O

nce you get past the shock of this bit of news, it’s not hard to get to what’s up:

Russian bombers have stepped up provocative flight exercises off the Alaskan coast, reminiscent of Cold War incursions designed to rattle U.S. air defenses.

U.S. Northern Command, which protects North American airspace, told The Washington Times that TU-95 Bear bombers on 18 occasions the past year have skirted a 12-mile air defense identification zone that protects Alaska. The incursions prompted F-15s and F-22 Raptor fighters to scramble from Elmendorf Air Force Base and intercept the warplanes. The last incident happened in May. (Wash Times)

The story explains that the aerial roughhousing began when Vladamir Putin has president and continues under Dmitry Medvedev. No surprise about that; we all saw through that charade a long, long time ago.

Although Gen. Renuart downplayed the incursions, other air-power authorities said Vladimir Putin, as Russian president, began flexing his military’s muscle last year as a message to Washington.

“Putin is trying to get the military rejuvenated and trying to show they are a military power,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, who commanded NORAD’s Alaska region. “He’s doing it for a whole host of things. It’s really muscle-flexing.”

Notice the present tense references to Putin.

So what’s the bottom line?

Oil.

The Russians are loaded with it and once again have money to spend on their military thanks to soaring demand and prices. All the more reason to try to get oil prices down.

And now Obama, besides being just plain obtuse on energy policy, has a policy that plays into the hands of the Russians. His focus on alternative energy has a good shot of dropping oil prices significantly … by about 2060. An awakening Ivan the Bear adds a bit more incentive for faster solutions.

hat-tip: Jim

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elcome to the new Cheat-Seeking Missiles! If you have me on your blogroll, please update it with the new URL, and to update your RSS feed or subscribe to a feed, click on the RSS button above the masthead. And do share your thoughts about the new design with me!

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T

he old C-SM had eked its way up to an authority number of 80, and a ranking of 76,699 at Technorati. Normally, coming in 76,699 wouldn’t thrill me, but the new C-SM is ranked at a near-bottom 3 authority number, coming in as the 1,009,173rd blog in the ranking.

At Truth Laid Bare, the old C-SM was a Flappy Bird, ranked #7,326. This morning, the new C-SM was … not even found. That means with patience and hard work, I can soon push this baby up to an Insignificant Microbe ranking!

Needless to say, your visits, links and comments here will be greatly appreciated.

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T

he sudden turn of events in North Korea – especially its destruction of some key nuke facilities – seems to have shocked even the NYT into momentary recovery from chronic Bush Derangement Syndrome:

North Korea’s declaration of its nuclear activities is a triumph of the sort of diplomacy — complicated, plodding, often frustrating — that President Bush and his aides once eschewed as American weakness.

In more than two years of negotiations, the man who once declared North Korea part of an “axis of evil” with Iran and Iraq, angrily vowing to confront, not negotiate with, its despotic leader, in fact demonstrated a flexibility that his critics at home and abroad once considered impossible.

The compliment couldn’t be allowed to stand too long, as the NYT quickly shifted over to John Kerry, a guy you can always count on for a bit of Bush-bashing, and he came through, with bellicosity and a typical odd view of history:

“Historians will long wonder why this administration did not directly engage North Korea before Pyongyang gathered enough material for several nuclear weapons, tested a nuclear device and the missiles to deliver them.”

He’s harkening back to his stand for single-party talks and Bush’s insistence on six-party, one of the sparking points of their debates, even though he was proved wrong. And he’s ignoring how history will write of Clinton’s utterly incompetent mishandling of NoKo through single-party nativity.

More significant that Kerry’s knee-jerk are the comments of the likes of me, conservatives, who are worried that this is just another Pyongyang puppet show, and that progress on the nuclear issue comes at the expense of the NoKo people, the world champs at enduring human rights abuses.

I cannot find much hope that Li’l Kim will be honest, forthcoming or prone to continuing progress on the nuclear matter, if for no reason than he’s got little else going for him, foreign trade-wise. And it’s regrettable that part of the deal didn’t include the start of a mechanism to better the lives of his citizens slaves.

Those feelings are pretty intense here at C-SM, but even I can see that progress on the nuke front is more critical than progress on the human rights fund; if it were otherwise, I would be a Jimmy Carter/Barack Obama supporter.

Bush’s sophisticated, tenacious approach to diplomacy, backed with the big stick cred he spent his first four years building, may give him true historical significance, on two conditions: He’ll have to keep the pressure on and accomplish even more in his final six months, and the next president will have to keep up the good work – something Barack Oppeaser appears incapable of doing.

