The Beehive of History

Current events in the USA, starting with the dreadful  alt-right/alt-left confrontation  in Charlottesville prompted this comment from me to a friend:

"One makes distinctions in history and of historical figures and does not study it as a comic strip of white and black hat characters. If one says the least non-derogatory remark about one of history's "predetermined villains", historical activists swarm onto one like a hive of angry bees, piling on the stings without bothering to ponder why they are agitated.

 Lee was so highly considered an officer that Lincoln offered him command. He did not "declare war on America" - he resigned from the US Army after Virginia left the Union , which left him the choice of fighting Virginians or the non-Virginians who soon invaded it - and he saw himself first as a Virginian and secondly as a US citizen, like a majority of people did in those days when the Federal government was miniscule and  younger than Virginia's. It is plain from his writings he saw the coming war as a tragedy, not as a yahoo event to impose more slavery, lunike Gen Bedford Forrest and others. 

He is not guilty of "war crimes", did not order the massacre of black soldiers  and worked after the war to urge reconciliation. He celebrated the end of slavery and made it plain he had never fought for that, but for his State. There are numerous parallels in history of people like Lee, who fought for ignoble causes because of misplaced duty or tragedy in their situation. Rommel is perhaps a parallel and militarily there are many others. They are complex beings with many motives.

It is possible to study, read about, debate about and even view statues of Lee (gasp!) and similar complex figures without automatically becoming a racist, slave supporter and despicable human being. That is  modern politics devising  a judgement on the unchangeable past. Just as it is possible to view a statue of Cromwell or debate his complexities without becoming a regicide.

University students taking a hammer to Lee's statue is nothing more than ahistorical barbarism and a sign of parallel  extremist minds as the very people who stupidly and malignantly take a Lee statue as a rallying point for neo-supremacy. The past is dead, and is not coming back - but if we cannot study it, if it is erased entirely or only a single,totalitarian view of it or anyone in it permitted, then we really will re-live it."

Mangling Munich: British Broadcasting Correctness

The BBC decided, some 18 hours into the Munich McDonald's massacre, to drop "Ali" from the name of the Irano-German perp, one David Ali Sonboly.

Also r  In  were pictures of Anders Brevik and  comments on how the Munich shootings came exactly on the anniversary of  the Nazi nutcase's rampage in Norway. Omitted was that the shootings also came on the anniversary of the establishment of the second colony in Virginia, of 10,000 Jews of Polannoe murdered in Russia and the birth date of Rev. William Archibald Spooner.

Here we see the subtle bias of the PC establishment and  it's propaganda and enabling arms like the BBC.

With a few omissions and straw man insertions they got across the message  they  deliver worldwide: " Non-Muslim (presumed white and German)  creates ultra right wing shooting spree". George Orwell, call your editor.

Numerous interviews with former classmates showed he was universally called "Ali" and not David by his bullying Sunni classmates. Notable were the large number of Albanian and Turk Sunni victims of his shooting, which also included numerous shouts of "Ahhah Akbar". Nothing to see here folks!

Sense and Nonsense on Iran

One op-ed "War  Is Probably Our Best Option"  in The Washington Post makes a very clear case for the use of force against Iran as against the current "negotiations" that actually mean surrender  to Iran in many eyes.

The Obama Kerry Iran appeasement is causing immediate unintended consequences in the world most unstable and explosive region. Already this week  Saudi Arabia has reached out for nuclear agreement with South Korea and has promised to "match" anything Iran does. Egypt will certainly be next, followed perhaps by Turkey and others. Why? Because they see the consequences of  the Obama-Kerry plan, and are adjusting to reality. The reality is, the USA is going to allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon and ICBM delivery systems too. The latter a crucial and overlooked marker from Iran as to it's future intentions.

 Further reality is that the  USA has lost the trust of key Sunni Middle East countries like Saudi, Jordan,the Gulf  States and Egypt- not to mention Israel. More reality? They are going to go nuclear too, and Israel will have to also go the ICBM route to match Iran. So much for "Nuclear peace in our time".  The result is a nuclear nightmare.

The fruit of this plan will be darker than any limited strike on Iran in the long run. 

The worst nightmare would be a nuclear armed Middle East,  dominated by Iran, given the fundamental Sunni-Shia divide that has driven all Islamic politics since the death of Ali at Kebala in 680 AD.  The arms-race in that region as a result of the Iran Obama/Kerry deal will be fast paced, multi-country and determined.

The author is correct- only force or the threat of it stopped Middle Eastern nations from acquiring nuclear weapons abilities. That did not happen with North Korea only because, with uncertainty over the neighboring China's reaction, force could not be used. Who is going to render the same virtual protection  to Iran?  Only China and Russia can, and there is no indication they wish to have a nuclear Iran on their doorsteps either. Their outrage would be cosmetic.

It is the threat of  force and crippling sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place and  only guarantor of a non-nuclear Middle East, on the doorstep of Europe, is more of the same. The USA has the technology to take out Iran's nuclear programme with very little cost now. It will be impossible to remove it, or control it, a decade from now.

Clinton's Crocodile Tears

 An article in  The Daily Nation claims Hilary Clinton was deeply hurt to hear the US accused of being anti-Islamic  in her recent tour of Bangla Desh.

Clinton has reason to be "deeply hurt" but it is not Islam under attack in the USA , it's Christianity. Christians are reviled and mocked by progressives. Atheists hold parades next to churches cursing and blaspheming - but never next to mosques. 

The Democrats depict  Christians as backward, anti-abortion child molesters. Democrat controlled  states pass  laws restricting the rights of worship - none  or little of this is geared at Muslims. For Muslims, the elites that rule America bend over backward, putting on Islamic clothing, celebrating "Idd", accusing people of "Islamophobia", banning the use of the word "jihadi", praising the Koran, ignoring Islamic abuse of women  and so on.

The Hyenas Reach New Lows

Just when we thought the pack of hyenas that make up the greedy, Kenya political class could get no worse, comes this story here from the Nation, showing that having been  finally forced to pay taxes on their bloated salaries, the predatory parliamentarians have  now raided the public famine kitty to compensate themselves. 

Obama Appoints New Ec onomic Chief

 Bloomberg News, firmly in delusion mode, writes:

With unemployment stuck above 9 percent, the U.S. needs all the job-creation expertise it can get. For that reason, President Barack Obama’s choice of Alan Krueger, an eminent labor economist, to head the Council of Economic Advisers is an inspired one.Krueger, a Princeton University professor, has built his academic career on the study of labor markets, wage structures and long-term unemployment. He also has strong policy-making credentials. During the first two years of the Obama administration, he served as chief economist at the Treasury Department, where he helped devise the first stimulus package, the cash-for-clunkers effort and the Build America Bond program.

Krueger has shown that he understands the need for a strong government role as an anti-recessionary force, especially after a contraction brought on by a severe financial crisis.

If this nominee was behind the cash-for-clunkers fiasco  and part of the  the giant Pelosi-Reid stimulus debacle, than I can hardly see how he can inspire anything but foreboding.  Nice to know that after 3 years, Obama finally get's that it's all about jobs and not handing out green-energy salvation projects  to Democratic donors.  It is however amusing to see Obama embracing deregulation, broadly, and tax cuts (in effect), overturning Davis-Bacon and a number of other scared cows the left is going to scream over. At the heart of the matter it's just Obama and co playing the same old game....i.e.  big government has the answer and can create jobs and distribute wealth fairly and better than the individual. What's new? With the track record this good professor has, I will sit on the fence.

This blog is banned in China

Obama Teabagged

Kenyans awoke on November 3rd  and disbelieved their eyes. The party of  Barack Obama, has suffered a huge defeat in  the 2011 "mid term" elections. The Democrats that Obama heads have been be humiliated by Republicans. Incumbents have been thrown out like trash by angry voters.  Obama's presidency, begun so brightly and with so much hope just two years ago  has been checked f not wrecked.


One thing won't change - the woeful job of most  Kenya media  in explaining this to their readers and listeners. Many will echo  the  politically disastrous theme of the  Democrats .  The 'Party Line' goes like this.

