POPE'S 2010 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

The Pope is sounding like Hal Lindsary, et. al., with regard to the moral collapse of western civilization.

THE WARS OF 2011

Foreign Policy predicts where the wars of 2011 might take place. Mexico is on the list! But since 50 places are cited, it does not look like a good year.

WOMEN ISLAMIC TERRORISTS

Pakistani female Islam bombers may be the wave of the future.

Pakistani Taliban have established an all-women wing of suicide bombers to carry out terror missions across the country, dramatically revealed a 12-year-old girl who managed to escape from the clutches of the rebels from near the Afghanistan border.

Meena Gul's brother, a Taliban commander, told her: 'You will go to heaven before any of us, if you blow up yourself the way I tell you.'

OBAMA'S BIPARTISANSHIP

Obama's rhetoric is interesting and I haven't seen the media analyze it. But a headline "Obama Assails Republican Foes, Urges Bipartisanship" seem to be the message of the past year. I don't know how this will get Republicans to work with him even if they wanted to.

CONSTITUTION NOT UNDERSTANDABLE

If the U.S. Constitution cannot be understood because it is more than 100 years old, we might as well stop studying history. . .or maybe the Bible. . .or what about Plato????

CHINESE MISSILE

Article on how it works. If it can take out aircraft carriers, American naval power will be serverly limited.

CALIFORNIA, A THIRD WORLD STATE

Victor Davis Hanson describes rural California--it doesn't sound like the California I saw 30 years ago..

It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators’ defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?

CHINA vs. AMERICA IN EDUCATION

A discussion of why China's students are performing better than US students. Students are engaged and study. The quality of teachers doesn't seem to be critical.

HEALTH CARE IN THE US

Costs have escalated far more for in the US than other modernized countries since the 1980s.

RUSSIAN MOLE IN NSA

From the Washington Times. The National Security Agency (NSA) is conducting a counterintelligence probe at its Fort Meade, Md., headquarters in a top-secret hunt for a Russian agent, according to a former intelligence official close to the agency.

SCENES FROM NORTH KOREA

Film footage of the suffering in North Korea.

SPEAKING SOUTHERN

Bill Cosby tackles the "southern" language.

OBAMA'S FAITH

Jesusland is now in the White House. I think the secularists are having trouble dealing with Obama's faith statements. But on the other hand, I am not sure the religious right is willing to give him credit for his Christian faith.

WIKILEAKS

So much could be said about the Wikileaks documents, but this one on the role of China in not stopping North Korean missiles from being transported to Iran is particularly troubling.

Der Spiegel's analysis. Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information -- data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America's partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public -- as have America's true views of them.

Jimmy Carter, deja vu.

DEMOCRATS, THE PARTY OF THE FUTURE???

Democrats are dissing "older whites" and are expecting the Republicans to go down to defeat because of their reliance on the older voters. But I don't see how younger voters have gained much under recent Democrat proposals. It will be interesting to watch how the Democrats use the African-American and the Hispanic vote to leverage future victories.

Declining to pinpoint a Republican favorite, Carville said any GOP presidential candidate would be forced to “double-down on older whites” — a strategy that becomes less reliable each cycle.

“When you get into a presidential electorate, it decidedly favors Democrats, and every year it’s going to decidedly favor them more and more,” Carville said. “Demographics don’t do anything but get better for Democrats. Every election becomes less white.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45353.html#ixzz15kCXcG5H

STATE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

1 in 5 persons in the US has mental illness! This is troubling.

THE ROLE OF POLITICAL PARTIES

Michael Medved comments on the "pendulum swings" of voters as they switch between Democrats and Republicans.

TOP NATIONAL POLITICAL DONORS

A list of organizations giving to political candidates in 2010.

CHEATING SCANDAL

University of Central Florida. One student's response:

"This is college. Everyone cheats, everyone cheats in life in general," Ravvin said. "I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in this testing lab who hasn't cheated on an exam."

HISTORY & PROPAGANDA

History gets involved in the political battles of Washington.

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Fox News summary of the Fannie Mae decisions in the early 2000's--not helpful for Congressman Frank or Senator Schumer.

GETTING A PhD IN ENGLISH

Academia!

AMERICAN CORRUPTION GROWING

The United States has dropped in the global rankings with regard to government corruption.

BRANDS & POLITICAL ALLEGIANCE

A study of what brands are favored by Democrats and Republicans.

Google is the top brand for Democrats, according to an index incorporating consumer impressions of its quality, its value, their satisfaction with it, its reputation, their willingness to recommend it and their general impression of it. Google doesn't appear in Republicans' top 10.

Republicans, on the other hand, rank Fox News tops; Fox News, perhaps not surprisingly, doesn't appear on the list of Democrats' favorite 10 brands.

ATHEIST HYMNAL

Courtesy of Steve Martin.

ISLAM IN FRANCE

CBN report with hidden photography by a Frenchman.

ISLAM TO RULE THE WORLD

I didn't see this program onABC, but a Muslim cleric predicts that Islam will take over the world. Franklin Graham was also interviewed and was critical of the religion of Islam as "wicked" and "evil."

“We do believe as Muslims the East and the West will be governed by the Sharia,” Choudray. “Indeed we believe that one day the flag of Islam will fly over the White House. Indeed, there's even an oration of the Prophet where he said, ‘The day of judgment will not come until a group of my...’”

PICTURES OF THE RUSSIAN PAST

Old pictures on Russia around 1900 with color added. Little did they know the pain that the 20th century would bring them.

UN CONTACT FOR ALIENS

The United Nations has appointed a representative to be contacted by aliens who wish to communicate with earthlings. I am not sure if the UN can even communicate with Arabs and Jews.

