Tag Archives: Across the Pond

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History Passing Us By

Harry Patch, last British survivor of First World War trenches, dies

Harry Patch, the last British soldier to have served in the First World War trenches, has died at the age of 111.

Mr Patch, who was known as the Last Fighting Tommy, was the last living soldier to have fought in bloody battle of Passchendaele, at Ypres, in 1917 in which more than 70,000 troops died.

It’s worth noting this…and worth taking the time to talk to those around us whose service allows us to enjoy what we now have. We’re not down to end of the WW-II guys yet, but they are going fast…dang…I even know a bunch of Viet-nam/Cold-war types (I resemble that remark!) who have made their final muster.

Godspeed, Harry Patch.

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A breath of political fresh air!

FINALLY! A politician/government wonk who admitted what was clearly evident to rational observers of public affairs!

Jacqui Smith: I wasn’t up to being Home Secretary

Jacqui Smith has admitted she was not up to being Home Secretary – and should have been given some proper training before she was handed the job.

Somehow the Chief thought the idea was to appoint people who already were qualified for the job.
(Silly me, to have such obviously unrealistic expectations)

Ms Smith, who is likely to be remembered for claiming expenses for a porn film watched by her husband, said any success she had was down to luck rather than skill.

She added: “When I became Home Secretary I’d never run a major organisation. I hope I did a good job but if I did it was more by luck than by any kind of development of skills.

Now, to get this “truth or consequences” virus across the big pond from Britain to Washington!!!

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

NorK Updates: “It ain’t that pretty at all!”

First, for whatever (little) reassurance this can offer…

Clinton Warns North Korea for ‘Belligerent’ Behavior in Region

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea must face consequences for its “belligerent and provocative behavior” after Kim Jong Il’s regime threatened military action against South Korea.

Clinton spoke in Washington after North Korea’s official news agency said Kim’s government would no longer abide by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War and may respond militarily to South Korea’s participation in a U.S.-led program that would block ships suspected of carrying nuclear weapons or material for export.

The U.S. takes “very seriously” its commitments to defend South Korea and Japan, its principal allies in the region, Clinton said. She called on North Korea to return to the so- called six party talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear arms program.

…and of course the implied threat: “If you don’t watch out, we’ll hold our breath until I turn red in the face! THEN I’ll go to the U.N. and you’ll REALLY be sorry!.”

NKorea threatens to attack US, SKorean warships

North Korea threatened military action Wednesday against U.S. and South Korean warships plying the waters near the Koreas’ disputed maritime border, raising the specter of a naval clash just days after the regime’s underground nuclear test.

Pyongyang, reacting angrily to Seoul’s decision to join an international program to intercept ships suspected of aiding nuclear proliferation, called the move tantamount to a declaration of war.

“Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots,” North Korea is “compelled to take a decisive measure,” the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.

Seoul’s decision comes at a time when “the state of military confrontation is growing acute and there is constant danger of military conflict,” the statement warned.

How serious to take all this? B.O.’s not too worried…Russia apparently has a different take on things:

Russia fears Korea conflict could go nuclear

“We assume that a dangerous brinkmanship, a war of nerves, is under way, but it will not grow into a hot war,” the official told Tass. “Restraint is needed.”

The Foreign Ministry often uses statements sourced to unnamed officials, released through official news agencies, to lay down its position on sensitive issues.

Not exactly a “war fuzzy” – but there it is nonetheless.

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UK Turning Towards a Post-IngSoc Sanity

Police signal beginning of the end for hunt ban

The Chief is something of an ancestral-based anglophile, although this has been harder and harder to maintain in the face of the many idiocies of the current and long-running Labor IngSoc regime. This relates to only one of these inanities.

The writing is very clearly on the wall for the ridiculous Hunting Act, with the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) advising police forces to end monitoring of hunts. In the words of Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable of North Wales, “Hunting is definitely not a policing priority.”

One would hope not, considering the state of law and order in this country. Diverting police officers to monitor hunts, to appease a small group of anti-hunting fanatics, is an indefensible waste of law enforcement resources.

