The “historic deal” left behind by Barack Obama, who decamped for Washington, has descended into chaos as a number of countries rejected the text, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The “historic” climate change deal at the Copenhagen climate summit has descended into chaos after some developing nations rejected the plan for fighting global warming championed by US President Barack Obama. …
Tempers flared during an all-night plenary session, held after most of 120 visiting world leaders had left.
Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese negotiator, said the draft text asked “Africa to sign a suicide pact”.
One Saudi delegate said it was without doubt “the worst plenary I have ever attended.”
Ed Miliband, the Environment Secretary, warned delegates that the plan would have to be endorsed to unlock funds outlined in the deal, including $30 billion in “quick-start” aid from 2010-12, rising to $100 billion a year from 2020.
The Los Angeles Times was more upbeat. In a story headlined “Climate deal fails to lift delegates’ mood”, the LAT focused largely on the dissatisfaction of the African nations and the NGOs. But in reality there was very little to either denounce or celebrate about. The AP noted that the Copenhagen agreements simply set the stage for more meetings to work out the multitude of disagreements and details. The delegate from New Zealand said that Kyoto was a “first step” and that Copenhagen was another “first step”, a suggestion that the climate change parade was advancing with all the grace of a mummy.
With no clear narrative emerging from the Danish capital, the significance of the decisions taken there are still unknown. It is as if the world were still in the Malamute Saloon, after the shots were fired in the dark but before the lights came on. Everyone is in an agony of suspense to know what happened. Maybe nothing did. Or nothing obvious and when the lamps are relit there’ll be blood on the floor but no bodies in evidence and everyone will go back to drinking whiskey.
B+
The conference results seem to be at your Service,
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,
the lady that’s known as Lou.)
At least until reality steps in
These are the simple facts of the case,-
and I guess I ought to know.-
They say that the stranger was crazed with “hooch,”-
and I’m not denying it’s so.
I’m not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two —
The woman that kissed him —
and pinched his poke —
was the lady known as Lou.
So now, will the crowd on the wrong end of the truncheon chant “free hookers”? Or will that last ignoble act be the measure of a political whore?
Another chapter in “Gullible’s Travels.” Updated, with hookers.
“…the Copenhagen agreements simply set the stage for more meetings to work out the multitude of disagreements and details.”
Four points:
1. We could have written this line for our friends at the AP before this whole deal even started. Planning and selling these decadal worship sessions are a big business, and this is a big jobs program for the NGOs and diplomats that provide the lifeblood to the faith.
2. There is a great movie showcasing this farce sitting in someone’s head, if only it could be made and distributed.
3. I think we have seen the summit of this era’s buffoonery at Copenhagen. Comedy has been served.
4. The tragedy lurks around the corner. Next venue, Pakistan.
Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese negotiator
No doubt, some Saharan Wodehouse would dub him “Lippy.” Is this not fiction?
The Big 0 called it “Unprecedented.” So, does he mean it was Unprecedented Chaos or an Unprecedented Failure?
Merry Christmas everyone! Santa came early this year and gave us the gift of hope and change! The hope that we wouldn’t commit suicide as a world and the hope that we may change the world to a better place by stopping these fascist deals between dictators!
The Dalmatian Dog I rescued several years ago named Buddy is snuggled deep in his big wooden dog house full of sweet bermuda hay and won’t step out even to eat, I have to feed him inside his doghouse. he relates that global warming from his point of view is total bullshit probably foisted on us all by the cats.
The Big 0 called it “Unprecedented.” So, does he mean it was Unprecedented Chaos or an Unprecedented Failure?
The noun doesn’t matter. Only the adjective.
If you speak in thoughts that consist of vague modifiers (Pronoun + linking verb + adjective) with no real content attached, it is easy for the audience to fill in whatever they wish. TOTUS’s words, like TOTUS himself, so often “serve as a blank screen upon which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
He is 95% delivery, 5% content (if that). This became quite clear to me during debate #2 of last year’s campaign, when I turned away from the TV with the sound up, and listened to just their voices alone, focusing not on the content but simply on the acoustic quality of their voices. Obama has a magnificent speaking voice. McCain has a husky whisper of a speaking voice, and pretty nasal at that. But Obama’s voice is like, damn, maybe the best brandy you’ve ever had. After trudging in from the snowstorm, no less.
It’s pretty amazing, when you think about it, how the aesthetics of voice alone can soothe and lull and charm if good enough. If “the voice” is an actor, you could be entertained by him just reading the phone book. If “the voice” is a politician, you would want to vote for him — dogcatcher, president, whatever.