COMPUTER ATTACK

Iran's nuclear facilities are facing a computer worm. I wonder who. . .

Mahmoud Alyaee, secretary-general of Iran's industrial computer servers, including its nuclear facilities control systems, confirmed Saturday, Sept. 25, that30,000 computers belonging to classified industrial units had been infected and disabled bythemalicious Stuxnet virus.

The experts say it is beyond the capabilities of private or individual hackers and could have been produced by a high-tech state like America or Israel, or its military cyber specialists.

SPASENIE

Enjoyed this group.

PARENTING OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Interesting.

I was reminded how we got this generation of students -- many of whom are not prepared to deal with setbacks and whose egos need to be stroked all the time -- when I was at a friend's home for dinner. The parents beamed as their 11-year-old son showed off a ribbon he got for coming in second in a race.

After he went to bed, I found out that in that particular meet, only two kids participated. Better yet, the school makes sure that every child gets at least one ribbon, so that his or her tender self-esteem will not suffer.

RANKING COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD

Newsweek has an interactive tool that gives the comparative data of countries in areas like education, health, the economy, etc.

HISTORY OF THE SOVIET UNION

Anyone remember the old computer game, tetris? The complete history of the Soviet Union!

AMERICAN CULTURE. . .IN DECLINE AGAIN???

"10 best places to survive the apocalypse". . .but they limit it to America. People spend time on this?

Farmville is a corporate conspiracy sucking in dumb Facebookers.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE

Barone sees the higher education bubble bursting.

Government-subsidized loans have injected money into higher education, as they did into housing, causing prices to balloon. But at some point people figure out they're not getting their money's worth, and the bubble bursts.

Some think this would be a good thing. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray has called for the abolition of college for almost all students. Save it for genuine scholars, he says, and let others qualify for jobs by standardized national tests, as accountants already do.

DARWIN'S THEORY QUESTIONED

An alternative theory. But a new study by researchers at the University of Bristol in England and published in Biology Letters suggests "living space," not competition between species, is responsible for evolutionary patterns throughout history.

AMERICAN BELIEFS

Weird things! 37% believe in haunted houses, for example.

CAUCAUS EMIRATE

A good article from Stratfor on what is happening in southern Russia. The potential for instability is very high.

HUNTINGTON'S THESIS REVIVED

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on "How to Win the Clash of Civilizations."

The greatest advantage of Huntington's civilizational model of international relations is that it reflects the world as it is—not as we wish it to be. It allows us to distinguish friends from enemies. And it helps us to identify the internal conflicts within civilizations, particularly the historic rivalries between Arabs, Turks and Persians for leadership of the Islamic world.

But divide and rule cannot be our only policy. We need to recognize the extent to which the advance of radical Islam is the result of an active propaganda campaign. According to a CIA report written in 2003, the Saudis invested at least $2 billion a year over a 30-year period to spread their brand of fundamentalist Islam. The Western response in promoting our own civilization was negligible.

Our civilization is not indestructible: It needs to be actively defended. This was perhaps Huntington's most important insight. The first step towards winning this clash of civilizations is to understand how the other side is waging it—and to rid ourselves of the One World illusion.

MORE PROBLEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Administration bloat: While enrollment at the nation's leading universities grew an average of 15 percent from 1993 to 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students ballooned by 39 percent, said Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow with the conservative Goldwater Institute of Arizona.

"Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student increased by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent," wrote Greene, who also heads the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. They blame government for these trends, but somebody is making the decision to curtail faculty or student services.

From U.S. News & World Report, "Is a College Education Worth the Price?" Numerous studies show that tuition, which has far outpaced the cost of living, has been spent on things other than classroom teaching. Administrative staffs and lavish facilities top the list. After years of building palatial campuses, states faced with budget cuts now find that they are stuck with the fancy athletic center and have to slash faculty, resulting in packed classrooms detrimental to the learning experience. Doesn't seem like classroom teaching is much of a priority.

And in the Christian Science Monitor more indication of misplace focus of the use of money: We hope this will be a wake-up call that colleges are asking for lots of money and a major sacrifice by families, but in too many places they have really abdicated their responsibility to direct students to what they need to learn for success after graduation. It is not about learning for life.

The problem in Maryland. One might think that as enrollments increase, universities would need relatively fewer ‎administrators per student since they could spread those fixed costs over a larger base. ‎Instead, the opposite is occurring. As universities increase their enrollment and ‎receive more money, they expand the ranks of administrators even more rapidly.

THE FAILURE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Kathleen Parker's column, "Colleges Come Up Short on What Students Need to Know," makes a good case for a core curriculum.

Also a good article by William Deresiewicz on "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education."

And here is a comment by by Neal McClusky from the Cato Institute: The majority of people who are going to college today are really just getting a piece of paper," he said. "The bottom line is we always insist that everybody has to go to college without in any way discriminating or determining whether actually going to college is giving you the skills that makes you more employable. All that matters, especially to the politicians, is that everybody is getting a piece of paper -- a college degree.

LEADERSHIP

A great article on "Solitude and Leadership" by Yale literary critic, William Deresiewicz. He was addressing a graduating class at West Point. I especially liked his comments on bureaucracies, General Petraeus, the need to think, his criticism of multi-tasking, the importance of morality, and the shallowness of Facebook.

GROUND ZERO MOSQUE A PROVOCATION

From a column in the Ottawa Citizen written by two Muslims: New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it's not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

COLLEGE STUDENTS STUDY LESS

College students study 10 hours less a week than they did in 1961.

CHINESE MISSILE

China is developing a missile that can take out US aircraft carriers. If it works, the US (and the navy) will face a major challenge politically and strategically. And billions of dollars spent on aircraft carriers suddenly goes down the drain.

