As If Communism Couldn't Get Any Stranger

I was looking at recent stories on the BBC earlier today when I saw this feature titled 1989: Key events in Europe's revolution. It's actually quite interesting, by the way--it has videos about the fall of Communism in different European countries in 1989. One picture in particular caught my eye:


That's good old Mikhail Gorbachev (I hate that transliteration of his name, but I'll go with it because that's how most Americans know him) getting a tad too close for comfort to Erich Honecker, then the leader of East Germany.

My curiosity aroused by this photo, I Googled the words "Gorbachev kissing Honecker" and found this fascinating website. Apparently Communist leaders during this time used to kiss each other in greeting like this. When Brezhnev (who was in power before Gorbachev) visited Honecker, they apparently kissed each other as well. It was a sign of "socialist solidarity". I don't know about my readers, but that's just awkward, in my opinion, just a bit too close for comfort.

And apparently Honecker wasn't such a great kisser. According to this interview, Wojciech Jaruzelski, the last Communist leader of Poland, Honecker had a "disgusting way of kissing."

Oh, those Communists. What an... odd set of people.

Technical Difficulties

Seriously, Blogger causes me so much consternation sometimes. I discovered that the lovely inline comment form does not work with Firefox for Mac. So, we're back to the old cumbersome way of commenting. If anybody has any advice for me, please don't hesitate to tell me.

I do realise that I could switch blogging services. I've actually been considering switching to Wordpress for some time now. If anyone has any thoughts on the matter, please don't hesitate to leave a comment or send an email. Any input is much appreciated.

Learn Your Cyrillic

Pete, a reader of this blog, emailed me the following amusing story. While in Russia, he spoke with an American who knew no Russian--this person could neither speak nor read the words in Cyrillic. As a result, he was complaining to Pete about the fact that he could never determine the purpose of of buildings, but a common one was "PECTOPAH". At first I was confused, but this is actually quite amusing. You see, the word for restaurant in Russian is ресторан (restoran) but oddly enough, all those letters actually look like letters in the Latin alphabet (though they do not make the same sounds, of course). I find the whole thing quite amusing.

Photo credit.

New Commenting System

I am trying out a new commenting system on this blog. If you have any trouble posting a comment, please email me.

The Sochi Mayoral Elections

I mentioned the mayoral elections in Sochi briefly on Sunday. Over the course of this week, they have grown even more interesting. According to a New York Times article today:

Now in the running to become mayor of the southern Russian city of Sochi: a former ballerina for the Bolshoi Ballet; a porn star who sometimes goes by the name Velvet Angel; the head of Russia’s largest Masonic lodge; an Anglophile newspaper mogul; a Yeltsin-era reformer who is anathema to the Kremlin; and, among 15 or so other contenders, the president of Russia’s Arm Wrestling Federation.

This election is attracting many candidates because of the 2014 Olympics, apparently. I've got to say, amongst all the ex-KGB officials, opposition leaders, and such, the two most amusing candidates are the ballerina, Anastasia Volochkova (who apparently was dismissed from the ballet because she weighed 110 pounds) and the porn star, Yelena Berkova. What completely random people to have running.

According to this article on Foreign Policy, the most likely candidate to win is Anatoliy Pakhomov because he is backed by Putin's Yedinaya Rossiya (United Russia) party. Disappointing, of course, but at least ex-KGB Andrey Lugovoy is out. Personally, I think it would be great if opposition leader Boris Nemtsov won--I'd be interested to see him in power. At any rate, I think he would be better than Andrey Bogdanov or Aleksandr Lebedev, both of whom are running as well.

Be A Rebel: Boycott 'Earth Hour'

Some may be familiar with the ridiculous event called "Earth Hour", which takes place on the last Saturday in March of every year. Basically, at 8:30 PM, participants are supposed to turn off all their lights for an hour in order to combat the emission of greenhouse gases and therefore the farce we call global warming.

Well, I have an idea: let's not observe this ridiculous thing. Yes, that's right: at 8:30 PM, turn on all your lights, no matter if you need them or not. If you have three-way bulbs, be sure to switch them on to the brightest setting. Go to every room in your house and turn on every light that you own. I'm not sure I own enough lights, so heck, maybe I'll go buy a random lamp tomorrow so I can turn it on.

In fact, if you're really rebellious, you can take this idea a step further: turn on your lights all day. When you get up in the morning, switch them on, whether you need them or not, and leave them on until you go to bed at night. Better yet, share your opposition to Earth Hour with all your liberal friends and watch them get annoyed--it'll be hilarious.

The Earth Hour website says that Earth Hour this year is a "global election... between Earth and global warming." They say that turning off your lights is a vote for Earth, and leaving them on is a vote for global warming. Well, I propose this: let's all leave our lights on during Earth Hour to show our support for the greenhouse effect because without it, life on Earth would not exist.

Robert Spencer On Stealth Jihad

First of all, I would like to extend a warm welcome to anybody who has found me through Jihad Watch--Robert Spencer was kind enough to provide a link to this very blog, and I am very honoured.

As many of my readers probably know, I had the honour and pleasure of attending a speech given by Mr. Spencer at my university the night of Tuesday, March 24 (which also happened to be the tenth anniversary of the NATO bombing of Serbia, which I hope to post about tomorrow). Mr. Spencer's speech was absolutely amazing--he is as witty and amusing as he is knowledgeable about Islam and jihad. He is also an exceptionally warm and kind person, as I quickly was able to see during my dinner with him.

I got there rather early, around 6:00. I took some photos--the photo below is of the building in which Mr. Spencer spoke. It had just finished pouring down rain and was just lightly drizzling for a bit.


I went inside to sit down around 6:15. I sat with a couple friends, as well as a few other people I did not know. Talking to them, I saw that they were in agreement with Mr. Spencer's views. Some more people came in and sat further back (I sat in the second row). I had been hoping for a much bigger turnout, but unfortunately that did not happen. I did see the editor of our student paper, who I think disagreed with Mr. Spencer's views, and a group of three girls, one of which I know is a Muslim. This group of three ended up walking out partway through the speech.

Once, while I was waiting for the speech to start, a door opened and I saw Mr. Spencer standing there waiting. I waved to him and much to my happiness, he waved back to me.

We got started about fifteen minutes late. My friend Caleb introduced Mr. Spencer, then the much-awaited speech began. I took the following two photos at the beginning of the speech.



Mr. Spencer began his speech by saying that despite the ideological differences we may have with people, we do have a shared interest in defending rights. But of course, how to define these rights, and how to define justice, is a point of conflict in itself. We may have an idea of what rights are, but this is by no means universally shared. In fact, there are people who say that justice is the denial of rights to certain people, namely women and those who do not share religious beliefs that are deemed proper.

There exists a choice to the Western world: our version of justice versus theirs. Simple as this may seem, it is actually misunderstood because no one seems to agree what the conflict that is currently going on is all about. We had the term "war on terror" during the Bush presidency. Now, Obama has deemed it necessary to call it something totally different. No matter what name we have given to this conflict so far, we have ultimately been misleading in what we've called it.

Oddly enough, our enemy is very specific about what they fight for and why, and more people ought to pay attention to what they say. After all, the least we can do is listen to them, given the fact that the have the honesty or forthrightness, or whatever one will call it, to be so open in their goals. Our enemy fights by their own words, whether people admit it or not.

Our ideals are worth defending, especially that one which we Americans hold so dear: freedom of speech. Freedom of speech was created by the founding fathers to protect against tyranny, so that people have the right to offend others without fear of being silenced. We need the freedom to dissent and not be a tyranny. Unfortunately, there are those who try to silence people that they do not like. Hate speech laws are often used for this: the powerful use them to silence those whom they believe should not be allowed to speak.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is a group of fifty-seven Muslim governments that constitutes the largest voting bloc in the United Nations. They have begun to combat what they deem insulting to Islam. Some things are just inherently insulting to Islam and Muslims, according to them, and should therefore not be allowed to be said. Never mind the fact that these things may be true, and Muslims are free to not be insulted. The OIC condemns anti-terror efforts, and according to them, just stating what they are doing is insulting to Islam.

It is vital that we formulate a proper response to this threat. It's not just going to go away. Mr. Spencer said that "a misdiagnosis can be fatal." We must defend our freedoms and our rights.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded with the explicit goal of reviving political Islam. Islam has always had its political elements, but these were on the wane for many years. In 1924, Ataturk abolished the caliphate, which was seen as a big mistake, even though the caliph had largely been a figurehead. In 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood says it represents "true" Islam, and seeks, among other things, the implementation of sharia law. The Muslim Brotherhood is present worldwide today, under a variety of names, including the Muslim Students Association.

It is part of the responsibility of Muslims to wage war against non-Muslims. This is not some falsity made up by Mr. Spencer--it is present in Muslim texts. One need only read the Qur'an or Reliance of the Traveller. All the violence in Islam is readily seen.

Mr. Spencer then presented some quotes from prominent Muslims. The Muslim Students Association at a university hosted a speaker who said that someday there would be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of sharia.

There then followed two examples of stealth jihad. The first I have deemed the "Jell-O incident." In a public school in Chicago, they were serving Jell-O at lunch. Muslims complained because it's made from pigs' hooves. Instead of just not eating the Jell-O, they put up a huge fuss and as a result, Jell-O is no longer served at that school, despite the fact that there are non-Muslim students with a desire to eat the Jell-O. The second example is the cabdriver incident. Muslim cabdrivers at the airport in Minneapolis were refusing to drive passengers who had alcohol. People were getting ready to cave in on this too, but Americans protested.

Mr. Spencer concluded by saying that one of the greatest achievements of our country's foundation was the non-establishment of a state religion, being that not everyone is the same religion. Religious freedom is a precious thing. Recent incidents have shown that when Islamic law and American law conflict, it's always American law that must give way. This is not right at all, and we need to defend our freedoms.

There followed a short question and answer period. Then, it was over and time for the dinner.

At first, I tried to approach Mr. Spencer after the speech, but the security guards would not let me. He then saw me and asked if I were Natalie. I was surprised he knew my name, and I soon found out that he knew me from this very blog. He has read my very own blog before! I was thrilled. Dinner was a great success. There were just six of us: Mr. Spencer, three members of our student group that brought him here, Mr. Spencer's bodyguard, and myself. We had a lively discussion at dinner, ranging from different topics such as Islam, Serbia, and religion, to name but a few.

All in all, the event was a success, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am very proud that I can finally say now that I have met the illustrious Robert Spencer.

Update: Many thanks to Mr. Spencer for featuring an excerpt of this post on Jihad Watch.

I Love Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer spoke at my university this evening, and I had the pleasure of having dinner with him afterwards. I have way too much work to do right now, so I will not be able to post about the event until tomorrow. Rest assured that I took copious notes and quite a few photos. The whole thing was amazing--it was everything I dreamed of and more.

Radovan Karadzic: Not A Liar After All

Not that I ever thought that Karadzic was lying when he claimed that the diplomat Richard Holbrooke (who is a disgrace to his profession, by the way). Imagine my pleasure when I saw this headline: US envoy Richard Holbrooke 'did' offer Radovan Karadzic immunity.

Former US officials have supported claims that Richard Holbrooke, one of America's most senior diplomats, offered Radovan Karadzic immunity from prosecution during 1996 peace negotiations in Bosnia.


Mr Holbrooke, who is now playing a key role in negotiating President Barack Obama's exit strategy from Afghanistan, has been dogged by claims that he gave the former Bosnian Serb leader an immunity deal during Clinton-era talks to bring peace to the former Yugoslavia.

He strenuously denies that any alleged agreement with Mr Karadzic.

