Theo Spark

Brides-to-Be Stripping Off to Pose Nude With Their Girlfriends in Risqué 'Boudoir Bachelorette Party' Shoots?

2013-06-20T00:42:00.004+01:00

Why, yes, these babes are really doing it!

See, "Latest Trend? Women Stripping Down for Group Photo Shots."

Photos at the link.

Those are some smokin' brides-to-be. Dang!

Our Suicidal Middle East Policies

2013-06-19T23:46:00.001+01:00

By Alan Caruba

Take a look at the map of Afghanistan. It borders Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and a tiny eastern tip borders China. It exists in the worst neighborhood of nations on planet Earth.

A Reuters news story on June 18 reported that “Afghanistan will send a team for peace talks with the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday, as the U.S. and NATO coalition launched the final phase of the 12-year war with the last round of security transfers to Afghan forces.” The next day, the Associated Press reported that “Afghanistan’s president says he will not pursue peace talks with the Taliban unless the United States steps out of the negotiations and the militant group stops its violent attacks on the ground.”

He made the initial announcement at an international coalition marked the beginning of the end of the handover of security to Afghan forces, attended by some 2,000, including the NATO Secretary-General, dozens of Western ambassadors, and senior Afghan and international officials.

Peace talks with the Taliban are about as useful as talking to the Iranians about their nuclear weapons program in an effort to get them to abandon it. In that region of the world, both Pakistan which shares a long border with Afghanistan and India have nuclear weapons, as does China and Israel. Both Syria and Iraq would have had them if the Israelis had not destroyed their nuclear reactors.

I have been writing about Afghanistan and the U.S. military engagement there since 2009. In November of that year I wrote that “The President is going to address the nation about his plans for Afghanistan and if ever there was an exercise in futility, this is it.”

At the time, Obama had been referring to Afghanistan as a war of necessity, He already had plans to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and, after they left, that nation turned into a battlefield again with endless bombings reflecting the Sunni-Shiite animosities that have existed from the earliest days of Islam. In 2011, while announcing a “surge” of U.S. forces into Afghanistan, he also announced that the U.S. was leaving. The Taliban were given notice that all they had to do was to wait.

In theory, the U.S. was going to train and equip the Afghani forces to defeat the Taliban, but I suggest now, as in 2009, this was an effort in futility. It is doubtful at best that the Karzai government ever had the support of the population and, indeed, the Taliban made sure it was aware of their presence by continually bombing various government buildings. The latest was on Tuesday in Kabul that targeted a senior member of the peace council.

The Taliban are a barbaric group who in early June beheaded a boy of ten and one aged 16 for “spying.” They had been scavenging among the rubbish bins near the police headquarters in Kandahar and then accused of accepting food from the police in exchange for information. They have outraged even the Pakistanis for attempting to kill Malala Yousulfzar, a 14-year-old girl who publicly advocated education for girls, but she was just one victim among thousands of girls there and in Afghanistan whose schools have been shut down amidst efforts to poison some of them who were attending them.

The latest count of Afghan forces was a 352,000 who, in theory, will carry on the fight with the Taliban, but their allegiance to Kabul is questionable. They could conclude it isn’t worth dying for and that a deal with the Taliban was preferable. That deal, as noted, will begin with the peace talks, presumably held while the bombings continue. Whether the members of the peace council will even escape such talks with their lives depends on holding the talks somewhere neutral.

Afghanistan, if you will recall, is where al Qaeda set up headquarters after participating in the war that drove out the Soviet troops that, in turn, led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The U.S. had played an active, though covert, role in equipping al Qaeda forces and was rewarded for that with 9/11.

The same day of Karzai’s initial announcement, Raymond Ibrahim, a Middle East expert, was published on Frontpagemag.com with an article titled “The Calm Before the Jihadi Storm”, saying that “The same U.S. policies that helped create al Qaeda in the 1980s are today creating many al Qaedas in many Muslim countries, promising to deliver future terror strikes that will make 9/11 seem like child’s play.”

