Q & A

Question and Answer

"Will Putin's Bad-Boy Routine Help Obama, Kerry See the Light?"--headline,FoxNews.com, March 27

"Kerry: Russia Supports Finding a Diplomatic Solution to Crisis in Ukraine"--headline,CNN.com, March 30

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303978304579473353286053242?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303978304579473353286053242.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

Go Ahead

Anti-gun advocates argued recently that if you are confronted by an attacker, you don't need to be armed with a gun or even a knife (that's new) but should just call 911. Sure. Go ahead. Make their day. Guys like the ones pictured will no doubt take a time out and have the common courtesy to let you make the call. Remember, when you have seconds the police are probably just minutes away!

www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/03/29/Gun-and-Knife-Control-Advocates-Say-You-Dont-Need-Weapon-Just-Call-911

Equal - Ve All Must be Equal!

"Jawohl mein Kapitan!" Which is the response the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights expects from a school in Michigan to its edict to tear down a new set of bleachers built and paid for by parents so they could see their sons' baseball games better. The problem? The girls' softball team did not get a new set as well and this was, harrumph, UNEQUAL! 

Well, maybe the girls' parents should get off their patoots and do something about it. Or maybe they don't mind it "as-is." Whatever, but this shouldn't be a Federal case. 

As the father of three daughters who played sports, an equalization of sports' spending and opportunities by schools is a good thing, but this was a parent-led effort and the Feds should keep their hands the heck off the situation. It is, however, a perfect illustration of liberal philosophy that it is better for everybody to be miserable together than to have someone take the initiative to (gasp) better themselves and their situation. Decrepit schools and other public facilities in cities like Detroit are not an aberration but part and parcel of the liberal mindset. Let's do our Orwellian exercise for the day shall we: Misery is Happiness, Misery is Happiness. C'mon now, repeat after me!

www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/25095169/the-battle-over-bleachers-do-high-school-sports-facilities-have-to-match#ixzz2xGHYgDmL

A Final Salute to an American Hero - Jeremiah Denton

An American hero from the Vietnam era, Jeremiah Denton, died on Friday. A Navy A-6 pilot, he was shot down on a mission over North Vietnam and was instrumental in keeping up the morale and resistance of American pilots imprisoned in Vietnamese hellholes. The North Vietnamese put him on television to show how "well" he and the other prisoners were being treated and he blinked his eyes in Morse code "t-o-r-t-u-r-e" to let the world know what was really going on. He also met God in the bowels of one of these prisons.

David Kupelian pens a moving tribute to this rock of a man. In wartime he was a warrior who exemplified the best of the American fighting man. In peace he was a gentle man who served his country

as a U.S. Senator and as an advisor to Presidents. We have been blessed by such men over the centuries. May that always be so. 

www.wnd.com/2014/03/when-jeremiah-denton-met-god/

Something to Think About

No, I'm not a paid spokesperson for PJTV but it's a website that you should definitely bookmark and maybe even shell out $5/month to join. 

One of the the real strengths of the internet has been to break the stranglehold of the mainstream media (MSM - aka "Old Media") on the flow of information and opinion. PJTV is among the best of these sites. It is informative, funny, and perceptive. It is also visual. We have become a very visual society and PJTV adapts to this while many older conservative sites are still wedded almost entirely to the written word. 

You can choose from a wide and constantly changing smorgasbord of political, cultural, historical and other menu items. Trifecta is a "don't miss" item for me. Glenn Reynolds runs longer segments and is not afraid to put scholars on and let them talk - and ask them tough questions. Bill Whittle in his Afterburner segments can be scholarly, funny and incendiary. Author Andrew Klavan is fascinating to listen to for his cultural and artistic observations.

The bottom line is: use it or lose it and this is a website that deserves to be well used by people concerned about the future of this country. 

I Wonder...

Interesting stat. When the Feds shutdown over the Ted Cruz-inspired budget impasse last October there was a 4.6% reduction in Federal spending and President Obama said that economic Armageddon was on its way. Instead the economy, which had been just barely ticking in the 1-2% growth range, surged ahead at an annualized rate of 3.6%. I wonder...

Well Golly!

OK, what is it? Three of these hummers were spotted flying together over Texas and a photographer managed to get a decent close-up of one of them. The aircraft's profile does not fit any known U.S. aircraft, although it is somewhat similar to the X-47B drone aircraft but larger. Perhaps they are drones but a radio transmission was also picked up indicating that they may be manned. If they were supersonic then drones could probably be ruled out as all current generation drones are subsonic. It has 2 engines as documented by the contrail above the one shown. Nice to know somebody is minding the store. 

