Another Universal Sign of Stupidity

You take a major downtown traffic artery, heavily used at rush hour,
and permanently close off one lane to use as a bike lane.

Required reading

Two rather depressing pieces this time, both of which concern Obama's foreign policy. The first is by Ralph Peters, who analyzes Obama's various foreign policy (mis)adventures around the globe. In fairness to Obama, his policy on Iraq has been pretty decent, but Peters chronicles the other major issues -- Iran, China, Russia, etc. -- and finds Obama's actions the product of a "terrifying naivete." Money quote:

By comparison, the Carter administration is starting to look like a model of manly strength, courage and patriotism.

The second is by the Weekly Standard's Reuel Marc Gerecht. Aptly titled, "The Return of Weakness," it deals specifically with Obama's naive (at best) efforts at improving relations with the vile mullahocracy running Iran.

Much of Obama's outreach could be chalked up as harmless if the stakes weren't so high. The truth: The administration knows that it will probably fail to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon through diplomacy or sanctions. The only sanctions that could conceivably pull the regime to the negotiating table, freeze its nuclear program, and allow for inspections of its closed nuclear sites would be energy related. Stopping the export of gasoline to Iran (which cannot refine enough for its domestic market) could have a devastating effect on Iran's economy and public morale. But neither the Obama administration nor the Europeans like the "big stick" approach. In other words, the nuke is coming.

[...]

The Obama administration now runs the risk of appearing weak in its dealings with Tehran. Whether through mirror-imaging or conflict avoidance, it has set the stage for an embarrassing denouement. Unless Washington can convince itself, and then the Europeans, to implement draconian sanctions, Iran will get its nuke. Once that happens, the appeasement (or engagement) reflex will come powerfully into play. The Islamic Republic's appetite to push its newly obtained strategic advantage could prove irresistible.

The clerical regime has never abandoned its ecumenical outreach to Sunni militants. American success, or more likely failure, in Iraq or Afghanistan could be a powerful spur to Iran to strike. State-supported terrorism, which would be both denied and nuclear-protected, could come ferociously back at us. It was a truly nervy move for Damascus, Tehran's closest Arab ally, to have the North Koreans build a uranium-processing plant (the one the Israelis bombed in September 2007). But then, terrorist-supporting "rogue states," by definition, do nervy, unexpected things.

It is useful to remember what has motivated the Iranians to talk in the past: fear. Fear that the Islamic revolution would collapse brought Khomeini to the negotiating table with Iraq in 1988. And, most tellingly, there is 2003, when Tehran made an overture--how serious is unclear--to the United States via the Swiss ambassador in Tehran. To state the obvious: After the fall of Saddam Hussein, Tehran was terrified that President Bush might eliminate another member of the "axis of evil," the one that had just been discovered to have a massive underground uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz. It was fear, not "mutual respect," that provoked some within the clerical regime to reach out to Washington.

Severe tension in foreign affairs is often salutary. Although it is out of fashion to say so, American hard and soft power in the Muslim Middle East has been mostly a force for good. For much of the last 30 years, U.S. power has helped to check Iran's revolutionary potential and offered a seductive alternative to the mullahs' spirit-crunching theocratic state.

But if you believe that the US is not a force for good, you're not going to want to use that power.

This is where leftist pacifism and "multiculturalism" puts real American lives in danger.

(h/t: Power Line)

A sad day for us Pittsburgh fans

Vince Lascheid, longtime organist for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Penguins -- and the greatest organist in the history of the universe -- has passed away.

Some images of Vince at work:



Why was he so special?

Lascheid had manned the organ for Pirates games since the team moved into Three Rivers Stadium in 1970. He also played for Steelers games when they played at Three Rivers Stadium.

[...]

Lascheid was the first to introduce the concept of playing individual songs for players, often playing off their names to come up with ideas. He went from pioneer to hold-over as he remained as other stadiums turned to recorded songs players picked themselves.

"Not only was he the sound of Three Rivers stadium, he was the pioneer of playing individual songs as the batters (home and visiting players) came up to the plate," said former Pirate reliever Kent Tekulve, who has been assisting the Pirates in camp this spring. "He really enjoyed what he did and never cared for the limelight. That's what made him such a special part of the organization for a long a time."