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atcher’s Council newbie The Razor took home the honors this week at the Watcher of Weasels‘ weekly face-off of the blogosphere’s heavyweights … well, welterweights anyway. His post, South Africa’s Neville Chamberlain, explores why S. Africa’s Thabo Mbeki has been so ineffective in dealing with the crisis in Zimbabwe – and it illustrates the far-ranging interests of the Council’s members.

My choices came in second and third: Soccer Dad’s The Whole Shebaa-ng about the political exploitation by Hezbollah and Syria of the Shebaa Farms on the Israel-Syria-Lebanon border to keep peace from the region, followed by Done with Mirrors’ fascinating historical piece, More Quincy. Yers truly’s My ANWR Photo Gallery came in fifth among strong company.

I gave five of the non-Council entries scores of 10 this week, so picking the top two was a tough assignment. Enough of us agreed on Classical Values’ Why You Should Apologize — Ineffectively and Dishonestly — For What You Didn’t Do to put it in first. As the title hints, it’s an honest discussion of slavery and reparations.

See all the winners here.

Thanks, Watcher, for sealing that cut over my eyebrow in the fifth round, and for putting together this week’s bout.

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T

he McCain camp got another gift today in the SCOTUS decision clarifying citizen’s right to hold handguns (as if clarification were needed!). And the Obama camp got another opportunity to spin crazily to clarify their messages (as if clarification were possible!).

Here’s the run-down from Politico:

A year ago, the Obama campaign told the ChiTrib their man “believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.” That’s obviously the wrong position today, so some scrambling was in order.

Adding to the Obama policy history on gun control is this quote, which is convoluted and contradictory, in typical Obama expository fashion. He was asked to reconcile his characterization of himself as sympathetic with gun owner’s rights with his past statement that he supported the now unconstitutional DC ban. Take a deep breath; here it comes:

“I think it’s important for us to recognize that we’ve got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a lot of people — law-abiding citizens — use it for hunting, for sportsmanship and for protecting their families. We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal handgun usage. And so I think there is nothing wrong with a community saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets, we are going to trace more effectively how these guns are ending up on the streets, to unscrupulous gun dealers, who oftentimes are selling to straw purchasers. And cracking down on the various loopholes that exist in terms of background checks for children, the mentally ill. Those are all approaches that I think the average gun owner would actually support.

“The problem is that we’ve got a position, oftentimes by the NRA, that says any regulation whatsoever is the camel’s nose under the tent. And that, I think, is not where the American people are at. We can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measures that I think respect the Second Amendment and people’s traditions.”

Huh? Is he fer it or agin’ it, as they say in gun-totin’-ese. From what I can tell – and I’m guessing here because who can ever really tell what Obama’s talking about – he’s for very limited, very circumscribed ownership of guns. His friends can have ‘em, but he’s going to have to think pretty hard before letting anyone else have ‘em.

Fast-forward to today when suddenly McCain’s on the right side and Obama’s out in – where else? – left field? The O-campaign tossed out this gem:

“As president, Barack Obama will continue to respect the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun owners, and for voters who have concerns about this issue, they will find real comfort in Sen. Obama’s record. But when it comes to health care and energy and other economic issues that many gun owners care about, Barack Obama offers a fundamental change, while John McCain offers more of the same.”

Let’s start at the end of the statement first. The segue to health care, energy and economic issues is about as clumsy as they come. Are we to believe that someone who was elated by today’s SCOTUS decision will align with Obama on the forced takeover by inept government of a functional health care system? That they’ll think paying more for gas while waiting … and waiting … and waiting for an alternative is a good idea? That they share his “soak the rich/expand the government” tax philosophy?

Now, to his statement to “law-abiding” gun owners: How many laws will he try to shove between today’s decision and actual gun ownership? I get the sense he’s not ready to just give up on imposing his liberal view of gun ownership on us.

As for “voters,” as opposed to mere gun owners who are likely too bitter to vote, we see that they are to take comfort in a record that, save for abortion and gun control, is pretty thin gruel. How are we then to mesh that record with his “respect” for individual gun ownership rights? We can’t; they’re irreconcilable. It’s just Obama hiding his true self behind hundreds of words of vero possumus rhetoric.

So, having scaled this typhoon of spin, we are left with an Obama who “respect” gun owners, much like Jeremiah Wright respects white folks and America Amerikkka, while promising voters – his likely voters – that, if elected, he will be right back in there trying disrespect gun owners.

Will someone please tell me where the “new” is in this politicking?

