A Flash from the Past

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel-Hamas arms embargo urged

Amnesty International has called for a freeze on arms sales to Israel and Palestinian groups such as Hamas following the recent Gaza conflict.

In 1940, when Stalin's Soviet Union was still aligned with Hitler, the Communist and their front organizations in the US supported the Neutrality Laws which prevented arms sales to both sides. From the Wikis:

The legacy of the Neutrality Acts in the 1930s was widely regarded as having been generally negative: they made no distinction between aggressor and victim, treating both equally as "belligerents"; and they limited the US government's ability to aid Britain against Nazi Germany. The acts were largely repealed in 1941, in the face of German submarine attacks and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Meanwhile, Hitler was getting war material from Stalin. The fact that Hitler betrayed Stalin (before Stalin could betray him) no doubt helped turn opinion on the left.

The goal here is to make it harder for Isreal to defend itself. Hamas will continue to get all the arms it needs. Is the PLO a group like Hamas? The article does not say. They do terror, too, don't they?

Squander Taxes? Investor Goodwill? Why not! But beware the Tut-tut from Tutu.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Tutu urges Obama apology on Iraq

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has warned Barack Obama of the risk of squandering the goodwill he says the US president's election has generated.

In an article for BBC News, he says it would be "wonderful" if Mr Obama apologised for the invasion of Iraq.

Why don't he just issue a blanket apology? In fact, make it a quilt. We can do "an apology quilt" on the mall. We'll have a patch for everyone we've offended -- all six billion of them (lately we've even been offending me, which is hard to do!).

Keep your rights close. Keep your human rights lawyer even closer.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | 'No US rights' for Bagram inmates

The move has disappointed human rights lawyers who had hoped the Obama administration would take a different line to that of George W Bush.

So now we can send the Gitmo bad-boys to Bagram. Maybe put the plane on autopilot and have it crash into the mountainside. Oops. See, the autopilot never learned how to land. Said it didn't need to know. "Just show me how to fly into a mountain," is what it said. This autopilot was acting strange, but its lawyer wouldn't let us ground it. Sorry. 

And those US rights?  They're there for us, just like it says.

That's the Chicago way.

Enough of this Kabuki Krap.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Clinton urges N Korean dialogue

Hillary Clinton has warned North Korea relations with the US will not improve until it engages in dialogue with South Korea and ends its nuclear ambitions.

I would do more than urge dial-a-ogue. I would write it. I would have North Korea say: "I end my nuclear ambitions." I would then have them say, "I will now make nice-nice to South Korea!" And then I would give them a trillion dollars (trillion being the new billion). In this way I would get the six-pack party talks back on track. We'll have better beer that's less bitter and no more whine! Instead of plain pretzels in our logic I would use cheese stuffed Combos. And tell the Norks: no more playing poker with marked decks! It's just not fair and takes the fun out of it because they're winning all the time.

I would straighten that mess out. That's what I'd do.

Gee, it feels good to be in the opposition.

It's a fusion of Ranchero and the Blues.

If I read right, President Obama's speeches about the current state of the US economy are now translated into Spanish and set to music.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US uses songs to deter immigrants

They are the new secret weapon of the US Border Patrol: toe-tapping ballads with Spanish lyrics that tell of the risks of trying to cross illegally into the US from Mexico.

Bottom line: First you die and then you can't find a job.

If Washington could refrain from causing the worst it would be a good start.

Four really, really bad scenarios - Eamon Javers - Politico.com

His lecture comes as part of an annual “Rethinking Seminar” produced by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Rickards argues that government is not doing nearly enough to prepare for the worst. “Here’s the policy problem for the United States,” he said in an interview. “We have experts in defense and intelligence, and huge depth in capital markets experience at the Fed and at Treasury. But they’re separated by the Potomac River. And they’re not talking to each other.”

Next we'll find out that Jamie Gorelick -- who put "the wall" between Justice and the National Security agencies before 9/11 -- put the Potomac River between the Pentagon and the Fed and then stoked the subprime mortgage mess over at Fannie and Freddie.

But there are work-arounds to get around the "Potomac problem" which actually go across it. Get two tin cans and a long string. Put one tin can in the Pentagon and the other in the Fed and connect them with the string. But remember, you got to keep the string taut or it won't work. Then experts at the Pentagon could talk into one can and the experts at the Fed could listen out of the other. It works the other way around, too. We'll call it the can/can system. Or The Canned "Can" system. Or the "yes we can, can-can" system. This set up will work when the cell phones go down, the Internet goes down, even when there is no more electric power. In lieu of fax machines, they can use pneumatic tubes and carbon paper. Congress "can" provide the air -- but only when it is in session.

Also, I'd like to point out the hidden resource our nation has in overly fertilized and watered suburban lawns. These lawns could provide at least four bumper crops of carrots, sweet potatoes and corn, with no need of additional fertilizer. The three car garages could hold a milk cow, several pigs and a pony -- useful beasts that will provide sufficient manure for the fifth and sixth years. Basements can easily become root cellars. In addition, household chemicals can be turned into pipe bombs and nerve gas.

I hope this has been of help.

This is the end, again.

This explains a lot.

Who Is at Fault for the Decline of the Big Three? - Michael Barone (usnews.com)

The UAW also created a constituency within itself of retirees who have voting rights in union elections just as actual workers do, and there are now something like three times as many GM retirees as GM employees as voting members of the UAW. Retiree benefits account for the lion's share of the difference between GM's labor costs and the labor costs of foreign automakers in the United States.