Over the years, Lascheid was very creative in coming up with song choices. Some would be obvious, like the McDonald's theme, "You Deserve a Break Today," when Mark McGwire was visiting, or the theme from "Brian's Song" when Brian Giles manned the outfield for the Pirates. Others were tougher to figure out the association, like the theme for "Grease" for Jason Kendall (Kendall is a brand of motor oil, thus grease). Fans and players alike enjoyed trying to guess the song Lascheid had chosen for each player.

"As players, we always tried to figure out what he was playing for each batter," said shortstop Jack Wilson. "It was unique and always kept us guessing. He will be missed."

More:

Long-time fans will remember Lascheid coming up with clever tunes to support Penguins’ players and to get under the skin of opponents. He started the “Let’s Go Pron-o-vost” chants for right winger Jean Pronovost in the 1970s; played the University of Wisconsin fight song to salute head coach “Badger Bob” Johnson; would belt out “The Night Chicago Died” or “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” for victories over the Chicago Blackhawks or the old Atlanta Flames; and serenaded the three officials with “Three Blind Mice” until the NHL told him to stop!

Other Vince staples – he would pound out “Hallelujah” when the referee finally called a penalty on an opposing player, and then unfurl a rendition of “Let There Be Peace On Earth” during a bench-clearing brawl.

The Penguins' tribute to Lascheid:

You can't make this stuff up

Explorers On Global Warming Expedition Stranded in North Pole by Cold Weather.

Foreign affairs bits

Unfortunately, none of them good:

-- Once again, the Chinese are not our friends:

Last Thursday, President Barack Obama conferred with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in the Oval Office. The two met less than a week after five Chinese vessels, in the words of the Pentagon, “shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity” to USNS Impeccable, an unarmed information-gathering ship, in international waters in the South China Sea. This incident, which occurred on March 8, followed hostile conduct against the USNS Victorious in international waters in the Yellow Sea on March 4 and harassment of the Impeccable on March 5 and 7.

Specifically, Chinese boats closed within feet of the Impeccable, blocked its path, and dropped obstacles in the water. The Chinese vessels even tried to separate a towed array from the Impeccable so that they could take away one of the Navy’s most advanced devices. Among other things, a Chinese boat dangerously crossed Victorious’s bow at night without warning. Chinese planes buzzed both American ships.

And what did the United States do in response to this extremely provocative behavior? “President Obama and Foreign Minister Yang discussed the overall state of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, emphasizing the desire of both sides to strengthen cooperation and build a positive and constructive U.S.-China relationship,” the White House stated after their meeting. “The president also stressed the importance of raising the level and frequency of the U.S.-China military-to-military dialogue in order to avoid future incidents.”

Avoiding future incidents should be everyone’s goal. Nonetheless, they have been occurring with distressing regularity since at least the beginning of the Bush administration. Ever since China’s downing of a Navy reconnaissance plane and the imprisonment of its crew in April 2001, there has been a series of troubling incidents in international waters bordering China. In September 2002, for instance, Chinese vessels and aircraft harassed the USNS Bowditch in the Yellow Sea. That incident was followed by aggressive action against the same vessel in September 2008, again in the Yellow Sea. There are other incidents that went unreported.

Analysts speculate as to Chinese intentions, but in a sense it really does not matter what Beijing is trying to accomplish. Its conduct is simply unacceptable. Washington, however, seeks to establish “dialogue” with China’s generals, admirals, and officials as if their belligerent acts are the result of the lack of contact. It is simply ludicrous for the Obama White House to claim that the Chinese want to “strengthen cooperation” or build a “positive and constructive” relationship after engaging in such truculent behavior.

What China did with the P-3 Orion in 2001 was an outrage and an act of war. W's response was disappointingly bad. It looks like Obama's will be even worse. And remember Bill Clinton calling the Chinese our "strategic partners," even as they threatened to nuke Los Angeles. Why is everyone so desperate to kiss up to the Chinese?