RUSSIA AND ISRAEL

While the report is about Iran-Russian relations, it has an item about increased cooperation between Russia and Israel as well as Russia and Saudi Arabia.

CHRISTIANS ARRESTED

Christians were arrested in Dearborn, Michigan, for handing out tracts at a Muslim festival. The link also summarizes a trial decision in New Jersey that allowed a Muslim husband to practice non-consensual sex and justified it on cultural ("religious") reasons.

ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

Andrew Bostom analyzes how the Koran and early history of Islam introduced Jew hatred.

THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS

I thought Republicans were right-wing evangelical fundamentalists, but only 18% of Republicans believe Jesus will definitely return within 40 years while 26% of Democrats believe He will return within 40 years. But Republicans are more willing to waffle and believe that Jesus will probably return.

SHERROD ON OBAMA

In this whole Sherrod affair the most interesting thing to me is her perception of Obama: He is not someone who has experienced what I have experienced through life, being a person of color.

TRAVEL PROGRAM RIP OFFS

Watch out for deals from these programs like AAA, student advantage, and AARP.

AMERICA'S ARISTOCRACY

The Spectator discusses the rise of a new "ruling" elite in America.

As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S. economy's "systemic collapse." In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets' nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term "political class" came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public's understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the "ruling class." And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.

RUSSIAN SPY SWAP

What really happened behind the scenes of the recent Russian-US spy swap in Vienna. The media has been more focused on the beautiful Mata Hara figure (Anna Chapman) and not what was really going on in negotiations occurring over months behind closed doors.

STALIN BUST

A debate in a small West Virginia town over the erection of a Stalin bust commorating WW II leaders. This is something I would have expected to occur in Russia! But Stalin was a US ally in WW II and is part of the historical record.

A CARL ROVE CONFESSION

Rove admits giving bad advice to Bush on how to respond to Democrat criticism that Bush lied about WMD.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

I just don't understand why the press is blocked from covering the BP oil spill. And I don't see a vast hue and cry from the evening news programs about this.

OBAMA VOTER FRAUD

It appears Hillary Clinton supporters are accusing Obama of voter fraud! A group of lifelong Democrats recently produced a compelling documentary allleging rampant voter fraud by the Obama campaign during the 2008 election.

CLIMATEGATE SUMMARY

From Volokh--a summary of the British investigation into falsified documents.

From the Atlantic Monthly--another criticism of how the investigation was mishandled. By way of preamble, let me remind you where I stand on climate change. I think climate science points to a risk that the world needs to take seriously. I think energy policy should be intelligently directed towards mitigating this risk. I am for a carbon tax. I also believe that the Climategate emails revealed, to an extent that surprised even me (and I am difficult to surprise), an ethos of suffocating groupthink and intellectual corruption. The scandal attracted enormous attention in the US, and support for a new energy policy has fallen. In sum, the scientists concerned brought their own discipline into disrepute, and set back the prospects for a better energy policy.

TOP 10 US PRODUCTS

CBS Marketwatch has a list with the top ten products produced in the USA. #1 is the Weber grill--I don't think Weber grills are going to restore America's competitive edge and create the wealth to pay for the deficit. And the next nine are also questionable in rebuilding America's competitive edge. . .except for Tesla motors--it is dealing with technologies that could set the pace for the future.

AFGHANISTAN IS OBAMA'S WAR

Ann Coulter argues that Afghanistan is Obama's war. During the 2008 campaign Obama argued that Iraq was a mistake and that the war against terrorism should have been fought in Afghanistan. I am not keen on our policies in Afghanistan--even the British were smart enough to leave it alone in the age of imperialism.

NEW TALIBAN WEAPON

The Taliban are training monkeys to kill and act as assassins in the Afghan war. They carry AK-47s.

KNOWLEDGE OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Leno asks people on the street some basic questions about the Revolutionary War.

CONVERSIONS QUESTIONED

The stories of a number of Muslim converts to Christianity are being questioned.

RADICAL ISLAM

A CBN report.

Anti-Jewish Muslim protest in Vienna.

Juden raus. Jewish dance troop attacked in Hanover, Germany. These slogans sound like Nazi Germany all over again.

MUSLIM TURKEY

Andrew Bostom has a 19th century account of how dhimmis were treated in the Ottoman Empire.

Just as Western European leaders of the 19th and early 20th centuries often chose to ignore Ottoman Turkey’s brutal imposition of dhimmitude in their misguided, when not morally cretinous “understanding” of the “Eastern Question,” present era US and European leaders ignore both the overt Jew hatred, and ongoing relegation of the vestigial remnant non-Muslim Christian populations in Turkey to de facto dhimmi status, under Erdogan’s Neo-Ottoman Turkish government.

IRANIAN VIEW OF OBAMA

Rooz 1199

OBAMA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH POLICY

German Chancellor Andrea Merkel has rejected Obama's policy of growth through debt. France, Britain, and other countries are also rejecting his premise.

We need growth that doesn’t rely on debt but is based on real grounds.

CRITICISM OF WHITE HOUSE HANDLING OF OIL SPILL

From the American Heritage Foundation.

TALIBAN EXECUTES 7 YEAR OLD

He was supposedly spying for the Afghan government.

BP & DEMOCRAT ESTABLISHMENT

Article on BP's ties with Democrats.

AFGHANISTAN

American helicopter shot down--this is beginning to sound like the failed Soviet adventure a couple of decades ago.

STALIN STATUTE

Erected in Virginia! But he is part of the historic record. When I see his statute erected in Poland or the Czech Republic, I will know times have changed.