Which makes me wonder … last fall, how many people were subconsciously voting for Morgan Freeman?
(Sorry if this post is a duplicate. My last one disappeared into cyber-space, and I am now being invited to edit HEP-T’s post.)
The Big 0 called it “Unprecedented.” So, does he mean it was Unprecedented Chaos or an Unprecedented Failure?
The noun doesn’t matter. Only the adjective.
If you speak in thoughts that consist of vague modifiers (Pronoun + linking verb + adjective) with no real content attached, it is easy for the audience to fill in whatever they wish. TOTUS’s words, like TOTUS himself, so often “serve as a blank screen upon which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
He is 95% delivery, 5% content (if that). This became quite clear to me during debate #2 of last year’s campaign, when I turned away from the TV with the sound up, and listened to just their voices alone, focusing not on the content but simply on the acoustic quality of their voices. Obama has a magnificent speaking voice. McCain has a husky whisper of a speaking voice, and pretty nasal at that. But Obama’s voice is like, damn, maybe the best brandy you’ve ever had. After trudging in from the snowstorm, no less.
It’s pretty amazing, when you think about it, how the aesthetics of voice alone can soothe and lull and charm if good enough. If “the voice” is an actor, you could be entertained by him just reading the phone book. If “the voice” is a politician, you would want to vote for him — dogcatcher, president, whatever.
Which makes me wonder … last fall, how many people were subconsciously voting for Morgan Freeman?
In other words, the Third Worlders are throwing a tantrum because their shakedownn wasn’t as lucrative as they wanted.
If only we’d gotten as much for our poke of dust as the stranger got from Lou.
This was a party of those who want to rape the US, because we’re rich (or used to be) and successful (or used to be), on the one hand, and those who want the West to stop exploiting the Third World.
I think we need, finally, to get our backs up and say, resoundingly, No” to the former, and to accommodate the latter. We should agree, forthwith, to stop the exploitation. We should announce the immediate cancellation of all foreign aid to the Third World. Mr Obama can do what he does so well and apologize for our transgressions in helping the Third World. He then should wish them luck relying on themselves for their development and improvement.
Think of the tons of money we’d save through that. Why, we even could use that to pay for Mr Obama’s Health Care Deform program. It’d be win-win all around. For somebody.
Eric Hines
I hear a constant drum beat of doom and gloom. America is in decline and and we have an administration bent on doing everything it can to speed this process up. However, unlike global warming, this is a totally man made disaster. And as such, the process can be reversed. America still has the natural and people resources to break out of this tail spin. All it lacks is the will. The will to go nuclear, exploit our energy resources, eliminate regulatory and legal barriers to growth. It will require rolling back the federal government to a reasonable size and perhaps locking in the federal budget to a fixed percentage of the GDP. It will require that the socialist and marxist be rooted out of government and education. It will require a return to common sence and conservative fiscal policies. No, we are not yet there now but if the anger continues to grow any number of events could trigger a realignment, if we have the right leadership in place.
mezzrow,
Marx is proven to be wrong again. Karl that is, Groucho has a better track record. History is coming around twice only now it comes first as a farce and the second time as a tragedy.
wdymith,
… will the crowd on the wrong end of the truncheon chant “free hookers”?
I found the video but Cecil while sincere seems to have the problem backwards.
bogie wheel,
My theory is that they thought that they were voting for Tiger Woods.
Barack Obama has already found out the hard way that America isn’t just a supersized Chicago. In Denmark this week, he found out the same thing about the world at large, and in the process was saddled with a big defeat on one of his signature issues – even as he stares down the barrel of an even bigger potential setback on the health-care reform front.
In turn, the rest of the world found out what Americans have already known for some time: that Obama’s smooth, lofty words aren’t going to transform the planet after all. In other words, that Barack Obama is no messiah. How fitting, that such a revelation comes right before Christmas!
I have click to edit rights on Josh’s #17 post… gremlins are at it again.
I don’t really think this is about copehagen or climate change but rather about being seen as doing something to create momentum for the health care bill. because if that bill goes down then the rest of O’s agenda goes down. Looks like they got the 60th vote in ben nelson.
the health care bill for that matter is not about health care but rather about creating a center left majority for the dems.
Isn’t center left an oxymoron, Charles?