Another whole issue is raised there…the UK’s draconian gun laws have largely caused the decline in “the state of law and order in the country” by disarming the law-abiding, and making it open season for the perps…but I digress.

The whole farce of the Hunting Act cannot now have long to run, with Labour heading for annihilation at the next general election. The class-based hunt ban, which occupied an outrageous 700 hours of parliamentary time, is the iconic “achievement” of New Labour, a testament to its futility and its epitaph. Repeal of this tawdry legislation should be an early priority for the next parliament. To see this much-loved British sport restored to its former glory in the near future will be a potent signal that 12 years of tyranny and national degradation have finally ended.

The sooner the better for the current InsSoc’s AirStrip One to return to the status of being the United Kingdom.

Defense Matters!

Arrrrrrrgh!

USS Gettysburg captures 17 pirates with the help of a Korean destroyer

Score another one for the good guys!

An American guided missile cruiser teamed up with a Korean destroyer Wednesday to go after pirates off Yemen and captured 17 buccaneers who were attacking an Egyptian ship.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet reported finding a rusty old dhow being used as a pirate “mothership” to attack shipping lanes.

A boarding team from the USS Gettysburg searched the ship, finding eight assault rifles, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a rocket-propelled grenade.

The Somali pirates were being interrogated aboard the Gettysburg. A decision on where – or if – to prosecute them is pending….The Gettysburg and the Korean Destroyer ROKS Munmu the Great, both part of an international anti-pirate task force, sped off to help and launched helicopters to the Egyptian ship.

Bravo Zulu to the Gettysburg and the ROK’s for a job well done.

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Hot Pilots

Swedish women have an (often well-deserved) reputation for being “hot” – here’s some additional evidence for your consideration.

Swedish air force captain demands fireproof bras

The commander of the Swedish helicopter fleet in Linköping, Group Captain Micael Bydén, has demanded that his female crew members be equipped with fireproof brassieres.

Ohhhkaaaay.

The situation is even more complicated that it might seem. The Group Captain goes on to take note of additional points to examine:

Group captain Micael Bydén, has now decided to speak out about the situation and has demanded that women serving in the armed forces be taken into account and be provided with flame-proof bras.

“It is a question of basic safety. You can not have anything close to the body that can set alight when you are flying,” Bydén told local newspaper Östgöta Correspondenten.

Bydén also doubts whether fireproof panties are provided and believes that the female crew members are thus forced to fly around in male underwear.

Uh…?

How the bra issue will be addressed in the meantime is as yet unclear.

“They will decline to wear bras when they are flying,” the captain presumed.

He hopes!

’nuff said.

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Illustrated: Poor situational awareness…

Doh! Pirates captured after attacking the wrong ship

This is just too good!

From a distance the large ship on the horizon looked like the perfect target, ripe for a successful spot of piracy.

But as the Somali pirates sped toward the vessel sailing near the Seychelles, they were horrified to see two boats and a helicopter set off from their target and launch their own counter-attack.

They had failed to spot, in the dazzling sun, that the ‘merchant ship’ they thought they were intercepting was, in fact, a French naval ship bristling with cannons, radar technology and armed commandos.

SOMETIMES there IS some justice in this world!

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UK SciFi-ish Writer Passes

It’s reported that Brit writer J.G. Ballard has passed. Although he was noted as being much more than a SciFi author, it’s some of his SciFi-ish stuff that the Chef is most familiar with, although he was best known for Crash, and Empire of the Sun.

His writing was thought-provoking, and often unsettling…but always well worth the read.

He had a good run.

JG Ballard dies after battle with prostate cancer

The award-winning novelist and short story writer, best known for Empire of the Sun and the controversial Crash, died on Sunday morning aged 78.

Friends and colleagues described him as a “brilliant” and “powerful” writer who worked tirelessly throughout his 50-year literary career.

R.I.P.

