Oink Oink Cough

Joe Biden gaffes his way into the swine flu hysteria, and the White House pounces into WHO-5 level preventative spin for Biden's endemic foot-in-mouth disease. Meanwhile, Ron Paul tries to calm people down.

Everything Your Mother Taught You About Contemporary Europe is Wrong

Bruce Bawer provides a brilliant overview of contemporary EU demographic and economic shifts in recent years, chronicling the rise of the European right (which is still pretty left, but hey, gift horse):

More and more Western Europeans, recognizing the threat to their safety and way of life, have turned their backs on the establishment, which has done little or nothing to address these problems, and begun voting for parties—some relatively new, and all considered right-wing—that have dared to speak up about them. One measure of the dimensions of this shift: Owing to the rise in gay-bashings by Muslim youths, Dutch gays—who 10 years ago constituted a reliable left-wing voting bloc—now support conservative parties by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. (Source: WSJ)

It's a long article but well worth the read-- good mix of numbers and analysis, very good at smashing my now-intuitive understanding of Europe (what's that? France got rid of its famed 35-hour work week? omg!).

One thing I can add is that Eastern Europe is also re-treading nationalist paths: "Euroskepticism" (didn't we used to call that communism? or slavophilia? or?...) is on the up-swing again (unsurprisingly, given how even EU members were hung out to dry recently)... As Professor Ivo Banac recently said in a lecture on the future of eastern Europe: "When I gave this lecture three years ago, I was much more optimistic."

Related Articles:
The Revenge of Geography - Robert D. Kaplan (Foreign Policy)
Culture & Barbarism: Metaphysics in a Time of Terrorism - Terry Eagleton (Commonweal)
1848: Year of Revolution (review) - William Anthony Hay (WSJ)
Democracy Denied, 1905–1915: Intellectuals and the Fate of Democracy (review) - Adam Kirsch (CityJournal)

The Left Has 'Em Too

Conservatives aren't the only religious zealots in government. Today the Colorado State House voted to eliminate the death penalty, passing by one vote, 33-32. While Rep. Ed Vigil (D-Fort Garland) cast the tie-breaking vote, Rep. John Kefalas (D-Fort Collins) whispered under his breath "Thou shalt not kill."

Tweed for Weed

The Party of the Right turned out for Bulldog Days to protest for cannabis legalization:

Sellout

Obama gives hippie handshake to Hugo Chavez, calls communism a "stale debate."

Oh, the Irony!

They want to fight global warming to save the poor in Bangladesh... but it's the poor in Bangladesh (and many third-world countries) who are causing global warming.

Overstatement of the Day

A couple Navy snipers shooting three rag-tag pirates in a lifeboat: "An Early Military Victory for Obama"

The Foreclosure Robin Hood... and Tie-Dye

A "housing liberation movement" called Take Back the Land is helping displaced Americans get back into their foreclosed homes, or into other homes that are sitting vacant. I was having pangs of sympathy until I read this:

On a recent afternoon, Ms. Omega sat on the tiled floor of her unfurnished living room and described plans to use the space to tie-dye clothing and sell it on the Internet, hoping to save some money before she is inevitably forced to leave.

Being homeless is one unfortunate thing. Being a hippie is another. Being a stupid hippie is yet another thing entirely. Who is this person who wants to tap into the vast online market for tie-dye clothing, an industry dominated almost entirely by 12-year-olds at summer camp?

Marriage, Children, and Happiness

A study of 218 Denver couples found that marital happiness drops sharply after the birth of their first child. Steeper declines are likely if the mother's parents were divorced, the coupled lived together before marriage, or if the first child is a girl. The lead researcher notes, however, that the study fails to capture the deeper fulfillment of raising a family--and I think fulfillment is a better metric in the long-term than happiness anyway.

Uncanny Similarities

Sean Penn is playing Joseph Wilson in a movie about the Valerie Plame leak? That couldn't be more fitting.

Hatfields and McCoys: Pakistani Edition

A woman living in Canada slated for deportation back to Pakistan claims she will be dead as soon as she arrives back in her home country.  Apparently, she's received death threats from her estranged husband on account of assaults on the family's honor.  What awful act could warrant a death threat such as this?  Oh, that's right.  She worked at a salon, and in the process cutting the hair of both men and women.  Outrageous!