“The American electorate are ignorant, reactionary, angry and fearful, unable to appreciate the wonders of Obama and his Washington elite and are deeply tinged with racism and bigotry.”

This was the Democratic message since 2009 and the local media have dutifully acted the parrot.  That "message" has infuriated American voters and made them vote Republican even when they are not members of the party.

Consider racism: the Democrats 2010 had  26  black Congressmen and25 stand in black majority districts where their re-election against whites is guaranteed. The Republicans have just 6 black candidates. Yet all are stood against whites in white-majority districts.  Just who is  the “race vote” here is not obvious.

Or Florida  senatorial candidate Marco Rubio, a Republican Hispanic, trouncing white incumbent Charlie Christ.  And if Obama was elected by whites a in 2008, just how did the non-racists then become racists now? Using racism as a template to describe Obama's debacle is delusionary.

How about ignorance? The day won't pass without some Karaja or Onyango in USA penning a letter to the media or blogging  on  how ignorant, narrow minded and so on Americans really are. If only they were clever and worldly wise like Obama and his  cabinet, or like Europeans, they would elect the Democrats forever!

Naturally, these lectures   have gone down as well as  someone conducting an election campaign in rural Kenya areas and telling  wanainchi that they were too stupid to act like Germans or Japanese.

Perhaps it's ingratitude? Americans are too blind  to realize the excellence of Obama's healthcare act and  his huge deficit spending to increase the size of government, so it is said.  Yet, traditionally since 1776, Americans have, unlike Europeans and Africans, not wanted their government to  grow too big, powerful and expensive.

They now feel the national debt and spending are wrecking their future. Voters elected Obama to change that, not to add to 'Big Government' and high taxes -and  they feel betrayed.

Kenyans  are  often wrapped up in ethnic politics that are  driven solely by personalities and tribal loyalties ( as serious a problem as racism). We should note  that in the USA, people are judging Obama on the failed economy. 

Democratic policies  of  huge spending and increasing the size of government have stuck the deepest nerve in a freedom-loving people who value self-reliance and capitalist hard work.

There was a "Tea Party" in Boston in 1773 to kick-start  the Revolutionary War against British colonialism. The issue then was the same as the Tea Party Movement that has helped doom the Democrats in 2010. Americans  like to cut government  down to size every now and then. Obama and his party are firmly in their sights.  

911 and The Koran

From The Koran, selected passages:

1- The infidels are your sworn enemies Sura 4:101
2- Make war on The infidels who dwell around you Sura 9:123
3- When you meet The Infidels in the battlefield, strike off their heads Sura 47:4
4- Mohamed is Allah's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to The infidels Sura 48:29
5- Prophet, make war on The infidels Sura 66: 9
6- Never be a helper to The disbelievers Sura 28:86
7- Kill The disbelievers wherever we find them (Sura 2:191)
8- 9:29 [And] fight against those (Al-La-Zina) who - despite having been vouchsafed revelation [aforetime] -do not [truly] believe either in God or the Last Day, and do not consider forbidden that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth [which God has enjoined upon them] till they [agree to] pay the exemption tax with a willing hand, after having been humbled [in war].
9- 47:4 Therefore, when you meet The infidels (unbelievers), smite their necks until you overcome them fully, and then tighten their bonds; but thereafter [set them free,] either by an act of grace or against ransom
Quran 2:89 The curse of Allah is on disbelievers.
Quran 2:92-2:96 Jews are the greediest of all humankind.
Quran 2:98 Allah is the enemy of disbelievers.
Quran 2:99 Only miscreants will disbelieve.
Quran 2:193 Fight them until religion is for Allah.
Quran 3:28 Don't have unbelieving friends unless it is to deceive them. Remember the final goal is to Allah.
Quran 3:118 Don't be friends with Non-Muslims because they hate you and want to ruin you.

An International Ignoramus Opines

As President Obama's approval rating  among US voters slip to George W. Bush levels, and as his Democrat prty braces for a humiliating trouncing in the November  elections, Kenyans will be no wiser as to why  if the go by Prof Ian Buruma's piece, "The Great American (populist) Tea Party" ( Daily Nation  Sept 6th) and available here in the Lebanon Daily News version.

Buruma is an elite  European intellectual  from the commentariat of  the international left.  Such usually show abysmal misunderstanding of the USA coupled with sneering condescention and Buruma certainly does not disappoint. Buruma is ignorant of even the simplest facts, such as the Democrats of the USA many years ago surpassed the Republicans as the party of wealth and class and are able to outspend their opponents handily.

It can't be that  Democrats have plunged the US into double the  debt that Bush left. It's zero to do with Obama's debt rising higher every year until it will overwhelm the US economy. It has, for Prof Buruma, nothing to do with ramming "free" heathcare down US throats - despite every poll showing the clear majority of all voters did not want it.

The Lord help Kenyans if any believe that American traditional opposition to "big government" has the slightest to do with Obama's fall from grace. His Democrats rushed to expand every possible government payroll and create huge new burdens of bureaucracy - a bit like Kenyan MPs. Those dumb ,uneducated  ,prejudiced  "overwhelmingly white" Americans just don't understand how wonderful Obamanomics really is. Even those who still have a job

Lastly, despite the Democrats putting every single US citizen  $44,000 into debt in unpaid government borrowing, the economy is stagnant, the stimulus has failed and unemployment is going up, not down. America's foreign policy is a mess and many of the US staunchest allies are  perplexed.  Neither does Prof Bururma educate us at all that the Tea Party movement against "big government" had it's roots before Obama took office, in the George Bush stimulus and bank-bailout of 2008.

For the "progressives"  l none of these issues are real.  Obama got elected with two "elite" degrees, a Muslim middle name and a black Kenyan father. Prof Buruma tells us those are hindrances to him, oddly enough. It seems they were pluses just two years ago, but Buruma is incapable of explaining this paradox. The fault lies not with Obama's policies since election, but in his dumb low class opponents. 

If Buruma was a  visiting a psychiatrist instead of writing fatuous articles, he would be diagnosed as being in deep denial coupled with fantasies and projection.

Obama's  opponents are thus simply racists, bigots, uneducated and populist.. Kenyans relying on this narrative will be bewildered as US events unfold, and the good professor will not have taught them a thing.

60 Years of Socialist Health yet Britain Worse Off - BBC

It's remarkable that after nationalised medicine was introduced into Britain  after World War Two, we could now be in a position where the gap in healthcare is actually worse than in the dark days of the Depression. Or so say the BBC in a story found here.

The health inequality gap in Britain is greater than it was during the post-World War I slump and the Great Depression, a study suggests.........Researchers from Sheffield and Bristol looked at early death rates since 1921.

They found the current gap was greater than it was in the 1920s and 1930s, the British Medical Journal reports."

 The only reason Obama has pushed socialist medicine in the USA down the unwilling population's throat is that it greatly expands the role and power of governing elites - not that it will have any good effect on American health statistics

You Can Make This Stuff Up

Every heard of a "listserv"?  It's a form of  secret  e-mail exchange club.. You have to be invited and get a password to participate.  It was known a listerserv  existed called "Journolist", of some 300 to 400  top journalists from Time, The Guardian, CNN, The New Republic,  other papers and TV stations, Human Rights Watch , influential blogs, professors and NGOs.

An enterprising blog, the Daily Caller, managed to crack the Journolist codes and get access to archives of thousands of backdated emails. The results are  explosive, but do not expect to be seeing them on your big media or TV screen very soon since so far they show:

•  Hundreds of the top names on journalism with some academics and NGO types collaborated to  act  cheerleaders for the Obama election  2008, spinning  positive stories about Obama and negative ones about his opponents.

• This included trying to bury the Rev Wright and his  Obama connection and instead fabricate Republican racism. In the words of one famous journalist  they should  pick a top Republican, "any will do"(!), and accuse him of racism to divert attention from Wright.
  

• Top journalists discussed how to get the government to simply ban or refuse to renew the licences of conservative news outlets like Fox whilst making very ironic noises and complaints about "fascism".
  

•  Journos were stymied as to how they could smear Sarah Palin's lack of experience without showing  up that Obama clearly had no more experience than her. So instead.....
  

