PARTY ON:

Our Boys blitz Taliban bash (JEROME STARKEY with Our Boys in Helmand, 12/31/07, The Sun)

BRITISH commandos launched a devastating blitz on the Taliban – as the evil terrorists held a party to celebrate Benazir Bhutto’s murder.

The dawn raid was staged after messages were intercepted about the sick knees-up in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

Royal Marines crept into position as the fanatics partied the night away just hours after Ms Bhutto was killed in Pakistan. [...]

Ragtag Taliban sentries tried to hit back with machine gun fire – but stood no chance against the heroes of 40 Commando’s Charlie Company.

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WHICH RAISES AN INTERESTING QUESTION:

In defense of waterboarding: No one should be prosecuted for waterboarding Abu Zubaydah (Mark Bowden, 12/23/07, Philadelphia Inquirer)

At the time of his capture in 2002, just six months after the Sept. 11 attacks, there was strong reason to believe Zubaydah knew virtually the entire organizational structure and agenda of al-Qaeda around the world. He was supervising ongoing plots to kill hundreds if not thousands of people. He was, for obvious reasons, disinclined to share this knowledge. Subjected briefly to waterboarding - less than a minute, according to published reports - he became cooperative and provided information that, according to the government, resulted in preventing planned attacks and capturing other key al-Qaeda leaders.

In the six years that have passed since the Manhattan towers collapsed, we have gained (partly through the interrogation of men like Zubaydah) a much clearer understanding of al-Qaeda and the threat it poses. While the chance of further murderous attacks is always with us, it is fair to say few of us feel the same measure of alarm we did then. The diminishment of this threat is at least in part due to the heroic efforts of the CIA, the military, and allies around the world in targeting terrorist cells.

In the process, the menace of Zubaydah himself has deflated. Today, he is just another little man in a orange jumpsuit at Guantánamo. Our national concern has shifted from stopping him to figuring out what to do with him.

And to second-guessing what was done to him. Waterboarding is a process by which a detainee is strapped down and forced to ingest and inhale water until he experiences the terror of drowning. It is not torture in the traditional sense of inflicting pain; it inflicts fear, intense, visceral fear, without doing physical harm. It is a method calculated to straddle the definitions of coercion and torture, and as such merely proves that both methods inhabit the same slippery continuum. There is a difference between gouging out a man's eyes and keeping him awake, and waterboarding falls somewhere in between.

In the unlikely event that Zubaydah knew nothing of value and that every bit of information he divulged was false, it was still reasonable to assume in 2002 that this was not the case. If his interrogators were able to stop one terror attack by waterboarding him, even if they violated international agreements and our national conscience, it was justified. All nations have laws against killing, but all recognize self-defense as a legitimate excuse. I think the waterboarding in this case is directly analogous, except that Zubaydah himself, although he richly deserves it, was neither killed nor permanently harmed.

Would Harry Truman not have waterboarded everyone in Hiroshima for a half minute in order to win WWII?

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ONLY MASSIVE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION...:

The New Deal Jobs Myth: The candidates keep touting Depression-style public works programs. Why? (AMITY SHLAES, December 31, 2007, Opinion Journal)

[W]hat really stands out when you step back from the picture is not how much the public works achieved. It is how little. Notwithstanding the largest peacetime appropriation in the history of the world, the New Deal recovery remained incomplete. From 1934 on--the period when the spending ramped up--monetary troubles were subsiding, and could no longer be blamed alone for the Depression. The story of the mid-1930s is the story of a heroic economy struggling to recuperate but failing to do so because lawmakers' preoccupation with public works rather got in the way of allowing productive businesses to expand and pull the rest forward.

What was wrong with those public works jobs? Many created enduring edifices--New York's Triborough Bridge, for example, the Mountain Theater of Mount Tamalpais State Park outside San Francisco, the Texas Post Office murals, which were funded by Henry Morgenthau's Treasury. But the public jobs did their work inefficiently. That was because the jobs were scripted to serve political ends, not economic ones.

One of the saddest accounts of the public-works job culture I came across involved a model government farm in Casa Grande, Ariz. The men were poor--close to "Grapes of Wrath" poor--but sophisticated. They knew that the government wanted them to share jobs. But they saw that the only way for the farm to get profits was to increase output and to stop milking by hand. Five dairy crew men approached the manager to propose purchasing milking machines to increase output. They even documented their plea with a shorthand memo:

"Milking machine would save two men's labor at five dollars per day . . . Beginning in September would save three men's wages or $7.50 on account of new heifers coming in."

The men were willing to strike if they didn't get the machines, though they feared they might lose their precious places on the farm if they did strike. Their fears proved justified. "You're fired," the workers later recalled the manager replying when he saw their careful plan. The government man was horrified at the idea of killing the jobs he was supposed to create. "You're jeopardizing a loan of the U.S. government, and it's my job to protect that loan. You're through, everyone of you, get out."

A related problem was that the New Deal's emergency jobs were short term, lasting months, not years, so people could not settle into them. This led to further disruption. In the very best years of Roosevelt's first two terms, unemployment still stood above 9%. Nine percent is better than horrendous, but it hardly is a figure that induces hope.

One could interject that such arguments do not take into account the context--the paucity of other jobs, the dust storms, the deflations, the homelessness, the incomprehensible real privation of the period. But in the later part of the 1930s, the same model infrastructure projects did their part to prolong that privation. The private sector, desperate, was incredibly productive--those who did have a job worked hard, just as our grandparents told us. But the government was taking all the air in the room. Utilities are a prime example. In the 1920s electricity was a miracle industry. There was every expectation that growth in utilities might pull the country through hard times in the future.

And the industry might have indeed done that, if the government had not supplanted it. Roosevelt believed in public utilities, not private companies. He created his own highly ambitious infrastructure project--the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA commandeered the utility business in the South, notwithstanding the vehement protests of the private utilities that served that area.

Washington sucked up much of the available capital by selling bonds and collecting taxes to pay for the TVA or municipal power plants in towns. In order to justify their own claim that public utilities were necessary, New Dealers also undermined private utilities directly, through laws--not only the TVA law but also the infamous Public Utilities Holding Company Act, which legislated many companies out of existence. Other industries saw their work curtailed or pre-empted by government as well.

What about that oft-cited rising industrial production figure? The boom in industrial production of the 1930s did signal growth, but not necessarily growth of a higher quality than that, say, of a Soviet factory running three shifts. Another datum that we hear about less than industrial production was actually more important: net private investment, the number that captures how many capital goods companies were buying relative to what they already had. At many points during the New Deal, net private investment was not merely low, but negative. Companies were using more capital goods than they were investing in.

...could have prolonged the depression for so long that it became Great.

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THE ROUTINIZATION OF CHAMPIONSHIPS:

Celtics down Lakers, plenty to take from it (Kelly Dwyer, Dec 31, 2007, Yahoo NBA Experts Blog)

With Rajon Rondo out, Doc Rivers started Tony Allen at point guard. I'll repeat: Doc Rivers started Tony Allen at point guard. Love Tony Allen, appreciate his game, enjoyed his breakout season last year - but he also entered the game turning the ball over on 18 percent of the possession he used up. That's not only bad, that's the worst mark of ANY guard in the entire NBA. And Doc Rivers started him, at point guard!

