Wizard of Oz Calls for Three-Line Whip On Motion To Look Behind Curtain

Include me out of all that deep thinking about why Cameron called a three-line whip over the referendum vote. I can't help thinking there's less to it than meets the eye.

Cast Iron Dave rose with the help of two myths, one that he was a brilliant political operator, and two that he was the Smartest Guy in the Room. In reality, he blew an election against a gibbering loon in the depths of recession, while his term in office has been such a chaotic train wreck of U-turns, bungling and sleazy compromises that he makes John Major look like Churchill.

All that Cameron has left is an essentially tautological argument: he's the leader becuase he's the leader. He has no choice but to devote all his time to bullying everyone outside the bunker - with his record, it's all he has left.

Georgia In Flames, Transnationalism In Ruins

The great thing about calling your blog 'House of Dumb' is that you don't feel under any pressure to feign knowledge. I don't mind being the only blogger in the UK who admits he has no idea what's going on in the former USSR. Either the barbarians are clawing at the door of western civilisation once again, or a great nation has found a leader who puts bonds of blood and honour over the self-serving rationalisations and slippery legalese of the degenerates who make up the world's permanent ruling class.

Whatever this invasion reveals or doesn't reveal about the Motherland, it sure throws new light on modern liberalism. Consider the reaction of the alphabet soup NGO's - as neatly summarised here by PM - apparently, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights isn't as Universal as you'd think. Either that, or condemning anyone outside the Anglosphere or Israel doesn't get the donations rolling in. Not since UNICEF produced an advert supposedly lamenting the suffering of children in war which featured jets raining down death on innocent villagers has the anti-American monomania of these people been so blatant.

Then there's Europe. As the true extent of Russian thuggery sinks in, an outraged continent has risen as one and shouted 'The US should do something!'. Not that the EU is afraid to spend money on big defence projects. After all, they are spending a bundle on the Galileo satellites which will duplicate America's GPS system. So soon you'll be able to drive to Uncle Mike's without being exposed to US mind control transmissions but the whole EU doesn't have a single armoured division to put between the Russian border and Kiev.

In fact, from a study of EU strategy and the order of battle for the European Rapid Reaction Force, Eurocorps und so weiter, it looks like the only scenario in which these forces can and would fight is a Martian invasion of Bruges - and even then the Belgians wouldn't turn up.

Don't be shocked, but it looks like having 'soft power' is the same as being 'differently rich'. But that's not even the half of it. The decayed state of Europe's defences is just a symptom of a more general malaise. After all, why spend money of arms when the will to use them is absent anyway?

The EU is the latter day equivalent of Victorian aristocrats getting together to pass resolutions announcing that only the profits made from land count as proper money. It is denial as foreign policy. Do these people really think being excluded from the group photograph at summits will deter Putin? Or, as the most notorious Georgian of them all would have said, how many divisions does international law have?

Shocka! EUnuchs And Thugs Opposed To Air Power

EUtopias experiment with post-modern warfare continues. All of which means the left's latest talking point doesn't quite have the impact they might be expecting. It's like Sir Elton coming out of the closet.

Ditto, with the rest of these nations. Are we really supposed to be impressed with the news that Fourth World hell holes are trying to hobble western air power ? They're opposed to the use of ballot boxes too. When exactly did we start letting North Korea dictate allied strategy ?

But Simon Conway, a former soldier and the Director of Landmine Action, said: "Every time these weapons are used, they have killed large numbers of civilians."

The M85 killed 300 civilians when used in the Lebanon by Israel in 2006, while M73s launched by US helicopters were used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Yep, they're using evidence from the Lebanon war. What could go wrong ?

Mr Conway said: "The Government needs to take a much harder line on these issues. We need to prevent these weapons from proliferating. We need to stop the arms race developing and the way to do that is if we come up with a strong treaty that stigmatises these weapons."

That'll do it! If only we'd manage to stigmatise sawing heads off, suicide bombing and flying aircraft into buildings.

But no: it turns out that the folks in Beijing somehow manage to go on, even in the face of whiny criticism from Eurotrash liberals. Indeed, this campaign is something of a smart bomb itself, perfectly targeted to hinder western powers, even as they leave the Republic of Insania's war-fighting capabilities intact. Or, to put it another way, the left's position is objectively pro-totalitarian. Again.

Steyn D'Jour

I think a healthy society needs both God and guns: it benefits from a belief in some kind of higher purpose to life on earth, and it requires a self-reliant citizenry. If you lack either of those twin props, you wind up with today’s Europe — a present-tense Eutopia mired in fatalism.

Exactly - EUtopias greater sofistikaytion is an article of faith even amongst some on the American right, but where's it parked ? What kind of cultural supremacy is it that manifests itself as social collapse ?