Month: August 2008

Obama needs to join Toastmasters

I was in Toastmasters for a while–if you don’t know, that’s an organization that basically brings ordinary people together to give speeches to each other.  Then they grade out and critique the speaking style.  The purpose is to improve the public speaking ability of its participants.

One of the most effective things the Toastmasters do, in my opinion, is that they always have somebody doing an “um” count of all of the speakers.  When all speakers are done, they award a joke award to the speaker with the most ums.  The purpose, of course, is to encourage their members to reduce the use of that annoying verbal tic.

As to it’s applicability to Barack Obama, I’m just sayin’.

Politics beyond the ocean’s edge

A thought just came to me . . . it’s probably time for President Bush to go to Europe for personal consultations with the leaders of our allied countries.  He should go now.  He should visit:

London
Paris
Bonn
Rome
Warsaw
Bucharest
Ankara
and then T’Blisi.

Maybe even squeeze in a state visit to Moscow for a get-together and some borscht with Pootie-Poot.

The latter stages of the trip just might happen to coincide with the Democratic National Convention.  But Bush is a lame-duck.  He’s not running for anything.  And it’s his job to manage our international affairs.

He can come back and report his findings to the nation, maybe in St. Paul.

I can just hear the howls of the media/Left now . . . heh heh heh.

Maybe we should keep the MSM around, after all

This, remarkably, from the Washington Bureau of McClatchy Newspapers[*1] (owner of the the Kansas City Star[*2] among others):

Russian politicians and their partners in Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region South Ossetia, said that when Georgian forces tried to seize control of the city and the surrounding area, the physical damage was comparable to Stalingrad and the killings similar to the Holocaust.

But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a very different picture. While it was clear there had been heavy fighting — missiles knocked holes in walls, and bombs tore away rooftops — almost all of the buildings seen in an afternoon driving around Tskhinvali were still standing.

. . .

Russian troops have kept tight control on access to Tskhinvali, often bringing reporters in on coordinated trips. A McClatchy journalist was stopped at a checkpoint on the way out of Tskhinvali and directed back to a Russian outpost, where officers demanded to know where the journalist had been and whom he’d interviewed. In addition to Russian soldiers, South Ossetian militia fighters roamed the streets. One of them, drunk, walked up and showed off a shiny watch. “I got it from the body of a Georgian soldier,” he said with a smile.

On the other hand, comes this fascinating analysis from a commenter whose nom-de-blog is RAH on the non-mainstream media Pajamas Media Belmont Club[*3] blog:

Russian President Medeyev was Gazprom President. In his new position he is buying contracts from other countries. Venezuela sells oil to Russia; Libya just signed a contract with Medeyev and Gazprom. I believe that they got the contracts from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. Saudi Arabia provides oil to the US as well as Kuwait and they are our client countries.

They have been trying to secure outside sources for oil and gas. They recently this spring went to the artic to lay claim to the sources that may be there. Both Sweden and Finland are contesting those areas. Canada also has interest in the artic. The sea ice in the artic actually has changed and the melt has been prominent in the Russian area. The Canadian ice has been getting thicker. The Russia took advantage of the open sea to explore and lay claim. Russia has been the primary interest in the PARS field in Iran that the French company just pulled out.

So Gazprom has known about the need to get more sources since this is Medeyev’s obsession. The clash for oil sources will be the 21st century issue for some time to come. The fools who decry no oil for blood are clueless about how seriously nations will get to secure their energy. Energy is really the life and blood of a nations economy.

After the Soviet fall the Communist and Marxists groups and agitators went into the Green Movement. The Green Movement and the global warming scare have been targeted at Europe. Now it is curious that Russia has been from the 1990’s trying to become Europe’s energy supplier as the Green movement has insisted that power generation be only from natural gas and not coal that Germany has in abundance. Also they forced Germany under Schroeder to phase out the nuclear power generators. Later Schroeder went and worked for Medeyev’s Gazprom.

There is a true collusion from the promoters of Global Warming and the Green Movement that has been strangling Europe to work against its own national interests.
The vociferous attack against those that speak out about global warming as a product of human produced CO2 has been very strong and picked up by the liberal left and almost accepted doctrine in the West. Now we are just starting to show the cracks in that movement and science with bad methodology and sensors and cook algorithms.
Now what would be a good idea is to look at the funding of these groups and see if they have been funded or a disinformation campaign by Russia. The timing is right and the interests do coincide.

Russia never stopped working against the US and since we are their competitor on the world stage it is not surprising. Russia has fomented terrorism in Libya from the 1970’s and then in Syria and Iraq and Iran. They are also working in South America with Venezuela and Bolivia. So Russia has never stopped the Cold War it just went in different direction and form.

Two very different sources, both with the ring of truth.

The Georgia Adventure–Russia’s losses continue

Germany says Georgia is on track to join NATO[*1] .

Ukraine[*2] and Poland[*3] both rapidly agree to join the U.S. anti-missile network–the one Russia has adamantly opposed for years.

The calls to deny their entry into the World Trade Organization[*4] , toss Russia out of the G8[*5] , and otherwise make international life more difficult for the Russians[*6] get louder.

People are even starting to wonder out loud about kicking the Russians off of the United Nations Security Council[*7] .

Heckofa job, Putie.

The uh-uh-uh candidate

I’m really, really trying to cut down on Obama-bashing, mainly because it’s too easy.  But I just must pass along this comment from Victor Davis Hanson[*1] :

After watching some of this, I don’t think Obama will be having many town hall debates with McCain.  However undeniable his calm and presence, he is simply incapable of extemporizing. A written transcript of this interview would be embarrassing, since it would be largely streams of meandering—and, but that, ah, you know, that, and, with uh, uh, I don’t think, ah, ah, that, that, I think, that, that, on, on, an issue…”

. . .

When Obama is asked a question he has not prepped for, he sort of goes into the spinning-eyes mode that one used to associate with the young Dan Quayle in his first weeks on the campaign trail. He knows he should not mouth his postmodern banalities, pauses, and then says something he knows simply won’t work.

At this point I would not be at all surprised to see Hillary Clinton pull off some kind of putsch and steal the Democratic Party Presidential nomination out from under Obama’s nose.  And you know what?  I’m OK with that.  We’re going to need a President with a backbone of steel in the next four years, to deal with the Russians and all the other geopolitical problems in the world.  Whatever you say about their politics, I think both Clinton and McCain have that.  If Obama has it too, I haven’t seen it.