Conservative Donnybrook

BB malquoted; Eurasia, Eastasia both listed as doubleplusgood, clearly malrep, rectify. Persia/western Malabar front misrep as coop, doubleplusungood, rectify. Chocolate ration increase unmentioned, rectify. Unpost malreported previous doublequick. Memory hole soonest. Check Times 4-12-75 also, rectify plusgood mention. Oceania has always been at war with Persia on western frontier Malabar front. Complete before 2 minutes hate.

is about one trillion, twenty-seven billion, eight hundred million dollars for 2009. In addition to the exorbitant costs of Medicare, Social Security, “foreign aid,” and the bailouts and recovery acts, this behemoth simply must be addressed, or else, as I have said before, the game is over. The current gaggle of whores in the District of Criminals are bent on further “regulating” the financial sector, which is to say soon-to-be-ex-senator Dodd is proposing that a new, “independent” regulatory oversight power be given to the Federal Reserve Board. I’m not kidding.

I will be posting – this time I promise – a follow-up post concerning financial and monetary reform this week, and there will be links to lengthy, scholarly support for my positions, as well as recollections from my recently deceased uncle, a PhD (University of Chicago) economist who retired from the University of Missouri with an extensive background in agricultural economics and economics in general. I hope many of you will find it enlightening, or at least interesting. Feedback and respectful discourse will of course be welcome.

Check the American Spectator for more on why the GOP is as useless as Cialis at an Indigo Girls concert. Let’s see, GM, Chrysler, AIG, health “insurance,” increasing federalization of local police forces (wanna see my new RFID-chipped federal ID card which lets me into “controlled areas”?), and more on the horizon… somebody explain to me again how this isn’t fascism?

With no credible objective in Afghanistan, with our original mission accomplished and with a resurgent Taliban army explain to me again why we are sending more U.S. troops there?  If Karzai insists on portraying Americans as hostile to Afghans and continues to pander to the Taliban and the White House cancels his trip to Washington, then why should red-blooded American servicemen and women continue to risk their lives for him?  If we stay against the wishes of the corrupt Afghan government and without popular support from the citizens (theirs or ours), are we not risking a broader, bloodier and costlier fight that could rage on for another 10 years?  Such a conflict offers the United States no strategic benefit. 

Karl said it before and I agreed.  We achieved our original objective and won the war by ousting the Taliban from power and eliminating terrorist training camps.  Its time to let the special forces and the U.S. Air Force to handle the targeted killing of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership and to bring our troops back home.  Especially now that Karzai is shaping up as an unreliable ally and possibly a future enemy.

45 miles off the coast of Florida a group of foreign nations hostile to the United States prepare to expand their influence in an economic zone surrendered by the Americans.  The stakes are high and America has the most to lose.  While she has the largest reserve of chips, she makes the minimum bet and allows restricted offshore drilling to resume in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Eastern seaboard. 

This is not a John Grisham novel but the real situation the Obama administration finds itself confronted with.  The Russians secured an agreement with the communist Cuban government in mid 2009 to begin drilling in Cuba’s economic zone (which Jimmy Carter ceded to them).  Estimates put the available amount of oil around 5 billion barrels in this area.  While not a windfall like Alaska’s discovery in Prudhoe Bay of 25 billion barrels, the field is comparable to Brazil’s deep water discovery in 2007.  Russia stands to expand its influence in the western hemisphere at the expense of the United States.  Russia’s agreement with Cuba could significantly lessen the burden of the Cuban government by allowing Cuba to import far less oil than it currently does today.  Most significantly, it strikes an economic blow to American interests in our backyard.

Pundits like Sarah Palin  and others have speculated that the Obama administration’s new endorsement of off shore drilling is a nothing more than an attempt to curry favor for his carbon cap and trade scheme.  But this seems unlikely.  Palin’s position is like assuming that untying a captive’s right hand will allow him to accept cutting off his left.  It simply makes no sense.  Instead, it appears that the President fears the growing Russian presence in our hemisphere. He is right to.  Permitting offshore drilling in and around areas where the Russians are present sends a message that while the president generally disapproves of offshore drilling, he is unwilling to sit back and let Russia expand its petro-carbon empire in to the Gulf without a response.  It is subtle, but it won’t go unnoticed by the Russians, the Chinese or even the Brazilians.  Sure, they can drill in Cuban waters, but if the U.S. wanted to, it could make that ultimately unprofitable by sucking much of that oil up itself.

If Obama was serious about currying favor for his carbon cap and trade legislation or about energy independence he would have opened the door for slant drilling from existing platforms off the coast of California.  But he didn’t because the Russians’ energy empire poses no encroaching threat there.  Obama’s move provides very little benefit to the United States and does little more than put a slightly larger U.S. presence in and around the Russian platforms.  But this, I posit, is his point.  Look at us, we are here and if we desire, we can have it all.  Don’t be fooled, Sarah et al.  While the president will move forward with his cap and trade agenda, this move is simply more weak finger-wagging foreign policy from B-rock.

April 1
1789: House of Representatives 1st full meeting held in New York City
1863: wartime conscription law goes into effect in the United States
1865: General Lee’s Army defeated at the Battle of 5 Forks Virginia
1945: U.S. forces invade Okinawa

April 2
999: Gerbert of Aurillac elected as 1st French Pope
1865: Jefferson Davis flees Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia
1917: President Wilson asks Congress to declare war against Germany
1982: Argentina seizes the Falkland Islands

April 3
1865: Union forces take Richmond Virginia
1925: Great Britain goes back to gold standard
1948: Harry Truman signs Marshall Plan
1986: U.S. national debt hits $2,000,000,000,000

April 4
1581: Frances Drake completes circumnavigation of world
1850: City of Los Angeles incorporated
1949: NATO created
1984: Winston Smith makes his first diary entry

April 5
1792: Use of 1st presidential veto
1954: Elvis Presley records his first hit “That’s All Right”
1974: World Trade Center opens in New York
1986: U.S. soldier killed in West Berlin disco bombing

April 6
402: Battle at Pollentia: Roman army under Stilicho beats Visigoten
1862: Union defeats Confederacy in Battle of Shiloh
1917: U.S. declares war on Germany

April 7
1118: Pope Gelasius II excommunicated Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor
1818: General Andrew Jackson conquers St. Marks Florida from Seminole Indians
1969: Dodgers’ Bill Singer records first official save in baseball history
1988: Soviets accepts defeat in Afghanistan

The Tasmanian rat has chewed through its enclosure at Moorpark College.  Federal, state and local officials are working together to track down twelve 120 pound menaces.  If allowed to mate in the wild, these animals could spell disaster for the local fruit and Feral cat populations.  Luckily, the Santa Paula police officers responsible for shooting the terrifying 10 pound mountain lion cub last year will lead the expedition into the wilds of Simi Valley. Good luck officers, and God speed.