Headlines, Heads Off

Oh, I'm sure Arianna Huffington still has her head on, after all, she blogged about it afterward. But who knew John McCain could channel Ozzie?

Davos Notes: John McCain Bites My Head Off

Repostings

Anchoress has been reposting some of her older posts this week. I dropped by and read this one, originally posted in 2004. I think you might want to as well.

The very beach on which we stood had been for many the motor which drove acquisition of wealth, education, lessons in dance, music, tennis, all of which fostered additional, continuing excellence. I saw all of this and thought about the everyday people who had punched their time clocks day after day to build such a treasure, and I felt such a sense of pride and admiration well up inside me that I couldn’t speak for a moment. When I could, I turned to the fellow and said. “Look around you. Are you blind? Look at America! This venue seats 14,000 people, on a waterfront, surrounded by something natural and wild that we worked to integrate! And it’s not here to serve elites who take themselves and their money seriously! This is a crowd of suburban people who worked hard all week and don’t particularly feel the need to go into Manhattan to affirm themselves or their lives when this excellent and beautiful theater is right here! You think Europe is so much better? More soulful, did you say?” I shook my head. “Both spiritually and philosophically, Europe is asleep, because it wants to be. But it’s a terrible sleep, because it is a sleep without dreams, and everyone knows that sleep without dreams leads only to madness and a terrible decay. America is not asleep. In fact, America is wide awake and bustling and busy and creating and building. Yes, I know, the hard work idea again, I know you don’t like it, but a body at rest stays at rest. America is wide awake and moving…and even still, somehow, she dares to dream. America is dreaming, even now.”

Some cannot see that, sadly.

Solving The Democrat’s Number One Problem

(No charge for the good advice).

UPDATE: Jules Crittenden thinks Kerry should just keep talking.

Site Problems

If you're having trouble with very slow loading on the site, you are not alone. The hosting company tells me that they are having a problem on their end and are working on it. No time estimate on how long the problem will persist.

If You Did Not Already Know

Why John Kerry was and still is unfit to be President of the United States, his performance at Davos should be enough to convince all but the totally ClueProof™. It is the most shameful series of lies and distortions used to bash this country on record, or at least up in the top ten.

More on this shameful appearance at The Political Pit Bull, who notes that Kerry called the US “an international pariah”—while sitting on a stage with a representative of the world’s major state sponsor of terrorism.

UPDATE at 1/27/07 9:27:27 am:

More of Kerry’s appalling blast at his own country: Sen. Kerry Blasts U.S. Foreign Policy. (Hat tip: Killgore.)

(AP) DAVOS, Switzerland Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry slammed the foreign policy of the Bush administration on Saturday, saying it has caused the United States to become “a sort of international pariah.”

The statement came as the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee responded to a question about whether the U.S. government had failed to adequately engage Iran’s government before the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. Kerry said the Bush administration has failed to adequately address a number of foreign policy issues.

“When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don’t advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy,” Kerry said.

“So we have a crisis of confidence in the Middle East — in the world, really. I’ve never seen our country as isolated, as much as a sort of international pariah for a number of reasons as it is today.”

Kerry said the government needs to use diplomacy to improve national security.

“We need to do a better job of protecting our interests, because after all, that’s what diplomacy is about,” he said. “But you have to do it in a context of the reality, not your lens but the reality of those other cultures and histories.”

Kerry criticized what he called the “unfortunate habit” of Americans to see the world “exclusively through an American lens.”

The outrageousness of Kerry’s statements is multiplied by the fact that he himself voted against the Kyoto Protocol—as did every single member of Congress. This was not a Bush decision—it was a unanimous decision of the United States government.

This is truly disgusting. LGF has pictures of the performance. The people of Massachusetts deserve much better than this creep.

UPDATE: I see one of Kerry's water carriers linked saying Kerry had spokent "truth to power". Proving that the ClueProof™ are alive and well. Here is part of the text of S. RES. 98, dated June 12, 1997:

(1) the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, or thereafter, which would–

(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period, or

(B) would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States; and

(2) any such protocol or other agreement which would require the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification should be accompanied by a detailed explanation of any legislation or regulatory actions that may be required to implement the protocol or other agreement and should also be accompanied by an analysis of the detailed financial costs and other impacts on the economy of the United States which would be incurred by the implementation of the protocol or other agreement.