Somehow, it worked. Allen fouled out, did most of his damage against a clueless rookie (sorry for calling you "clueless," JC, happy birthday), and dished as many assists (four) as he had turnovers (four; and there was a backcourt violation he committed that wasn't called), but it worked. Or, let's change the wording on this: the Celtics won. If Rondo doesn't return for Boston's next game (at home, against the Rockets), then we might have a problem.

*When the C's made their moves last summer, one bonus for the team that no media outlet (mainstream or otherwise) mentioned was the idea that Paul Pierce's ability to get to the free throw line would likely put Boston over the top.

Kevin Garnett is brilliant, but his Timberwolves teams (as a result of his style of play, partially, but mostly because of his teammates; and, to a lesser extent, Flip Saunders' offense) always ranked amongst the worst teams in the NBA when it came to getting to the free throw line. Ray Allen can score, but he rarely gets fouled in instances outside of baseline defenders grabbing his jersey to keep up with him curling off screens.

But Pierce gets fouled, a lot, he puts teams in the penalty and he makes it possible for KG and Allen to grab late-period free throws with the work Paul puts in during the early part of the quarter.

In fact, during the first Boston possession of the game, the C's ran a quick post-up (front of the rim, in the paint) for Pierce that was the impetus behind this performance (with Antoine Walker throwing the pass) and Shaquille O'Neal's post-game declaration that Paul Pierce was " The [motherflippin'] Truth." Capital T.

Another sport, another ring.

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GIPPERESQUE:

Thompson Makes His Move (Peter Robinson, 12/30/07, National Review: The Corner)

In the passage I found the most striking, Thompson does something no other Republican contender has attempted: appeal to Democrats.

You know, when I'm asked which of the current group of Democratic candidates I prefer to run against, I always say it really doesn't matter…These days all those candidates, all the Democratic leaders, are one and the same. They’re all NEA-MoveOn.org-ACLU-Michael Moore Democrats. They’ve allowed these radicals to take control of their party and dictate their course.

So this election is important not just to enact our conservative principles. This election is important to salvage a once-great political party from the grip of extremism and shake it back to its senses. It's time to give not just Republicans but independents, and, yes, good Democrats a chance to call a halt to the leftward lurch of the once-proud party of working people.

So in seeking the nomination of my own party, I want to say something a little unusual. I am asking my fellow Republicans to vote for me not only for what I have to say to them, but for what I have to say to the members of the other party—the millions of Democrats who haven't left the Democratic party so much as their party's national leadership has left them.

This is reminiscent of Reagan’s talk to the people of North Carolina in 1976. Simple, straightforward, modest production values—just the candidate in front of an American flag and an Iowa flag—but (to use the word again) compelling. Reagan’s 1976 talk enabled him to recover after a string of primary defeats, winning in North Carolina, then going on to come within a handful of delegates of wresting the nomination from Ford.

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THE POWER OF UNIFIED AND EXPANDED ANGLOSPHERE:

India's Halt to Burma Arms Sales May Pressure Junta (Glenn Kessler, 12/30/07, Washington Post)

India has halted all arms sales and transfers to Burma, a development that could increase international pressure on the military junta that brutally crushed the pro-democracy "Saffron Revolution" led by monks this fall.

The Indian government's decision has not been officially announced, but diplomatic sources said it has been privately confirmed by New Delhi to top U.S. officials in recent weeks. In a little-noticed statement, first lady Laura Bush noted the decision in a video teleconference she held on Dec. 10 in recognition of International Human Rights Day. Ticking off actions taken by countries around the world in response to the crackdown, Bush said, "India, one of Burma's closest trading partners, has stopped selling arms to the junta."

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UNLIKE AN AUTHORITARIAN REGIME...:

Iran's inner and outer circles of influence and power: The power of Shiite Muslim clergy has eroded in favor of various competing groups within a unique religious, civil, social and bureaucratic framework. (Borzou Daragahi, 12/31/07, Los Angeles Times)

Iran's supreme leader spoke not with the thunder of a man regarded in his country as God's representative on Earth, but with the exasperated tone of a corporate manager chastising his employees.

Ali Khamenei had ordered his deputies to start privatizing state-owned businesses: the telephone company, three banks and dozens of small oil and petrochemical enterprises.

Jealously guarding their own sources of power and patronage, however, his underlings all but ignored him.

Months passed. Then Khamenei gathered the country's elite for an extraordinary meeting. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Cabinet ministers were there, as were important clerics, the leader of parliament and provincial governors, and the heads of state broadcasting and the Iranian chamber of commerce.

With television cameras rolling, Khamenei told them to pass some laws, sell off some businesses -- and be quick about it. "Those who are hostile to these policies are the ones who are going to lose their interests and influence," he declared.

The system shrugged. By November, nine months after his public scolding and almost a year and a half after Khamenei had first issued his order, almost nothing had happened. According to the Middle East Economic Digest, only two out of 240 state-owned businesses Khamenei targeted had been sold off.

For years, Western analysts have struggled to understand the inner workings of Iran's leadership. To many, it is a government tightly controlled by the Shiite Muslim clergy. But the power of the clerics has steadily eroded. Increasingly, power is distributed among combative elites within a delicate system of checks and balances defined by religious as well as civil law, personal relations and the rhythm of bureaucracy.

Iran analysts struggle to discern which officials have authority and how much. And when Iranian officials make public pronouncements, it often is unclear whether they are expressing established policy or fighting among themselves -- speaking for their own faction or just themselves.

Concentric circles of influence and power that emanate from the supreme leader include the clergy, government and military officials -- and at their farthest fringes, militiamen and well-connected bazaar merchants -- altogether perhaps 15% of Iran's 70 million people.

Even the man regarded in Iran as the highest-ranking cleric in Shiite Islam finds himself constrained and challenged.

Those inside Iran's circle of power, says Ali Afshari, an analyst and former student activist now living in Washington, operate according to unique rules.

"It is not a democracy or an absolute totalitarian regime," he said. "Nor is it a communist system or monarchy or dictatorship. It is a mixture."

...Iran's problem is too great a separation of powers. The Ayatollah needs to understand how to elect allies next time around.

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FACT FROM FICTION:

Remembering the truth about Benazir (Mohan Guruswamy, 12/31/07, rediff)

While we must feel sorry for her as a mother, a wife, and even as a friend and be shocked at the manner of her dying, we must also bear in mind her record as prime minister and her record of hostility towards India.

A recollection of some of this would set right the balance somewhat. First and foremost is the fact that it was her government, and at her specific instance, that gave Osama bin Laden shelter in the NWFP and then inserted in Afghanistan after the Taliban took over. It was her government that fostered the Taliban, a creation of her interior minister, Maj Gen Nasarullah Babar, and with a little bit of help from Britain's SIS, armed them and launched them on the regime in Kabul. We must not also forget her record in setting up Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as a mujahideen leader, a warlord whose trail of sadism and cruelty has not been matched by anyone else in Afghanistan.

She was also the prime minister who gave the ISI the go-ahead to wage jihad on India. She was the one who exhorted the Pakistan trained and financed terrorists to 'jag-jag mo-mo han-han' Jagmohan the then governor of Jammu and Kashmir, with an explicit chopping motion of the right hand across the open left palm. She was the one who shrieked 'Azadi-azadi' from across the LOC and extended Zia-ul-Haq's doctrine of death by a thousand cuts to Kashmir. Only, she wanted to greatly reduce the number of cuts. And lastly, we must not forget that she was the one who personally delivered the CDs bearing AQ Khan's nuclear bomb design to the North Koreans who in turn gave her country the medium range missiles which they now flaunt as Ghazni and Ghori, both Afghan towns whose sole contributions to history was two particularly rapacious and cruel raiders by the name Muhammad.

If this was the record of her behavior towards India, her record as prime minister vis-�-vis her own country was just as bad. She and her husband stole over $1.5 billion from Pakistan and she was facing prosecution in Switzerland [Images] at the time of her death. Her 320 acre estate in Sussex stands like a Taj Mahal as her tribute to her love for easy money and the good life. Talking about the good life, the bill for Evian water from France during her second term as prime minister totted up to a neat $6 million. It is said that she even bathed in Evian water!

Benazir Bhutto got two chances at leading Pakistan, not because of her English pals from her Oxford days, but because of her American pals at Harvard and later in the South Asia divisions of the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.

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HAMAS DELIVERS:

Middle East conflict toll 'falls' (BBC, 12/31/07)

Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says that the number of deaths in Israeli-Palestinian violence fell sharply in 2007 as compared to 2006.

But the group's annual report says that Israeli security forces killed 373 Palestinians, and 131 of these were not involved in hostilities. [...]

Palestinians killed 13 Israelis in 2007 - seven of them civilians.

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THE GOOD OLD BOYS CIRCLE THE WAGONS:

Bloomberg Moves Closer to Running for President (SAM ROBERTS, 12/31/07, NY Times)

Buoyed by the still unsettled field, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is growing increasingly enchanted with the idea of an independent presidential bid, and his aides are aggressively laying the groundwork for him to run.

On Sunday, the mayor will join Democratic and Republican elder statesmen at the University of Oklahoma in what the conveners are billing as an effort to pressure the major party candidates to renounce partisan gridlock.

Former Senator David L. Boren of Oklahoma, who organized the session with former Senator Sam Nunn, a Democrat of Georgia, suggested in an interview that if the prospective major party nominees failed within two months to formally embrace bipartisanship and address the fundamental challenges facing the nation, “I would be among those who would urge Mr. Bloomberg to very seriously consider running for president as an independent.”

There's no surer way to prevent the election of the first black or woman than to give the Left a liberal white male alternative and guarantee a GOP victory.

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IMAGINE IF THEY WERE STILL THE STUPID PARTY:

David Cameron in strong signal on EU treaty (Andrew Porter, 31/12/2007, Daily Telegraph)

David Cameron has given the strongest signal yet that the Conservatives would consider holding a post-ratification referendum on the controversial EU Reform Treaty.

The Conservative leader said that the treaty - which critics claim is a revamped version of the defunct EU Constitution - is "wrong" and that his party would "address the issue".

Gordon Brown playing footsie with the EU moved the Tories back into the polling lead but they still can't bring themselves to grab the issue and run with it.

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COLLEGE IS JUST A NATIVE BOONDOGGLE:

Employers prefer migrants to UK graduates (Caroline Gammell, 31/12/2007, Daily Telegraph)

Labour's drive to boost the number of people going to university has produced a generation of poor quality graduates who are being outclassed by migrants, business leaders have warned.

More British students are gaining degrees but they are still struggling with basic English and maths, leaving employers more inclined to recruit people from Poland and central Europe, it was claimed.

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TRIBALISM TRUMPS IDEOLOGY:

Taliban in turmoil after argument over sacking (Tom Coghlan, 31/12/2007, Daily Telegraph)

The Taliban leadership are struggling to contain the fallout from an embarrassing public argument after a senior commander was sacked for disobeying orders but then refused to stand down.

Taliban spokesmen traded accusations in phone calls to news organisations after Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Islamist organisation, publicly sacked Mansoor Dadullah, the new overall ground commander fighting British forces in southern Afghanistan. [...]

The episode has drawn fresh attention to the potential fault lines within the organisation after reports in The Daily Telegraph that British intelligence had been negotiating with Taliban-aligned local commanders in Helmand province.

MI6 believed divisions were close to producing a tribal revolt in the north of Helmand last month ahead of an operation to retake the key town of Musa Qala.

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ARISTOCRACY ISN'T DEMOCRATIC:

Teen with world on his shoulders (SAEED SHAH AND BILL JACOBS, 12/31/07, The Scotsman)

Benazir Bhutto's student son vows to continue fight for democracy after he is named co-chairman of party

"MY MOTHER always said democracy is the best revenge." With those words, spoken in English, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a shy, 19-year-old student, took centre-stage in Pakistan's tumultuous and bloody politics yesterday.

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NOT THE RETURN TO BUT THE FOUNDING OF NORMALCY:

Baghdad Zoo is a draw again: With the help of U.S. troops, a sanctuary that was damaged and depleted by the onset of the war is revived. (Ann M. Simmons, 12/30/07, Los Angeles Times)

But in 15 months, [Capt. Amy ] Cronin and her unit, the 15th Brigade Support Battalion, have gone from providing logistics and supplies to U.S. troops to helping refurbish an animal clinic, building horse stables and constructing new habitats for bears and porcupines at the Baghdad Zoo.

"It's really satisfying," said Cronin, 28, from Boiling Springs, Pa. "Typically support soldiers don't get to interact with Iraqis as much as infantry would. And this gives me the satisfaction of seeing the direct results of my work."

That has included projects to resuscitate the zoo, in a lush 3-square-mile park in the heavily fortified Green Zone, which also includes the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition forces, the Iraqi parliament and other key administrative buildings. It used be among the largest animal sanctuaries in the Middle East.

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TUT-TUT, THOSE DAYS ARE OVER:

Kibaki sworn in as election results roil Kenya: Rioting, violence and claims of voting fraud accompany the declaration of the president as winner. (Nicholas Soi and Robyn Dixon, December 31, 2007, LA Times)

President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner today of last week's presidential elections and was hastily sworn in to a new five-year term, amid ethnic violence over the vote count and widespread allegations of fraud.

The chief of the European Union election observers in the country, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, immediately issued a statement casting doubt on the credibility of the results in an election that is crucial to consolidating this East African nation's young democracy.

Earlier, opposition presidential candidate Raila Odinga called on the 76-year-old president to concede defeat and called for a recount of the votes.

There were reports of renewed violence and rioting as soon as Kibaki's victory was announced on television.

Nice try, but the results will have to be reversed.

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HOW ABOUT NONE UNTIL SYRIA HAS AN ELECTION?

French president severs ties with Syria until further notice (JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP, 12/30/07)

"I will not have any more contact with the Syrians until... we have received proof of Syria's intention to let Lebanon designate a president of consensus," said Sarkozy at a press conference in Cairo after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. [...]

"France has taken the responsibility of talking with Syria," said Sarkozy. "One must recognize today that we cannot wait any longer, Syria must stop talking and now must act."

Syria has denied meddling with the election and has accused the French of working too closely with the US, which Damascus claims is trying to manipulate the Lebanese political process for its own interests - an accusation Washington denies.

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LET US NOT FORGET...:

A failed state groping for a way back from the brink:
Poor education, political ineptitude and the power of the jihadis are the forces dragging Pakistan down (William Dalrymple, 12/30/07, Sunday Times of London)

Among Pakistani MPs, journalists and lawyers after news of the assassination there was not only real sorrow but also real fear. Pakistanis are used to crises buffeting their country but many of them at the end of last week seemed on the verge of despair.

[P]akistan now finds itself in a major existential crisis, at the heart of which lies the central question: what sort of country do Pakistanis want? A western-style liberal democracy, as envisaged by Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah? An Islamic republic like Mullah Omar’s Afghanistan? A military-ruled junta of the sort created by Generals Ayyub Khan, Zia and Musharraf?

The most pressing crisis now facing Pakistan comes in the shape of the country’s many armed and dangerous jihadi groups. For 25 years the military and Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have been the paymasters of myriad mujaheddin groups intended for deployment first in Afghanistan and then Kashmir. While the military may have once believed that it could use jihadis for its own ends, the Islamists have followed their own agendas and have now brought their struggle onto Pakistani streets and into the heart of the country’s politics.

The assassination of Bhutto and the three recent attacks on Musharraf are just the tip of the iceberg. Every bit as alarming is the degree to which the jihadis now control much of the NorthWest Frontier Province. The Swat Valley – once one of the most popular destinations in South Asia for tourists – is now smouldering as government troops and jihadis battle for control.

...that desperate measures require desperate times.

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A STRANGER TO TRUTH:

Romney and the candor gap (GLEN JOHNSON, 12/30/07, Associated Press)

When confronted with questions that might conflict with his message of the day or political record, the Republican candidate has shown a tendency to bob and weave or simply dismiss history. He has done so all year, providing an easy target for his opponents. [...]

This past week, Romney did it again over questions about whether he was planning to air negative ads — in particular on the subject of illegal immigration — against John McCain. The Arizona senator has been surging in New Hampshire, where Romney is angling for back-to-back victories after a hoped-for win in this week's Iowa caucuses.

"I haven't made any decisions on what issue ads might come forward, down the road, but those aren't what we shot today," Romney told reporters on Wednesday. "What we shot today was just me to camera."

On Friday, his campaign went on TV with a new commercial, a so-called contrast ad that did not feature Romney speaking, but a narrator comparing his record to McCain's on immigration and tax matters.

Perhaps the hairspray fumes addle his mind.

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BE THE ALPHA ACT LIKE THE UNDER:

John McCain Busts a Move (Salena Zito, 12/30/07, Real Clear Politics)

"Townhall meeting by townhall meeting, bus ride by bus ride, and endless phone calls to local talk show hosts, are what have put McCain back on the map in New Hampshire," says David Carney, a GOP political strategist not affiliated with any campaign.

One of those local radio talk show hosts, former Democrat candidate for governor Arnie Arnesen, agrees. "(D)espite many voters' disappointment with his dismal campaign ... the charisma, smarts and straight talk of McCain did not evaporate with voters over the last eight years."

The best thing that happened to the McCain campaign was running out of money.

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CLOWNS DON'T GET TO BE RINGMASTERS:

The Minutemen Circus (Ruben Navarrette, 12/30/07, Real Clear Politics)

Tired of playing cop, some in the Minuteman movement are trying to influence the 2008 presidential election by playing powerbroker. And like just about everything this bunch does, the results are sad -- but funny. [...]

Here's the funny part: Suddenly, other anti-illegal immigration activists are hounding [Jim Gilchrist, one of the co-founders of the Minuteman Project] with the same zeal with which he once hounded illegal immigrants at the border. After Gilchrist appeared with Huckabee at a news conference in Iowa, the vigilante leader was bludgeoned on the Internet by hard-core nativists who believe Huckabee is soft on illegal immigration and that Gilchrist is just out for Gilchrist.

You don't say.

The requirement of ideological purity rationally follows that of racial purity.

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COUNTER-NARRATIVE:

Letter from America (Richard Bernstein, December 30, 2007, NY Times)

Fixing the large problem of medical care is a matter of complicated, multi-page, somewhat abstract proposals put out by senators and presidential candidates, but getting cared for is a matter of individual patients and individual doctors, and the experience can be highly satisfactory.

I write this lying at home in the borough of Brooklyn in a rented hospital bed, seven days after an orthopedic surgeon at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan performed these procedures on me:

He sawed off the top of my thigh bone, stripped away one by one the layers of muscle and cartilage around the joint, smoothed the pelvic socket above the leg and installed a precision-machined titanium and plastic prosthesis to replace the discarded joint. Then the surgeon reassembled the whole upper leg, reattaching muscle and cartilage as necessary.

It took roughly two hours to do all that while I lay unaware on the operating table. He did it all through a modest five-inch incision, with so little resulting bleeding that I didn't need a drop of the blood I had donated a week or so earlier, just in case.

And while I am still in recovery mode, walking on crutches and the like, if I am typical of other recipients of total hip replacement, I am soon going to be enjoying the full use of my right leg. And this was a leg damaged enough by osteoarthritis that for the last few months it was hard for me to put my socks on in the morning - much less play soccer with my son or even take a pain-free after-dinner stroll in my neighborhood.

Moreover, except for a private-room supplement at the wonderful St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, the entire cost - probably in the neighborhood of $25,000 to $30,000 - is going to be covered by my health insurance company. This includes not only the hospital treatment itself and all medications but post-operative physical therapy, and even the little "hip kit" you get with devices to help you put on your socks while still in the laid-up phase.

Since Red Smith died, Mr. Bernstein has been the best thing about the Times.

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UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

Recalibrate Pelosi's GPS? (James G. Zumwalt, December 30, 2007 , Washington Times)

There is always danger involved in a democratic leader's decision to go to a foreign state to conduct direct talks with a tyrannical leader whose inability to respect the human rights of his own people is obvious. The danger lies in giving credibility to the tyrant and undermining support for that country's human-rights activists.

The month after Mrs. Pelosi's visit, the Syrian government launched an accelerated crackdown on free speech and peaceful activism, arresting several dissidents within a three-week period. Perhaps emboldened by Mrs. Pelosi's visit and her personal accolades about the Syrian president, Mr. Assad sentenced six of Syria's leading activists to extremely harsh sentences ranging from three to 12 years. The six — Michel Kilo, Mahmud 'Issa, Sulaiman Shummar, Khalil Hussain, Dr. Kamal al-Labwani and Anwar al-Bunni — were all convicted on politically motivated charges, most for simply signing a declaration calling for improved Lebanese-Syrian relations. These sentences made clear Mr. Assad's mandate that Syrian citizens are not to express political opinions, even though this right is guaranteed by an international agreement to which Damascus is a party. While the United States and the European Union criticized the sentences, Speaker Pelosi remained uncharacteristically silent.

Also the month after Mrs. Pelosi's visit came passage of a referendum to confirm a second seven-year term of office for Mr. Assad. In a general election reminiscent of the sham elections that took place in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's reign — with only one candidate on the ballot — Mr. Assad received 97.2 percent of the vote.

