Sunday, March 30, 2014

Turkey Elections Live Tweets




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Anne Frank and Japanese Divine Race Theory

Abe's visit must convince the West that Japan is not the same Japan of the 20th Century. But Abe's vague comments used the passive voice, avoiding to name nations that violated human rights and the names of their victims


A day before the Nuclear Summit in The Hague, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe visited the Anne Frank Museum. 

Cross posted from American Thinker

Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the Hague Summit, in part to confer with the U.S. on how to deal with Russia's "passé 19th Century" geopolitical predations upon Ukraine. The day before, he visited the Anne Frank Museum with no reason made for this stop. While there, he stated, “When we look back at the 20th century, it is fair to say that it was the century characterized by the violation of basic human rights,... and looking ahead to the many years of the 21st century, I would like to ensure that we will never see the same things happening, and I share the responsibility of realizing this goal."

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Archive Live Blog Ukraine I: Feb. 18 - July 26, 2014

Updates on Live Blog Ukraine


July 26, 2014

Russian UN Ambassador Admits It Downed MH17

Total chaos in Ukraine has the Dutch off balance. They can't work this way! 7 forensic experts have been turned away by units of the People's Republic of Donetsk. The 40 unarmed military police that departed for the crash site yesterday can't help them because there's no government in Ukraine to give them the formal go ahead. While forensics from Malaysia and Australia are at work, the Dutch can't cut through the red tape. Body parts are still littering the fields. By the way, the Russian Ambassador to the UN has implicitly admitted guilt.




July 25, 2014

40 Dutch Unarmed MPs Depart for MH17 Crash Site

This morning a parliamentary Q&A was held in The Hague over the aftermath of the downing of flight MH17. The 40 unarmed military police have left Eindhoven Airforce Base tonight at 9 P.M. During the weekend the UN Security Council should reach consensus to provide military cover. A brigade of the Australian Defence Force is standby in England, as is a Dutch rapid, light infantry unit. A newspaper outlet this morning reported that special forces currentlty deployed in the African country of Mali will eventually join them in Donetsk. But this information is probably unreliable. Since Russia and China are permanent members of the UNSC the outcome of this exercise is in doubt. But the Government is willing to take that risk. The Dutch are still trying to cope with a national trauma due to a similar situation in Bosnia, where an unarmed brigade was defenseless when it was overrun by the Serbs following nightly raids of Bosnian Muslims from the territory of the safe haven. Stop Press Breaking News...
Front page of the Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta apologizing for the assault.
Maria Poetina's a lovely girl, by the way. Remarkable that this lynch mob was led by @PieterBroertjes, a former lefty newspaper editor, presently mayor of the town of Hilversum.




July 24, 2014

40 Dutch Unarmed MPs To Guard MH17 Crash Site

The matter of the unshared information is really immaterial. The information was freely available in open sources and was even partly posted on this blog if the source was reliable. The airlines should have read the news feeds. In the meantime...


This is criminal dereliction of duty. The consequences are squarely on the conscience of this government.



July 23, 2014


The Dutch government declared a day of national mourning as the country prepared for the arrival of the first bodies in the afternoon by two military transport planes, one Dutch and one Australian.

Risks of Flying over Donetsk Known Before MH17

Nico Voorbach, the chairman of the European Association of Pilots ECA has told a Dutch news outlet that the US, the UK, France, Australia and Canada were aware of the risks of flying over eastern Ukraine before July 17, when MH17 was downed. But they didn't share the information. Of course 5 Ukrainian fighters  had been shot down by then, obviously by a Russian equivalent of the SA-17 Grizzly. Stingers don't reach such altitudes. Somebody has been sleeping on the job.

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Saturday, March 29, 2014

Top 10 Things Putin Said to Obama About Ukraine


Cross posted from American Thinker

While Barack Obama’s recent telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin about the Crimean standoff has been widely reported, the exact substance of the discussion has remained a mystery. That is, until now. Owing to highly placed confidential sources, I’m pleased to report that I have become privy to some of the details of their talk. What follows are the top ten things Putin said to Obama:

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Liberty Island: Home of the Counter Culture (1)

This is the first in a series of interviews and story excerpts spotlighting some of the most innovative fiction writers at the recently-launched new media publishing platform Liberty Island* H/t PJM



Nexus is a science-fiction superhero masterpiece, and Nexus Omnibus Volume 1 features over 400 story pages of the award-winning series.

Mike Baron is the creator of Nexus (with artist Steve Rude) and Badger two of the longest lasting independent superhero comics. Nexus, about a cosmic avenger 500 years in the future, appears monthly in Dark Horse Presents. There are twelve hardbound volumes from Dark Horse. Badger, about a multiple personality, will appear in 2014 from a resurgent First Comics. Baron has written The Punisher, Flash, Deadman and Star Wars among many other titles. He also wrote novels like Whack Job.