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

A new look at the Declaration of Independence.

RUSSIAN WHEAT EXPORTS THREATEN AMERICAN FARMERS

I was surprised to see that the Russians are now exporting wheat and selling it for less than American wheat farmers. It is possible that US farmers will be losing world market share to cheaper Russian wheat. Not only has America lost its manufacturing lead to a number of Asian countries, America may no longer be the agricultural bread-basket of the world.

Ever since Stalin enacted the collectivization of Soviet farms in 1928, agricultural production has been a disaster for the Soviet Union. In the 1970s and 1980s the USSR was forced to import US wheat to feed its people. Now that communism is gone, maybe agricultural capitalism will put Russia and the Ukraine on a sounder economic footing. But it sure will curtail the bragging rights of American farmers if Russia now becomes a competitor.

GAZA SITUATION

From the WAPO.

But as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

A picture gallery.

REPORTER PERSONA NON GRATA IN AFGHANISTAN

The army has pressured Michael Yon to leave Afghanistan. I have read a lot of his stuff and thought it was really good. This is looking like the early days of Vietnam reporting.

Yon has openly stated the problems in Afghanistan right now and how we could lose this war, unless changes are made. He has been critical of the current rules of engagement that have put our troops in danger and could actually make this war like the Vietnam that the leftist media claimed it was early and often when Bush was president (it’s strange you don’t hear those comparisons from them anymore).

OBAMA ON BUSH RESPONSE TO KATRINA

Flashback.

ILLINOIS CORRUPTION

If Blagojevich is convicted, he will be the 4th Illinois governor convicted in 40 years! And Obama and the Washington Democrat establishment are worried.

But somebody should do a count of all the other politicians in Illinois convicted or charged with crimes. I wonder if Illinois would be the most politically corrupt state in America?

Barone on "The Chicago Way." One prime assumption of the Chicago Way is that there will always be a bounteous private sector that politicians can plunder endlessly. Barone argues that Obama has brought the Chicago way to Washington.

PELOSI ON THE "WORD"

Interesting. . . House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says she believes she must pursue public policies "in keeping with the values" of Jesus Christ, "The Word made Flesh."

SAUDI RELIGIOUS POLICE

Attacked by a girl!

PALESTINIAN COLLABORATOR

A BBC interview with a Palestinian who collaborated with Israel.

"The Israeli agent didn't believe me at first but then I infiltrated the militants with a tape recorder on my body and recorded their plans to attack Jewish settlers. I didn't do it for money, I did it because we are all Israelis and it is wrong to kill."

AMERICA, A CHRISTIAN NATION

A discussion of how Christianity, and especially Pentecostalism, impacts American foreign policy. Around the globe, America is viewed as a Christian nation.

OBAMA & GULF OIL SPILL

Peggy Noonan believes this is the third time in his first two years in office where he has showed failed leadership.

The original sin in my view is that as soon as the oil rig accident happened the president tried to maintain distance between the gusher and his presidency. He wanted people to associate the disaster with BP and not him. When your most creative thoughts in the middle of a disaster revolve around protecting your position, you are summoning trouble. When you try to dodge ownership of a problem, when you try to hide from responsibility, life will give you ownership and responsibility the hard way.

"If Bush had said it. . ."

Obama desire to downsize the Coast Guard crisis center before oil spill.

McCain: "Out of his depth?"

A liberal states that failure to lead has doubled the crisis.

RAHM EMANUEL & ISRAEL

Rahm Emanuel, the Musical. A right-wing Israeli satirical view of Rahm's advice to Obama. Rahm's "Jewishness" is questioned.

CHURCH WARS

Going to church regularly matters when it comes to belief systems.

The figures underlie a striking change in the characteristics of American churches of all denominations: in the '60s, those showing up in church on Sunday might have represented a cross-section of American viewpoints; today, they are more likely to reflect traditionalist views, further driving modernists away from religion altogether - and intensifying what some have called the “devotional divide” in American politics.

Studies of group psychology show that when people with similar views talk to one another, they end up at even more extreme positions. The very ability to choose - neighborhoods, cable TV stations, websites, churches - increases the risk that we will hear only those with whom we already agree.

What's happening in Europe: A 2009 Gallup poll asked, "Is religion an important part of your life?" In Britain only 27 percent said yes, in France 30 percent and in Germany 40 percent. In the U.S., it was 65 percent. Young Americans have morals; they just often feel that religious institutions don't reflect their beliefs. That needs to change to keep religion in America from becoming stale like it has in Europe.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING RETARDS BUSINESS GROWTH

Government pork programs actually hurt a congressional district's businesses and cause less investment and employment. Hotair comments.

Is the world broke? Entitlements and government job growth has gotten out of hand.

LIBERAL FASCISM

Big brother is needed.

Woody Allen told Spain’s La Vanguardia that it would be a good idea if Barack Obama could be dictator for a “few years” to overcome obstructionist Republicans. Just a few days later, Friedman fantasized, on Meet the Press yet, that the solution to America’s problems might be to be more like China.

OBAMA ON TERRORISM

Obama has confidence in John Brennan, his homeland security advisor. I just don't see Brennan as someone who has read the Middle East well. I have never seen a Washington advisor using Al-Quds as the name for Jerusalem until last week.

AMERICAN JEWS & ISRAEL

Another article indicating younger American Jews have no attraction to Israel. The "philanthropists" were wealthy American Jews.

The philanthropists wanted to know what Jewish students thought about Israel. Luntz found that they mostly didn’t. “Six times we have brought Jewish youth together as a group to talk about their Jewishness and connection to Israel,” he reported. “Six times the topic of Israel did not come up until it was prompted. Six times these Jewish youth used the word ‘they‘ rather than ‘us‘ to describe the situation.”

