Excuse me?

I am sure that this woman just doesn’t know the the difference between LEAD and RULE.

As a fine point to His Majesty, the big “O”, our President’s don’t RULE, they LEAD and SERVE.  I feel inclined to remind his “O”liness  that you, sir, are an elected public SERVANT.

Why Am I Not Surprised?

From Aswat Al-Iraq via Gateway pundit:

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: The Lebanese Daily Star on Saturday reported that the European Union is set to step up its engagement in Iraq once a new U.S. administration takes office, according to an internal paper by the French EU presidency.
“Our common interest is to contribute to the success of Iraq,” the document seen by The Daily Star says. “Therefore, the European Union intends to re-engage in the country without delay.”
According to the Daily Star, European countries like France and Germany were alienated from Washington in light of President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war against Iraq in 2003. When Spain’s socialist government withdrew its troops after a series of terror attacks, Madrid’s relations with the U.S. also soured. The desire to re-engage with the U.S. over policies in Iraq coincides with Bush’s designated successor Barack Obama’s preparations for taking office.
The document is part of a European effort to identify policy areas the 27-member block and the U.S. have in common. The Daily Star said that the EU foreign ministers discussed the paper, which is not intended for publication, on the sidelines of a meeting in Marseille Monday. The eight-page document is intended to provide a framework for European cooperation with the U.S. in key foreign-policy areas – the Middle East, Russia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Diplomats familiar with the talks insisted that any level of re-engagement was linked to the security situation in Iraq. “At the moment, the country is probably still too insecure. But we’re starting the discussion now. The better things get, the more we can do,” a European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
“We are certainly concerned and we are thinking of ways of how to help stabilize the country,” another diplomat said.
During his campaign, Obama had promised to withdraw American troops within 18 months from taking office. The U.S. and Iraq are currently negotiating a deal that would see the U.S. pull out of Iraq by 2011.
According to EU diplomats, considerations among European nations are still at an early stage. If the security situation improves, many of them may be ready to step up their work on development projects. In addition to that, diplomats said their governments would be ready to talk about enlarging an already existing law-and-order mission in the country.
Other diplomats floated the idea of stepping up training efforts of Iraqi police or gendarmerie forces. In the past, Germany has trained police officers outside Iraq on a limited scale.
Italy had assisted Baghdad with the creation of a paramilitary force similar to its own Carabinieri. Earlier this year, the UN special envoy to Iraq, Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura, had called for more European help in setting up such a force.
On Syria and Lebanon, the document states that the EU “must react to the positive recent developments.”
“We can now together encourage these openings, to foster them in a pragmatic way,” the paper says. The EU’s goals were to bolster the “sovereignty and stability of Lebanon, an effective normalization between Lebanon and Syria and the opening of direct peace negotiations between the two countries and Israel.”
France called for a global approach to the region, “including Lebanon, Syria but also the Iranian risk factor.”
Concerning negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the document sparks a stern warning. “Time is playing into the hands of the extremists and is menacing the very idea of two states itself,” the paper says.
“We [the U.S. and the EU] must [act] without waiting and without starting from zero.”
Palestinians, the EU document says, “have made convincing efforts in the [areas] concerning security.”
“This has now to be responded [to with] a complete freeze of all colonization activities,” the paper says. “Colonies are a major impediment to a peace deal.”

Bold courtesy of me.

Un “F”ing real……

“Our common interest is to contribute to the success of Iraq”…Really? Since the fuck when?

“European countries like France and Germany were alienated from Washington in light of President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war against Iraq in 2003″…..so much for NATO…

We are certainly concerned and we are thinking of ways of how to help stabilize the country…to late assholes, WE already did that

We showed up to help your sorry asses just over 60 years ago (you decided to “sit this one out” because you didn’t like Bush.  Right.  Who needs to worry about one’s world image?  I have news for you.  I am 2nd generation U.S, my father being born in Tynje, Friesland, The Netherlands.  I have relatives who served in the Dutch underground (a few of whom were/are socialists.  Too bad you didn’t have the balls that they had.  Reminds me of the Soviet Union declaring war on Japan the day before they surrendered so they could collect some of the spoils.  (Not to lessen the incredible losses that the Soviets suffered on the Eastern Front) 

Personal note to the EU from a blue star father of a Marine on his 2nd deployment, this time in BOTH Iraq and Afghanistan….God forbid he sheds his blood because you didn’t “have the political will” to do what was right….      GO FUCK YOURSELVES

Self Destruction

My background is aviation, from General Aviation to Corporate with a short stint in Commercial.  I have been laid off several time during the last 35 years and survived each time.

I have also been a small business owner with a business that failed.  As a conseqence we have 3 mortgages that we have to pay.  I understand a failed business.  I understand being out of work.

During our local news broadcast tonight a story was broadcast that the local GM factory may be closing.  The owner of a local restaurant/bar was interviewed and she proclaimed “I hope the bailout goes through”

Sorry, I AM sympathic, but this is a perfect example of “penny wise, pound foolish” or, at least, shortsightedness.  Hey, you start a business, you take your chances.  If all your eggs are in the basket labeled “auto worker customers” and the auto workers get laid off, you have no one to blame but yourself…..bad planning in the long run.  Geez, she didn’t think AUTO WORKERS get laid off?

The alternative is to nationalize as much as we can to minimize the losses…..

Wonder how her business will be then….

See previous post…………

We Shall See

Sohere we are, Obama has won the election and we have an unknown future ahead of us.

We shall finally see who was correct, the left or the right.  Will Obama really make life better for the U.S. and the world or will this be the beginning of the end (well, more accurately the middle of the end) of our society as the founding fathers envisioned it.

Frankly, I believe that we will see further erosion of liberty in this country as we turn more and more of what was our own personal responsibility over to the federal government.

We will succeed in altering the grand experiment to such a point that the founders of this country would not recognize it if they were to rise from their graves.

And for that I am sorry for my kids and grand kids.  I am sorry because they will never know of, or experience, the greatness of this country as it was when productivity and innovation were the rule and reliance on the government was a bane. 

When  wealth redistribution is government policy, innovation and productivity slow and stop.  And greatness ends.

So, will the socialists really have won? 

We shall see