Month: December 2009
Happy New Year
I missed out on the Christmas and Hannukah wishes but ought to be in time with the new year ones. It will be our turn to have an election next year (May, I am still saying despite the media hoopla around the word March). It is likely to be an interesting one: we have a government that is more disliked than any I can recall and yet we also have an opposition that just cannot get the support. We also have an electorate that has been seriously angered by all main-stream politicians and has realized, if somewhat hazily, that as long as we are in the EU it makes precious little difference who one wants for. In the last three elections turn-out was extremely low. We do not know what will happen next year. Another low turn-out? Rising vote for the smaller parties like UKIP? It can happen.
The Conservatives are still likely to come back with more seats than any other party but not necessarily with an overall majority. And so what if they do get into government. Remember what Hilaire Belloc wrote about another election?
The accursed power which stands on Privilege
(And goes with Women, and Champagne, and Bridge)
Broke – and Democracy resumed her reign:
(Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne).
Happy New Year to all.
Incompetence, Thy Name is TSA
Via Glenn we find out that the TSA is using legal muscle to go after a couple of bloggers.
It seems that new security procedures were rushed into place right after the Panty Bomber incident, but the Feds say that the directive wasn’t supposed to be revealed to the public. They want to know who leaked the info.
The fact that bloggers are in the litigation cross hairs will be of primary interest to other people who write online. But I want to know how the TSA thinks it can keep out terrorists who are aching to blow up commercial airliners if they can’t keep their internal, secret security directives from being emailed to those who are supposed to be kept in the dark. Since they allowed some known al Qaeda stooge without a passport or luggage who was carrying a syringe full of acid just waltz on a flight to Detroit, I suppose that is a silly question.
On a side note, fellow gunblogger Breda has the final word on the failures of TSA security…
“…tell me again why I have to bear the humiliation of being groped and swabbed every time I fly? Someone please explain it to me because, clearly, I don’t understand. Can’t they just put me on a terrorist watchlist so that TSA will leave me alone?”
Freedom and Control, in Teheran and in Washington
Large numbers of people in Iran are taking huge risks in an attempt to free themselves from a despicable regime. There are many horrifying reports and images available on the web demonstrating clearly the levels of brutality that the regime is willing to use in suppressing dissident voices: see for example here and here.
Barack Obama’s expressions of condemnation for the regime and support for the dissidents have consistently been a day late and a dollar short. He eventually says what he thinks he is expected to say, but there’s not much fire in it. He comes across like an IRS official reciting some section of the tax code for the 495th time, or, at best, like a student giving a report on some long-ago historical event that he really didn’t want to study study but which was important for his grade. His genuine passion has been reserved for domestic issues.
As Joshua Muravchik has pointed out, the current administration has been much less focused on international issues of human rights and democracy than has any other administration in decades. Why?
Alternative Realities…
