Kenya Airways and the US Elections.

On the face of it, there would seem to be zero relationship between the state of Kenya Airways and the US Presidential race in which the Democrats seem poised to mount a very serious challenge to regain the White House. In this contest, there is no doubt that 95% of black American votes will go to Barack Obama should he be nominated or around 85% to Hillary Clinton should she squeak by.

This has been the black American tradition since around 1940. Previously blacks, most especially those in the South, voted Republican. Most people would be surprised to know that Martin Luther King was one. That's because most people, and almost no Kenyans, have any idea that the Democratic Party in the USA was the party of the slave owners and fought for segregation after the US Civil War right up until the late 1960's. Kenyans are amazed to hear that the Democratic Party supported the Klu Klux Klan and denied blacks all voting rights for 100 years after the end of slavery. They would almost fall over if they learned all the southern state Governors in the time of the great 60's civil rights crusade were Democrats. Yet African-Americans now vote against the Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln?

The explanation is the Democratic Party was split between southern and northern in the USA with the south following a racist brand and the north a non-racial type of Democratic Party politics. Most blacks lived prior to 1940 in the south but the Great Depression forced millions to migrate to northern cities in the 1930's where the northern Democratic Party was in control gave them welfare and other forms of assistance they had never seen in their lives under the southern Democrats. Thus black Americans switched allegiance from the Republicans to the Democrats and have kept that allegiance, besides a rare 10% Republicans like King, ever since.

Voting for the Democratic Party has not helped black Americans so much as destroyed large parts of their former independence, thrift, marriage rates and hard work ethic. From the hard bigotry of the southern Democrat , black Americans ran into the soft bigotry of the northern variety. This "kindness" allows for very low expectations of black Americans. They were the subject of endless handouts in welfare, socially ruinous policies that paid them more for having illegitimate children than for marrying, and affirmative action that allowed blacks to have high placement for lower achievement than others academically and professionally.

All of these Democratic Party practises seem to be "progressive" but have a message: "You are not to be held to high expectations because of the past". This is not very far from a hidden message of, "You are not to be held to high expectations because you can't reach them" - hence the soft bigotry.

Politically the Democrats have used every trick in the book to block welfare reform, to prevent the faith based help of the older African-American society, to offer school choices to inner-city parents and replace affirmative discrimination with helping raise the educational standards of black Americans so they can be independent of welfare.

What has this got to do with Kenya Airways? Here is a black run company with under 0.05% expatriates in the work force that was privatised a decade ago when it was a shoddy Government run corporation. Consistently it beats the profit records and service standards of other African airlines, including South African Airlines which has a very high percentage of "white" employees. It is voted often as the best airline in Africa and as a preferred carrier to European ones like British Airways or Air France.

Kenya Airways works to the high expectations of strict international airline standards, not a low expectation that Africans need extra help or are otherwise incapable of running an airline. Instead of being in confrontation with non-African airlines the way black Americans are in confrontation with the entire range of Republican values (self reliance, non-affirmative, small government, anti-welfare), it partners with a major European airline and shares ideas and expertise.

This story is repeated with black Kenyan hotel management as another example. Our large tourism industry meets international standards, not the local standards of small hotels. Consequently, Kenyan hotel managers can be found in Dubai, Europe, Asia and America running hotels and often 5 star ones of exacting international quality. But what if promotions in our local hotel industry, which is the springboard to an international career, met only Kenyan standards which are lower than international?

It remains a tragedy for black Americans not that they should ever vote Republican en masse, but that the Democrats, while offering to help them have actually added to the low esteem and dependency culture that prevents many of them, racism aside, from prospering. If the split between the parties in the black American community was more 60/40 or 55/54 as in most other communities in the USA it would mean a healthy internal debate and dynamic between the endless dependency of affirmative welfare the Democrats offer and the non-affirmative conservative social and economic values of the Republicans.

That would be good for all of America and especially African-Americans. There seems to be no sign either Democratic candidate in 2008 is willing to shift an inch away from the failed past the way Kenyan Airways did.

Losing Her Grip

Harvard University has allowed sexual segregation at it's gymnasia and public Islamic calls to prayer from the Harvard Yard. Many are disturbed and some outraged, but there will always be blind liberals to spring to to the defense of conservative Islam. Thus Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post labours like Obama over Pastor Wright to make moral equivalence between her private Jewishness and someone else's hijab-wearing public segregation mentality. According to her, those objecting need to "get a grip".

She writes, "Muslim women who enroll at Harvard and turn up in hijabs at its gyms reflect a strand of Islam that society ought to encourage". What a breathtaking repudiation of the Enlightenment. Muslim women enrolling without hijabs, and showing they are the same as the rest of students not in nun's habits, 18th century Jewish Orthodox peasant woman's dresses, Hindu temple saris or chastity belts - all outward signs of a primacy of religion over secularism - would be an encouragement.

Just like Obama's glaring error in equating his grandmother's private worries to Pastor Wright's public utterances, she fails to see any difference between what all religious people may think in private (as she says, that their creed is the best or true one) and the preaching of Islam's "superiority" in a public place, Harvard Yard. Marcus cannot see her Orthodox relatives personal refusal to shake her female hand as not the same as a secular gymnasium being publicly out of bounds to males - or a loudspeaker blaring "Allah Akbar" in a public square.

It is Marcus that needs to "get a grip" and not those exercised by creeping religious separatism, since the steady advance of "soft" sharia in the form of seemingly innocent setting aside of sexually segregated gymnasia times, for example, is merely the precursor of the demands of hard sharia to come. This is the precise experience of Europe and having allowed the erosion of their values by giving in to "soft" sharia, they find themselves singularly unable to prevent the advance of the hard version. As the cretinous prelate Dr. Rowen Williams of Canterbury recently showed, they may have no alternative but to advance it.

Her article is one more example of the suicide of the Western intelligensia when, having so long fought for sexual equity (let us imagine the response if Christian men at Harvard had made the same request as the hijab-wearing women), they are quite willing to sacrifice the gains and benefits for a one sided "tolerance" of intolerant religious sexism.

Obama - Mixed Race, Mixed Message

In many ways Obama's big speech on race was courageous, novel and forthright in a way political speeches rarely are, but his failure to denounce Pastor Wright fully is revealing. The first time we have heard him talk openly about the white half of his family, he managed to throw his grandmother under the bus for her occasional remarks, whilst refusing the denounce Wright for his frequent ones. One has to imagine what would be the reaction were he a white person on the conservative side and running for President whilst taking spiritual nourishment from someone like Pastor Wright, with the racism reversed.

