The leader of the free world doesn’t know how to use an iPod

A fact that he appears to be proud of. From here:

‘With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations – none of which I know how to work – information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.’

He also laid into the Internet gossip sites for spreading rumour around the world, even if it was false.

‘With so many voices clamouring for attention on blogs, on cable, on talk radio, it can be difficult, at times, to sift through it all; to know what to believe, to figure out who’s telling the truth and who’s not,’ he said.

‘Let’s face it – even some of the craziest claims can quickly gain traction. I’ve had some experience of that myself.’

And one of those crazy claims is that Obama doesn’t know how to use – how can I put it – easy to use devices designed for techno-dummies. Let’s hope no-one has told him where the nuclear button is kept: he might mistake it for a coffee maker.

Grovelling for England

And no-one does it better than Gordon Brown:

Gordon Brown issued a personal apology to a British widow and later said sorry to the entire Labor Party after branding her a bigot on the campaign trail.

The prime minister spent 45 minutes at Gillian Duffy’s terraced home to apologize for unguarded comments caught on a radio microphone that he had forgotten to remove.

Brown was accosted by the 66-year-old after stopping to talk to the voters in the suburbs of Rochdale and was attacked on subjects including welfare payments, student tuition fees and the national debt.

But it was Mrs Duffy’s complaint about immigration from Eastern Europe which prompted Mr Brown to criticise her as he got back into his car and blamed a staff member for not preventing the meeting. “She’s just a bigoted woman,” he told aides in his official car, unaware that his microphone was still live.

British politics is awash with politically correct conservative wimps, socialist dhimmis and money grubbing liberal democrats. Since the British voter has been deprived of any party worth voting for, it’s generous of Gordon Brown to provide the respite of comedic relief; at least the election won’t be a complete loss.

Just what Obama needs: Fidel Castro applauding the US health-care reform bill

From here:

HAVANA (AP) — It perhaps was not the endorsement President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress were looking for.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform “a miracle” and a major victory for Obama’s presidency, but couldn’t help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.

Can’t think why the US has waited so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago:

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Word is getting out about the disastrous state of Cuban health care.

During that cold snap in mid-January, Cuban dissidents snuck out, via internet, a report claiming that over forty patients had somehow frozen to death in Cuba’s Mazorra mental hospital  — not far from the one featured in Michael Moore’s paean to Cuban health care, Sicko.  Cuba’s Stalinist regime, along with the media courtesans to whom it grants press bureaus and “journalist visas,” were utterly mum on the matter, however. It took three days — as the word spread through the mostly Spanish-language web –but finally the Stalinist regime issued a terse and exculpatory press-release on the matter.

But the story did not go away. Just last week, pictures of some of the dead were snuck out of Cuba. They proved that hypothermia alone was not the cause of death, any more than it was the cause of the death for the prisoners at Dachau or Buchenwald. Horrific malnutrition and savage beatings were plain to see for anyone genuinely interested in the causes.

Needless to add, such interested parties do not include Castro’s favored members of the press. True to form, they dutifully connived with the regime, as they have for half a century, to hide the catalog of Castroite horrors.

But don’t take my word for it. Apparently tormented by their consciences, two Spanish journalists have just released mea-culpa- books (sadly available only in Spanish) about this collusion. “Self-censorship is a very common practice,” one writes. “No journalist on the island can write the truth of what happens there.”  Whatever their faults, at least these Spanish journalists finally came clean. When will Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, Andrea Mitchell, Ted Turner, Herbert Matthews and the rest of the bunch come clean? Don’t hold your breath.

The Cuban health stories ignored or buried by the MSM would require an entire 24-hour network broadcasting for five decades to disclose. Senor Marzo Fernandez, an economist who, until defecting in 1996, served as Secretary General of Castro’s Ministry of Nutrition gets us started. “The average height of Cubans has decreased by 8 centimeters in the past 25 years,” he reported on Miami television. “For the first time in Cuban history, thousands of Macrocepahlic children (abnormally large heads in proportion to their bodies) due to protein (primarily milk) deficiencies have been found in the eastern provinces.” This in a country that prior to the glorious revolution enjoyed a lower infant-mortality rate and more doctors and dentists per-capita than half of European countries, plus a larger middle class than Switzerland.

Barbarians inside the gates

As Malcolm Muggeridge noted:

So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense.   Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer.  Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he heeled over – a weary, battered old brontosaurus – and became extinct.

