podpolia

There’s an excellent piece here about psychology in politics. I’m still sticking to my opinion that many of the people who display this sort of behavior are generally more comfortable with the world if there’s a massive evil conspiracy — at least you have someone to blame, instead of facing the reality that life often sucks and does so for bizarre and occasionally no reason whatsoever. I’m considering poaching the ‘they’re out to get us, so we must be important’ part of this though.
Via Power Line, of course.

Lebanon’s Government has dissolved itself following protests in Beirut and a pending vote of no-confidence in Parliament. The Prime Minister has expressed his willingness to yield to Lebanon’s overwhelming desire for true democracy. This turn of events has followed the example of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and has so far been largely peaceful (except for the assassination of Hariri which kicked it off). Syria is beginning to yield to the pressure, and if current trends continue, Lebanon may soon be free of Syrian domination. The White House is naturally quite pleased with this turn of events. The trend of democratization in the Middle East is tangible now: the genie is out of the bottle, and for the moment there won’t be any way of stuffing it back in. Naturally, the totalitarian Islamic states are upset about this, but for once the overwhelming sense given by the media in America of the population of the Middle East is hope for the future.

Are we seeing the first of a new wave of European emigration? It’s possible. If the Netherlands doesn’t start working on restriction of immigration soon, they may be facing a mass exodus of their original citizens. Not that this is all the fault of the immigrants: many of them are undoubtedly decent people. However, extreme demographic change can cause social pressures, and (as the article points out) semi-socialist domestic policy doesn’t help matters much. I expect more Dutch will be moving to Australia and New Zealand, as many of them aren’t particularly fond of America’s foreign policies. That’s kind of amusing; Australia supports the US most of the time anyhow.

Syria seems to be responding to the increased pressure in a clever way: move closer to Iraq while keeping up the rhetoric against America and Israel. This is quite a good idea because the US is most likely to be able to exert direct pressure against Syria through Iraq — namely, attacking Syria with Iraq for helping run the Iraqi insurgency. By cutting down on this cause (with the arrest of the 30 Ba’athists) and showing that they are ’supportive’ of Iraq, maybe Syria can postpone the inevitable.

This really sounds like something emerging from the more paranoid reaches of the moonbat enclaves, but it’s actually what Putin thinks happened. Drudge has more. This is not a healthy sign if Putin’s advisers are this far off the target on American affairs. If they think Bush fired Dan Rather, they could well attribute other actions to the same causes that the conspiracy theorists dredge up — or even start listening to Maurice Hinchey — we went to war in Iraq for oil, the US government is run by Israel, Karl Rove is the antichrist, and Dick Cheney is a murderous cyborg, just to name a few. It’s too bad that this probably won’t make too many ripples in the world press. If Putin embarassed himself, he might consider firing his advisors. However, with the presses in many other nations as well as our own agreeing with this sort of drivel, this is unlikely.

Power Line provides another good link, this one about Europe. Definitely worth the reading.

Israel is blaming Syria for the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Syria is naturally getting huffy and insisting they aren’t responsible. A difference this time? The Palestinians are upset about this one too.

Victor Davis Hanson is really quite a good writer. I recommend this article.
Via LGF.