"You'll get nothing and like it." ~ Vladimir Putin

Posted by: andy at 03:28 AM | Comments (157)
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"See How Important I Am, Daddy? Daddy? Please Notice Me, Daddy!"

Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to AoSHQ's prestigious Sunday Morning Book Thread.

The Tyranny of Cool

Greg Gutfeld (author of The Joy of Hate: How to Triumph over Whiners in the Age of Phony Outrage) has a new book coming out: Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You is worthy of purchase based on the title alone.

And the Amazon blurb is even better:

From politics to the personal, from fashion to food, from the campus to the locker room, the desire to be cool has infected all aspects of our lives. At its most harmless, it is annoying. At its worst, it is deadly, on a massive scale. The Cool are the termites of life, infiltrating every nook and cranny and destroying it from within. The Cool report the news, write the scripts, teach our children, run our government—and each day they pass judgment on those who don’t worship at the altar of their coolness. The cool fawn over terrorists, mock the military, and denigrate employers. They are, in short, awful people.

The bad news is that this book isn't available until March 18th. The good news is that it is also available on Kindle.

This is a point I have argued with liberals: "Cool? Of course we're not cool. We're Republicans for crying out loud! We're the adults in the room. We're the ones who wash the dishes and put away the toys after the kids are all in bed. And who get up and go to work the next morning."

First Arab eBookstore Launches, Few Arrests Made

An older (Feb. 7th) GoodEreader news item reports:

With the Cairo Book Fair wrapping up this week–amidst controversy, as journalists were arrested for possessing cameras and video equipment to cover the event–one exciting launch took place with critical support from Vodafone Egypt. The first dedicated Arab ebookstore, Kotobi.com, launched from their stage at the fair, bringing several hundred Arab titles from nearly forty publishers to digital devices.

Why they would stage a public event and then arrest journalists for covering it makes no sense.

I thought this was interesting:

According to the Kotobi website (translated), “Statistics show that readership levels in the Arab World are significantly lower than those among other world populations. And because we believe that reading is a key ingredient for the development of any nation, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to play a role in supporting the Arabic reading ecosystem to the benefit of raising readership levels in the Arabic language.”

This is a noble aspiration, but I wonder if they know what this means? If every Arab citizen down to the humblest peasant and streetsweeper can read, that means that they will be able to read books other than the Koran. Is that what the Kotobi backers want? I'd bet that there's a substantial number of Muslim authorities that absolutely do not want this. Certainly this isn't what the jihadis want. Nor their sympathizers, either, I'd expect.

So I predict that it won't be long before Kotobi comes under some sort of attack, either by cyberspace or by physical threats from the outside, and it won't be from the Great Satan, but by their own brethren.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:07 AM | Comments (225)
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This thread brought to you by airline stewardesses of the 1960s:

Today is supposed to be a nice one in my neck of the woods (after several days of rain and gloom), so this will be a slapdash Travel and Leisure thread.
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:25 AM | Comments (118)
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Don't worry, though -- he got fully briefed by Ambassador Susan Rice, who was so totally up to speed on Benghazi.

Media Culpa: The American Interest notes the legacy media calling this "a crisis that no one anticipated." Ignoring the fact that people not in the legacy media or Obama Administration did anticipate it.

Op-eds from all over the legacy press this week helped explained why. Through the rose tinted lenses of a media community deeply convinced that President Obama and his dovish team are the masters of foreign relations, nothing poor Putin did could possibly derail the stately progress of our genius president. There were, we were told, lots of reasons not to worry about Ukraine. War is too costly for Russia’s weak economy. Trade would suffer, the ruble would take a hit. The 2008 war with Georgia is a bad historical comparison, as Ukraine’s territory, population and military are much larger. Invasion would harm Russia’s international standing. Putin doesn’t want to spoil his upcoming G8 summit, or his good press from Sochi. Putin would rather let the new government in Kiev humiliate itself with incompetence than give it an enemy to rally against. Crimea’s Tartars and other anti-Russian ethnic minorities wouldn’t stand for it. Headlines like “Why Russia Won’t Invade Ukraine,” “No, Russia Will Not Intervene in Ukraine,” and “5 Reasons for Everyone to Calm Down About Crimea” weren’t hard to find in our most eminent publications.

[T]his massive intellectual breakdown has a lot to do with a common American mindset that is especially built into our intellectual and chattering classes. Well educated, successful and reasonably liberal minded Americans find it very hard to believe that other people actually see the world in different ways.... American experts and academics assume that smart people everywhere must want the same things and reach the same conclusions about the way the world works.

How many times did foolishly confident American experts and officials come out with some variant of the phrase “We all share a common interest in a stable and prosperous Ukraine.” We may think that’s true, but Putin doesn’t.

Thanks to @rdbrewer4.

Posted by: Ace at 02:33 PM | Comments (605)
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Here's a thread for all of you non-gardening morons to talk politics.

To give you something to "chew on," the FDA is tinkering with food labeling again.

Meanwhile, this writer at Forbes wants the FLOTUS (is there nothing she can't do?!) to lean on the FDA about their current policy concerning health claims. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:53 PM | Comments (208)
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If you're thinking of seeing the movie Non-Stop, you may want to read this first. It's all spoilers but if it's right, and it appears to be, you'll want to avoid it like the plague.

