EU climate policy enabled Russian blackmail

Peter Foster:

... Russia’s strategic strength in Europe springs (apart from its willingness to use force) from the fact that the EU has been asleep at the energy policy switch, blinded by its climate obsessions.

... Europe’s commitment to green energy has been not merely expensive and disruptive – without measurable impact on climate – it has left the EU comprehensively exposed to Russian blackmail.

...While Russia was flexing its muscles, Europe was fretting about controlling the weather a century hence....

On the bright side, maybe Canadian energy exports will help rescue the EU: 

... Europeans realize that the Canadian government is more than eager to promote exports of both oil and gas, ...

Obama upholding the Democrats' record of bungled war

Syrial Losers:

Americans unsure what to think about President Obama's plans for Syria should remember that all military action undertaken by Democrats for the last half-century has led to utter disaster. (With the possible exception of the Village People's "Y.M.C.A." video, which I say still holds up.)

I know you liberals care more about free birth control than geopolitics, but if you keep electing Democrats, you'll be getting fitted for burqas, not IUDs.

Rubin: "Obama Administration Promotes Islamist Regimes"

From The Rubin Report:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech justifying Obama Administration Middle East policy changes everything. ... It isn't a reluctant acceptance that Islamists might win elections and take over coutries. It is an enthusiastic endorsement of that idea. ...

Canada says "NO" to more Kyoto nonsense

But, more importantly, so did the USA:

DEAUVILLE, France: Russia, Japan and Canada told the G8 they would not join a second round of carbon cuts under the Kyoto Protocol at United Nations talks this year and the US reiterated it would remain outside the treaty, European diplomats have said.

... They argued that the Kyoto format did not require developing countries, including China, the world's No. 1 carbon emitter, to make targeted emission cuts.

Good show!

[Via]

Update: From the comments re. BC's continuing carbon lunacy (eg. school boards are required to shell out hundred$ of thousand$  for carbon credits and, as the new Premier says, the boards receive money from the carbon tax). As Lilley says, it's an elaborate "shell game". See this video near the 4 minute mark:

Some good news from the "climate" front

Bloomberg News:

The U.S. government’s lead envoy on climate change said the United Nations talks aimed at negotiating a binding treaty to curb global warming are based on “unrealistic” expectations that are “not doable.”

Deep divisions at climate summit:

Kyoto's future remains uncertain.

[Via]

Truth and lies about Palestine

Terry Glavin exposes it all. First ...

It would probably come as a surprise to most people to learn that Canada deserves credit for being one of the world’s leading financial contributors to the cause of Palestinian freedom and a functioning Palestinian state. You’d never know it from reading the newspapers or all the posters on campus, but the sinister Zionist bogeyman otherwise known as Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears to have arranged for more money and aid to find its way to the oppressed and downtrodden people of Gaza than all the George Galloway fundraisers, “Viva Palestina” crusades and Gaza Flotilla spectacles combined, by several orders of magnitude.

And far from least ...

The truth is that you don’t have to give bags of money to Hamas to provide humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza.  ... Hamas is not the elected government of Gaza, and it is not true that humanitarian agencies have to give over to Hamas in order to operate in Gaza. ... ...You will also want to ignore the fact that Hamas then led a putsch that smothered Palestinian democracy in its crad[l]e by seizing Gaza and turning it into a statelet sponsored mainly by the Khomeinist police-state run from Tehran. Ignore as well ... [a] poll undertaken last month which shows that Hamas enjoys the support of 12.8 per cent of the people of Gaza

And there's lots, lots more ... All outstanding stuff - a great read!



[H/t Blazing Cat Fur]

Obama’s capitulation on missile defence

Charles Krauthammer:

... What just happened ... is that the United States unilaterally abrogated the security agreement with two close East European allies [Poland and the Czech Republic] — so close that they had troops in Iraq and Afghanistan that supported us — at the behest and because of the pressure of the Russians.

... Now, number one is the timing. Apart from the merits of all this, the idea that we should renounce, on the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland, a security agreement that we had with Poland [because] of Russian objections is scandalously, indescribably amateurish.

Now, on the merits. If there is a secret agreement between us and the Russians ... in return for our capitulation on this issue… The problem is there is not a shred of evidence of a deal. And if not, what this is is a capitulation to Russia....

And imagine if the Poles and Czechs are upset about this, how the feeling is in Ukraine and Georgia. The Russians announced earlier in the week that if a Georgian ship is found in Abkhazian waters, which was a province of Georgia, it will be seized. So it has annexed part of Georgia and it has escalated the war of words on Ukraine.

Belmont Club:

... Eastern Europe has been Finlandized. But the withdrawals have not been reciprocal so far. Even as the US was exiting Russia’s former "near abroad",
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez continued to approach the Russians for nuclear power and weapons assistance....
　
... Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was to meet Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Friday after Russia risked Washington’s wrath by offering the fierce US foe help developing nuclear energy.