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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Live Debate BRexit: Clegg versus Farage

Are you in or out of the EU? LBC hosts the first leaders' debate where Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage debate Britain's membership of the EU



The LBC Live Debate.

 UPDATE:


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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Shame and Scandal at the Nuclear Summit NSS2014

A couple of nice pictures in the foreign press, and that's all there's to say about the ludicrous show of force that is the NSS2014. And a Dutch government that has conducted itself shamefully in the process

 UPDATE: 

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Monday, March 24, 2014

Exploring the Question, Is Inequality Fair?

You can't take from a man something he doesn't have. Therefore equality can mean only one thing: taking from those who have. The lowest common denominator is the standard



Yaron Brook, director of the Ayn Rand Institute asks, is inequality fair? 

The question can ultimately be reduced back to one of man's most fundamental queries: does man have free will, or are we determined by chance? Did you, or did you not build that? Is there such a thing as personal achievement? Is egalitarianism not such a lofty ideal, but an exercise in Nihilism? 


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Pat Condell: How To Be a Racist

In the postmodern upside down world hypocrites are projecting their own double standards on their enemies, equivocating inherent race with inculcated religion

But you have to be a racist to believe that race plays any determining factor in human behavior in the first place. So who's the racist? 

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Sunday, March 16, 2014

Jailed Chair of Dutch Libertarian Party Loses Appeal

The former chairman of the Dutch Libertarian Party, Toine Manders has been kidnapped in Cyprus by the FIOD (the Dutch IRS) and is currently locked away in complete isolation, in an undisclosed location


Toine Manders is being held for an extended 90-day period, the charges for which are unknown. 

UPDATE: Toine Manders now gets to see his family. His partner is allowed to visit once a week and he has held his new born son for the first time. He has lost the appeal. On what grounds is not known. The Dutch Libertarian Party has opened a postbox in his name. You can write to Manders, preferably cards or letters in an open envelop. The party will screen all letters before they are sent on. The address: P.O. Box 411, NL-2700 AK Zoetermeer, Netherlands (Source)

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Pat Condell: A Society of Cowards

Here's the psychology: if you're too afraid to take on Evil because, well, it is so Evil, you turn against the next best thing, the innocent messenger. But if the media abdicates it's duty in the process, this is the end of a free a society



We're getting what we deserve.

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Saturday, March 15, 2014

The Free World Is Led By a Riot of Pussies!

The Western postmodern leaders have started to talk gibberish. They make no sense at all. US Secretary of State John Kerry thinks he can defend his ideals just by respecting them.. Vlad will be impressed!



'Vlad, my boy, sanctions against Russia are not meant as a threat and please, please don't be angry, it isn't personal in any way'. Crank up the volume, audio is bad.

Like Chamberlain these postmodern leaders want peace at any price. Peace - to them, the absence of strive, offense as well as defense - is their moral standard.  They are not even capable of defending their own ideals of the "multi lateral structure that we have lived by since World War II". Because you can't defend the Good by simply respecting it. The evil doers will laugh in your face. That is what the amoralists just don't get. As Wayne Dupree says: 
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300 Rise of an Empire: an Epic Moral Battle

King Leonidas of Sparta and his army of 300 have fallen to the Persian onslaught of Xerxes. Reason, the rule of law and liberty are at stake. It is now up to the Greeks to defend the civilization



300 Rise of an Empire: general Themistokles leads the Greeks against invading Persian forces. Trailer 2, trailer 3.

In the sequal, 300 Rise of an Empire, Greek general Themistokles leads the charge against invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes and Artemisia, vengeful commander of the Persian navy. An existential battle between Good and Evil ensues with the Greek Enlightenment in the balance.
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Objectivism, Philosophy for Living on Earth (< 2 mnts)

Ayn Rand's philosophy for living on Earth — Objectivism — upholds objective reality, reason, rational self-interest, and laissez-faire capitalism



Objectivism places the individual as hero and his own happiness as sacred. Subscribe to Ayn Rand Institute YouTube channel.

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Tony Benn RIP Voiced the European View on Power


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Thursday, March 13, 2014

Euro Twitter Trolls Spotted in Runup to Elections

The moral cause of the EU is the EU. The citizens of the member states are subservient to this end. Those who don't agree with this ideology are abject dissenters and will be persecuted


UPDATE: One year on, in the run up to these very important elections for the Europarliament these trolls have actually been spotted. Perhaps they should actively be hunted! 
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Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Putin's Troops: a Hybrid of Soldiers and Terrorists

Putin's hidden army is outfitted for troublemaking and street-fighting, unconstrained by the laws, rules and conventions governing warfare — Putin’s biggest brush-off yet to international order


Heavily armed men in unmarked military uniforms patrol near the airport in Simferopol, the regional capital of Crimea.

