Monthly Archives: October 2015

A Destroyer Sailed

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Lu Kang, Director-General of the People’s Republic of China Foreign Affairs Ministry’s Department of Information, complained about the USS Lassen’s passage through the waters surrounding the Spratly Islands in the southern part of the South China Sea.

The warship, USS Lassen, illegally entered waters near relevant islands and reefs within China’s Nansha Islands without permission from the Chinese government. To this the Chinese side expresses its strong discontentment and resolute opposition.

No, no permission was necessary for an American naval vessel—or any other nation’s vessels, military or civilian—to sail through the international waters surrounding the Spratlys.

To this the Eric Hines side expresses its strong contempt and resolute opposition to the PRC’s naked sea grab. After all, those islands and their surrounding international waters do lie within Brunei’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

The Chinese side strongly urges the US side to negotiate seriously with China, immediately rectify its mistakes, and not to undertake any risky and provocative actions that threaten Chinese sovereignty and security interests.

Sure. When will the PRC begin to negotiate seriously, immediately rectify its mistakes, desist from its ongoing risky and provocative actions that threaten the sovereignty and security interests of the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, and the other nations around the South China Sea?

Oh, and withdraw its military equipment from those international waters and return them to PRC territory?

Cnut

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Catholic leaders—”representatives of bishops conferences from around the globe”—have produced a document urging climate “negotiators” meeting in Paris next month to stop global climate change. The Catholics’

10-point proposal calls for governments to approve legally binding limits to global average temperatures, set a mid-century decarbonization goal….

Never mind that humanity has no control over global temperature; indeed, climate-related temperature variations have been demonstrated to be closely linked to the sun’s output variability, and the variability of the Earth’s (and Moon’s) orbital behaviors. Never mind, too, that atmospheric CO2 is plant food, without which we’d have no hope of feeding our multitudes; that when atmospheric CO2 was orders of magnitude higher in earlier epochs, life on Earth was lush; and never mind that significant changes in atmospheric CO2 are trailing indicators confirming the increasing health of Earth from the burgeoning life exhaling all that CO2 and alternatively confirming the ailing of Earth as life decreased in the face of cooling and Ice Ages, and so exhaling less CO2 into the atmosphere.

It’s amazing to me that Catholic leadership should commit so blatant a sin of arrogance. They would do well to learn from King Cnut’s example, wherein he attempted to stop the tide as a demonstration to his subjects of the limits of mere human power.

“Justice” Redux

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It turns out the Secret Service Director, Joseph Clancy, not only can’t keep his Secret Service straight, he can’t even keep his own stories about what he heard about his Secret Service’s misbehavior straight. The AP has reported, via Fox News, that Clancy’s claims of when he heard “rumors” of his agency’s illegal search of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz’ personnel records keeps changing.

What’s interesting to me about this, though, is what the AP buried at the end of its article.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Friday that his department will proceed “expeditiously” to determine whether any laws or policies were broken. To avoid a conflict of interest, Johnson said the determination about accountability will be made by him and not Clancy.

DHS will decide whether any laws were broken? Whatever happened to DoJ and its role in determining whether any laws were broken?

Oh, wait….

Leaders

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They must lead, says the guy who sits in the Secretary of State’s chair, regarding the Palestinian attacks on Israelis in Jerusalem—although Kerry was referring to the Israeli government, too, as though the Palestinian Authority is on the same moral plane as the Israelis who are victims of the PA’s incitement.

Still, Kerry is right. All we need now is for the motorboat skipper to go back to his yacht, sit down, and be silent, so the Israeli leadership can lead unhindered.

“Justice”

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The Justice Department announced Friday afternoon that it will not bring criminal charges against Lois Lerner or any other IRS official involved in the targeting of Tea Party groups[.]

There’s a surprise. Why would anyone think President Barack Obama’s DoJ would prosecute anyone in Obama’s IRS for their abuse of IRS—of Executive Branch—power in the IRS’ persecution of groups of Americans of whom Obama disapproves?