-- Pakistan is imploding:

The Asia Times highlights the greatest proximate danger from fast-breaking developments in Pakistan. The truce between the Taliban and the fracturing Pakistani government has released thousands of fighters to begin an offensive in Afghanistan. [...]

In addition, after striking peace deals with the Pakistani security forces, the newly formed United Front of Taliban in the Pakistani tribal areas is ready to pump at least 15,000 to 20,000 fresh fighters into Afghanistan. These are expected to start crossing the rugged - and unmanned - border in April.

Bill Roggio describes how the fight seems to have drained out of some parts of the Pakistani armed forces, who have now resorted to try and buy the Taliban off.

The military ceased operations in Swat in February 2009 after it failed to dislodge the Taliban. … Javed and the military have refused to respond to the Taliban infractions. Javeed even went out of his way to praise Mullah Fazlullah. He described Fazlullah as a “good human being,” Daily Times reported.

Javed’s [the Malakand Division Commissioner] proposal to integrate the Taliban into the security forces comes as the US Congress is debating a $20 billion aid package to Pakistan. Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar have proposed giving Pakistan a one-time $5 billion grant plus a 10 year aid package worth $15 billion. Some of this money is slated to improve the security forces in Paksitan’s Northwest Frontier Province and the Taliban-controlled tribal agencies.

But Pakistan’s history of appropriately spending US aid money is appalling. More than $3.8 billion of an estimated $5 billion of military aid given to Pakistan up until December 2007 is unaccounted for, and it has been reported that millions of dollars in US aid has gone to pay reparations to the Taliban in Swat.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s government continues to implode. The VOA reports that it has put a former Prime Minister under arrest and sealed off the capital against protesters. ABC Online has reported yet another attack on US supply trucks through Pakistan. The New York Times reported on March 11 that the US was seeking to supply NATO troops through Russia and Iran.

The United States is seeking new supply routes for the war in Afghanistan that would bypass Russia, and has even had logistics experts review overland roads through Iran that might be used by NATO allies, according to military planners and Pentagon officials.

Before very long, the magnitude of the problems with Barack Obama’s vision to turn Afghanistan into the main focus of American military pressure against radical Islam will become manifest to all. He ran for office promising to end al-Qaeda where it began. As he outlined his sweeping vision, there were many posts on the Belmont Club wondering how the logistical circle could be squared. Now, within a scant two months of assuming office Obama glittering vision has already been scaled down; Obama is now willing to ‘reach out’ to the Taliban. All talk of victory has ended. What about a draw?

And Pakistan's help on rounding up terrorists is, shall we say?, less than effective, since their madrassas and camps produce far more than they can catch, even when they are willing.

As I pointed out to people a long time ago, the problem with committing a pile of resources to Afghanistan, and with fighting a war there, is that Afghanistan is landlocked. There is no way to get enough troops, equipment and munitions to the country to be effective. You had to buy people off, which is what we did. But Pakistan's failure as a state makes that strategy less than effective as well.

And, yes, I am calling Pakistan a failure. But let's go a little bit further and a bit more provocative. When we discuss the "evils" of "colonialism" or "imperialism," no one seems to be willing to look at the consequences of abandoning such a policy.

Let's ask ourselves: how many former colonies are now actually better off without their colonial rulers? The US, for one. Brazil for another. Probably Canada and Australia. Maybe India and Singapore. What other former colony has turned into anything but a two-bit hellhole? Pakistan? Zimbabwe? Nigeria? Kenya? The Sudan? Indonesia? The Philippines? Would these places have been better off if they had remained colonies? Would the world have been better off?

-- Iran is messing around in Nicaragua. Say what? Todd Bensman discusses an underreported story:

The press, quite rightly, has swarmed like migrating wildebeest all over the the Islamic Republic of Iran’s burgeoning economic and diplomatic ties to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and, to a certain degree, Iran’s spread to other anti-U.S. countries in South America, such as Bolivia. But with the exception of my own coverage, there’s been hardly a peep about the fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad planted the Iranian flag so far north in Nicaragua as soon as the time-tested American nemesis Daniel Ortega took office in January 2007. In fact, Ahmadinejad considered Ortega’s ascension so important that he was in Nicaragua to attend the inauguration. Within months, Iran was promising hundreds of millions in economic projects — and quickly set up a diplomatic mission in a tony Managua neighborhood where it could all supposedly be coordinated. Now Iran is extending its reach even further north, right into Mexico City with equally under-covered proposals to vastly expand tenuous ties to America’s immediate southern neighbor.

