Introducing The Great Appeaser - Mr. Obama

December 1, 2009 will be remembered as a day of celebration for terrorists everywhere. They have won in Afghanistan. As foretold by the conduct and content of Obama’s presidential campaign and tenure, he has surrendered to terrorism and given the Taliban and their ilk a great victory by issuing NATO's surrender. The Great Appeaser has shown that he will even betray defence of his own democracy. He has already back-stabbed the democratic defenders in Honduras, the Czech Republic, Poland, Israel, China, Iran so it was only a matter of time before he crumbled for the US.

It is militarily indefensible to state a retreat date to an enemy, whether a war is over or not. The Taliban will just hold on now until 2011 and promise violence at that time upon any who deal with NATO forces in the intervening period. What a waste of effort in a war that has not been fought as a war, merely a competition for hearts and minds of tribal warlords. The Taliban have given up nothing and they have forced the US and NATO to depart from Afghanistan without waging the real war that needed to be fought. The short term surge is merely to cover the retreat.

The Great Appeaser is competing with Jimmy Carter for the position of being the best friend that terrorists have ever had in the White House.

Zaki - the one type of racist tolerated in football

Amr Zaki stated that he will not sign for Portsmouth FC of the English Premier League because they employ two Israelis - Tal Ben Haim and Avram Grant - as well as an Algerian in the form of Nadir Belhadj. Funnily enough Portsmouth is owned by an Abu Dhabi financier. However, to the point, let’s stop seeking weasel words to absolve Zaki of his hate crime. If it had been any other nationality than Israeli then he would have found no defenders for his slur. The Algerian insult is a side issue based on real actions, which was actually Egyptians attacking the Algerian team. Even before this nastiness, Zaki appeared to be reprehensible egocentric ignorant individual. He is not to be congratulated because he had the courage to spout hate in the same way that one would not admire a Nazi for speaking his “mind”.

If one really wants to look at brutal oppressors why not first go to the Organization of Islamic Countries which has 56 members, and the only one which could be considered remotely democratic is previously secular Turkey. It is not surprising that Zaki is racist coming from a country whose national broadcaster broadcasts the fabricated Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Of the UN, only 46% (88 of 192 countries) are democracies, and in the Middle East, only 1 out of 23 countries…..Israel. No misogynistic, homophobic theocracy prevents Israeli Arabs playing for the national team, or for Arabs to play in the domestic league. Contrast that to Israel having being forced to move from the Asian Football Conference to UEFA (via Oceania) because of hate.

This is not about football. Anyone with an open mind knows what this is truly about, notwithstanding the superficial self-serving distinctions made between Israel, Israelis and Jews. It is about only one hatred being allowed to fester and justified.

Nonetheless, will we see any action against Zaki? Of course not, and even if there surprisingly was, he will simply accuse a minority group of some nefarious plot and be allowed to propagate more hatred whilst being made a martyr in his homeland. Perhaps he would be more comfortable playing in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, although they used the football stadia for another purpose.

Worse to come than 9/11

On today's anniversary, the hypocrite Obama is cozying up to the terrorists' blood brothers, understanding their "root" causes and abandoning democracies in the chase for oil. What a disgraceful hypocrite, and the world is in for a very tough 3.5 years remaining whilst he lets Iran get nukes, then to be doled out to their terrorist puppets. With Obama at the helm of the free world, there are worse 9/11 attacks to come.

How not to run a city Exhibit A - David Miller of Toronto

Local unions that encompassed members who performed garbage collection duties in the City of Toronto engaged in a strike throughout the summer. Parks were used to store garbage in 30C heat and day care centres werepicketed and closed. Direction from the city's managers, acting on the alleged instructions of councillors, permitted the strikers to harass members of the public who travelled to public dumps with their garbage. Police did nothing to enforce the freedom of movement of Canadian citizens, supposedly enshrined in the Charter of Rights. Perhaps, brighter minds than mine can explain the legal basis for a civic employee instructing citizens not to exercise their right to freedom of movement. Maybe, the better minds could also explain why non-union citizens should not pass through a picket line to conduct their own affairs. Undoubtedly, the unions are free to strike, but their freedom should not impinge upon the rights of others to act freely.

The core complaint of the unions was that their members wanted to be able to bank up to 18 days of sick leave per annum until they retire. In other words, they wanted an extra 18 "vacation" days paid for every year that they worked if they had not used these days because they were sick. My initial error was that I thought sick days were to be used for when one is sick and unable to work, however, the fearless and feckless Mayor David Miller worked it all out for everyone before moving on with his anti-car agenda.

