicking before we know it.

To get back to the title, just what is it that makes him a liar? Omission. He hasn't been the least bit forthcoming when it comes to comforting anyone with actual information about just what it is that his foreign connections could do to turn a term of presidency into an embarrassing set of distractions that he would be compelled to address and at some point have to indulge. Anyone worried about a royal presidency should be more worried about a trashy seeming and pedestrian one. Our lauded magical imaginary restoration of lost citizenship of the world will be reduced to being citizens of page 6 mockery.

Blinkered by their Phobic Hated

The USA was Bleu Blanc Beur before you we born, Bernard.

Paging Superfrenchie: we’ve found your fellow trash-talking buffoons

The Americans' relay victory was all the more sweet considering the way France declared itself the favorite prior to the Olympics. The Frenchmen weren't shy about repeating it either. In a news conference prior to the start of the Games, Bernard, who boasts a tattoo of a shark on his abdomen, was asked what he thought about his country's chances against the United States.

"The Americans?" Bernard said. "We will smash them."

Several of Bernard's teammates followed his lead, even going to far as to suggest that the Americans were scared of the French.

"This morning, Bob (Bowman) had said the French was saying some stuff, talking a little bit of trash," Phelps said. "It fired me up more than anything else. I told Garret, and he said 'You know what?' We're going to let our swimming do the talking."

Indeed.

Phelps' hopes of breaking Mark Spitz's record of seven golds in a single games appeared doomed when the French took over the lead at the 250 mark. They were 4.03 seconds under world-record pace at 350 meters before Lezak, the oldest American male swimmer at 32, rallied over the closing strokes.

Note to SF, Fox is pleased to cover ALL the leading teams and players in the Olympics, not just their own and a few Europeans. While you’re at it, check out the usual cultural bigotry even in the fonts.

- Thanks a bunch to Shy Guy
and Gringo suave.

His Only Imperative is the Territorial protection of the Ego Bubble

Superfrenchie, in the usual fashion of being more concerned with his own feelings than reality, has taken great joy in a joint exercise between US and French Air Force fighters in Arizona. Abiding by his usual fixation that there is somebody, somewhere who didn’t drink from his cup, he asks why it didn’t make it onto Fox News.

Why demand that? Fox News, or any national news outfit for that matter (outside of maybe Pentagon channel, Stars and Strips, and the local station near the base) doesn’t report on these exercises at all, and certainly is less interested in finding a national victory in a participatory training exercise. If they did, SF would likely characterize it as cultural warmongering or some such. No – in his fragile emotional construct, they should have reported this one because the Rafales beat the F-16s. US news outlets, you see, should be made responsible for the tender feelings of the populations of Europe.

But his zeal to harangue someone for omitting details seems to be limited to needing propaganda that give him something to wallow around in. What he omits is that the pilots had swapped aircraft in order to intimately understand how each others’ aircraft behave if they have to fly joint missions.

Four French Air Force pilots flying all four F-16 in the exercise were shot down by American Air Force pilots flying Rafales, and two Rafales were shot down by French Air Force pilots.

The U.S. and French air force partnership is not limited to aircraft exercises, but also the entire spectrum of interoperable maintenance and proficiency training, logistics and sustainment of these aircraft.

The maintainers and support crews also had the chance to interact with the other country's aircraft and crews. French support personnel received a tour of Luke's engine shop during their visit.

French military have been fighting alongside American forces in Afghanistan since October 2001 and continue to play a supportive role today.

"Every U.S. and French Airman who took part in this deployment is better for the experience", said Col. Kurt Neubauer, 56th Fighter Wing commander. "Training with the French air force provided us the invaluable opportunity to learn from each other's operational experience, improve our combat skills and strengthen the bond of friendship between our great air forces and our great countries."

"The French visit provided an excellent opportunity to strengthen our social relationship and enhance future relations," said Lt. Col. Peter Bilodeau, 309th Fighter Squadron commander. "There should be as many combined operations as possible before there are lessons learned in combat."

The French airmen shared the same view of working and training together and reiterated the fact that France has been a long time ally of the U.S.

"The cooperation between France and the U.S. goes all the way back to World War I," said Col. Philippe Poireault, French air force detachment commander. "This was an extraordinary opportunity for both the French and U.S. to learn from each other, and we look forward to strengthening that relationship."