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Terrs Plans to Lay “Easter Eggs” Foiled

Meanwhile, back in the world of overseas contingency operations the War on Islamoterrs, the UK has been busy preventing terrs from planting explosive Easter eggs aimed at seasonal shopping:

Al-Qaeda terror plot to bomb Easter shoppers

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that the arrests of 12 men in the north west of England on Wednesday were linked to a suspected plan to launch a devastating attack this weekend.

Some of the suspects were watched by MI5 agents as they filmed themselves outside the Trafford Centre on the edge of Manchester, the Arndale Centre in the city centre, and the nearby St Ann’s Square.

Police were forced to round up the alleged plotters after they were overheard discussing dates, understood to include the Easter bank holiday, one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

“It could have been the next few days and they were talking about 10 days at the outside,” one source said. “We had to act.” Police are now engaged in a search for an alleged bomb factory, where explosives might have been assembled.

Sounds like a plotline from Sleeper Cell.

Score a big one for MI5!

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Hunting Hunters in UK Results in Killing

Save the animals: kill the hunters? (Still under investigation.)

Hunt supporter killed by gyrocopter after confronting animal rights activists

Trevor Morse, 48, broke off from following the Warwickshire hunt on Monday morning to drive to an airfield where two alleged anti-hunt protesters who had been following and monitoring them were re-fuelling.

It is believed he wanted to challenge them over their behaviour and allegations they were swooping down aggressively and frightening the horses.

Mr Morse was hit by the mini-helicopter and died instantly. It is thought he was decapitated by its blades.

As two men were continuing to be questioned on suspicion of murder, hunting leaders called for calm as tensions in the already hate-fuelled relationship between hunt supporters and protesters rose further.

Fortunately something like this could never happen here, across the pond, could it?

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ChiCom Econ Blues with Blowback to U.S.

China nears deflation trap as rail freight collapses

Economic travails are not just an American phenomenon.

Railway freight in China’s Shanghai region plunged 31pc in January and industrial production fell 12pc, dashing hopes that Beijing’s stimulus policies will soon begin to fuel recovery.

The country’s central bank said the economic outlook was going to bad to worse was still gathering pace, rains the risk that China could tip into a Japan-style deflation trap.

“External demand is shrinking, some sectors have overcapacity, and urban unemployment is rising. Downward pressure on economic growth is increasing. There exists a big risk of deflation,” said the bank. Factory gate inflation has dropped to minus 3.3pc. Emphasis added.

…uh…NEGATIVE inflation…that sure looks like deflation to me.

And Hilary was just there begging them to keep on buying U.S. bonds?  Yeah. Right.

We’d be better to “batten down the hatches and rig for heavy seas”, to apply an appropriate bit of naval terminology…the Chief is guessing that under the circumstances the ChiComs just might have other things on their mind than propping up our deficit spending.

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EU = USSR?

Czech president compares EU to Soviet Union

The European Union has turned into an undemocratic and elitist project comparable to the Communist dictatorships of eastern Europe that forbade alternative thinking, Czech President Vaclav Klaus told the European Parliament on Thursday.

Klaus, whose country now holds the rotating EU presidency, set out a scathing attack on the EU project and its institutions, provoking boos from many lawmakers, some of whom walked out, but applause from nationalists and other anti-EU legislators.

Klaus is known for deep skepticism of the EU and has refused to fly the EU flag over his official seat in Prague during the Czech presidency, saying the country is not an EU province.

He said current EU practices smacked of communist times when the Soviet Union controlled much of eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic and when dissent or even discussions were not tolerated.

“Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition,” said Klaus. “We learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom.”

Klaus has nailed it solid on this, and given the history of his country, he should be in a position to make this comparison.

National Insecurity

More Financial Follies

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Failure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown

With Americans from President B.O. on down focused on our own fiscal and economic woes, it’s easy tio forget about what might be transpiring in the rest of the world. Unfortunately, dire circumstances across the pond can impinge severely on what can happen here.

