"Some of them masked"?



An interesting excerpt from Calgary, in Canada:

"A group of anti-racist activists held a “celebration of diversity” on the steps of city hall Saturday morning as part of efforts to overshadow the message of a white supremacist group reportedly planning a separate event later today. About 150 people, many waving anti-racist signs and some of them masked, gathered for a series of speeches and songs promoting multiculturalism."

Masked in preparation for acting violently or afraid that their fellow citizens will not like their cause? I am sure that the Ku Klux Klan would understand. So-called "anti-Fascists" are the real Fascist thugs these days.

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OBAMA’S SPEECH TO IRAN: SOUNDS CLEVER IN WASHINGTON BUT CRAVEN IN TEHRAN

By email from Barry Rubin of Israel's GLORIA CENTER

I’m not going to criticize President Barack Obama for offering an olive branch to Iran, complete with Farsi subtitles. The funny thing is that everyone seems to have forgotten that the last few presidents tried similar approaches without success. The real issue will be when Obama discovers that the fish aren’t biting or, to put it a very different way, the shark has eaten the olive branch and is chasing him out of the Gulf. It is revealing to parse, however, a couple of his lines:

--A "new beginning" of diplomatic engagement. This no doubt seems clever to White House staffers but a new beginning implies forgetting the past. The Iranian regime, based after all on ideas and events of 1400 years ago, isn’t too big on forgetting the past. In Tehran this will be interpreted as being told to forget past evil deeds of the Great Satan.

--"My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties," I believe him but what is this “full range” of issues? Iran wants to dominate Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinians; be the hegemonic power in the Gulf, wipe Israel off the map; have nuclear weapons; extend influence and promote Islamist revolution quite widely; throw U.S. and Western influence out of the region; and sponsor terrorism wherever it wishes. So how is Obama going to address that? You can talk all you want but that won’t erase real interest conflicts.

--The United States wants Iran to take its "rightful place in the community of nations…. You have that right--but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization."

This is nicely worded but it really reminds me of what former presidents Clinton and two Bushes said almost word for word. But how do Iranian leaders think when they hear this? First, perhaps we define our “rightful place” differently. If Iran just wanted to be another power in the Middle East, with no one bothering it, that goal could have been achieved easily years ago. Iran sees its rightful place as a world leader, most powerful state in the Middle East, and inspiration for a lot of Islamist regime franchises.

What we have here are two different definitions of “rightful place.” And, to the Iranian regime, what is the “rightful place” of the United States? Outside the Middle East, and standing by while Iran becomes regional hegemon and destroys Israel along with just about every other existing Arab regime except Syria, that’s where. Fine words and nice sentiments won’t erase that either.

But my favorite line is Obama telling the Iranians that force, military power, and terrorism won’t work for them. Oh, really? Well they’ve worked pretty well so far. They think America and the West is weak and fearful. Unless these factors stand up to Tehran, the Islamic regime will walk all over them. In fact, Iran has two slogans that explain its behavior: “Change!” and “Yes we can!”

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The emptiness of Obama

Not so long after castigating Senator McCain for saying that the fundamentals of the economy were okay and Governor Palin for trying to talk to the people, past the press-- Obama encouraged everyone to focus on the sound fundamentals of the economy and decided to talk to the people and past the press, by going on Leno.

But then of course originality had never been Obama's strong point. With catchy slogans and book titles raided from everyone from Jeremiah Wright to Alice Walker, and a stylized portrait stolen from an AP photograph, Obama stumbled first to fame and then to power. Two months in and it's painfully obvious even to the press that Obama is a failure.

The double standard that kept him going this long required an endless propaganda loop and infinite second chances. It demanded that the public think the best of Obama and the worst of his opponents. So when Obama talked about visiting 57 states, it was written off as a meaningless gaffe, but when Palin talked about seeing Alaska from her house, it was transformed into an ongoing taunt.

And now thanks to the wonders of the teleprompter and carefully screened questions from the press, we have a man in the White House who might be more incompetent than he is corrupt, or more corrupt than he is incompetent. With the economy stumbling further, stock in incompetence is rising, even while no other stock is.

There's no question about it, the paint is flaking, the antenna is bent and the wheels are coming off. To increasing numbers of Americans who did vote him, Obama is a nice guy who's completely out of his depth. A year in, the assessment is likely to be far worse.