John Kerry voted "yea". There is no truth coming from Kerry's mouth. Other than the revealed truth of what he is, of course.

UPDATE: Video. The remarks speak for themselves.

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A Small Lesson

MSNBC Headline:

Canada worried as some caribou herds decline
Ease of hunting, and global warming, cited as issues

The story appears to be the same as a Reuters story carrying this headline:

Canada worried by plunging caribou population

The problem? Here's what the story says:

Herds of barren-ground caribou — which for centuries have been a crucial source of food and furs for local aboriginals — have dropped by between 40 and 86 percent over the last 10 years. The largest single herd fell from 472,000 animals in 1986 to 128,000 in 2006 and is still declining.

"The level of concern is very high in the Northwest Territories," said Ray Case of the territories' environment and natural resources ministry.

Case — blaming natural factors such as varying climate, insect levels, the amount of food available, and the number of predators — said the caribou population had traditionally risen and fallen over a 30-year cycle.

But he told Reuters that warmer winters and easier access for hunters to the ranges that the caribou cover make it harder to say what will happen to the herds in years to come.

"That doesn't suggest global warming is driving this but certainly there is concern that things are changing … we do have some uncertainty about what the future holds as far as climate and as far as human activity," he said.

Meanwhile, there is also this report:

Aboriginals admit their hunting may be part of Arctic caribou decline

But many also suggested modern hunting methods are crimping the ability of the herds to recover.

"It's easier to get caribou these days," said Robert Charlie, head of the Gwich'In Renewable Resources Board.

Hunters used to depend on experience to find caribou and on dog teams to get to where they were.

Now, herds can be spotted from airplanes and tracked through the Internet. Transportation is easier with roads, trucks and snow machines. The animals are shot with high-powered rifles. Hunters who used to go out a few times a year go out almost monthly.

"You have people going out for a couple hours and coming back with caribou," said Charlie.

Jimmy Rabesca, a 73-year-old Dogrib elder from Wha Ti, said that ease of access has eroded some of the old reverence for the land and the animals it succors.

"We used to hunt animals kindly, respectfully," he said through a translator. "We shot animals because we loved them and we loved the land. Today . . ." he trailed off, shaking his head.

I think that while the Reuters reporter played the story more or less straight, the MSNBC headline writer did not. There was very little emphasis on the hunting issues, which may be a very large part of the problem. So may the enormous expansion of mining and the fact that development has brought roads and ease of access. In other words it is a complicated issue and the native hunters know they are part of the problem. They also appear to be stepping up and doing something about it. Instead of trying to mislead the public.

Another Plot

The Animal Uprising™ executed another of their nefarious plots flawlessly in Britain. This one was one of their most cunning to date.

A CAT cheated death by a whisker after chasing a mouse into a jar and getting her head stuck in the glass container.

The moggy, a tabby called Mindy, was found walking on the busy A47 in Peterborough with her head firmly stuck in the jam jar, her jaws millimetres away from a tiny field mouse cowering at the bottom.

A driver stopped to help the cat, but unable to get the jar off the animal's head, brought it into Thorpe Wood Police Station to see if officers could help. A number of burly policemen tried to prize the jar off the cat's head, with the mouse looking on, but Mindy was firmly wedged in.

RSPCA officers were called out to help the rescue effort but before they arrived Mindy managed to smash the glass jar against the floor, freeing herself and the mouse, which scurried off and is yet to be found.

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard know what the Cambridgeshire police appear to be clueless about. The entire point of the operation was to infiltrate the mouse into the police station. It worked perfectly. The police thought it was kind of cute and even provided a handout photo. They don't realize that they have let the enemy inside the gates. Mindy was a Trojan tabby.

Memorial

Forty years ago today, US Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were killed when a fire roared through the Apollo 1 capsule on Pad 34 at the NASA launch facility on Cape Canaveral, Florida. I visited the Kennedy Space Center last year and toured the launch areas, I wrote about it here. Space.com has articles here and here.

Rest in Peace.

