It seems that back in September 2011, the Obama-appointed heads of General Motors signed an agreement with the Chinese government to effectively move all future electric vehicle (EV) development to China. Primary production of such vehicles will also likely move to China.

America’s Liar-in-Chief, Obama strikes again.

But then almost all of these “green jobs” that Obama has touted and attacked traditional American jobs and practices over have gone to foreigners so GM’s moving their electric powertrain development to China shouldn’t come as a surprise despite Obama giving them a massive handout from the taxpayers’ coffers.

With no apparent rhyme or reason to Obama’s statements, occasional half-measures, and string of inactions in response to any of the situations in the Mid-East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America people keep searching for some deeper game that he’s playing and ascribing various and sundry motivations to him.

There’s a far simpler and, I believe, much more likely rationale for Obama’s foreign policy inconsistencies:

Infographic: Obama’s Foreign Policy Goals

There are two rules one should always remember: “The simplest explanation is most likely the correct one” and “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

I firmly believe that Obama already displayed the extent of his foreign policy. He apologied to all and sundry for America’s status as a superpower, vilified the actions of his predecessors, and thought that our enemies would now begin to like, if not America, at least him.

Beyond that, I don’t think that Obama has any foreign policy goals.

As the international situation grows ever more fluid and we in America move towards the 2012 Elections this is something to keep firmly in one’s mind.

It seems that a recent market study determined that the lovely ladies of England have the shapeliest breasts in the world, or at least of those on the far side of the Atlantic.

This was determined by a Bra Usage and Attitude Study performed by COIN, for lingerie manufacturer, Triumph International.  While not truly global, the study did include China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK.

It’s certainly a titillating study and one that will garner a lot of well-deserved attention. It, however, has some interesting points for both the $30 billion per year global lingerie market and for societal views of body image.

Asylum UK distills the salient points:

Researchers have discovered that women in Britain have the most shapely bodies on the planet.

A recent global survey of breasts discovered the average British woman wears a size 34D bra — meaning she has bigger boobs and is more slender than most around the world.

Over in Germany and Italy women have a larger under-bra size of 38 inches and in France the average bra is 36B.

In Japan and China women are said to have the same 34 inch ribcage measurement as Brits, but this is again only paired with B cup boobs.

And while British women have an average of a 34D bra, the most common cup size is said to be a rather generous ‘DD’.

The Triumph international “Bra Usage and Attitude Study” also compared results to those from 50 years ago, finding that British woman’s chest and hips are now 4cm bigger.

If this continues it will mean that by 2060 the average UK bra size will be a gigantic F or G cup… how come they never mentioned that on Tomorrow’s World?

Obviously, despite the borders of the British Empire having contracted, it’s assets are still quite astounding and growing more so with the passing years. This and the finding of COIN’s study can be born out by empirical study of these delicious British lasses who all have DD cup sizes and whose underbreast measurements average to 34 inches:

Making Statistics Beautiful

Similarly, one can see from representative samples of women from China, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan that COIN’s study is certainly not too far off the mark.

Still, the British women, indisputably as fine as they are, shouldn’t gloat too much or become complacent. There are many, many roads to beauty and sexiness – and the study that Triumph International commissioned didn’t address the glories of women’s legs or butts.

I hope that Triumph doesn’t make the mistake of ignoring their “bottom line” by focusing their efforts exclusively on the bra. That’s the sort of marketing mistake that could hurt them in “the end.”

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While the pleasant and prurient aspects of the curvaceousness of British women and the size and shapeliness of their breasts is quite nice and a wonderful distraction, the COIN study on bra usage and attitude towards brassieres also presents some much more important data relating to manufacturing, marketing, and to women’s and societies’ body images as compared to objective reality.

Manufacturing & Marketing

This goes well beyond deciding how many of each size bra to manufacture and how many to expect to sell in size on a per country basis. The results of this study will enable Triumph International to take cultural mores and attitudes into account when deciding what bras to make for each market using some of the findings.

