Varifrank gives his anti-American colleagues the what-for. Essential reading.
Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro collegues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:
” See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier…”
After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud.
and then they looked at me. I wasn’t laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.
I’m afraid I was “unprofessional”, I let it loose –
“Hmmm, let’s see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want? Something with its own inexhuastible power supply?
Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water? Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it? Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies? Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?
Well “Franz”, us peasants in America call that kind of ship an “Aircraft Carrier”. We have 12 of them. How many do you have? Oh that’s right, NONE. Lucky for you and the rest of the world, we are the kind of people who share. Even with people we dont like. In fact, if memory serves,once upon a time we peasants spent a ton of money and lives rescuing people who we had once tried to kill and who tried to kill us.
Do you know who those people were? that’s right Franz, Europeans.”
It gets better. Read it all.
(via the incomparable Baldilocks)

Want to help Indian Ocean victims the libertarian way? Take N.Z. Bear’s advice and buy Indonesian coffees and Sri Lankan teas. He’s got a long list of linked sources.
IF you know of any other Indonesian/Thai/Indian/Sri Lankan/Malay/Maldivian products or companies to support, please leave them in the comments. I can personally vouch for Ayam brand Malay curry supplies and Trident brand Thai soup mixes.

It seems that World Vision, collecting money for tsunami relief, has returned a half-million dollar donation from Clubs NSW… because they were the proceeds of drinking and gambling.
However, Tim Costello, the head of WV, has reversed his rule after witnessing the carnage first-hand. How arrogantly magnanimous of him, the twit.

I don’t even know where Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan is, exactly (somewhere in Central Asia), but if you put a journalism Professor from Alaska there the results can be interesting– and depressing indeed to those that think a foreign policy change will improve America’s image globally.
UPDATE: Military intellectual Ralph Peters wrote a long essay (Warning! PDF) where he addresses this issue, among others…

Continue reading →

Brian Micklethwait seems to have found the ugliest building in the world, and possibly it’s smelliest too!

The libertarian in me makes me support Thai’s MP’s.
Who will liberate them from such oppression?

Cinderalla Bloggerfeller is all over the events in the former Soviet republic (where everyone is Caucasian whether they’re white or not). And he’s got tons of good, interesting links.