• Discussed ways the media could destroy her image as an appealing, dynamic woman who might attract feminists.

And we are only on Day 3 of the Daily Caller revelations. Journalists are entitled to their opinions. Still, this proof of a big  leftist push to co-ordinate huge sections of the US media  is surely very similar to the tactics of Goebbels. It shows why anyone who still  uses only mainstream media as his or her information source really is  a dupe...or a dope.

Conservatives have claimed for years there exists a bias in the big media and Journolist could not have handed them a smokier  gun.

Bok Bumbling

As predicted here, tweaking the Springboks produced hardly any positives as they went down again to the All Blacks 31-17 in Auckland. The game would have been closer but for  skewed reffing by Alain Rolland, but even had he blown evenly, the Boks would not have won.

For the next Test against Australia in Brisbane where the Springboks have not won in 30 years, they needed radical surgery. The following should have gone to the bench as impact players: Spies,Habana,Smit, Januarie and Olivier.

These should have been promoted to starting XV: de Jongh, Hougaard, Ralepelle,  Kankowski and Aplon. When the  test XV was announced, Smit, Spies and Habana are still all there and weirdly, Kankowski has been called to play at flank, which is not his position.

The Bok coaches still resist the radical surgery, or prolonged rest (n you take your pick) that certain players who are "regulars" need to have.  The Tri Nations was lost the minute de Villiers and his staff made no effort to seriously trim the team after the shocker of a first  game at Eden Park.

This guaranteed they would lose the 2nd round, and probably does the same for this game against Australia on the 24th.  It is cause for consternation when de Villiers announces, in his cryptic fashion, that he has studied the videos of the Eden Park test and is "mystified" why we lost as we played "very well."

Springboks Leap Downwards

It's wonderful when you get to watch the elite or world rugby play frequently here in the Southern Hemi. Yet not so much fun when your side gets a whumping, as happened to the Springboks last weekend. I can't remember when I saw a side improve so comprehensibly as the All Blacks at Eden Park. Every one of the Boks  considerable strengths were nullified. Even  Matfield, the peerless no 5, was for the first time I have witnessed it, out jumped and worse ( he is a clever rugby man), outsmarted.

The All Blacks were all over the collision phase, wrapped round each other and driving like a black  bulldozer - yes, it seemed like a single unit it was that tight.  They slipped few tackles while the Boks shed runners like an old dog drops fleas.

They managed to not only contain the Boks driving maul, but split it legally. The backs were penetrative and Carter commanded the game. Only in the scrum did the Boks have some sort of parity. It was not a thrashing, despite the 32-12 scoreline but it was a real beating. Consider that the Springboks took the All Blacks 3 out of 3 last year.


Will anything change in Wellington for the second Test this Saturday? I doubt it. The Bok brass persist in choosing  fat,slow Riki January at scrum-half, it must be a race quota thing. Super centre Jean de Villiers is stuck on the wing, where he looks uncomfortable. Newbie flanker Francois Louw  was a mouse in Auckland and despite the snappier , faster Potgeiter being available, Luow is again starting.

Clunker CJ  Linde comes in at prop, a ponderous, ageing yellow-card factory  who is out of puff in 25 minutes. Jon Smit looks like  he should retire. There are at least 4 hookers ahead of him on SA - Liebenburg, Strauss, du Plessis and Botha. So the Bok brass in their wisdom back him with Ralepelle who does not even start Super 14 games - another case of affirmative dreaming. Yet, better players of colour like De Jongh and Basson are not in the team.

In the old days, after 32-12 most of the Bok team would have been scrapped. Here, they are retained. 2011 for the Boks may well turn into will be shades of 2007, where England seemed determined to play everyone who had won in Australia in 2003 - bandages, metal hinges in their joints and false teeth  as well.

Islamist Cowardice

Al-Shabaab managed to do what its parent Al AQaeda could not and  murder 76 soccer fans in Kampala, Uganda during last night's World Cup final. The bombing  dead include many nationalities and numerous Westerners. This act will send a chill down the spine of all East Africans, since we have large Somali diaspora communities in  the region. Minnesota and Canada seem to be entranced with these skinny sons of the desert. Perhaps  an airlift can be arranged? Kenyans would contribute in droves to provide tickets for the half million of so Somalis that have inundated us.

Dutch Courage?

More signs of the  steady demise of coherent English came during the recent soccer World Cup. How many times did commentators use the words "dutch courage"? I lost count, but not one of them seems to have noted that the  phrase is actually an insult meaning someone incapable of bravery unless fortified by drink! Then again looking at the beserker mood the Dutch played in during the final, perhaps I am missing something.

Arizona Madness

Today Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General, announced the Federal government was suing Arizona over it's controversial illegal immigrant law. Arizona's law demands all aliens carry identification papers - exactly the same as Federal law - only Holder won't enforce it.

Holder thinks Arizona's law would "divert resources away from fighting terrorism"- like in bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to trial in New York and repeatedly testifying to Congress that Islam had nothing to do with our 3 terrorists attacks in a year? The same Holder who allowed Mexico to join a lawsuit against Arizona - a foreign state suing an American state, in America.

When this case gets aired the public learns that Arizona law has scrupulously followed Federal law and is even midler! This administration is a dreadful farce, "illegal-centric", "enemy-centric" and "socialism-centric".

It's About Costs, Read Their Lips.

kenmal says in todays Financial Times: "I just cannot understand why the US, supposedly the most civilzed nation in the world, cannot seem to get its head around the need for healthcare for all, regardless of means" but Obamacare is indeed regardless of means, the means to pay for it and the American people know it.

Rather than question their "morality", kenmal should have acknowledged their basic good sense.

Republicans and businessmen have offered many incremental cost solutions, including malpractise tort reform ( perhaps saving 15% of cost), opening up insurance to nationwide competition (currently restricted), consumer access to cost/result information for medical conditions (almost as unobtainable as kryptonite, yet every consumer knows 100 costs and benefits when buying a car or a TV set) and immediate help ( not years away as in Obamacare) for the truly indigent and unable to afford insurance.

kenmal should understand that the American people reject Obamacare as they see it for what it is: an attempt to grow Big Government and entitled Dmnocratic majorities. This is why Obama has zero interest in adopting any truly cost-cutting ideas.

Are Europeans more moral when for example in Britain horror stories from the NHS pile up daily? It's not about morality, it's the cost. Read the people's lips

A Suicide Pact?

Doug on February 9, 2010 at 8:17 PM writes: Regarding those who say "Constitutional rights are not automatically granted to anyone who attempts to enter our nation,"..... A person who would make a statement like that obviously knows nothing about the Constitution.... The document plainly in clear and simple words that human rights apply to everyone, not just citizens.

Yes and no Doug. The US Constitution recognises, as does US settled law going back to 1776 (until the insane Boumedienne decision of 2008) only two forms of US justice. Full rights under civilian trial or lesser rights under military justice in times of war or great public distress.

US law never gave enemy combatants, let alone terrorist combatants who are prima facie planning or committing war crimes ( deliberate attacks on US civilians) full constituional rights - but it does give them to peaceful Jose who jumps the border from Mexico, or even criminal Franco who illegally comes from Italy and commits civilian murders in the USA.

The Constitution and the law make a distinction Doug and many others fail to make. War is war and peace is peace. Obama says we are at war with ALQ and the Underwear bomber was sent by ALQ to commit war crimes on US territory.

In WW2 when Hitler sent Nazis to land by sub and commit sabotage on US soil, Roosevelt had them all before a summary Military Commission and  ( save two) executed. When the Supreme Court made noises they might object, Roosevelt sent word he would execute them anyway as CIC.

In the Civil War, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus.

The Nuremburg Trial was a modified Military Comission from which there was no right of appeal, and limited but fair rights for the accused.

If you think your human rights are infinite, I suggest Doug you join the military and star abusing your CO in public. Get a few other to join you too. See how fast your infinite rights of free speech and freedom of assembly evaporate and don't ask for a civilian lawyer, either! You won't get one.