America voted for a combination of Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Morgan Freeman, and Denzel Washington. The packaging was a triumph. Obama’s delivery was so good that it made a thrill go up the leg of a jaded old hack like Chris Mathews. His ideology was content-free, other than ‘Hope and Change’. This left enough room for the hidden tranzi content. He promised to do exactly the opposite thing to what George W. Bush would do, and with the exception of Afghanistan, he has done that. Now he owns it. He owns it all.
In the awakening, we will all be the good girl from Kansas (or Sweden) who never saw that behind the show was the beating heart of a true cad – someone who was too busy being master of the universe to notice the virtue of a smitten heart and an innocent soul. The innocence is over, and scores must be settled. We have not even begun to see those long knives come out. This will provide its own quota of entertainment from those who live vicariously in their own souls.
“Keep your powder dry, boys!”
One doesn’t want damp powder to treat a spreading rash.
Obambus’ weakly speech this morning is all about how the health care bill will (wait for it) protect us from the evil insurance companies! Secondarily, reduce the deficit. Nothing about the uninsured, nothing about, y’know, health. Obambus seems to think that all these insurance rates are set by cigar-smoking fat-cats with diamond stick-pins on their ample bellies. I say again, Obambus has nothing in his entire skull that corresponds to the idea that numbers have to add up, that there are objective facts, mathematics, and scientific laws that we all have to live within.
Which brings us to Copenhagen and AGW. “This Is Science!” Obambus told us, when he hasn’t a personal clue about what that might mean. It’s all play-acting to Obambus, community organizing, annoying the real powers that be until they fork over some cash, or start issuing loans to people with no income, or whatever his pointless, criminal goal is for the day. Have we heard out of Obambus’ own pie-hole, that he backs this idea of sending billions of American dollars per year to random foreign locations, to ameliorate the effects of global warming?
This is such superstition and ignorance on parade, lead by a suited clown in the Oval Office, whose major trick is tilting his chin up while delivering self-referential speeches on the topic of the day and blaming everything bad on his pitiful predecessors. I’ve been able to extend Obambus at least a partial benefit of the doubt on this and that issue, but it is getting nearly impossible to continue to do so, should he get something even halfway right, like more troops to Afghanistan even if it’s just for a cup of coffee, I now have to wonder what the real deal is. What an oaf.
As for Copenhagen at large – so Obambus isn’t the only oaf in town, the zeitgeist really is oaffishness and officiousness. Gaaaaah.
Have a nice day.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/12/025189.php
Dang, I’m not the only one with the same thought, this refers to Roger Simon’s report from Copenhagen – welcome to the New Dark Ages.
People thought they were voting for Denzel Washington.
They got the Denzel from American Gangster and Training Day.
SOLD: Sen. Ben Nelson to vote for health care bill; Secured favors for his home state…
—
We be royally F…..
or more rightly, our children are F….., in spades.
“Dang, I’m not the only one with the same thought, this refers to Roger Simon’s report from Copenhagen – welcome to the New Dark Ages.”
I consider myself above all a logical individual when it comes to current affairs. Yet for the past several years, even during the Bush administration, I have been unable to shake the sense that the United States and much of the world are, through our own ignorance and decadence, inexorably slouching back toward a place and condition not seen in the western societies since the journey of Columbus in 1492.
We certainly seem destined for one party rule here in America. I hope my intuition proves wrong but I am planning otherwise.
I suggest “Unprecedented!” become the Belmont Club catchphrase.
Few people realize how appropriate it was to hold the AGW meeting in Copenhagen.
Before WWII the Danes looked at the rise of Nazi Germany and concluded that resistance was futile. So they signed a non-aggression pact with Germany and hoped that would be that. Let the Nazis go bother everyone else; a piece of paper would keep them safe.
Then the Nazis informed the Danes they wanted to imprison all of the Jewish people in the country and seized the Shell Oil building to use as Gestapo HQ. The Danish opinion turned on a dime. They succeeded in smuggling almost the whole of their Jewish population to Sweden, the Danish military all resigned their posts, and they began a program of active resistance. By late 1944 the Danes were begging for RAF air raids to kill both the Gestapo and their own people who had been captured and were being interrogated.
The Danes learned the lesson once but it did not stick. Other people have yet to learn it the first time.
Gents:
The Copenhagen fiasco is directly parallel to the Obama Presidency. Too many mutually exclusive promises. It is impossible to give everyone what they want. But it is not impossible to promise to give everyone what they want.
At some level, ultimately, A is A and ya gotta pay the piano player.