But the allegation and a demand that Mr Holbrooke be called as a witness will be rehearsed once again as part of Mr Karadzic's defence against genocide and war crimes charges at UN tribunal hearings in The Hague next week.

Retired senior US state department officials confirmed that in July 1996 Mr Holbrooke, who served as President Bill Clinton's Balkans envoy, promised Mr Karadzic that he would not be prosecuted as part of wider peace deal requiring him to give up power.

"Holbrooke did the right thing and got the job done," said one.

The claim by unnamed diplomats is made in a new study of the war in the former Yugoslavia published by Purdue University in Indiana.

Mr Karadzic has insisted that Mr Holbrooke's promise means he is exempt from prosecution since his arrest, after more than a decade in hiding, last summer.

UN war crimes investigators have written to Washington asking for clarification in a move that could embarrass the new US administration.

Mr Holbrooke said in a statement: "No one in the US government ever promised anything, nor made a deal of any sort with Karadzic. In subsequent meetings, as a private citizen, I repeatedly urged officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations to capture Karadzic."

A "status hearing" on Mr Karadzic's appeal and case will be heard in The Hague on April 2.

This is absolutely excellent news. At the very least, Holbrooke will be exposed as the lying fool that he is. At best, maybe it could affect the outcome of the trial in Karadzic's favour.

Update, March 24, 4:18 PM:

This has been posted on EuropeNews--I am very honoured. Many thanks to Henrik for posting it over there.

Robert Spencer Is Coming!

Tomorrow, the illustrious Robert Spencer, a person whom I admire greatly, is coming to speak at my university. Before he has even arrived, he is having to defend himself from detractors. I am absolutely elated that he will be here tomorrow, and I will be taking notes and photos, which I will post following the event.

Week In Review: March 16

The following is a new feature on this blog. I will highlight news stories that are, in my opinion, interesting. This is by no means an all-encompassing list.

1. Bringing the cellar to life in court. A journalist for the BBC reports about a day in court during the trial of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who kept his daughter locked in a cellar for twenty-four years and fathered seven children with her. See item 4 for more news about this disgusting creature.

2. Russia announces rearmament plan. Dmitry Medvedev, the extremely attractive president of the Russian Federation (click on the link to the article to see a picture), announced a plan this past Tuesday to rearm Russia. Supposedly, the conflict with Georgia this past August exposed the military's many weaknesses. Medvedev specifically cited concern over NATO's expansion as the reason for rearming. Now, if only Russia would enact drastic military reforms in general...

3. At Russia's Olympic Site, Games Begin. Apparently, they're having mayoral elections in Sochi, the site of the 2014 Olympics. Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov is running, along with Andrei Lugovoi, the ex-KGB man accused of poisoning Aleksandr Litvinenko back in 2006. Other candidates include Aleksandr Lebedev, a wealthy ex-KGB agent and Antoly Pakhomov, the current acting mayor. The election is scheduled for April 26.

4. Austrian Fritzl sentenced to life. This disgusting abomination has been found guilty on all charges. Unfortunately, the court has ruled that he will serve his sentence in a psychiatric facility--I had hoped that he would rot away in a real prison. The death penalty was invented for creeps like him--it's too bad that Austria does not have it.

Have you seen an interesting story? Email me and I may publish it.

Stanislav Markelov's Murder

The Wall Street Journal has a fine article published yesterday on the late Stanislav Markelov: Russia's Rule of Lawlessness. Thanks to Robert Amsterdam for posting about the story on his blog.

Kazakhstan: Not To Be Admired

Note: background information regarding this post can be seen here.

I wrote earlier about a comment I posted on a particularly hypocritical blog, La Russophobe. My comment on that site has since received a response--a very rude response, I might add, that attacks me with ad hominem arguments and does not offer any response to the points I raised. The whole thing may be viewed here.

La Russophobe first said:

If you were not such illiterate and ignorant Russophile trash, and actually read this blog before commenting on it like an ape, you’d know that Kazakhstan isn’t ruled by the secret police and has scored above Russia on numerous open-society ratings by independent agencies. While it certainly has a long way to go, it has the excuse of being brutally exploited and manipulated by Russia for decades. What is Russia’s excuse?

