January 2009 Entries
If you haven't had your laugh yet today, here's one: Russian ruler Vladimir Putin told Bloomberg News that "his biggest fault is that he is too trusting." Both funny and a little ominous.
Excellent analysis from Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe staffer Brian Whitmore about the deteriorating economic and political situation in Russia, and whether Russia is on a course toward police state or anarchy. I've written about how Russia is sinking like a rock. Whitmore offers more evidence that crashing energy prices, unrest, and a budding power struggle in the Kremlin is sending Russia's Great Power comeback attempt toward some dark destination, TBA.
Britain's Christian Institute says a BBC TV show portrays pro-lifers as bloodthirsty villains. The British Broadcasting Corporation, incorporated by a government charter, supported by tax money, is the largest broadcaster in the world.
Geert Wilders, who I interviewed in the Netherlands last year, faces prosecution for inciting racial hatred, after a Dutch court ruled today that his attacks on Islam and the Koran are not protected speech.
"Team Obama" has praised the Bush administration for how Republican officials have gone out of their way to offer a friendly and efficient transition to the new Democratic President.
I certainly expected a nasty winter after we went through most of 2008 with no sunspot activity. Readers of this blog were advised in June.
I watched the entire raw tape of George Bush's final informal press conference, not by choice, but because I had to, for a retrospective I was writing. And I observed again that, love him or hate him, W possesses almost imperviable self-assurance and an extraordinarily tough constitution; exceedingly rare qualities in politicians today. These qualities both served and bedeviled the nation and his administration.
Australia's The Age news site reports that the CIA is helping MI-5 monitor Britain's large pool of terrorists and terror sympathizers.
While I was vacationing over the holidays, and not paying much attention to anything, the angry young men in the Paris banlieues (suburban housing projects) were out setting a new record for burned cars on New Years Eve. 1,147. In a single night.
As I and most European Jews expected, anti-Semitism is flaring up again in Europe. It happens each time the Israeli Army goes into action, as it has in Gaza. Israel is routinely cast as a monster by the leftist European media. Incredibly unbalanced or just plain untrue stories are then broadcast and printed to the millions of Muslims in Europe, many of whom have already imbibed on even worse coverage beamed in from the Arab world. The media coverage becomes the fuel for the anti-S