Valiance rises up again...

Bravery and stoicism are not dead. In the Russians crude quest to halt the missile defense operation, the Czechs have proved to be quite the obstacle. Read below:

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said threats by Russian officials over the plans, which would involve placing a radar system on Czech land and a missile battery in Poland, would only make Czechs more determined to defend themselves.

"The Czechs will now think the shield is even more necessary," Schwarzenberg told Reuters on the sidelines of a business conference in Warsaw.

"We have quite an experience with Russians. You have to make clear to them you won't succumb to blackmail. Once you give in to blackmail, there's no going back. We have to be strong."

These are rather strong statements by the Czech official. Clearly, there's no love lost between the two countries. And finally, when hope had been fading in my mind, the Czechs rise up to prove a thorn in the side of the Russians' national ambitions. Men of valor still exist.

Welfare Bums

I wasn't going to post for a while, but I just couldn't pass this up.

So the Palestinians have essentially been going crazy since the US and Europe stopped giving them welfare money. They don't have an economy, aren't very innovative, and there's not much money to be made in the carbomb-making business, unless it's Iran footing the bill.

So they've really had nothing to do but shoot and kill each other - constantly. And finally, they decided they've had enough and they'd really like that free money they used to get. And the result of this is probably one of the most pathetic ploys I've ever seen.

The PA leadership is hoping that the very fact of the Fatah-Hamas national unity agreement reached in Mecca will end a Western embargo against the Hamas-led PA. The Western nations ended aid to the PA after the Islamist Hamas terror organization swept into power in Authority-wide elections in January 2006.

Speaking to Reuters, Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said, "They (the West) cannot ignore this agreement and impose their own conditions."

I know, I know. Stop laughing for a minute and actually consider their retarded logic. The Western nations stopped giving aid because a terrorist organization(Hamas) was in a disunified government.

Now a terrorist organization(Hamas) is in a - are you ready for this? - a unified government.

I know, don't fall off your seat. All that has changed in the space of, oh, I don't know, a YEAR, is that they've finally formed a unity government.

And the retarded part is that wasn't even what the West objected to. They wanted Hamas to either leave the government or renounce their terrorist principles. (I know, "terrorist" and "principles" in the same sentence is funny, right?)

Hamas did neither. They still hate Israel with the fury of a thousand suns, they're still packin' AK's, and still send mothers and children to Israel with bombs strapped to their bodies.

But it gets better:

Ahmed Yousef, an advisor to the PA's Hamas prime minister, warned the European Union, "I count on the Europeans to change their policies, and to say that what happened in Mecca shows ideological flexibility. The Europeans have their own interest, and they should care about the image and perception. They don't want their image in the region to be like the US."

Translation below:

Arab Terrorist : Give us welfare.

Europe and US : No. You're terrorists.

Arab Terrorist : But we're unified.

Europe and US : No. You're still terrorists.

Arab Terrorist : Europe, you better give us welfare money or we'll call you names in our country.


Note : This is so retarded and the Europeans so feckless it might actually work. But consider the logic of it; a Muslim government is threatening Western governments with giving it money, or else facing the consequences of demonization and hate-speech against it. WHICH ALREADY HAPPENS. These guys truly are nuts.

The Coming Storm

So the evil villain Vladimir Putin has been selling missile defense systems to Iran, weapons to Venezuela, terrorists in general, etc...and now Iran is asking for a favor.

At an international conference, Putin has this to say:

Speaking at a conference of the world's top security officials, including Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, Putin said nations "are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations."

"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," he told the 250 officials, including more than 40 defense and foreign ministers.

"This is very dangerous: Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law," he said through a translator.

The entire message of this speech is to get the US to back off. You can tell they're feeling the heat. The US has just sent another destroyer to the Gulf, and Iran is probably frantically calling in every favor they can, in order not to get bombed back to the Stone Age.

So Putin accuses the US of "overstepping it's borders" and violating "international law". The only people the US has gone after in recent years have been terrorists and dictators. So these are clearly the people Putin is protecting, as well as being his greatest customers. But it gets better.

"This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons," he added, without singling out any particular nation.

So in one brief sentence, he excuses Iran's rush for the nuclear bomb. It's not Iran's fault that they are continuously violating the NPT, you see, it's the US that makes Iran so afraid they need the Bomb.

So this rhetorical assault has a much more potent objective than sullying the United States' name internationally. With it, Putin was hoping to accomplish two points.

1. Deter the US from launching a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

2. Ease international pressure against Iran's nuclear program.

It is essentially liberal strategy at it's finest. Put the enemy(US) on the defensive with a sweeping, intentionally confusing accusation. Then use the (mythical)consequences of that same accusation to defend your ally's(Iran) actions. It all ties together with a neat little bow.

So this is Putin being Putin, and I really wish we had nothing to do with any of these people. Not economic-wise, financial-wise, anything. Then we could take our money out of that dump of the United Nations, and bomb all terrorist-loving nations back to the Stone Age.

-CK