How does one respond to an unpopular tyranny who is threatening to start a war? Do you try to encourage them to reform, with soft words and promises to help if they turn to cooperation? Or do you be blunt and articulate the idea that unjust government must reform, because freedom lives in the hearts […]

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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Due to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s decision to prolong her stay in the Middle East, her scheduled meeting in Washington with visiting Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has been cancelled. The announcement of the cancellation was made Tuesday by the State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

Tomorrow, of course, she has a meeting […]

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It is as if the entire Washington press corps has forgotten everything any of them knew in 2001 and early 2002 and have no perspective on what is going on in Afghanistan now.
In late September of 2002 newspapers were flooded with glorious tales about the Northern Alliance – and the NA deserved every bit of […]

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Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer prizewinning political columnist and Conservative commentator was interviewed by Der Spiegel on a variety of political topics — the interview was published today.On Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize:
Charles Krauthammer: It is so comical. Absurd. Any prize that goes to Kellogg and Briand, Le Duc Tho and Arafat, and Rigoberta […]

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When last Zimbabwe was in the news, people were dying of cholera, there was a huge inflation rate that made the local dollar worthless, and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party, along with an MDC offshoot, had agreed to make a unity government with the President Mugabe.
But although the verbal agreement was that Tsvangirai’s […]

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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Tony Blinken, national security adviser to the vice president, said in a briefing with reporters before Biden left for Europe October 20, that leaders in Warsaw, Bucharest and Prague should think less of what the U.S. can do for them and more about what they can do with the United States.

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That’s what the Nobel Peace Prize has become.  This was evident when Yassar Arafat won it in 1994 for pretending to go along with a peace agreement with Israel while continuing hostilities.  This was evident when Al Gore won it in 2007 for his work on climate change of all things, because it might, maybe, […]

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First came Typhoon Ondoy, which flooded Manila and the Laguna area.
Manila had at least one million people displaced from their homes due to flooding, and many whose houses were built in low lying areas were drowned from flash flooding that they did not expect. When even movie stars have to flee to the rooftops of […]

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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Bloggers and Russian experts in the US have been trying to find out whether the Obama White House coordinated with the Kremlin the timing of the missile shield decision that deeply offended people in Poland and produced biting commentaries in the US. Speculations abound that Russian diplomats, working on instructions from […]

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The answer is "Yes", but when it does, this is not necessarily a failure of those trying to prevent conflict.  At times, this is simply a result of the motivations of the belligerent. 
In response to my post on the blog "Stones Cry Out" about the delusions of negotiating with Iran, commenter Dan Trabue responded […]

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 Millions of refugees live in temporary camps all over the world today, and few westerners know or care about their problems.
Although most of these refugees will eventually return to the country of their origin, one question is what does one do with those who for political reasons cannot or are not allowed to go home? […]

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The flood waters in Manila are slowly subsiding. Family members who traveled to Manila yesterday for business reported that most of the roads were clear, but that the garbage and mud from the floods were all over the place. Some of the roads remained blocked, including major highway “underpasses” that were now lakes of water.
Several […]

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From Eliot Cohen:
Unless you are a connoisseur of small pictures of bearded, brooding fanatical clerics there is not much reason to collect Iranian currency. But I kept one bill on my desk at the State Department because of its watermark—an atom superimposed on the part of that country that harbors the Natanz nuclear site. Only […]

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The over-hyped story of a new “HIV Vaccine” cause a lot of people working in public health to worry.
Every time these stories come out, there are laypeople who think: well, there will be a vaccine so I don’t have to change my behavior”, and voila, case numbers spike.
That is why the Department of Health here […]

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Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam
Wired
While American and international media blames President Obama for choosing to announce his decision on the removal of the missile defense system from Poland and Czech Republic on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland on September 17, 1939, surprisingly so far no one has […]

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Supposedly, George W. Bush squandered all the goodwill we got from the world as a result of the 9/11 attacks.  Enemies became friends, the uncooperative became helpful, and all was right with the world, until Bush screwed it up.  What is forgotten in all of this is that those that opposed us before 9/11 opposed […]

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President Obama’s announcement on September 17 that the US is shelving its plans to build a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Central Europe is likely to raise painful historical memories in Poland.

