Laugh So That You Won't Cry

Reading the media everyday, and in particular reading the Editorial and Opinion columns is the only way to get the beginnings of a grasp of situations, and what people think about it (I really hate this in American media, they never speak their mind and their news columns are blunt descriptions without a single hint of opinion voicing, which allows the readers who skip the opinions section to escape the facts that one should reflect and analyze events, make oneself an opinion on those).

It is also, sometimes, a good way to get a good laugh at the idiots who look down on Europe and are blind to their own (perfect by nature and definition) country. Yesterday's editorial of the Washington Post by Mr Mallaby was such a welcome occasion to laugh at an otherwise more than dreary world situation. Here is the great wisdom Mr Mallaby has to share with us retarded peoples of Europe:

We may need $100 oil to jolt the Europeans and the Chinese.

Yeah, sure. It will jolt us. But first, darling, it will jolt YOU. We're not the ones living in coutnries where masculinity is defined by the number of gallons your car swallows every 100 kms. You do. Our cars drink a meager 5 litres per km. Your cars drink, on average, at least 3 times that. We have correct means of collective transport like trains. You have a decaying train system, and you have planes (very hungry where kerosene is concerned as I recall). So, while we will certainly get a jolt, it will most likely happen some time after the US has started weeping and wishing it had better ways of expressing its (obvious) superiority over all of humankind.


Even today, many of these freeloaders see mayhem in Iraq as America's problem. You'd think that chaos in a major oil exporter, with the potential to seed extremism all over the Middle East, would alarm all responsible governments.

Two sentences, two comments:
1 - But it is your problem, my dear. You decided to go there under the false pretense of bringing democracy to the Middle-East. You got warned you would only spawn chaos and instability and make the situation worse than it was at the start, but you went in anyway with your guns blazing. We even went so far as to tell you in the great hall of UNO before the whole world, and to veto your use of NATO for your own purposes. You went in anyway. Now you realize we were right all along. Well, shoulder your responsibility and deal, darling.
2 - But we are alarmed, my dear. We are alarmed. We told you so. The thing is, it's still your shit, your mess, your chaos. You went in and did it, now clean up after yourselves, why don't you? We are aware that oil is a much bigger problem for you than it is for us. Don't ask us to settle what you created against our expressed will and advice.

There is more where that comes from, among what is, in part, a rather interesting paper on Israel's response in Lebanon. If I have one piece of advice for Mr Mallaby it's this one: learn to accept blame, learn to accept you can fail and make mistakes. Drop the arrogance, and maybe people will be more prone to listen to you and to help you out. Right now, you're not winning at the world's great popularity contest.