and in circus news, obama snags the big prize

Oct 12 2009:

-8.   Oops – that didn’t work at all…..

…today is the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Obama. The award seems to have had little impact on public opinion among likely voters.  His total approval was at 49% just before the award was announced and it is at 49% today.

There does seem to be a slight increase in intensity.  Since the prize was awarded, the number who Strongly Approve of the President’s performance has increased by three percentage points and the number who Strongly Disapprove has increased by five. The number with strong opinions on both sides is at the highest level in a month.

While the award has had little impact on the President’s ratings, skepticism about the Nobel selection process has grown. Fifty-eight percent (58%) now see politics in the process, up from 40% a year ago.

And the previous awards to Yasser Arafat, Jimmeh and the Goracle were entirely free of ‘politics in the process’?

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Oct 11 2009: 

Update:  His One-ness has just been awarded the 2010 Stanley Cup – That was easy.

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Oct 10 2009:  

Now that Obama has been awarded* the Nobel Peace Trinket,  the mc-chimpy bushitlers must be gnashing their tooth into dust.   Barely 10 days in office** and the committee had their man.   Apparently, simply saying that you are going to heal the world and keep on saying it often and loudly until enough fools believe you was sufficient to be awarded the bauble.   Mind you, it’s not as if he has actually closed down gitmo, or withdrawn troops from Iraq, prevented the dinner jacket from acheiving his nuclear desires, solved world hunger, secured the olympics for the mob, or delivered socialised health care to the peasants – but hey, IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE….

I suppose even those who do persist in resisting the one could be forgiven their skepticism. After all, even mr hope-n-change has adopted the distinctly warlike habit of dropping the odd PEACEFIRE missile or two on occasion.

In the meantime the ungrateful and unwashed hordes have not rewarded*** his one-ness with a deserved bounce in the polls.  What does a man have to do to get some love?

Of course, junior, as a world renowned ‘hater’, ‘disbeliever’, AGW denier and all round obamaskeptic would be expected to sneer; (he has also been known to offer unguarded applause when well deserving targets are scattered into environmentally friendly and biodegradable bits), so in the interests of balance please let me offer my congratulations via Iowahawk:

Dear   BARACK OBAMA  :

Congratulations! On behalf of the selection committee, I am pleased to announce that you have been named a 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of your tireless efforts to   STRENGTHEN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AND COOPERATION    .

I am also pleased to tell you that as a winner, you have been pre-approved for membership in the Nobel Peace Player’s Club, offering exclusive money-saving benefits available only to laureates like you. Please take a few minutes to look over the enclosed enrollment materials. At only $299.95 per year, I’m sure you’ll agree that membership is a bargain at twice the price! Here are just some of the benefits you’ll receive:

• A handsome 14-karat gold membership crest badge to display proudly on the grille of your limousine or official state aircraft
• A framed, hand-calligraphed certificate (add $19.95 for gold leaf)
• Special discount shopping bargains for for you and your family
• Great travel packages to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro
• Listing in “Who’s Who of Global Salvation” ($49.95 per copy)
• Great coupons for Olive Garden, P.F. Chang’s, Six Flags Theme Parks, and more!

Plus, you’ll receive the exclusive Nobel Peace Player’s Club GoldCard entitling you to discount air travel and 5-star hotel accommodations from Kyoto to Darfur. But don’t take our word for it! Listen to these testimonials from some of our current members:

“My career as an international peace activist means lots of air travel — and dealing with pushy Zionists and rude natives. With my Nobel Peace Player’s Club GoldCard, I finally get the respect I deserve – and it makes getting through Gaza airport security a snap!”
– Jimmy Carter, 2002 Laureate

RTWT

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*Advice to Norwegian Nobel Committee – Stop huffing the North Sea gasoline, you’ll find it makes appreciation of the situation a little clearer….like how about the succesful candidate actually having achieved something other than simply being elected.

**Nobel nominations deadline: 1 Feb 2009.  Inauguration 21 Jan 2009.

*** To be fair, lets wait until next week to see if any of his aura has transferred to the proles.

changeometer

presidential approval index sept 14 2009

While I might like to beat a man when he’s down as much as the next guy, might there be a second life for obamacare yet?   A seven point improvement since the last time we checked….

He wouldn’t be the first politician to suck back, reload and wait for the polls to improve before launching the next round of marketing….

not the change you were hoping for…

Hmm.. again with the squiggly green line going in the wrong direction…..

afghan elections

UPDATED: Aug 21 2009.

Well, that was hardly unexpected;  the Red Star can barely offer up a grudging acknowledgement that things weren’t all that bad in Afghanistan.   Featuring a column entitled  “millions of afghans vote,  but is it enough“, one rather gets the impression that Ms Dimanno was hoping for a disaster.   