Miller was upset that no one congratulated him for "settling" the strike. Miller managed to talk the unions down from demands for a 7.2% raise over 4 years to a mere 6% over 3 years and this less than magnificent achievement is a subject that should henceforth be included in business school studies. He managed to leave the unfunded sick day liability to fester for another administration, and he almost was able to set up an additional new funded sick day entitlement! The timing of Miller’s capitulation on the City’s behalf was just in time to ensure the strikers get overtime pay for working over the weekend of statutory holiday. Pure genius!

There was absolutely no point to the Mayor allowing a strike to go ahead if he was just going to give the unions all that they demanded. Why make the populace suffer for weeks if he was going to give in?

David Miller has been supported in his candidacies for mayor by certain unions ( let's call them CUPE Local 416 and 79 for example), whose members comprise most of the workforce of the city. CUPE employees were even seconded to his campaigns. David Miller and his cohorts “negotiated” with the unions and managed to settle on rises far above inflation, in recessionary times. There would appear to be a conflict of interest here.

The fabulous Mayor David Magnificent Miller refused to contemplate refunding 1/365th of increased property taxes for every day that his unionized support was on strike.

Somewhere, there must be a handbook of how to ruin a city, its finances and traffic flow by overtaxing the populace for niche feel-good schemes whilst producing less services. It has been implemented in cities across Europe, and David Miller should have a chapter devoted to him now.

Miller has now announced that he will not seek re-election. It will be interesting to see if CUPE give him a job.

Miller claimed that nobody won in the strike. Nobody won in the strike…er… except for Local 416 and 79.

Football Economics

I think that it is fabulous news for the UK economy that the Abu Dhabi crew at the City bluesers are spending enormous sums of petrodollars on players transfer fees, and on their wages. For once, instead of seeing our petrol money flooding out of the country to support dictators’ lifestyles, the dictatorships are finally ploughing the money back into the UK via transfer fees, and via the increase in income taxes arising out of the bulging pay packets of moderately skilled footballers. The money flooding back in now is not simply to buy property around Kensington and Chelsea, but actually improves the entertainment value of the country’s game for those oppressed souls living within the UK. I think this is great, and we should encourage this reverse flow with bail-out stimulus for SUV purchases. More petrol purchases = better economy = Premier League retaining some averagely skilled players.

Worstest referee - Rothlisberger vs. Tom Henning Overdo

Although I have sympathy for Chelski and their supporters, apart for the cheats Ballack and Drogba, and Cashley Cole of course, the poor refereeing was not the worst experienced. Time and again that dishonour fell to a Swiss cheat called Kurt Rothlisberger. Even UEFA banned him for life, supposedly only because Rothlisberger suggested to Grasshoppers a colleague could be bribed. However, we know that UEFA would not ban the man who was their top referee for life if there was not much more going on. One rumour was that Rothlisberger offered a bribe to the Spanish referee of a World Cup qualifying match between Switzerland and Norway. Switzerland lost 1-0 in the end.

Rothlisberger was a german speaking referee who in the 1994 World Cup refereed the Fatherland versus Belgium and failed to award a blatant penalty that would have allowed the Belgians to draw, and thence qualify for the next round. This was a ref who made terrible decisions in the Manchester United vs. Galatasary Champions League game and sent off Cantona when he politely inquired if he was a cheat. No mention or protection for the United players in the referee’s or UEFA’s report when the Turkish police assaulted the team after the game. Turkey is not known for its high standing in the transparency and anti-corruption standings of countries’ business dealings. Rothlisberger refereed the 1993 European Cup final between Marseille and Milan. Hmm, Marseille were stripped of the French title and relegated for bribing a referee in the game before the European Cup Final. A game that they won 1-0.

So, for bad refereeing, we really must start a review with Rothlisberger. At the time, we were told he was simply a referee that made bizarre errors, even though it was to the continuing benefit of one team. Now we know better, and he was a cheat. At least Tom Henning Overdo was consistently poor, and that is the magnifying glass through which we should examine the men in black.

Broken Britain #1

Broken Britain is a correct description of life there. However, the reason given by a Professor Ninian Mellamphy living in his ivory tower at the University of Western Ontario is so far off base to be laughable, and simply parrots a post-modern PC idiocy. The argument that the cause of the lost generation of British citizens has arisen due to the loss of an empire that they have never known is simply ludicrous. This is nothing to do with the breakdown. Schools barely teach those Empire years now, and if they do, they mostly do it through the revisionist history of colonialism, and that bringing hygiene, learning and rights to a population was oppressive. Britain had been nearly bankrupted by World War II, but had regrown. There are a large number of reasons as to why the quality of life has dropped. There are extortionate indirect taxes, a non-working health system, violence on the streets, incredible levels of theft, a destroyed social welfare system, and an anti-motor vehicle biased policy that makes travel anywhere unpleasant and expensive.

As examples, there is a two tier health service that has insufficient funds in the public system to do what needs to be done, and challenged spending at every level in the private health sector, because treatment costs eat into the profits of the corporate providers.

The over-riding destruction has come with the breakdown of the social welfare system, which has come about for many reasons. There has been a loss of moral certainty. Prior to Thatcher, strong unions had been wrestling with the government and national interest by seeking support for over-priced and under-performing products (sounds familiar today on a different continent). The unions put their members’ interests above that of coherent society. Thatcher effectively destroyed union power, but Thatcherism also made the individual and their wants paramount, and communal responsibility diminished.

During this time, there was any influx of immigrants that were different from previous waves. They did not share or admire the values of the British people for democracy, or a feel any duty to preserve a civilized Judeo-Christian society. This batch of immigrants did not seek to improve their lives by hard work and study in order to raise their personal standards and contribute to a greater society, nor did they want to become part of the British society generally. This was unlike previous generations that improved their positions without any national welfare support. Rather, the social welfare network, instead of being a net for those unfortunate in society, became a way of life for these later immigrants, which could immediately be accessed upon arrival, whether or not they were entitled to stay. Thatcherism introduced the “me-first” philosophy to the UK, and this was the only value picked up by the new style immigrants. Now demands are overwhelming on public facilities and funding.

Morals began to lapse, such that 14 year old schoolgirls who are unable to achieve any qualifications would deliberately get pregnant because councils provided single mothers with apartments and living expenses from the government. This lack of qualifications was in spite of the government enforcing a drastic “dumbing-down” of national examinations so that anyone could get a certificate provided they could use the correct colour crayon to sign an X for their name. There was no need for these young women to work, because they had everything paid for and the next generation of this group has now emerged with a repeating pattern. It remains politically incorrect to admonish this sector of the population for their choice of life-style. It is immediately deemed racist and politically incorrect to admonish the recent immigrant population for their choice of life-style. And now, thanks to the EU’s open borders, there has been a flood of immigrants, some of whom have chosen to work hard (Polish) and others, who have availed themselves of the welfare state. It is in this environment that a person such as Jade Goody becomes a national hero, and shining example. She made the best of what she could for herself in her short life, but there are a myriad hoping to step into her shoes who are also barely literate or competent to hold a job.

As a result of having to pay for these systems, those citizens that do work have to pay more taxes. On the face of it, the income tax rates appear lower than many parts of North America, however once essential though indirect taxes are factored in, the burden on the cost of living is immense. This is why tourists to the UK complain about the cost of everything, except soccer boots. The government’s grasp for cash has extended to the road systems, with speed cameras everywhere enforcing limits set in the 1950’s and drivers simply receiving bills in the mail for very minor excesses. London has set up a toll centre, yet very little of these funds are re-invested in roads. Instead, many roads have been closed and pedestrianized areas brought to the centre of cities, leading to increased congestion and pollution. The green lobby agitates against the congestion and pollution that they have caused, leading to a vicious cycle in which city councils then close more roads to keep motor vehicles away. This leads to delays in travel, stress and significant expressions of road rage that have even ended in murder. Public transport is generally expensive, has poor coverage and is often dangerous, due to the general level of violence in society.

Crime is endemic, and one is unable to leave anything on display in a car even furry animals without the likelihood of returning to find a broken window. Even a “nice car” will be scratched with keys or coins for the sake of it. Houses are safe-guarded with alarms, double locks and light systems in working, middle and upper class neighbourhoods. There is a sense of entitlement flowing through a great part of the population, such that even if someone else has an asset that they have achieved through hard work, then “I deserve it because they are no better than me”. Thus, respect for others and their possessions has disappeared. In the meantime, the economic meltdown in the UK has exacerbated this feelings.

On top of this, the government’s descents into sleaze and doing anything to stay in power (e.g. the current Labour government and the end of the Tories under John Major), has shown that the ends justify the means.

Britain is broken due to its lack of modern day morality, and the stress placed on a society largely supporting an immigrant culture that does not share its historic values. America and Canada beware