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2591860/UFO-secret-fighter-jet-The-mysterious-triple-triangle-craft-pictured-flying-Texasre.html

There He Goes Again

Ah Joe - you're such a kidder! Speaking to a Hispanic group, Vice President Joe Biden said he thought all the illegals in the U.S. were "already citizens." Look, let's quit kidding around and just shortcut the process - make all the people in Mexico and Central America U.S. citizens and register them as Democrats. That's reform I can believe in! Apparently Joe and his "reform-minded" colleagues do too. 

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/03/27/Joe-Biden-Illegal-Immigrants-Already-American-Citizens

Crony Capitalism at Work

I always thought that "Fisker" made good scissors and other cutting utensils. It turns out that is "Fiskar" and "Fisker" makes electric cars, or rather made electric cars. 

As you can see from the picture, the Fisker is clearly designed for the broad American middle class market which is probably why the Obama Administration made a $529M loan guarantee for the company in 2009. Place your bets ladies and gentlemen! Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Actually, with this Administration it's mostly lose and lose it did here. The Chinese bought the assets of the company and left the debts which total $139M. Guess who gets to pick up that tab? That's right, the guarantor of the loan, none other than you and me and the rest of the American tax-paying public. 

And you wonder why we are broke.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/03/25/Fisker-Sells-Assets-to-China

Nobody Here But Us Sheep

Great. Obama's new budget cuts funding for Navy Tomahawk and Hellfire (anti-armor) missiles and by 2016 completely eliminates them. I guess we will use instead the Obama and John Kerry finger of shame instead - "Cold War thinking is so 80s!"

Both of these missiles have been mainstays of American power. Tomahawks are exceptionally accurate and mean that our pilots do not have to go in harm's way to hit key enemy targets. If you want to stop tanks, nothing does it better than Hellfires. This is unilateral disarmament. This is extremely dangerous.

freebeacon.com/obama-to-kill-tomahawk-hellfire-missile-programs/

Putin's Achilles Heel

It's easy to view Russia through the filter of the USSR. There are similarities to be sure, but overall modern Russia has some glaring structural weaknesses. 

For example, it has a rapidly aging and declining population with a birthrate that cannot turn this around anytime in the near term. Another key structural weakness is that its economy is almost totally dependent on oil and natural gas exports and therein lies the leverage the U.S. could use to checkmate Putin's ambitions.

Mark Nuckols' article in Townhall says that by slapping an export penalty on Russian energy exports, Russia's economy would come to a screeching halt. Russia needs oil at $100+/barrel to balance its budget and with the world economy sinking, oil prices are likely to sag below that level too. Of course, a little Mideast crisis could alter this - note to Obama as to where Putin may be heading. Cutting off its access to the world economy would also severely crimp its expansionist dreams. This would be a harder sell to our European partners because their economies are quite dependent on Russian oil and gas. Which brings us to the next point.

In the longer term, ramping up U.S. energy exports to Europe would deal a severe bow to the Russians. They cannot compete with us on price and float their own economy, so let the competition begin! Further, making fracking technology available in Europe would allow it to begin to develop this resource locally. As an example, Poland has known deposits of natural gas but it is uneconomic to extract using traditional drilling technology, but the newer fracking technology could change all this. 

Like it or not, the U.S. is a great power - we will never be Belgium. We should use the power judiciously and for the general good, as well as our own interest, although must keep in mind that we cannot save the world singlehandedly. If we walk away from this responsibility, however, others will fill the vacuum and their motives most assuredly will not be as benign. The world that results will also not be even as benign as it is today, such as it is.  

townhall.com/columnists/marknuckols/2014/03/24/russias-feeble-economy-n1813683

Winner of the Crimean Open

(Tip o' the hat to George McGreer)

Not Making the World Safe for Democracy

Although the U.S. has been decreasing defense spending, so has NATO in general and this does not bode well with regard to Putin, the Iranian mullahs or China. The NATO action in Libya a few years ago was ample proof of the problems being created. Both Britain and France ran out of precision-guided munitions in the campaign, as well as battlefield reconnaissance assets (drones) and had to prevail on the U.S. to lend a hand. If a military campaign against a third-rate power was this much trouble, one can only imagine getting into it with a serious foe like Russia. Even so, most of the countries listed and Canada, which is not listed, are still cutting their defense budgets. To put it mildly, collectively the Western powers are not making it safe for democracy and the bad guys of the world know it. Expect further episodes like Ukraine, Part Deux. 

