Daniel Hannan: A star is born?

I've been busy, what can I say?

This clip has been making the rounds but I couldn't resist posting it myself. What a great example of common sense and the dressing down of a big government politician like Gordon Brown.

You might be witnessing a future Prime Minister of Great Britain:




The transcript:

Prime Minister, I see you’ve already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate. You’ve spoken here about free trade, and amen to that. Who would have guessed, listening to you just now, that you were the author of the phrase ‘British jobs for British workers’ and that you have subsidised, where you have not nationalised outright, swathes of our economy, including the car industry and many of the banks? Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words? Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the councils of the world if the United Kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G20 country?

The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around £20,000. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child. Now, once again today you try to spread the blame around; you spoke about an international recession, international crisis. Well, it is true that we are all sailing together into the squalls. But not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition. Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear their rigging; in other words – to pay off debt. But you used the good years to raise borrowing yet further. As a consequence, under your captaincy, our hull is pressed deep into the water line under the accumulated weight of your debt. We are now running a deficit that touches 10% of GDP, an almost unbelievable figure. More than Pakistan, more than Hungary; countries where the IMF have already been called in. Now, it’s not that you’re not apologising; like everyone else I have long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It’s that you’re carrying on, wilfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. Last year - in the last twelve months – a hundred thousand private sector jobs have been lost and yet you created thirty thousand public sector jobs.

Prime Minister, you cannot carry on for ever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we’re ‘well-placed to weather the storm’, I have to tell you that you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. You know, and we know, and you know that we know that it’s nonsense! Everyone knows that Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so; the European Commission has said so; the markets have said so – which is why our currency has devalued by thirty percent. And soon the voters too will get their chance to say so. They can see what the markets have already seen: that you are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government.

This dude is righteous, and his blog is here.

Global Whining

According to Gallup, an increasing number of Americans think Global Warming is exaggerated:

Although a majority of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated, a record-high 41% now say it is exaggerated. This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject.

This is good news for common sense, and bad news for L. Ron Gore and the Climate pimps. More and more people are starting to see this nonsense for what it is.

Whenever thinking about this subject it is always good to revisit the classic Confessions of a Global Warming Agnostic by Charles Krauthammer from NRO. A highlight:

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class — social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts, and their left-wing political allies — arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (Communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).

Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher’s England to Deng’s China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.

Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual Left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but — even better — in the name of Earth itself.

Environmentalists are Gaia’s priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. (See Newsweek above.) And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment — carbon chastity — they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.

The dismal tide

Should any of this surprise us?

The Dow is crashing.

Job losses are mounting.

The general unease is growing.

Universal Health Care that is neither constitutional nor affordable is creeping.

The Global Warming swindle — with its boring and brainwashed moonbats — is marching forward.

The War on Capitalism is in full swing.

The War on Terror is in full retreat.

But again I ask, should any of this surprise us?

When you elect someone with zero executive experience, who marinated in radicalism their entire adult life, who learned the art of the "manufactured crisis" from Moonbat-in-chief Saul Alinsky, who pretended to be a centrist during an unvetted campaign — should any of this surprise us?

Thanks, Obama voters.

Are you eating crow yet?

The day the world went away

Because I'm a sucker for dystopian stories about free people struggling against tyranny — in whatever form it takes.

And because it just looks like it's going to be freaking good:

Another doozy of a cover from Newsweek

Let's learn to live with Radical Islam?

Are these people kidding me?



Maybe they're right. After all, this comment on Gateway Pundit probably represents a majority opinion:

There is no such thing as "radical", "moderate", or "liberal" Islam. There is only Islam itself, which is the complete way of life prescribed by Allah (swt) for all of humanity.

Look about you. Everywhere you look, Islam is advancing and the corrupt and man-made societies are in disorganized retreat.

Every day, more people embrace Islam. New mosques rise everywhere while churches and pagan temples fall into disrepair or are used as public latrines. Every day, more Muslim children are born while the cross worshipers and Jews slaughter their unborn children in filthy abortion mills.