Remember during the last campaign when BO was denouncing NAFTA in Ohio, saying he would renegotiate NAFTA and get a better deal for the US? Remember too, shortly afterwards it was revealed Austan Goolsby delivered a sly-wink to the Canadians about that speech?
Obama is out there cutting all-around poisonous deals with others. Then when others complain Obama can say he tried to cut carbon emissions but others got in his way. That way those people who knock on doors and dial for votes on his behalf don’t get too disgruntled.
Certainly, such “deals” are worked out in such a way every leader is given a direction in which to point their fingers.
The only way carbon emissions will be cut is by running out of carbon based energy sources or by some sort of revolutionary breakthrough (initially, probably will be an oh-$#!+ moment in a lab somewhere) in non-carbon based energy.
20. maineman:
Isn’t center left an oxymoron, Charles?
…….
ok left of center.
It stuck with the father of my landlord at a business I had, RWE, or at least he transfered the lesson over to the Soviets, and got the Hell out.
…when he’d come to visit, I’d know it was him from the sound of his wooden shoes!
Without paying *that* much attention to the carnival and its ensuing details, it would appear that the Third World’s attempt to extort more billions of (American) dollars to prop themselves up has failed. And that their attempted guilt trip using “racism” and alleged xenophobia has been just as successful in Copenhagen as it’s becoming in America.
The worker bees are getting very very tired of handing over money to idle socialists in the name of racial harmony, whether it be for Somalia’s pirates or America’s welfare queens.
Way OT:
Merry Christmas, fellow walkers of the way.
The Huron Carol
I guess, my last post contradicts my comment in the last post by Wretchard.
I guess I am going to go with the later notion. Because it is obvious there is no real leadership on reducing carbon emissions.
Our leaders are hoping to bribe the third world into arresting their development. The third world types are obviously against that and have a very dear price to be bribed into that. Plus since many of those nations are already hostile to external interference (UN directed or otherwise) why would they submit to having the money going to them for “green” development being strictly controlled and audited to make sure they are using the funds to develop in a “green” fashion rather than building (n+1)th mansion.
Six active threads. This is where Scotty calls up from Engineering, “Cap’n, She no can take much more of this. The positronic decouplers in the antimatter coils are going to blow.”
Doug,
Senator Nelson is the story. The rest was just distraction to keep eyes off the skullduggery and hack renting that Rahm & Co. were conducting while people were watching the Magician’s hand in Copenhagen.
NahnCee,
getting very very tired of handing over money to idle socialists
If only they were idle. Unfortunately paying them to stay home and conserve carbon doesn’t work.
“The worker bees are getting very very tired of handing over money . . .”
Your comment points to something interesting, Nahncee, because the worker bees are, you’re right, the Americans among us. The Left, including Obama has it all wrong. They still think of the underclasses as the proletariat, but the welfare system has changed all that already, which reverses the field from the standpoint of their Marxist agenda to pit the workers against the privileged.
They’re doing that but their reparations scheme has it exactly backwards (just like they do with everything else), and you can hear that fact in how flat the efforts to demonize insurance companies, doctors, and bankers has begun to sound.
Most Americans now see the minorities in this country, their champions among the intellectuals, and their leaders in Washington as a self-aggrandizing, privileged and protected elite. Which means that, in effect, the administration’s plans call for robbing the American working and productive class to give to the coddled, the tenured, and the rich and powerful.
That seems not to be going over very well now that it’s sinking in.
On the topic of worker bees, Hannity was talking yesterday about how some union health plan qualifies as a “cadillac” plan that will be hit with a 40% surcharge, and the $40k/year workers are asking why *they* are supposed to be paying for this new health care like that.
I say again and again and again, the mathematical details of this so-called plan are entirely bogus it doesn’t come anywhere close to working, other than to mandate that everyone in the country has to INCREASE their own health-care expenditures both directly and via increased taxes.
Maybe AGW is bad because of baked data, Obamacare is even worse because of baked mathematics.
No, not Nelson, cause he knows with that decision he has just announced his retirement from the Senate.
The guy from VA. Webb. Much as I disagree with some of his notions on certain stuff, he takes care of the folks that sent him where he is. If it doesn’t add up, or it can’t be fixed he has the integrity to just say “Nay”, and he has done so before. Wish there were more of them with even a small measure of his integrity. Murray of Washington, may be retiring too, but not for want of a nay, I think she is tired of the Chicago Way.