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Well, the Afghan elections seem to have gone quite a bit better than predicted hoped by the prophets of doom.   26 Afghans were killed exercising their right for freedom from oppression by the agents of the mad mullahs – that’s it, that’s all. 

Terry Glavin has it summarised nicely here.  Speaking of which, he notes and debunks some weirdness appearing on the socialist worker site.  These loons are right off the rails:

Bush and his coterie of crooks and warmongers told us that only a military invasion could liberate the people, and especially the women, of Afghanistan from the brutal, misogynistic and “medieval” Taliban movement.  

There was no mention, of course, of the substantial support offered to the Taliban regime in the late 1990s when Clinton was president and in the early days of the Bush presidency, nor of the long and ugly history of U.S. intervention in Central and South Asia, which was an important precondition for the rise of Islamism. (WTF? Vietnam, Cambodia = Islamism?)

Ordinarily I wouldn’t give more than about two seconds to contemplate this kind of drivel, but our writer at SW was convinced that even slick willy was in on the whole thing, so I got to thinking.   I understand that Hillary’s long suffering husband wasn’t above execising the Leeden doctrine*, especially when special prosecutors were poking around his habit of poking around -  but  just how much ’support’ did the Clinton administration supposedly offer to the Taliban, as claimed by ‘Nick’ at SW?  According to the SIPRI database, none, zero, nada.  As in not one dollar of evil imperialistic military industrial complex support delivered to the Taliban / Afghanistan between 1993 and 2000.    Records produced by Defense Department also show nothing in the way of miltary contracts or assistance for period of the Clinton administration.

And as for Dubbya – the entire deliveries of major military equipment to Afghanistan between 2001 – 2008 consisted of 188 M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers (I’m thinking ’hangar’ queens) and in the neighbourhood of about 4000 up-armoured HUMMVs. 

Myth – busted.

*“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”

was this the change you were looking for?

The wheels on the bus are falling off…..I think that little green squiggly line is not supposed to be trending downward. Maybe it’s because as VDH says:

“Obama spends more money on himself than did Bush. The liberal Congress has a strange fondness for pricy private jets. Those environmentalists and racialists who lecture us about our ecological and ethical shortcomings prefer Martha’s Vineyard and country estates to Dayton and Bakersfield. Offering left-wing populist sermonizing for others while enjoying the high life oneself is never a winning combination.”

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Related:  Even during the depths of their sponsorship salad days the Lieberals didn’t quite have the gall to slather party logos all over their efforts, however down south things are looking a little too much like it’s all about me…….

The cult of personality continues.

savage compassion – or what’s wrong with progressives

Quite a few self identified leftists are distancing themselves from the recent and disgusting habit of many of their more ‘progressive’ brethren of aligning themselves alongside the islamosfacists.   Most notably Bernard-Henri Levy  (identifying reflexive anti-Americanism as only one of the hatreds at the heart of the new left) and Nick Cohen (describing his disappointment with the apologists of islamic terror);  and now Yacov Ben Moshe has produced a short essay which summarises most eloquently the reasons why, while I often feel that I hold classically liberal values, I cannot under any circumstances find common cause with the progressives amongst us:  

Savage Compassion:

The progressive demands that we believe his claim that he serves a higher truth and a loftier goal.  He tries to force us to accept the idea that his ideas are unassailably good. And, even if they fail to be good, his virtuous pretentions are supposed to indemnify him from guilt or shame.  Even if he make mistakes, behaves badly or cause harm, virtue will save him from blame.  His “caring and good intentions” are supposed to trump the fact that he cares about the wrong things in the wrong way and his intentions are a humbug. Virtue is more than a sham- it is the prim, ruthless face of coercion. It is aimed outward, at others, as a self-justification; an accusation and, above all, a yearning for Utopia.

 

Utopia is an attack on the individual.  There has never been a Utopia that could survive for long without crushing the individual.  That is why “selflessness” is considered a key element of virtue.  Hannah Arendt foresaw the destructiveness of progressive virtue many years ago.  In her work On Revolution she wrote:

“Virtue has indeed been equated with selflessness ever since Robespierre preached a virtue that was borrowed from Rousseau, and it is the equation which has put, as it were, its indelible stamp on the revolutionary man and his innermost conviction that the value of a policy may be gauged by the extent to which it will contradict all particular interests, and that the value of a man may be judged by the extent to which he acts against his own interest and against his own will.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

RTWT

best sentence(s) I read today

I don’t normally care too much about what goes on under the congressional approvals process of administration appointments – I don’t have a dog in the fight as they say.  However lately all you see on the news (esp here in KC) is hand-wringing about the prospective US supreme court nominee…

There’s a charade going on in Washington. After people finish playing it, an accomplished lawyer and jurist will be appointed to the highest court of the land. Being accomplished won’t be the sole reason for her appointment. Accomplished people abound in America. If appeal court judge Sonia Sotomayor is elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court, it will be because of her flaws as much as her virtues.