You think Hollywood can't sink any lower and then you realize how stupid you are for thinking that.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:47 AM | Comments (266)
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Welcome to the Go Fast edition of the car thread.

Today we bring you some race action, a lesson well-learned, the world's fastest production car, Countrysquire writes about the new standard for hypercars, along with all the usual features you've come to expect from your Saturday car chat.

What would a car thread be without mention of the greatest event in motor sports? Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the winner of last week's Daytona 500. It was an exciting race and a fantastic win for Dale Jr, his second win at Daytona. We'll get into more detail about the race during the NASCAR thread tomorrow but, for now, here's Junior taking the checkered flag.

Congrats to Dale Earnhardt Jr. on his big win.

Speaking of NASCAR drivers, what happens when a car blogger is openly skeptical about the authenticity of a Jeff Gordon ad? This is what happens:

BTW, the blogger is standing by his original story.
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:32 AM | Comments (88)
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Heh. New Orleans Mardi Gras float mocks Obamacare disaster.

For those of you attending Mardi Gras, beware those dirty beads.

Beads and throws may start off in pristine condition, but by the time they are sorted, prepped, thrown, caught and many times thrown again, those beads may be carrying more than the Mardi Gras spirit.

"Germs, virus, flu virus, bacteria contamination, soil, mud, dirt, just all the usual stuff that you have worry about that comes with its own germs," listed Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital pediatrician Dr. Chris Funes.

Posted by: CDR M at 06:09 PM | Comments (551)
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In light of Russia's military moves in Crimea, there was quite a bit of talk about the sol called "Budapest Memo". This memo was signed in 1994 by the UK, Russia, the US and Ukraine as part of the deal the removed the nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union from the territory of the newly independent Ukraine (aside, I bet they wish they had kept them now).

So does this memo obligate us to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine? Nope.

Here's the memo:

1. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

2. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

3. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

4. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.

5. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm, in the case of the Ukraine, their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.

6. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will consult in the event a situation arises which raises a question concerning these commitments.

The relevant portions of the memo are points 1 & 6. All signatories to the agreement are "to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine". Should something happen (like the Russians ignoring point 1) that upsets this agreement, we are obligated to "consult" with the rest of the parties covered by the agreement.

I'm sure the Russians will be happy to abide by point 6 and "consult" about how they have flagrantly violated point 1 and then head off to a nice lunch somewhere in Geneva, Vienna or wherever they agree to laugh at us, I mean consult with us.

Bottom line...the Russians are going to get Crimea and if they want the rest of Ukraine because no one cares enough about it to start World War III over it.

Putin is going to continue to what he's been doing for years...reconstitute as much of the old Soviet empire as he can out of the bits that weren't smart or quick enough to join NATO at the first chance they had. No US President is going to stop this and no amount of tough talk or financial sanctions is going to stop Putin.

The only real question left is what happens when he runs out of non-NATO bits to gobble up and turns to places like the Baltic states which are NATO members? That's when things get...sporty.

Below the fold, everything you need to know about Ukraine crisis courtesy of Teh Fred in The Hunt for Red October. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:24 AM | Comments (446)
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Incredibly, US intelligence thought Russia wouldnÂ’t occupy (or make an unopposed arrival) Crimea.

U.S. intelligence estimates conclude that Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine. This, despite the launch of a massive, new Russian military exercise near UkraineÂ’s border and moves from armed men to seize two key airports in the country's Crimea region.

The latest developments led Ukraine's interior minister Arsen Avakov Friday to accuse Russia of invading the Russian majority province of Crimea after armed militias took control of the civilian airport in Simferopol, the region's capital and the military airport in Sevastopol, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based. Russian authorities meanwhile have denied any responsibility for the seizure of the two airports in the region.

Really? When the “cease fire” in Kiev between the Yanukovych regime and the protesters was announced, the first thing most people noticed was that it was due to expire the day the Winter Olympics ended. Smart money around the blogs was that as soon as the spotlight was off Sochi, Russian forces would intervene, in one manner or another.

Given the large ethnic Russian population in Crimea, and the critical Russian bases on the peninsula, the only question was (and still is) will the Russians be content with just Crimea, or will they attempt to retake all of Ukraine?

Actually, make no doubt, Russia will attempt to retake all of Ukraine. We doubt they will do so through military occupation (though a ginned up emergency is hardly out of the question), but though economic and political coercion. Russia (especially Putin, but a goodly percentage of the  man-on-the-street population as well) simply cannot conceive of a Ukraine that falls outside the Russian sphere of influence.

How is it that our intelligence community has such an incredibly poor grasp of history and culture that they cannot see that which is plainly before them? What was to stop Russia from entering Crimea? The Russians knew that they would be, if not welcomed with open arms, almost certainly unopposed. Heck, the Russians already occupied Crimea, with military installations shared with the Ukrainians. What possible downside did Russia see? None.

WeÂ’ve been pretty unimpressed with the Obama administrationÂ’s response, but frankly, we see little that the US could do to prevent any such Russian response. Having said that, the inability of the US intelligence community to see the obvious is deeply troubling.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:23 AM | Comments (249)
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