Germans seek to oust Czech president Vaclav Klaus over EU treaty

… In faraway Brussels furious diplomats were calling for [Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic] impeachment and even his country’s expulsion from the European Union because of his obstinate refusal to sign the Lisbon treaty. Klaus, now the only European leader holding out against ratifying the document, made it clear he did not give a damn.

European leaders were told he was not available to take their calls. The Eurosceptic president and his wife Livia were completing a brief tour of the Balkan country where Klaus, 68, attended the launch of the Albanian edition of his controversial book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles, which argues there is no such thing as man-made global warming.
...
Opponents of the treaty hope that Klaus will be able to stall ratification until the British general election in May. David Cameron, the Tory leader, has promised a referendum if his party wins and the treaty is still unsigned.

Klaus is unlikely to give in without at least some concessions. He is said to want to be seen as the leader who derailed the European project. A comparison is being drawn in Prague with Edvard Benes, the pre-war Czech leader who in 1938 had to flee to Britain after refusing to cede territory to Hitler under the Munich agreement.

Gotta love Klaus.
Not crazy about Germans throwin’ their weight around, though.

nope, nothing ominous about this story.  go back to sleep.

A physicist working at the world’s largest atom smasher has been arrested on suspicion of links to al-Qaida, adding to the woes of the $10 billion project that ceased operation a year ago - just days after its celebrated start up.

Okay, look.  I’m not one of those people who thinks the LHC is going to create a black hole and suck the planet into another dimension, or maybe make enough antimatter to blow up Obama’s ego, or even something much smaller like Vatican City.

You don’t have to be a wild-eyed doomsayer to be concerned when a bunch of suicidal nutcases start showing interest in advanced technologies, no matter how benign YOU perceive them.

The physicist had no contact with anything that could be used for terrorism, CERN said in a statement.

You do realize you’re talking about people who use their own BUTTHOLES for terrorism?

“None of our research has potential for military application, and all our results are published openly in the public domain,” the statement said.

Know what else has no perceived potential military application?  A Boeing 767.  Get your head out of your ass, Jacques.

Catholic church rejects Obama!

Sunday brings the canonization of five new saints ... [including] Damien de Veuster, the Belgian-born missionary to Hawaii’s Kalaupapa leper colony ....

Likewise celebrating its golden anniversary in the Union, the elevation of the figure known on the islands as “Father Damien”—a folk hero for Hawaiians of all sorts—has sparked a surge of civic pride in Aloha Country.

Geeze, it’s been nine months. What’s an iWon gotta do?
BTF:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan vowed to launch a new offensive against militant strongholds along the Afghan border after a suicide bomber blew up a car near a crowded outdoor market on Friday, killing 49 people in the bloodiest attack to hit the country in six months.

The United States has been pushing Pakistan to take strong action against insurgents who are using its soil as a base for attacks in neighboring Afghanistan. A push into the rugged mountains of South Waziristan could be risky for the army, which was beaten back on three previous offensives into the Taliban heartland there and forced to sign peace deals.

But the army may have been emboldened by a reasonably successful military campaign in the Swat Valley and adjoining Buner district and by the killing in a U.S. missile strike of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. The military also appears committed to destroying Mehsud’s group, as opposed to its often ambivalent position toward other insurgents in the past. ...

Holger Awakens has a good commentary on this.
Now’s the time for the ol’ squeeze play. Maybe, we finally have a motivated ally as an anvil to our hammer as the Pakistanis push the Taliban into American kill zones, and vice versa.
We can better concentrate on AlQ after we’ve defeated the Taliban.
How’s that for a strategy, Barry? Hey, you already have the Nobel, so it’s okay to fight now.

The award is also an example of what Nobel scholars call the growing aspirational trend of Nobel committees over the past three decades, by which awards are given not for what has been achieved but in support of the cause being fought for.

[T]he committee chairman, made clear that this year’s prize fell in that category. “If you look at the history of the Peace Prize, we have on many occasions given it to try to enhance what many personalities were trying to do,” ...

Show me I’m wrong.
Here’s a reasoned legal assessment of the constitutionality of accepting the prize without congressional approval.
That’s not my point.
I contend that this is an attempt by a foreign group to buy influence with an American official for upcoming policy decisions, not a recognition of a job well done.
If Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, he’s accepting a bribe, pure and simple.