The problem with U.S. Middle East policies that Ibrahim identifies with clarity is that it has been based on “the short-sightedness of American policymakers whose policies are based on their brief tenure, not America’s long term wellbeing.” Presidents serve for four to eight years, members of Congress must stand for reelection every two to six years, in the House and the Senate.

Our wars in the Middle East have come to bad ends as Americans quite understandably grew weary of casualties and the wounded. Even the Roman Empire was brought to an end as the result of similar long and costly wars. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, it was bad news for Alexander the Great and later the British Empire.

The problem now, as Ibrahim points out, is that President Obama’s policies have turned over much of the Middle East to al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Under the cover of the “Arab spring” and the illusion of democracy, as various populations overthrew their dictators, Obama threw our long-time Egyptian ally, Mubarak under the bus, then Libya’s Gaddafi, and has dithered while Syria’s dictator, Bashar Assad, has slaughtered an estimated 90,000 of his own people, supported by Iran and Russia. The poison gas arsenal was no doubt Iraq’s former dictator, Saddam Hussein’s, moved there to protect it when the U.S. invaded to depose him.

All of these former dictators had successful suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda, the same forces seeking to overthrow Assad. They are now in the ascendency throughout the Middle East and across the northern tier of Africa known as the Maghreb. Ibrahim asks, “What price will America later pay now that it’s betraying several major nations to the jihadis who are turning them into bases?”

“In short,” says Ibrahim, “just as it was before 9/11, when the jihadi storm eventually does break out—and it will, it’s a matter of time—those American politicians who helped empower it, chief among them Obama, will be long gone, and the talking heads will again be stupidly asking “what happened?’ ‘Who knew?’ Why do they hate us?’ Except then it will be too late.”

They hate us because they are Muslims. The Middle East and the Maghreb was kept in check by a few dictators who knew who the enemy was. The ones taking power, especially in Egypt, hate us, but the U.S. continues to send Egypt billions and weapons. How idiotic and treacherous is that?

Meanwhile, Barack Hussein Obama is doing his best to reduce our nuclear arsenal and the size of our military. Could there be a connection here?

A Note to Our British Cousins: I am well aware that Brits have fought bravely and well in Afghanistan, but this was written for US readers.

Bedtime Totty...............

2013-06-19T22:00:00.000+01:00

Late News.................

2013-06-19T21:05:00.000+01:00

CDR Salamander: Boy, You're Just Whistling Dixie!

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gave out copies of Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' to officials

Cardinal George Refuses Gay Activist Communion, Lesbian Cantor Brings Host to Him Anyway

TWA Flight 800 investigators break silence in new documentary, claim original conclusion about cause of crash is wrong

Wounded Warrior Project In Not So Many Words Admits It Is Anti Gun

Living in Fear: Welcome to Fascist America

Columbia's Cons: Ivy League social work program run by team of former prisoners

Special Ops General Concerned with 'Culture, Social Behavior' Aspects of Women in Combat

White House Blows the Berlin Speech

Taxpayer interests cropped out of the farm bill

Nobody home at the White House but the Tea Party

Russian marine and air power head for Syria versus Western intervention – “to defend Russian citizens,” says Moscow

Ya'alon: Iran should be forced to choose between nuclear weapons or survival

Brazil to deploy National Security troops against protesters

Scientism, Despotism, Blackmail and The New Carbon Dioxide Regulations

U.K. Girl Guides remove God reference from pledge

Rhyming History: Russia Repeats USSR’s Errors

Soft Power: A U.S.-China Battleground?

Sometimes, like on Syria, if you can't agree on what to do, it's best just to shut up and do your own thing

Sunbathers out in baking Alaska

Pipe waits on the prairie as Keystone XL debate rages almost 5 years

Allan Wall -- Amnesty Must be Defeated - How You Can Help

Finally.................

2013-06-19T20:01:00.002+01:00

H/T Old Dude

Late Pic Dump.................

2013-06-19T20:00:00.000+01:00

Cameron Crucifies the Military.............

