HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? Russia threatens to strike NATO missile defense sites.
Archive for 2012
May 3, 2012
YA THINK? The Hill: Chinese Dissident Becomes Political Headache For Obama.
But wait, it gets worse:
The Chen Guangcheng saga gets stranger and stranger, but also is becoming a major diplomatic embarrassment for the Obama administration. What was already a confusing tale of “he said, she said” moved into the realm of near-parody this afternoon, when Chen himself called his U.S. supporter and activist Bob Fu during a congressional hearing, was put on speaker phone, and directly asked to be let out of China. What has particularly spun the case out of control is the growing assertion by many that U.S. officials relayed threats by Beijing toward Chen’s wife to the blind activist, thereby forcing him to accept a deal to leave the U.S. Embassy and remain in China. Within 48 hours of a supposed deal to ensure Chen’s safety in the country, the lawyer’s friends began spreading the word that he had feared for his wife’s life and agreed to leave the embassy, but now wanted to flee the country.
What seemed like a coup by U.S. diplomats has instead become the biggest circus sideshow in Sino-American relations since 1989, when the Chinese massacred hundreds (possibly thousands) of college students demonstrating for freedom in Tiananmen Square, and famed dissident Fang Lizhi took refuge in the U.S. Embassy. Back then, Ambassador James R. Lilley succored Fang for a year before Chinese authorities agreed to let him live in exile in the United States. Given the doubts about who said what to whom, it is imperative that the Obama administration dispel rumors that it may have, even unknowingly, passed official threats to Chen, thereby causing him to take the path of least resistance for both governments.
A debacle.
OBAMA THE BAD BOYFRIEND: When your girlfriend says that she loves you, is “thank you” an appropriate response?
FINE-TUNING NANOTECHNOLOGY TO TARGET CANCER. “The results of the human trials are startling. Even at a lower-than-usual dose, multiple lung metastases shrank or even disappeared after one patient received only two-hour-long intravenUous infusions of an experimental cancer drug. Another patient saw her cervical tumor reduce by nearly 60 percent after six months of treatment. Though the drug trial—by Bind Biosciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts—of an experimental nanotechnology-based technique was designed simply to show whether the technology is safe, the encouraging results revive hopes that nanomedicine could realize its elusive promise.”
Faster, please. Though is it really “elusive promise” when people have only been working on this stuff for a few years?
INSTAVISION: I TALK TO JONAH GOLDBERG about his new book The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas. (YouTube link). (Bumped).
THIS ISN’T ENCOURAGING: Lab Security Standards Raise Chances of Mutant-Bird-Flu Catastrophe.
Fears that bioterrorists could learn from controversial experiments that make H5N1 avian influenza more virulent have overshadowed a more pressing danger: accidental releases, laboratory infections and disgruntled workers.
Dozens of all-too-human mistakes have occurred in just the last decade inside high-security laboratories, and many experts say new H5N1 flu strains engineered to infect mammals have not been handled with the care required to minimize chances of unintentional catastrophe.
In fact, research on less-threatening pathogens is conducted at higher security levels than research on the new bird flu and other strains made artificially more virulent.
Accidental infections and disgruntled workers “are by far the most realistic threats associated with these viruses,” said Rutgers University microbiologist Richard Ebright, a vocal critic of the new research. “But almost all of the discussion to date has focused on whether to publish the details. That only addresses lower-order risks.”
I’m not happy about this.
JONATHAN ADLER: Secondary Boycotts And The Breakdown of Civil Society.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D); The ACLU Blogs an Oppressive, Drone-Filled Hypothetical Future.
WHY THE FIREARMS BOOM IS good news for the American economy.
AT AMAZON, digital deals.
SEEN ON FACEBOOK:
IT’S ON C-SPAN: House holds emergency hearing on Chen Guangcheng; Obama ducking. I started to make a Peking Duck joke here, but . . . .
A COOL AVAILABLE-LIGHT PHOTO from Bill Hobbs. It’s especially impressive if you click the full-sized image.
Shot with a Canon 5D Mark III.
THE REAL-LIFE #JULIA — Located! Thanks to reader/sleuth Tim Ryan.
CONSEQUENCES: Third Employee Fired After Another Edited George Zimmerman 911 Tape Surfaces. I imagine these people will find re-employment difficult, at least if the libel insurance carrier is consulted.
JIM TREACHER: An Occupy Camp Is A Great Incubator For Domestic Terrorism. “Too bad, Occupiers. In a world where putting a crosshairs symbol on a map is blamed for violence, you don’t get to complain when you’re blamed for what goes on in your own camps. These guys are yours. Own it.”
UPDATE: Reader Patrick Gordon writes: “On Yahoo News Front page they had him listed as a Minuteman and never mentioned the Occupy Movement whatsoever.” Yeah, they tend to skip over any inconvenient Occupy connections whenever possible. Doesn’t fit the narrative, you know.
I’M SURE THEY’LL CALL HIM A TEA PARTIER: Neo-Nazi #Occupy Phoenix Protester Goes On Shooting Rampage – 5 Dead.
DAVID HARSANYI: Who The Hell Is Julia, And Why Am I Paying For Her Whole Life?
In the new Barack Obama campiagn piece The Life of Julia, voters can “Take a look at how President Obama’s policies help one woman over her lifetime — and how Mitt Romney would change her story.” It is one of the most brazenly statist pieces of campaign literature I can ever remember seeing.
Let’s for the purposes of this post forget about the piece’s misleading generalizations regarding policy (no one is innocent on that account, obviously). What we are left with is a celebration of a how a woman can live her entire life by leaning on government intervention, dependency and other people’s money rather than their own initiative or hard work. It is, I’d say, brazenly un-American, in the sense that it celebrates a mindset we have — outwardly, at least — shunned.
It is also a mindset that is offensive and patronizing. When they’re old enough, I hope my own two daughters would find the notion that their success hinges on the president’s views on college-loan interest rates preposterous. Yet, according to the “Life of Julia,” women can’t do anything, not without the guiding hand of Barack Obama.
They’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please. Women and children first, apparently.
Plus this: “If you think Social Security benefits allow you to live your retirement without worry, you deserve Barack Obama.”
Related: “Julia is the Sandra Fluke of composite hypothetical non-existent women.”
Plus: “#Julia at 67: ‘Why is there a big open trench in the community garden?'”
UPDATE: Julia In Real Life.
ANOTHER UPDATE: David Steinberg: #Julia, and Leftism’s New Media Problem. “On my count, the last five hashtags introduced by Obama’s campaign have been instant public relations disasters; another smear tactic backfired into the legendary #ObamaEatsDogs. They keep trying, however.”
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Obama’s Drone War And A Return to “More Rubble, Less Trouble.”
IN THE MAIL: From Arthur C. Brooks, The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise.