During the Spanish Civil War, the Western Powers declined to get involved. They were war-weary, were dealing with the depression, joblessness and a restless population. They correctly felt that dealing with another countries business took a back seat to domestic issues.
Sounds like a certain present day conflict, doesn’t it?
Back then, volunteers, mobilized by the Communist party in Canada, went to fight for the Republican (communist, socialist, anarchist) side against the Nationalists (military, monarchist, fascist).
This lead to the creation of the Foreign Enlistment Act in Canada, making it illegal to go and take up arms in a foreign army or to facillitate those intending to do so.
Now, I’m not suggesting anything, but for those like Warren Kinsella1 who advocate sending our troops over to fight in a civil war, you can get a Visa for entry into Turkey online, it’s good for 90 days.
Warren could send his just entered college daughter to go play, instead of just asking the rest of us and his neighbours to send their children.
1 h/t: ron in kelowna
You didn’t fly that
Whether you’re a pilot, a surgeon, or a president, experience matters:
Pilots with Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III’s background are becoming the exception rather than the rule. Captain Sullenberger, readers will recall, carefully ditched his Airbus A320 close to a jetty in the Hudson River in January 2009 without loss of a single life, after the plane had been disabled by a flock of geese while climbing out of LaGuardia airport. It should be pointed out that Sully learned to fly at the age of 16, flew F-4 Phantoms in the air force, and had 40 years and 20,000 hours of mostly hands-on experience when he performed his heroics on the Hudson.
The problem today is that aircrew may log thousands of hours on the flight decks of modern airliners, but their actual hands-on flying experience may amount to mere minutes per flight. When things get frantic–whether through a mistaken input or a sudden runway change by air-traffic control during descent–aircrew can be so preoccupied punching fresh instructions into the flight-management computer that they may fail to notice their airspeed and altitude are falling precipitously.
The Voiceless
By now, everyone has seen the Missing in Action post about Hollywood’s most notorious peace-niks. (Link via Syd in the Readers Tips.)
You may also have read Ed Asner explaining why.
“A lot of people don’t want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama,” he said.
I find that answer utterly gratifying.
The Syrian vote is going to fail. There’s no going back now. The President has no respect in the world now and won’t lose any more when Congress slaps him down. It was the people who stopped it. Congress has been flooded with communications and if lawmakers vote their constituents wishes as opposed to a whipped vote, any Congressionally approved Syrian war is done.
The activist actors accomplished nothing in the last ten years except to silence themselves. They, on their career soapboxes, defined the Tea Party, Romney, the evils of conservatives. They used racism as the de facto root cause of criticism of Obama.
Now their hands are tied by their own ill-concieved and misguided beliefs. They have been revealed as the partisan hypocrites we always knew they were. Looks good on them.
What is the worst thing to do to an actor? Take away their voice. Best thing? We didn’t do it to them.
Obama’s war wound
Retired Army major general Robert H. Scales in the Washington Post:
After personal exchanges with dozens of active and retired soldiers in recent days, I feel confident that what follows represents the overwhelming opinion of serving professionals who have been intimate witnesses to the unfolding events that will lead the United States into its next war.
They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense. None of the White House staff has any experience in war or understands it. So far, at least, this path to war violates every principle of war, including the element of surprise, achieving mass and having a clearly defined and obtainable objective.
A little scratching and hair-pulling wouldn’t do much harm, though:
One officer told me: “To hell with them. If this guy wants this war, then let him have it. Looks like no one will get hurt anyway.”
Reader Tips
In tonight’s amusement en route to the tips stellar vocalist Darlene Edwards, backed by her pianist husband Jonathan, who was born with two right hands, spreads her lovin’ arms across the land with a stirring and unforgettable rendition of I Am Woman.
The comments thread is open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
So Sayeth, the Smartest Man in the Room
The Midnight Ride of Paul Barack Revere Obama:
One if by land, and two if by sea, and three if by air, and four if by drones . . . Or is it two if by land, and one if by sea? . . . However, there will be no deployment of Colonial ground forces. So it’s two if by ship-launched cruise missiles . . . Or is it three if by airstrikes? . . . Anyway, the British aren’t coming.
The Tolerant Left.
“But this is not the first time Wendy has shown her ‘liberal tolerance’.”