President Barack Obama bids farewell to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev backstage after the two spoke at the Parallel Business Summit at the […]

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The father of the “green revolution”, Norman Borlaug, has died.
Some of use are old enough to remember when famines in Asia were common, and when the “Population bomb” types were predicting mass starvation of millions of poor people.
The famines didn’t happen, because Borlaug, and other agricultural scientists, developed high yield wheat and grains, along with […]

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From the desk of Charlie Churchill’s Parrot
There ought to be a word for it.  Perhaps there is and we are unaware? That excruciating instant during a hangover when the fog has lifted just enough that for the first time, and with stomach-lurching clarity, one appreciates the full folly and recklessness of the previous evening’s activities.
We […]

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A lot of nonsense being written in the news about Conservative writer George Will deciding to throw in the towel in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a mess. Big deal. It’s been a mess for a couple thousand years, and trying to “win” a war there and put in a crumpets and tea democracy is a bit delusional.
But […]

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“That Old Black Magic” was the title of a song in the early forties that Frank Sinatra sang so well. The song was referring to love. These days it is more appropriate for ‘black magic’ to refer to oil.
 
The disgraceful release of Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi by Scotland’s Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, supposedly […]

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Does Huntsman’s Road Through Beijing Lead To The Obama White House?
When President Barack Obama rang up Utah’s moderate Republican Governor Jon Huntsman a while back to feel him out about joining a Democratic administration, insiders say the first question out of his mouth went something like this: “So, are you going to run against me […]

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FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, August 18, 2009, San Francisco — Ever since the United States Information Agency (USIA) was dismantled in a foolish post-Cold War cost-cutting move, the U.S. State Department and American diplomats abroad have not been able to present a coherent message to foreign […]

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It is now a little over two years to the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and when that doleful event comes round can there be any doubt that we will have to say that the terrorists have won a victory beyond their wildest imaginings?  In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington […]

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The headlines are not helpful. This one is from CBS News:
“Mutant Polio Virus Spreads in Nigeria
124 Children Afflicted This Year By Paralyzing Disease, Believed To Be Caused By Same Vaccine Used To Fight It
And other new sources print the same story with even more frightening headlines…
Reality check please.
Let’s talk about Polio. I’m old enough to […]

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Jimmy Root Jr., has served as an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God since 1982, including service in Nebraska, Missouri, and a seven year term as a missionary in Colombia, South America. He is also the lead Pastor of Family Worship Center of Smithville, a growing suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. 
His writings, both in […]

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“As a public official, I expect criticism and I expect to be held accountable for how I govern, but the personal, salacious nature of recent reporting, and often the refusal of the media to correct obvious mistakes, unfortunately discredits too many in journalism today, making it difficult for many Americans to believe what they see […]

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ICANN has forgotten who it works for - us. Thomas Jefferson noted that the exercise of political power without the consent of the governed is illegitimate. ICANN’s attempt to impose a governance structure on noncommercial users against our will calls into question ICANN’s legitimacy to govern; it undermines confidence in ICANN’s commitment to democratic values; and it appears ICANN is unable to protect the broader public interest against commercial pressures….

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An article on the left-leaning website Truthout announced yesterday that a “new direction in the war on terror” may result from a case that occurred in the last year of the Bush Administration. Bryant Neal Vinas, an American-born suspected terrorist who was captured in Pakistan, was given “all the rights of  American criminal suspects.” The results? […]

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Former Alaska Gov Sarah Palin attacked the Administration’s Cap and Trade proposal in an editorial in the Washington Post this morning and she made some very valid, very important points about the problems with Cap and Trade but her argument was focused on energy production.
Here is my “top three” list of problems with Cap […]

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