Obama's Spending Mania

Anyone who knows me knows that my biggest complaint about former President George W. Bush was his runaway spending.  In concert with a Republican Congress that should have known better (and that was punished for it at the polls in 2006 and 2008), President Bush ushered in the age of Republican Party Big Government.  From the federalization of public education under "No Child Left Behind" to the massive bailouts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, President Bush proved that he knew how to spend my money.  But how about President Obama?  Now, there is a politician who really knows how to spend my money.  In an article for The American, Veronique de Rugy provides graphic evidence of the massive spending of the Obama Administration:

Oh my.  Read the article, and remember that the projected deficits of the Obama years do not factor in the massive costs of his proposed health care "reforms".

College Football: Where Fortunes Quickly Change

The Hokies are now ranked No. 6, higher than any other team with one loss.  After the Alabama loss, I would never have thought that Tech had any chance to be mentioned in the same breath as "national championship."  And after the horrible showing against Nebraska, where only Tyrod Taylor's heroics in the waning seconds prevented another loss, I wondered whether we were looking at a 4 or 5 loss season.  But fortunes change quickly in the world of college football.  The Hokies are looking good today, but a loss anywhere else on the schedule will put a quick end to national championship talk, swinging the pendulum back in the other direction.

One more thought:  where else on the web do you get comments about college football and nuclear proliferation on the same page?

The Case for a Hard Line with the Iranians

I ran across this opinion piece in today's The Times (of London) regarding the upcoming direct talks between the United States and Iran.  The author, Rosemary Righter, whom I have not previously encountered, outlines a strategy for exploiting the chinks in the armour of the current Iranian regime.  I do not expect that anything she recommends will be taken up by the American negotiators dispatched by the Obama Administration, but one can dream.  I do not believe that a sit down with the Iranians is a good idea, particularly by this Administration, since Obama has already played his hand that appeasement will be his method of operation.  It is too bad that what little opportunity is created by such discussions will not be leveraged to any useful end.

Sarkozy Calls Obama "Naive" about Iran

The world diplomatic landscape has surely changed when the President of the French Republic takes a harder line on Iranian nuclear proliferation than the President of the United States.  As reported in The Independent of Dublin (the one in Ireland, not the one in Ohio), President Sarkozy mocked President Obama as "naive" following Obama's speech to the United Nations.  As quoted in the article, Sarkozy had the following to say about Obama's speech:

"We live in a real world not a virtual world," the Frenchman told the 15-member council. "And the real world expects us to make decisions.  President Obama dreams of a world without weapons . . . but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite.  Iran since 2005 has flouted five security council resolutions. North Korea has been defying council resolutions since 1993.  I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community?  More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map," he continued, referring to Israel.

Thank heavens someone is actually saying it.  If you were looking for The New York Times to report on President Sarkozy's comments, you would still be waiting.  The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece today about Sarkozy's tongue-lashing of Obama, but little else can be found in American newspapers.  Now that "The Chosen One" has fallen on his face, the American media, which have been his cheerleaders since he announced his candidacy, can only avoid embarrassment by hiding the news from the American people.

Dealing with a Nuclear Iran

In case you weren't paying attention, the world has learned that Iran now has a second uranium enrichment facility to supply the material for nuclear weapons.  And over the past few days, Iran has been flexing its muscles by test firing a variety of short and medium range missles. The tested missles could easily reach all of Israel, and some of the missles could even reach portions of southern Europe.

In a sane world, this news would be greeted by every sensible nation with alarm.  But the Obama Administration, along with the surrender monkeys of western Europe, have responded only with a promise of additional sanctions.  Well guess what:  sanctions have not worked before, and they will not work now.  Furthermore, the sanctions that are in place now are not even being enforced:  for example, our allies in Germany turn a blind eye when German industrial firms provide equipment to Iran that is necessary to make the nuclear program operate.  And Russia will render any additional sanctions meaningless by providing Iran with everything it needs.  The Iranian marketplace deposits lots of money into Medvedev and Putin's treasury.

So what happens now?  We can be certain that for the Obama Administration and NATO, a military response is absolutely out of the question.  Obama cannot even muster the strength to follow the recommendations of his commanding general in Afghanistan--a war that Obama called "necessary" during the campaign--because he is afraid of his "progressive" base.  And Obama's brand of "shame on you" diplomacy makes him the laughing stock of tyrants the world over.

The only nation that truly grasps the implications of the present situation is Israel.  In 1981, Israel launched an air strike that disabled Iraq's early efforts at a nuclear weapons program, and I do not doubt for a second that Israel is already formulating a plan for a pre-emptive strike against Iran.  Israel has to do it.  The Iranian regime is openly commited to a policy of destroying Israel--literally wiping it off the map.  I will make no prediction about when the strike will come, but come it will. 

I commend to you a great piece in today's Wall Street Journal by Eliot Cohen on the limited options left for dealing with a nuclear Iran.

A New Beginning

I created this blog way back in 2007 as a place where I would comment on current events.  I kept up pretty well for a while, but then I lost interest.  Perhaps the cardiac bypass surgery in 2008 had something to do with it, or perhaps it was all the other changes that were happening in my life at the time.

I have been posting commentary on my Facebook page recently, and I have actually received some feedback, so I think the time has come to turn my attention back to this blog.  I deleted all of the old content because, well, just because.  I am beginning anew.  Here's to new beginnings.