Her brother, also living back in Pakistan, claims he will exact retribution upon her husband if he makes good on his threat.  And so, the terrible conflicts that afflict the Arab world will be reenacted on a micro level.  And we wonder why the area seems to be nothing but a pit of infighting and intolerance.

On a more practical level, this certainly raises some concerns for not only Canada's but also the Unites States' sanctuary and asylum policies.  As they stand now, the fundamental criterion consists in a credible, or well-founded, threat to the individual; however, the polices specify that the threat comes from the other state in question.  What happens when the social sanctions and, as a result, unenforced laws, of another country create a climate in which an individual could feel a credible threat from a source other than the state but which the state in question refuses to address?

International law and religious fundamentalist countries...who'd have ever thought those two things together might pose a conundrum.

The Savior Stumbles

I thought the rest of the world was supposed to start loving the US again once we elected Obama.  Turns out that's not the case.  Anti-American protestors were still at the G-20 summit. French President Sarkozy has told Obama to butt out of Turkey's bid to enter the EU.

Bush was called a crazy fascist with ridiculous expansion of executive power.  Now, our new President feels it's ok to call on the President of a major corporation to step down.  The Senate is considering a new Cybersecurity bill that would grant the President unprecedented power to shut down private networks deemed "crucial to the nation's infrastructure" for "national security" reasons.  Gitmo still exists.  Troops are still overseas.

I said it before the election, but I'll say it again now.  Not much is going to Change.  Obama's losing the expectations game.  He came into office with the majority of the country expecting change the likes we haven't seen in generations; instead, they get a tumbling economy, a President who's as prone to gaffes when speaking off-script as Bush was (see Special Olympics comment), and the advancement of the Bush doctrine (spend like crazy, fight inefficiently, have the world despise us, and look stupid doing it).

Update:  Look he did it again:

"President Barack Obama invoked "state secrets" to prevent a court from reviewing the legality of the National Security Agency's warantless wiretapping program, moving late Friday to have a lawsuit that challenged the program dismissed." Source1 Source2

Human Rights Watch V

The Washington Post criticizes the "self-aggrandizement" of some celebrity adoptions:

"While it is admirable for a star to use her popularity to draw attention to a worthy cause, there's no ignoring the fact that she is also luxuriating in the spotlight and enhancing her personal brand. When that celebrity is named Madonna, a significant amount of manipulative, narcissistic intent is assumed. Throw in photos of her in sunglasses, camouflage cargo pants and layered T-shirts against the backdrop of an impoverished Malawi as she searches for an orphan to adopt, and the stench of self-aggrandizement is nearly overwhelming. This is an image we do not trust."

Heartland Values?

The Iowa State Supreme Court just recently legalized same-sex marriage in the state.  The lawyers arguing on behalf of the couples whose rights had been trodden upon did so on state constitutional grounds so that the case could not be appealed to the USSC.  Very clever.

They forgot one thing.  California passed Prop. 8!  This is the same state that in the very same election voted to exempt 16 year old girls from notifying their parents before having an abortion.  The state that bans smoking everywhere they can (heck, in San Franciso, you can't even smoke on public property out-of-doors).   Do these folks honestly think that the voters in Iowa won't amend their constitution the same way Californians did?

Same-sex couples in California at least had the option of civil unions with essentially the same privileges as a state-sanctioned marriage, but the couples in Iowa would have no such safety net.  In the opinion of this blogger, the gay rights activists in Iowa displayed their ineptitude by not going for civil unions first.

Human Rights Watch IV

Malawi has rejected Madonna's adoption plans, ending the terror of The Lost Generation--children forced into the bondage of Madonna's erratic behavior.

Liberal Semantics

Democrats often criticized former President George W. Bush for utilizing the "language of fear," but we now come to find the Obama administration doing something quite similar.  Only this time, its a language of obfuscation.

The officials in Obama's White House instructed the Pentagon recently to rename the Global War on Terror as "overseas contingency operations" and terrorism as "man-caused disasters."  But it's not just in the realm of military operations that the new administration has renamed our current state of affairs.  In the financial sector, spokespeople are using "legacy assets" as synonymous with "toxic assets."  Basically, our government has told us we can't handle the truth!

Now, I realize a large portion of the United States is based on consumer confidence and this may simply be an attempt to allay the fear of the people, but one has to wonder if there is an ulterior motive.