Like it or not, the United States has always been involved in global economics, even before the turn of the century – of 1800 no less – with Yankee traders actively involved in trade with China, Europe, the Mediterranean (remember the bit about the North African Barbary pirates?), and Africa. The more things change, the more they stay the same, and U.S. business is still up to its eyeballs in international trade.

As a result, severe problems overseas inevitably will have a kickback to us here, so the possible critical mass chain reaction setting up from Eastern Europe into the heart of the E.U. could do nothing at all beneficial for our own situation. Just what we need…something else to be worried about…not even that we are in a position to DO anything to help the situation.

So what’s it mean to South Dakota?  Anyone ever hear of ag exports?

The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point

If mishandled by the world policy establishment, this debacle is big enough to shatter the fragile banking systems of Western Europe and set off round two of our financial Götterdämmerung.

It’s worth noting that there is an alternate way to communicate the concept involved in Götterdämmerung – Armageddon.

Glowbull Warming

Glowbull Warming Underway In Britain

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Britain faces another 10 inches of snow as grit supplies run low

Relatives in the south of England told us that a 2 or 3 inches of snowfall was occasionally a part of the winters there…but not much more than that. In fact they came over to visit us here in South Dakota in FEBRUARY one year, just to get into some real winter weather for a change. (The Chief is STILL wondering about that one…but hey, they liked it, and we all had fun, so why not?)

This year has been far from that circumstance, as the latest round of Glowbull Warming has delivered more than 10″ to London, and other areas of the U.K.

Britain faces a fresh bout of travel chaos after councils began running out of grit as a further 10 inches of snow was forecast.

Britain braced for another eight inches of snow

Up to eight inches could fall on high ground tonight, with several inches across low ground in Wales, the Midlands, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

Forecasters said the UK faces a “pincer movement” with another band of snow moving across Scotland and into Northern Ireland. A Met Office spokesman said: “It’s the second significant snow of the week. Through the weekend it’s going to be wintry with a mix of rain, sleet and snow.”

The bad weather will sweep across south-east England again on Friday bringing sporadic snowfalls in the Home Counties.

Yep – definitely more of that Glowbull Warming!

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View from a Brit…and “it ain’t pretty at all”

Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all end in tears

Interesting perspective from across the pond.

This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence – la trahison des clercs – in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night. It will not be all right.

The Brits have been down this road before us…after 11 years of a “progeressive” regime led by a “new generation” young. charismatic leader & his followers of similar ilk, the once puissant British lion has been reduced to bankruptcy.

So if we go down a similar path, we will have a different outcome? Nah. Not a chance!

As Warner from the Telegraph concludes:

It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning sentimentality over a celebrity cult has no part in it. The most powerful nation on earth is confronting its worst economic crisis under the leadership of its most extremely liberal politician, who has virtually no experience of federal politics. That is not an opportunity but a catastrophe.

These are frank, even ungracious, words: they have the one merit that, unlike almost everything else written today about Obama, they will not require to be eaten in the future.

The Chief concurs.

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Cold War In Europe

Europe faces energy crisis as Vladimir Putin cuts Russian gas supply

As temperatures dropped below zero across much of Europe, the Russian prime minister instructed the head of Gazprom: “Cut it – starting today.”

The cut was ordered to punish neighbouring Ukraine, which Russia accuses of topping up its own gas supply by siphoning off energy meant for European consumers and sent through its pipelines.

But Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-run gas company, said that it was European Union countries, including Britain, that would feel the effects of an increasingly bitter East-West energy row.

Not exactly too cooperative of Russia, but they sure got some attention from the Euros.

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Political Correctness Flourishing in UK Gov

Prisoners should not be called ‘inmates’, says MoJ

The current Labor Ingsoc government never ceases to come up with new examples of moonbattery.

Prison officers have been told not to refer to their charges as “inmates” because it might offend them. Ministers claim the age-old term is not appropriate if criminals are to be treated with “respect and dignity”.

!

