This hasn’t gotten much mention here - but when I was in Romania earlier in the week it was big, big news:

The troubled Nabucco pipeline project — designed to diversify Europe’s energy supply and loosen Russia’s grip on the continent’s natural gas market — took a major step forward on July 13 with the signing of a transit agreement between Turkey and five European Union countries involved in the undertaking.

The 2,050-mile-long (3,300 kilometer) Nabucco pipeline is designed to bring gas from the Caspian Basin and the Middle East to European markets via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. The $10-billion pipeline is scheduled to start operating in 2014. Nabucco’s primary objective is to lessen Europe’s overdependence on Russia for gas. Moscow currently supplies approximately 40 percent of Europe’s gas.

But there’s even more good going on, which we’ll discuss below the fold.

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From the governor via Twitter:

“Travel now to bring appreciation from their Alaska family & Natl Guard leadership to heroes in US European Command’s area of responsibility”

We had wondered if Gov. Palin was going to return to the Middle East to visit her state’s Guard troops deployed there after she tweeted:

“Got Fed ok for Adjutant Gen Campbell, Command Sgt Major Choate and me to travel to our Ak Army Natl Guard troops on Wed. Glad to go to them”

But now it seems that she’s headed for Europe.

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Obama is well into his ongoing adventure I’ll call TWAT (The World Apology Tour). And while he is bowing to Saudi Princes, groveling at the feet of South American communists, and promising radical Islamists that the U.S. wants to be their bestest buddy, all the while telling the world how wrong we are on everything, he also seems to be steadily torking off our allies.

Well, don’t take my word for it. Even The New York Times is saying it. In a June 4 story, the Times worries that, “on a more basic level, there is a sense that the Obama administration is ignoring the needs and counsel of longtime allies.”

Let’s take a look at some of the snubs and missteps that Obama has perpetrated in his short time in office, shall we?

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Wanna be an Ambassador in the era of “change”? OK, then what do you have to do? Do you need to speak a foreign tongue? How about have some training in diplomacy? Maybe exhibit familiarity with any particular foreign culture? Nope, not in Obama’s Washington. All you need to do is donate a hefty sum to the Obama campaign and voila, you are in like Flynn. It may not bother Obama, but this big donor cum ambassador situation is striking a sour note with those Europeans that thought that Obama was going to be a man more interested in professionalism, qualifications and a serious attention to foreign policy than in paying off big donors.

So much for “change.”

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One would think that The New York Times is purposefully putting American’s in harm’s way with its latest travel section vacation suggestion. If it isn’t doing it on purpose, it certainly is acting almost criminally negligent over its reader’s safety abroad. Back on March 22, the Times suggested that Americans vacation in Deptford, one of England’s most dangerous, crime infested areas. And why would the Times want to send Americans into such a seedy and dangerous place? Because it’s “hip,” man. What else?

The suggestion by the NYTimes for American tourists to visit Deptford brought all manners of jaw-dropping, guffaws from the British press this week. The disbelief is thick over there because Deptford has some of the highest crimes stats in the country — the tenth most violent according to Britain’s Home Office — and Britons simply cannot fathom why The New York Times would willingly send Americans unawares into the heart of such violence and crime.

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One at a time, President Barack Obama is alienating America’s European allies. First there was the embarrassingly crude snub of Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Great Britain, who was denied the courtesy of a joint press conference with the president on his recent Washington trip and was sent packing with a disastrously cheap official gift: a DVD collection that Brown cannot even view in London. By comparison, Obama was treated like royalty in Britain at the G-20. However, the gift he presented Queen Elizabeth, an iPod loaded with Broadway show tunes, left some scratching their heads.

But if the president’s behavior toward America’s best friend is a scandal, then his treatment of the president of America’s oldest ally is an international incident. Obama has publicly snubbed French President Nicholas Sarkozy three times since being elected, and now it is coming back to bite him.

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While we’ve been distracted with the domestic financial difficulties, a more horrid story has been unfolding in Europe.

This is going to have stunning financial and political implications.

But before we try to sort through those complexities, just ponder the following numbers.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, our GDP contracted by 3.8% - a rare and abysmal result.

During the same period, Germany’s GDP contracted by 8.4%.

More below the fold.

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During his Presidential campaign, Barack Obama famously promised direct diplomacy with Iran, going as far as to say he will meet Iranian leaders without preconditions of any kind. Even as Iranian-funded and -armed forces in Iraq were bombing civilians and shooting at American troops, he promised to meet with their leaders. We’re not at war with Eurasia, and absolutely should not start one.

As he told NPR:

Oh, we have to deal with the role of Iran. The question is whether we deal with Iran through saber-rattling, or whether we deal with Iran by direct diplomatic engagement. The key for us is to engage in the sort of direct talks that we engaged in, by the way, when Iran cooperated with us in dealing with the Taliban in Afghanistan. It’s that sort of direct engagement that this president has been unwilling to do, but under an Obama administration would be, I think a top priority.

It’s all just words, of course, because the statements made by Secretary Clinton make it clear that Obama sees no chance of success for this plan against Iran’s nuclear program.

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