Books, movies, politics, and whatever I want

Archive for December 14th, 2009

Monday Book Pick: His Majesty’s Dragon

Monday, December 14th, 2009

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

An interesting bit of historical fantasy that reads like a cross between Horatio Hornblower and Jane Austen, with dragons. Yup, dragons, and the best dragons, of course, come from China. This is the first in series about a British Navy Officer who captures a dragon’s egg in a sea battle and ends up bonding with the beast when it hatches. Of course, it speaks English, and French. An interesting read. While I’m a mostly a hard core SciFi reader, I do enjoy good alternate history stories.

Monday Book Pick Archives.

Is it time to revisit the Carter Doctorine?

Monday, December 14th, 2009

The Washington TimesInside the Ring column reports:

A report by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) states that Iran could use its naval forces to cut off oil shipments through the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, where almost a third of all the world’s oil supplies pass.

The report, “Iran’s Naval Forces: From Guerrilla Warfare to a Modern Naval Strategy,” stated that blocking ships from passing through the 90-mile Strait would cause Iran “tremendous economic damage” and that, thus, Tehran would not “undertake a closure lightly.”

“However, given the importance of the Strait, disrupting traffic flow or even threatening to do so may be an effective tool for Iran,” the report, dated fall 2009, said.

The report said Iran could use its Chinese-made C-801/802 anti-ship cruise missiles to “target any point within the Strait of Hormuz and much of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.”

That brings us to the Carter Doctrine:

The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region.

That’s right kiddies, “Blood for Oil” is the policy of liberal democrat President, and well known racist, James Earl Carter III. Given our Dear Leader‘s apparent desire to follow in the footsteps of the worst president in the past fifty years, he’ll probably get the US tied up in yet another Middle East quagmire.

For those of you who voted for Barack Hussein Obama thinking he was going to pull the US Military out of Iraq & Afghanistan Right Away, deal with the fact that he played you for a sucker.  “Useful Idiot” would be the term his political idol would use to describe you.