Canada is busy breeding a league of barbarians in the University of Ottawa under the tutelage of Provost, Francois Houle. When Ann Coulter tried to speak at the University of Ottawa, she was greeted by the Nazi tactics of intimidation and mindless chanting – the book burning will begin soon. Imagine what would have happened if something really controversial had taken place – oh, right, nothing.

From the National Post:

“Since I’ve arrived in Canada, I’ve been denounced on the floor of Parliament — which, by the way, is on my bucket list — my posters have been banned, I’ve been accused of committing a crime in a speech that I have not yet given, I was banned by the student council, so welcome to Canada!”

The “accusation” of which Ms. Coulter speaks is a reference to an email she received from University of Ottawa vice-president and provost Francois Houle on Friday, warning her that freedom of speech is defined differently in Canada than in the U.S. and that she should take care not to step over the line.

Ms. Coulter said that letter set the tone for and encouraged the protesters. She said it’s well known on the campus speaking circuit that conservatives need to travel with security staff, as she did.

“I’m pretty sure little Francois A-Houle does not need to travel with a bodyguard,” she said. “I would like to know when this sort of violence, this sort of protest, has been inflicted upon a Muslim — who appear to be, from what I’ve read of the human rights complaints, the only protected group in Canada. I think I’ll give my speech tomorrow night in a burka. That will protect me.”

François Houle, Provost of the University of Ottawa, is a posturing wanker

So says Mark Steyn.

Houle was stupid enough to send Ann Coulter an email warning her not to spend her time in Canada promoting hatred against any identifiable group [which] would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges, a missive which has earned him ridicule from all over the place.

Houle is employed by the Ottawa School of Political Studies; unsurprisingly he appears to be a callow leftist – a condition of employment in Political Studies departments – who enjoys waving red flags in front of bulls in his spare time.

Karl Rove is proud of waterboarding

From here:

The man known for much of his career as “Bush’s brain” has caused a storm of protest by saying that he is proud of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on prisoners by the US and internationally condemned as torture. Karl Rove said that the Administration “broke the will of these terrorists and gave us valuable information”.

The first public hint of the programme of CIA rendition flights and coercive interrogations led eventually to terrifying first-person accounts of waterboarding, including that of the British columnist Christopher Hitchens. It felt, he wrote, “as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face”.

Anything that causes liberals to froth at the mouth and clamps a huge wet paw over Christopher Hitchens’ face can’t be all bad.

The pornogrification of parliament

It had to happen eventually, I suppose:

So far, she has been a staunch advocate of all things blue.

The first woman in Britain to direct adult films revealed yesterday, however, that her political colours are of a different hue.

Anna Arrowsmith, hailed in some quarters as a champion of ‘female-friendly porn’, has been chosen as a Liberal Democrat candidate in the General Election.

If elected, Ms. Arrowsmith will be spending most of her time in the parliamentary locker-room showers with her camera.

UK Tory leader competes in the “who has the most gays” contest

But first, let’s remember the animals:

A nationwide referendum is taking place in Switzerland on a proposal to give animals the constitutional right to be represented in court.

Animal rights groups say appointing state-funded animal lawyers would ensure animal welfare laws are upheld, and help prevent cases of cruelty.

Opponents say Switzerland does not need more legislation regarding animal protection. The Swiss government has recommended that voters reject the idea.

There is already one animal lawyer in Switzerland.

And now to David Cameron: there is no conservative party in the UK, but the party masquerading under that name is going after the gay vote:

In the latest development in his campaign to show how dramatically the Tories have changed, David Cameron has published the party’s first-ever official list of openly gay MPs.

The Conservatives say they have 20 openly gay candidates standing in the Election. Of those, 11 told party chiefs they were ‘happy’ to be named in the first authorised list of gay Conservative candidates.

It has led some to suggest jokingly that the Tories might change the party’s traditional blue colour to the rainbow flag of the gay movement.

Mr Herbert [a party spokesman] said: ‘A successful political party ought to look like the country it seeks to govern. If we were truly representative, we would have 99 women, 16 black or ethnic minority and ten gay MPs.’

Mr. Herbert, unwilling to be outdone by Swiss sapience,  went on to clarify that should the Tories win, to ensure fair representation the cabinet would include 5 dogs, 3 cats, a parrot (a stand-in for David Cameron) and a gaggle of geese in the back benches.