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T

hose Supreme Court justices who look in vain in our perfectly clear constitution for something to hang a gun control hat on are pretty good at shooting, it turns out – shooting off their mouths.

From Bookworm’s analysis of today’s excellent (and no-brainer) SCOTUS decision declaring the DC handgun ban unconstitutional:

Interestingly, thinking about it, the worst writers are always the activists: Ginsberg, Stevens, O’Connor, etc. I suspect that, since their arguments are so often not bounded by actual American law, they have to throw up huge, wordy, impenetrable smoke-screens to hide that fact. The strict constructionists, who are writing within a sound framework, have no need to hide or dissemble.

And true to form, the Left is outraged, hypocritical and fully engaged in ad hominem attacks:

If Fat Tony Scalia comes anywhere near your home, shoot the m***********.

That jihad-like call for the assassination of anyone with an alternative point of view was found by Confederate Yankee.

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W

e had an amazingly good time last night, enjoying Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with surprise warm-up act Steve Winwood at the Hollywood Bowl. As much as I like Petty, far and away the best song of the night was the old Winwood classic Gimme Some Lovin’, with the Heartbreakers backing Steve up.

The Hollywood Bowl, as you either know or can easily surmise, is in Hollywood, one of the major constellations in the global warming hysteria universe. And Hollywood, in turn, is in the heart of liberal LA, that Dem-voting, Prius-loving, offshore rig-hating megapolis.

Be that as it may, let me just point out that the Hollywood Bowl, which holds just under 18,000 people, would have been packed to the rafters – if it had rafters. Not a seat was vacant, and neither was a parking space for miles around. (We were the epitome of carbon-consciousness, driving four-to-our car to Hollywood & Highland, then taking a shuttle to and from the Bowl.)

Let’s be overly kind and say the cars carried three people each on average. That would be 6,000 cars driving who knows how many total miles. Our round trip was about 90; the guy in the box next to us drove up from Ramona in eastern San Diego County, probably 200 miles.

And that was just the beginning.

I counted almost 100 amps and speakers, plus four very large TV screens, all snorting their full capacity of electron jitter juice.

And that’s hardly the end.

The stage was festooned with at least five layers of electronic eye candy that consumed enough power to meet the needs of a backward African nation for a day or two. The trunk of cables going from the floor to the lighting superstructure appeared to be about 10″ in diameter, and it wasn’t carrying the output of wind power, if you know what I mean.

Everyone loved it. We rocked to the music and cheered most robustly for the most intense, planet-wrecking light displays. Some people around us even burned funny smelling carbon in small hand-rolled cigarettes. All had on clothes carefully selected from full closets, or perhaps bought special for the occasion in a round-trip carbon burn to the mall.

And afterwards, we all trekked out of the Bowl, towards our carbon-burning transportation mode of choice, passing along the way the requisite “Save the Earth! Feel Good About Yourself!” booth. Most of us passed on by without so much as a second thought. A few saw the humor. And the foolish micro-minority, oblivious to their own lifestyle choices, actually stopped in to hear the proselytizing.

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? – Matthew 7:3

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a-da! Here it is, the spiffy, newly redesigned Cheat-Seeking Missiles – with its own url, and all new posts below this announcement! The new C-SM was designed by Dale Baker of Okie on the Lam fame, who is also chief wizard at ABDesign. He was a delight to work with through the process.

If you have me on your blogroll, please update it with the new URL, and to update your RSS feed or subscribe to a feed, click on the RSS button above the masthead.

Big thanks to Incredible Wife, the crew at the shop, blog-bud Bookworm and Hat-Tip King Jim for their thoughtful comments.

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B

y now you know that Obama said McCain’s call for more drilling is just a gimmick. I’ll go this far: McCain’s call for a $300 million prize for the perfect electric car battery is pure gimmickry and certainly should have been called as much by Obama. But Obama’s a guy who loves to needlessly hand out government money, so he actually supports that lame-brained idea.

(Lame-brained you ask? Of course it is. If anyone invents the perfect electric car battery, the free market will reward him so generously that $300 million, impressive as that number is, will be chump change.)

Anyway, here’s my question to Obama: If calling for the drilling of more oil is a gimmick, why are you not calling for the immediate drilling of less oil? Wouldn’t that be un-gimmicky? If more oil won’t drop prices, then less oil certainly should, at least at the Obama School of Leftist Economics, right?

C’mon, Big O! Do the right thing! Stand up tall in support of less drilling! Even better, make your announcement at a press conference in front of a gas station selling regular for $4.29 a gallon. That’s the ticket!

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