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303802104579449571957045910?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303802104579449571957045910.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Not Just Another Cuppa Coffee

Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. just pledged $30M of his own money to funding brain trauma/PTSD research for war vets. In addition, Starbucks has made a corporate pledge to hire 10,000 vets. Thank you Mr. Schultz and Starbucks for supporting the vets! Salud!

townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2014/03/22/starbucks-ceo-howard-schultz-donates-30m-to-us-troops-n1812140

I See the Light!

Breitbart reports that the American Physical Society may be about to recant its former position as global warmist supporters. A number of its more prominent members have been extremely critical of the organization's stand on the issue and have said so publicly. Thus saith one of them:

"Professor Richard Lindzen, formerly Alfred P Sloan Professor of Meteorology at Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a highly regarded physicist who once described climate change alarmism on The Larry King Show as 'mainly just like little kids locking themselves in dark closets to see how much they can scare each other and themselves.' "

Great line! And the truth too. What a novel concept. Thank you Dr. Lindzen. Science may be returning to science. 

www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/03/20/American-Physical-Society-Sees-The-Light-Will-It-Be-The-First-Major-Scientific-Institution-To-Reject-The-Global-Warming-Consensus

Here We Go Again

Congress is starting to beat the drums warning the public that the Postal Service is going to need yet another bailout. It continues to be a total mystery how this happening. I mean, look at this report and see if you can figure it out:

"In 2012, the Postal Service reported a record breaking $15.9 billion loss. The majority of that loss came from $11.1 billion in unsustainable healthcare benefits for new retirees. In 2013, a $5 billion loss was reported, totaling $20 billion in losses over the past two years."

townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/03/20/get-ready-to-bailout-the-postal-service-n1811933

I just don't know where to start - do you?

Mocking the U.S.

Hugh Hewitt reported a weird story on his radio show this afternoon. It seems the Iranians are building a 2/3 size replica of the U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz. Actually, it's really a barge, but it looks like a carrier. For what purpose you ask? Only God and the Iranians know the answer to that one. Perhaps Ken and Barbie are on the bridge with Barbie in a burkha of course. 

www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/world/middleeast/a-ship-being-built-in-iran-looks-awfully-familiar-to-the-us.html?_r=0

God Left a Clue

Now for the really interesting stuff. A team of scientists led by John Kovacs from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has located the "smoking gun" proving the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe and the scientific community is buzzing. Gravitational waves were theorized by Einstein as the aftermath of the Big Bang and that is exactly what Kovacs' team found - essentially the ripple effect still spreading out from the original massive explosion that created the entire universe. Astrophysicists are putting the discovery on a par with the biggest ever in this field including things like "dark" matter and anti-matter. The theological ramifications are gigantic as well. 

The inescapable conclusion is that the universe was created at a point in time. Created by whom is the question.  An Israeli physicist commented on the huge discovery and said:

“Without addressing who or what caused it, the mechanics of the creation process in the Big Bang match the Genesis story perfectly ... If I had to make up a theory to match the first passages in Genesis, the Big Bang theory would be it.”

Does it prove God? No, not per se, but applying Occam's Razor, it is the simplest of any explanation out there and therefore the most likely true. Just as Scripture says, the proof of God's existence is woven throughout creation. Romans 1:20. 
www.wnd.com/2014/03/physicist-big-bang-breakthrough-confirms-creation/

Tax the Rich!

Hmm...

"A white paper from investment advisory corporationRegentAtlantic finds that New Jersey is losing high percentages of its revenue to wealthy residents moving out to states like Pennsylvania and Florida in the hopes of escaping the highest taxes in the nation."
www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/03/18/Study-NJ-s-Budget-Crisis-Fueled-By-Exodus-Of-Wealthy-Residents-Fleeing-Taxes

No great surprise, this has caused a state budget crisis. The Democrats response - why let's raise taxes on the rich some more. What could possible go wrong? Perhaps border guards to keep people in New Jersey would be a more effective solution. 

Green Garbage Healthcare

While we watch the train wreck of Obamacare still in progress there are calls from the "progressives" amongst us that what we really need is a single-payer health care system. Well, Vermont has gone there and maybe that's not such a good idea either. 