2013-06-19T18:19:00.000+01:00

Army redundancies: Soldiers told of job losses

What Congress ISN'T Tell You About the Farm Bill

2013-06-19T17:32:00.002+01:00

The nearly trillion-dollar food stamp and farm bill is ripe for reform. Heritage's Daren Bakst explains why.

Slo Mo Replay of O's Latest Diplomatic Meltdown......................via Dan Friedman

2013-06-19T17:24:00.001+01:00

Just in via Jared Silverman, Esq. - The past 24 hours has provided yet another example of Obama's brilliance in foreign affairs. He is really winning hearts, minds and allies for America. Here is the timeline of news stories relating to Afghanistan.

US, Taliban to start talks on ending Afghan war - AP, June 18, 2013

Afghanistan: Taliban 'Admit' US Troop Attack - Sky News, June 19, 2013

Karzai, angry about Taliban's Qatar office, suspends peace, security talks - CNN, June 19, 2013

Foreign Policy's AfPak Channel summed it up this way:

President Karzai suspends BSA talks as U.S. delegation heads to Taliban office

NRA LIFE OF DUTY | PATRIOT PROFILES: OUTLAW PLATOON FULL FEATURE

2013-06-19T16:14:00.000+01:00

NRA LIFE OF DUTY | PATRIOT PROFILES

Barack Obama: Serial killer released after promising he will never do it again!...from TPC

2013-06-19T15:33:00.003+01:00

Barack Obama and his national security policy concerning the Syria civil war, Iranian nukes, North Korea and so-on is nothing but a game of rhetorical bluffing at a time when the world has become painfully aware that his rhetoric has nothing behind it!

This is a very dangerous game for the United States!

At The Political Commentator here.

2013-06-19T14:34:00.000+01:00

H/T Jeff

Music of the Merlins.................

2013-06-19T14:30:00.000+01:00

An extraordinary assembly of Merlin-powered warbirds took to the skies over Hamilton, Ontario on Father's Day weekend, providing sights and sounds not experienced in decades. The star of the show was Jerry Yagen's recently rebuilt de Havilland Mosquito (the only one of its type flying), and it flew in formation with the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's Lancaster, alongside two Spitfires and two Hurricanes. AVweb's Russ Niles spoke with Mosquito pilot Mike Spalding of the Military Aviation Museum.

Bonus Totty................

2013-06-19T14:00:00.000+01:00

According to on Republican US Rep: all males are wankers & boy do we start early in life.

2013-06-19T12:23:00.003+01:00

Normally when wanking comes up in regards to politicians it is part of some insult. And those of us grew up male learned fairly early on in life that talking about masturbation in mixed company was rather impolite. Even more so in a professional arena of course. Now it seems pro-life Republicans have decided that masturbation is a useful tool in the debate about abortion. Or rather one such pro-life Republican has toss this off as an idea. To be fair he was at least slightly subtle about the suggestion but it was there according to The Raw Story. ““They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs.”” Or as The Atlantic put it in an article about the Representative’s point on the matter. “He knows this because he says he's seen male fetuses begin masturbating in the womb around 15 weeks into a pregnancy.” Needless to say the reaction to this bit of spew has been mixed. It has ranged between shock and sheer laughing hysteria. Yet again actual politicians are making it very hard for satirists to make a living. And, of course, this being the internet age this burst of insanity has gone viral among the political classes online. And some of thought the only discussion of masturbation in the House of Representatives would be limited to concerns about lyrics. Songs with titles like I Touch Myself and “Darling Nicky” were tossed about in the past to show the depravity of modern pop. Sadly they never mentioned Turning Japanese, a song that caused many a snicker back in the more repressed 80s. Someone needs to tell the remaining Monty Python members they need to redo the lyrics of the theme song of The Life of Brian as they got the bit about when this sort of thing starts to happen wrong. Still you have to give the man credit. It was an innovative way to push the pro-life cause. I am not sure that ladies concerned with abortion will use this line of reasoning in their rhetoric.

