Cossaks Regain Control of Moral Steppes, Westeners Remain Puzzled

from RT

"On Tuesday, Russia threw its support behind a UN resolution that calls on Washington to end the trade embargo, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said at a meeting of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. "We hope that after the US government eases its embargo in certain areas – in particular, on US citizens' visiting relatives in Cuba, as well as on making money transfers and postal orders. Other steps for the final lifting of the embargo will follow," the Russian ambassador said from the rostrum of the UN General Assembly. He stressed that Russia has consistently called for the termination of the embargo, in addition to halting “political and military pressure that aggravates confrontational tendencies in international relations." 

The UN General Assembly on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to condemn the US commercial, economic and financial embargo against Cuba.

 Russia was among 188 UN member states that voted in favor of the resolution, which calls on Washington to lift the embargo against Cuba "as soon as possible." 

Only the United States, Israel and Palau voted against the document."

Let's stipulate that RT is obviously a propaganda organ that mostly highlights American failures and doesn't highlight Russian ones; and further stipulate Russian policy is very much reactively against American, with a high probability that it would move into any areas conceded by American power. This move is significant when paired with recent changes in American law to enable cash transfers to Cuba, and the recent news that Cuba will allow un- or anyway less-restricted emigration.


This should be headline news, but it doesn't seem to be. I assume this is because there is a lot happening back-channel that would be damaging to parse out in the public sphere. Braver people than I could try to determine why Israel voted against it or what are their ties to the anti-cuban lobby. Smarter people than I might explore the whole embargo issue, and I'm sure they have. I just say Madelaine Allbright; case closed.  My basic objection is that only the powerless suffer from embargoes while their leaders, popular or not are the very last to feel the effects. We have given up the moral high ground, so we will lose every propaganda advantage. Straussians say it doesn't matter, but since I don't want any Empire (including ours) to succeed or prosper, I welcome the pushback. Pat Buchanan marked the battle for Falluja as the high water mark for the American forward momentum. I hope that this is confirmation that it continues to recede to at least "realist" levels, if never constitutional or rational levels.

Fecal Cliff

Again, from the Latter-day Pamphlets;

  " For, in fine, the tragic experience is dimly but irrepressibly forcing itself on all the world, that our British Parliament does not shine as Sovereign Ruler of the British Nation; that it was excellent only as Advisor of the  Ruler; and has not, somehow or the other, the art of getting work done; but produces talk merely, not of the most instructive sort for most part, and in vortexes of talk is not unlike to submerge itself and the whole of us, if help come not!"

  "The beginning of all business everywhere, as all practical persons testify, is decidedly this, That every man shut his mouth, and do not open it again till his thinking and contriving faculty have elaborated something worth articulating, Which rule will much abridge the flow of speech in such assemblies! ... and this, alas, is precisely the rule which cannot be attended to in constitutional Parliaments."

Eisenhower in Tryst w/ Driver; Normandy Invasion Cancelled

Pundits Mystified by Lapse of Judgement

by Lester Lingamfelter
London, June 5, 1944

   The United Nations  was stunned today with the collapse of Operation Overlord, when it was revealed that General Eisenhower had submitted his resignation, effective immediately, because of possible conduct "unbecoming an Officer and Gentleman". He stated further that "he deeply regretted that his conduct has reflected poorly on himself and the trust of his Commander-In-Chief."

   Operative responsibility has been transferred to his next in command, General Karl Malden, who has put Overlord on temporary suspension, until the ramifications of the shakeup, and especially it's effect on the other United Nations' allies could be assessed.  It is still unclear whether the Polish forces, as well as contingents from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece and the Netherlands would proceed as planned.

   Although details are only slowly emerging, there is some speculation that General Eisenhower and his aide-de-camp, Capt. Natalie Wood, had been "playing pattycake" after some of their late-night whist sessions, but no one in the chain of command would comment on the record, except Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, who only said "Nuts!" when asked for his response, giving no more clarification.

   President Rockefeller is believed to be at his Hot Springs, Ga. retreat where he is reportedly undergoing vigorous swimming and diving therapy for his asthma, which has flared up during Washington's unusually dry spring and summer. His assistant, Dr. Jane Russell, who  has been directing his regimen at Hot Springs, has informed the President, and his response is expected this evening.

   If General Eisenhower's resignation is accepted, it will mark only the second such high ranking officer to be so terminated, since General Ulysses S. Grant was let go in under similar circumstances after reporting for duty while inebriated in 1862, which was thought by many historians to account for the sudden collapse of the United States war effort and ultimately the loss of the Confederate States.

11/16/12 - via Abu Aardvark, L'Onion-

"Nation Horrified To Learn About War In Afghanistan While Reading Up On Petraeus Sex Scandal - As they scoured the Internet for more juicy details about former CIA director David Petraeus' affair with biographer Paula Broadwell, Americans were reportedly horrified today upon learning that a protracted, bloody war involving U.S. forces is currently raging in the nation of Afghanistan. 'Oh my God, this is terrible,' Allie Lipscomb, 29, said after accidentally stumbling on an article about the war while she tried to ascertain details about what specific sexual acts Petraeus and Broadwell might have engaged in. 'According to this, 2,000 American troops have died, 18,000 have been wounded, and more than 20,000 civilians have been killed. Jesus Christ. And it's been happening for, like, 11 years.' Sources confirmed that after reading a few paragraphs about the brutal war, the nation quickly became distracted by a headline about Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash's alleged sexual abuse of a 16-year-old boy." 