Analysts Molly K. McKew and Gregory A. Maniatis for WaPo - H/t @VodkaPundit, blog on PJMedia
Putin is no longer bound by the constraints of nation-state warfare. Years of confrontations with separatists, militants, terrorists and stateless actors influenced his thinking. In Crimea, Putin debuted a pop-up war — nimble and covert — that is likely to be the design of the future.  
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Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Are Democratically Elected Rulers Always Legit?

Is there any democrat who believes this legitimizes the North Korean regime? Propably not. Then why would democratically elected rulers like Yanukovitch in Ukraine, or Morsi in Egypt be legit? Despots who rob and kill their own people, who violate their basic rights,  automatically lose their mandate.

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Sunday, March 9, 2014

WHY WE NEED HEROES

We all need heroes. They are our role models when growing up. They teach us how to act morally and valiantly in the face of adversity and to have faith in the triumph of Good over Evil. Heroes show us that courage is the greatest virtue, because it is on courage that all other virtues rest. Heroes give us hope and teach us not to despair during the darkest hours of our existence.



Epic Heroes Tribute - Máximus, Leonidas & Achilles.

What trials unite not only Achilles, King Leonidas, Harry Potter or Frodo Baggins, but many other heroes in the world literature? And what do ordinary people have in common with their literary heroes?  Heroes are not perfect. Heroes are not gods. They are the sons and daughters of fallible men. They succeed after enormous trials which they overcome at great odds. 

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Saturday, March 8, 2014

Putin Proves Postmodern Foreign Policy is Dead

The seizure of Crimea is Putin's challenge to the EU. It is meant to prove that values cannot defend themselves. They must be defended. In the EU peace trumps rights. Putin has proved the EU's moral authority is non-existent



The Putin System.

The breathtaking ignorance in the West on Ukraine and Crimea leaves one almost speechless. In short, here's the deal.

1. Crimea has existential-level historic resonance for Russia. In the context of the political-psychological loss of the Soviet Union for Russians, it is inconceivable that Vladimir Putin can now back down over Crimea. The referendum must, by fair means or foul (Putinism is controlled democracy) agree to Crimea becoming part of the Russian Federation.

2. The West is led by Barack Obama -- the most incompetent American president in all American history; and a 'leader' who does not believe in the free world, let alone American leadership of it.  

3. The EU is a foreign policy disaster, led, foreign policy wise, by Catherine Ashton someone who supported the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

4. Crimea is now part of Russia. End of story. Putin would have to quit politics to allow any other outcome.

5. The only question is whether Russia's annexation of Crimea leads to other parts of Ukraine in the east following suit. A question we already answered here.  (Source) 

Is that it? Well, not quite. 

If Russia swallows Ukraine, the 'European system' is finished. The seizure of Crimea was meant as a challenge to the EU. It is meant to prove that values cannot defend themselves. Timothy Snyder is correct. Rights do not defend themselves. They must be defended. And since peace trumps rights in the postmodern EU, the EU's moral authority is bankrupt.

That is why Verhofstadt and Van Baalen look like clowns when they're telling the people of the Ukraine to fight for liberty. Everyone knows instinctively that when push comes to shove, these generals will be out to lunch. 

Postmodern foreign policy basically consists of being seen as fighting for basic principles without actually having to uphold them; they think that simply by declaring that they do, the world accepts that premise. 

So while having signed off on Ukraine's security, the US and the EU can state they stand for democracy and liberty without actually having to go to war with Russia over them: they simply declare that this is what they stand for. But this is not how reality works. Putin has shown that the emperor has no cloths. And that's just for starters. 

Secondly the EU isn't sure if they side with the US against the aggression of Putin on the Crimea, or whether they are a neutral broker between the US and Russia. Verhofstadt in an article on The Guardian proves these points and more: 
This is where EU and US soft power can be as effective (and less dangerous) than the blunt use of force and sabre-rattling that characterised the cold war. However, we have to be prepared to see such threats through if we are to be credible in the eyes of the Kremlin. 
At no point in the article does Verhofstadt make plain how he intends to accomplish that. He goes on:
The US under Obama has shown great reluctance to get involved in distant conflicts that are not perceived to be in the country's vital strategic interest. So the EU is presented with an opportunity to step in, broker a solution and live up to its high ideals as a peacemaker and forum for conflict resolution. Is it up for the challenge? 
Now which is it? Upto this point the EU is neither a party nor a broker. Verhofstadt speaks of danger of the "blunt use of force and sabre-rattling" of the cold war, but what is presently the gravest danger are these postmodern bunglers: basically babies with razors playing at geo-politricks. 