It strains credulity that Obama was for 20 years able to have the most intimate mentoring by Wright and not absorb his “Hate America” and the dollops of crypto-marxist “Black Liberation Theology” doled out at his church. Indeed, it could be thought that it is precisely this hard-left, hate America, down-with-capitalism and collectivist underpinning of Wright's version of religion that actually brought the atheistic, but highly political, Obama into church in the first place. Obama argues such talk is common in black American churches but if it is as wrong and totally repugnant as his speech claims, it seems not to have bothered him till the other day.

Of course, to get elected on a Democratic party ticket where there is a big black urban vote, as Obama had to in Illinois, you simply have to spout such anti-American, anti-white nonsense, or at least give it a nod and a wink or you won't get the vote. So is it cynical realism that made Obama join an "Afrocentric" church that spews race-hustler talk every Sunday? It would be a sad mark on his hopeful and fresh character were that the case.

Are Americans going to be happy with a President and First Lady who have lapped up angry anti-American and occasionally racist comments for years in the same pew? Michelle Obama, Ivy League super-grad on top tier salary and black, has never had anything to be proud of in America except Barry in 2008 - as she told the press recently. Not even the silver spoon she fed herself with to now.

It needs to be asked, if in his speech he says he “never” agreed with many of pastor Wright’s virulent, racist ideas ( one that white people “invented” HIV to decimate blacks - straight out the Nation of Islam hatebook), his visits to dictatorships like Libya with Farrakhan and other anti-American baggage, why then did he stay in the church for 20 years, bathe his children in Wright's ideas that says now he thinks totally wrong, yet not find another church?

He is trying to be too clever by half, damming his pastor with faint praise for the “causes” of Wrights rants, whilst offering collectivist and class solutions ( the “poor whites” bit of his speech) and all straight out of the soft-left catechism.

I admire his eloquence and a certain amount of courage he displays but dislike his faint heartedness and his sidestepping of an issue if he truly wants to get all Americans and not just the Democratic echo-chamber on his side, he will have to do better. Obama is an exceptional politician that only America, the sole truly revolutionary country that has ever worked, could produce. However America's success is due not to it's collectivism but it's individuality, nor to a statist political philosophy but the breath of freedom that inspired it's founders.

Nothing changes from Obama being an inexperienced but highly gifted young politician bathed and imbued with the standard ideas of the American left, ideas which only a fraction of Americans embrace. Republicans and independent voters want race to cease to be an issue and remind themselves that the Democratic party once stood for slave owners and Southern whites-only politicians and has always been the party to play the "race card". We shall see, perhaps Obama is America's destiny, in which case nothing can stand in his way but I remain unconvinced.

More Boomer BS Bites The Dust

My generation, the notorious, narcissistic and flaky "baby boomers" are of course the authors of beatnikery, hippiedom, Che Guevara worship, the 60's, the "New Left" and many other feats of social and intellectual tomfoolery. Never has a generation less deserved the fruits of the sacrifices of our predecessors, the magnificent "Greatest Generation" of World War II veterans. Another of our highlights was the "sexual revolution"...well, one can't say that one has been entirely dull now that I think of it.

However it's been a rigorous dogma of most boomers that somehow abortion is good for you and always preferable to the "unwanted" pregnancy. International folklore wisdom thinks this is nonsense, but what do those ignorant savages in the Third World know? Then there is this from The Times Online

"Women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they have abortions, a medical royal college has warned. The Royal College of Psychiatrists says women should not be allowed to have an abortion until they are counselled on the possible risk to their mental health.

This overturns the consensus that has stood for decades that the risk to mental health of continuing with an unwanted pregnancy outweighs the risks of living with the possible regrets of having an abortion....................

The controversy intensified earlier this year when an inquest in Cornwall heard that a talented artist hanged herself because she was overcome with grief after aborting her twins. Emma Beck, 30, left a note saying: “Living is hell for me. I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum. I want to be with my babies; they need me, no one else does.”

Kenya After The Clashes (1)

Donald Kipkorir’s articles are always entertaining and thought provoking but his “After the grand coalition” (March 1^st) makes an uneven case for fragmenting Kenya into tribal enclaves as an act of “positive ethnicity”. Such positivism can only come from that which unites people of all cultures and races, not that which narrowly divides them.

One of his proposed tribal regions is the Kalenjin-Maasai -Turkana , a putative “Nilotic” jimbo.* Yet these tribes have historical enmity. Do Sudanic origins long ago make them suddenly compatible? Why not include the Luo in this “Nilotic” micro-state? Other proposals, like for a coastal “Mji-Kenda” state ignore the complication with numerous WaSwahili and Kenyan Arabs, the former slave owners.

North Easterners do not consider themselves one people, despite joint Cushitic origins and languages. Would “forcing” them into an instant micro-state really be better than prodding them, with all other Kenyans, firmly in the direction of Kenya first, tribe second?

And where can one find a place for the Kisii, Samburu, Taita and other large tribes? If they are not to have their own “micro-states” then they must be thrown in as perpetual minorities among larger groups. Where will all this dividing up start, or end?

The example Mr.Kipkorir gives of Germany is misleading. True Germany is federal, but the German tribes were historically and linguistically one people divided by regional differences or religion. They cannot be compared to the diverse and radically differing Kenyan ethnic groups.

Those who emphasize “ethnic diversity” rarely point out that federations, like the USA and Germany, are expressly designed to unify previously sovereign people by making them free to live, work and open business in any part of the federation. If the Kenya tribal proponents wish this, why bother with the expense and complexity of tribal regions? We already have this freedom in Kenya’s current law.

One would be happy to see a Kenya Federation where any Kenyan can work and live, own property and act in politics as they wish, all enforced by the Army and a Kenya version of the FBI. Try preventing a Californian from opening a business in New York and see how fast George W. Bush sends the Federal Marshals to lock you up. This is not what most “ethnic diversity” advocates have in mind but the opposite, namely perpetual superior empowerment of one group, based on where it was geographically circa 1898.

The unity of Kenya may not be a perfect solution, but excessive regionalization could lead to more negative tribalism. There are few signs enough people understand devolution except as a tribal “winner-takes-all” game, as post-election events have sadly shown. This is a trend Mr. Kipkorir probably deplores but is nonetheless a logical consequence of this ideology.

*jimbo - a region or province

You Can't Make This Stuff Up #321

According to The Times of the UK:

The BBC funded a paintballing trip for men later accused of Islamic terrorism and failed to pass on information about the 21/7 bombers to police, a court was told yesterday.