Prisons minister David Hanson revealed the Ministry of Justice stance in a letter to an inmate in HMP Wakefield, in which he said: “Prison staff are expected to treat prisoners with dignity and respect and for this reason the term ‘prisoner’ should be used in preference to the term ‘inmate’.”

He went on to say the term “offender” was not inappropriate.

Hanson sounds like he’s so far removed from situational awareness that he would need the help of GPS, laser range-finders, and a police surveillance team to be able to find his posterior portions with both hands.

Fortunately for Merrie Old England, EVERYONE over there is not bereft of common sense (yet):

One prison officer leader attacked the move and warned jails have already become too soft as he called for a return to tough prisons in 2009.

Opposition MPs said it was “politically correct nonsense”.

In a scathing outburst, Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, called for an end to the “namby pamby attitude” that has led to soft prisons.

“It never ceases to amaze me, the hypocrisy of politicians and senior civil servants,” he said. “On the one hand they say we are not going to have soft prisons but on the other phraseology that has been around for a long, long time suddenly becomes offensive to our dear charges. As far as I am concerned they are convicts, they are prisoners, they are inmates.”

“We should treat them fair and properly but prison should be tough. As we come to 2009, prisons should move away from being seen and actually being soft options to be challenging and demanding places of punishment. Without that we will continue to slide down in the views of the general public and will send people out of prison more likely to reoffend.”

Hear! Hear!

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French Cooking

More than a thousand cars torched on New Year’s Eve

France’s Islamic street thugs were at it again to “celebrate” the new year.

The French press reported that the Interior Ministry released a final “verified” count of 1,147 vehicles burned in France over New Year’s Eve. The number is up 30.64% from last year’s total, 878.

Not to fear, the government is responding forcefully(?).

Sarkozy vows crackdown on car burners

President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to crack down on France’s car burning after more than 1,100 vehicles went up in flames overnight on New Year’s Eve.

Sarkozy said he had asked authorities to be “uncompromising” with vehicle arsonists and said those caught burning other people’s cars should lose their own licences until the damage had been paid for.

Oooooooh! “This time we REALLY mean it! If we catch you, you’ll LOSE YOUR DRIVER’S LICENSE!” This must have them shaking in their shoes!

“There is no reason why honest people should have to pay the consequences of the behaviour of delinquents,” he said in an address to emergency service staff who worked over the evening of Dec. 31.

Car burnings are regular occurrences in France, where some 36,700 were recorded in the first 11 months of 2008, according to interior ministry figures.

“…regular occurrances in France…” This is as disgraceful an example of lily-lovered weak law enforcement as the U.S. urban phenomenon of the “known crack house”. What they need is a French Giuliani to straighten out their priorities…but then again, it IS the French…so it may well be beyond all hope. C’est la vie.

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Wishful Thinking from the KGB (or whatever)

The Chief has been watching the historical mini-series John Adams on DVD during the school break. It reminds once again how unique this American Republic is, and how much the Old World establishment would like it to disintegrate. This has been a recurring theme since the early 1800’s, and just like a bad chile, it keeps coming back up again.

Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.
In Moscow, Igor Panarin’s Forecasts Are All the Rage; America ‘Disintegrates’ in 2010

For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument — that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. — very seriously. Now he’s found an eager audience: Russian state media. In recent weeks, he’s been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. “It’s a record,” says Prof. Panarin. “But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger.”

Sounds like he’s got the nod from Putin on this.

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

Ahhhhh! A common background with Pooty-poot…both alums of the ultimate Soviet good ole boy network of the KGB.

’nuff said.

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Glowbull Warming Updates – cont’d

This from across the pond in the London Sunday Telegraph:

2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved

Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.

The first, on May 21, headed “Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts” , reported that the entire Alpine “winter sports industry” could soon “grind to a halt for lack of snow”. The second, on December 19, headed “The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation” , reported that this winter’s Alpine snowfalls “look set to beat all records by New Year’s Day”.

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

This is as about a concise a summary of this issue as the Chief has seen in one place:

First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare….After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century…..

Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a “scientific consensus” in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world’s most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that “consensus” which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions….

Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month’s Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and “environmentalists” gathered to plan next year’s “son of Kyoto” treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for “combating climate change” with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.

So…how long will it take the enviro-ideologues and Gaia-worshippers to lose their stranglehold on what is known as the “main-stream media”, especially in light of a profound ignorance of real science as opposed to junk science?

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Rumors of War

Looks like the India-Paki pot may be getting ready to boil over – which COULD get very interesting indeed…since they both have nukie.

Pakistan cancels army leave as India tensions rise

Pakistan canceled army leave and redeployed some troops Friday in a sign of rising tension with India.

The United States urged both sides to refrain from further raising tensions, already high after India blamed Islamist militants based in Pakistan for attacks on Mumbai last month that killed 179 people.

The latest strains followed media reports in Pakistan and India that “several” Indian nationals had been held in the last two days after bombings in the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Multan.

The old game of tit-for-tat again.

The South Asian neighbors both tested nuclear weapons in 1998. They have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, and came to the brink of a fourth after gunmen attacked the Indian parliament in December 2001.

Although many analysts say war is very unlikely, international unease is growing.

How reassuring. “Commentators” said war was unlikely in August 1939, also.

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Not Only Detroit…

News fom across the pond. Looks like the “Big 3″ aren’t the only ones with a problem.

Jaguar Land Rover claims car industry crisis is ‘national emergency’ for UK

The boss of Jaguar Land Rover has claimed that the UK car industry is facing a “national emergency” as new figures showed that production tumbled by a third last month.

It’ll be very interesting to compare and contrast how the Brits deal with this one, after watching the fecklessness of both Congress and the administration.

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Islamoterrs Revving it Up…again

First there’s this:

Al Qaeda’s Goal: Cripple Amtrak’s N’east Corridor
Heightened Security In Place At Penn Station; Attack Could Paralyze Transit Between Boston, Washington
Cops, Feds Armed With M16s On Patrol For Forseeable Future

The world’s economic fears were violently pushed aside on Wednesday by another global threat — terrorism.

A massive coordinated attack was launched in Mumbai, India just hours after the FBI warned that Al Qaeda may be targeting New York’s subways and railroads.

If Al Qaeda terrorists have their way there will be chaos and mayhem here this holiday season, a mass transit bomb plot that would probably affect all the subway and train lines at Penn and Grand Central stations.

“The threat is serious, the threat is significant, and it is plausible,” said Congressman Peter King, R-Long Island, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

How serious could it be? As noted above, India is finding out – experienceing what is being called “India’s 9-11″.

Bombay terror attacks: Gunmen target tourists in rampage across city

Up to 100 people have been killed and around 250 more wounded in a series of co-ordinated terror attacks by gunmen in India’s commercial capital Bombay.

Britons were among dozens of hostages taken by gunmen in the attacks on hotels, cafes and a train station. Police said six foreigners had been killed in the violence.

Westerners were rounded up by men armed with machine guns and grenades at seven locations popular with foreign visitors, including three luxury hotels, the Taj Mahal, the Oberoi and the Trident.

B.O.’s initial response to this is less than impressive. Sort of a detached, academic sort of view…maybe reality will make a bit more impression in the light of the new day. One can hope, but the Chief won’t be holding his breath waiting.

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Euros Recognize Enviro Realities – Say “No thanks!”

Climate Change Rules Shouldn’t Hurt Economy – Germany

Italy and Germany agree that measures to cut greenhouse gases shouldn’t weigh on the economy, Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a press conference Tuesday, indicating government support for tough new measures in Europe is waning.
Any new European Union decisions on climate change and energy “must be taken in such a way as to not weigh on industry” in Europe, she said at a press conference televised live by Sky Italia.
Italy, Poland and a few other nations in mid-October threatened to veto ambitious new E.U. goals to fight climate change slated to be approved at the end of this year, saying that the measures were expensive. Italy asked for a new assessment of costs, and for more flexibility in their implementation.
Germany’s public support of Italy’s position means that E.U. leaders may find it harder to get the package approved this year, as scheduled.
Merkel said the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 20% in 2020 remains an important goal, but that a “compromise that respects principles” must be found.