What’s plain as day, is that the USAF’s tone is positive and filled with gratitude. It’s the polar opposite of Superfrenchie’s negativity, even as he childishly demands respect from random members of the American public for the sake of his desired melodrama of Americans somehow thanking HIM for a foreign military that Americans DO respect, one which he isn’t a part of.

With respect to SF’s flying orgasm, the Air Force seems to have omitted the losses from their press release in what seems like a never ending need to keep warm and cozy the high maintenance egos of the civilian population of France, a.k.a. the center of the known universe.

As we can detect from his tone, what Superfrenchie would prefer to see would be that these complex, difficult, and costly flight exercises which are critical for safety and success at a time of tension would be some sort of kangaroo court on the single thing that seems to burden his soul: that anything the French do as individuals, a public, or a representatives of a nation is not naturally assumed to be so completely and utterly correct at all times - that the flaws and foibles of individuals, their judgment, their motives, are not considered in any way. It fits the ball and chain that has burdened so many Europeans for centuries – the desire to defend any flaw to the death for the sake of ones’ pride, and the use of any positive outcome as a sign of the superiority over others of individuals, even if it was they had nothing to do with it.

Unlike SF, TF1 reports it straight.

Randomly ask any French person what anything their military does mean to them, and 90% of the time you’ll give you a parroted “to hell with the world” recitation about them not being necessary anymore now that they have no hostile borders, or some feeble teenager-level platitudes about peace, along with some John Lennon-like fantasies about the world that are divorced of any fact about the state of affairs on the big blue ball. What then, if not this nationalism from those so attached to chiding others about “post-nationalism”, are we to make of it other than a feeble attempt to do whatever it takes to move goalposts and philosophies to flag the sort of pride that contradicts the prescription the same culture (with a chilling uniformity in the population) has for all others who are not of them. A prejudice even commonly extended to other Europeans.

The sad thing is that in their myopia he can’t seem to see and take pride and satisfaction in the realism, dedication, love of nation and culture, and decency of France’s pilots, air crews, and service personnel.

It Actually DOES Translate into German, by the Way

- Hat-tip to Jörg

Misplaced EUphoria

Looking at it in the cold, clear, light of the day, the Airbus A380 is 37 years late, and $20.000.000-89.000.000 short:

There's nothing better, right?

Yeah, that's what the media think. They don't have enough good things to say about Airbus' double-decker super-jumbo. Even we raved about it. But c'mon -- does the world really need this leviathan? Airlines and the passengers they treat like cattle were doing just fine before the A380 came along, weren't they?

Besides -- the Boeing 747 did it all first.

The 747 has been around since 1970, and more than 1,100 have rolled off the production line. They've carried millions of passengers and countless tons of cargo to the four corners of the earth. If you travel for a living you've probably flown on one, especially if you spend much time in Europe or Asia. After nearly four decades in service, the 747 is doing just fine, thanks.

We're not saying that the A380 doesn't have some things going for it. For one thing, it's the first true twin-deck commercial airliner. It has nearly 40 percent more floor space than the 747, and it carries more people (though if you are one of the 853 unlucky souls squeezed into an all-coach A380, our hearts go out to you). And although some people here at Autopia think it looks like the result of a one-night stand between a Beluga whale and an albatross, I think it's gorgeous.

But don't write off the 747-800, Boeing's latest model, as obsolete junk. It carries 467 passengers (just 22 fewer than the Emirates A380), and at 250 feet long and 64 feet tall, it's not exactly tiny. It's 11 percent more fuel efficient than the A380, though that comes from Boeing, so take it with a grain of salt. It's $20 million to $89 million cheaper and you can pimp the Intercontinental model (pictured) just like the 'bus if that's your thing. Airports don't have to rebuild their terminals to accommodate it. And like an old friend, people know the 747 and trust it.

But to put it more bluntly, as a soon to quit Luftwaffe pilot who preferred the idea of flying for UPS told me: Boeing actually asks pilots what they want in the way of performance and layout, Airbus designs things to death and they’re still awkward. That was pre-A380, but I certainly hope that it isn’t still true.

- H/T to Val de Texas

“Rapid Reaction Force”

Russian tanks and the artillery of third world style siege roll into Georgia, and the EU takes 24 hours to “express concern”. It should surely have the Iranians quaking in their black socks and brown sandals at the EU’s “enforcement measures” that they’re under now over the nuclear weapons program that the EU has bought them enough time to continue by negotiating about it endlessly:

In a statement published Friday by the bloc's current president France, the European Union announced it had begun to apply new measures against Tehran, including closely scrutinizing financial groups doing business with Iranian banks, and holding back on loans for companies trading with Iran. The EU's 27 members will also inspect airplanes and ships traveling to and from Iran...

