Weather Report

White hell: Drivers spend night sleeping in their cars as coldest December on record shuts roads and airports

(The Daily Mail)

A blast of harsh winter weather socked Europe Saturday morning, causing travel chaos and sending temperatures into a deep-freeze.

From Northern Ireland to Bulgaria, blizzard conditions left airports with heavy delays or shut them entirely on Friday, and many delays and cancellations continued into Saturday.

(CNN)

Snow, snow and more snow: Germany, along with much of the rest of Europe, continues to struggle under heavy snowfalls in what appears to be the early onset of deepest winter.

(Der Spiegel)

And it looks like the cold weather is going to prevail this winter also in the US, Russia and China. This is not good news for the global warming alarmists:

And the warmists just don't get it. Or perhaps they do, which could explain the vicious edge to their attacks. Their mantras are not going to survive this winter, and the politicians who continue to promote this lunacy are going to be howled down, ridiculed and rejected. They haven't realised it yet, but this while stuff falling from the skies is a powerful game-changer, a political event of considerable magnitude.

(Richard North, EU Referendum)

California dreamin

If Belgium is a failed country, then what should one think of Californa? Victor Davis Hanson has visited less wellknown areas of this once proud state:

Two Californias
Abandoned farms, Third World living conditions, pervasive public assistance -- welcome to the once-thriving Central Valley.

The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.

Read the whole piece here.

PS
I just noted an interesting comment on the article.

Diplomacy in action

Just for a change - watch this ambassador.
(This recording is not included in the WikiLeaks material).

Belgium - a failed nation

Over six months have passed since the general election, but Belgium is still without a functioning government. Flemish nationalist, Bert De Wever, leader of the country´s largest party wants to split the nation into two:

Belgium has sunk into political chaos. Following the parliamentary elections six months ago, all attempts to build a new government have failed. The country is divided into two camps that oppose each other, apparently irreconcilably: the socialists, who won the most votes in Wallonia, the French-speaking southern region of the country, and the nationalist conservatives in Flanders, the wealthier Dutch-speaking northern region.

The New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) obtained the most parliamentary seats in June's elections. Its leader Bart De Wever wants to split Belgium into two. In an interview with SPIEGEL that was published in German on Monday, De Wever described how Begium is the "sick man" of Europe and has "no future in the long run."

 

SPIEGEL: Mr. De Wever, how much longer do you think Belgium will last?
De Wever: I'm not a revolutionary, and I'm not working toward the immediate end of Belgium. And I don't have to do that, either, because Belgium will eventually evaporate of its own accord. What we Flemish want is to be able to control our own judiciary, as well as our fiscal and social policy. We feel that foreign policy is in better hands with the European Union. But the nation of Belgium has no future in the long run. It is too small for greater political ambitions, and it's too heterogeneous for smaller things like taxes and social issues.

Read more here.

One more post about the Cancún meeting

This comment on the "historic" Cancún meeting is worth reading:

To justify the two-week waste of time and money, agreement was reached to establish a Green Climate Fund, projected to rise to $100 billion annually by 2020, for countries threatened by altered weather patterns. It's unclear who will contribute to the fund, how it will be administered or who (other than Third World tyrants) would be the beneficiaries. It looks like a classic shell game in which affluent countries will pledge funds but actually make no significant contributions. If money really does end up in the pot, what a carnival of graft, corruption and international conflict over the spoils that will be!

The Cancun meetings, from their inception, had less to do with saving the Earth than with the redistribution of wealth from industrialized countries to the Third World, on a much larger scale than has ever been accomplished through conventional foreign aid. Third World delegates were exemplified by Bolivian President Eva Morales who, for years, has been campaigning for international compensation for poor countries that agree to protect their own forests. The final declaration from Cancun indicates that this campaign was successful but, again, honeyed words don't necessarily produce hard cash. Ironically, Bolivia refused to sign the final agreement because it didn't contain mandatory (and crippling) emission caps for wealthy countries.


Read the whole article here.

The Case for the START Treaty

It now seems probable that there will be enough support in the US Senate to ratify the new START treaty. This would be a victory to the Obama administration. However, according to analyst Robert Kagan, the treaty would also be beneficial to republicans:

New START, whatever its flaws, is not a threat to U.S. security. The three previous arms-control treaties, all negotiated by Republican presidents, cut deployed nuclear weapons from near 12,000 to around 2,000. New START reduces the totals to 1,550. Passing it will neither produce a nuclear-free utopia nor disarm the United States.

But blocking the treaty will produce three unfortunate results: It will strengthen Vladimir Putin, let the Obama administration off the hook when Russia misbehaves and set up Republicans as the fall guy if and when U.S.-Russian relations go south.

And if relations with Russia do sour, as I expect, it will be important that the record be clear as to why.

Read more here.

Mentally ill slave workers in China

Next time you buy something cheap made in China, remember that it might be assembled e.g. by mentally ill slaves working without pay ....