• In Japan, almost all bras are padded because it’s considered rude, even taboo, for a women to have her nipples show through her clothing
• In Japan, 35% of women wear a bra as a fashion statement but in China, 60% women do wear a bra as a fashion statement.
• In Britain, women wear a bra out of habit and social norm, however they don‘t consider their underwear as the main factor to improve their physical appearance
• In France, the main reason for wearing a bra is to receive compliments on the women’s physical appearance
• In Italy, 69% of women wear a sexy bra when others can see it

The above is all critical information for Triumph International just as similar information would be critical to the ongoing success of any global or near global manufacturer of finished goods.

Women’s Body Image, Expectations, and Reality

Then we have what is, to my mind, the truly important data uncovered and published by this study, that involving the facts of women’s bodies as compared with their body image, expectations of what is considered normal or beautiful.

• In Britain, the average woman of today is closer to being a size 16 (US 14) than a size 12 (US 10)
• The hourglass figure made famous by Hollywood beauties Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren is on its way out as modern women’s bodies are now becoming increasingly apple-shaped

• 51% of British people think the hourglass body shape is the most attractive, despite the fact that the majority of women’s bodies now do not have that shape, with apple figures (weight carried round the middle) ranking behind pear-shaped women (larger hips and thighs), rectangles (no curves) and even boyish figures.
• In Britain, the average woman’s chest and hips are now 4cm (1.6 in) bigger than ladies in the 1950s, and she’s now 5cm (2 in) taller at  167cm (5′ 6″ ish) in height, and her weight has risen from 62kg (136.7 lb) to 65kg (143.3 lb)
• In Britain, 77% of women feel having a beautiful bust is important
• In China, 99% of women feel having a beautiful bust to be the highest importance overall
• In Germany, 81% of women claim they are satisfied with their overall appearance
• In Britain, 75% of women claim they are satisfied with their overall appearance

So what does that all mean? To start with, it means that the fashion industry, the media, and the weight-loss industry have promulgated a body image ideal that is not even close to being representative of the female population and is diverging from reality further and further as time goes by.

Triumph doesn’t market in the US so we weren’t included in the study. Yet I would wager that far fewer than 75% of American women claim they are satisfied with their overall appearance.

That isn’t really news, but the extent of the difference between the created ideal and the reality of women’s sizes and shapes is noteworthy. In England, the average woman’s dress size is 16 (US 14) which is also reported by the SizeUSA study as being the average dress size of American women. This means that, since “plus sizes” start in the 14 – 16 range, the average woman in either Britain or America is being forced straight into the “fat clothes,” all the while being told by the media – and now the government – that she has to lose weight even though she’s actually the normative female – and possibly healthier than her scrawnier counterparts.

Worse, the clothing designers – mostly either queers or women of uncertain sexuality, as in sexual vs. asexual – design clothes to fit their stick figure models which then do not fit or hang right when worn by actual women. This just compounds the women’s negative body image to the detriment of everyone except the weight-loss industry who gladly sell anyone and everyone “self worth” for just $10 a day.

A Brief Rant

Face facts; real women have curves – delicious, voluptuous curves. They do not look like young boys with breast implants and they certainly do not look like prepubescent girls. I bluntly question the sexuality of any man who thinks otherwise because they must either be queer or a pedophile.

Skeletons Dipped In Wax

What in the name of all the Hells do those emaciated creatures have to do with either women or beauty except possibly as an example of that which is neither? Someone really needs to tell them that neither heroin nor cocaine is a food group and that dessert is not sticking your finger down your throat.

Perhaps though, with Triumph International’s study results getting global attention, some attitudes may start changing and some destructive fantasies may be finally purged from society. I’m not holding my breath though.

Supposedly Tandja’s guardsmen are not doing well in defending their “President” and things look grim both Mamadou Tandja’s rule and, Given Sub-Saharan Africa’s politics, life.

From Ireland’s non-profit Public Service Broadcaster, RTÉ:

A coup attempt is under way in Niger with the country’s President Mamadou Tandja described by a senior French official is ‘not in a good position’.

Smoke was seen rising from Niger’s presidential palace in what an intelligence officer said was a coup attempt President Mamadou Tandja’s guardsmen were trying to put down.

President Tandja, ruler of the uranium exporting central African nation for a decade, has come under heavy domestic and international criticism for last year orchestrating a reshuffle of the constitution to entrench and extend his power.