Tolerating the existence of the Syrian regime is the biggest black mark on President Bush's record.

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A CONSERVATIVE INTELLECTUAL IS AN INTELLECTUAL, NOT A CONSERVATIVE:

Moral Clarity in Iowa (Kevin McCullough, December 30, 2007, Townhall)

What will be the deciding issue for Iowa GOP voters on January 3rd?

According to KCCI-TV in Des Moines who commissioned a poll to find out, Iowans indicated it will be the future moral direction of the country.

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton reacts while talking to a resident of Clinton, Iowa during a campaign stop December 29, 2007. REUTERS/Andy Clark (UNITED STATES)
Related Media:
VIDEO: And the Winners Are

Northeastern Republicans and radio shows which emanate from the E-fax studios in Orange County California may despise it - but that is the number one issue on the minds of GOP voters in Iowa. The Beltway-Manhattan elite can cluck and curse all they want but the reality is the largest chunk of GOP voters in Iowa (and also much reflective of the rest of the red states) want a candidate with clarity on the moral tests that face our nation directly.

It would behoove the editors of the most prominent conservative online and broadcast outlets to take notice of what these voters have to say.

You can see how estranged they are from the base by their support of John McCain last time, because they loathed W, and their opposition to him this, in favor of Rudy and Mitt.

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PANTS AFIRE:

More Mitt Malarkey: Romney repeats misleading claims about McCain's stand on immigration and his own record on taxes. (factcheck.org, Dec 29, 2007)

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WHICH TRIBE DO YOU ALIENATE?:

Top Democrats Reticent on Primary Choices (Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray, December 30, 2007, Washington Post)

The silence is deafening. So many prominent politicians, particularly Democrats, have refrained from endorsing a presidential candidate. Are they drowning in a sea of good options, or terrified of making the wrong call?

You can pick the woman and alienate blacks and Latinos or the black and alienate women and Latinos. Why choose?

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THEY'VE BEEN RESONATING FOR THIRTY YEARS:

David Cameron’s policies ‘resonate’ with public, admits Jack Straw (David Cracknell, 12/30/07, Sunday Times of London)

A SENIOR cabinet minister has admitted David Cameron’s campaign is “resonating” with the public and the government must “adapt” if it is to keep power.

After a disastrous autumn for Gordon Brown, in which the Tories took a convincing lead in the opinion polls, Jack Straw accepted in an interview with The Sunday Times that there had been “problems” that must be put right next year and that “clear progress” must be made.

Letting the Tories steal back Thatcherism/Blairism was remarkably inept, like Al Gore handing the Clinton legacy to W.

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BARE IN THE WOODS:

Russian population dropped this year (Calibre, December 29, 2007)

Russia lost more than 200,000 people this year, the statistics service said Saturday.

The population decline of 0.15 percent was slightly smaller than in 2006, RIA Novosti reported. The country's population was estimated at 142 million as of Nov. 1, the Russian news agency said.

While the death rate continued to exceed the birth rate, the number of immigrants was up 87 percent. [...]

United Nations demographers say if current trends continue, Russia's population will be one-third smaller than it is now in 2050.

Fear of Russia is second only to fear of the debt as an indicator of innumeracy.

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WHAT SEPARATES REAGAN AND W FROM LBJ AND NIXON:

Thompson: 'Not particularly interested in running for president' (CNN, 12/29/07)

Republican Fred Thompson has long faced criticism he lacks motivation to be President of the United States, but the Tennessee Republican's latest comments Saturday are likely to spawn fresh heat.

“I’m not particularly interested in running for president," the former senator said at a campaign event in Burlington when challenged by a voter over his desire to be commander-in-chief.

“But I think I’d make a good president," Thompson continued. "I have the background, capability, and concern to do this and I’m doing it for the right reasons.” [...]

"I am not consumed by personal ambition," Thompson also said Saturday. "I'm offering myself up."

"I'm only consumed by a few things and politics is not one of them."

A too rare sign of mental health from a preside ntial candidate.

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WITH OR AGAINST:

Diplomats expelled 'at behest of the US' (Eleanor Mayne, 30/12/2007, Sunday Telegraph)

Two European diplomats accused of holding secret talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan were thrown out of the country following a complaint by the US, intelligence officials in Kabul have told The Sunday Telegraph. [...]

[A]ccording to a senior Afghan intelligence source, American officials had been unhappy about meetings between the men and high-level Taliban commanders in the volatile Helmand province.

The source claimed that the US alerted Afghan authorities after learning that the diplomats were providing direct financial and other support - including mobile phone cards - to the Taliban commanders, in the hope of persuading them to swap sides.

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THE LITTLE TEASE:

JK Rowling drops hints of possible eighth Harry Potter book (RHODRI PHILLIPS, 29th December 2007, Daily Mail)

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has strongly hinted for the first time that she could write an eighth book in the series.

Rowling, 42, admits she has 'weak moments' when she feels she will pen another novel about the boy wizard.

One of her biggest fans – her 14-year-old daughter Jessica – has already put pressure on her to revisit the character.

You'd think authors would have stopped pretending they control their characters by now, since Cervantes lost control of the Don in the first novel.

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IT PUTS THE LOTION ON ITS HANDS... (via Brad S):

Bush Rejects Defense Bill by Pocket Veto (BEN FELLER, 12/28/07, AP) — President Bush on Friday used a "pocket veto" to reject a sweeping defense bill because he dislikes a provision that would expose the Iraqi government to expensive lawsuits seeking damages from the Saddam Hussein era. [...]

Bush's decision to use a pocket veto, announced while vacationing at his Texas ranch, means the legislation will die at midnight Dec. 31. This tactic for killing a bill can be used only when Congress is not in session.

The House last week adjourned until Jan. 15; the Senate returns a week later but has been holding brief, often seconds-long pro forma sessions every two or three days to prevent Bush from making appointments that otherwise would need Senate approval.
He treated frogs better when he was a kid.

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HE OUGHT TO GET A REFUND...:

Mitt Romney Down For The Count? (Thomas Edsall, 12/29/07, Real Clear Politics)

From a purely business point of view the past four weeks have marked an extraordinary setback for the Romney campaign.

Since January 1, 2007, the former Massachusetts governor has spent well in excess of $80 million, including at least $17.4 million of his own money, paying media fees in excess of $30 million, salaries of roughly $16 million, and consulting payments of more than $15 million.

...from whoever told him it made good political sense for a Mormon to put so many eggs in Iowa's Evangelical basket. NH should have been his big bet.

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HOW COULD HUMANISTS NOT BLAME HUMANS? (via Jim Yates):

Gore Milks Cash Cow (Jorg von Uthmann, Dec. 28, 2007, Bloomberg)

The most conspicuous doubter in France is Claude Allegre, a former education minister and a physicist by profession. His new book, ``Ma Verite Sur la Planete'' (``My Truth About the Planet''), doesn't mince words.

He calls Gore a ``crook'' presiding over an eco-business that pumps out cash. As for Gore's French followers, the author likens them to religious zealots who, far from saving humanity, are endangering it. Driven by a Judeo-Christian guilt complex, he says, French greens paint worst-case scenarios and attribute little-understood cycles to human misbehavior.