Judge Sotomayor will get the nod because (a) she’s a Hispanic woman, (b) she believes that being a Hispanic woman makes her more qualified to judge matters than people who aren’t Hispanic women, and (c) she’s prepared to deny under oath that she believes what she believes….

RTWT

yet another ‘industry’ ripe for an OBailout

Its a good news bad news sort of story – of free spending big labour suddenly falling on hard times following substantial spending during the 2008 US presidential elections.  Coincidentally the new administration slashes funding to the very department charged with enforcing disclosure of union election spending.   

The WSJ carries a story today [print edition - europe]  about the hard times which have befallen two large Union organisations, the SEIU and AFL-CIO.  According to the story, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ..”spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama“, but sadly have found themselves indebted to the tune of $2.3mil.  Meanwhile the AFL-CIO carries liabilities ‘equal to more than 80% of its $189mil (!) in assets. 

I tried to hold back the tears, but was laughing too hard.

famous last words….

 …”Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says he’s confident General Motors Corp. will turn its financial troubles around and pay the province back billions of dollars that were given to the company to ensure the success of its restructuring plan.  “We’ve really pushed them up against the wall in terms of the conditions we’ve exacted,” he told a scrum of reporters at Queen’s Park“….

So this would be after GM somehow obtains profits from a new stable of small cars (which have historically had razor thin profit margins) whilst simultaneously attempting to meet politically motivated environmental policies handed down from the white house and protecting CAW jobs and benefits?    I wait with bated breath…..

Nothing to see here folks – move along, move along….

was this the change you were hoping for?

Will someone please give all the Canadian idiots who were hoping that the installation of The One would make everything allright a good round of happy slaps.   Apparently things aren’t working out exactly in our favour…

Trade Wars Brewing In Economic Malaise
Outrage in Canada as U.S. Firms Sever Ties To Obey Stimulus Rules

this shouldn’t be the change you were hoping for

I don’t think for the moment that anyone is seriously predicting this sort of outcome, however it must be remembered, [difficult as it is in our ahistorical post modern era] that plenty of successful twentieth century tyrants leaned heavily on populist movements generated under economic duress and creating and leveraging fears prompted by uncertain futures:

The writer Webster Tarpley has argued that classical fascism is not just a police state imposed by a powerful elite, though it may end up that way.  To cement the new order, fascism relies upon a widespread mass movement from below in which the people throw their enthusiastic support behind an apparent saviour.”  and

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One of the more ominous results of the Bush years was a steady concentration of power in the hands of the president.  For one man to hold such power, and with legions of followers doing his bidding, is anathema to a system of checks and balances.  And when a nation crippled by war and economic disaster is told that it must unite behind a messianic leader who will save it from destruction, history tends to provide a grim view on the future of that nation’s democratic political institutions.  

Although I tend to disagree with the author – rather I expect the next populist authoritarian movement to be located, not in the USA [due to no particular skill attributable to Obama] but rather to one of the European tribes, especially if this particular economic downturn turns out to be both lengthy, exacerbated by a protectionist trade war [buy american anyone?] and immune to the ’stimulus’ of corporatist europe.

the height of hoperbole..

Yes, I know politicians are given to burping up sound bites which they think will play well on main street, and believe me, I am no fan of wall street fat cats – especially when they beg for public rescue and then turn around and award themselves bonuses for having conned the politicians.   However, Mr. Obama should, before he lets slip with his everyman words of comfort, at least look in the mirror.  Mr.  hopey changey hardly sounds presidential blasting wall street for their “height of irresponsibility” as he cranks up the thermostat  in the white house- hoping you won’t notice  – whilst lecturing the peons on our responsibility for climate change and how we are all going to have to suffer a little bit for the benefit of mother earth .  Hell even the obamatons at the Huffington Post have noticed - that can’t be good.  One wonders what the Goracle might think of it all.

cognitive dissonance and the useful idiots

I have often wondered how it is that groups espousing opposing views can rationalise common cause* with religious extremists.   It has lately been much on view with the recent gatherings in various Canadian cities in support of the wretched** residents of Gaza, however these aren’t the only occasions. 

And so, for instance, one sees self identifying socialists, feminists or members of the GBLT community waving placards along side islamist protesters, railing against the latest outrage to be pinned on the US, Israel or the West [ globalisation ] etc.  

How do they square the debt of liberal freedoms owed by them to the [largely secular] social democrats who went before with the crude, dangerous and illiberal desires expressed by their fellow islamist marchers?  Do they not realise that the Islamists despise them and would if given the chance eliminate them altogether?   One need look no further than the Iran of 1979 – 1980 when during the consolidation of the Islamic Republic, among the first rounded up for liquidation [after supporters of the Shah] were the social democrats, secular trade unionists and so on.  Can they really wish to condemn their fellow women, gay or socialist friends in those countries to fates which they themselves would not accept in Canada? 

