Obama the only one in step

The title is, President Obama, a ‘tortured genius’, but you need to define a genius of the tortured variety before you can see what he means. So here he does just that:

A “tortured genius” . . . is someone who, no matter how obvious the failing or how fair and valid the criticism, accepts no blame and denies all responsibility. In the mind of such a leader, the rest of the world simply can’t see the “genius” in what they do.

In truth, this type of leader lives in denial of the facts as they are, rationalizing actions and refusing to alter or adapt strategies to win. To such a person, maintaining the illusion that he is right is somehow more important than mission success. We have all known a tortured genius or, perhaps at times, have been one ourselves. Such a leader can be a serious detriment the performance of any team and the chief obstacle to victory.

Even here the problem is that unless you understand what Obama is trying to achieve, you have no idea whether he is succeeding or not. To understand what Obama is trying to do, all you need to do is read this from George Soros. No President, in my view, has ever succeeded in achieving his ends better than Obama. It’s just that his ends are not our ends, but in his own lights, there is no one more successful than him.

Mark Steyn has corrected an error I made in my article

Mark Steyn has seen need to correct my reference to his book in his own column today, Shelter in Place Until Further Notice.

Also on the plug front, in that excellent Aussie publication Quadrant, Dr Steven Kates puts in a good word for “a wonderful and hilarious book by Mark Steyn called ‘A Disgrace to the Profession’“. This passage by Dr Kates did, however, give me pause:

Bearing in mind that Steyn is being sued for defamation, there is something very unusual in that he describes Mann in print as “Mr Fraudpants” and runs articles with titles such as this on his website: “Michael E. Mann: Liar, Cheat, Falsifier and Fraud”.

It is outrageous to suggest that I have ever referred to a distinguished figure such as Michael Mann as “Mr Fraudpants”. I’m always very careful to refer to him as “Dr Fraudpants”. His Nobel Prize is false, but his PhD appears to be genuine, at least at the time of writing.

I will, of course, have to apologise to Mark the next time I have the opportunity, and to Dr Fraudpants as well. And as Mark discusses, that opportunity to apologise to him will occur as soon as February next year (see the details here). If you missed Kung Fu Fighting last time he was in Australia, your life will never now be totally complete. But you will be able to make up for it with whatever he decides to bring to us this time round, which he also discusses.

But the title of his article on “Shelter in Place” refers to neither my error nor his coming visit, but this:

The official line from Obama and Kerry is that the world is safer than it’s ever been – except for a few pockets here and there. You’ll recall that, when I spoke at the Danish Parliament seven weeks ago, the US State Department issued a travel advisory warning US citizens to steer clear of me and that particular neighborhood of Copenhagen. All very specific, and leaving plenty of other places for Americans to visit. However, the State Department has now expanded its area of concern and issued a “Worldwide Travel Alert”, advising Americans basically to steer clear of the entire planet until February 26th. Claudia Rosett says reassuringly that travel abroad is still safe for Americans if you can “teleport into rural New Zealand”. Absent that, shelter in place for the next three months.

As Obama, Biden et al crowed only three years ago, the terrorists are on the run, and they’ve apparently run everywhere. Is this all the President’s fault? Well, he is “the leader of the free world”. Which sounds like a demanding job. But happily, in terms of places it’s safe to visit, the free world seems to be getting a lot smaller.

And no doubt because of Malcolm’s own contribution to these problems, it will be getting smaller still.

Where pictures replace words

matilda reading quadrant

I have an article in this month’s Quadrant which is now posted at Quadrant on Line: Drawing the Wrong Conclusions. Three separate issues are brought together – the use of visuals in the place of words in modern academic discourse which not only helps bamboozle others but even helps bamboozle themselves; a review of Mark Steyn’s brilliant book on the hockey stick, A Disgrace to the Profession, which looks at the diagram that has featured in both IPCC Reports and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth; and a final section explaining my own disdain for Keynesian economics which was entrenched by another diagram known as the Keynesian cross, that has done much to implant aggregate demand among economists since it was published in the first edition of Paul Samuelson’s Economics in 1948.

Since a large proportion of what I read was written a century or more ago, I am very aware how few graphs and diagrams there once were. It may only have been the limitations of print technology, but to understand something once required paying attention where one needed to follow the logic. Today, a picture is provided in place of the thousand words of text. The result is that such diagrams have replaced the need to follow close reasoning in understanding the point someone else is making. With diagrams and pictures of all sorts, there is less apparent need to bother with detail and complexity. And it is no small problem as we can see with the hold that global warming and Keynesian macro continue to have, even though the evidence that either is valid remains thin on the ground.

My grand-daughter, bless her, will be part of the mid-century generation who will come after the millennials. These post-millennials will be starting at the more difficult end by going back to thought and reason, as the photo above clearly shows.