The national security implications of Iran forging paths throughout America’s southern sphere of influence are striking. Iran has long been known for using Hezbollah — the U.S.-designated terror organization it sired — to sow mayhem against its perceived enemies from the diplomatic cover provided by Iranian embassies. When considering Iran’s move to Nicaragua, it is important to remember that Iran had Hezbollah blow up the Israeli embassy and a Jewish center in Argentina not so long ago, killing and wounding hundreds. This is according to a recent 800-page Argentine indictment and still outstanding arrest warrants for top Iranian officials and Revolutionary Guards who carried out the bombings under diplomatic cover provided by Iran’s Buenos Aires embassy.

But unlike those fairly distant countries, Nicaragua is close to the U.S. southern border and also to Mexico’s vast oil and gas infrastructure, which a small home-grown Mexican militant group was easily able to bomb at least half a dozen times in 2006 and 2007. Thousands of Nicaraguan laborers routinely cross the Mexican border and make their way over the U.S. border in search of work. It’s a pretty doable trip. And the mullahs, in addition to pushing for a greater presence in Mexico, keep on expanding in Nicaragua even now. If Iran ever got mad again about anything, couldn’t the ruling mullahs stage an Argentine repeat performance closer to home?

Is it just me

Or is Resident Evil 5 basically just Resident Evil 4 in Africa
(probably Nigeria) with better graphics?

Mystery solved

The ancient Indus River Valley Civilization in Pakistan continues to be shrouded in mystery. While the civilization was clearly advanced in mathematics and civil services, they left almost nothing in the way of a written record, as well as little evidence of writing.

The ruins left by the Indus, centered on two cities known as Harrappa and Mohenjo-daro, show tantalizing signs of totalitarianism -- both cities were almost identical to each other, seem to have been standardized and were almost strictly utilitarian; there is little in the way of cultural expressions; strong citadels suggest a strong central government; and the famous statue referred to as the "priest king," who displays a commanding air.

The statute known as the "Priest King" found at Mohenjo-daro, present-day Pakistan.

Fortunately, I think we have now identified the priest king and his role in Indus society:


We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Whose side is Barack Obama on?

Remember way back when, almost a year ago, when I asked this question:

[W]hy is Obama surrounded by people who really, really, really don’t like the United States of America?

If my suspicion is true, Jimmy Carter ascended to the presidency with the intent to diminish and hurt the US, in direct contravention of his legal and moral duty as POTUS.

Obama has chosen to surround himself with people who also seek to diminish and hurt the US.

Does Obama?

I later returned to this same question:

As POTUS, Barack Obama would owe a duty of loyalty to citizens of the United States, not "citizens of the world." Does he understand that? Does he even care?

Whose side is Barack Obama on?

Now it seems others are asking similar questions, albeit in a different context. Doug Ross:

Is President Obama intentionally attempting to bring the stock market to its knees? Some argue that, indeed, he is. "The free market has failed," he could say, "just as it failed the housing market!"

Consider that, in the teeth of a devastating recession, Obama has:

• Raised taxes on small businesses, the engines of entrepreneurship and job growth

• Raised the capital gains tax

• Lied about "tax cuts for 95% of Americans", offering instead $13 a week, achieved not through tax cuts, but by changing the federal withholding tables!

• Destroyed charitable giving by axing the tax breaks for 26% of all giving (or $81 billion in 2006)

• Proposed a carbon cap-and-trading scheme designed to punish oil companies and further tax consumers

Why would Obama inflict these destructive policies while the economy is collapsing? Simple. Each step strengthens the role of government in people's lives.

• Squelching the stock market kills its attractiveness as a parking lot for private capital. Combined with an increase in the capital gains tax, investors will swarm to bonds -- tax-free vehicles like municipal bonds, which benefit the growth of state and local government. And unions, of course.

• Carbon cap-and-tax will raise taxes on all Americans as the cost of goods and services will increase to address a non-existent threat.