I AM ISRAEL

Video.

THE CULT OF PERSONALITY

Having seen this phrase so often in reference to Stalin and Mao, I was intrigued by its use in this Tea Party video and it is applied it to Obama and Progressives today. But also the use of the images in this media along with the music is so different from much of the other tea party video I have seen.

SPAIN'S GREEN DISASTER

A failure of a Spanish "green" program that Obama has used as a model for US. Even Spanish socialists are opposed to it. I don't know the details, but I do believe Washington should spend money using models that are reasonably proven.

ILLEGAL ALIENS

More than Mexican illegals crossing US-Mexican border.

WSB Atlanta, Report 1. Report 2.

Calderon on CNN interview about controversy regarding Mexico requiring papers for people entering Mexico.

HITLER'S NURSE SPEAKS OUT AFTER 60 YEARS

A German Red Cross nurse talks about Hitler's last days.

POLITICAL COMEDY

Steve Bridges does recent presidents.

HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE USSR

Why isn't there more concern about the evils of the USSR?

THE FEMINIZATION OF THE ACADEMY

Getting a degree beyond high school is increasingly a "woman" thing--the percentage of males pursuing university and post-graduate degrees is declining.

FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES

Obama administration says for-profit is acceptable.

PBS Frontline expose.

MUHAMMAD CARTOONIST ATTACKED

A Swedish artist who caricatured Muhammad was attacked at a university symposium in Sweden. The MSNBC report does not say who attacked him, although they were shouting "God is great" in Arabic.

GREECE ECONOMY

"Money and Markets" wrote: The terms of the latest bailout require that Greece slash its annual deficits to just 3% of its GDP by 2014. That's like demanding that Washington slash spending by $1.2 TRILLION in just 24 months!

If these statistics are accurate the economic future of Greece, Europe, and the West looks problematic.

DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEMS

Good visuals of the impact of the aging population in Greece, the US, and Japan.

DARWIN FAMILY INBREEDING

Widespread inbreeding between the Darwin and Wedgwood families was probably to blame for Charles Darwin's ill health, and the childhood tragedies and infertility that blighted his family.

WHITE HOUSE LANGUAGE

Moving beyond just 4-letter words.

REDRAWING THE MAP OF EUROPE

The Economist has an interesting idea--what if countries could move like people?

PEOPLE who find their neighbours tiresome can move to another neighbourhood, whereas countries can’t. But suppose they could. Rejigging the map of Europe would make life more logical and friendlier.

DEATH IN THE CLASSROOM

Student dies in con law class!! A case of overstudy.

2010 HEALTH CARE BILL

This report was given to Kathleen Sebelius a week before the vote but kept from the public until recently. Now that it is out, it raises troubling questions about the real cost and impact of the Obama health care program. Medicare and Medicaid costs will increase significantly. And there is the unknown -- how many companies will drop health care coverage?

The view from the WSJ.

Rationing? Obama's budget director speaks.

Small businesses have not incentives to grow and create jobs under the Obama health care plan.

ALLEN WEST ON ISLAM

From YouTube.

STUDENT PAPER

From a paper on eugenics and the Holocaust: ". . .was done to the millions of innocent people weather Jew or Genital." Maybe Genital does work for Gentile in some weird way. . .

SOUTH PARK MUHAMMAD INCIDENT

Ross Douthat opinion piece.

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR GIVES ANTI-SEMITIC JOKE AT BRIEFING

From Yid with Lid -- they have the C-Span account. It was removed from the White House transcript.

A CALL FOR "C" STUDENTS?

So there are too many "A" students, heh?

America has made the mistake of letting the A student run things. It was A students who briefly took over the business world during the period of derivatives, credit swaps, and collateralized debt obligations. We’re still reeling from the effects. This is why good businessmen have always adhered to the maxim: “A students work for B students.” Or, as a businessman friend of mine put it, “B students work for C students—A students teach.”

NEW IRANIAN WEAPON

Iran is not only going nuclear, but this unmanned speedboat strikes me as a potential threat to any US warship in the Persian Gulf. And it is armed with a Russian torpedo.

A GLOBALIZED ECONOMY

The international economic impact of the Iceland volcano.

2009 OBAMA TAX RETURN

The NYT lists the charitable giving of the Obamas. They gave away over $300,000 plus the Nobel Peace Prize money. Churches got very little of their charitable giving. Most of their $5.6 million income came from book royalties.

GLENN BECK

From the 4/20/2010 broadcast: "History repeats itself." He better stay in broadcasting.

TEA PARTY VIOLENCE

I want to start bookmarking links on this issue. A liberal Democrat wanted to remind me about the horrible, angry, violent tea partiers -- "The anger of man does not achieve the righteous life that God desires." (James 1:20) This is a great verse. But what struck me so far is that most of the violence I have read that has occurred at tea parties is a result of attacks on tea party protestors by leftists or disgruntled Democrats. I have read about tea partiers being egged (recent Boston tea party from Boston Herald), faced with false charges of racism, attacked by SEIU goons, beaten up for wearing a Palin button, and the list could go on. The worse thing I have read about the tea partiers is based on the signs they have carried. . .but then there have been accusations that these people were liberal Democrat infiltrators seeking to discredit the tea partiers. So over the coming months I hope to be able to document this issue.

From Politico: New Orleans Assault

Frank Rich apology.

"Double-Standard on Rhetoric" from Commentary.

SCANDALS IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

Maureen Dowd on the sexual abuse scandals racking the Roman Catholic Church.