———————————————
Listen to the gasps after the announcement in Norwegian.
What’s “You Lie!” in Norwegian?

Close the book.

Even when experiencing unfortunate consequences of femaleness, I still manage not to menstruate all over my gun, and I’ve never seen him use his penis to fire one.

- LabRat, on why gun ownership is not gender-specific.

[spew alert]

Okay, here’s my contribution:

I wonder if next year they’ll give him the Nobel Prize for Literature ...
along with Bill Ayers.

Close the book.

Forty-two!

no wonder they’re jolly!

The life expectancy of overweight people at the age of 40 is around six years longer than those who are slim at the same age, according to a study by a group of researchers at Tohoku University released as of Saturday.

Ok, maybe...I mean I’m not going to argue, after all, it’s !!!SCIENCE!!!

But even if we grant the premise, you’re buying yourself an average of six more years...of this.

According to the study, those categorized as slim have the shortest life expectancy, at 33.8 additional years for men and 41.1 for women.
[...]
“Those who are too slim are reportedly said to be at higher risk of cardiovascular disease and are more likely to develop pneumonia as nutritional deficiency lowers their resistive force,” said Masato Nagai, a graduate student involved in the research.

Yeah, and all that sex and dancing and frolicking and sex and popularity sucks all the joy out of life anyway.

And when I first heard it I was like “...um, what?”

And then a couple of hours passed.  And then a couple more.  And I was still confused.  Once upon a time, this award meant something.  It implied that the winner had lived up to a certain standard, had set themselves apart from the average, had achieved greatness.  That they deserved to be a legend.

And yes, I mean, I know it’s the sort of prize that has frequently been awarded to a white person, and it’s not that I have anything against people of color, okay?  So don’t get all racisty on me for disagreeing with this choice.  I’d just like to think that when someone is given what’s traditionally high honor, regardless of their color, they’d at least be a “real” person, not some complete phony.

So in our society’s march away from the exaltation of achievement, toward the grey formless mush of a meaningless “equality” where nothing is better or worse than anything else, one more historical and cultural award, already in decline over the past couple of decades, has now been completely and irrevocably stripped of any relevance or importance.

So screw you, Playboy.

Close the book.

”I wouldn’t join a club that would have me as a member.” — Groucho Marx

2007
AL GORE The award to Al Gore and the IPCC “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change” fits in with a subset of cosmopolitan frauds, fakers, murderers, thieves, and no-accounts going back about twenty years.

2005
MOHAMED ELBARADEI (joint winner). He’s done such a nice job with Iran.

2004
WANGARI MAATHAI The Kenyan ecologist peacefully teaches that the AIDS virus is a biological agent deliberately created by the Man.

2002
JIMMY CARTER JR., former President of the United States of America. A true cosmopolitan, he has undermined the foreign policy of his own country and vouched for the bona fides of tyrants and murderers all over the world. Commenting on the award, Nobel Committee Chairman Gunnar Berge emphasized that the award was meant as a denunciation of American policy toward Iraq. “It should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the [Bush] administration has taken,” Berge said. “It’s a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States.”

2001
UNITED NATIONS, New York, NY, USA.
KOFI ANNAN, United Nations Secretary General. Among other things, they respectively served as the vehicle for, and presided over, one of the biggest scams in history.

1994
YASSER ARAFAT (joint winner), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority. He was a cold-blooded murderer both before and after receiving the award.

1992
RIGOBERTA MENCHU TUM, Guatemala. She is the notorious Guatemalan faker and author, sort of, of I, Rigoberta Menchu. Like President Obama, she is a memoirist of distinction.

1988
THE UNITED NATIONS PEACE-KEEPING FORCES New York, NY, U.S.A. Notwithstanding rapes and sex abuse committed by the team in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and the Congo, still doing fine work all over the world.

1976
BETTY WILLIAMS, United Kingdom, founder of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement (later renamed Community of Peace People), who in later years repeatedly called for the assassination of President George Bush. How peaceful can you get?

1973
LE DUC THO (with Henry Kissinger) for the 1973 peace with honor bequeathed to the fortunate people of Vietnam.

2009
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, President of the United States.
For the feats of strength or something.

Bubba’s prob’ly livid, so there’s that.

From PowerLine
Dianne in comments.