Go get ‘em, sparky! Now they’ll likely have to do a thrillingly intrusive body cavity search of most of Europe’s ‘champions’ while they’re at it. At this point they’re just killing time anyway:

The leaders of Europe can no longer pretend that they don't know what Iran is up to. A leaked internal document prepared for the European Union's foreign ministers warns that it is probably too late to prevent the Iranian government from acquiring nuclear weapons. "At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons programme." The document also admits that efforts to impede the Iranian nuclear program have failed. "In practice . . . the Iranians have pursued their programme at their own pace, the limiting factor being technical difficulties rather than resolutions by the U.N.

I’m sure the Swiss always wanted to glow in the dark.

Learn ‘em to be 'fraid

The seas are rising. The tsunamis will arrive weekly. The rainbows are coming... and this time it’s personal.

Repent now, for the end is nigh, and the rainbow people are coming.

BBC Circulating al Queda Propaganda

It is an open secret in Karachi, that any member of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's family deemed to be "a 1% threat to US security" is in American custody.
That may be the only "crime" that Aafia Siddiqui has committed.

so quothe the BBC, in spite of that fact that the woman in question, Aafia Siddiqui, had shot at an coalition soldier. Previously, they had lived outside Boston where this injustice was visited upon them:

The 11 September 2001 attacks in the US changed everything. Her husband was detained by the FBI for questioning.

The reason was his purchase of night vision goggles, body armour and military manuals.

He is said to have told the FBI it was for big-game hunting. Aafia Siddiqui was also questioned briefly, but later released, as was her husband.

Aside from the muddled BBC radio reporting over the past few days on the matter which incorporate the confusion of what rumors pass for “facts” in Pakistan, the BBC publish on their website all manner of accusations that Jawa Report finds has it’s origins in an al Queda propaganda video made in July of this year.

The Jihad’s fifth column in the west take this as proof that she was secreted away, raped, and tortured since 2003 without any evidence, even though there was a published bulletin seeking her whereabouts up until June of 2008 when she was arrested by an Afghani soldier.

Jawa:

I knew this was coming. The jihadi intertubes and their allies in the "human-rights movement" were all abuzz about "Prisoner 650" prior to the news that Aaifia Siddiqui was captured in Afghanistan on July 17th. According to various "rumors" a woman has been held by the U.S. at Bagram Air Base, tortured, and raped since 2003. Who started the rumor? None other than al Qaeda itself in a video called "Escape from Bagram" in which several al Qaeda members, including Abu Yahya al-Libi himself, claimed they tried to rescue the poor woman from the evil infidels.

Laughable, no? Well, no. Because tens of millions--possibly hundreds of millions--of Muslims actually believe that "Prisoner 650" exists.

Recently several "human rights groups" began to associate "Prisoner 650" with Aaifia Siddiqqui. Based on what? Nothing other than believing that "Prisoner 650" exists, that Siddiqqui was missing and wanted by the FBI, and one of Siddiqqui's uncles claiming he thought she had been picked up by the ISI for questioning.

If you looked closely at these "human rights groups" you'd see that they were not so much interested in, say, the rights of Tibetans for self-government as they are about getting Khalid Shiekh Mohammad martyr status. The most important being the self-styled "human rights" group at Cage Prisoners who are really a front for the followers of Omar Bakri Mohammed and Abu Hamza. Take a gander at the prisoners they're trying to get set free and you'll see names like Johnny Walker Lindh (admitted American Taliban), Jose Padilla (suspected in a plot to commit "dirty bomb" attacks), and, unsurprising, the blind mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing, Sheikh Omar Abdur Rahman.

Are we getting the picture here? The rumors that women were being held and tortured at Bagram Air Base by the U.S. was started by ... al Qaeda. The rumor that Aaifia Siddiqui was being held by the U.S. was started by ... Siddiqui's family, many of which are known al Qaeda sympathizers.

And the BBC took this to mean “news”, effectively legitimating without many citations of sources, terrorist propaganda. They quote without irony her sister:

"It is always believed one is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way round," her sister, Fauzia, told reporters in Karachi on Tuesday.

Something one might find rich when discussing someone nabbed while attempting murder. I wonder if they extend that courtesy of not detaining before trial in Pakistan?

The Aryan Science of Being Green

Because, as we all know, opinions and a good image are as good as someone’s actual actions.