Green Mountain Care was Vermont's version of single-payer care that was created in 2011 and was being phased in with full implementation by 2017. The one problem - cash. It became apparent fairly quickly that the system was going to consume somewhere between $1.6 - $2.2B per year and that unfortunately equalled all of Vermont's tax revenues for an entire year. Even Vermont's Democrats have seen the light and called on the governor to dump the plan. 

Glad someone is capable of learning from their folly. Too bad we don't see many signs of the same in DC at the moment. 

townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2014/03/18/vermont-democrats-labeling-states-singlepayer-health-plan-a-failure-n1810856

I'd Rather Watch

Mona Charen has a great column in Townhall today about the long term and severe foreign policy consequences being wrought by the Obama Administration. One statement sums up her viewpoint well:

"Permitting people like Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Hagel and John Kerry to deal with the brutal realities of world politics is like putting Richard Simmons into the ring with Muhammad Ali."

townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2014/03/18/the-price-we-and-the-world-will-pay-for-obamas-reelection-n1810442

World peace - however uneasy - has been preserved by the bulwark of the United States acting in concert with like-minded allies allowing many of the major nations of the world to develop into stable democracies. This order is now threatened and the U.S. will reap the whirlwind at some point in a big way because it decided to be Belgium rather than the nation founded by the men who fought at Lexington and Yorktown. 

Ring Any Bells?

Well, here it comes. Motorola'a Advanced Technology and Projects group has been perfecting them and PC World says most of us will have one of these in the next 5 years or so: e-tattoos. It's not really a tattoo but a miniaturized grid of rubberized material with embedded silicon electronics that can transmit all kinds of data from medical information like temperature and other vital signs to other uses such as a lie detector. 

It is not hard to see great good coming from this invention as well as great harm. Call me a pessimist but historically it is not man's good side that usually wins out - 666 here we come!

www.pcworld.com/article/2108840/ready-for-your-electronic-tattoo.html

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The Essence of Bureaucracy: Why Government Doesn't Work

The director of the Office of Research Integrity, a Federal DHS department, recently resigned with a bang and went back to his old job at a university. His letter is illuminating for understanding why government is so expensive and produces few meaningful results and here some excerpts:

"This has been at once the best and worst jobs I’ve ever had…Working with members of the research community, particularly RIOs, and the brilliant scientist-investigators in ORI has been one of the great pleasures of my long career. Unfortunately, and to my great surprise, it turned out to be only about 35% of the job.

The rest of my role as ORI Director has been the very worst job I have ever had and it occupies up to 65% of my time. That part of the job is spent navigating the remarkably dysfunctional HHS bureaucracy to secure resources and, yes, get permission for ORI to serve the research community…What I was able to do in a day or two as an academic administrator takes weeks or months in the federal government, our precinct of which is OASH.

On one occasion, I was invited to give a talk on research integrity and misconduct to a large group of AAAS fellows. I needed to spend $35 to convert some old cassette tapes to CDs for use in the presentation. The immediate office denied my request after a couple of days of noodling. A university did the conversion for me in twenty minutes, and refused payment when I told them it was for an educational purpose.

In one instance, by way of illustration, I urgently needed to fill a vacancy for an ORI division director. I asked the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (your deputy) when I could proceed. She said there was a priority list. I asked where ORI’s request was on that list. She said the list was secret and that we weren’t on the top, but we weren’t on the bottom either. Sixteen months later we still don’t have a division director on board.

The sociologist Max Weber observed in the early 20th century that while bureaucracy is in some instances an optimal organizational mode for a rationalized, industrial society, it has drawbacks. One is that public bureaucracies quit being about serving the public and focus instead on perpetuating themselves. This is exactly my experience with OASH. We spend exorbitant amounts of time in meetings and in generating repetitive and often meaningless data and reports to make our precinct of the bureaucracy look productive. (emphasis added)

As for the rest, I’m offended as an American taxpayer that the federal bureaucracy—at least the part I’ve labored in—is so profoundly dysfunctional. I’m hardly the first person to have made that discovery, but I’m saddened by the fact that there is so little discussion, much less outrage, regarding the problem. To promote healthy and productive discussion, I intend to publish a version of the daily log I’ve kept as ORI Director in order to share my experience and observations with my colleagues in government and with members of the regulated research community."The article is worth reading but I think you get the drift. Now think Obamacare at the national level and Cover Oregon and Columbia Crossing locally and it should not be a mystery why they have been such disasters.

www.ijreview.com/2014/03/121506-hhs-director-quits-job-leaves-scathing-letter-exposes-big-govt-circus/

(Tip o' the hat to Al Lyons!)