The communists had a name for these folks - useful idiots.

To top it off, the forces of religious conservatism are working very hard to ensure that on the international stage it will be virtually impossible to cite religious persecution as grounds for a human rights complaint.

Anything which can be deemed “religious” is no longer allowed to be a subject of discussion at the UN – and almost everything is deemed religious. Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union has tried to raise topics like the stoning of women accused of adultery or child marriage. The Egyptian delegate stood up to announce discussion of shariah “will not happen” and “Islam will not be crucified in this council” – and Brown was ordered to be silent. Of course, the first victims of locking down free speech about Islam with the imprimatur of the UN are ordinary Muslims.

Here is a random smattering of events that have taken place in the past week in countries that demanded this change. In Nigeria, divorced women are routinely thrown out of their homes and left destitute, unable to see their children, so a large group of them wanted to stage a protest – but the Shariah police declared it was “un-Islamic” and the marchers would be beaten and whipped. In Saudi Arabia, the country’s most senior government-approved cleric said it was perfectly acceptable for old men to marry 10-year-old girls, and those who disagree should be silenced. In Egypt, a 27-year-old Muslim blogger Abdel Rahman was seized, jailed and tortured for arguing for a reformed Islam that does not enforce shariah.

To the people who demand respect for Muslim culture, I ask: which Muslim culture? Those women’s, those children’s, this blogger’s – or their oppressors’?

As the secular campaigner Austin Darcy puts it: “The ultimate aim of this effort is not to protect the feelings of Muslims, but to protect illiberal Islamic states from charges of human rights abuse, and to silence the voices of internal dissidents calling for more secular government and freedom.”

Those of us who passionately support the UN should be the most outraged by this.

Underpinning these “reforms” is a notion seeping even into democratic societies – that atheism and doubt are akin to racism. Today, whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately claim they are the victims of “prejudice” – and their outrage is increasingly being backed by laws.

All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don’t respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead. I don’t respect the idea that we should follow a “Prophet” who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn’t follow him.

I don’t respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don’t respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of “prejudice” or “ignorance”, but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal.

*perhaps not so much ‘cause‘ as an inclination amongst some in the left wing to authoritarianism – distinguishing themselves from the dogmatic believers only in the details……

**their wretchedness being imposed upon them by religious mafia – Hamas.   For those who disagree with me – imagine if tomorrow the Palestinians unilaterally disarmed – does any mentally stable person think for a minute that their condition would worsen?  Likely goods would flow across the border and a functioning economy freed from the mafia like embrace of the gunmen in Gaza would emerge.   I am reminded of one of the less remarked upon features of the Northern Ireland troubles wherein both sides had a vested interest in keeping British soldiers in the province as the millions of pounds spent in the local economy were open to graft, extortion – mostly to the betterment of the armed factions and their bank accounts.

7.3 – change you can measure – the global corruption perceptions index

With George W. out of the way, and change you can believe in upon us now perhaps it is time to take a step back and have a peek at transparency international’s corruption rankings – particularly as TI

welcomes the strong and critically important signal sent by American President Barack Obama’s declaration on his first day in office that “transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.

I take it that from his statement Mr Obama intends to distance himself from what is supposed to have been the  venal administration of his predecessor – except that the new president seems to have been the beneficiary of a very consistent rating courtesy of the outgoing administration.   Hardly Zimbabwe then.  So despite the frothings of the weirder side of the political left who would have you believe that the departed Bush presidency operated in near constant abrogation of the law – it turns out not to be true.  In actual fact, in the TI ratings from 2001 to 2008, the USA sat between 20th to 16th place out of 180 countries surveyed with a low of 7.2 (2007) and a high of 7.7 (2002) – by comparison, Canada ranged from 9.0 to as low as 8.4 during the same timeframe.  

In other words, hardly corrupt, no significant change in the ratings and yet…..

In four years where will the Obama administration stand?  With his roots in the Chicago Democratic machine, initial indicators are not looking too good……

slow day at the CBC, so lets slag the troops

It would appear that our troops have been performing admirably in Afghanistan, so the mother corp feels it necessary to lead with a ’story’ that while not directly damning Canadian soldiers, is meant to lead you to believe that they must be involved somehow.  

‘Abusive’ coalition raids stoking anger in Afghanistan: report

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has issued a scathing report on the use of air strikes and nighttime raids by international forces in the country.

The report, which was released in Kabul on Tuesday, suggests that NATO is undermining its own mission by stoking resentment in the local population.

My favourite is the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission – did they learn their trade from our ‘world class’ HRCs? 

Chopping $200million?  Not fast enough!