To the first smear against me, I refer readers to my work on this blog. I have expressed many of my thoughts and opinions here, and I stand by them. I also read extensively and do not form opinions on subjects about which I am not informed.

Kazakhstan may not be ruled by a secret police (the undisputed ruler is Nursultan Nazarbayev) but one does exist. It's called the KNB (National Security Service) and has been described as the "successor to the Soviet-era KGB". The KNB has been behind the state-controlled media's intolerance of religion in order to create more public acceptance of a law further restricting people's freedoms, according to some sources.

Moving on, let us examine Nazarbayev himself, being that I would argue that Kazakhstan's problems stem from his twenty-year rule as opposed to Russian exploitation. According to James Minahan's Miniature Empires, page 136, Nazarbayev was first elected in December 1991 with 95% of the vote. I use the word "elected" loosely because he ran unopposed--no one was allowed to run against him. In subsequent elections, he has often won with a ridiculous amount of the vote (around ninety percent) and his main rivals have sometimes been barred from running (see this page for more details). He has often been accused of squashing opposition and dissent (see the BBC country profile I just linked to) and the CIA World Factbook describes his government type as one having "authoritarian presidential rule, with little power outside the executive branch".

Moving on to some more of the response to my comment...

In our book, anyone who stands up to Russian imperialism and aggression in post-Soviet space is our friend. We believe that the people of Kazakhstan are genuninely interested in building an enlightened society and therefore deserve time to try to do so. We don’t believe the same is true of Russia, and we don’t see you offering ANY evidence of ANY kind to the contrary. Who is the Kazakh Politkovskaya or Statovoitova or Markelov or Khodorkovsky? We’re not aware of any. In many ways, Kazakhstan is a paragon of virtue compared to Russia (though granted, that’s not difficult given the ridiculously low standard).

No matter how interested the Kazakh people are in "building an enlightened society", they are not going to get anywhere with their current dictator. It's futile to pretend otherwise. The next point is absolutely moot and irrelevant: it has absolutely nothing to do with my comment, and I do not have an answer for it. I hope the Russian people are interested in improving their society, but I do not know if they are. I do know that some drastic reforms of some of their systems need to take place for this to be done.

As for "the Kazakh Politkovskaya or Statovoitova or Markelov or Khodorkovsky", I am sure that Saken Tauzhanov, Yuri Halikov, and Tolegen Kibatov (along with other opposition journalists) would be absolutely devastated to read that comment. These three journalists died in "suspicious road accidents in 2007", according to Reporters Without Borders, as have "at least seven" other journalists in the past few years (of course, the Western media does not report about these journalists at all). Furthermore, parliamentary election coverage was extremely biased, and criticism of Nazarbayev is banned. One only need read the annual reports from Reporters Without Borders (here are links to 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008) on Kazakhstan to see that it is not a country where freedom of speech is encouraged or even allowed.

Kazakhstan is a paragon of virtue compared to Russia? I think not. Even Russia has opposition parties in the Duma--Kazakhstan has none. Only the ruling party Nur-Otan is represented. Kazakhstan is only a paragon is one wants to create a state ruled by one person over a number of years, with one ruling political party and no freedom of press or freedom of speech.

Moving on...

Is it really possible you are so mentally challenged that you don’t see that while you call upon us to attack Kazakhstan even as we attack Russia, you don’t reciprocate by acknowledging ANY Russian fault. Classic Russian hypocrisy.

I don't acknowledge any Russian fault? That is not true. After having read Kremlin Rising, I definitely think Russia's justice system needs reform. The current system is rubbish, and Russia will never be a true democracy without proper judicial reform. The military also needs quite a bit of work as well. Of course, I'm sure that's not enough criticism for La Russophobe because I have not expressed hatred of the Russian people. But I will do no such thing because I do not harbour such feelings for the Russians.

