A Post For It Is Tuesday

Indeed.



Remember when Obama said he would meet with Iran without any pre-condtions? Yeah...

Iran raised the prospect on Tuesday of sending military ships close to the United States' Atlantic coast, in what would be a major escalation of tensions between the long-standing adversaries.

Just cut Greece off. It's not like this bailout will radically improve the country's spending habits:

 Greece will receive its next batch of bailout loans in time to avoid a disastrous default, the country's finance minister said Tuesday, as stock markets rallied on hopes that policy-makers around Europe were preparing a comprehensive solution to the debt crisis.

Reports that European leaders are considering bolder moves to relieve Greece and other countries of their debt burden have buoyed spirits in financial markets, though officials in Chancellor Angela Merkel's government downplayed such speculation ahead of her meeting later with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou.

The current plan is to have Greece implement painful debt-reduction measures in exchange for rescue loans. Greece relies on funds from last year's euro110 billion ($149 billion) package, and European leaders have also agreed on a second euro109 billion bailout, although some details of that remain to be worked out.

Greece's international creditors are withholding the next instalment of the first bailout loans until a review of the reforms is completed in the coming days. Without the money, Greece faces bankruptcy in mid-October, potentially sending shock waves through the financial sector in Europe and abroad.

Israel should just go for it. The Hamas-controlled Palestinians will attack them no matter what they do and the US has been less of a friend as of late:

The United States said on Tuesday that Israel’s decision to approve construction of 1,100 homes for Jews on annexed land in the West Bank was “counterproductive” and urged both Israel and the Palestinians not to take steps which could complicate resumption of direct peace talks.

When publicity stunts go bad:

Here’s a modest proposal: Name the “protester” accused of throttling an employee of the Vancouver Club where U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney appeared Monday night. Shame him, like the Stanley Cup looters and rioters were shamed. Too rough? Well, if destruction of property and theft warrant anti-riot vigilante websites — which seem better at protecting public interests than some Vancouver police brass and the Crown, to date — then why not an alleged physical assault?

As this Vancouver Sun photograph of the Monday night brouhaha demonstrates, the alleged attacker lunged at the unwitting employee who, after all, was just doing his job, trying to help registered guests enter the private downtown club to hear Mr. Cheney discuss a new book he is promoting. In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir sounds interesting, not just because Colin Powell has claimed it is riddled with “cheap shots,” or because it has raised the hackles of Condoleezza Rice, another former Secretary of State from the Bush/Cheney administration.


Mr. Cheney accepted an invitation to speak in Vancouver from a local book club. Approximately 250 men and women gathered outside the Vancouver Club to protest his visit. “We’re very angry that he has chosen Vancouver as the first location outside of the United States to do a book tour event,” one protest organizer told reporters, “and we feel it’s important that citizens of Vancouver show that we won’t tolerate a war criminal coming and speaking in our town…We hope to set an example that Cheney doesn’t see Canada as a safe haven.”

Just like threatening the Pope with arrest or harm, nothing will come of it. It has always been about the attention.



Things like this are the reason why state-funded broadcasters are losing viewers:

The BBC, Britain's state-funded broadcaster, is facing a backlash from leading presenters over the advice they should use "religiously neutral" terms instead of BC or AD because non-Christians could be offended.

Guidance from the broadcaster's ethics specialists said the phrases Common Era and Before Common Era should be considered as replacements for Before Christ and Anno Domini.

"As the BBC is committed to impartiality, it is appropriate that we use terms that do not offend or alienate non-Christians," it said. "In line with modern practice, BCE/CE (Before Common Era/Common Era) are used as a religiously neutral alternative to BC/AD."

James Naughtie, a presenter of BBC Radio 4's influential Today program, told The Daily Telegraph, "Nobody has suggested this to me, and if they do, they will get a pithy answer, which may be too pithy to share with readers of the Telegraph."

His fellow Today presenter, John Humphrys, said he did not see "a problem" with using BC and AD, since the terms were "clearly understood" by most audiences.

During his Sunday morning political program on BBC One, Andrew Marr said he would also continue to use the traditional date descriptions.

"I say AD and BC because that's what I understand," he told viewers. "I don't know what the Common Era is. Why is it the Common Era in 20 AD and it wasn't the Common Era in 20 BC?"

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who presented a BBC documentary on the Romans, described the plan as "puerile, spineless and absurd."

He said, "If the BBC doesn't want to date events from the birth of Christ, then it should abandon the Western dating system. Perhaps it should use the Buddhist calendar, which says that it is the 2,555th year since the nirvana of Lord Buddha. Perhaps it should have a version of the old Roman calendar, and declare that this is the fourth year of the fourth consulship of Silvio Berlusconi. It could say that this year was 13,400,000 or whatever since the Big Bang, or maybe the BBC should switch to the Mayan calendar and announce that 2011 is the year 1 BC - before the catastrophe that is meant to engulf the planet.

"We don't call it 2011 because it is 2011 years since the Chinese emperor Ai was succeeded by the Chinese emperor Ping (though it is); nor because it is 2011 years since Ovid wrote the Ars Amatoria. It is 2011 years since the (presumed) birth of Christ. I object to this change because it reflects a pathetic, hand-wringing, lefty embarrassment about thousands of years of cultural dominance by the West."

The beginning of the Common Era is dated from the same point as the Gregorian Christian calendar, but removes any reference to the birth of Jesus.

There are also no handsome Croatian doctors running about:

The controlled chaos and din of the hospital emergency department make for compelling television drama, but in real life the constant noise can stress out ER staff and threaten the care they give, a new Canadian study suggests.

Things with Sarah Palin can either go in a weird direction or just an ugly one:

 Sarah Palin's family attorney John Tiemessen has written a letter to Maya Mavjee, the publisher of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, that Palin may sue her, the company, and the book's author Joe McGinniss "for knowingly publishing false statements" in his book released last week, "The Rogue," ABC News has learned.

See what happens when you're a lying creep?



Canadian oil may attract some boorish and silly "protesters" but an Egyptian gasline gets more dramatic action:

Unknown assailants blew up an Egyptian pipeline in Sinai on Tuesday that supplies Israel and Jordan with gas, security sources and witnesses said.

A witness told investigators he saw three men jump out of a small truck at a pumping station in an area known as al-Maidan, southwest of the city of el-Arish, and open fire on the pipeline, the security sources said.

This was followed by a large explosion heard across the city and witnesses said 15-meter high flames could be seen shooting up from the pipeline.

(hat tips)


A candidate who really represents America:

Unlike Barack Obama, Herman Cain comes from African-American roots, with slave ancestors, and blue collar parents.  While Obama's Luo ancestors in Africa were slave holders, Cain's ancestors were slaves in America.  Cain didn't attend any elite prep schools or Ivy League universities, he was the first member of his family to attend college and rose on merit in the corporate world, before the era of affirmative action.  He is, to use Al Sharpton's phrase, "authentic."

No wonder the left and its press lickspittles are so worried.

And now, episodes of Star Trek that had to be axed before production.