• True tax cuts would grow the economy, which is why, of course, Obama shuns them. The last major recession was Jimmy Carter's malaise. It consisted of of double-digit inflation and unemployment. It was finally licked by across-the-board tax cuts for everyone (even the despised rich), which touched off a twenty-plus year run of prosperity.

• Charities reduce the role of government assistance for those in need. That, in Obama's world, can not be tolerated. That is why charities must be choked off and allowed to die. Especially faith-based institutions.

The only plausible explanation is that Obama's destruction of the economy is intentional.

It is based on a failed ideology that has a track record of Mugabe-esque disaster.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Jim Cramer is a long-time investor who's been around the block a few times. He thinks the Obama agenda is crystal clear, stating "...their agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans... we've elected a Leninist."

Cramer went on to say that President Obama has caused "the greatest wealth destruction I have seen by a president."

Roger Kimball:

I was having lunch yesterday with a prominent critic of the Spender in Chief, and he raised a possibility that many of us have entertained over the past several weeks: that Obama is simply out of his depth: that he hasn’t a clue about what makes the economy tick and his talk about the “profit-to-earnings ratio” was not a slip of the tongue but a worrisome confirmation of the suspicion that he is an empty suit floundering around in the dark.

We kicked around that possibility for a few minutes: certainly the Obama administration seems like a monument to incompetence. Consider the multiple appointment fiascos. Consider his treatment of Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the country that has been our staunchest ally. Consider, if you can stand it, the economy: That sucking sound–the only palpable trace of the once-mighty U.S. stock market–reminds us what the market makes of Obama’s plans to raise taxes on “the rich,” the middle class, business. It reminds us what the market thinks of his efforts to shove the coal industry into a death spiral with absurd cap-and-trade carbon emissions regulations. And that’s all before breakfast, before he sets about wrecking the U.S. health care industry by turning it, too, over to Washington for ruination.

Yes, we agreed, it certainly looks like incompetence and, judged by its results, is effects, its consequences for this great country, it is incompetence on a breathtaking scale.

And yet, is it only incompetence? Remember, shortly before the election, Obama boasted to his mesmerized supporters that “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Is that not what he has set about doing–with a vengeance?

And here’s where we began talking about another possibility: that Team Obama was deliberately targeting the U.S. economy, deliberately impoverishing millions of Americans, deliberately angering our closest allies while coddling dictators like Putin and his puppet Medvedev and funneling millions to terrorist organizations like Hamas.

Kimball sees through the environmental initiatives, as most thinking people do:

That’s where Obama’s much heralded–and astronomically expensive–”green” initiatives come in. Only they aren’t really (or are only incidentally) “green,” i.e., concerned with the environment. At bottom, they are pink, i.e., they are political weapons in a socialist battle against “greedy” business interests.

Who, I wonder, was the political genius who saw the advantages of exploiting people’s sentimental gullibility about the environment for partisan profit? We’ve long known that environmentalism, as the philosopher Harvey Mansfield put it, is “school prayer for liberals.” But I wonder whether even Professor Mansfield could have foreseen what a tool pseudo-environmentalism would be for the radical wing of the Democratic party? The inestimable value of a green, that is, a pink, philosophy is that you can never be green enough. And in pursuit of zero-carbon-emissions purity a government can impose crippling sanctions in order to force compliance. And don’t say Obama didn’t warn you: as I and many others pointed out during the campaign, he promised that, if elected, he would do all he could to “bankrupt” the coal industry.

But here is his kicker:

And this brings me to my new favorite section of the Constitution of the United States: Article II, Section 4, “Disqualification”:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

What we need now is some clever legal talent to show how deliberately sabotaging the United States economy counts as Treason, a high Crime, or at least a Misdemeanor. Any takers?

Some of us saw this coming.

Things we have learned

from the CSI universe these past few weeks:

1. CSI is not nearly as good without Gil Grissom.

2. Sean Combs cannot act.

This is hot

I have discovered Pamala Stanley.


You really can't go wrong with an outfit like that.

As the Dow keeps tumbling

One wonders if it's possible for it to have a negative value.