And finally, we have:

Get it now, blockhead?

Believe me, I get quite a bit now, mainly and most importantly that there is no reasoning with someone who supports a dictator simply for standing up to the Russians, especially a dictator whose country is in much worse shape than Russia.

The Biggest Hypocrite In The Blogosphere

I discovered the much-overrated blog La Russophobe a while ago. I find the whole premise of the blog ridiculous. The author has a vendetta against all Russian people for absolutely no good reason. On the page of her site about why she considers herself a "Russophobe", she lists some of the following as reasons for her fanatical hatred of all things Russian:

Russian cuisine is wretched.

[...]

Russians are greedy and arrogant.

[...]

Nobody likes Russia.

[...]

Russians are horrible at foreign languages and couldn’t care less.

Never mind the following facts: Tastes in food are highly personal and subjective (I happen to love Russian food) and hating the food of a country is not a good reason to hate that country--it's simply an ad hominem argument. Her basis for saying that Russians are greedy and arrogant is solely the fact that a famous Russian tennis player does not donate to charity. Sure, that looks bad, but it's hardly the fault of your average Russian. Her basis for saying that no one likes Russia is that more tourists come to America than Russia. Personally, I think that is more due to the difficulty of getting a Russian visa than of actual dislike of the country (getting a visa is SUCH a pain). And the last of her reasons that I listed is completely hypocritical. Americans are absolutely horrible at foreign languages as well! The average American does not speak a second language. I hate it, especially since it is due to our poor foreign language education programs in schools, but it's an indisputable fact. The Western Europeans are the great linguists of the Western world--many of them speak at least two languages fluently. She also says that Russians "scream to high heaven with indignation whenever foreigners mess up Russian", which is a complete lie. All the Russians I have spoken to in Russian are always delighted to hear that I am learning the language and are very forgiving of my mediocre abilities.

And here is my favourite reason that Kim Zigfeld, the founder of La Russophobe, lists for hating Russia. It's reason number seventeen (yes, they are actually numbered, and there are twenty-two in all).

Russians actually like crazed dictator Alexander [sic] Lukashenko, and they don’t care who knows it.

So, in light of reason number seventeen, let us examine a post from March 16 of this year called All Hail the Yevraz!

In the post, La Russophobe expresses support for the fact that Kazakhstan's president Nursultan Nazarbayev wants a common currency for some former Soviet republics that will be called the yevraz. Apparently La Russophobe endorses this idea because it is a slap in the face to Russia, and by reading her post, the average person would believe that Nazarbayev is a good leader trying to act in the interests of his country.

No, indeed one would not realise until doing some outside research that Nazarbayev is a de facto dictator who has been undemocratically allowed to have power for almost twenty years now. Coming from someone who condemns Aleksandr Lukashenko (who is a dictator as well) and claims to endorse democracy (and condemns Russia for "never [having]... had a true contested election"), the Yevraz article is highly hypocritical. In the immortal words of Shakespeare, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

I could not be silent on this, so I left the following comment on the article:

I’m going to be honest: I really don’t understand you people. You condemn Russia as a whole for having a bad government (and I do not deny that the Russian government has done many unsavoury things, even since the fall of the Soviet Union) but this is just outrageous. Nazarbayev has been the dictator of Kazakhstan for almost twenty years now. He is not democratically elected and Kazakhstan is in terrible shape due to him. Do you not think it hypocritical to condemn Russia’s leaders and not Kazakhstan’s? It’s absolutely ridiculous not to do so.

It remains to be seen whether any response will be made to my comment. I've seen enough of La Russophobe's "responses" to know that it really won't be all that important: I will just be attacked with ad hominem arguments demeaning my intelligence and such.

I am not trying to say that Russia has done everything absolutely right in the past twenty years, but this rhetoric and demonisation demonstrated on La Russophobe is just plain stupid.

Update, 4:16 PM:

The fools responded to my comment in typical rude fashion, as I expected.

