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"?

Bruce Bawer on the threat of Islam to Western values

Bruce Bawer, a gay, Christian, expatriate American moved to Norway seeking a more tolerant society. Before long he discovered, to his dismay, that Norway and many other European nations were caving in to a much greater threat to his values. Bawer’s new book, Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom, documents that threat.

Pilfered directly from Blazing Cat Fur here is Bruce’s speech in Montreal this week:


Q&A:


Also, here’s Part I (of three) of Bawer's earlier interview with Bill Moyers on PBS:


The advantage of having a gay man like Bruce Bawer take up this issue is that ultralib purveyors of the Multicult like Bill Moyers are more likely to take him seriously. Good show Bruce!

Jimmy plays the race card

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American," Carter said. They don't call him the "dumbest president" for nothing.

This ought to generate some interesting commentary:

Update: Yup, lots of fine commentary. To highlight some of it:

NRO editorial - "Georgia Pharisee":

Jimmy Carter now has done to his ex-presidency what he did to his presidency, which is to say that he has, through his incessant moral preening, converted mere incompetence into something more unseemly. ...

... The facile accusations of racism are both banal and cynical. And they are right on cue: Wolf-cries of "racism!" are a way to smother debate, which is something that Democrats, who are losing the health-care debate, must find appealing right about now.

...This showy self-righteousness is of a piece with Mr. Carter’s other forays into political controversy ...

...The inescapable conclusion is that Mr. Carter has defective judgment. We already knew that: We’ve known it since he clenched his fist and proclaimed energy conservation the "moral equivalent of war" while clad in a sweater....[Read on...]

Mark Steyn.

Victor Davis Hanson.

Kathy Shaidle.

Your body, your health, your choice - government butt out!

Xanthippa highlights Thomas Sowell’s excellent four-part series on the hazards and deceit underlying Obama’s plans for socializing American healthcare - part of the debate Canadians never had.

The snotty, inbred Canlit establishment

Today’s installment of the Post’s series on the state of Canadian literature has one of my favourite crime/mystery novelists, William Deverell, taking some good shots at the cultural establishment:

... a common notion: A properly brought up Canadian is expected to feel guilty about reading a book that claims no pretension but to entertain.

This priggish attitude toward popular fiction is deeply imbedded within our cultural establishment.

... "Popular fiction" has become a term of vulgar connotation, but it reeks of ironic paradox: obviously we sobersided Canadians ought to be reading unpopular fiction.

... I gave a workshop in popular fiction ... during which I was instructed by a Canada Council spokeswoman, in severe tones, that it does not support writers of crime fiction.

... It is to Canada's utter shame that William Gibson, with his vast trophy case of awards, has not been honoured in this country with a Giller or a G.-G. Meanwhile, Margaret Atwood is acclaimed for her speculative fiction.

... Douglas Coupland's scathing critique of Canadian literary pretentiousness: "There is a grimness about CanLit," he wrote, in which typically authors are supported by the government "to write about small towns and/or the immigrant experience." Coupland refuses to accept Canada Council money.

... the Brits knight their genre writers, the Yanks lionize them, but the Canucks (or at least our persons of letters) continue to treat them like unwashed in-laws tracking mud into the parlour. So sad.

And earlier in the series Barbara Kay observed:

... a numbingly familiar pattern of CanLit fiction: "Me, me, me and my
extraordinary capacity for sadness. Welcome to the unrelenting self-regard of
CanLit, where it's all about nobly suffering women or feminized men."

For this to persist in a country of 32 million suggests a good deal of intellectual inbreeding among the cultural establishment. Sad indeed.

DC Tea Party in time lapse

Wow! See also Climbing Out Of The Dark.

[via sda]

ABC news anchor John Stossel on media AGW hype

WUWT reports that John Stossel, former co-anchor on ABC News "20/20" and global warming realist, is moving to Fox News. Via the comments here’s Stossel speaking at the New York International Conference on Climate Change, March 2008, about the mainstream media's AGW hype:

"... really we’re not all evil. We just are dumb ..."


Also in the comments is this interesting note from former Victoria Times Colonist columnist Paul MacRae (12:09:08):

The editor of the Victoria, BC, Times Colonist has laid down an explicit policy that she will not allow skeptical climate stories to appear–they cause too much fuss with green readers and consensus climatologists. I also know this is true from personal experience. For eight years I wrote editorials and columns for the TC (I now teach), so obviously I am a professional writer by journalistic standards, but my last four skeptical freelance opeds on climate change were rejected, as are anyone else’s. ...

On the other hand, for every claim (no matter how lame) from AGW fanatics the TC seeks out commentary from local alarmist Andrew Weaver.