Cannibal Cow Causes Chaos

Britain, home to a lot of bad bacon, now has something even more sinister to deal with. The Animal Uprising™ has sent their latest inhuman wave attack against the beleaguered island nation in the form of cannibal cows. The most recent sightings have the bovine berserker nipping over to the local McDonald's for a few burgers, causing traffic chaos.

Dozens of motorists have contacted police in the past week after seeing the adventurous bovine in the middle of the road outside the McDonald's restaurant, near Serpentine Green shopping centre.

Police are now appealing for the cow's owner to come forward to stop it from making any more of its dangerous trips to McDonalds, which is famed for its Big Mac beef burgers.

It follows a flood of calls to the police control room on Wednesday after the cow strayed onto the busy London Road, causing several cars to swerve around it.

There is a video at the link which shows no trace whatsoever of the cow in question (which leads one to ask why they bothered posting it. Although the pub manager does say the cow is welcome to stop in for a pint.). We're not really surprised, however. These cannibal cows are stealthy.

A Statue Of Nofoot

A massive sculpture of a Bigfoot has been returned to its rightful owner after it was recovered by police. Someone had stolen the eight foot tall 400 pound statue which had been used to make a driveway. The police did not, however, recover the statue's feet. Those had been removed, leaving Bigfoot as Nofoot.

An anonymous tip led police to the 400-pound sculpture beneath a pile of debris in a backyard about a block from where it was snatched Monday. Two people confessed and could face theft charges.

The likeness of the legendary ape-like creature of the Northwest used to stand 8 feet high, but its 16-inch-long feet had been sawed off at the ankles, leaving it 18 inches shorter.

"I'm glad we got him before they cut him anymore," said chiropractor Tom Payne, who had the statue made 5 1/2 years ago and planted at the foot of his secluded driveway as a landmark for patients. "We're relieved to have him back at the office."

The statue was recovered Thursday. The suspects, a man and a boy, offered no motive, police spokeswoman Stacy Flores said.

Just guessing here, but I wonder how long it will be before there are a rash of reports of Bigfoot tracks found all over the area. Whoops, it's already started.

"A strong case can be made that Bigfoot exists," said Strain, whose Jamestown-area home includes a room full of books, videos, cast footprints, notes and reports on the creature. "I've seen things I have no other explanation for."

Not only that, but she says Tuolumne County and the forest she works on are among the huge creature's favorite haunts. She has catalogued scores of eyewitness accounts, has discovered a Sasquatch "nest" near Twain Harte and swears she was once close enough to the creature that dirt was still falling from the sides of deep,14-inch footprints it left behind.

Satellites

The Washington Post has an interesting editorial this morning that is worth a read. It discusses the countries in South and Central America that are falling into orbit around the budding dictatorship of (T)Hugo Chavez. It appears that the people living in those satellites, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua (to a lesser extent, surprisingly), are in for some rough times. The would-be puppets of the would be dictator are heading their countries into economic ruin led by Chavez.

A REMARKABLE year of democracy in Latin America has left the region generally stronger. Presidential elections were held in 11 countries in the past 13 months, and political moderates won seven of them, including those in the four largest countries: Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Peru. Throughout most of the hemisphere, the elections reinforced a consensus that continued growth must depend on free markets and free trade but that governments should concentrate on narrowing the large gap between rich and poor.

The new year nevertheless has begun with attention focused on a handful of countries where democracy is dead, dying or in danger. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez began his term this month with a flurry of authoritarianism, promising to cancel the license of the largest independent television station and seeking authority to rule by decree. He then rushed to attend the inaugurations of Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Ecuador's Rafael Correa, whom he hopes to convert into satellite leaders in a Venezuelan-led "socialist" bloc. Bolivia's Evo Morales and an ailing Fidel Castro are already in Mr. Chávez's orbit; thanks to Venezuela's petrodollars, Cuba's totalitarian system may survive Mr. Castro's demise.

Read the whole thing. I disagree with one thing the Post writes, however:

The mini-bloc of Latin outliers poses little threat to the United States or the region's overall stability.