The Inanity of Most Leftist Arguments
But it isn’t even the arguments (scientific, political, economic, or logical) that gets me, as much as it is the pure inanity of the topic. It’s the fact I have to even debate this in the first place. That there are millions of mindless, conforming humans that actually believe this stuff necessitating my expenditure of calories of energy to address the idiotic and very-religious-like premises of global warming. In other words, the fact we’re arguing about something so inane proves there is a larger underlying problem than global warming itself.
Honey, I Finished The Internet
Premier Clark, Call your office
Via Instapundit:
Australia’s conservative opposition swept to power Saturday, ending six years of Labor Party rule and winning over a disenchanted public by promising to end a hated tax on carbon emissions, boost a flagging economy and bring about political stability after years of Labor infighting.
4th Annual Free Thinking Film Festival 2013
The Slow Boiled Frog
… we are gradually coming to a boil:
But if these people don’t have the first idea of what is happening to them, we can take heart. For, while they preen and clatter, their voices are less influential than they have ever been. Not for nothing have I stopped calling their trade, the Mainstream Media (MSM). That accords them too much weight and authority – they are the minority opinion: “legacy media” is a far better description.
… more at EUR.
Reader Tips
In tonight’s entertainment en route to the tips we forget all about Syria and the Middle East as we listen to some late-antique happy sounds V repulice ČSR (“In the Republic of Czechoslovakia“).
Oooh, look at those…borders.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Banjo Bowl
Here's a short #banjobowl message. http://t.co/r9oHdnvITW #embracethebanjo #Riders #Ridernation
— Brad Wall (@PremierBradWall) September 6, 2013
Amateur hour 8 Years
It’s important in diplomacy to know who your friends are. I completely understand Obama’s perplexity over Iran not supporting the US.
Sigh.
Look, kids, there’s Eldridge Cleaver and Al Sharpton!
William Putnam III, the sole trustee of Flagstaff, Arizona’s famed Lowell Observatory, wants to name an asteroid after Trayvon Martin:
“As I see it, the social fairness showed to Trayvon Martin was very sadly lacking,” said the retired broadcast executive, alpinist, author and Flagstaff resident. “Inasmuch as I am the sole trustee of an institution which has some naming privileges, I want to do my share to see that this lad is remembered in an appropriate manner.”
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
They’re your kids, there’s no risk to us.
A Highland Council spokesman said: “We are satisfied we have put in place the required risk assessments of wind turbines in schools to ensure their safe operation.”
Bad Lawyer != Good Historian
“The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama to Romney 10/2012
— Teri Peters (@hipEchik) September 6, 2013
Says the guy who can’t stop comparing a Syrian war with WWII.
Reader Tips
Some historic events are familiar to people all around the world, and will be remembered forever, but other events are historic only locally, and only for a few years. Tonight, courtesy of the NFB’s Vignette Series, we get an outsider’s view of that latter kind of history: Filmed in Greenstreet, Saskatchewan, here’s Larry Bauman’s short documentary The Move.
The comments thread is open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Australia’s Public Broadcaster is as Corrupt as Canada’s Public Broadcaster
Looks like conservative Aussies face pretty much the same conundrum as conservative Canadians: Their tax dollars fund a heavily biased broadcaster that supports all views except theirs.
It is galling that taxes paid by all Australians go towards funding that Lefty/Green echo-chamber, which caters for a small urban elite, staffed with inner-city Ultimo types who couldn’t run a chook raffle. Privately owned media organisations stand or fall on their output, witness the enduring success of News Corp, and the rapid decline of Fairfax, as it too panders to the latte-sipping, sandal-wearing intelligentsia, and in the process ignores the vast majority of Australians. The Age astonishingly endorses Labor for the election tomorrow – as one commentator pointed out, after asylum disasters, NBN, massive debt, waste, dysfunctional leadership, knifings, in-fighting, Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper, what would it take for them not to endorse Labor?
But the ABC is paid for by all of us, and it should be representative of the views of all Australians, not just a mouthpiece for the Left. It is probable that a Coalition government will be elected tomorrow, sweeping away six years of Labor incompetence. Yet you wouldn’t believe it listening to the ABC this morning, with the majority of stories either puff pieces for Rudd and Labor, or criticism of the Coalition and Abbott. Maybe they realise that the clock is ticking, time is running out, so they have to make the most of it, like the last gasp of the Roman Empire.
Related: More on Australia’s upcoming election here and here (videos).