LOTM, that was classic.
I think this bluesy melody should be the theme song of the next late great climate change convention in Mexico 2010. I was looking at a Hungarian song of similar sentiment and a Billie Holiday cover of something similar, but those lads set the tempo nicely.
Of Course, one of them proves there is always hope.
“…held after most of 120 visiting world leaders had left…”
Simplistic, I know, but the reason many of those so-called leaders had left is utilitarian: if they didn’t depart, their cabon-spewing jets would not be able to land due to snow/blizzard conditions at their respective nations’ airports.
African nations? Not a problem.
I don’t know about others but one of the great challenges for me in dealing, (even in less than a year’s time) with obama and his administration is that in that time those of us here at BC and a few other enlightened blogs peeled this guy to the core of what he is during the campaign.
Then we waited for the policies to flow and action. Well, he didn’t disappoint us and has done as much damage to this country in his short tenure as FDR did in all his terms.
Each in our own style usually defile the man and damn his soul and those who support his pillage. I guess it is good that we do but I am having a more and more difficult time expressing in new ways my animus for him and his objectives.
I truly appreciate the energy many of you show daily in dissecting this POS we have in OUR WH. I know where my vote will go in 2010 and with help we can cripple this duplicitous imposture.
Merry Christmas to all you fine people.
Habu
Lord Monckton is knocked cold in Copenhagen: http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGE5MjJjOWZmYzNjOGQ5ZjlmOTM3ZjlmOWMwMDZiZWY=
Speaking of planetary exploitation, I saw Avatar last night. I just want to say the computer animation in it gives me great hope for the future of cinema.
Bear with me.
You probably remember what special effects used to be like decades ago. There’s a scene from Key Largo that always comes to mind for me. A bus pulls up in front of a building, and it’s so transparently obvious that it’s a sound stage with some fake scenery in the background filling in for the Florida Keys. Flat, cardboard scenery detracted a bit from an otherwise decent movie. Well, six decades later, CGI is able to render impressively textured 3D worlds and avoid that problem. With the pace of technology, I fully expect in another five years or so, computers will be powerful enough to render the script too, thereby preventing flat, cardboard plots and one-demensional stereotype characters from marring an otherwise competent film.
Really, want to make a good film? Have the humans offer the Na’vi massive payoffs for moving, and then have the Na’vi start squabbling with each other, each tribe demanding a bigger share until everyone’s shooting at each other and no one knows why. Sigh, poor James Cameron, Copenhagen came too late to save his movie.
PS: I can’t believe they really called it Unobtainium.
Unobtainabullium
(should be)
I think the Obama team did well. They correctly identified where the wind was blowing. They made some drama and the look of a sincere effort. They exposed the Chinese and African nations positions for what they were.
Whomever led the diplomatic effort here I am willing to applaud. Subtle, deceptive and adaptive. This is not what they planned at first, nor what they hoped for, yet when the wind shifted they adapted knowing that they would only lose in Congress.
An empty document is the best outcome in this situation. Good show. I think Hilary might have some skill after all.
Spindok
Habu, merry Christmas dude. I totally agree. I’m depressed tho cuz I know it will be extremely difficult to repeal this garbage known as obamacare. Merry Christmas BC’rs.
Hi again. Is anyone planning on meeting up with other BC’rs to discuss options?
What they really want to know is where the after-party party is.
Bogie@10:
“Which makes me wonder … last fall, how many people were subconsciously voting for Morgan Freeman?”
Well, if we’re going that route, then screw Morgan Freeman (much as I love the guy’s work) and let’s go straight for James Earl Jones. We could have the nucleus of a Galactic Empire here.
Ashen, your eagerness makes the word “wired?” pop into my mind.
Obama came back from a snowy Copenhagen to the biggest December snowstorm in Washington since the 19th century, meaning, since records have been kept. 2 ft. in some surrounding suburbs.
This would be hysterically funny if it wweren’t so insane.
Nahncee,
You think “wired” and I think agent provocateur.
Here is an excellent breakdown of the history of AGW
Or more correctly I should have said:
The Perversion of AGW.
Of course the fiasco in Copenhagen goes much deeper than that. Money and power are the only driving factors there. Your money and their power.
Papa Ray
“…the climate change parade was advancing with all the grace of a mummy.”
Wretchard, that was classic. You and Iowahawk keep me sane, and for that I am very grateful.
Merry Christmas to you and to all the other BCers. Here’s to real change in 2010.