DETROIT BAILOUT

I am a bit skeptical of a bailout. I liked Thomas Friedman's take on this in the New York Times. Read the whole article--he talks about foreign innovation challenging Detroit.

Do not expect this innovation to come out of Detroit. Remember, in 1908, the Ford Model-T got better mileage — 25 miles per gallon — than many Ford, G.M. and Chrysler models made in 2008. But don’t be surprised when it comes out of somewhere else. It can be done. It will be done. If we miss the chance to win the race for Car 2.0 because we keep mindlessly bailing out Car 1.0, there will be no one to blame more than Detroit’s new shareholders: we the taxpayers.

CIA WRONG AGAIN

The CIA intelligence estimates continue to be questioned. . .and we face an Iranian nuclear bomb once again.

A year has passed since the release of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. In a stunning departure from all the previous estimates dating back to 1997 under Presidents Clinton and Bush, it declared: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."

It also judged, with modest confidence, that Iran had not resumed its quest for nuclear weapons. If correct, this new assessment meant that previous ones, such as the 2004 NIE that also judged with "high confidence" that Iran was expanding its nuclear weapons capabilities under the cover of a civilian energy program, were based on flawed intelligence.

But was this astonishing reversal correct?

SUMMARY OF BLAGO AFFAIR

Summary of information on Obama/Blagojevich issues. Michelle's possible contacts with Blagojevich.

DISCUSSION OF BLAGO AFFAIR

Lengthy video, but presents conservative view well. Malkin & Reynolds are critical of the media.

BLAGO

This columnist knows the Chicago machine! He also comments on Obama's reactions.

Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, the boss who runs the machine that he says doesn't exist, refused to take a position either way. That's because he's sane.



The governor isn't the only one in this mess. His chief of staff, John Harris, also was arrested. Before Harris worked for Dead Meat, he worked for Mayor Shortshanks at Chicago's political golden goose: O'Hare International Airport.



Blagojevich "has to figure out what's best for him and his family, and the State of Illinois," the mayor said. "He will have to do the right thing."



Ah, the right thing. When Harris spills—and he will, because he's not crazy either—Daley doesn't want Harris to spill on him. He wants guys to do the "right thing," which, if I may translate, means to keep their traps shut.

Another perceptive columnist.

Now America is learning to pronounce “Blagojevich” and discovering what The New York Times calls “the murky and insular world of Illinois politics.” It’s a realm of open corruption, boundless greed and contempt for the law. And it’s the lifelong political home of President-elect Obama.

Surprise!

What, you didn’t know that Obama made his bones in the Chicago political machine? You didn’t know, for example, that he won his first election by getting one of his political mentors thrown off the ballot? Or about his financial support from corrupt Chicago moneyman Tony Rezko? Or how Obama and sidekick Rahm Emanuel advised the campaign of a machine hack named Rod Blagojevich?

You didn’t? Don’t feel bad. According to a post-election Zogby poll, a large majority of Obama supporters didn’t know key facts like these, either. And why should they? After all, NBC, The Boston Globe-Democrat and the rest of the Partisan Press had little interest in reporting these stories.

OBAMA SWEARING-IN

I find this Politico story ironic--Obama will use his full name "Barrack Hussein Obama" in the swearing-in. During the election Democrats and some media commentators were charging Republicans and some conservatives with negative campaigning, and worse, when they used "Hussein" in referring to his full name. What a difference an election makes.

I see conservatives have caught on to this double standard.

DAWAH DOLLIE

I hadn't heard about this doll controversy.

December 7, 2008 - Washington, DC: In what may be a cover-up or a retreat, Mattel Inc. has removed from their corporate “Investors and Media” website ALL statements about the controversial “Little Mommy” doll. Parents nationwide have complained for months to Mattel that the doll says “Islam is the Light” without any notification label for consumers that the doll is advocating Islam. Between October 13 and December 4 - for FIFTY-TWO DAYS - Mattel had prominently posted, as the feature story at their corporate website Investors page, a media advisory statement that the doll only makes “cooing” sounds, and an audio file they alleged was the doll’s soundtrack.

HAPPY LIBERALS

Obama's election is cause for rejoicing among liberals.

Obama is still seven weeks away from taking office but has already signaled that he's going to do grand things, huge things – dare I say heretofore unimaginable things. A half-trillion dollar (at least; some suspect it may end up being more like a trillion) jobs-and-infrastructure program, which he wants to enact as soon as possible after he takes office? Liberals have complained for decades – yes, decades, since the 1970s – about the creaky state of America's bridges and roads and the need for more spending on transit. Ditto the schools. We live in a country of which it's still probably true that most schools were built in the 1920s (New York City, for example, opened a new school building once every three weeks for that entire decade). Again, we have complained and complained and complained about their condition, and quite rightly so, for decades.

And here comes a president who is about to do something about all this, and do it more grandly than most liberals would have dared to imagine just a few months ago. And do it immediately. And he's not liberal enough? Please. If President Obama were to pass a trillion dollar jobs-and-infrastructure bill and, Heaven forbid, drop dead on his elliptical machine in March, that single act alone would be enough to make him one of the most progressive presidents in the history of the country.

PARALLEL LIVES IN AMERICAN POLITICS

A discussion of why Democrat failures are "misdemeanors" and Republican failures are "felonies."

OBAMA'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE

This story won't stop conspiracists, but it does come from a more conservative internet news site which I am sure will now be attacked by those who refuse to accept that Obama was born in the U.S.A.

For months, I have been bombarded by e-mails claiming Barack Obama was born in Kenya and therefore does not meet the constitutional requirements to be president. I have also received hundreds of e-mails from readers asking why I do not expose the truth about his birth.

The truth is that Obama was born in Hawaii. Hawaii, by law, does not make original birth certificates public, and this has enabled conspiracy theorists to claim that there is something nefarious about the circumstances of Obama’s birth.

COMPUTERS IN EVERY SCHOOL

An Obama program which will destroy the already terrible US trade imbalance! I never thought of this kind of impact.

ORTHODOX - ISLAMIC TRADE OFF

The Saudis want to build a mosque in Moscow, but Moscow wants the reciprocal right to build a church in Saudi Arabia.

UNIVERSITY EMPLOYEE FIRED OVER ANTI-GAY RIGHTS ARTICLE

A summary of the issue.

FORD MOTOR COMPANY

From the Detroit News. Evidently Ford is building more modern plants in Brazil than in the US. This doesn't speak well for the future of the auto industry in America.

MOVIE GENRES & OBAMA BUSH

Zombie movies dominate under Bush; Vampire movies will dominate the Obama administration--What does this mean?

Zombies are red, vampires are blue.

Whatever its challenges, the Bush White House has presided over a period of robust health for a genre that – if history is any guide – will soon fade: the zombie movie.

Tuesday's election of a Democratic president, meanwhile, comes at the start of a new cycle of vampire films (“Twilight,” “Let the Right One In”) and TV shows (HBO's “True Blood.”)

Coincidence? Or something spookier?