Mohammed Hamid, who is charged with overseeing a two-year radicalisation programme to prepare London-based Muslim youths for jihad, was described as a “cockney comic” by a BBC producer.

Mr Hamid denies providing weapons training, five charges of soliciting murder and three of providing training for terrorism. The other men deny a series of charges related to training.It becomes downright bizarre, as if someone was trying to parody the perfect genteel, clueless BBC leftist twit-of-the-year. The Times reports on the BBC producer, Phil Rees, take on Hamid, the terrorist trainer:

He said: “I think he had a comic touch and he represented a strand within British Muslims. I took it as more like a rather Steptoe and Son figure rather than seriously persuasive. I saw him as a kind of Cockney comic.” Mr Rees, who now works for the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera, gave Mr Hamid a signed copy of his book "Dining With Terrorists".

Hollywood Drops Bombs

Very good news that Hollywood's latest bout of nasty anti-American, pro-terrorist movies are totally bombing at the box office.

Brian dePalma's "Redacted" which naturally won rave reviews and awards from the chatterati, Hollywood flakes and Euro-wimps (standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, Gold Medals in Venice etc) is typical. It cost $5 million and depicts US soldiers as thugs and beasts - it's wildly anti-troops ( whilst pretending to "support them") theme has so far , after weeks of major release and publicity, brought just just $23,000 total box office. It's delightful to learn the scumbag producers of this shit-flick have lost 99.5% of the millions they spent slandering those who defend their right to show offensive garbage.

On the other hand, "Outside The Wire", a hand made documentary by an ex-Marine depicting an hour of true footage and stories by vets cost $35,000 and has made back $27,000. It's only available on DVD via the internet but it's managed to out gross the hugely advertised multi-theatre showing of "Redacted".

Also bombing at the box office are "Rendition", "Lions for Lambs" (Redford and Streep no less) and "Valley of Elah" - all on the same theme of USA= Al Qaeda and what's the difference between a US soldier and a terrorist ( basic answer, none). These have collectively lost the Hollywood set tens of millions of dollars.

When I was in the angry 60's Bob Dylan had a wonderful line in one of his best songs that sums it all up: "Something is happening, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" It seems the majority of America does know but Mr. Jones is stuck in Los Angeles.

Euro Arrogance

In a chilling display of the elitism that drives European politics, Giscard d’Estaing, author of the EU constitution that was roundly rejected by French and Dutch voters (and would have been by the British) has claimed the new EU reform treaty the EU leaders have slipped through the back door of Euro politics is exactly the same thing. The fact that he can baldly state this when centre right parties are crying 'foul' over the new treaty and demanding a people's vote on it, shows the cocky insulation he feels from the reality of democracy. He can bypass in having bypassed the popular will and brag of it. Read the whole frightening interview here.

Americans, apart from Europhiles who make up segments of the Democratic Party, have long viewed European politics as an Old Boys club , as tight and tangled as the rotten aristocracies it replaced. For all of Europe’s scoffing over the rare American political dynasty like the Kennedy or Bush family, politics of the elite is the norm in Europe. Whilst Europeans laugh at the Schwartzenegger phenomenon of a Hollywood star rising to governor and never stopped deriding Ronald Regan, they forget that it is virtually impossible to get elected in Europe unless one is an insider – Sarkozy being the first modest crack in this edifice.

True to form, d’Estaing states to the BBC with breathtaking arrogance that cosmetic changes were made to the EU reform treaty to "head off any threat of referenda" and that the drafters have made the new document "a catalogue of amendments" that is impenetrable for the public. So much for the voter. Such is the traditional contempt of Europe’s rulers, from kings to dictators to democrats, for the people.

Mullahs Meet Modern Medcicine

Pretty sad story here about Muslim clerics in Nigeria who opposed the use of a polio vaccine campaign because they claimed the drug was designed to "sterilize" them. This ended up with too few children being vaccinated, which can cause the virus to reappear, as it did killing many and spreading to neighboring countries.

What happens when modern medicine meets the medieval mind, in the form of the gross ignorance so many mullahs display? The results are tragic.

"Convincing the Nigerians to take even more of this vaccine will be a tough sell," said Dr. Samuel Katz, an infectious diseases specialist at Duke University and co-inventor of the measles vaccine.

Fiji Orders It's Priorities

Hmm, our friends in the MSM never seem to get the right end of so many stories. Here the BBC misses the point totally. How can Fijians gather in large raucous crowds, get drunk, stay out late and party when their beloved rugby team has made it to the quarter finals of the Rugby World Cup and play the Springboks on Sunday? There is one way:

Last Updated: Friday, 5 October 2007, 07:41 GMT 08:41 UK

Fiji to lift state of emergency

Fiji's military-led government says it will lift the state of emergency it imposed last month when deposed PM Laisenia Qarase re-entered politics. A military spokesman said that the measures would end on Saturday because there was no threat to the nation.

BBC Goes N-Word

As if any proof were needed, the BBC takes on openly leftist vocabulary for a description of an Australian immigration policy. Misleadingly headlined "Africa Refugee Ban", the piece by Nick Bryant in Sydney states the dreaded "N" word as if it is a plain fact:

"Certainly, there is a nativistic streak in parts of the Australian electorate."

Most Third World countries try to restrict immigration from each other and from the North. Try getting a work permit from the Immigration Department of Kenya, let alone becoming a citizen, even after 30 years of residence. Many countries, like the UAE, forbid people not born of native parents to ever become citizens. In Dubai that precludes any of the over 1 million "guest workers" or their children from ever gaining a Dubai passport.

Would the BBC ever use the word "nativist" against these sorts of policies? That would be upsetting politically correct lexicon. Calling non-white people anything to do with "native" is strictly paeleolithic, racist and colonial. The correct left-think term for anything to do with "natives" is the self-authenticating "indigenous". Except of course for Australians.

Chili Terrorism

Also from the BBC:

"A pot of burning chilli sparked fears of a biological terror attack in central London.

Firefighters wearing protective breathing apparatus were called to D'Arblay Street, Soho, after reports of noxious smoke filling the air.

Police closed off three roads and evacuated homes following the alert.

Specialist crews broke down the door to the Thai Cottage restaurant at 1900 BST on Monday where they discovered the source - a 9lb pot of chillies."

Chili Power

A chemical from chilli peppers may be able to kill pain without affecting touch or movement, according to a BBC report.

This might in theory mean a woman in labour could have an epidural without losing the ability to move her legs, or the sensation of her baby being born.

Conventional local anaesthetics affect all nerve cells.

But the researchers Harvard team, writing in Nature, said that with capsaicin, the chilli chemical, they can target just pain receptors.