Rahm Has a Problem

Rahm "Dead Fish" Emmanuel has a problem. In 2015 Chicago has to come up with a $1.07B payment for its public employee pension fund. Putting this in perspective, that would be enough to pave all of Chicago's city streets covering 16,000 blocks. And where is he going to get it? Hizzonor announced that if no one else stepped up to the line, he will have to double property taxes. I'm sure that will encourage people and businesses to stay in Chicago. Detroit here we come!

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/03/12/Chicago-Mayor-Warns-of-Doubled-Property-Taxes-to-Fund-Spiraling-Pension-Costs

Absolutely!

Several Central European countries (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) are asking to buy natural gas from the U.S. because Russian is threatening to cut them off. This is a no-brainer: absolutely! In one stroke we would help our economy, shore up allies, and weaken Russia's leverage in Europe. What's not to like? Which means, of course, that the current deranged occupant of the White House will probably turn it down. Stay tuned.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/03/08/Four-European-Nations-Ask-US-to-Export-Gas-in-Case-Russia-Cuts-Them-Off

We Won't Take "No" for an Answer

There have now been several cases of various vendors associated with the wedding industry where Christian shop owners have turned down the requests of gay couples to bake their wedding cake, take their wedding pictures, etc. and the offended couples have sued. State agencies have usually sued too for civil rights violations and the usual suspects have chimed in with their quick condemnation of the effrontery of these merchants. Even in the Christian community there has been a division of opinion. John Stonestreet writing in Breakpoint makes a good point in considering this issue saying that: 

"Jesus would serve, wash the feet of, and have dinner with a gay person. But that’s different than saying that Jesus, the carpenter, would carve an altar for a same-sex wedding with a rainbow on it in place of a cross. He spent time with tax collectors, but He didn’t help them steal more."

www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-archive/entry/13/24666

Good point. Where do the Constitutional rights of the merchants under the First Amendment end and the gay couples' begin? When you lose the ability to say "no" I would submit that the line has been crossed - respect yes; compulsion no. 

Turning the facts around, Stonestreet poses the fact situation where one of the "loving" members of the Westboro Baptist Church comes in and demands that a Christian baker bake a cake that says, "God hates fags!" How about a Jewish baker who has a Muslim customer who orders a cake with the inscription, "Death to the Jewish Pigs!" Should the bakers be able to say "no" and, if so, how is this different from the situation with the gay couple? The difference is, of course, that one group is politically popular right now and the others are not, but the law is supposed to treat people equally. The answer is that a Christian or Jew should be able to say "no" in any of these situations. Whether they do or not is up to them, but they should not be compelled by the law -respect yes; compulsion no.

New Columbia River Bridge, R.I.P.

It's dead. The proposed Columbia River Crossing bridge on I-5 finally expired yesterday after $190 million in planning expenses, a chunk of which went to one of Gov. Kitzhaber's political insiders. Good riddance.

There may well be a need for a new I-5 bridge but this plan was the model with all the bells and whistles rather than the plain jane version adapted to our tough fiscal times. It also did not have the support of Washington or Vancouver. The CRC project was a massive sop to Kitzhaber supporters that richly deserved its fate. Scale it back, do your due diligence getting the support of our neighbors to the north and then we'll talk. 

www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2014/03/columbia_river_crossing_odot_t.html#incart_more_business

A Man for the Season

We tend to be a little behind the times in watching new movies, but we finally caught up with Lincoln while we were on vacation. It really was a superb film. Daniel Day Lewis richly deserved his Oscar for his portrayal of our 16th President - it was a stellar performance. Watching it brought to mind a couple of thoughts.

The first was how deficient we are in this country in men and women of character in political office, especially high political office. Lincoln and others like George Washington always tried to do what was best for the nation. Instead, our politicians claw and scrape for narrow political advantage solely for the sake of power, prestige and all too often cash. Proverbs 29:18 says that without vision the people perish and that seems to be precisely where the United States is heading and for that very reason. We have been blessed historically with men of character but it appears that may be ending and I fear for the Republic. 