Doug, you perhaps do not know the difference between war and peace and between a jihadi on a war crime mission and the guy who just mugged granny in the park. But the US Consitution and all US courts, since 1776 have. The sad thing is that unremitting LAWFARE by the left and international anti-Americans have totally hamstrung us in this regard. Enemies of the US are now mainstreamed and given F. Lee Bailey, a civilian pulpit and we get info out of them by plea bargaining.

Here is a plea bargain coming your way soon: "OK, if we give you shorter time for the 763 Americans you just killed in the NYC subway, will you Mr. Abdul/Mohammed/Said (whatever) speak to your lawyer as you may escape a heavy sentence if you strike a deal and tell us where that suitcase nuke we know is in Boston has been placed."

Here is another: US forces capturing ALQ in Yemen or anywhere can't interrogate them, even if their own units might suffer further losses, until they are Mirandized and have a lawyer flown into base for them.

A Supreme Court justice once said the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But Doug and others, well meaning as they may be, are making it one.

Hard of Political Hearing

To Randall Smith, Kenya Daily Nation US correspondent:

"Your Nation piece "Obama Easy Target" (Feb 5th 2010) sounds like a Democrat trying to be neutral and explain the collapse of Obama the way Obama tried to explain those who bitterly clung to "guns and bibles" when he addressed the bewilderati of San Francisco's Nob Hill in 2008: a form of primitive being to be condescended towards.

You describe the protests that emerged over summer as "orchestrated by conservatives or special interests". The "Tea Party" movement and angry town halls were essentially spontaneous, not orchestrated. You "get" this process about as well as Obama "got" the Scott Brown phenom when he said "Anyone can buy a pick-up truck, right?".

Obama thought Brown must have bought his battered truck as a political gimmick, because to a professional politician like him, why else? Brown had owned it for years.

You did not tell your Kenya readers America is a centre-right country, not a centre-left one. In voting for Obama, Americans expected to get a new face who was a centrist who would clean up Washington - not someone who would throw legislation to leftists Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to draft and also show himself, as many think, naive and weak in foreign affairs.

Obama inherited a mess from the Bush administration - indeed the accumulative messes of many previous admins coming home to roost, but the American people perceive his as having recklessly plunged into unprecedented spending sprees.

The question will eternally echo. Why did Obama, on a wave of immense personal goodwill and prestige, so squander his first year by not initiating his own reforms, but leaving it to the hyenas in Congress - whose ratings among the US people are far less than Bush ever plumbed?

Why did Obama play "double or quits" on health care when it became obvious the majority of Americans did not support it?

For what reasons did Obama insist on trying Kahlid Sheik Mohammed in New York and attempt to transfer Guantanamo detainees to US soil when both of which would infuriate most Americans?

If George W. Bush left most Americans angry at a 256 billion $ deficit, what made Obama imagine they would swallow one that will run as high as 10 trillion by the end of his second term?

As climate change", an increasingly debased science, ranks just dead last amongst most Americans concerns, why did Obama try to initiate costly "cap and trade" legislation?

Americans have shown over and again in their history that the really do not trust or want "Big Government" in their lives, starting with 1776. The American system is corrupted and bankrupted by both parties indeed - so why would Obama want to unleash massive government take-overs of huge sections of the US economy?

Obama is also suffering rebound from the almost complete abrogation of journalistic duty by swathes of the US media . They resolutely refused to examine the background of both Presidential candidates and gave Obama an unprecedented media free-ride, leaving the American people to discover they had voted "American Idol"-like for an unknown and inexperienced junior Senator whose major ability seems to be to speak well.

Alexis de Tocqueville said around 1823 that "the American Republic will endure until Congress devises a way to bribe the electorate with their own money". True words but the American people may be wiser than their rulers - it's just that nearly all Democrats and many Republicans simply refuse to believe this. "

Obama Gets It Right, For Once

Credit to him, Obama's latest banking proposals to de-link commercial banks from investment banking is a step in the right direction and very much needed. The facts are that commercial banks are guaranteed with taxpayer's money - the FIDC deposit insurance being amongst the primary source of funds. But because banks have been allowed since the repeal of Glass-Steagall to take commercial deposits and speculate in investment banking, which they co-owned, they are effectivly paying themselves enormous bonuses on the taxpayer's dime.

Even the most ardent centre-right or libertrian thinker is aghast at the cluture of bonuses amongst bankers. Obama's porposals are a step in the right direction and should attract widespread bi-partisan support. lets hope Republicans do not oppose for oppositions sake.

Stocks have slid upon the news and we might end up with smaller banks if the reforms go through Congress, a big if, but they are absolutly needed in one form or another.

William Shakespere, Climate Denier

"The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists", as one UK article is headlined..

Even members of the UN's notorious IPCC are jumping ship in inceasing numbers. The politicized "science" of the Warmists is dying. Copenhagen was the watch. Of course governments are sticking to the party line - think of all those taxes and controls they will have to rescind.

Expect the Obamessiah to do the same, How will Denocrats set up a new vote delivering machine based around "Cap and Trade" patronage (Better known as Cap n' Tax) if their main warmist narrative vanishes?. Warmism was nothing if not a neo-Marxist powergrab that stimulated the all left's political erogenous zones.

For the moment the Warmist hoax is fading. The world citizenry, led by the Anglophone common law nations (USA, Britain, India, Canada, Australia etc) etc have forefronted their citizenry in rejecting the claims of cranks and frauds. The deep roots of individual liberty in common law countries have made them more deaf to the siren songs of the politicians.

Europeans, in contrast, with their historical acceptance of tyranny, have bought the warmism, but even their faith is fading.

The Warmists' computer models are incapable of predicting the weather a year from now, yet claim to predict it 100 years hence. The citizens have also seen off the reptilian polticians of the left who would seek to strait-jacket our lives into some weird asylum of "ethical green living" that gives them complete power over us.

Blow blow, thou winter wind. Thou were not so unkind as a poltician's powerlust.

Cheers for Chile

The good news for countries that enthusiatically embrace capitalism,free markets and globalization is that Chile today became the first South American country ever to move out of the developing world as the OECD has noted in granting it membership.

Not Cuba, or Venezuela nor the powerhouses of Brazil and Argentina but Chile, a country that was saved by the reviled General Pinochet in the 1980's from becoming a communist banana republic under the Marxist Salvador Allende. One shudders to think what Chile would look like economically today if he had been allowed to carry out the "revolution" he planned before it was stopped by force, which was the only argument Allende understood. Pinochet was a reluctant democrat and a flawed leader, but he did allow liberal capitalism to take root and once Allende and his communist thugs were swept aside, Chile rapidly began decades of expansion that has culminated in the historic move into the OECD.

Chile had a long democratic tradition which Allende tried to overthrow. Once this was restored after years of Pinochet's iron control, social democrats, rightists and leftists alike have rekindled this tradition and kept to the liberal market policies that Pinochet approved of.

These facts have not stopped Allende from being turned into a leftist hero-martyr and Pinochet into a fascist villain.The more successful Chile became, the more rabied the attacks on Pinochetl ending in his farcical arrest in Europe long after he retired. Tthe longer view of history may well reverse these positions.

The Bright Line That Blinds

Writing in the NYT Op-Ed section, guest contributor Michael Kinsley gives valuable insight into the garbled reasoning behind attempts to downgrade the War on Terror into a police action against criminls. Opines Kinsley:

We have nothing to be ashamed of, little to fear and much to be proud of in choosing to err on the side of treating captured foreign terrorists as we would treat any upstanding American who tried to blow up an airplane full of people.

There we have it. The foreign terrorists in wartime is the same as an American citizen terrorist who is oddly "upstanding" unless, like Timothy McVeigh, he is thankfully strapped to a lethal gurney.

Showing an ability to mush issues into a kind of bland ideological porridge, Kinsey confusingly declares

...why not draw the line to put an Abdulmutallab or a Shaikh Mohammed on the “war” side and treat him as an enemy combatant?....... recognize that the national border is a “bright line,” and if people captured within the United States are going to be treated as if they were somewhere else — provided that they are certified terrorists — things are going to get complicated quickly.

They certainly are complicated, Michael. Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured in Pakistan, not the USA. the only reason he is crossing the "bright line" into the USA is that Eric Holder and Obama have decided that Khalid is legally no different to say, John Gotti.