Remembering William

One month ago today, my mum called me to tell me that my bird William, who had been sick for a few months, had died that morning.

I got William on September 14, 2003 at a bird show. He was supposed to be a friend for Dovey, who had been alone after a bad foot-biting incident with the previous bird she lived with, Lovey. William and Dovey lived happily together until the end of Dovey's life on July 22, 2006. On July 23, I got another friend for William: a green bird named Penny. William and Penny were living happily together until the beginning of this year, when William was diagnosed with cancer. He hung on for a while, until February 19.

William was a most excellent bird. He was always so happy and agreeable and was one of the best pets anyone could have. Following are some photos of him that I took over the years.

Dovey and William on May 18, 2006.


William on October 8, 2006.


William and Penny on October 14, 2006.


William on August 9, 2007.


It is sad not having William anymore. I miss him a lot and I wish I had been able to say goodbye to him properly--when I left on January 10, I did not that he was sick.

Happy Birthday, Sergio

Today is Sergio Vieira de Mello's birthday. He would be sixty-one years old--I say "would" because he is not alive anymore. He was killed on August 19, 2003 in the Canal Hotel bombing when he was fifty-five. He had worked for the UN almost all his life, and was planning to finally settle down after his time in Baghdad.

I first heard of Sergio Vieira de Mello when I spotted Samantha Power's recent biography of him, Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World in the bookstore. I would hesitate to recommend the book for two reasons: first, I have not read it in its entirety and second, I dislike the author immensely. So I will neither encourage nor discourage people from reading it--in all honesty, I think I would like to read it eventually.

Vieira de Mello was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1948. He lived abroad a lot as child, being that his father was a diplomat. He studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and joined the UN in 1969, where he would work until his death thirty-four years later. He travelled to many, many different countries--his biography on the Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation website provides a comprehensive catalogue. Two notable places in which he worked were the Balkans in the 1990s (unfortunately, his views on this region were completely and utterly wrong) and East Timor in 1999. In 1999, East Timor gained its independence from Indonesia, and Vieira de Mello helped the fledgling country. It was for his work in East Timor that he was denounced by Osama bin Laden and later targeted in the bombing that would kill him because he had helped Christians gain their freedom from Muslim occupiers (for more, see William Shawcross' book Allies: Why the West Had to Remove Saddam).

It's quite ironic that Vieira de Mello died in the way he did. In 2002, he said in a conference that our war on terror was infringing on human rights and that Muslims had been facing increasing "discrimination" since the September 11 terrorist attacks. I don't think he ever fully understood the terrorist threat or Islam, based on these comments and other comments he made about the Balkans in the 1990s.

Nevertheless, Sergio Vieira de Mello was certainly a remarkable and interesting person who led an extraordinary life, one that was tragically unfinished when he died. This is perhaps put best by one of his friends, Martin Griffiths, as quoted in Samantha Power's book: "His [i.e. Vieira de Mello's] tragedy was that he never finally arrived at that state of equilibrium that adults call happiness." For all his faults, Vieira de Mello was an exceptional man, and his death was a great loss to the world.

Credit for first photo; credit for second photo

When Pigs Fly?

After I unpacked today after my flight (I had a lovely surprise in my checked luggage: a TSA brochure informing me that, yet again, my luggage was specially selected for extra searching, which in this case apparently entailed removing everything in my suitcase, unfolding the clothes, and then shoving it back in untidily), I saw a news headline. The reason I feel the need to share this with the world is because, for a second, I thought that I and the Anointed One (aka Barack Hussein Obama) actually agreed on something. The headline in question? Guantanamo inmates no longer "enemy combatants"

Personally, I don't consider the terrorists "combatants" of any sort (though any regular reader of this blog will know that I most definitely consider them enemies). Combatant implies someone fighting a proper, conventional war--these people fight anything but that.

Then, I read the article further, and realised that I was not in agreement with the Anointed One.