Secondly, although Lincoln was clearly a man of towering character and strength, from my previous reading about him I thought the movie underplayed the role of his Christian faith in developing and sustaining his character through very difficult circumstances, although there were several allusions to the source of his strength. As an example of Lincoln's faith, consider the following:

"I am glad of this interview, and glad to know that I have your sympathy and prayers. We are indeed going through a great trial -- a fiery trial. In the very responsible position in which I happen to be placed, being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out his great purposes, I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to his will, and that it might be so, I have sought his aid -- but if after endeavoring to do my best in the light which he affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must believe that for some purpose unknown to me, He wills it otherwise. If I had had my way, this war would never have been commenced; If I had been allowed my way this war would have been ended before this, but we find it still continues; and we must believe that He permits it for some wise purpose of his own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our limited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that he who made the world still governs it."
Reply to Eliza Gurney on October 26, 1862

A more in-depth article gives a better look at how President Lincoln's faith developed.www.wnd.com/2013/08/debate-over-abraham-lincolns-faith-resolved/
In any event, the historical record seems quite clear that faith in God was at the core of Abraham Lincoln the politician and this saw him - and this nation - through the crucible of the Civil War.

My final musing was how badly we need men and women of such faith as leaders today, at all levels of our society from the President on down. Every country has a unique national character that flows from its people. America has always had a national character that embraced optimism, a can-do spirit, a welcoming disposition and a determination to see things through when the times were tough. As de Tocqueville testified, it flowed from our religious nature which was very unlike Europe. That is changing for the worse because we are a people that is turning away from God. My generation sadly has contributed in a major way to this trend. My hope is that the generations of Americans behind mine will rediscover a faith in God and stand up and apply that faith in the public square wherever they live. That is America's only hope. We need many more Abraham Lincolns if we are going to survive as a nation. You may be one of them.

Really?

President Obama commented on the Ukrainian crisis yesterday:

"Allies and friends and partners around the world, there is a strong belief that Russia's action is violating international law. I know President Putin seems to have a different set of lawyers making a different set of interpretations, but I don't think that is fooling anybody. I think everybody recognizes that, although Russia has legitimate interests in what happens in a neighboring state that does not give it the right to use force as a means of exerting influence inside of that state."

No kidding! The picture is of Russia's current main battle tank, the T-90, of which scores are now in the Ukraine. Does the President really think that T-90s are going to be taken out by his lawyers or that Putin cares? Pretty sure he knew he was violating international law before he ever sent them in. Oyvez!

Is This a Re-run?

In 1938 another European dictator proclaimed that Germans living in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia needed "protecting" from the nasty Czechs and sent in the Wehrmacht to help them. The major European powers, acting in full jellyfish mode, acceded to Hitler's demands and away went the Czech part of Czechoslovakia. Sound familiar? It should.

Putin, apparently believing that no one in the West had seen the movie, pulled out the tried-and-true script again in the Ukraine. I can hardly wait to see which Western power capitulates first. Oh yes, a year later, Hitler invaded Poland and the world was plunged into WWII. When does that part of the movie start.

(Tip o' the hat to Bill Brooks)

A Foreign Policy Made of Pixie Dust

From the Washington Post (not exactly a conservative journal) on Saturday:

"Now Ukraine has emerged as a test of Obama’s argument that, far from weakening American power, he has enhanced it through smarter diplomacy, stronger alliances and a realism untainted by the ideology that guided his predecessor.

It will be a hard argument for him to make, analysts say.

A president who has made clear to the American public that the “tide of war is receding” has also made clear to foreign leaders, including opportunists in Russia, that he has no appetite for a new one. What is left is a vacuum once filled, at least in part, by the possibility of American force.

“If you are effectively taking the stick option off the table, then what are you left with?” said Andrew C. Kuchins, who heads the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I don’t think that Obama and his people really understand how others in the world are viewing his policies.”

Rarely has a threat from a U.S. president been dismissed as quickly — and comprehensively — as Obama’s warning Friday night to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin."

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ukraine-crisis-tests-obamas-foreign-policy-focus-on-diplomacy-over-military-force/2014/03/01/c83ec62c-a157-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html

Which is why China is supporting Russia in its invasion of the Ukraine and why Japanese territory and the South China Sea are next for similar treatment by China. We have a treaty obligation incidentally to defend Japan that we don't have with the Ukraine. Obama, in backing off the world stage is backing right into a major conflict that does not have to be but because he sees the world as filled with fairies and rainbows is now almost inevitable.