Allegre doesn't deny that the climate has changed or that extreme weather has become more common. He instead emphasizes the local character of these phenomena.

While the icecap of the North Pole is shrinking, the one covering Antarctica -- or 92 percent of the Earth's ice -- is not, he says. Nor have Scandinavian glaciers receded, he says. To play down these differences by basing forecasts on a global average makes no sense to Allegre.

To believe in Creation is to doubt we have much effect on it.

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FINDING GRANT:

Courageous and liberal, yes – but an unreliable partner for the West (Bronwen Maddox, 12/29/07, Times of London)

As a potential saviour of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was an uncomfortable candidate: dogged by corruption charges that might have resurfaced with new seriousness in Swiss courts in the new year and by a record of calamitous ineffectiveness during her two terms as Prime Minister. [...]

She was the best of an unattractive lineup; Pakistan has never been blessed in its politicians, who represent the worst of its society – feudal and fonder of patronage than principle. Western-educated and female, Ms Bhutto appeared to stand for the liberal values that the West wants to encourage in Pakistan.

But Britain and the US may have been too pragmatic by half in putting such weight on so imperfect a figure, and in hoping that her strengths would outweigh her enormous weaknesses: grandiosity, a sense of destiny that she interpreted as licence to do what she wanted and an indifference to the distinction between the interests of Pakistan and her own. They made light of the unpredictability of her policies; in office, she let public spending and debt rise to unmanageable proportions, and she was ambivalent towards the US and India.

Perhaps it would be helpful to think of America as President Lincoln and Pakistan as the Union command. What is needed is a fighting general who will go into the Tribal areas and take on the Islamicists and it doesn't make much difference who that person is nor their other qualities.

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BUILDING HOPE:

Iraqi sees signs of hope in his war-torn nation (BILL HESS,. 12/29/07, Herald/Review)

What was once known as the Triangle of Death in this war-torn county is now the Triangle of Hope, an Iraqi adviser to an American Army unit said.

“We are building schools, roads and we have repaired a bridge,” Hashim Khidir, said of an area that is part of 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) responsibility south of Baghdad. [...]

Khidir helps provide engineering expertise to the 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry, 3rd Bridge Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division (Assault). But he said many other projects are helping to build a base for democracy in his homeland.

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THE THREAT TO IRAN IS IRANIANS:

Iran's elite military force fears security threat from within (Najmeh Bozorgmehr, December 28 2007, Financial Times)

It has been accused of playing a role in arming Shia militia in Iraq and threatened with being labelled a "terrorist organisation" by the US, but Iran's Revolutionary Guard - the country's elite military force - believes that domestic security threats represent a much greater danger to the country than the international crisis surrounding its nuclear programme.

Mohammad-Ali Jafari, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, said shortly after he took his new job in September: "The main mission of the guards is currently fighting domestic threats and in case there is a foreign threat we will join the [conventional] army."

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SOMETIMES THE 80s SEEM LIKE CENTURIES AGO:

Growth of a revolutionary boomtown: Timisoara, the cradle of Romania's 1989 revolution, is enjoying an economic revival. Nick Thorpe reports on urban wealth and a city balancing between empires old and new. (Nick Thorpe, 12/29/07, BBC)

The twilight of 2007 finds the city embedded in the European empire.

There are very few Jews left and the number of Hungarians is dwindling but the Italians have arrived in force.

Marco Petriccione, country manager of the Banko Italo Romena, has been here for five years.

His was the first Italian bank to set up here, to absorb the business demands of 6,000 Italians.

Romanians go to Italy to work, usually in menial jobs, but the Italians come here as employers attracted by low Romanian wages - still under an average of £300 (406 euros) a month.

At first they manufactured shoes and textiles.

Look out for the "designed in Italy" on that expensive label but read "made in Romania" between the lines.

But as wages rise here, those companies are going further east, to the Republic of Moldova, for example.

In their place, big Italian electricity companies like Enel and Ansaldo are arriving to fill the growing demand for energy and infrastructure.

In St George's Cathedral, on Piata Unirii, I once watched a nun mopping the floor early in the morning, the splash of her bucket mingling with the prayers of the faithful.

This time, there are no candles but, in the dim electric light, the huge gilded figures of angels seem to soar out of the shadows, chastising the congregation for their latest sin - shopping.

"Whenever I ring my friends, they tell me they're shopping," my colleague Mircea complains.

"It's the national sport now in Romania."

Consider how much such places have changed in just two decades and despair over the Islamic world seems silly.

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CONSERVATIVES VS. LIBERTY WAS NEVER GOING TO LAST:

Harry Dent | b. 1930: The Southern Strategist (RICK PERLSTEIN, 12/30/07, NY Times Magazine)

For most of the post-Civil-War era, the Grand Old Party survived in the Southern popular imagination as the Yankee enemy, eager to conspire with newly enfranchised slaves to overturn the entire “Southern way of life.” In 1957, Republican congressmen were instrumental in passing the first federal civil rights law in almost a century. The idea of a Southern state delivering its electoral votes to “the party of Lincoln” would have seemed outrageous before the 1960s — before, that is, the national Democratic Party made a commitment to the enforcement of civil rights for blacks.

By then, Harry Dent was a top political aide to Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond ran for president as a third-party “Dixiecrat” in 1948 after the Democratic convention passed a civil rights plank. Shortly before the 1964 presidential election, a Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, passed the most sweeping civil rights law in United States history. This time, Thurmond didn’t form a third party. The Republican presidential nominee, the conservative Barry Goldwater, opposed the civil rights law, which was political heresy at the time, as the conventional wisdom was that Republicans could not win the presidency without courting the black vote. Dent, a Southerner through and through — he was a lay preacher and established the Senate’s breakfast prayer group — persuaded his boss to drop out of the Democratic Party for good, join the Republicans and campaign for Goldwater. Goldwater lost in a landslide, winning just six states, five of them in Dixie. The “solid Democratic South” had been breached. American politics would never be the same.

America's natural conservatism enabled us to avoid most of the worst of the socialism epoch. But for the historical oddity of Southern white males joining with Northern liberals to keep blacks down, we might have avoided the rest.

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THEY HAVE MINUTEMEN, WE HAVE HALF-MINUTE MEN:

Influx fuels rise in U.S. population (Sean Lengell, December 29, 2007, Washington Times)

A new immigrant — legal or illegal — is expected to enter the United States every 30 seconds by January, the U.S. Census Bureau says.

The agency estimates this foreign influx will increase the total U.S. population by one person every 13 seconds.

The U.S. also is expected to register one birth every eight seconds and one death every 11 seconds by next month.

The Census Bureau is projecting the nation's Jan. 1 total population will be 303,146,284 — a 0.9 percent increase from New Year"s Day 2007.

The estimate is similar to recent annual population increases of about 1 percent.