However, a UK expert said it might be difficult to inject it safely.

Certainly the idea of 5 cc of Tabasco shot into your ham sounds excruciating.

Socialism vs Monks

Lost in all the MSM stories about the protests aimed at bringing down the Burma regime is that the junta oppressing the sad Burmese people is a socialist one. I wonder how the left wing media can easily handle the fact that it is the "reactionary" force of religion, led by Bhuddist monks, that threatens to collapse a "progressive" regime. Not much different to Poland, come to think of it.

That's easy, just airbrush out the nuances. Thus the Guardian reports on "the ruling junta" and "the ruling generals " who resort to "repressive measures". Yes, just like that. They have no ideology, they are just a "military regime ".

Meanwhile the gormless cowards at CNN continue to cringe and call Burma "Mynyamar", the name those "generals" coined for it. Not even the image of the lovely,brave and serene Aung Yang Soo Kyi, one of the few Nobel Peace Prize winners to actually deserve that debased accolade who calls it Burma, of course, can change that.

Global Gobbledegook

More signs of just how confusing and contradictory the "certainty" science behind much of the global warming hype is, the BBC reports:

Amazonian forest 'more resilient'

The Modis instrument scans the Earth's surface every eight days

The Amazon rainforest may be more resistant to rising temperatures than has been believed.

Researchers found that during the 2005 drought, many parts of the rainforest "greened", apparently growing faster.

Mugabe Drags On

"Comrade Bob" continues with the fascism that has ruined one of Africa's brightest countries and regional African leaders continue to give him standing ovations at conferences but the end is very near for this ruinous fool. The price controls imposed on all forms of Zimbabwean industry are, if the evidence of 5000% inflation is not enough, the final attempts to prevent a societal implosion that would sweep him away. Yet given Africans' notorious passivity, partly borne out of a fear of the brutality of African governance, don't expect to see Harare's version of the storming of the Bastille on your TV screen any time soon.

A quarter of the population has fled and the country has obviously sunk to levels that were not even approached in the times of white supremacy. Actually a lot of older Zimbabweans are probably wondering why they bothered to fight Ian Smith & Co at all. Still, Comrade Bob has plenty of supporters in Africa showing that taking self-destructive actions against white people ( even if their are your own citizens) is far more important to many Africans and their leaders than anything else they might do. One would have thought that Aminism in Uganda might have taught some lessons to the continent, but it appears not enough.

Borat At The Rugby World Cup

Questions will soon be asked at this Rugby World Cup why Europeans pay fortunes to watch gelled up, pampered professional superstars prance around the pitch like show ponies when Georgia nearly caused the biggest rugby upset in history by going down 14-10 to 5th ranked rugby superpower Ireland.

 With just 8 rugby pitches in their entire country, the East European unknowns arrived on the pitch looking like stubble-faced Borats on steroids. Only the Irish did not end up laughing. Possessing bewildering names like Dimitri Kalasnikavili and Kav Dzernevshu and wearing what looked like rolled up bicyle shorts only a handful of Georgians were professionals, and those all play in the French 2nd Division. The rest were amateurs. 

To say mighty Ireland were lucky to win this so-called mismatch does not tell half the story. Georgia missed four drop goals by inches and had a winning try held up in-goal. They scored a stunning intercept taken at full sprint, made double the number of tackles to the Irish, took 66% of the territory and close to 70% possession and laid a twenty minute last ditch siege on the Irish line when they went through more than sixty phases of possession. If they lost it was only because they lacked a few finishing touches that should come as second nature to any professional team.

This was one of the most thrilling matches of this or any other World Cup and the entire stadium of 35,000 were on their feet chanting "Georgia, Georgia". They played a style of old fashioned forward rugby not seen for perhaps 20 years, meeting head on the pampered professionals that are amongst Europe's highest paid and biggest stars. And they shattered those pretensions. So far did this game smack of today versus yesterday that Georgia did not bother to go off the pitch at half time. The Irish led 7-3 and hustled off to be attended to by a doctor, three masseurs, two sports paramedics, a nutritionist, a statistician, three coaches and no doubt Father O Reilly, for they were in need of prayers. The Georgians stood on the pitch munching apples and discussing what to do next.

The surreal moments did not end after the final whistle, as seasoned sports broadcasters spluttered and ran out of adjectives to explain what they were witnessing. When winger Georgi (what else?) Shikinin, looking uncannily like Mr. Bean, was presented with the International Rugby Board's "Man Of The Match" trophy after the game, he spilt a toothy, shy grin, waved at the camera and said cheerily,"Firstly thanks you, I want..like.... I means... I am wanting wish hello to my mummy and nice sister also all my familly.Hello". 

 On a serious note, the IRB has mooted plans to kick out tiny rugby nations like Georgia, Namibia and others from future RWC events and restrict the tournament to 16 "super teams". Yet to many fans and even more commentators, the performances of a number of the unsung nations bring into question just what is happening in Europe when the Big Six of the North have so far played mostly abysmal rugby against countries one cannot locate on a rugby atlas. The minor league teams have gained the hearts of everyone. The only sides to give any thrills to the audience besides the small nations ( as anyone who saw the breathtaking 35-34 win of Fiji over Japan can attest) have been the mighty southern Tri-Nations teams of the Springboks, Wallabies and All-Blacks, assisted by fellow Southerners Argentina. They are actually playing rugby. Established Europe has played rubbish. The IRB should think of ways to cut the salaries of the Six Nations teams and donate the proceeds to the Rugby Unions of Georgia, Portugal, Fiji, Namibia, Tonga, the USA and a few others if they have any idea at all of how to grow the global game.

RWC Shockers

It's hard to read too much from the preliminary games of the RWC which tend to feature minnows vs giants, but the question has to be asked: what on earth has happened to European rugby?

From four years ago, when the gap between Northern and Southern hemisphere rugby had closed to a crack, European teams seem to stare at a with a chasm of class between them and South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Starting with the shock of southerners Argentina beating fancied France in the opening RWC game, one watches amazed as rugby powers struggle and stutter against nations that are the equivalent of a Third Division soccer side.

England ground out a 28-10 win over the USA that flattered. The USA outplayed them in the second half. Tiny Namibia with a few thousand players shocked mighty 5th ranked Ireland, holding them to a 37-17 win helped by a blatantly wrong referee's decision. Lowly Canada led Wales at half-time before finally succumbing and debutants Portugul made Scotland labour to win.