According to Kinsley's reasoning, the German saboteurs landed by submarine and caught on US soil in World War Two should have been lawyered up and given cit zens rights because they were caught on our side of the "bright line". Instead Rooseveldt ordered military tribunals that led to swift executions.

Kinsley perhaps has never read the US Constitution, despite having a law degree. Otherwise he could not fail to note it makes crystal clear that in times of war and even great public danger, military justice and tribunals that dispense with many protections afforded to US citizens are acceptable options. Indeed the Constitution only recognises two forms of justice in the USA. That of full rights for citizens and limited rights in military tribunals. It is Democrats who wish to triangulate this crystal clear position with a new layer of civilian-cum-wartime-semi-Mirandized-almost combatant-but-also-a-felon legal gibberish.

Damming arguments from a riposte to Kinsley in the National Review point out that combatants are launched by enemies of the state who also have external networks or even foreign powers either overtly or otherwise working with them, something that almost never occurs in simple criminality and which confounds normal law enforecement techniques.

We have a great deal to fear from the likes of Michael Kinsey and nothing to be proud of in the leftists' unremitting lawfare to overturn more than 200 years of US wartime justice. They are twisting what the Constitution intended, and until the ridiculous Boumedianne decision of 2009 and the vicious legal attacks on Bush's tribunal policies, had followed.

Still, this same confusion can be seen in the leftist approach to criminal justice in the USA itself. Usually, they blur the victim and the accused. Often the victim becomes the accused, an the perpetrator, like poor stressed Maj. Hasan at Ft. Hood, held up for examination as an object of pity and sympathy.

The ideas of the Robert Kinsey types, compared to the word of our Founding Fathers, make me worried.

Another Brick in The Warm

The problem with debating Warmers, those who believe in climate change caused by human industrial activity, is that for many it's a matter of faith and not of reason.

Indeed, getting them to agree to examine contrary evidence is like trying to discuss vegetables with a hyena.

So here is scant hope any will bother with the very interesting news that world CO2 atmospheric levels may have not risen at all in 100 years according to University of Bristol research summarized in Science Daily.

Only faith can explain why so many sensational untruths are clung to ( polar bears are decreasing, sea levels are quickly rising, the world is getting hotter every decade, the UN's laughable 'hockey stick' climate graph is true and so on).

A religious type of belief can acxcount for why so many otherwise intelligent, and often well-intentioned people fail to grasp that there is an inherent difference between alleged global warming and pullution or envirnnmental issues. It is possible to bve dedicated to the latter issues without embracing the former.

To point out that polar bears are healthily increasing, that there has been no overall global temperature rise for a decade, that the sea rise of about 3mm a year is in line with historical levels and that the 'hockey stick' was devastatingly demolished by experts in statistics years ago, brings to their faces a moment of puzzlement.

However this quizzical glance is the look of people who are questioning why you are an obvious nut case - not the expression of those hoping to chew over new facts.

Climategate, the emerging fact that the notorious UN Intergovernmental report was censored and doctored between the scientifically agreed draft and the final published document or evn the delightful debacle of Copenhagen 2009 will do nothing to dent the faith of the Warmers.

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Sex,Lies and Climategate

When Jon Stewart of Comedy Central gets involved, you know things are starting to unravel. Despite efforts by the unofficial party organs CBS, NBC and ABC together with the New York Times, BBC and Washington Post to ignore or bury "Climategate", Stewart, an ardent leftist and (former?) warming believer, has joined in mocking the "science" and the attempted cover-ups.

Stewart, as a comedian, is more respected (and watched) than our so-called "serious" media who are nothing more than operatives for the centre-left and long ago ceased to be news organizations, save for the Pravda type. The American people know who the real jokers are.

But how do climate alarmists and professional global warming "experts" react to the explosive posting on the internet of clear evidence of collusion, data twisting and fraud by the world's leading climnate alarmists, stretching back a decade or more in "Climategate"?

We are also talking in the UK case of possible criminal activity in scientists destroying information that was requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

The University of East Anglia's "data" (all the source data has been destroyed, leaving only the "massaged" U of EA findings - how convenient) was the chief source of the nototrious UN IGPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that is universally relied upon by global warming alarmists to try and convice you, Mr. Working Taxpayer, to cough up trillions upon trillions of dollars and accept a lowered life standard for yourself and your children. All the while making global climate alarmists and allied politicians very much richer and more powerful.

Stephen Jones, one of the world's top "alarmists" and head of the University of East Anglias Climate Research Unit has honourably resigned.

Dr.Rajendra Pachauri, the promoted railway enginner who runs the massive UN IGPCC ( for those who do not know the UN, putting a railway enginner in charge of climate matters is far from abnormal) the real problem, he explained, was that climate change alarmists have to be more "discreet" in future with their emails and comments. He wondered why those who hacked the U of EA emails and posted them on the internet might not be criminally investigated.

Dr. Pachauri famously wanted  to ban ice in drinks to help stop global warming.

Over in the USA, Senator Barabara Boxer from California,the only place on earth where environmentalism is a religion and economics a superstition, has called for "ciminal probes" against the hackers who have exposed the lies, fraud and collusion by the world's top warming alarmists.

Unbelievable - those who have exposed the huge scientific fraud with perhaps the biggest implications for the world's economy of all time, should face criminal probes. The lying scientists who broke the law destroying data should be more "discreet". That tells you more that enough of what you need to know about the entire global warming "industry",

Notes On Global Warming

The following headline gave me the muse to jot these notes down to a dear friend and ardent global warming believer. He wonders why the Arctic is breaking up.

'Germany breaks record for 'lowest ever October temperature'

Of course that the Arctic has less ice could be due to global temperature distribution i.e. some colder parts getting warmer, some warmer parts getting colder etc.

In the Antarctic for example, one side of the continent has ice increasing, whilst the other side has ice shelves breaking up. However, there is no difference at all in the total quantity of ice

Or it could be, as in the Medieval Warming, we are going through a post-Little Ice Age uptake. There is evidence of that.

The Arctic cannot be ice free in 2010 be due to global warming. There is no global warming in the past decade. The sum total of world temperatures has stayed the same. Some areas have decreased. Some have increased. That is empirical data.

All the global warming scenario is computer modeling on future projections or past interpretations, lacking more than fragmentary data. For example, scientists can see via Greenland ice drilling exactly when the world heated and cooled ( often rapidly) back to 100,000 years. But they have no incontrovertible data of to why - we can be sure man made CO2 cannot be the cause.

In the case of these global cooling and heating cycles, the temperatures of the oceans and especially the distribution of deep hot and cold spots that shift ( and many of which are barely discovered) may turn out to be the greater influence.. It could be solar related. There are numerous hypotheses. Politicians will go for the one that gives them power,money and control, via fear.

There is no status quo of the world's climate, never has been and never will be.

To imagine that the pet scientists (90% of whose hypotheses are traditionally wrong and discarded or superseded) of politicians, who wish to tax and control us, and a United Nations desperate for a source of legitimacy for transnational power grabs, have the single answer is laughable. Rather than sleep walk to disaster as you put it by ignoring global warming, I would call it "nose led".

People are blown up every day, but politicians tell us there is no real Muslim terrorists. We are meant to believe them. The world gets cooler and warmer every age naturally or mysteriously, and we are not meant to believe it.That's not very relevant but I would imagine despotism, wars, bad governance, mad economics and mass cultural shifts will be far more responsible for people dying in the next hundred years that 2.5 degrees Celsius. Why can we imagine the Israelis surviving global warming easily, but not the Arabs? The answer lies outside the clouds and winds, my friend.

We should accept global warming (but not pollution or no dirty energy replacements) as basically inevitable and divert the many trillions of dollars (one estimate, the cost of both World Wars x 5) that are going to be vainly and corruptly spent by politicians trying to avert the unavoidable, into directly improving the lives, defenses and education of the poor - who will then take care of their own warming in their own national consensuses.

Ping Pyong Diplomacy

Today's announcement by Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetungula of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Kenya and North Korea, via a branch of the Norks full diplomatic mission in Kampala has raised a few eyebrows.