Kyoto Agreement? Does WHAT to our economies?!  Oh. Never mind.

National Insecurity

Cold War II – Med Sea Front Established

From Syrian fishing port to naval power base: Russia moves into the Mediterranean

The Chief remembers his time in the late 60’s on active duty aboard USS Sellers (DDG-11) with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. A significant part of our time was watching, and being watched by Soviet naval and air forces based in Russia-friendly places like Egypt, Libya, and,…Syria. Looks like some of those same circumstances are re-organizing in the (allegedly) post-Soviet Russia, and old buddy Syria.

Tartous is being dredged and renovated to provide a permanent facility for the Russian navy, giving Moscow a key military foothold in the Mediterranean at a time when Russia’s invasion of Georgia has led to fears of a new cold war.

Fears of a new cold war? Uh, situational awareness dictates that “fears of a new cold war” are way behind the curve. Historically, it was a pattern of assertive and at times confrontational behavior that marked the start of Cold War I, which was formally recognized by Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri’s Westminster College in 1946. By the way, it’s STILL worth reading…and makes the Chief wonder where the West might be able to find another Churchill…but I digress.

The bolstering of military ties between Russia and Syria has also worried Israel, whose prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was in Moscow yesterday seeking to persuade the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, to stop Russian arms sales to Syria and Iran. Mr Olmert later said he had received assurances that Russia would not allow Israel’s security to be threatened, but offered no indication he won any concrete promises on Russian arms sales.

Igor Belyaev, Russia’s charge d’affaires in Damascus, recently told reporters that his country would increase its presence in the Mediterranean and that “Russian vessels will be visiting Syria and other friendly ports more frequently”.

That announcement followed a meeting between Medvedev and the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, at the Black sea port of Sochi in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s victory over Georgian forces and its recognition of the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia – actions Assad supported.

The bolstering of military ties between Russia and Syria has also worried Israel, whose prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was in Moscow yesterday seeking to persuade the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, to stop Russian arms sales to Syria and Iran. Mr Olmert later said he had received assurances that Russia would not allow Israel’s security to be threatened, but offered no indication he won any concrete promises on Russian arms sales.

The Chief is a great believer in the principle that “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and has white feathers and a flat bill, then it MUST be a duck.” It looks enough like the first one, so as far as the Chief is concerned, it IS in fact Cold War II.

Defense Matters!

Arrrrrrgh! Shiver me timbers, mate!

A prisoner in ‘pirate alley’

Sorry about that! The Chief just couldn’t resist the obvious cheap humor, although the reality of the current crop of piracy in the Gulf of Aden has nothing to laugh about any more than there was humor in the original pirates of the Caribbean, who were as evil a pack of scoundrels and murderers as ever walked, or sailed the planet.

The current crop, by all accounts, aren’t much better.

In a startling throwback to 17th century days of Spanish galleons, Barbary pirates and avenging royal navies, pirates attacked a record 17 ships in the Gulf of Aden in the first two weeks of September compared to just 10 in the entire year of 2007, according to the Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Center.

Q: How long until official naval anti-piracy patrols are set up?
A: Not soon enough.

Rope. Pirates. Yardarm. Some assembly required.

(Yes, modern naval ships DO still have yardarms – they’re really great at supporting antennae of various sorts!)

Uncategorized

Birds of a feather, and all that…

Poll: US-Europe relations need Obama

Here’s a shocker!

By significant margins, Europeans have high hopes for a potential Obama administration, according to a Transatlantic Trends poll of 12 European countries.

Forty-seven percent of Europeans believe an Obama victory in November would lead to a better relationship between the United States and Europe, versus just 5 percent who think Obama would weaken the trans-Atlantic relationship.

What’s it mean? Not a whole lot to us, since Europe isn’t part of the United States electoral process, in spite of the wishes of the MSM and others.