The storm within the church strikes at what every Catholic fears most. We take our religion on faith. How can we maintain that faith when our leaders are unworthy of it?”

But I am afraid much the same could be said of many Protestant churches.

I have always wondered why the Bush administration did not cite a number of sources to support its statement that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to rebut Democrat charges that none were ever found. I had read Sada's book and thought that you just can't dismiss his claim that Saddam had transferred weapons of mass destruction to Syria as irrelevant. It's all Rove's fault.

Why wasn't the Bush administration citing Gen. James Clapper, the Director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, who said that satellite imagery proved conclusively that shortly before the war's outbreak, Iraq had transferred its weapons of mass destruction to Syria? Why wasn't it quoting Gen. Georges Sada, deputy chief of Saddam's air force, or Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's chief-of-staff, both of whom also claimed that Saddam's weapons had been transferred to Syria? Why was it so tongue-tied, so unsure of itself, so unwilling to answer its critics? Didn't anybody in the White House realize that if the Democrats' charges went unanswered, they would fatally undermine the entire case for the war?

VEGETARIANISM AND HITLER

I thought this was an interesting piece of work by dadaist John Heartfield. Its title is "Have no fear. . .he is a vegetarian." I wonder how this would be spun today in all of the political correctness wars. If Bush was a Nazi (see previous post), does this mean vegetarians are Nazis?

THE EVIL BUSH

Interesting to remember how Bush was perceived. The Tea Party members look remarkably sane after viewing this video

COMING BUDGET CRISIS

I thought this was an interesting column, because Robert Samuelson can't be called some right-wing Republican "scare-mongerer." His father was a famous Keynesian economist.

On March 15, Moody's Investors Service -- the bond rating agency -- published a paper warning that the exploding U.S. government debt could cause a downgrade of Treasury bonds. Just six days later, the House of Representatives passed President Obama's health-care legislation costing $900 billion or so over a decade and worsening an already-bleak budget outlook.

Should the United States someday suffer a budget crisis, it will be hard not to conclude that Obama and his allies sowed the seeds, because they ignored conspicuous warnings. A further irony will not escape historians. For two years, Obama and members of Congress have angrily blamed the shortsightedness and selfishness of bankers and rating agencies for causing the recent financial crisis. The president and his supporters, historians will note, were equally shortsighted and self-centered -- though their quest was for political glory, not financial gain.

LOSS OF CONFIDENCE IN AMERICA

According to Rasmussen, only 27% of Americans believe America will still be a powerful nation by 2099. . .and this has dropped from the previous poll. A lot of pessimism exists that the media is not covering.

AMERICAN JEWS AND ISRAEL

This Sunday I read three articles dealing with the attitude of American Jews toward Israel.

Ron Radosh at Pajamas Media writes about how liberal Jews in the Obama administration are reacting to Netanyahu's policies. Joining those who want Obama to primarily keep up the pressure on Israel is the mainstream of American liberal journalists, most of them Jewish, who evidently see a need to reinforce Obama (not that he needs it) in his decision to get tough on America’s most loyal ally in the Middle East.

Mark Davis wonders why he, as a Christian, is more loyal to Israel than most American Jews are. There is something fundamentally wrong when I care more about Israel than the American Jewish community.

Jacob Weisberg writes on why Israel and liberal American Jews are drifiting apart. If you want numbers, various polls document the disenchantment. The partisan gap in support for Israel has jumped dramatically of late, with 80 percent of Republicans expressing favorable view of Israel, according to Gallup, as compared with only 53 percent of Democrats. One recent study found that only 54 percent of Jews under 35 who aren't Orthodox are "comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state" (as compared to more than 80 percent of those over 65). Among younger Jews, only 20 percent rated as "highly attached" to Israel in another poll.

If you want examples of the shift in sentiment, read just about any Jewish columnist for a major newspaper. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times argued that Biden under-reacted to Israel's housing announcement. Richard Cohen of The Washington Post is writing a book arguing that the founding of Israel was a well-intentioned mistake.

TURKEY

A discussion of Turkey drawing closer to Iran. This is not good.

END OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

Interesting.

FINDING JESUS AT UNIVERSITIES

Jesus shows up where one does not expect Him to be. I am hoping this article creates some discussion on campus.

OBAMA AT BAT

I have been trying to keep track of political humor/satire since the end of the Bush years. This pajamas media satire on Obama is one of the best produced I have seen.

POLITICAL ICONOGRAPHY

An interesting discussion of Republican and Democrat symbols. Obama's logo is also included.

HIZBALLAH THREATS TO ISRAEL

Ehud Barak states that if Hizballah attacks Israel, Israel will go after its sponsors (which includes Iran among others).

"Israeli cannot accept the artificial differentiations between the Hizballah terrorists, the state of Lebanon and their sponsors," said Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak in a lecture in Washington Friday, Feb. 26.

He responded to the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's prediction of Israel's early disappearance earlier Friday, alongside Syrian president Bashar Assad and Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah, by saying he did not expect it will be possible to slide toward 2011 without decisions. This will be a complicated and tough year, he said.

THE PRESIDENCY

I thought this comment by Karl Rove shed some light on the influence of the president. He was writing about the health care summit and trying to analyze what the Republicans would face as well as some of the pitfalls for the President.

It's not easy to criticize a president face to face. During my White House years, congressmen and senators would sit in my office, pound the table, and vow to tell the president he mishandled an issue. Then we'd walk the 15 steps to the Oval Office, and they would instantly turn soft. The presidency commands respect. Americans expect the president to be treated with dignity and deference, making criticizing him to his face politically risky.

