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.