The Norks "embassies" are famous for dealing in drugs ( where they will find many of Kenya's elite to network with) and illicit wildlife products - hardly the stuff to put us on the tourist recovery path. Indeed the North Koreans routinely fund their foreign missions via crime, using the diplomatic pouch as their bagman.

Wetungula mentioned that Kenya was interested in nuclear power for electricity generation but could get that from a number of nations, not just North Korea. That would be a strange place to look for electricity technology since nearly all of the moonbat nation's nuclear effort goes into bombs and proliferation.

The Norks are flat broke and have nothing to sell Kenya. We have nothing they want either: our movie industry is not of the quality to attract Kim Il Jong. We lack uranium. Norks do not eat white maize and we are in a famine ourselves. Our local cognac is so vile it cannot be used for veterinary surgical spirit- so what gives?

As with recent visits to Kenya of similar thugs like Ahmoudinejead and a recent story that Kenya may get a "special" crude oil deal from Hugo Chavez, the North Korean announcement is perhaps a sign of the desperation felt by Kenyan leaders under extreme Western pressure over reform, crimes against humanity and an inability to stop stealing voter's and donor's money.

The Kenyan leadership perhaps hopes to fire a few shots across Western bows with a "look, we can be nice to your nasties" brand of diplomacy. Knowing that Iran, Venezuela and North Korea can do nothing at all for Kenya except cause it to garner isolation, it is likely the Western powers are not disturbed by Wetungula's bluster.

Obama, Health Care & Lies.

This BBC story by US Editor Mark Mardell is seriously uninformative. Mardell tells us thatRep. Joe Wilson (R) Wilson is a racist, that criticism of Obama is likewise and on the substantive issue of health care for illegal aliens, that "all experts" agree it is impossible in Obama's legislation.

It is true that Rep. Joe Wildon broke parliamentary decorum by shouting "You Lie" during an Obama health care speech but Mr. Mardell could have told us such indecorous behavior, including prolonged jeering, shouting and cat calling, happened from many Democratic party representatives when former President Bush spoke to Congress.

Secondly, Mr. Mardell picks up the "charge" (with no evidence), that Rep. Wilson can only have made such an outburst due to “racism”. Indeed Mardell highlights "mutterings" that are now "out there in the open" - opposition to President Obama at meetings and rallies across America is motivated by "racism". How convenient for Obama -to criticize his policy is to be racist. So we can ignore everything the protesters actually say, and get on with agreeing with his policies.

This is the exact line the Democrats are pushing in news dumps and PR releases - a cub reporter with a news nose might have noted accusations, getting shriller each day Obama sinks lower in polls, deflect attention away from issues. Vague charges of "racism" stifle debate – which helps the Democrats. That's what they want. Mr. Mardell delivers for them - but not to his readers.

The attribution of these "out in the open mutterings"? That vigorous endorser in 2007/8 of then Senator President Obama's campaign, The Washington Post.

Mr. Mardell says the Democratic congressmen vigorously voted to condemn Rep. Joe Wilson (R) for his t two word outburst, but not their refusal to censor Rep. Pete Stark (D) who called Bush a liar during a congressional speech , adding that Bush was sending US soldiers "to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Lastly, the story ends by stating (unnamed) experts “all (my emphasis) concur that under the terms of Mr Obama's reform package undocumented immigrants would not be able to claim health care subsidies." Oh, that’s the end of that then.

One must conclude then Rep. Joe Wilson (R) is a clueless, manner-less, racist boor who unprecedentedly interrupted a President speaking to Congress. And this on an issue where all the 'experts’ agree Wilson is utterly wrong and Obama wholly right.

Yet Mr. Mardell does not tell us Democratic party drafters rejected the Republican "Heller amendment" to enforce non-provision of Obama health care to illegal immigrants, via the simple use of mandatory verification as already exists for many federal programs -the Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE)/ Mr. Mardell’s “experts” strangely can’t Google.

It is plain to any fool that without verification, illegals will obtain citizen-funded "free" insurance or health care without limit.

Joe Wilson may be a boor and President Obama may be a liar. We will never know from reading Mr. Mardell. He shields us from knowing the true issues or facts. His story ends up another page in the daily media praise-singing litany for Mr. Obama. The Ministry of Truth needs journalists. Mr. Mardell should apply.

The Coackroaches and the Flashlight

Kofi Annan has been characterized as a well meaning but weak Unocrat. This has been more so since he brokered the 2008 Kenyan election accord that restored peace amongst ethnic riots and tribal cleansing that almost plunged the country into civil war. Annan was presented in mid-2008 with the Waki Report into the tribal violence that has never been made public and certainly implicates some of Kenya's highest politicians.

Part of the peace deal was that unless Kenya successfully prosecuted in open court the named suspects, Annan would hand the list over to the International Criminal Court for action. It seemed he never would as Annan patiently accepted one Kenyan delaying tactic after another. Naturally neither President Kibaki nor Prime Minister Odinga ever had, along with the entire ruling elite, the least intention of prosecuting anyone, as both their political parties' high rankers are undoubtedly involved.

 Absurd delaying suggestions emanated from Kenya's rulers over the last year, as they failed again and again to set up any prosecution mechanism. The best was a suggestion to Annan that the suspects would never be publicly named, even if prosecuted, until proven guilty in secret courts - an event as likely as wildebeeste growing wings. The Kenyan elite bickered, prevaricated, visited Annan over and again in Geneva and tried every trick in their ingenious battery of cover up, learned through 40 years of post-independence impunity.. All to no avail.

 Yesterday, Annan dropped a bombshell. In a letter made public, he literally told Kenya's ethnic leaders he was "calling your bluff" and handed the envelope containing the Waki list of names to the ICC's chief prosecutor. The absolute panic in the ranks of the Kenyan political elite has since been akin to the scurry of cockroaches when the lights are switched on.

Torture,Bush and the Facts

It turns out that thousands of US military members and NATO soldiers have been routinely waterboarded, kept in cramped conditions, subjected to sleep deprivation, kept in the cold, played loud music to endlessly and every other technique now widely being trumpeted in the world media is "torture", admittedly inflicted during Bush's time on some top Al Qaeda members, like 911 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, by the CIA in 2001-2006.


The reason is that all the methods that are so-called "Bush torture" are actually used to train US and NATO troops to resist interrogation when captured.

In light of these facts, should NATO and US officers, including many generals and others, who devised and ordered waterboarding and more of their own soldiers for the past 30 years, be investigated and tried for "torture"?

After all, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. And if they should not be investigated, why should Bush or any of his officials be subject to retrospective prosecution for the same techniques applied to confessed terrorists and mass murderers- including those who killed the Kenyans in the 1998 embassy bombings?

If US and NATO officers are not to be prosecuted en masse for "waterborading", "sleep depriving" and so on thousands of troops, it can only be because (a) we would hold such techniques are not "real" torture but merely harshness (b) the techniques the US used on it's own soldiers really are torture, but were used in training for a "good end" -- i.e.not to cause pain for pain's sake.

If we argue (a): the techniques are "harmless" or merely "harsh interrogation", why is it called 'torture' when US citizens do it to non-Americans but not, as in the NATO/US Army training, to each other?

If hold to (b): why was the CIA "waterboarding" of Sheik Khalid Mohammed, which had him confessing to a plot to bomb Los Angeles and the arrest of the attack cell, not a "good end"?

Welcome To Hotel California

It sure is an odd place. Miss California, who was leading the Miss USA contest, lost last night because of a "controversial" (according to all the big media), "shocking" etc answer to a question. A pro gay activist and judge asked her what she thought of gay marriage. Her dignified answer was that some people believed in same sex and others opposite sex and whilst she meant no offense she believed in opposite sex marriage and that is how she was raised.

The gay activist judge later called her a "bitch" and a "c*nt" in public and said her remark cost her the title.

The fact that a judge at the contest is not considered "controversial" for ruining Miss California's title chances due to her polite remarks and calling her a "bitch" and "c*nt" after the TV programme is interesting.

The eventual winner was Miss North Carolina who was asked about the US financial bailouts for her question. She said she was opposed to the bailouts and the Federal and Presidential policy of bailout financially, even in a time of crisis. The media neither called this "controversial" nor remarked at all on it.

