Barrel Strength

“Demographers today foresee Russia plummeting in population from 150 million to possibly 100 million by 2050.”

I picked this up from a prescient memorandum circulated inside the CIA in 1983, nearly thirty years ago, by a Herb Meyer, discussed here in National Review on line. Meyer had predicted that the Soviet Union was toast before it became fashionable to say so. I wrote about how difficult it was for people to see that the Soviet Union was collapsing even as it was tumbling before their eyes.

Consider what a Russian population of 100 million might mean. By 2050, Canada’s population is expected to be 40 million, give or take 5 million.Since it is already 33 million, reaching 40 million seems to be a reasonable  and low estimate. So Canada will reach 40% of Russia’s population in 29 years. How are the mighty rising.

Re: Libya “kinetic military action”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is questioning the priorities of lawmakers criticizing the U.S. intervention in Libya.

She’s asking bluntly, “Whose side are you on?”

Answer:  The American people.

Global warming, wind power and the euro: three fantasies in various stages of decomposition, or exploding into reality. A fine read.

Hats off to Christopher Booker in the Telegraph.

For example:

“Back in the 1970s, when this was first talked of, Sir Donald McDougall, a senior Treasury official, was commissioned by Brussels to produce a report on “The Role of Public Finance in European Integration”. He warned that economic and monetary union could only work if Europe was in effect given an economic government, with the power to dispose of between 25 per cent and 40 per cent of Europe’s GDP. This was because, as he foresaw, one of the core problems would be that if weaker countries were deprived of the power to set their own interest rates or to devalue, they would require a massive injection of resources from richer countries. Which, of course, is just what we now see being acted out in the desperate efforts to bail out Portugal, following in the wake of Greece and Ireland – with Spain, bigger than all three put together, possibly to follow.

“As McDougall and many after him warned, the single currency could only work on conditions which the builders of a united Europe blithely chose to ignore, in pursuit of their make-believe. As a result, its collision with reality is now coming about, threatening a disintegration of the eurozone that could tug much of the European dream after it.”

I need some help with this. Why do I care who wins or loses in Libya? Look at it this way. There are gang fights going on in trailer parks and slums around the world all the time. This is one of them. It is taking place a huge distance in space, time and jurisdiction from my community. Yet for some reason this is the one where there is a deep and urgent need to intervene. One of the gang leaders is a thoroughly bad chap, but one who has proved amenable to discipline before. I am not sure who the opposing gang leaders are but I seriously doubt I would have them over to sample an amusing imported lager. Another point, if I may. Why is France so deeply interested in regime change in that particular trailer park? Does that not set off some alerts? The one thing that made me think intervening in Libya was a good idea was Obama’s obvious reluctance to do so. I have some other questions associated with this latest colonial adventure – what is the desired end state, when do we know it is over, how much will this cost – but for the moment, a simple answer to the question ‘why’ would settle me down. (Fatuities like ‘responsibility to protect’ and ’support for those who thirst for democracy’ are not answers, they are punchlines.)

The silence of the Barrelstrengthians on this topic is caused by our complete disbelief that anything particularly good or important will come out of it.

Democracy is impossible in Islamic countries because Islam makes all questions, all of them, matters of religious interpretation of the will of an inscrutable and insane God. Therefore the psychic space necessary for democratic discussion – the realm of pragmatic uncertainty- cannot exist, or if it does, has no moral force in relation to religious law.

To creatures who believe themselves to be acting projections inside Allah’s holodeck, free will is a blasphemy.

As to the issue of importance, all that we have seen in the removal of one ageing despot by a military junta, backed by popular uprising. There may be more of them throughout the Arab world. If these popular uprisings lead to war with Israel, as they are wont to do, since despotism stands between the people and their desire to crush the Zionist snake, then the removal of Arab despots is not in our interest, unless until accompanied by fundamental democratic reform. See above as to why we do not believe this will happen. 

Any questions?

Iran continues to face roadblocks in its path to nuclear weapons as two Iranian nuclear scientist were attacked this morning.  Unfortunately one will never know the extent of involvement of foreign intelligence agencies.

Two separate explosions killed a nuclear scientist and injured another in the Iranian capital Monday morning, official news outlets reported….

The assassins, riding motorcycles, tossed bombs at — or attached them to — vehicles of the two Shahid Behesti University professors as they drove with their spouses en route to work between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m..

“A Pulsar motorbike drove close to Dr. Shahriari’s car and stuck a bomb on his car which after a few seconds exploded,” Tehran police chief Hossein Sajednia was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

One of the issues that has diminished the efficiency of the cleanup is the reluctance on part of Obama to suspend the Jones Act,  which Bush did after Hurricane Katrina and Rita.   This reluctance is obviously in deference to his union base.  This week we will find how closely he is bonded to his union base as this foreign ship makes its way to Gulf of Mexico.