Contrast this to the Southern nations. The Australians demolished Japan 90-3, Italy were thumped by the All-Blacks by more than 40 points and Samoa crashed to South Africa's Springboks 52-7. All these wins were classy, error free and decisive. Samoa and Italy are also IRB Top Ten ranked nations unlike the small fry who made Europe's best creak and clank towards the try line like rusty old tractors.

Rugby World Cup 2007

I've just watched the defiantly quaint Springbok send-off gala in Jo-burg, complete with gold trimmed Boy's Own blazers and every squad member wearing his tasseled cap. It was a relief from the Gaygear soccer uniforms they and others will don post Sept 7th. Thoughts naturally turn to who might win the RWC 2007? The town of Paarl on South Africa is not large, which is why you have never heard of it. They have two main schools there, Paarl Gymnasie and Paarl High. I watched as the two school teams slugged it out on Supersport TV. The crowd was merely twenty thousand. If passionate addiction to rugby would bring home the trophy, surely the Springboks would carry it off easily.

I am not sure that will happen. The build-up of the Wallabies and All-Blacks has been enveloped in a dark cloak of secrecy and we know next to nothing of their post Tri-Nations XVs. Ireland, who promised so much, appear woeful and exposed for depth, Wales are a shambles, Scotland awful and the less said about England the better.

The team that has impressed most is home ground France and by the length of a punt at that. Their tough build-up of two games against England and one with Wales were easily won. Everything about them looks complete, polished and even easy. More ominously, they appear complete for the sort of European pitches the Australians and South Africans in particular are not used to. As for depth they have been able to put out close to 45 different players without their pulse rate rising above 72 bpm. Formidable and frightening Frogs would be an apt moniker.

Naturally the Brazil of rugby, the All-Blacks, remains firm favorites. Just like Brazil, they sometimes fail to deliver, are prone to choking and can fall apart. They have problems at centre unless Mauger is fully fit and their line-out does not impress any more than No 10 Dan Carter's 2007 form. They however do possess a great backrow, superb strikers like Rokokoko and perhaps overlooked , the finest bench of impact players of all. Their ability to double the game's tempo in the second half is incomparable. Thus they will be finalists if the rounds go according to form but may have peaked in 2006 when they needed to do so this RWC year.

Their opponents, if they reach the final, are likely to be the Springboks or the French and I tend to think the latter. South Africa has the best scum half in the world (Du Preez), the most lethal winger (Habana), a massive, skilled presence in the second row and, at least until wonder boy Pierre Spies developed embolisms, a backrow of exceptional lethality with Burger and Juan Smith. Their build-up and lack of racial interference from politicians has been smooth and unexpected. What counts against them is a fade-out tendency in the last quarter and an inability to punch attacking holes with their backs. They can poach intercept tries, in this they are masters. Yet with the defensive styles employed in RWC ties, snatch-and-grab opportunities may not be there for them. Will they get past England? Probably. Will they pip the French on a home ground semi? I think not, but unlike the 2003 Boks, they are well capable of beating any team and going all the way. One more problem is that since “nobody has ever met a nice South African”, the refs tend to single them out for decisions in the 50/50 phases.

England retains a formidable pack but outside one J.Wilkinson seem impotent and clueless in the backline. If they don't get by the Boks who seem to freeze whenever they face England, then a dumping in the quarter-finals is their likely fate. To win the World Cup you need world class players. In 2003 they had perhaps four. This year, Wilkinson included, they have none.

With no European nation save France likely putting a hand up, Argentina remain dark horses who could upset any team, starting with France in the opening RWC match on Sept 7th. However, the Argentina team is not as good as it was a year or two ago and the momentum towards the Pumas XV becoming a Top 5 ranked rugby nation has slowed.

Australia has a veteran team and is renowned for their clever and even sly rugby. With George Gregan as the most capped rugby international of all time, his sublime partnership with fly half Stephen Larkham plus the skills of centre Matt Giteau and fullback Chris Latham, Australia will be the equal of anyone. Masters of gamesmanship, sledging and referee tweaking, nobody should underestimate the Australian ability to dominate a match psychologically, even one they otherwise deserve to lose. Their biggest block to a final spot will probably be a semi against the All Blacks but they, like South Africa, have no fear at all of the favorites and could easily swing the upset of the tournament.

Figures Lie, Liars Figure

We are all told endlessly in the media that the USA is a violent and crime ridden society, compared to peaceful Europe. No wonder America remains the overwhelming choice of Kenyans seeking emigration, when we look at the real figures as opposed to media hype.

Here are Interpol 2001 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):

• 4161 - US
• 7736 - Germany
• 6941 - France
• 9927 - England and Wales

Thus the US has a substantially lower crime rate than the major European countries!

Here are the Interpol 1995 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):

• 5278 - US
• 8179 - Germany
• 6316 - France
• 7206 - England & Wales

Hence the trend in the US is towards a lower crime rate, while the trend in Europe (except Germany) is towards an increasing crime rate.

Even the USA's higher homicide rate has been dropping dramatically.

However, the homicide rates have been dropping dramatically :

Homicide Rate/100,000 by Date in US:

• 1980 - 10.2
• 2000 - 5.5

Flower Power!

The Kenya flower and horticulture industry, long the main forex earner and biggest employer of single women with children in Kenya, continues it's fightback against global-warming Gorons of the "better dead than fed" school. These have tried to have Kenya's exports to UK banned under various absurd "carbon footprint" claims. These aim at the vital airfreight links between Kenya and Europe.

The Standard reports the Kenya Flower Council initiative here:

Kenya has launched a new campaign to protect its UK market against attempts to block its products over environmental concerns.

Horticultural industry players have launched the ‘Grown Under the Sun’ campaign to inform British consumers about the development benefits associated with sourcing fresh produce from Kenya.

Kenya has in the recent past faced major battles to protect its EU market following campaigns by supermarkets in the UK to block its products over environmental concerns.

It seems absurd that wealthy first world consumers have to learn of the obvious benefits of Third World people providing them with flowers and vegetables, when the near collapse of the WTO talks over Western subsidies that work against poor farmers are common knowledge.

At the same time, Kenya is looking forward to the first of it's fuel efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliners for Kenya Airways so that we can benefit from direct flights between Kenya and the USA. This would be a hiuge boost to our tourism and horticulture industries. Right on cue, up popped another Goron on the BBC from the "Environment and Aviation Group" or like sounding busybody to lecture us that environmentalists fear the Dreamliner will make flying more "attractive". Oh yes, the world is going to fly less in future. Let's all bicycle to New York.