The amazing übervessel is that way because Gore’s publicist SAYS SO, of course. But think of the magic! NO bio-fuel, NO solar panels, but quite the hearty air conditioning package, if you know what I’m saying... and somehow, by some miracle, it only needs to be fuelled ONCE a year, making it TWENTY times more efficient than a comparable stock motor pushing around a vainglorious gunboat of equal size!

How does he do it? Apart from simply declaring it so, he does it through VOLUME, VOLUME, VOLUME!!! And all this without those new-fangled things called a “jib” or a “mainsail”... It’s a MIRACLE!

Surely it must be the crystal drive or the pyramid power... something sereptisiously “liberated” when he was veeping. Otherwise try to replicate those amazing specs this way: when driving, engage in wild unsupportable hyperbole, and watch that milage shoot through the roof. Remember kids, you'll only have to gas up once a year!

Rats, Disease, and the European Way!

Ah, ouai! But zis is not Guantanoamo!

Almost 10 years after a book on overcrowding, rats and disease at Paris's La Sante prison shocked France, conditions in the nation's 195 jails are worse, social activists say. On July 28, Justice Minister Rachida Dati presented a bill to build more jails and increase use of electronic bracelets to keep inmates at home to ease congestion in cells, some of which have barely twice the space France's animal rights society recommends for a dog.

Opposition Socialist Member of Parliament Michele Delaunay says the plans will make little difference. The problem, she says, is a judicial culture that imprisons people awaiting trial --

How DARE they!

To Hell with the Prime Directive, Mr. Spock!

In his efforts to provide the American candidate an effective setting for his campaign stop in Germany, Foreign Minister Steinmeier found a crucial ally in the mayor of Berlin. Far from sharing the Chancellor's reservations, Wowereittold the daily Die Berliner Zeitunghttp://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/spezial/dossiers/uswahl/105486/index.php that he would welcome Obama -- in his words -- "us[ing] Berlin as a platform to give an important speech." And as the authorization to use municipal property to this end would have to come from the Berlin city government, or Senat, that Wowereit heads, the mayor's receptivity to the proposition was of obvious relevance. The city government would also -- "of course" -- provide security for the event, Wowereit added.

As if to send all of those horrible Americans to a sort of re-education camp, it seems that the German FM and Berlin Mayor, both members of opposition parties in Merkel’s grand coalition, are trying to change the course of a foreign election, notes John Rosenthal in the World Politics Review. As they many not realize, the transparent nature of the exercise seems to have then needed the kind of cover, a form of weaseling, that at least Germans will buy:

To deflect the charge that the city of Berlin and Germany as such were thus facilitating the campaign of the Democratic candidate, Obama's German sponsors hit upon the idea of declaring that Obama would be speaking not as an American presidential candidate, but merely as a senator or even just a "private citizen" -- as if there were two Obamas and the presidential candidate had not made the trip.

And possibly providing a donation in kind which might not be lawful as well, not to mention the malleability, arrogance, and cavalier nature of a campaign willing to accept it.

Sure, it might not be as juicy as watching another fake populist turn his career into a flaming twisted roadside wreck at the hands of a whacky, happy-go-lucky new-age blackmailer, baby-mama, and all-around over the hill politico trying to trade on the last chance she might have in life to get pregnant, but it’s just as hilarious to watch the press suppress or put a happy face on the venal nature of these supposed defenders of the politically useful downtrodden.

We’ll hear from all of these folks some day on ‘songs for aging children’, but until then, I cant imagine there being enough healing intervention to compensate for that little common sense and morally absent decision making. Funny, isn’t it, that most of us are happy with actually having a job to pay off those pyramid-power, ritual high colonics, and crystal-healing-by-your-person-angel classes?

Same Lefty Peevishness, New Century

Love is a Warm Bullwhip

The Soviet dictator, who was responsible for the deaths of around 15 million people during his 31-year reign of terror, is in second place in online voting for the Name of Russia competition.

An inspiration to the likes of Mugabe. A goal in life for Mobutu Sese Seko. It’s a long tradition, one that’s brought us centuries of soul-killing strongmen. Europeans have always liked being under the boot of authority. It either offers the reassuring quality of “getting the putsch over with” or was and probably still is their form of aspiration to greatness, that is, wanting to be the cruel Dominator:

"Stalin is the most popular name in Russia," said Sergei Malinkovich, the Communist party leader who is driving the Stalin canonisation campaign.