With no assurances it will be allowed to join the Gulf of Mexico oil spill cleanup, a Taiwanese-owned ship billed as the world’s largest skimming vessel was preparing to sail Friday evening to the scene of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The ship — the length of 3 1/2 football fields and 10 stories high — is designed to collect up to 500,000 barrels of oily water a day through 12 vents on either side of its bow. It docked in Norfolk en route to the Gulf from Portugal, where it was retrofitted to skim the seas. The ship and its crew of 32 were to leave Virginia waters Friday evening…

Its owners claim the ship could gulp oily water at a daily rate that nearly matches the skimming total to date in the Gulf.

What other interpretation can you give to the following item?
 

“Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

“In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran. To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.”

Whatever you may think of the Saudi royal family, they at least can tell who the wackos are in their neighbourhood, and it is not Israel, which they know already possess nukes sufficient to turn Mecca and Medina into glass. The heirs of Mohammed, the guardians of the Hejaz, and of the sacred places of Islam, are making themselves as agreeable as possible to the needs of the Israeli Air Force on its way to bomb Iran.

Does this not tell you something very deep about the real constitution of the world? Does this not say that the Sunnis fear and loathe the Shi’ites more than they do the Jews, and by a long mile?

(Apologies to the over-sensitive for referring to the Israelis as the Jews, but we have to consider the issue from an Islamic and not from a liberal point of view).

The current debt crisis within Greece, in a roundabout way, will ensure that Turkey never becomes a part of EU.  Turkey simply doesn’t share any of the culture heritage of Europeans but their application was strongly supported by Bush Jr.  This is a country that has never admitted to the Armenian genocide, lacks freedom of speech, continues to have territorial disputes with neighbours and has adopted a radical islam-oriented foreign policy.  Is this a country that shares European values?  Hell no, and thankfully the current events have ensured that Turkey is unlikely to be accepted in EU.

The Greek debt problems will require some creating thinking to resolve.  Defaulting on debt, will mean that Greece cannot borrow money in the future, which will lead to deep cuts as the option of running a deficit disappears.  That is not an option.   The other option is to make deep spending cuts.  As the rioters have made abundantly clear, that is not a viable option either.  What other possibilities are there?

The best option is for Greece to withdraw from EU.  EU is a “rich-man’s club” and its monetary policy is designed as such.  The EU monetary policy is simply not viable for Greece.  The reintroduction of Drachma will allow Greece to devalue their currency and allow it to grow unhindered by EU.  The withdrawal will have to be voluntary, because EU does not have a provision to boot countries out, although after this sorry episode they wish they did.

If Greece is unable to work within the confines of EU, then can one really expect Turkey to do the same?  When comparing the two countries it is instructive to compare the economic, political and  social institutions of the two to ascertain the “fit”.  Hopefully this will serve as a wakeup call to those who continue to be enamored with Turkey, and that includes Bush Jr. and some on this blog.

In the guise of his Whitehall counterpart, as shown in “Yes, Prime Minister”:

Problems with playback? Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kbDE8WCiIk

At least this one gets the comeuppance he richly deserves.

Perchance to dream.

at least when it comes to destroying the US-UK “Special Relationship” that has been a linchpin of freedom for Western democracies. While the British Commons committee report cites policies during the Iraq war that strained the relationship (many of which are still practised by The One’s administration), it was drafted in the aftermath of Obama’s profoundly rude treatment of Gordon Brown and His tendency to treat Europe more as a speech backdrop than as allies. Contrast His eagerness to show off TOTUS in Berlin with His concessions to Moscow on missile defence.

And His reward for this? Getting the diplomatic equivalent of a wedgie from the Russians over the START treaty, among others. Who could have foreseen the image of an American president being held over a toilet bowl by global thugs like Putin and Ahmedinejad for a swirlie, to be followed by the theft of his lunch money?

The German government tells Greece to sell off some of its islands to pay its debts.

See what Ignatieff has to say about abortion in this clip from his press conference:

When Obama agreed to scrap the missile defense shield for Poland and the Czech Republic, he hoped that this would generate concessions from Russia.  Instead of negotiating away the missile defense shield, Obama simply gave it away without anything concrete in return.   The hoped for dividend has been snubbed by Russia with the real Russian President saying this today.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday warned major powers against intimidating Iran and said that talk of sanctions against the Islamic Republic was “premature”.”There is no need to frighten the Iranians,” Putin told reporters in Beijing.

As printed in the Washington Post, so it’s not spin from the VRWC MkII:

… U.S. diplomacy has remained mostly in the hands of one man, Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, who is pushing for normalizing relations with the only country in the world led by a president indicted for war crimes.

[...]

“We’ve got to think about giving out cookies,” said Gration, who was appointed in March. “Kids, countries, they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.

[...]

Ghazi Salahuddin, a close Bashir adviser, praised Gration for “trying to be even-handed.” During a stop in this Darfur capital, Gration was greeted like a rock star by hundreds of cheering Bashir supporters in a conference hall plastered with posters of Bashir with Obama, poorly joined together using a computer.

Oh. Dear. God.