The Last Day of February

...is also the last day of Sarah Palin month.

Don't worry, sad cat. She'll come back... some day.

In the meantime, enjoy some plain talking:

Gaddafi was Osama before Osama hit the scene. He ordered the bombing of a disco in Germany to kill Americans. When he paid the price for that – after President Reagan rightly ordered retaliation – he directed his agents to blow up Pan Am Flight 103. They did, and more than 250 innocent people died. Gaddafi tried to come in from the cold in 2003 – scared by the demonstration effect of Iraq. But we should have no illusions. Gaddafi is a brutal killer and Libya – not to mention the world – would be better off if he were out of power. Now is the time to speak out. Speak out for the long-suffering Libyan people. Speak out for the victims of Gaddafi’s terror. NATO and our allies should look at establishing a no-fly zone so Libyan air forces cannot continue slaughtering the Libyan people. We should not be afraid of freedom, especially when it comes to people suffering under a brutal enemy of America.

Harper steps up to bat:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Sunday that Canada will impose sanctions to penalize Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's for his brutal repression of protesters in that country.The actions that Canada joins other members of the United Nations in implementing include:

- An arms embargo to stop the shipment of weapons to and from Libya.
- A cargo inspection system.
- A travel ban on Colonel Gaddafi and 15 members of his family.
- A freeze on the assets of Col. Gaddafi and his family.

Furthermore, Mr. Harper announced that Canada will take additional measures beyond those announced by the United Nations Security Council. Canada will immediately place a freeze on financial transactions with the Libyan government, particularly with the central bank of the country.

Mr. Harper said these actions will "help restrict the movement of, and access to, money and weapons for those responsible for violence against the Libyan people.

Let us compare with the Commander-in-Chief:

Foreign powers talked openly on Monday of imposing a “no-fly” zone or making other military moves against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as rebels fought government forces trying to take back strategic coastal cities.

The United States said it was moving U.S. naval and air forces closer to Libya to provide “options and flexibility.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain would work with allies on preparing for a “no-fly” zone in Libya to protect its people from military attacks by Gaddafi’s forces.

 
Waiting for what, precisely?  What "flexibility"?


Related: Rex Murphy can see right through the UN:

Why was the tyrant’s chamber of Libya  ever, ever on a UN Human Rights council is the real question. A question that speaks to the moral ambiguity, even moral blindness of the entire United Nations apparatus. The action negated, nullified the very point of such a council.  Imagine constituting a Human Rights Council with such members: with Libya, a prison presided over by a decaying dictator, with Cuba, another prison presided over by another decaying dictator, and then pair these two with the grand exemplar of their kind, China — the last great communist despotism.

One reason why tyrants have so long a lease in our brave new world  is that temporizing, accommodating, trimming organizations like the UN give them, over the years, the bureaucratic sheen that allows them to present themselves as somewhat normal.  These moral hell-holes are seen or read to be in public concert with the “better nations” of the world, that overtime it erases in the eyes of the world the  great gulf that should separate evil or cruel states from the better, civilized ones. They earn a slovenly, lazy pass.  Come crisis times, as this week, and everybody is suddenly ready with a unanimous cry of Horror! Horror!

Also related: celebrities suck:

Victoria pop songstress Nelly Furtado says she was paid $1 million to perform for members of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's "clan" in 2007, but she now intends to donate the money to charity.

The New York Times recently reported that several Western pop stars had accepted massive sums of money to perform for Gadhafi's family in recent years.

Beyonce and Usher reportedly performed at a New Year's Eve party for Gadhafi's son Muatassim — Libya's national security adviser — on the Caribbean island of St. Barts, while R&B singer Mariah Carey was hired to sing at a previous New Year's bash.

What the hell?! That is the last thing we want!:

NASA computer models reveal what a small, regional nuclear war in one part of the world would do to the global climate and environment. The results are grim.

If 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs, each as powerful as 15,000 tons of TNT, were exchanged in a war between two developing-world nuclear powers such as India and Pakistan, models show the resulting fires would send five million metric tons of black carbon into the upper troposphere - the lowest-altitude layer of the atmosphere.

There, the soot would absorb solar heat and rise like a hot-air balloon, reaching heights from which it would not easily settle back to the ground.

In the shade of this carbon shield, Earth would cool. "The effects would [lead] to unprecedented climate change," said NASA physical scientist Luke Oman at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last week. Oman's and his colleagues' models show that for two to three years after a regional nuclear war, average global temperatures would drop by at least 2.25 degrees F (1.25 degrees C), and as much as 5.4 to 7.2 degrees F (3 to 4 degrees C) in the tropics, Europe, Asia and Alaska.

But the reversal of the global warming trend wouldn't be a good thing. "Our results suggest that agriculture could be severely impacted, especially in areas that are susceptible to late-spring and early-fall frosts," said Oman, who compared the likely post-war crop failures and famines to those that followed the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.

Additionally, the models showed global precipitation would reduce by 10 percent globally for one to four years, and the ozone layer would thin, resulting in an influx of dangerous ultraviolet radiation. These results confirm predictions made previously by researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Who put these people in charge? Where are the smart scientists, the ones who are actually being productive?


Remember- this guy wasn't charged for killing Mary-Jo Kopechne:

An FBI file contends that a young Edward Kennedy arranged to rent a brothel for a night while visiting Chile in 1961, a year before he was elected to the Senate.

The previously redacted memo, dated Dec. 28, 1961, was released by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based organization that said it obtained it through a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

According to the memo, Kennedy made arrangements to rent the brothel "for an entire night" in Santiago earlier in 1961.

Thank God somebody said it:

Really? Seriously? Jack Layton has a new attack ad accusing Ottawa insiders of “getting all the breaks?”

We’ll, I guess he should know. He and his wife, MP Olivia Chow, are among the ultimate Ottawa establishment couples.


I’m not making this up. The New Democrats have a new smear ad out claiming that Ottawa no longer works for the little guy. (Yeah, the little guy making $140,000 a year as a full, tenured sociology professor or $90,000 a year as a mid-level provincial health care bureaucrat — the kind of “little guys” who now make up most of the NDP’s supporters.)...

Sure, Jack. I’m touched by your concern for poor seniors, especially given that between the two of you, you and Ms. Chow racked up nearly $1.2 million in taxpayer-covered expenses in 2009, the last year for which reliable figures are available. That was $530,000 for her, $629,000 for you. The average MP consumed $469,000.

Admittedly, that’s not pocketed expense money. But neither does it include the couple’s salaries and honoraria as MPs. Nor Jack’s stipend as a party leader. It’s above and beyond their pay and benefits.
Much of it goes to staff salaries back home in the constituency, constituency office rent, flyers, hospitality and advertising,  leasing computers and copiers, flying to and from the home riding to Ottawa several times a year and renting a place to live while in the nation’s capital.

Oh, and dining out — a lot.

Scratch a leftist, find a mooch.


Finally, crime really doesn't pay:

The Facebook burglar pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday. 

In a case of social networking at its worst, Rodney Knight stopped to post his dirty deeds on the Facebook page of the son of the homeowner, a local journalist. It was like leaving a taunting calling card at the scene of the crime. 

Knight broke in to the Northwest home of Washington Post writer Marc Fisher in December, police said. He helped himself to a number of items, including two laptop computers, a new winter coat and about $400 in cash. 

Before leaving the scene of the crime, he put on the winter coat and posed with the cash for a photo he took of himself. He then posted his “loot” photo on Fisher’s son’s Facebook page, the writer said.