"The people have forgiven him for the repressions, the collectivization, the elimination of cadres of the Red Army and other inevitable errors and tragedies of those cruel military and revolutionary times.

"Stalin has become the true national leader of Russia. He turned a backward country into an industrial giant."

How then, looking back on their path through the 20th century, could anyone say that they even have a living culture at all, as so many of them are font to say of the new world?

Despite the church's reluctance, St Petersburg's Communists are convinced their vision will come to pass. They have already commissioned religious icons depicting Stalin with a halo round his head that have reportedly sold very well around the city.

"By the end of the 21st century, icons of St Josef Stalin will be in every Orthodox Church," Mr Malinkovich said.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

What’s so cute about the comfortable lie that the left’s received wisdom has about the US being the biggest polluter on earth is that to have this “wisdom” requires a great deal of ignorance about the rest of the world.

The Beijing Olympics will expose the environmentalist fraud that the U.S. is the world's biggest polluter. Compared with China, we get the gold medal for energy efficiency. Can Al Gore speak Chinese?

Don't expect any protests from groups such as Greenpeace in Tiananmen Square as the Olympics open. China doesn't allow open protests, and environmentalists are quietly ignoring China's new status as the world's biggest polluter. But at these Olympics, oxygen tanks will be an essential piece of athletic equipment.

The amusing thing is that while the Chinese are in fact the worst users of energy one can imagine in the post-soviet age, their draconian techniques employed in controlling it during the Olympics are no different than the way they’ve handled people in any other matter in life, and that the green-red-trots seem rather attached to being draconian, so long as they find a rationalization by which to tell you that you should submit to their superior knowledge if you know what’s good for you.

The Berkeley researchers say China's emissions are growing at an annual rate of 11%. In 2006-07, China added 186,000 megawatts of coal-fired electrical generation capacity, equivalent to two United Kingdoms. The U.S. Energy Department says China's emissions rose 138% from 1990 to 2005.

As the Heritage Foundation's Ed Feulner points out, China's emissions rose 8% last year after jumping 11% in each of the two previous years. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency notes that China alone accounted for two-thirds of the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions in 2007.

In other words, these great heroes of “the Worker” have managed to turn out more atmospheric pollutants than their actual economic growth, inverting the American success story, which all the while is the thing that the world’s precious political watermelons like to imagine is some sort of “crime against humanity”: polluting less by being more productive and andvancing industrial capacity.

Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development indicate that China's carbon-dioxide emissions per unit of output are five times those of the U.S. Our emissions rose by 1.5% last year after declining 1.3% the year before. Our GDP is rising faster than our emissions, meaning we are becoming more energy efficient every day.

As the big, bad USA's carbon dioxide emissions fell in 2006, our economy boomed 3.3%, says the Energy Information Administration. We used energy more efficiently and reduced emissions without Kyoto. Energy use per unit of GDP fell 4.2 % in 2006, and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP fell by 4.5%.

Compared with the Kyoto signatories, the U.S., not Al Gore, should be getting a Nobel Prize. The United Nations reports that greenhouse gas emissions from the Kyoto signatories, despite all their efforts, increased 2.6% from 1990 to 2005. Austria, New Zealand and Canada increased their emissions over 1990 levels by 14%, 23% and 54%..

But that doesn’t fit the script, because that isn’t what the left’s script is really for.

So Long, Shorty

It seems the war on Jihadists has provoked an arms race.

The sources said that the explosives could weigh between five kilogrammes to seven kilogrammes, made deadly by adding glass splinters, metal ball bearings and bullets.

A “hair shirt” if there ever was one.

Oppression, Then and Now

Hey there, hi there, ho there, kids! Want to get all worked up kicking someone in the head to please teacher? Well it’s been going on for a WAY long time!

What was the deed that made him a hero? In 1932 Pavlik Morozov exposed his father as an “enemy of the People.” He informed the OGPU (as the KGB, or Soviet secret police, was then called) that his father was helping the kulaks, successful peasants who refused to relinquish their land and livestock to the State as was required by the Collectivization Plan, and was therefore branded as an enemy of Socialism. Pavlik's father was arrested, tried, and sent to a concentration camp, never to be seen again.

That was then, but this is now! Can you feel the lack of electricity and the unconditioned humid air? Now don’t get too excited! You might use more oxygen than you’re rationed! So just Hoooooold that breath!

Appellation D'origine Contrôlée Non Way

- via the charming and talented Debbie Schlussel