... Putin made the nuclear offer after Russia this week delayed talks with the United States and other powers on fears Iran is developing nuclear weapons, concerns critics say have been exacerbated by civilian nuclear technology provided by Moscow....

This view from Europe seems just a little over-optimistic given Russia’s belligerent attitude. But the contribution from the American in the comments seems about right.

Appeasing hostile adversaries and throwing friends under the bus? Wasn’t that Neville Chamberlain’s "strategy"?

Obamite apologetics and distractions

Speaking of pussies misguided wimps - wonder when/if Obama et al will find their gonads.

Victor Davis Hanson worries:

... The Obamists better be careful in their serial apologetics, "Bush did it" throat-clearing, and caving to European, Russia, Turkish, etc. agendas. Slowly, but clearly we are establishing a new atmosphere in which the old unpredictability, military preparedness, and deterrence will be lost, replaced by a touchy-feely sort of seminar discussion, laced with atonement, reaction. And then the two-bit pirates who boast "We are not afraid of the Americans" will be the least of our problems.

So does Mark Steyn:

Reuters headline ... : “Pirates Pose Annoying Distraction For Obama.”
So many distractions, aren’t there? Only a week ago, the North Korean missile test was an “annoying distraction” from Barack Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons and his pledge that America would lead the way in disarming. And only a couple of days earlier the president insisted Iraq was a “distraction” — from what, I forget: The cooing press coverage of Michelle’s wardrobe? No doubt when the Iranians nuke Israel, that, too, will be an unwelcome distraction from the administration’s plans for federally subsidized daycare, just as Pearl Harbor was an annoying distraction from the New Deal, and the First World War was an annoying distraction from the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s dinner plans. .........

Hillier and Bolton win the Munk Debate

Rick Hillier and John Bolton won the Dec 1st Munk Debate on humanitarian interventions. This was Bolton's article on the subject a month ago.

_

Georgia - where’s the rest of the West?

There’s lots of finger pointing but one thing is clear, dictator Vladimir Putin’s powerful Russia is ruthlessly attacking its tiny democratic neighbor, Georgia. As Glenn Beck put it, "it’s like the US military attacking Martha’s Vinyard". Given the enormity of the situation the MSM , with some exceptions, is giving it relatively light coverage. CTV’s Lloyd Robertson skimmed the story last night ending with an observation that "the Bear’s back" and a smiley-faced "fascinating". OK, I know the Beijing Olympics are on but - good grief!

Georgia has been an enthusiastic ally of the USA even contributing some 2000 combat troops in Iraq. The USA has been a strong sponsor of Georgia’s entry into NATO. With its democratic transformation, the cleanup of its corrupt police and civil service, its strongly free market economy ... Georgia is a natural for admission to the European Union and NATO.

So, in rough order of significance: Where’s GWB’s America? Where’s NATO? Where’s Europe? Where’s the UN? Where’s the "peace" movement?

Of this list only the last two are truly measuring up to expectations. The useless UN remains useless and the "peace" movement’s only anti-war stance is anti-American.

But when will America, NATO and Europe step up and smack Putin down? Military backing for Georgia and the immediate expulsion of Russia from the G8 along with other trade sanctions might be a good start. Maybe today.

Politically correct cowardice and treachery

I always enjoy reading Major (retired) Nigel Smythe-Brown’s weekly columns in which he uses a hilarious anecdote to frame a more serious point. This week’s column involves his "current wife of 40 years", her two cats and the maid in getting to the ‘point’:

... the politically correct come with many preconceived points of view that cannot be changed even in the face of the facts.

On the BC government’s vandalism of historical art in the legislature:

I was appalled along with many others by the cringing politicians weak-kneed cover up of the those masterful tableaux down at the provincial legislature. To dismiss historically and culturally beautiful paintings because at this particular time they are not as correct as at others is cowardice and treachery to those who went before us.

We have been passed the torch of history to keep it bright and strong, not to douse it at the first sign of censure. If the pictures had not been painted on the walls themselves they would have been destroyed.

On the Indian residential schools:

It is the same with the Indian schools where it is alleged and now taken as fact that every teacher was a monster and that the sole purpose of the schools was to make every child miserable and afraid of assault. We now form five-year committees where the judgment is in before they start as if we were South Africa making up for apartheid.

Just as I was almost hung for what the cat Pericles got up to, many others will be made to hang their heads over an artificial shame that was history and consisted of many people trying to do the best they could with what they knew at the time.

I am reminded of my fifth form Latin master at boarding school - now there was a monster. I shall sit quietly at the club for the foreseeable future and sadly contemplate those people who are always right.

I couldn’t agree more.