And this is another good inside look at how the White House operates. While it focuses on the departure of Desiree Rogers, I liked this comment by Andrew Card from the Bush White House. One other thing Card warned those new White House workers way back in 2001: "Remember, please remember, ladies and gentlemen, that when you leave the White House, your letter of resignation will go into the National Archives forever." After a long pause, he added: "Be careful what you say."

AMERICAN ECONOMY

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believes the growing national debt has become a security issue and is hurting American power and influence around the world. I haven't seen anybody this high up in government say this.

But if the debt level is a problem now, where will the Obama administration's future debt load lead the nation? Hopefully the US will be stronger than Mali.

ISRAELI DRONES

They have the capacity to carry a significant bomb load as far as Iran.

OBAMA'S RELIGIOUS LIFE

A discussion of Obama's spiritual and church activities since being elected.

NEW JOBLESS AMERICA

Atlantic Monthly. No one knows what shape the recovery will take. Not even Paul Krugman. This is not an optimistic article.

LEADERSHIP & INTUITION

Michael Barone comments on intuition and presidential leadership.

No president enters office knowing everything he needs to know. His experience is limited to some greater or lesser extent; his knowledge of the people from whom he will choose appointees is incomplete; his mastery of the substance of public policy, after years on the campaign trail, is likely to be out of date. And like all of us, he does not know what the future will bring.

So presidents must rely on something else, something intangible and unquantifiable, in determining what is within the realm of possibility and what is a bridge too far: intuition.

AMY BISHOP

Probably only academics are really interested in Amy Bishop's murders of fellow faculty over an apparent tenure issue. But I do like Kissinger's supposed quote (although I am not sure it just applies to academics)--I can think of some church squabbles where it is quite appropriate.

"Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."

The Boston political culture: Instead, the political culture of Massachusetts taught her something very different: It’s not what you do, but who you are.

BAYH'S DECISION NOT TO RUN

I always thought he was a sensible Washington politician, but he has given up on the Senate and Obama. He recognizes Washington is not working. Reid and Pelosi share a lot of the responsibility for the failure of congress to come together to resolve serious issues. But maybe he and his wife do not have clean hands.

Five Ways to Lose the Senate Majority. Either way, the two-term senator’s departure now places 10 Democratic-held Senate seats at risk—if all are swept under by a November GOP wave, Republicans are back in control of the Senate.

A breakdown of the races.

CLIMATE CHANGE SATIRE

This Hitler movie clip is probably going to be used by every interest group at some time or other. Whoever put this one together needs a spellcheck and they even get poor Starbucks in the script!

Something with a country & western theme.

TEA PARTY COMMERCIAL

It has been interesting to see the increased use of history motifs in so-called "tea party" commercials.

CLIMATEGATE AGAIN

BBC interview. It's hard to take these experts seriously.

Sea levels are not rising--report retracted.

Left-wing Europeans attack IPCC. The German left wing press, one of the world’s strongest supporters of the ‘climate change movement’ is turning against the scientists and UN bureaucrats responsible for leading the movement. A round-up of German press coverage over the unexpected resignation of UN climate chief Yvo de Boer offers a perspective on the failures of the climate change movement that is both more scathing and more frank than anything the mainstream US press has yet brought itself to utter.

CLIMATEGATE AGAIN

BBC interview. It's hard to take these experts seriously.

Loved this quote from Instapundit:

VICTORY HAS A THOUSAND FATHERS: Robert Gibbs Tells White House Press Corps That Obama Saved Iraq (Video).

But Obama’s about as much the father of this victory as Andrew Young was of Rielle Hunter’s baby . . . .

REDUCING THE DEFICIT

A proposal. Looks as good as anything I have seen. I can't say either party has shown any determination to end it.

BEARDED WIFE

Oh, those niqabs: An Arab ambassador discovered his wife was cross-eyed and has a beard! He now wants a divorce.

OBAMA, THE PARTISAN

Peter Wehner discusses Obama's pleas for non-partisanship when he is acting the partisan and conducting himself so much differently from what he promised in the campaign.

What is disappointing about President Obama is that he has governed in a manner so at odds with his core campaign commitments. Mr. Obama has become the most polarizing first-year president in the history of Gallup.

He has allowed Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in particular to promote a deeply partisan agenda, shutting out Republicans at almost every conceivable point. Depending on your politics, you may think that is a wise thing or a disastrous thing. But it is not a unifying thing. And declaring war on Fox News and intentionally targeting and elevating Rush Limbaugh, in an effort to make him the "face" of the GOP, are hardly the actions of a man who has reconciliation on his mind. Neither is selecting Rahm Emanuel -- one of the most relentlessly partisan figures in Washington -- as your chief of staff.

And CBS news comments that what Obama wants is surrender.

NEW WEAPON

How many weapons like this are being developed?

DOOMSDAY, FEBRUARY 11th

According to Iranian leaders something big is going to happen on Thursday. I am beginning to see more speculation on this. Michael Ledeen says Israel should be prepared, but it also could include a number of other possibilities.

BROWN AD IN MASSACHUSETTS

I think this is a great ad, but I may be biased. History as political spin beats kissing babies and candidates standing in suits in front of the Capitol.

JOE BIDEN

This is one time I am with Biden and not those making fun of his lack of knowledge. . .why does knowing something about the Oscars or the movie "Avatar" really matter when it comes to governance?

CLIMATEGATE, FEBRUARY 2010

From the Guardian.

Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-­Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".

The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science.

It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.

NEW DISCRIMINATION?

This item shocked me. . .a group supported by liberals and Obama want to restrict gun-ownership for blacks because they are so violent. I am not a big one on gun-ownership, but you can't reduce gun-ownership for just one group in America.

For blacks, like all victims of homicide, guns — usually handguns — are far and away the number one murder tool. Successful efforts to reduce America’s black homicide toll must put a focus on reducing access to firearms.