Thicko

The biggest Sicko in Michael Moore’s new movie is fat Mike himself who gives lots of aid and comfort to propagandists. Moore has the bright idea of flying some 911 survivors with health problems to Cuba so they can get “better” treatment than in the USA. No doubt Cuba’s Ministry of Health spared nothing to put one over on the yanquis, including their special show clinics for party members and foreigners only.

Real photos of genuine Cubans hospitals show a different story.

Moore uses all his usual tricks of faux documentary, insert shots and context bending to try and get Americans to buy the idea that their health system should be like the socialized ones of Canada, Britain, Europe and perhaps Cuba.

Of course Canadian and British health systems are collapsing and all the horror stories of US care exist there in spades. Ah, but those countries are not doing health care for profit , so the fact you wait 18 months for a hip operation in UK while doctors and hospital administrators form an elite, rich upper class of Britons is very moral, don’tcha know?

As for the vaunted Cuban health model why should anyone swallow statistics from an unfree society where these can never be checked or questioned?

Every statistic of communists except the count of prisoners in gulags and the numbers of annual executions are propaganda We know after communism's collapse that they lied about food production, educational standards, children’s health, personal wealth, technology, the environment, in fact the lot. Anyone who has visited Cuba will tell you that waiters whisper requests for asprin, paracetamol and sticky plasters. Health care in Cuba is free, if only there were any drugs.

Cuba also has a higher literacy rate than the USA, trumpets Castro. This one I do believe. Marxist dictatorships have high literacy rates is not so individuals can broaden their minds and improve their personal situations. It’s so everyone can read the propaganda. Mass literacy is part of the repressive groupthink modus of Marxism. What is the point of having 100% literacy if all you can read is The Collected Longer Speeches of Comrade Kim Jong Il?

Cuba also claims an exceptionally low HIV rate. This one is also true. Homosexuality in Cuba is a jail offense and thousands are imprisoned. The Cubans stole the drug patents of Western manufacturers early on in the pandemic. The hard drug trade is export only and controlled by Communists for benefit of the party so narcotics are not around to facilitate infection. Finally anyone HIV positive in Cuba is first locked up in quarantine and then registered and followed by the authorities, restricted socially and forced to take ARVs.

There is a daily ration of food in Cuba that has to be believed as well. The only problem is the calorific and nutritional value of the average Cuban ration (if he can even find it) is lower today than that of slaves in 1842.

The Food Ration in 1842 for slaves in Cuba:
meat, chicken, fish-- 8 oz
Rice-- 4 oz
Starches-- 16 oz
Beans-- 4 oz

Castro Gov. Ration since 1962:
meat, chicken, fish-- 2 oz.
Rice-- 3 oz
Starches-- 6.5 oz
Beans-- 1 oz.

Regrettably Michael Moore has no plans to do one of his tear jerking "documentaries" on this subject or any other which is not cornerstoned in anti-Americanism and fear of capitalism.

France Revolves

First Germany and now France have swung centre-right. Not because they want to but they simply must become more "anglo-saxon" in their socio-economic outlook in order to survive as competitive nations. Being dragged to a more "American" future explains the strident anti-Americanism that emanates from Europe. The more Europe is forced to abandon it's crust of statism, the more it kicks and screams at successful America. It's rather like a political fit of infantilism.

Europe's flagstone nations all share a conceit that there exists an more mature, wise and compassionate template of human social order and this is to be found, by some inexplicable and mysterious process, in the roots of European centre-left politics. These of course are merely a modern extention of traditional European statism, hardly a force for social effervescence. The French have finally hit the wall and elected Sarkozy over the predicatable boilerplate socialist, Royal.

Sarkozy is nothing if not a novelty in the chummy world of eltitist Europolitics. He never attended the ENA ( Ecoles Nationales) schools where 90% of France's hegemonic elite are groomed for power and control. His refreshing response to being elected is to spend the week in a period of reflection before he takes up the job.

Despite French anti-Americanism, France and the USA share many similarities and one is their strong sense of assimilationism. Thus American's are able to elect an immigrant as governor of California and the French the offspring of a Hungarian immigrant, Sarkozy, as President. It is unthinkable to see the same happening in any other European country, where a more primitive sense of blood politics is the norm.

Although Sarkozy will diminish strident anti-Americanism (Brits should note this is an extension of traditional antipathy toward "les rosbifs" and thus a backhanded compliment), he will not be a panacea. French national debt, as computed by some, will soon reach the levels of the late Ottoman Empire and presumably confirm France's place as the new Sick Man of Europe. This is the fate Sarkozy, and a belated French electorate, desperatly wishes to avoid and it raises hope in European political realism. France's electorate, like Britain's when faced with Thatcher's hard choices in 1979, finally realise the old game is up. The only problem is they are almost 25 years too late. The parient is comatose and is recovery truly possible?

I watched in amazement the French Presidential debate, where 10 minutes was spent arguing wether one should work a full 35 hours a week only or have the option to add an extra hour. Only in the fantasy world of Euroland could one expect such an exchange. An excellent longer article on France's sclerosis by Michael Gurfinkiel is to be found here.

What is ironic is just as America's recent foes in Europe all turn centre-right, America prepares for a leftward swing with the election of the Democrats. Their welcome of Sarkozy has been tepid to say the least. The influential far-left arm of the Dems, which represnts perhaps 30% of their total numbers, is already ranting on about the election of "Sarkozy the fascist". The left wing of the Democratic party is always more comfortable with communist dictators than democratic reformers.

The War Against Something or Other

The British government has abandoned the phrase of a 'war on terror.' It's so Tony, so old fashioned. New Labour is famous being a party of Newspeak and the cherished leftist belief that by language manipulation you can change a core of human or social behaviour.

Orwell made clear Newspeak's basic theory: if something cannot be said, then it cannot be thought, and if it cannot be thought, it could never be done. If you can manipulate the meaning of words, then you can control the thoughts and actions of others.

Such manipulations by the left range from the gross, as in a North Korean radio broadcast to the subtle, as in the utterances of rising New Labour apparatchik Hilary Benn, son of famed loony-tune radical Tony Benn. To Benn the Younger, a phrase like "War on Terror" is doubleplusungood.

In a recent speech that shows the next generation of New Labour thinking, Benn informs us that if we use terms like "war on terror" we will aggrandize terrorists. Being careful to avoid the "I" word, Benn tells us the current state of world terrorism is not a war or struggle, just most individuals in the world "against",

a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common apart from their identification with others who share their distorted view of the world and their idea of being part of something bigger.

What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others, without dialogue, without debate, through violence. And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength

Though some might see contradiction between the “disparate” groups with “shared" views, Benn postulates that by invoking a ‘war on terror’, we are actually strengthening terrorists. He does not explain how you combat people who will not debate or indulge in dialogue and only use violence. Presumably, once you have “a majority of people against loose, disparate groups” instead of a “war on terror”, the problem will ameliorate..