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THE EYE-ROLLERS:

An American in Iran (Max Rodenbeck, 1/17/08, NY Review of Books)

There is not much to see, really, but as I turn to leave, a young man approaches with a smile, and introduces himself as an engineer working for a European company in Iran. The only reason he is here, the engineer quickly explains, is to please his mother-in-law, who is visiting from the provinces. He himself was born in the year of the revolution, and his father died in the war with Iraq. But he finds all this "martyrdom stuff" overdone. He reckons that the current government won't last long, because people like him who cynically disdained to vote in 2005 will be sure to do so next time around, in parliamentary elections next March, and presidential ones in 2009; at least, so long as George W. Bush does not attack Iran and provoke a backlash. President Ahmadinejad's comments about the Holocaust and Israel were "stupid," says the engineer. He has no doubt that the country will change, no matter how hard such usulgaran, or fundamentalists, try to stop it. But it will do so gradually and peacefully: "We've tried revolution, and nobody wants that again."

Over and again, traveling this Mexico-sized and intensely proud country, one is impressed by a similar weariness with politics, mixed with resentment at state efforts to stir the embers of revolutionary fervor. The eye-rolling is not caused by some overpowering attraction to Western culture. Iranians cherish being different. They clearly prefer their own food and music and poetry, not to mention religion. Nor is the sullen mood necessarily due to anger at repression of women, or dissidents, or minorities. While it is true that the regime's habit of banning books and throwing activists in jail has grown sharply nastier under Ahmadinejad, still, the level of fear remains far lower than in the 1980s. Apart from the tiresome dress code and some lingering discriminatory laws, women in Iran are freer than in neighboring countries. Headscarved women work, drive, jog in public parks, and run for public office. Minorities are mostly better off, too, enjoying freedom of worship, language rights, and quotas in parliament. (With the notable exception of the Bahais, a modern branch of Shiism regarded by mainstream mullahs as heretical.) Unlike their restive brothers across the border in Turkey, Iranian Kurds have rarely felt much need to revolt. Political dissent of other kinds still risks punishment but is less dangerous here than in, say, Saudi Arabia or Syria. At least Iranians can vote, and know that their vote makes a difference.

The weariness cannot be ascribed solely to a shaky economy either. It is true that prices, and especially rents, are rising painfully fast for people on fixed incomes. Corruption is rife, the gap between rich and poor is as great as under the Shah, and businessmen complain bitterly of the incompetence and erratic policies of the Ahmadinejad administration. But living standards and public services have steadily, if slowly, improved in recent years. The effects of sanctions are not widely felt, so far. Life is hard for many, but appears decent by regional standards.

Yet there does appear to be one factor that unifies a very large portion of the Iranian public in a sort of generalized melancholy. This is the desire to escape from a mental ghetto in which they are encouraged to see enemies everywhere, to sustain evidently hypocritical notions of purity, and to put up with the finger-wagging of preachers and police and chador-encased proctors. It is a repressed demand not so much for political change as for personal freedom.

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PAKISTAN IS, AND HAS BEEN FROM THE START, WHERE THE WAR ENDS:

'Al Qaeda has become Pakistani phenomenon' (PTI, December 29, 2007)

"Clearly, Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan does not just comprise Arabs and Uzbeks and Tajiks. It also comprises Pakistanis; and among such Pakistanis it comprises Pathans and Punjabis and possibly Urdu speakers who constitute the Pakistani Taliban," the Daily Times said in an article.

"Certainly, it is known that a number of Pakistani sectarian and jihadi Sunni organisations have joined the Al Qaeda network after the government launched efforts to disband them since the 'peace process' started with India. So Al Qaeda is now as much a Pakistani phenomenon as it is an Arab or foreign element."

The government on Friday held the Al Qaeda responsible for a series of suicide bombings meant to destabilize Pakistan, including the attack in Rawalpindi on Bhutto on Thursday that killed her and nearly 30 others. It said it had intelligence intercepts of Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, congratulating another person for the attack.

"Why is it difficult to believe that the same Islamist network that tried to eliminate President (Pervez) Musharraf, (former premier) Shaukat Aziz, (ex-interior minister) Aftab Sherpao and Benazir Bhutto on October 18 may be responsible for her murder on December 27," the newspaper article said.

"The first three have overtly been involved in the 'war against terror' while Bhutto had pledged many times to wipe out the extremists and terrorists if she was returned to power. All were seen as American agents or puppets."

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OUCH!:

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BECAUSE, GOD FORBID HE SHOULD RUN WHEN HE MIGHT BE MILDLY QUALIFIED:

Obama: 2008 or bust (Lauren Appelbaum, 12/28/07, First Read)

Obama told his supporters if he doesn't win in 2008, he won't be trying again later on.

We can't rule out the possibility that 8 or 12 years from now he might actually have passed a piece of legislation...

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Poland's Oscar nominated Kawalerowicz dies aged 85 (AFP, 12/28/07)

Oscar-nominated Polish film director Jerzy Kawalerowicz died aged 85 in the Polish capital Warsaw late Thursday after suffering a hemorrhage, Poland's Association of Cinematographers confirmed Friday.

Among the fathers of the 1950's "Polish school" of cinematography, Kawalerowicz directed 17 feature films during his life-time. [...]

The 2001 screen production of "Quo Vadis", a novel by Poland's 19th century Nobel-prize winning author Henryk Sienkiewicz, was his most recent work.

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DISORDER IN ONE'S MIND DOESN'T ALTER REALITY:

Home Thoughts From Abroad: Some U.S. soldiers have spent so much time in Iraq, it feels like home. (Lawrence Kaplan, Dec. 26, 2007, Slate)

Whether measured in terms of tactics and techniques improved, operational schemes perfected, or the clan loyalties of every house on every street cataloged and memorized, the accumulation of experience counts for everything in this war. In Iraq, roughly half of all casualties tend to be suffered during the first three months of a unit's 15-month deployment. When I last visited Bravo Company, it was getting hit by IEDs twice a day and mortared routinely. "The whole area was a meat grinder," Sgt. Johnson recalled, pointing to the canals and dikes that order the surrounding "triangle of death" into neat grids. But engagement with local tribes, intelligence tips, and targeted raids had quieted the area to the point where the company hadn't been hit by a single IED strike in four months. Similarly, the brigade as a whole had lost more than 50 soldiers during its first eight months in Iraq, but only one during the last four months.

What is true in microcosm is also true writ large. In a war where it's nearly impossible to detect intellectual coherence, the Army's learning curve tells a clear story.

The arc of the war lacks coherence only if you never understood its end and continue not to. Grasp once that the point was to depose a minority tyranny and create an opportunity for majority self-determination and the rest is not only comprehensible but often takes on a certain inevitability.

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GOT TO BE IN THE FINAL THREE:

Thompson eyes 'strong showing' in Iowa (Stephen Dinan, December 28, 2007, Associated Press)

Fred Thompson is flooding this state with his best asset — himself — hoping voters are tired of the other Republican presidential candidates and willing to take a second look at his own candidacy before next week's caucuses. [...]

Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential nominating contest is next Thursday, and the campaigns' bets are now in — and Mr. Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, has the most to gain or lose.

"We had to have a very strong showing in some of the early states so we could go to South Carolina in a competitive mode, and we decided Iowa is the best for that," said William B. Lacy, Mr. Thompson's campaign manager, who said Iowa is "just tailor-made" for the kind of barnstorming tour Mr. Thompson is conducting. He said the hope is with Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Romney "fighting it out at the top, to just slide right up through the middle."