Most voters in California just rejected gay marriage in a referendum, most Americans do not approve it and neither (piblicly) does President Obama. Wheras most Americans voted for Democrats in the last election and for President Obama and he, the Senate and Congress have called financial bailouts vital and neccessery.

When you can figure out what Miss California said about gay marriage that was "controversial" or "shocking" and what Miss North Carolina said about bailouts that the media found non-controversial, you may figure out the immense bitterness social conservatives or the religious feel towards the big media in the USA that supposedly represents "unbiased" news.

America, Through A Glass, Darkly

Peggy Noonan's commentary in the Wall Street Journal on Obama's Domestic Agenda provoked much opinion and my reply was published in the Opinion letters, where it received many positive comments. Noonan seems surprised at the 'grandiosity' of what Obama is undertaking. Herewith what I wrote:


"The directions Obama's domestic agenda takes, and his grandiose ideas to fundamentally alter the American relation between citizen and government from a quasi-libertarian ( "classical liberal") to a European ( "social democratic") one, have always been crystal clear for many years to anyone who bothered to look beyond the celebrity style superficiality of his attractive persona. Or to those who delved behind Obama's disarming happy-talk during the primary and presidential campaigns.

Obama-ism is a simple three legged stool comprising Alternative Energy, Education and Healthcare. There is nothing to suggest he will abandon the first, even were a new Ice Age to emerge (as it might) because it is the revenue generator. By loading America with the omniscient tax-and-expense of costly, unproven alternative energy, Obama pays in large measure for the other two prongs of his plan.

The most basic lesson of economics, that it is wasteful to subsidize one thing to be cheap by making another dear, is something Obama, an otherwise attractive and clever man, shows no sign of swallowing.

In all of this new American social construction, the government will be the lumber provider, carpenter, store owner and salesman. In other words, energy, education and health are to be nationalized, in essence and de facto. That none of this is shown to work any better, or indeed worse in the long run, than risk-reward private enterprise seems not important to Obama.

For Obama is a social egalitarian. and was largely raised in the international anti-American gruppenthink of the extpatriate intelligensia. The collective "fairness" to all Americans (perhaps even non-Americans) and of groups and classes of citizens real of contrived, is more important to him than the classical rights of individuals - rights upon which the nation was found ed.

Did the American people want this? Probably not - but with a supine applauding media and a mood of economic despair to exploit, there is every chance they will get it. Obama seems unworried that his grandiosity will saddle Americans with more public debt in a few years than the Republic has accumulated since 1776. To be indebted to your government to Obama's mind one begins to darkly glimpse, is perhaps desirable.

That the opposite intention was in the minds of those who framed the Constitution is an inconvenience not to be discussed.

To the obvious calculation that Medicare and Social Security will be bankrupted in Obama's daughters prime or there will no money left to fund the Healthcare and Federal education without raising taxation to European levels, the President seems equally unruffled.

For Euramericans like Obama, the new social contract is basically this: the private person must be indebted, financially and morally, to government. Government's prime obligation in return to the citizen is continued displays of public virtue via engineered "egalitarianism". The debt is real, the egalitarianism is fake - but the public, like in 1984, never figure out this simple trick. Thus the Democrats are fated to slowly become Jacobins - indeed some already are.

Though China will be the world Superpower perhaps in 2050, as predicted, Obama-ism merely hastens America along the declining European path of "soft" power, with soft citizens taking neither risk nor reward nor responsibility.

It is hardly what the Founding fathers had in mind, but with a citizenry addicted to easiness and pleasure, all of de Tocqueville's warnings about the consequences of "beneficial" government may sadly come true."

Pissing About with Pirates

Despite hugely increased naval presence in the area, the Somali pirates continue to make a mockery of the world's sea powers as see today's BBC story.

Nothing will change until Obama takes the very unlikely step ( for him) of doing a "Barbary pirates" on the Somalis. In US history, when north African pirates caused havoc to US and other shipping around 1820, the navy invaded and sacked the home ports of the pirates. That shut down the notorious Barbary pirates pretty quick and one suspects it is the only medicine the Somalis will ever understand. Besides, it is the only sound military tactic - hit them at home.

Somali pirates seize more vessels

More than 130 pirates attacks were reported in 2008

Somali pirates have seized a British-owned cargo ship and a Taiwanese ship, maritime officials say, after capturing three other vessels over the weekend.

Obama the Obsequious

Are the people surrounding President Obama clueless, or could -not -care -less? Who is in charge of Obama's protocol? It would seem on his recent trip to Europe, Obama became the first American President in memory to bow to a potentate ,when he stooped before the autocrat, King Abdalla, despite it is a rigorous rule of protocol that American Presidents never bow to Kings or Queens. When Obama met the far more important Queen Elizabeth, a democratic monarch, he did not bow.

Obama never missed an opportunity to "apologize" for America's imagined wrongs as a preface to nearly every meeting he had on his recent European trip. In this he is following up his first TV interview after the Presidency, when he apologized to the Iranian theocrats on Al-Arabiya TV. Even when proposing the elimination of nuclear weapons in Prague, Obama had to apologize for America being the "only nation to have used" them, something which imposed a "moral duty "on the USA to lead in their elimination, he said.

 Did he know the historical facts? True, the US used two atomic bombs to end Word War 2. Yet recent historical research shows that Japan had prepared submarines with aircraft on board, and was awaiting from Germany the clandestine transfer of nuclear material (the Nazi submarine carrying it surrendered en route to Japan in May, but the Japanese never knew this) so that a "dirty bomb" attack could be conducted on San Francisco. The proposed date was just a few days after Japan actually surrendered!

The US and allies never knew the correct position of Germany's wartime research into atomic weapons, which Hitler fully intended to acquire. Therefore, as they saw it, they were in a deadly race, with the fate of the world in the balance - as indeed it was. Hitler already possessed in the V2 the means to deliver atomic weapons on London, and was working on the V4 ICBM which could have reached New York - again with a "dirty bomb" plutonium weapon. Had the war run another 6 months, the outcome might well have been ghastly.

The USA grasped the full need to develop atomic weapons rapidly in the face of deadly enemies who were looking for the same, and to use them to end the war with far less human loss of life (on both sides) than a mainland invasion of Japan. This also had the intended purpose of halting Stalin from annexing much of Northern China and possible Stalinist ground offensives in Europe. Obama has nothing to apologize for and his obsequiousness is unbecoming. However, reading his books, it is obvious Obama was an early and strong believer in 'conventional wisdom' anti-Americanism and blaming many of the ills of the world on the US.  

Barack's Baptism

Today Barack Obama is going to receive his first full secret briefing from US intelligence agencies on the threats his administration faces, as ABC News notes here. Many have said that within days of these briefings, past Presidents seem to have aged quite a few years.

President Obama is going to painfully discover that no matter even when the US has been right,just,fair and generous, there still exist a myriad of vicious enemies of freedom trying to destroy the USA.

The reaction from Iran today to his TV offer of "extending a hand" was calumny, bile, anger and insolent demands the US "apologise" for "past crimes", just one component of the hatred some regimes perpetually have for the USA - which Obama will find all his sweet words and charisma cannot change.

Obama will wake up to the painful realization that the USA cannot just be "liked", it also needs to be respected and fear of power is one ( vital) component of respect that he has never acknowledged.

Speak softly and carry a big stick, Barry as a former US President once said. You are going need it sooner rather than later.

After this briefing, Obama will change a lot of his mind about George W Bush, if he acknowledges it or not.

Summing It Up

I think summarizes the USA for the next four years better than one thousand words might!

Palin's Troopergate!

The just released Alaska probe is only damaging to Sarah Palin because the media, including the BBC, have been waiting to spin it against her. The BBC quotes investigator Blanchflower only in part, the first of only two "findings", one of which is negative to Palin and contradicted in the second.

Why was their report not headed "Palin acted lawfully and properly", instead of "Palin abused power"?

Blanchflower disagrees with himself in the same report, second finding, quote:

"Governor Palin's firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads."

How can "lawful and proper" suddenly become "abuse"? Is it not Mr. Blanchflower that needs investigating over such contradiction?