No doubt, this airbrushing will impact on the “disparate groups” self-esteem, that other beloved Newspeak creation of the left. In this thinking, you don’t have to have achievements or character as a person or group. You must simply believe you are an achiever and have others tell you so, even when you are a total tosspot or wastrel. If this fatuity were true then the reverse holds. Once Islamic terrorists are no longer told they are part of a big worldwide movement, their morale will crumble.

This is like the theory of modern nursery school teachers: if a child does not start every day yelling , “I’m good, I’m clever, I’m meeeeeeee…..” in assembly, they will suffer irreversible socio-psychic harm for life.

You can read all of Benn’s ramblings here. Meanwhile it is comforting to know that Osama Bin Laden in his cave, Hizbollah in their bunkers and Islamic terrorists cells everywhere are discussing surrender or disbandment as they realise they are merely “disparate groups” with “little in common” facing the mighty majority of the world’s people who are armed with “values and ideas”.

With the EU having banned all thoughtcrime phrases like "Islamic terror" and "jihad" from official discourse, and with rampaging Muslims from Sweden to Belgium to Paris now called "youths", the Australians are not to be left out. During the Cronulla riots in 2006 , police were not able to issue bulletins describing Middle Easterners as other than "youths" with a "mullet hairstyle". Where I come from a mullet is something you eat.

Benn's terminology joins this honourable list of descriptors that have so enriched our language. We await the future headline: ' Youthful disparate groups of fish blow up the House of Commons".

ANOTHER CRICKET WORLD CUP SHOCK

LATEST CRICKET RESULT: Iran 896-0 (Ahmedinejad 498 n.o), England 2-10 (Bliar 1,Beckett 1)

England slumped to a disastrous shock defeat at the hands of newcomers Iran, with their new star A.Ahamedinejad scoring a world record for one day cricket of 498 not out, which included 80 boundries (status disputed).

England was not helped by the defection of their entire team, less Blair and Beckett, to the Iranian side. England's start player Faye Turney found the going difficult as she tried to bowl in a full length chador-shemeez and was the first to give up and go over to Ahamedinejad's rampant side.

It is rumoured this is Englands gratest humiliation since they were beaten by one J. Ceasar;s team in 256 B.C.

ITerrorists Use Poison Gas - MSM Yawns

The BBC reports that Iraqi terrorists are using a banned chemical weapon from WW1, Chlorine gas. This it seems only "concerns" them and the rest of the MSM are silent. Can we imagine the outrage if the coalition even released a whiff of Mustard gas, Phosgene and other WW1 horrors? Chlorine gas kills or maims by burning victims lungs. A whole truckload was found wired to go and obviously more is on the way.

Seemingly MSM and The Beeb's bland reporters can't be bothered to look up Wikipedia here.

What's worse is it's use against civilians in Baghdad. Just imagine if they got ahold of Sarin!

Obamania Part 1

Now that Barack Obama has finally announced his precocious candidacy for the US Presidency, sections of the Kenya media will be agog with every development. Many Kenyans understandably have pride in his Kenyan connection via his father but will probably make the mistake of analysing his prospects through the usual lenses employed in local politics. These are always firmly fixed on identity obsessions (i.e. tribalism). Thus Kenyan commentators are already fixating on race identity, gloomily wondering if Americans will ever elect a "black" President.

They will miss the fact that Americans by and large are keen to vote for a black President which would, they hope, finally put the bear of race into a long and perhaps terminal hibernation. What many can't differentiate is that being "black" is not sufficient on it's own. Policies in the USA, unlike simple identity poltics in Kenya, actually count. Colin Powell might well have won the Presidency but that does not mean Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson would. The same holds for Obama, who leans far left of the political spectrum when most Americans are moderate or even centre-right. Americans are not at all against a "black" candidate - the question is, which one and is it a figure like Obama?

Obama may also have a harder time capturing the African-American vote than his formidable rivals like Hilary Clinton. He is not actually a "black" candidate at all, unless one accepts the basic racism inherent in the idea that a white woman can always give birth to a black child, but a black woman can never give birth to white one. Blacks in America appear upset that Obama has had a privileged childhood, exotic and international and not at all one that took in the historical sufferings of African-Americans, as they see it.

How does this likeable young man position himself? He cannot move towards the centre of US political ideas, as that is already occupied firmly by Clinton and other Democratic prospects. To do so would fatally undermine his credibility, as he would find it impossible to explain away his leftist positions on everything from Iraq to healthcare. The possibility will be that he ends up the candidate of the moonbat left, the liberal media and Hollywood elites- already Stephen Spielberg has jumped ship to raise money for him. This is hardly a base which will carry him to the Presidency unless the US veers so far left as to cause the greatest shift in modern political history. That is not going to happen.

Is he ready for prime time? His tasteless jibes at Australia's John Howard, where he attacked and ridiculed a staunch ally of the USA shows in the very infancy of his run that he seems determined to appease America's enemies and insult it's best friends. Asking Australia to "ginny up" and provide a further 20,000 troops to Iraq is just the first error to show his absolute inexperience, beyond a couple of years as a junior Senator. It's early days yet, but the chances are Obama will discover that Americans would be much happier voting for a non-white candidate who shows reliable centrism or even mildly rightist policy ideas than the narrow voter base he is obviously reaching for.

Yankee Come Home

Confirmation about something many suspected and which our blatantly anti-American big media has hardly commented on: the BBC undertook a worldwide sample of some 29,000 respondents showing Kenyans have the highest positive view of the USA of any country surveyed, a stunning 70% rating.

Compare this to the miserly 16% of Germans who believe the USA has a mainly positive role in the world. The Germans got magnanimity after World War II in the Marshall Plan, and an underwriting for the cost of their defence against communism, allowing them to concentrate on becoming rich and peaceful, thanks to America. Despite the unspeakable atrocities the Germans visited on the world with their war, less than 20 of it’s worst leaders were hung as war criminals. Forgive and rebuild was the watchword. As we say in Kiswahili, asante ya punda ni teke; the thanks of a donkey are kicks.

Here in Kenya, our local newspapers also own TV and radio outlets. The biggest is the Nation Group comprising daily papers, the business tabloid The East African and broadcast media. It’s owned by Muslims, albeit the moderate Aga Khan Foundation. The Standard Group undersells it considerably, and both exhibit unrelenting anti-Americanism from the editors downwards.