Much more HERE

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TWO CONTRASTING STORIES

Heroism that the major media ignored: "The Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey, presented seven Fort Campbell soldiers with awards for their heroism in Iraq and at home. Casey said he was honored to give the medals to the soldiers, saying their actions were incredibly courageous. First Lt. Nicholas Eslinger, a West Point graduate from Oakley, Calif., was awarded the Silver Star. He was leading a patrol on foot in Samarra, Iraq, north of Baghdad, when a grenade was tossed in the middle of his platoon. "I saw the hand come over the wall and I quickly did a hop, skip and a jump and landed on my side pinning the grenade between the ground and my chest," Eslinger said. Eslinger was able to grab the grenade and toss it back over the wall, where it exploded seconds later. No soldier was killed or wounded that night"

Men die in lake because cowardly British police had a boat but no lifejackets: "Two men died today and two more were feared drowned after their boat sank just hours after they arrived for a fishing trip at a picturesque loch. The men, aged between 30 and 47, had got into difficulties in heavy fog as they returned to their campsite by boat from a pub across the loch in the early hours. A rescue operation was launched after the one man who remained on shore heard their cries for help and raised the alarm. But it took more than two hours to reach them, as rescuers waited for a boat and life jackets to arrive by road from Renfrew near Glasgow, almost 70 miles away. Police admitted that one of the reasons a rescue had not been launched earlier in another boat was because their own men at the scene and firefighters had no life jackets. Shortly after the rescue boat arrived Mr Carty and Mr Currie were discovered unconscious in the water and died shortly afterwards... The 38-year-old man who had remained on shore had been sleeping but awoke when he heard their cries for help at about 3.40am. He called the emergency services but the rescue boat did not arrive until just after 6am. Speaking at the scene, Detective Inspector Andrew Mosely said: ‘It’s not about commandeering a boat, it’s about the visibility and hazards. 'It’s not about a boat. It’s about having buoyancy aids for your staff.’ [No guts]

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ELSEWHERE

The mentally sub-normal Vice President of the United States has made yet another stupid and grossly incorrect claim. Jeff Jacoby savages it.

Airhead at work: "Former President George W. Bush is personally responsible for the current financial crisis and should give every penny of his family fortune to the American people as a result. So proclaimed financial advisor Suze Orman in an article published Friday at WWD. Ironically, the piece also pointed out that Orman didn't foresee the collapse of the financial services industry, and not only continued to recommend people buy real estate as the bubble was being pumped, but also purchased an expensive apartment in New York City close to the peak. That's probably Bush's fault, too.

Busted justice system in Britain: "The Crown Court in England and Wales is at "breaking point" after a 5 per cent rise in cases to 136,000 a year, an independent watchdog has found. As a result there are delays of several months in the hearing of serious criminal trials and the congestion is so bad that the Courts Service, the agency in charge, is spending millions of pounds converting magistrates' courts to tackle the backlog. Meanwhile, only 70 per cent of cases last year were committed for trial within 16 weeks of coming before the magistrates and the Courts Service missed its target of dealing with 78 per cent of cases within 26 weeks. Delays are worst in London and the South East. The findings by the National Audit Office were put this week to Chris Mayer, chief executive of the Courts Service, when she came before the Commons Public Accounts Committee. Edward Leigh, its chairman, who has described the system as "almost at breaking point", condemned the delays and "time-wasting" as "scandalous", adding: "Is this really a dysfunctional organisation? Can you run it properly?

Britain's decayed Foreign Office: "Our man in Havana and the staff in other embassies worldwide are supposed to be the frontline ambassadors putting the best shine on Britain’s image abroad. Back home it is a different story. A damning report has painted a picture of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) as full of incompetents, “cowards” and “clones”. Films like Carlton-Browne of the FO, starring Terry-Thomas, used to portray the pin-striped failures of British diplomacy. The upper-class twits may have been replaced by a new generation of bright young ethnically diverse civil servants, but they are being ruined by inertia and ineffective leadership, according to the study. In the report, which the FCO has suppressed, management consultants mourn the “tragic” descent into mediocrity of a once fine institution, expressing disbelief at the culture that operates in the offices behind closed doors at its imposing Whitehall headquarters."

British unionists prefer the Conservatives: "Confidence in Gordon Brown has crumbled so badly that members of Unite, the country’s biggest union and one of Labour’s most generous donors, now think David Cameron would make a better prime minister. According to a poll by Populus, more than half, 52%, of Unite’s members thought Cameron was “up to the job” of leading the country, against just 42% for Brown. The poll suggests the prime minister is failing even to shore up Labour’s core vote in the recession. More Unite members still intend to vote Labour than Conservative, but this lead has plunged from 26 points at the 2005 general election to three now. Although the poll was commissioned by the Conservative party, its results will be taken seriously because it was carried out by Populus, a respected independent company. It questioned a sample of just over 1,000 Unite members earlier this month".

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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