The long struggle is nearly finished. It is time to act. Renounce your false religions now. Embrace Islam and live in peace in submission to the will of Almighty Allah (swt).

Your grandchildren will be Muslim.

Allahu akbar!
American Muslim | 03.02.09 - 9:16 pm |

Read more about this insanity here.

And people ask me why I'm pessimistic.

With each passing day there seems to be more evidence that a large number of Westerners — including many Americans — are willing to just raise the white flag and submit. Apparently believing that this is just a new reality we must accept. "This war is lost," as Harry Reid might say.

And hey, it's probably mostly our fault for creating Radical Islam in the first place, right?

Mr. Zakaria, and for that matter, "American Muslim", you should probably note that despite my pessimism I still believe there are many Americans who will resist Radical Islam with every ounce of their beings. Perhaps, if necessary, until their last breaths.

Count me as one of them.

There will come a day when the death-cult that is Radical Islam is dispensed upon the ash heap of history, like so many other failed ideologies before. Until that day comes, there is no 'learning to live' with it.

There should be only defiance of it.

10 reasons to disengage

Some may have wondered why I've been posting less frequently — and when I have, it's been of the more frivolous variety. *

Well, I guess all the gloom and doom is actually starting to have an effect. It certainly makes one want to disengage and turn off the news.

Here are 10 reasons why I'm getting less and less interested in our current state of affairs:

1) We have a President and a political party that constantly tells us how broken, destitute and horrible our country is. It's kind of a buzzkill.

2) Nationalization becomes the norm as Federal power bloats. The Era of Big Government is reborn and most people seem to be just fine with that.

3) Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have not been tarred and feathered for their culpability in the housing mess, nor have they taken any responsibility or shown any contrition, and no one seems to care.

4) Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chucky Schumer, Dick Durbin and Henry Waxman are all prominent leaders of the Democratic party in Congress. This reason alone could pretty much trump all the other ones on this list.

5) Thugs like Hugo Chavez essentially become lifetime dictators through "democratic" elections in Venezuela, and not only does no one care, the Left in this country and much of the media praises his "spunk" and "revolutionary socialism".

6) The "go green" nonsense will not go away, and in fact only seems to be getting stronger. I still believe (hope?) in 10 years or so it will be viewed as the junk science-fad-trend-thing that it is — just a ridiculous product of the worst kind of groupthink. But through wacko policy decisions that will ultimately do nothing but control more of your daily life and constrict movement, prosperity, and liberty, a lot of damage can be done before then.

7) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton perpetuates further an absurd moral relativism by apologizing for past Christian indiscretions while in Indonesia. This is just one example of a wider weakening that continues to disturb me. I keep wondering when the West will stop apologizing and start demanding one instead.

8) Ultra-rich puppetmasters like George Soros have entirely too much hidden influence.

9) Real journalism is dead and buried.

10) "Lost", "24" and "BSG" are all back on, stronger than ever, and serve as welcome distractions from the real world.

So, what does all this mean? In the grand scheme of things, not much. But for this blog it could mean you'll see a little less politics and maybe a bit more about other things that interest me: Pop culture, science, music, Mongolian agricultural trends...okay, maybe not that last one.

There will always be plenty of nutty Leftwingery to mock, and I'll never get bored with that, but for my own sanity I may need to rant about other things as well.

* No one has wondered.

Sunday must-reads

Victor Davis Hanson — Recessional: Conservatives Have Themselves to Blame

Mark Steyn — The Six-Trillion-Dollar Man

Michelle Malkin — These Foreclosure "Victims" Deserve No Sympathy

Heritage Foundation — The Obama Health Care Budget: Hopeful Savings and Costly Change

Larry Kudlow — Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More

Trenton Newell — Government to the Rescue?

George Will — Not-so-hot reporting job

Investor's Business Daily — Venezuela's Elected Dictatorship

Deroy Murdock — The Continuing Saga of Geert Wilders

Charles Krauthammer — Obama's "Kick Me" Diplomacy

Bill Maxwell — On race, blacks are cowards too

Travis Rowley — No Country for Black Men

And finally, on the useful idiots front, see this and this.