Thanks to Purp at Ace of Spades for the President McBombypants thing (hey, remember when Obama and Democrats derided McCain for bomb bomb bomb Iran, which is well on their way to making nuclear weapons?). Niles Gardner notes that Obama is an embarrassment and an amateur on the international stage, having really built no alliances, no political friendships, other than with French President Francois Hollande. He compares and contrasts President George W. Bush to Mr. Obama, and sees that Bush took the time to forge alliances and friendships. Now, Bush may have been constantly derided, but there is no doubt Bush knew what he was doing, and was able to work with foreign leaders, build alliances and friendships with them, and, just as importantly, cause fear in unfriendly nations. Remember how Libya gave up on their weapons programs and terrorism? Bush knew about How Things Work on the international stage. Obama still thinks like an empowered community organizer, and is neither respected nor feared.
(Telegraph) The Russian President told journalists that if Barack Obama had evidence Bashar al-Assad’s forces had the chemical weapons and launched the attack, Washington should present it to the UN weapons inspectors and the Security Council.
Speaking after the US released its intelligence report, Mr Putin said: “I am convinced that it (the chemical attack) is nothing more than a provocation by those who want to drag other countries into the Syrian conflict, and who want to win the support of powerful members of the international arena, especially the United States.”
He rejected American intercepts of Syrian communications as evidence, saying that they cannot be used to take “fundamental decisions” such as using military force on Syria.
Mr Putin said the US President, as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, should remember the impact any US attack would have on Syrian civilians.
Kinda strange when Putin is the voice of reason, wouldn’t you say? Of course, this is part of the typical international game between States. Unfortunately, Putin is playing chess, Obama is playing solitaire. Obviously, Putin and Russia have a stake in what happens, with Syria being a partial client of the Russian state, but, this is also simply a swipe at the weakness of Obama on the international stage, which, unfortunately, makes America look weak.
Read: Putin Triple Dog Dares President McBombypants To Pony Up Evidence On Syria »
But it would stretch credulity to push the comparison too far; obviously cars are not ‘habit forming’ in the sense that cigarettes are, and certainly do not have the addictive characteristics of certain hard drugs. The habit-forming effects of drugs such as nicotine and heroin are mediated by specific receptors in the brain. But it is of course meaningless to talk of a specific ‘brain receptor’ activated by exposure to a car advert. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to posit that our responses to brands in general, the preferences we develop and the behaviours that we subsequently exhibit as consumers (and more generally as citizens), have a neurobiological basis. This does not at all imply that such preferences and behaviours are deterministically ‘fixed’, in the sense that they can be modified by learning and experience, or even pharmacologically. If we are sufficiently concerned about the environmental impact of travel, we can by our own volition choose to run an electric car rather than a gas-guzzler.