Kenyans are bombarded with stories written by Islamists, tranzis and anti-democrats. In the Standard last year, a column on the “only hope” for Iraq was, wait for it, to have the UN reinstate Saddam. Jihadi journalist Salim Lone informs readers in The Daily Nation that “hardly anyone” believes in Islamist plots to blow up airliners and that these are “inventions of Bush and Blair”. The recent collapse of the Somali Islamists (fervently wished for by Kenyans) was greeted with serious media alarm, followed by derision directed at the USA.

This is the normal journalistic meal served up to Kenyan readers, a country where Christians are the overwhelming majority and print is still king. The blogosphere has hardly any readers at all. All the more surprising then that Kenyans have weathered this propaganda effort and still favour the USA.

Gunship Hash Fry-Up

The January 13^th issue of The East African editorializes; “US Makes A Hash Of It Again” referring to Somalia. Claiming the "US adventure is Somali is going off the rails, raising fears of another Iraq being enacted right here in East Africa", it minimizes the Islamist support o'f Eritrean and foreign mercenaries, the long history of Somali-Ethiopian wars, the massive influx of arms into Mogadishu from mischievous countries and Kenya’s own interests in eradicating terrorists. It’s all Uncle Sam’s blunder, again.

Facts are abandoned. There are no reports, as the editor would have it, of “US fighter jets” or “Blackhawk helicopters” operating in Somalia. There was a solitary AC-130 gunship that could have done many favours if it had eradicated the Al-Qaeda cell leaders. Their attacks killed hundreds and wounded thousands in Kenya. This nearly bankrupted our tourist industry and entire economy twice. There are a few Special Forces boots on the ground and these, plus the British SAS , have been welcomed by all parties except the Islamists and their allies and dupes in the Kenyan media.

Also, since it does not fit The East African’s favoured anti-American narrative, the paper fails no mention the ICU attacked Baidoa and the TNG on December 16^th despite endless international warnings and thus sealed their own fate.

The US has publicly stated it is willing to work with non-Al Qaeda Islami c Courts Unionparties in Somalia – a big shift in policy. It strongly backs an AU force and stays as much in the background as possible – unlike for example Eritrea or Al-Qaeda itself, which called for global terrorists to come to the ICU’s aid. The US has kept it’s military footprint very small. No doubt most regional countries would like to see the irredentist ICU dismantled. Moderate Somalis in Hargeisha and Puntland are whooping with delight.

Rather than “hashing” the job, it is more likely the US has learned valuable past lessons and kept the problem at arm’s length. One is not sure why The East African would want to inflame jihadi passions by asserting otherwise.

Somalia is both an inter-African and regional failure. America is justifiably interested in the capture or death of a limited group of Al-Qaeda terrorists. The US left Somali alone for a dozen years after “Blackhawk Down”. During this time did Africans solve their own problems? Did the EU or UN come to rescue the country? Not at all.

The result was the ICU and more civil war, with the possibility of an Afghanistan- in Africa. This was intolerable to all in Kenya except a handful of Islamists and their mouthpieces like jihadi supporter Salim Lone of The Daily Nation. In truth there is no simple solution in Somalia and making people believe that the American bogeyman is behind all the woe implies it will vanish should the US ignore Somalia for another decade. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A week after this "editorial", which reads more like a shill for the ICU, the moderate leader of the ICU surrendered peacefully to Kenyan authorities and was reported headed for Nairobi for talks with US State Department officials. The real question is, why do Kenyans have to read over and again these hopelessly biased and innacurate anti-American rants, in the guise of "editorials"?

A Massacre Of The Guilty

Is it useful for Kenyan authorities detain 6 suspected Kenyan Islamists allegedly fighting in Somalia ? If they had on them cell-phones with recorded messages to Osama Bin Laden, Idd cards signed by Al-Qaeda leader Al Zwahiri, notebooks detailing intimate conversations between themselves and terrorists in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq and details of suspected targets worldwide, there is nothing whatsoever, besides letting them go, that Kenyan authorities could do. This is because Kenya refuses, in a weird mixture of misplaced nationalism, incoherent anti-Americanism among it's elites and naked Muslim vote-buying in an election year, to pass anti-terrorist legislation.

Every terrorism suspect that has been brought to court since 2001 has been freed. The record of Kenya, a nominally Christian country, in convicting jihadi terrorists is actually worse than most Muslim nations. The former Moi government used to hand over terrorists to the USA and seek the active assistance of American law agencies like the FBI. The chances of the Kibaki government doing the same seems nil. Strident anti-American/pro-terrorist propaganda is staple fare of many in Kenya's news media and readers are delivered daily barrages of articles that are strongly sympathetic to the terrorist world viewpoint. Al-Jazeera is being given a license to operate it's TV programming in Kenya. Kenya is the only nation in the world to have suffered repeated and devastating terrorist attacks without passing a single piece of anti-terrorist law. The majority of Kenyans desire such laws, but the elite and pressure groups have so far resisted passing any.

An entire Muslim network ( or fifth column) of street demonstrators, mullahs, preachers and "activists " has sprung up to denounce any proposed anti-terror laws, to demand the disbandment of the Kenya Police Terrorism Unit and rail against the USA/Israel at every opportunity. Coupled with the notorious corruption of the Kenya Police and Immigration officers, it is no wonder the Islamists in Somalia have made a dash for the Kenyan border. There is little assurance that dozens will not, and have not already, slipped into the country. The only thing in their way seems to the the AC-130 gunships and special ops forces the US bases in nearby Djibouti.

Todays news of the death of 1998 Embassy bombing mastermind Fazul Mohammed who also plotted the 2002 Kikambala Hotel attack in Malindi and simultaneous attempt to bring down an Israeli airliner at the airport will be more than welcome to the staggering number of Kenyan victims of Al-Qaeda and their relatives. Over 200 Kenyans have been murdered by Al-Qaeda and a shocking 5000 injured, often ghastly lacerations from flying glass after bombings.

The Ethiopians, Somali government and US forces have driven the Al-Qaeda remnants to a no-win penninsula of isolated headlands and rocky islets around Ras Komboni in south Somlia. It is rare for the US to get Al-Qaeda in it's sights in such a hopeless position. Worse for the Islamists, they are cut-off from their bleating supporters in the world media, though the "they are killing only civilians" reports are naturally being circulated. There is every indication the US forces are going to kill or capture all Al-Qaeda trapped on Ras Komboni. The entire event is a complete humiliation of the jihadi juggernaut that claimed such invincibility. Maybe Kenya won't need those anti-terrorist laws at all after a few more days of gunships, Predators and special forces operations.