More background:
  • Anne Applebaum on the ideology of Putinism (video)

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Romantic Realism: Rachmaninov's Second (Adagio)

"Listen to (...) Rachmaninoff’s Second. Men have not found the words for it, nor the deed nor the thought, but they have found the music (...) Let me see it made real. Let me see the answer to the promise of that music (...) the final, the fulfilled, innocent of pain". ~~Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead



 Soloists: Olga Smirnova and Vladislav Lantratov. Choreography: J. Elo
Dedicated to a bizarre week in captivity in anticipation of the deal of a life-time (well, for now ;-)
The dancers in the video are rank amateurs performing in a Russian So You've Got Talent kinda show. The adagio from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901. At its 1897 premiere, Rachmaninoff's first symphony was derided by contemporary critics. The second piano concerto confirmed his genius. 
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Thursday, March 6, 2014

Obama Draws Another Red Line

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The Left Ticked Off About a Cadillac Commercial

The Huffington Post is all worked up and calls a Cadillac commercial that celebrates the American Dream a "nightmare". But, but, it's a green, electric hybride!



"You work hard, you create your own luck and just gotta believe, that ANYTHING is possible". 

Displaying its typical anti-American exceptionalism bias, the Huffington Post is calling a Cadillac commercial that celebrates the American Dream a "nightmare." The commercial promoting Cadillac's first ever ELR features a actor strolling through an American Dream house to his brand new American Dream Cadillac, all the while asking:
Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff? Other countries they work, they stroll home, they stop by the café, they take August off. Off. Why aren't you like that? Why aren't we like that? Because we're crazy, driven, hard-working believers, that's why. Those other countries think we're nuts. Whatever. (...) (Source)
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Obama Channels Scarface

Our postmodern rulers are living in their own constructed reality which may be filled with unicorns and fairies. But overall, the moral standard is expediency


















Meaning, anything goes that leads to results. 

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From Russia With Love: Letter From Putin

In September of last year a letter from Vladimir Putin to the American people was circulating around the Internet. Since we're on the brink of war, let's see if we understand the enemy




























In the letter Putin re-introduces Americans to some unpleasant events from his perspective.

A letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin to the American people has been circulating around the internet for the past couple of days. In the letter, Putin re-introduces Americans to some unpleasant facts about history and life they’d rather forget, such as Nixon’s reasoning behind massive carpet bombing of millions or North Vietnamese for the purpose of ‘looking good’ while exiting the war, and how Pakistan has been using the U.S. as a ‘false ally’ to gain foreign aid, while using the funds to embolden the Taliban in Afghanistan. 
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Tuesday, March 4, 2014

War With Russia: the Prospects

The Ukraine military is mobilizing. Polish troops are on the move. The Russians are poised to annex the Crimea. Putin has announced military 'exercizes'


The Dnjepr River is running straight through Ukraine, north to south, cutting the country in two. 

In the geography of Ukraine one feature stands out: the Dnjepr River is dividing the country in a western and an eastern part. This is also the cultural border that separates Europe from Russia. Time for an indepth discussion with our military correspondent about the elephant in the room: what are the prospects should it come to war? 
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Sunday, March 2, 2014

Obama Plans to Cut the Military to Level of 1940. Come Again?

How do the plans of the Obama administration for down sizing the military to pre World War II levels look like in the perspective of Russian assertiveness in Ukraine and the Crimea?



Bill O'Reilly interviews the former UN Ambassador, John Bolton.



NO, NOT SPOOF! THIS IS HOW THE LEFT RATIONALIZES THE DOWN GRADING OF THE US MILITARY

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Hatred, Slurs, Scapegoats & Psychological Projection

Smearing the (political) enemy with moral pejoratives has an old tradition. If you do it often enough some of the slur may actually stick. As it frequently does


The hatred of the Russians for the Nazis is a good example. 

National Socialism and Communism are kindred ideologies. But Hitler stabbed Stalin in the back after the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop Pact, and ever since every Russian enemy is called a 'Nazi'. 
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Saturday, March 1, 2014

Treaty Could Force US, UK Into War With Russia

Revealed: The forgotten treaty which could drag the US and UK into war with Russia if Putin's troops intervene in Ukraine



The Memorandum of Budapest (1994) sees signatories promise to protect Ukraine's borders.

Putin currently has 150,000 troops on Ukraine's borders and it is reported some have crossed into the country. President Obama says he is 'deeply concerned' by the news. The US and Britain have both made 'crisis calls' to President Putin to warn him to respect territorial boundaries. Here's why. A treaty signed in 1994 by the US and Britain could pull both countries into a war to protect Ukraine if President Putin's troops cross into the country.
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