The legal structure for holding the Guantanamo prisoners will now be based on laws passed by Congress and, by extension, international law including the Geneva conventions, the Justice Department said.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Geneva Conventions only applied to proper uniformed soldiers. So even by Obama's standards, does that not mean that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to these inmates? I mean, you cannot have it both ways. Why should we give these people rights they do not deserve, rights that they certainly would not give us if the situation were reversed?

Taken: Refreshingly Politically Incorrect

In this time of frustrating dishonesty in the form of political correctness, it is always refreshing to see views expressed honestly, without being clouded by the mantras of multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance. It is even more pleasing to see such views stemming from a source that one would not expect.

I am speaking of the film Taken, which I saw a couple of days ago. Being that the film industry is typically all but dominated by the left, this film comes as a rather pleasant surprise: it is very politically incorrect and does not sugarcoat any harsh or inconvenient facts. For those who do not know, the film is about a retired CIA agent on a quest to find his daughter, who was kidnapped by Albanian human traffickers in Paris. The movie makes absolutely clear how despicable these Albanians are, as well as the fact that they are Muslim. This film, which is a work of fiction for entertainment purposes, is more honest about Albanians than the Western media has ever been.

According to Wikipedia (for what it's worth), though this film has been the highest-grossing film of 2009 so far, it has had a mixed reception from critics--no doubt due to its presentation of Albanians as something other than innocent, defenseless victims. I think that's rubbish. Taken is an excellent film, one that I would highly recommend. It's exciting, suspenseful, and satisfying in equal measure, and it's definitely a must-see.

Photo credit.

Idolization

And then the Anointed One turned to his people and said, "Thou shalt have plates with my likeness upon them. Though I spend thy money for my own gain, you shalt ignore this and buy my plates." And verily the people were happy, and could not believe the good fortune that had allowed the Anointed One to rise. They gathered around the plates and cared not for their cost, for that was meaningless to them and they would have payed any price to own something containing the likeness of the Anointed One.

--from The Book of Barack, 1:20


I'm not kidding--they actually are selling these plates Walgreens.

Liberals And Crises

Jonah Goldberg wrote in his excellent book Liberal Fascism about the infatuation that liberals have with crises. He writes on page 344:

In It Takes a Village, [Hillary] Clinton cheers the way crises erase the wall between business and government but laments that the social benefits of natural disasters and wars are temporary.... In response to this problem, liberals have manufactured one "crisis" after another in their quest to find a new moral equivalent to war, from the war on cancer, to global warming, to countless alleged economic crises.

The reason, of course, is that these crises give the left an excuse to amass more power. People get scared and want to be protected and the government offers to fulfill that role as protector. But when the crisis passes and people no longer want nor need protection, the government does not just step back: they stay involved, accruing more and more power, and before you know it, they are involved in everyone's daily lives, regulating the economy and making dissent illegal. It's called socialism, and it's not good.

I was reminded of all of the above when I saw a headline today about a speech that Hillary Clinton made in front of the European Parliament on March 6. I must give her credit: she was refreshingly honest in what she said. Die Welt reports:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience at the European Parliament to "never waste a good crisis", and highlighted the opportunity of rebuilding economies in a greener, less energy-intensive way. Concerning Europe's unease the day after Russia warned that gas flows via Ukraine might be halted, she also condemned the use of energy as a political lever.

Clinton told young Europeans that global economic turmoil provided a fresh opening. "Never waste a good crisis ... Don't waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security," she said.

Seriously, the woman is all but crowing that we are having major economic issues because that gives all the global warming climate change people an excuse to implement their agendas. And she's not the only one: the left loves our economic crisis because they want to make people more dependent on the government. The bigger government becomes, the more scary it is. And as Thomas Jefferson wisely said, "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." We would do well to remember this quote, especially with the individual who now holds the office of president.

The BBC: Unparalleled In Idiocy

Tonight, in my night class, we watched a documentary by the BBC about the Suez Crisis. After seeing it, I must say that no one, absolutely no one, can do propaganda like the BBC can. They are some of the most masterful propagandists I have ever seen.