In other terms however, it’s no surprise at all: Euro-socialists recognize one of their own ilk, and of course, naturally favor him!

As far as the Chief is concerned, it’s yet one more reason to vote for the GOP, as flawed as they are in many ways.

National Insecurity

Cold War II & Stalinist Revivalism

Ghost of Stalin strides the Caucasus

Knowing the origins of Stalin, and his later record, the current mess in Georgia, and the aggressiveness of the Soviets Russians is unfortunately part of the pattern of the new cold war, same as the old cold war.

AT the centre of Gori, Georgia, where every window has been shattered and Russian T-72 tanks patrol, the marble statue of the world’s most famous Georgian, Joseph Stalin, stands gleamingly, almost supernaturally unharmed. As this vicious colonial war turns into an international battle over spheres of influence, Stalin is Banquo at the feast, metaphorically present in the palaces of the Kremlin, the burning houses in the villages, the cabinets of Europe’s eastern capitals.

Today, as far as Moscow is concerned, the Georgian cobbler’s son and Marxist fanatic has been laundered of any traces of Georgia and Marx. He is now a Russian tsar, the inspiration for the authoritarian, nationalistic and imperial strains in today’s capitalistic, pragmatic, swaggering Russia.

In this crisis, and in who knows how many future ones, Stalin represents empire, prestige, victory.

Given the historical fact that Stalin’s USSR killed more of its own people than the Nazis did in their rightly despised death camps, where’s the outcry over Russia’s Stalinist revival?

What would the reaction be if Germany similarly launched a rejuvenation of Hitler’s rep?

National Insecurity

Marching through Georgia – Update

“…wars, and rumors of wars.”:

Russian strikes hit civilians

Hmmm. Restoring the old Russian traditions of not troubling over trivialities like collateral damage”. Sort of like Afghanistan in the 70’s and 80’s, to say nothing of Hungary in ’56.

Georgia conflict: Screams of the injured rise from residential streets

georgian-woman-460_788473c.jpg

The ground shook and a series of explosions rippled through the air. From the middle of a housing estate in the Georgian town of Gori a huge fireball rose into the sky, twisting and mushrooming as if in slow motion. Choking dust swirled above the debris, darkening the sky. A brief silence followed and then the screaming started.

For two days, Georgia has been convulsed by a Russian air and ground assault in a conflict that has escalated rapidly from a localised war against separatist rebels in South Ossetia into a full-scale military confrontation.

But this was the first time that Russian bombs had struck a residential area.

The fighter jets responsible for the devastation had been targeting a military barracks in the built-up outskirts of Gori, a Georgian town 15 miles from the Ossetian frontier. They missed.

Unfortunately there is a lot more harrowing description of the results of the Glorious Soviet Russian Air Force in the Telegraph piece.

Of course, all is sweetness and light from Moscow:

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians, and insists that the offensive in Georgia is not war but a “peacekeeping mission”.

Yeah, right. So’s a cemetery peaceful. In other words: “Ignore the picture above and the accompanying descriptions. Move along folks, nothing to be concered about. Watch the ChiCom Olympics. Nothing happening here. The Soviet Union Russia is a peace-loving nation, quietly maintaining its sovereignty over a formerly Soviet land. I mean, wasn’t everything peaceful back in the USSR? Da! It’s that pesky independence that Georgia seems to think is important that’s the problem. Nyet?

Few of the people of Gori believe that. So powerful were the bombs aimed at the barracks that they shattered windows in a half-mile radius. Even if all had hit their intended target, the chances of collateral damage would have been high.

No precision bombing here!

Directly related is this:

Georgia: Crisis deepens as Russia snubs George W Bush’s call to pull troops out

Western nations have sent a high-level diplomatic mission to Georgia in a bid to broker a truce in the country’s conflict with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Yada, yada, yada. Like former KGB thug Putin gives a rip about diplospeak. If he DID care, the Red Russian Army wouldn’t be on the march.