Bill Clinton was advocating open borders while in Australia on 911

To understand the problems we face with ISIS it is essential to understand the mindset of those who lead the parties of the left, and now even some parties of the conservative right. This is from The Age on September 11, 2001: Open borders to all: Clinton. Here are the relevant parts of the article but you can read the whole thing at the link:

Bill Clinton believes Australia should not shut its borders to immigrants and those genuinely seeking asylum but should open its arms to cultural diversity.

Free trade and an open-door policy would bring prosperity, the former US president told a meeting of 35 Australian business leaders in Melbourne yesterday.

“He discussed the immigration issue in Australia and he took a position on it,” said Tom Hogan, president of Vignette Corporation, host of the exclusive forum.

“The (former) president believes the world will be a better place if all borders are eliminated – from a trade perspective, from the viewpoint of economic development and in welcoming (the free movement of) people from other cultures and countries,” Mr Hogan said.

Mr Clinton showed an understanding of the political problems Australia faced, but said he supported the ultimate wisdom of a borderless world for people and for trade.

He spoke for 45 minutes on topics ranging from the urgent need to combat AIDS to global economic issues. He spent another 45 minutes answering questions.

Mr Clinton said he believed the US was a better place for having opened its borders to a diversity of peoples and cultures.

Of the global economic downturn, he said half the problem arose from real economic issues and half of it was due to self-fulfilling prophecies. If people talked gloom and doom long enough and often enough, he said, what they feared generally came to pass.

This is the progressive internationalist creed and no event in the modern world will change their views. And they have the power to cause our borders to open and remain open no matter what the rest of us think or wish.

Ironically, Bill Clinton was in Australia on 911 while at the same time John Howard was in Washington.

[Via Steve Sailer]

The value of free speech

That letting everyone have their say on any matter of public importance is so evident as the best way to manage differences within a community was never better seen than in the last few days. In my view, there are very few really good liars around, with the Clintons and Obama among the best there is (and even they need the help of the even more mendacious media). Mostly, however, people say what they think, even when they are trying to shape their beliefs into a form that others will find acceptable. So with this in mind, I hope I may be permitted to put in a good word for Australia’s Grand Mufti. This is the press release that got him into such hot water.

mufti statement on paris

First, he didn’t write it. Someone else wrote the first draft and then it was gone over by others until they were satisfied that it said what they wanted said. If you can read what it says, you can see which side those who wrote it are on. Why shouldn’t they be on their own side? They mourn the loss of innocent lives rather than actively condemning the attacks. Such is as it is. What is important is for us to understand what they believe. Their plain speaking has set everything straight. Whether the knowledge we have has any practical value is something else again, but at least we know.

Or take Waleed Aly and his own reaction. All you need is love, apparently:

“If you are a member of Parliament or a has-been member of Parliament [who do you suppose he means by this?] preaching hate [and who’s doing that?] at a time when what we actually need is more love — you are helping ISIL. They have told us that. [Who is “they” and when did they tell us?] If you are a Muslim leader telling your community they have no place here [and who has told them that?] or basically them saying the same thing — you are helping ISIL.

It’s our fault and not theirs. We may think the killers in Paris are savages but he thinks they were provoked, and if we condemn their actions, we are playing into ISIS’s hands. I don’t think so but that’s not the point. The value in hearing it is that you start to understand who and what we are up against. They do not condemn these attacks in anything more than a perfunctory way, since they see themselves as more sinned against than sinning. You may not think so, and I may not think so, but many of them do think so, and that’s what letting them say their piece allows us to understand.

Which is the objective and which the obstacle?

An article that stands out for providing a link between the policies on open borders found across the world that can otherwise make no sense. It has George Soros at its centre. Read it and see what you make of it yourself. That I also believe what I call progressive internationalism is the core of the problem allows me to entertain Soros’s role seriously. The central theme:

The suspicion thickens that Mrs. Merkel’s insane and politically suicidal open-border strategy has been forced upon her by furtive overlords in league with the ghoul, who owns secret Stasi dossiers whose publication would topple her right away and even send her to jail. Small wonder, therefore, that the resistance to her policies becomes always more pronounced. The brave Mr. Orban of Hungary recently declared that “George Soros is perhaps the strongest example of those who support anything that weakens nation states, they support everything that changes the traditional European lifestyle. Immigration and multiculturalism are endangering Europe’s Christian roots and creating parallel societies. Europe is, after all, the land of democracy and it is impossible to go against the will of the people for a long time and without arguments. If we stick to our Christian values, Europe can be saved, but only if we take seriously the traditions, the Christian roots and all the values that are the basis of our European civilisation.”

Which caused Mr. Soros to declare from the depths of his great humanitarian heart that the Hungarian leader “treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle. Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”

I found this particularly intriguing.

