Filed under: Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Foreign Policy, History, Japan, Military, National Security, Russia, The United States, United Kingdom, World War II | Tags: Six Years at War, The World At War, Why we Must Know History
Here’s a fascinating lecture by Victor Davis Hanson on why World War II matters. It ended 71 years ago, ancient history. The very last of those who served in the war are nearly all gone, and even those who really remember are passing on. How do we make those to whom it is ancient history, who may not even know who was fighting or why they were fighting or why it matters understand?
Dr. Hanson, Central Valley farmer, college professor, military historian, columnist, author and fellow at the Hoover Institution is presented here by the Hillsdale College History Department. Enjoy. It’s well worth your time.
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Freedom, Intelligence, Military, National Security, Syria, Terrorism, The United States, United Kingdom | Tags: A Shot From a Mile Away, Britain's Special Air Service, ISIS Executioner Executed
In Sunday’s news:” A British Special Air Service marksman turned one of the most hated terrorists in Syria into a fireball by using a Barrett 50-caliber rifle to strike the fuel tank affixed to the executioner’s back.”
The shot, made from nearly a mile away, exploded the fuel tank killing the terrorist and three of his flunkies just before the jihadist was about to burn 12 hostages alive with a flamethrower. The ISIS butcher had been on a US “kill list” for several months. He apparently delighted in burning hostages alive, tied to stakes or thrown in cages before being torched.
The flunkies who were killed were a film crew planning to film the executions for recruiting purposes.
British and American Special Forces rescued the eight men and four women who were about to be murdered.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Economics, Economy, Europe, European Union, Politics, United Kingdom
Daniel Hannan is a British politician, author, and Member of the European Parliament representing South East England, who will, I guess, shortly be losing his job to BREXIT, which I believe he favored. Here he is clearing the air a little, about the wonders of socialism.
He is a very clear speaker, and I wouldn’t want to be on the opposing side of a debate with him. Good guy, always interesting.
Filed under: Europe, European Union, Free Markets, Freedom, History, Military, Politics, United Kingdom | Tags: 1769-1821, Napolean Bonaparte, The End of the French Revolution
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Economics, Europe, European Union, Free Markets, Freedom, Politics, Regulation, United Kingdom | Tags: Brexit and its Aftermath, Europeans, The case of Switzerland
Britain’s stock market had erased all of its BREXIT panic losses, fueled by as surge in energy and financial shares. It had slumped 8.7% after the vote to leave the EU. May be more ups and downs as investors absorb the uncertainty about how it will all turn out. Markets don’t like uncertainty.
The President of the E.U. Parliament, Martin Schultz, got all huffy. “The British have violated the rules. It is not the #EU philosophy that the crowd can decide it’s fate.”
Europeans have never understood and never liked Democracy. They have been ruled by Kings and Queens and Dictators and the Church— and allowing the people to decide is mostly unthinkable. I have particularly liked Matt Ridley’s suggestion that when the individual is free to think and create and experiment, you get ideas having sex. Ideas build on other ideas. A new picture, someone else’s new idea may spark something completely different. “Having sex” is as good a way to describe it as any. What kills creation is regulation. The more stoppers a government erects, the less innovation.
Did you wonder why we never seemed to recover from the 2008 recession? The growth of government and the proliferation of regulation, especially on small business, which is where much innovation is hatched.
Few other countries have ever had the free markets and free people that have traditionally been found in America. And then there is Switzerland. (click to enlarge)
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Economics, Europe, European Union, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Freedom, History, Politics, Regulation, United Kingdom | Tags: Brexit and its Aftermath, Fredrick Forsyth, The European Union
The markets are in turmoil. They just don’t like uncertainty at all. They may be confident of their own positions, but what about the other guy? This movie is quite wonderful, do watch.
The Presidents at the EU are furious. There are several — four, I think, heading up different commissions. All are unelected and the Members of the European Parliament have nothing to say about them, nor about their pronouncements. They are so indignant that they want to morph all the member nations of the EU into one giant Superstate, run by themselves, of course. The Europeans have never liked Democracy. They are loath to give away any power.
The foreign ministers of France and Germany will reveal a blueprint to do away with individual member states in an “ultimatum.” Under the proposals, EU countries would lose the right to have their own army, criminal law, taxation system or a central bank, all those powers would be transferred to Brussels. This is going to be remarkably interesting.
Fredrick Forsyth (yes, that Fredrick Forsyth) has a long article explaining how the EU came about in the wake of the devastation of Europe after two World Wars. It’s worth your time to understand what’s going on in the present. Well, history is littered with bad ideas that promised a brighter future — the Thousand Year Reich was one of them, you can probably come up with quite a few others.
(Thanks to Maggie’s Farm for the link)
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Economy, Europe, European Union, Free Markets, The United States, United Kingdom, United Nations | Tags: BREXIT, Matt Ridley, Prime Minister Cameron
From today’s Telegraph
Market turmoil, apparently they didn’t expect the “Leave” faction to win. Do remember that Norway and Switzerland never joined the EU and are in better financial shape than the rest of the continent. Other countries like the Netherlands, France and Germany are clamoring for a vote. Of course the migrant invasion of Europe has played a big part in rejection of the EU.
A bigger deal entirely is the anti-democratic Brussels bureaucracy. It was British policy makers and business people who made London a great financial center. And as Matt Ridley noted, “container shipping, budget airlines, the internet and the collapse of tariffs under the World Trade Organization” have made it “as easy to do business with Australia and China as with France and Germany.” He added:
The European Union is quite unlike any of today’s international organizations and has never been emulated elsewhere. Britain has no desire to withdraw from NATO, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the Council of Europe or, for that matter, the Olympics. These bodies are agreements between governments. The EU is a supranational government run in a fundamentally undemocratic, indeed antidemocratic, way. It has four presidents, none of them elected. Power to initiate legislation rests entirely with an unelected commission. Its court can overrule our Parliament.