This statement is wishful thinking, I suspect. Even though Cuba was internally destitute for decades, they managed some serious destabilization in the region and even in Africa. Venezuela and (T)Hugo's newest ally, Mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have money. That makes them much more dangerous. If (T)Hugo and his satellites become a forward operating base for terror, we will have a real problem in this hemisphere.

Sending Signals

There have been a lot of speculative reports that Saudi Arabia is funding opposition to Iranian expansion efforts throughout the Middle East. These reports have become more and more frequent and more and more detailed recently. I rather suspect this news report of remarks by the Saudi king confirm that there is more than a little truth to the speculation.

KUWAIT CITY - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah said in an interview published Saturday that attempts to convert Muslim Sunnis to the Shiite branch of Islam will not succeed, and that Sunnis would always make up the majority of the world Muslims.

Although Abdullah did not mention Iran by name, his comments — rare for the Sunni monarch — appeared aimed at easing Arab concerns over the Persian Shiite nation's growing influence in the Middle East.

Arab media have claimed that Iran seeks to spread Shiism among the region's predominantly Sunni Arab countries as a way of increasing Tehran's political power.

"We are following up on this matter and we are aware of the dimensions of spreading Shiism and where it has reached," Abdullah told the Kuwaiti Al-Siyassah daily.

"However, we believe that this process will not achieve its goal because the majority of Sunni Muslims will never change their faith," he added. Ultimately, "the majority of Muslims seem immune to any attempts by other sects to penetrate it (Sunnism) or diminish its historical power."

Abdullah does not frequently give interviews or speak of religious strife. His comments in Al-Siyassah, in response to a reporter's question, were the first on the issue of Sunnis converting to Shiism.

While there have been no specific examples of Iranians trying to convert Sunnis, Arabs fear such conversions would accompany Iran's growing powers.

This highly unusual statement by Abdullah appears to be a very thinly veiled warning to Iran. It is not at all clear that the messianic Ahmadinejad is smart enough to heed that warning, but the ayatollahs may be worried about it. That could explain the sudden drop in internal support for Mad Mahmoud.

Odd Analysis

Robert Carlin and John Lewis write an op-ed in today's Washington Post that looks at what they think North Korea really wants from the United States. And both men might be right, they both have serious credentials in the field. Carlin is a former State Department analyst who was involved in most of the U.S.-North Korea negotiations between 1993 and 2000. John Lewis is a professor emeritus at Stanford University who directs projects on Asia at the university's Center for International Security and Cooperation. They say the North Korean government wants a long-term strategic alliance with the US.

This is hard for Americans to understand, having read or heard nothing from North Korea except its propaganda, which for years seems to have called for weakening, not maintaining, the U.S. presence on the Korean Peninsula. But in fact an American departure is the last thing the North wants. Because of their pride and fear of appearing weak, however, explicitly requesting that the United States stay is one of the most difficult things for the North Koreans to do.

If the United States has leverage, it is not in its ability to supply fuel oil or grain or paper promises of nonhostility. The leverage rests in Washington's ability to convince Pyongyang of its commitment to coexist with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, accept its system and leadership, and make room for the DPRK in an American vision of the future of Northeast Asia. Quite simply, the North Koreans believe they could be useful to the United States in a longer, larger balance-of-power game against China and Japan. The Chinese know this and say so in private.

The fundamental problem for North Korea is that the six-party talks in which it has been engaged — and which may reconvene soon — are a microcosm of the strategic world it most fears. Three strategic foes — China, Japan and Russia — sit in judgment, apply pressure and (to Pyongyang's mind) insist on the North's permanent weakness.

Denuclearization, if still achievable, can come only when North Korea sees its strategic problem solved, and that, in its view, can happen only when relations with the United States improve. For Pyongyang, that is the essence of the joint statement out of the six-party talks on Sept. 19, 2005, which included this sentence: "The DPRK and the United States undertook to respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies."

But read the whole thing, because it also details why this is not working out for North Korea. Even if the two authors are correct about North Korea's long range goals, the  tactics they are applying to reach these supposed strategic goals are completely counter-productive. If Carlin and Lewis are 100% correct, there still seems to be no way to get there with North Korea blocking at every turn. I'm not sure the analysis matters at all unless North Korea drops a lot of their behaviors - including apparently helping Iran with its nuclear and missile programs.