Proof of Soros’s involvement has been abundant, most prominently a guide printed in Arabic by a subdivision of his “Open Society Foundations” calling itself, conveniently, “Welcome to Europe.” Distributed probably by the tens of thousands, it informs potential invaders of how to go about in the most effective way. It also contains maps, tips, and phone numbers of organizations and government welfare agencies that are supposed to help once they arrive in Europe.

Soros is not alone but he does have the will. That Obama is fed by Soros with both funding and ideas seems plausible. The hatred for the West is a view he shares with many others. But unlike the rest, he is in a position to effect an incredible amount of harm. Here is Soros’s statement on Rebuilding the Asylum System.

The European Union needs to accept responsibility for the lack of a common asylum policy, which has transformed this year’s growing influx of refugees from a manageable problem into yet another political crisis. Each member state has selfishly focused on its own interests, often acting against the interests of others. This precipitated panic among asylum seekers, the general public, and the authorities responsible for law and order. Asylum seekers have been the main victims.

The EU needs a comprehensive plan to respond to the crisis, one that reasserts effective governance over the flows of asylum-seekers so that they take place in a safe, orderly way, and at a pace that reflects Europe’s capacity to absorb them. To be comprehensive, the plan has to extend beyond the borders of Europe. It is less disruptive and much less expensive to maintain potential asylum-seekers in or close to their present location.

As the origin of the current crisis is Syria, the fate of the Syrian population has to be the first priority. But other asylum seekers and migrants must not be forgotten. Similarly, a European plan must be accompanied by a global response, under the authority of the United Nations and involving its member states. This would distribute the burden of the Syrian crisis over a larger number of states, while also establishing global standards for dealing with the problems of forced migration more generally.

Here are the six components of a comprehensive plan.

First, the EU has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future. And, to do that, it must share the burden fairly – a principle that a qualified majority finally established at last Wednesday’s summit.

Adequate financing is critical. The EU should provide €15,000 ($16,800) per asylum-seeker for each of the first two years to help cover housing, health care, and education costs – and to make accepting refugees more appealing to member states. It can raise these funds by issuing long-term bonds using its largely untapped AAA borrowing capacity, which will have the added benefit of providing a justified fiscal stimulus to the European economy.

It is equally important to allow both states and asylum-seekers to express their preferences, using the least possible coercion. Placing refugees where they want to go – and where they are wanted – is a sine qua non of success.

Second, the EU must lead the global effort to provide adequate funding to Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey to support the four million refugees currently living in those countries.

Thus far, only a fraction of the funding needed for even basic care has been raised. If education, training, and other essential needs are included, the annual costs are at least €5,000 per refugee, or €20 billion. EU aid today to Turkey, though doubled last week, still amounts to just €1 billion. In addition, the EU also should help create special economic zones with preferred trade status in the region, including in Tunisia and Morocco, to attract investment and generate jobs for both locals and refugees.

The EU would need to make an annual commitment to frontline countries of at least €8-10 billion, with the balance coming from the United States and the rest of the world. This could be added to the amount of long-term bonds issued to support asylum-seekers in Europe.

Third, the EU must immediately start building a single EU Asylum and Migration Agency and eventually a single EU Border Guard. The current patchwork of 28 separate asylum systems does not work: it is expensive, inefficient, and produces wildly inconsistent results in determining who qualifies for asylum. The new agency would gradually streamline procedures; establish common rules for employment and entrepreneurship, as well as consistent benefits; and develop an effective, rights-respecting return policy for migrants who do not qualify for asylum.

Fourth, safe channels must be established for asylum-seekers, starting with getting them from Greece and Italy to their destination countries. This is very urgent in order to calm the panic. The next logical step is to extend safe avenues to the frontline region, thereby reducing the number of migrants who make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing. If asylum-seekers have a reasonable chance of ultimately reaching Europe, they are far more likely to stay where they are. This will require negotiating with frontline countries, in cooperation with the UN Refugee Agency, to establish processing centers there – with Turkey as the priority.

The operational and financial arrangements developed by the EU should be used to establish global standards for the treatment of asylum-seekers and migrants. This is the fifth piece of the comprehensive plan.

Finally, to absorb and integrate more than a million asylum seekers and migrants a year, the EU needs to mobilize the private sector – NGOs, church groups, and businesses – to act as sponsors. This will require not only sufficient funding, but also the human and IT capacity to match migrants and sponsors.

The exodus from war-torn Syria should never have become a crisis. It was long in the making, easy to foresee, and eminently manageable by Europe and the international community. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has now also produced a six-point plan to address the crisis. But his plan, which subordinates the human rights of asylum-seekers and migrants to the security of borders, threatens to divide and destroy the EU by renouncing the values on which it was built and violating the laws that are supposed to govern it.

The EU must respond with a genuinely European asylum policy that will put an end to the panic and the unnecessary human suffering.

