Yurp's History In 3 Minutes (Pretty Cantankerous Group)

Keep your eyes on Russia and Germany:

That's where the action is,...

The Answer To This Problem: Back Off & Blame Obama

Ahhh, Power Line, thank you - so I'm not alone in throwing this back in Glenn Reynolds' face:

The most significant harm produced by Obama’s deal with Russia is loss of American credibility,…I believe, however, that the most serious and enduring loss to American credibility stems not from President Obama’s actions or decisions, but from the unwillingness of Congress and the American people to support him when he proposed taking military action against Assad.

Glenn's silly race-baiting political partisanship, under these circumstances, is about as heartless - and brain dead - a reaction as I could have imagined.

You'd think Bush was still in office - and we were liberals,...

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Saying Hello To Our Russian "Partners": Stas Baretsky

When anyone says there's no new and different music out there, I say they're not looking far and wide enough.

And - when I say to look "far and wide" - I mean look "far and wide"...

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Putting Flowers In Guns Isn't Going To Work This Time

The vultures are circling, just as we knew they eventually would, seeing how we've had such important things to attend to:

At dinner the other night, perusing the debacle that is Syria, a German friend observed: “It’s the post-American world — and that means chaos.” We were joined by John Kornblum, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, whose verdict was similar: “What you’re seeing is the steady break-up of the postwar system.”… 

The sight of a president who draws a red line on chemical attack and then says “I didn’t set a red line” (the world did); who has Kerry plead a powerful case for military action only to stall; who defers to Congress but seems happy enough with Congress ambling back into session more than a week later; who notes that for “nearly seven decades the United States has been the anchor of global security,” and then declares “America is not the world’s policeman” — the sight of all this has marked a moment when America signaled an inward turn that leaves the world anchorless… 

In Berlin, which survived as a free city because of a U.S. red line, the change has been noted. It has also been noted in Tehran, Moscow, Beijing and Jerusalem.

That's O.K., we'll handle it like we always do - our concern:

With all the stress this is going to cause, it's imperative yoga take off immediately,...

 

"Getting Away With Something" Doesn't Mean You Move

Yesterday a reader, who likes to challenge my take on politics, asked what kind of plot I thought Obama might be working. I told him I don't know - plots are, by definition, secret and crafty. I know, by his other statements, my reader thinks I'm crazy - or too black to think straight about this president I didn't vote for - twice.

But what I really am is not so stupid as to forget Obama's socialist/communist background - or episodes like this:

 

Meanwhile, Hot Air's pondering Syria: 

  Here’s the thing: Doesn’t the Russian proposal get Obama what he ostensibly wants, i.e. an Assad who’s afraid to use chemical weapons again?

Yeah, it does - a gift from the enemy in Obama's self-created crisis he's supposedly losing to everyone in - whoda thunk it? And why would Putin do it? And - as we consider things that don't make sense - here's another question:

If the Right Wing is so concerned about having an anti-American communist Manchurian Candidate in the White House - as they used to scream all night over hootch - why should the idea there's a potential plot unfolding (several even) communist or otherwise, not be credible? Or even come as a surprise?

And, with Putin helping Obama out, if there might be a plot, why must just Republicans - and not the country - be the potential mark? 

I mean, there is an anti-American communist Manchurian Candidate in the White House, riiiight? 

Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot:

In this evolving scenario, you geniuses have already settled on a another narrative that, you think, puts you in a flattering light,...

 

I'm Stuck On A High-Speed Rail Train To Nowhere Fast

While reading this, I had no idea if I should laugh or cry because, Buddy, TMR's already there:

A healthy culture transmits values. When it stops doing that, it dies. When the values no longer seem to be applicable, than the culture hunts around for new values, it undergoes a period of confusion while its forward motion slows down. That is where Japan is now. It's where America has arrived. 

The values of the left, that are present in both Japan and America, are a cultural suicide pact. The left pretends to add a spiritual dimension to modernism. It has been peddling that lie for two centuries and it has yet to deliver. In countries where it wielded full control, there was neither modernism nor values. Russia destroyed the economic, technological and spiritual potential of generations of its people. China is trying to use Communist values to avoid turning into another Japan, not realizing that those are little better than the collective obligations with which Japan rushed into the future. 

As America gazes at the ruins of Detroit and the insanity spewed forth by a digital frontier that increasingly looks every bit as eccentric and toxic as anything coming out of Japan, it is all too clear that we are Japan. There is no unique insanity in East, only a common disintegration of values in the East and the West. 

Asia and Europe have both witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations. It isn't technology that destroys technology that destroys civilizations, but a lack of values. 

To understand where Japan and Europe are, imagine an America decaying with no new ideas, losing its religion and values, losing its economy and finally its sanity, becoming coldly conformist and inhuman, while its families fall apart and its youth retreats into their own makeshift worlds. That reality is closer to home than we might like to think. 

America is destroying its values on an industrial scale. In a post-industrial nation, the destruction of values has become one of its chief industries. And while there is value in challenging values, in the conflict and clash of ideas, that requires that values go on existing, or there is no longer anything to challenge. And then there is nothing left but emptiness and madness. 

Another stupid product from an infomercial. Another ridiculous politician. Another protest. Another indicator of economic decline. Another day, week, month, year of empty nothingness.

I just used my "American Values" tag, on the last post, remembering all the flak I caught for it in the past. It does seem pretty worthless now, next to everyone scheduling "Eastern" medicines in with their meditation ("not just for new-agey folks") and no clue why they're doing either.

That's the only reason why I don't know whether to laugh or cry,...