GEITHNER & AIG BAILOUT

Like the article, I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, but something is not right about this behind-the-scenes bailout of AIG.

The New York Fed is in the hot seat for its decision in November 2008 to buy out, for about $30 billion, insurance contracts AIG sold on toxic debt securities to banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, among others. That decision, critics say, amounted to a back-door bailout for the banks, which received 100 cents on the dollar for contracts that would have been worth far less had AIG been allowed to fail.

It goes on to describe how Geithner and the New York Fed basically operated outside of any oversight or controls in its efforts to help AIG.

HOLOCAUST MOVIES

Ten good ones. Of those I have seen, I think the Pianist affected me the most.

HATE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

An interesting interview with an author I need to check out.

Those lucky few who are fortunate enough to be able to live their political lives free of the fear of violence are largely concentrated in the capitals of contemporary Western Europe and along the east and west coasts of the United States, who not coincidentally happen to make up the primary audience I was writing for, so I wanted to explain that the inhabitants of the Arabic-speaking Middle East are not as fortunate as we are. To say that Lebanon is held at gunpoint by an armed gang, or that Lebanese journalists are assassinated for their work, Syrian intellectuals and Egyptian rights activists are typically thrown in prison and tortured, and regional minorities like the Shia, Druze, Alawi, Christians, Kurds and Jews have often been the target of purges and political violence all in the name of Arab nationalism, a corporatist ideology that seeks to erase communal as well as individual difference, is not to say that Arabs only understand force, but that violence is a central factor in Arab political life and it is impossible to understand the region without taking this into account.

MEDIA COVERAGE OF OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

The media is admitting it did not cover Obama's negative qualities in the 2008 campaign.

DEMOCRAT HUBRIS

This essay expresses my thinking of Democrats in power. Lord Acton's comments on power are often over used, but power is a hard think to handle when one achieves it.


The love of power got to the Democrats: the love of big-shotting it before the cameras, as if senators were resident royalty rather than servants. Come to think of it, Scott Brown put the matter with great precision in his now-famous answer to David Gergen's question about responsibility for the maintenance of "Ted Kennedy's seat." Not Kennedy's seat, "the people's seat," Brown replied in setting Gergen straight.

TSARS

Love this quote for its historical allusion: "Obama has appointed more Czars in one year than the Romanov dynasty did in three centuries."

CLIMATEGATE, JANUARY 2010

A summary highlighting the major developments in the climategate controversy.

HITLER DEALS WITH DEMOCRAT LOSS IN MASSACHUSETTS

I can't remember how many take-offs I have seen on these clips from an old Hitler movie.

DEMOCRAT TACTICS AFTER LOSS IN MASSACHUSETTS

This summarizes how the Democrats are going to handle strategy going into the November 2010 elections. I guess I don't see a difference between Republican Wall Street "fatcats" and Democrat Wall Street "fatcats." And at some time blaming Bush is just not going to sell.

FIRST AMENDMENT HIGHLY OVERRATED

At least according to Rahm Emmanuel.

US MEDICAL CARE

The statistics used by the Obama administration that indicate the US is 37th in the world in overall performance of medical care are based on subjective WHO reports. It did not include patients who receive indigent care, for example. And the US is #1 in terms of medical responsiveness.

TEXAS v. CALIFORNIA

Interesting. Texas is doing a better job of educating students than California in spite of spending less money!

GOVERNMENT PAYROLL GROWING

More people are now working for the government than for wealth-producing enterprises.

VOLCKER ON THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Paul Volcker was interviewed by Charlie Rose in Business Week. Volcker, a Democrat noted for a crusty personality, said some very uncomplimentary things about the Obama administration.

The American political process is about as broken as the financial system. Therefore, one has to be a bit skeptical. Just to give you one little example, one unrelated to the financial crisis. Here we are on Dec. 29, almost a year after the Inauguration, and there is no Under Secretary of the Treasury. That should be an important position. How can we run a government in the middle of a financial crisis without doing the ordinary, garden-variety administrative work of filling the relevant agencies? The Treasury is an outstanding example of a broken system, but it's not the only one.

Slow is too fast a word to describe what's going on. The Administration is one quarter over, and it hasn't manned the ramparts of government yet.

I wish the Administration would pay more attention to what's needed to improve the ordinary functioning of government. We can't even fight a war with our own people any more. We've got to hire Blackwater. I think people have lost confidence in government, they've lost trust in government, and it shows. This isn't a question just of this Administration. It's been kind of a steady, downhill path.

Charlie Rose: . . .but this Administration came in and said it would change. That was the mantra of the campaign. So what happened? Volcker: It shows you it's not that easy to change [emphasis added].

A REVIEW OF 2009

Dave Berry --great political satire. He has so many good ones, it is hard to pick just one or two--so I picked three.

February:
Despite this heroic effort, the economy continues to stumble. General Motors, which has sold only one car in the past year -- a Buick LaCrosse mistakenly purchased by an 87-year-old man who thought he was buying a power scooter -- announces a new four-part business plan, consisting of (1) dealership closings; (2) factory shutdowns;(3) worker layoffs; and (4) traveling backward through time to 1955.

March:
. . . an angry nation learns that the giant insurance company AIG, which received $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts and posted a $61 billion loss, is paying executive bonuses totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. This news shocks and outrages President Obama and members of Congress, who happen to be the very people who passed the legislation that authorized both the bailouts and the bonuses, but of course they did that during a crisis and thus had no time to find out what the hell they were voting for.

August:
California, in a move apparently intended to evade creditors, has its name legally changed to ``South Oregon.''