Voting on how to respond to ISIS

The heading is Australia’s most outspoken commentators on how we should fight Islamic State after Paris attacks but more interesting is that at the end of the summaries, you can vote for your favourite position. The five positions in the order they are presented are:

Waleed Aly
Andrew Bolt
Australia’s Grand Mufti
Tony Abbott
Pauline Hansen

The methodology is, of course, skewed and there is little reason to take the results as much more than straws in the wind. But a more important consideration is that Tony Abbott and Pauline Hansen are politicians and therefore think in terms of practical policies, of actually doing things. The others have their expertise in explaining things. In most respects, Abbott and Bolt take the same position, but Andrew writes a blog and newspaper column while Tony had to find a policy that all within his party could accept, or at least live with, as a plan of action. Expressing opinions is easier than making policy, which is not a criticism but a fact of life.

Found at Andrew Bolt.

And on it goes

I wonder what Malcolm thinks about all this. As an actual plan of action, what do you suppose he has in mind?

8 SYRIANS CAUGHT AT TEXAS BORDER
ISIS threatens NYC in new propaganda video…
Times Square Attack…
US-bound Syrians detained in Honduras with fake passports…
‘Throngs’ of illegals crossing TX border…
Al Qaeda used refugee program to smuggle operatives into KY…
Report: 827 Somalis resettled in last 6 weeks, only 1 Christian…
Tennessee GOP leader: Round up Syrian refugees, remove from state…
Va. mayor suggests internment camps…
EUROPE ON EDGE: Terror scares across continent…
Nuns searched at Vatican…
POPE’S SECURITY DETAIL DOUBLES; ITALY BANS DRONES…
NBCNEWS: Paris Attacks Likely Cost $10,000 — or Less…
TSA fails to detect hidden weapons in 3 out of 4 cases…
Islamist terrorist attacks are new normal…
FEDS APPROVE CITIZENSHIP FOR 15 FOREIGN TERRORISTS…
HIDE HISTORIES FROM CONGRESS
First footage of Paris terror attacks shows diners diving for cover…
AK47-wielding jihadist sprays cafe with bullets…
Victim escapes as terrorist gun jams…
CRUZ CHALLENGES O TO REFUGEE DEBATE…
‘Insult me to my face’…
Iran uranium stockpile GROWS…

In regard to the last story about Iran, the news at the end is the best bit:

Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium had increased by 460.2 kg in the past three months to 8,305.6 kg, the report said. Under the deal with major powers, that stockpile must be slashed to no more than 300 kg.

The senior diplomat, however, said the increase was a normal fluctuation.

“There is nothing special in that. It’s the normal way,” he said.

If by normal we mean typical, I’m sure that’s true.

AND HOW COULD I HAVE MISSED THIS? Islamic State says ‘Schweppes bomb’ used to bring down Russian plane. The story comes with a picture.

A photo published in Islamic State magazine Dabiq shows a can of Schweppes Gold soft drink and what appeared to be a detonator and switch on a blue background

Just let that sink in for a bit.

Afghan asylum seekers in Indonesia

asylum seekers in indonesia

This is a photo essay on asylum seekers who were not admitted into Australia and are now building their lives in Indonesia. This is the farthest thing I can imagine from a life of deprivation, as the home pictured ought to suggest. If you are endangered, as an asylum seeker, you stop at the first place that will harbour you. Trying to move on from there turns you into an economic migrant. It’s an instructive story, but the story it tells may be different from the one that was intended.

How have they been able to afford all of this is the kind of question I would really liked to have seen answered.

The value of free speech demonstrated once again

That letting everyone have their say on any matter of public importance is so evident as the best way to manage differences within a community was never better seen than in the last few days. There are some who, for example, think Australia’s Mufti ought to be sacked or censured for this:

mufti statement on paris

If you can read what he says, you can see which side he is on. Why shouldn’t he be on his own side. He mourns the loss of innocent lives rather than condemning the attacks. Such is as it is. What is important is for us to understand what he believes. His plain speaking has set everything straight. Whether the knowledge we have has any practical value is something else again, but at least we know.

Or take Waleed Aly and his own reaction. All you need is love, apparently:

“If you are a member of Parliament or a has-been member of Parliament [who do you suppose he means by this?] preaching hate [and who’s doing that?] at a time when what we actually need is more love — you are helping ISIL. They have told us that. [Who is “they” and when did they say it?] If you are a Muslim leader telling your community they have no place here [and who has said that?] or basically them saying the same thing — you are helping ISIL.

It’s our fault and not theirs. They may have been savages but they were provoked, and if we condemn their actions, we are playing into their hands. But the value in hearing it is that you start to understand who and what we are up against. They do not condemn these attacks in anything more than a perfunctory way, since they see themselves as more sinned against than sinning. You may not think so, and I may not think so, but they think so, and that’s what letting them say their piece allows us to understand.