He dissolved parliament and orchestrated a constitutional reform in 2009 that gave him added powers and extended his term beyond his second five-year mandate, which expired in December.

The constitutional referendum in August, condemned internationally and at home, eliminated many of the remaining checks on Tandja’s authority, abolished term limits, and gave him an initial three more years in power without an election.

The constitutional court declared that vote illegal, to which President Tandja responded by abolishing the court and replacing its members with his own appointees.

West Africa’s regional bloc suspended Niger in October and the US terminated trade benefits for the country in December.

Niger is one of the world’s leading producers of uranium. It produces around 7.5% of the world’s uranium, according to the World Nuclear Association.

As the cost of oil and fears over global warming have rekindled interest in nuclear energy, Niger has handed out over 130 prospecting licenses, most of which have been for uranium.

However, just 10% of these are currently active as the political uncertainty comes on top of a two-year revolt led by Tuareg nomads calling for greater autonomy for the north, and a larger slice of the revenues from natural resources.

I doubt that this will be more than throw away one liner mentioned en passant by the American MSM since they’re myopic, parochial, and currently seemingly afraid of mentioning African unrest out of fear of it somehow “tainting” the half African President Obama. Despite their silence though, this is a matter of international importance that we should be more than a little concerned about.

The Dangers

Niger is an oil exporting country and China buys a large portion of their annual production. Anything that destabilizes oil production in Nigeria will impact not only oil prices in general but China’s stance on such issues as sanctions against Iran and various other trade agreements.

Niger’s uranium resources are also very important to the world. Not only, in the wake of the AGW hype, has nuclear power production returned to being an acceptable idea across the world, but it’s quite conceivable that unrest in Nigeria will facilitate the illegal sale of uranium to rogue states seeking either nuclear weapons or “dirty bomb” materials such as North Korea and Iran, both of whom have limited and “constrained” domestic uranium mining operations.

And, of course, one only has to look at Somalia to see that civil unrest and the collapse of the government – however vile and despicable that government is – gives the Islamists a chance at gaining control of large swaths of territory.

The Hope

On the other side of the equation, and equally deserving of media coverage, is the fact there is currently a coup underway to drive a vile and pernicious quasi-dictator from power in an African nation. This could well be cause for jubilation.

Currently Niger is sanctioned by the US and cutoff from relations with the rest of the West Africa’s regional bloc.  A regime change could well, depending on what group of people is behind it, result in the normalization of relations between Nigeria and both the West and the rest of the West African nations.

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Just don’t expect to hear much of from the American Media.  As I said, for their own reasons they’re uninterested in reporting news from Africa.

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UPDATE [February 18, 2010 4:45 PM EST]: Both the BBC and The Times in England are reporting that coup d’état in Niger was initially successful and that Mamadou Tandja and much of his cabinet are the custody of the opposition.

The Times further states that the coup was by disgruntled members of the Nigerien military came after the collapse of talks between Mamadou Tandja’s regime and the Opposition over a recently “adopted” referendum allowing President Tandja to hold power indefinitely.

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And we finally have a US report on the issue. The Wall Street Journal posted an article about it.  Say what you want about News Corporation but they’re global presence and coordinated efforts have their benefits.

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UPDATE [February 19, 2010 6:45 AM EST]: The Daily Monitor in Uganda is reporting coup was led by Colonel Adamou Harouna and was aided by Colonel Djibril Hamidou, both officers in Niger’s military. While Colonel Harouna is previously unknown, Colonel Hamidou was the spokesman for the 1999 coup that removed a military ruler, Colonel Ibrahim Bare, and ushered in elections that sadly led to Mamadou Tandja becoming President of Niger.

Colonel Djibril Hamidou of Niger’s CSRD

The Guardian is reporting that the junta that seized power calls itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD) and has appointed squadron chief Salou Djibo as its and Niger’s leader.

What fighting there was is reported to have died out and there does not seem to be a strong likelihood of a counter-coup in the immediate future.

I Love China…Or Else.

Of course it’s easy for the Evil Old Men in Beijing to coerce their population into at least mouthing harmony with the regime’s agenda and ant-like collectivism. When the “or else” in question is having your vital organs harvested by the State, it’s amazing how tractable people become.