Whither Hence, "American Conservative"?

Has anyone found any alien pods under the desks of the new "crop" of bloggers at the American Conservative? Is Ron Utz devoting too much of his attention to his vanity projects? Is there an editor in the house? This is just unreal. According to Scott Galupo, Republicans are going to resist letting the Bush tax cuts expire and instead are okay with eliminating all deductions and loopholes, because that won't be "raising taxes". Sounds weird, right? How about some quotes? My brackets...

     "The House GOP has signaled it’s not ready to budge on those rates. So we’re left with that big pot of tax expenditures, which, via the Romney-Ryan campaign, Republicans have tacitly committed to tackling." [If that's true, we're extra-lucky Romney lost!]

    "So here’s what I’m thinking could be the outline of a fiscal cliff-averting deal. Call it the Romney-Ryan plan without the rate cuts. It would give Obama the revenue he wants, [Oy!] and Republicans could at least claim not to have raised tax rates." [Sounds very Clintonian to me.]

     "Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but I think it’s a deal that both sides could live with. Even more important, I think it would be good for the economy." [No, you're not - both sides could live very well with it,  its not important what you think, let alone more important, (editor!), and it would kill whatever is left of the economy. Quadruple Oy!]

     "Barack Obama and Speaker John Boehner are the two most important people in America right now. My prediction: they will do the right thing, and we will get a deal." [Billy the Kid made a deal with Bill and Ted, too, "Whatever I win, I keep. Whatever you win, I keep." "Sounds good, Mr. the Kid!" said Bill and Ted and Scott Galupo.

Let's see if I can recreate my comment from memory, since they didn't run it for some reason;

"Wrong! Sorry liberal "conservatives" - although, you didn't mention what the taxpayers would get out of the deal (or the Republicans, for that matter), every penny would be spent, and trillions more would be borrowed, monkey business as usual would continue until the wheels fall off the wagon, and then they'll send the goon squad around like the Sheriff of Nottingham, looking for hoarders and tax-evaders. Respectfully [hah!], you're seriously deluded."

Here's a representative quote that they did publish;

Scott Galupo says;
Deduction limits can be structured in such a way that the wealthy [fucking bastards and crooks] take the biggest hit —> http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/10/18/study-deduction-cap-would-raise-1-3-trillion
And honest liberals [Hahaha] concede that middle-class taxes will probably need to go up at least somewhat.

Carlyle on Blogging

"If the young aspirant is not rich enough for Parliament, and is deterred by the basilisks or otherwise from entering on Law or Church, and cannot altogether reduce his human intellect to the beaverish condition, or satisfy himself with the prospect of making money, - what becomes of him in such case, which is naturally the case of very many, and ever of more? In such case there remains but one outlet for him, and notably enough that too is a talking one: the outlet of Literature, of trying to write Books.  since, owing to preliminary basilisks, want of cash, or superiority to cash,  he cannot mount aloft by eloquent talking, let him try it by dexterous eloquent writing. Here happily, having three fingers, and capital to buy a quire of paper, he can try at all lengths and in spite of all mortals: in this career there is happily no public impediment that can turn back; nothing but private impediment that can turn him back; nothing but private starvation... To the British subject who fancies genius may be lodged in him, this liberty remains; and truly it is, if well computed, almost the only one he has.
   A crowded portal this of Literature, accordingly!..."

Thomas Carlyle, Latter-day Pamphlets - "Stump-Orator." 1850

Church of the Latter-day Pamplets

Thomas Carlyle, Latter-day Pamphlets, "Stump-Orator" - 1850 (fer chrissakes!)

"Probably there is not in Nature a more distracted phantasm than your commonplace eloquent speaker, as he is found on platforms, in parliaments, on Kentucky stumps, at tavern-dinners, in windy, empty, insincere times like ours. ... Alas, he is in general merely the windiest mortal of them all; and is admired for being so, into the bargain. ... Not empty these musical wind-utterances of his; they are big with prophecy; they announce, too audibly to me, that the end of many things is drawing nigh!"

"While the many listen to him, the few are used to pass rapidly, with some gust of scornful laughter, some growl of impatient malediction; but he deserves from this latter class a much more serious attention."

"If speech is the banknote for an inward capital of culture, of insight and noble human worth, then speech is precious, and the art of speech shall be honoured. But if there is no inward capital; if speech represent no real culture of the mind, but an imaginary culture; no bullion, but the fatal and now almost hopeless deficit of such? Alas, alas, said banknote is then a forged one; passing freely current in the market; but bringing damages to the receiver, to the payer, and to all the world, which are in sad truth infallible, and of amount incalculable."

Cicero (106-43 B.C.) is quoted as saying, 'Ut imago est animi voltus sic indices oculi' (The face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are its interpreter). Nailed It!