Pic Dump...............

2013-06-19T11:35:00.000+01:00

2013-06-19T09:24:00.002+01:00

Getting His Ire Up

News..................

2013-06-19T09:22:00.000+01:00

Lendal Tower where curiosity killed the cat

'Bout those senior leaders...

BLACKFIVE: I Guess If General Dempsey Says So...

Bill Ayers: Let's face it, Obama should be on trial for war crimes

Captive in Kuwait: Contract dispute leaves 100 Americans stranded on US Army bases

The Loss of Trust - Thomas Sowell

Rush Limbaugh: Crony Capitalism, Big Money Behind GOP Amnesty Push

Swedish intelligence concerned about Syrian jihadists

BLACKFIVE: Juno, and the Juno Beach Centre

Reminder: Oil & gas have been a saving a grace of the Obama "recovery"

BLACKFIVE: Defense Budget - Feathering fighter bird nests?

Organizing for Action gathers a whopping three people for gun-control rally in California

Another Car We Can’t Buy

The G-8 Goes Obama Casual

UN Special Envoy Confirms Dire Situation In Libya

Posh Ottawa neighbourhood deporting squirrels across border into Quebec

Berlin Speech: Obama to Make Plea for Nuclear Disarmament

Reporter who brought down Stanley McChrystal dies in car crash

Afghanistan analysis: talks promise to be complex, long and messy

EagleSpeak: The "Evolving" Littoral Combat Ship Saga

ZoNATION: NSA Scandal: Time to Worry about Fourth Amendment Rights?

2013-06-19T09:03:00.000+01:00

Zo does not want to defend NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In fact, he thinks he is a commie. Still, Zo wonders how much privacy we still have, and whether the Fourth Amendment is in serious jeopardy under President Obama.

Wednesday Wenches................

2013-06-19T08:00:00.000+01:00

Wow! Kelly Brook Sunbathing in Cancun

2013-06-19T02:07:00.001+01:00

She looks great.

See, "Phenomenal New Kelly Brook Sunbathing Pics From Cancun."

Charles Saatchi Accepts "Assault Caution" After Being Photographed Throat-Grabbing His Beautiful Wife Nigella Lawson

2013-06-19T00:57:00.002+01:00

That dude needs to be throttled!

The background is here, "Nigella Lawson Attacked by Husband Charles Saatchi at Scott's Restaurant in Mayfair."

And now here's the latest, "Charles Saatchi Admits to Throat-Choking Assault of Wife Nigella Lawson."

This whole ordeal is just awful.

I can't understand how Ms. Nigella can stay with a beast of a man like that. She's a wonderful woman.

And the idiot BNP MP Nick Griffin thought it'd be hilarious to joke about grabbing Ms. Nigella's rack rather than her throat. Sick.

And Saatchi apparently has not apologized.

I don't know. I think guys need to man up and take responsibility when they act like bleedin' buffoons. Women are to be cherished and cared for. You never, ever abuse them. It's just not okay. I have two sisters. And I'm married. You never harm women. Ever.

I'll have updates if more information becomes available.

Happy Waterloo Day!.................From Roger

2013-06-18T22:10:00.000+01:00

Only two more years to the Bicentenary!

We need another Wellington, because look what we have now, a Heir-to-Blair, not even a Pitt-the-Younger/Middle-Aged (Pitt the Foetus would do better, apologies to Blackadder III).

BTW, 2015 will be the 600th anniversary of another little fracas, Agincourt, where an outnumbered force of English knights and Welsh archers/longbowmen continued the tradition of sorting out numerically superior Frenchmen.

Oh SHIBOR!....................from Rico

2013-06-18T22:05:00.001+01:00

Remember 2007-2008 when the LIBOR was an early warning sign of the inter-bank liquidity crunch (aka the financial crisi)?

Take a look at its Chinese cousin, the SHIBOR.

Bedtime Totty................

2013-06-18T22:00:00.000+01:00