The BBC has also chosen not to mention the investigation is not a criminal one, and has been conducted by partisan Alaskan Democrats who appointed Blanhflower and has as much low weight as any other inter party mud-slinging. Instead it will be spun into Watergate Two by the media.

If the BBC had read any of the report, how could they so fail to report the glaring contradiction of the second finding? Perhaps they will read it now.

And why is the BBC calling this item "Troopergate"? That itself is a spin. The trooper Palin wanted dismissed admitted he taser gunned her own 10 year old nephew, which was cruel, dangerous, even potentially fatal and could be prima facie child abuse, admitted he poached wildlife but denied being drunk on patrol or threatening to kill members of the Palin family. Quite a list.

How about "Tasergate", or would that raise questions that would not lead to anti-Palin conclusions?

Why I Hate Sarah Palin!

The second debate was awful and boring. I wonder who will watch the next? Obama remains a person I would like to believe in but with under two years in the Senate and a very nondescript (even buried) record, I tend to think of him as a celebrity media candidate with charm, looks , a good brain, fine articulation and great oratory...but as to who he really is and represents?

He remains a cypher , even to the British Ambassador in the US who briefed Gordon Brown. Unless you never grew up from 60's, Obama looks like a weirdly contemporary retro-radical, pushing for Main Street. I wish it were not so, for the guy has true talent aplenty to burn.

As the most left wing US candidate of all time ( not that this does not please some) I cannot see how the massive expansion of government/spending/entitlement his kind always invokes would help the USA, broke as it is, ..but politics goes in cycles and the Dems certainly have the pendulum.

Thatcher/Reagans's idea to deregulate prudently so the deserving and thrifty could better become house owners degenerated 10 years on into cajoling the undeserving, indigent and un-creditworthy into bad loans . Greed on Wall Street? Politicians passing the buck..after all this was not triggered by anything other than the artificial housing boom of the past 15+ years, fed by "politically correct credit" which Fannie and Freddie re-cycled in an act of fiscal criminality, all over the world. It was a scam, a house of cards - nothing more or less.

Is it reasonable that bankers, who depend upon their jobs by not losing money, would give away absurd loans from "greed"? Why were bankers in our father's time not similarly "greedy"? Or were they allowed back then to judge their loans on their merits? Those who swallow the "greed" red herring will get choked by the nasty bones that are the facts. For it is not Lehman Bros etc ( greedy though some in these businesses were) who caused this crisis. It was improvident lending, sanctioned by Congress and encouraged by them since 1977 but paced faster every year.

We are not in a "corporate salary crisis" or a "commodities boom crisis" and the only "greed crisis" exists in the minds of Congress trying to palm off their duplicity on frightened voters - the mother and father of our problem is real estate and "subprime" at that, and so it is named.

Of course, lending to everyone for political reasons ("affirmative lending" would be a good term) put huge pressure on the natural supply and demand chain of housing, forcing up prices even more in the 90's and current decade. In a phrase, it was a pyramid scheme that would collapse ( as was warned by some fiscal conservatives many times).

After a period of anti-American gloating so typical of the superior moral beings that are Europeans, I see the chickens have come home to roost there too.

Again, the problem is not one of deregulation but too much regulation in the critical housing market, replacing the decentralised prudence and decisions of the traditional banker with a command-style regulation from politicians/pressure groups to loan to any and everybody.

This was accompanied ,at least in the USA, by actual fines and penalties, all in the name of egalitarianism and helping social mascot groups ( the unemployed, illegal immigrants, racial minorities regardless of median income, drug addicts, people with bad credit rating, trailer trash etc). Why? It seems charitable on the surface, but in the end it was to buy votes. In the 1990's the process accelerated.

Indeed, by 2005 a full 19% of the massive loans backed by Fannie and Freddie that year were "subprime" ( i.e. loans a banker would not make without threats or cover from politicians, or both). Hence the absurdity of random tele-callers offering loans to every bum in Europe and the USA, to fullfil, like little communist workers, their "quotas" of "non-discriminatory" loans to please Congress and courts. I do not say there were no other factors to the current crisis outside of the sub-prime, and one cannot blame the uncreditworthy for taking the chance for what they saw as a better life. Yet only the sub-prime problem could have triggered the uncontrollable meltdown that started some months ago, as house prices steadily dropped for the first time in over a decade.

It was a huge bonfire of the vanities in which we are all burned. I agree with the 60% of Americans who would, as polled yesterday, not return a single member of Congress to power in Nov if it was their call. But it's not. Congress has rigged their choices as well.

All of this is why I hate Sarah Palin. She was in Alaska, has never spent a minute in Congress and is the only one of the four candidates who has zero blame for this mess. Indeed, while Washington was bankrupting the USA, she put Alaska into the black and got an 85% approval rating from both parties. Bi-partisanship in action, I suppose. She is the only candidate to have never accepted a dime from Fannie and Freddie. Obama grabbed $125 thousand and even McCain took a modest $15 thou. Sarah is the dimwit serial -breeding hick who is not fit to lead America, or so I am told.

Sarah Palin, Warmonger!

ABC's notoriously condescending interview with Sarah Palin by the Charlie Gibson has fuelled immense media spin when Palin pointed out, quite correctly, that were a country a member of NATO and it was invaded by Russia, the treaty obligates members to defend it, even if that "perhaps" meant war. This is the exact nature of the NATO treaty, but ABC would never have you think that.

Of course the interview was censored by ABC who cut important portions from it. The entire unedited interview is now available here. Listen to what ABC cut out of the interview, and make your own mind up about Palin-The-Warmonger the left and the Democrafts are frantically spinning this week:

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that’s a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

The treatment of Sarah Palin by the media must stand as the most despicable hit-job undertaken on a Presidential candidate by the mainstream media in recent times. The chances are it will backfire splendidly in their faces - the American people are not fools.

That Race Card - A Joker

Kelley’s misleading article “Race card could hurt Obama” and the comically vicious abuse of John McCain repeated by Mutuma Mathiu (Sunday Nation 14 Sept) go beyond the understandable desire most Kenyans have to see Obama win the US Presidency. The media have a duty to inform but the blatant partisanship on display is likely to leave Kenyans none the wiser if Obama, whose campaign is faltering, does not make it.

There is no evidence whatsoever that McCain’s campaign has made any derogatory remarks about Obama’s race. Like him or not, McCain is acknowledged even by his enemies as a true American hero, and a veteran maverick politician of considerable personal honour. Are all the voters in Central Province tribalists because they never voted for Mr. Odinga? Are the Germans racist because they have not a single non-white senior cabinet minister and the same for most Western European countries? Are the people of Nyanza ethnicists because they refused to vote for Mr. Kibaki? What nonsense – yet Americans are threatened with being branded “racists” if they do not elect Mr. Obama. This is plain anti-American bigotry, holding Americans to standards that are not even asked of others. Perhaps Mr. Kelley can inform us if Kenyans vote, on the whole, for tribal personalities or for parties?

Mr. Kelly was better served informing Kenyans of various facts of American politics: that the USA historically votes for Republican presidents most of the time, that there are almost equal numbers of Republican and Democrat party members who vote for their party above all, that Obama made a huge blunder in not taking Hilary Clinton as his running mate and that he is, however brilliant, fresh and eloquent , the most inexperienced person to ever run for US President, against a veteran Republican who has cunningly chosen a woman running mate.

If Kenyans do not vote based upon whoever Ugandans or Chinamen might like to see in State House, why should Americans take the least notice of what foreigners want? Obama is not standing for President of the World, which he might win – first he has to convince US voters.

Some 87% of US voters are non-black. Obama could never have got where he is on their paltry votes. True as Mr. Kelley states, only a few black Republicans attended their convention – most vote Democratic since 1945 and they are free to have that choice. President Bush put more blacks into positions of power than any President to date, as see Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, to name two. The idea the Republicans are against blacks is a smear.

As for Mr. Mathiu gleeful reprinting of McCain’s convention speech as basically being delivered by a senile, out of touch old fool addressing a despicable bunch of cronies ( who only happen to represent about 0% of American voters!) he should keep it up if he wants Obama to lose. Americans reading it might feel so insulted as to vote for McCain.