Mr. Thompson can't afford to make no showing in an IA that Mike Huckabee wins and a NH that John McCain wins or else he's eliminated along with Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani before the race even gets to SC. Being the conservative alternative doesn't work with the liberals gone.

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YOU CAN'T STABILIZE SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T EXIST:

Benazir's death won't have long-term impact (A K Verma, December 28, 2007, rediff)

No individual leader in Pakistan has been a match for the accumulated problems of the country. Some of these problems have existed from the day Pakistan came into existence. A national identity, universally acceptable within the country, remains elusive. The polity and the ruling elites have not been able to reach a consensus on what should be the acceptable goals for the nation. Although the State is an Islamic republic, identifiable and articulate groups want it converted into an Islamist entity. The strength of such groups is on the ascendancy as Talibanisation creeps in on an incremental scale.

Benazir's assassination is the result of this phenomenon.

Benazir, as prime minister for the third term or just as the leader of the Pakistan People's Party, the most popular political party in Pakistan, in all likelihood, would have been unable to stem the tide.

The mutually antagonistic relationship between Islamist and non Islamist groups in Pakistan has reached a stage where no liberal and secular leader can be considered safe from risks such as faced by Benazir.

Benazir had created vast followings in the Sind and Punjab provinces but not in Baluchistan or the North West Frontier Province. In fact, no Pakistani leader has had popular support in all the four provinces simultaneously. An underlying cause is the absence of pervasive unity between different cultural and linguistic groups in Pakistan.

Language is often a major marker of identity of a group. In the absence of social justice and developmental equality, this marker acquires a deeper imprint. Even though emergence of Bangladesh from Pakistan as an independent nation highlighted this paradigm, Pakistan's politicians learnt no lessons. Every region of Pakistan places its own regional identity above that of Pakistan as a nation.

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A NICE BUMP, BUT...:

Bhutto death makes McCain man of the moment (Roger Simon, Dec 28, 2007, Politico)

John McCain, older than dirt and with more scars than Frankenstein as he likes to say, suddenly wasn’t looking so bad.

Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated in Pakistan and the political conversation in America had changed.

Which means at least for a little while Republicans here were not thinking about which presidential candidate was tougher on immigration or which had the best Christian conservative credentials.

...it's a story that will be forgetten by 2008. From the voters' perspective, the takeaway from the Bhutto assassination is that they're killing each other now instead of us.

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NOT THAT THEY'VE HAD MUCH SHOT ANYWAY...:

Obama & the Burden of Liberalism (Kimberley Strassel, 12/28/07, Opinion Journal)

If the Democratic race has been about anything, it's been about promises of "change." Mr. Obama has made it his signature issue, tapping into a national unease with the status quo, and riding it to within striking distance of Hillary Clinton. What the charismatic young Illinois senator has not yet had to do is explain what shape this change will assume, or how he intends to bring it about. And lucky for him, because it's far from clear Mr. Obama is anything but same old, same old. [...]

Washington is gridlocked in part because congressional Democrats have attempted to govern with an agenda that is too liberal even for many in their own party. Mr. Obama is captivating, though probably not captivating enough to convince Republican rivals to sign up for Nancy Pelosi's game plan. His only real tool for changing Washington presumably rests in convincing his own party to move toward a more innovative middle. Yet nothing in Mr. Obama's history, or current campaign, suggests he intends to forge a new Democratic direction.

As a candidate, Bill Clinton recognized Democrats' national image problems, and ran on a message of "opportunity, responsibility, community." President Bill Clinton abandoned most of that within his first 100 days, caving to liberals. But it remains the case that his signature policy achievements--welfare reform and trade--were the result of his ability to shift Democrats toward the center. When Mr. Obama was last heard talking about trade, it was to complain that Americans had lost their jobs for "a cheaper T-shirt" and to promise to "amend" Mr. Clinton's Nafta with stricter labor agreements.

This is no Joe Lieberman, who seeks to keep his party from jumping off a foreign policy cliff. Mr. Obama criticizes any Democrat who supported the Iraq war. This is no Daniel Moynihan, who favored private Social Security accounts as a means of alleviating wealth inequality. In 2005, Mr. Obama suggested private accounts were a form of "social Darwinism." This is no former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux, who wanted to transform Medicare into a system that would help seniors buy insurance on the private market. Mr. Obama has blasted Medicare Advantage, and boasts of his votes to pour more money into today's failing government-run system.

As for Mr. Obama's claim he is no slave to "rigid ideology," consider his voting record. National Journal in March released its 2006 annual rankings of Congress based on key roll call votes, and Mr. Obama was found to be more liberal than 86% of his senatorial colleagues.

...but one of the reasons Democrats have fared so poorly in national elections the past thirty years is their tendency to nominate a pig in a poke, who turns out to be a disaster during the campaign, while the GOP just anoints the next in line, a known quantity, if generally an unexciting one. It's a matter of sizzle vs. steak and the former is fleeting by nature.

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NO ONE LIKES IT BUT VOTERS:

Criticism Aside, 'FairTax' Boosts Huckabee Campaign (Jonathan Weisman, 12/28/07, Washington Post)

To former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, supporting a national retail sales tax is more than a policy proposal. It has provided much-needed muscle for his campaign, filling rallies and events with fervent supporters hoping to replace the entire income and payroll tax system.

There's one problem: A national sales tax won't work, at least not according to tax experts and economists of all political stripes. [...]

"Am I running for president to shut down the federal government? Not exactly," Huckabee says on his Web site. "But I am running to completely eliminate all federal income and payroll taxes. And I do mean all -- personal federal, corporate federal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment. . . . Instead we will have the FairTax, a simple tax based on wealth."

Critics won't beat him with nothing. They need a better simple tax plan.

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THE DISCIPLINE OF DEMOCRACY:

Inflation Fuels Anger Toward Ahmadinejad (ALI AKBAR DAREINI, 12/27/07, AP)

A sharp rise in inflation has provoked fierce criticism of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - not only from his reformist opponents, but also from senior conservatives who helped bring him to power but now say he is mismanaging the economy.

Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 on a populist agenda promising to bring oil revenues to every family, eradicate poverty, improve living standards and tackle unemployment. Now he is being challenged for his failure to meet those promises.

Reformists and even some fellow conservatives say Ahmadinejad has concentrated too much on fiery, anti-U.S. speeches and not enough on the economy - and they have become more aggressive in calling him to account.

Some regime changes are easier than others.

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PINKY DIED FOR THEIR COMPLACENCE:

With Bhutto Gone. . .: Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Steve Schippert, co-founder of the Center for Threat Awareness and managing editor for ThreatsWatch.org. (Jamie Glazov, 12/28/07, FrontPageMagazine.com)

FP: What does the assassination of Bhutto mean for Pakistan going forward? What perils now lie ahead?

Schippert: Benazir Bhutto's assassination Thursday is a devastating blow for Pakistan and a great loss as such for the West. For all her faults readily pointed out by her critics - rightly or wrongly - she remained the best hope for a representation of reasonable and moderate Pakistanis within their own government.

Now, the only significantly popular alternative is another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. And he has advocated a Pakistani position of unceremonious distancing of Pakistan from the United States and cozying up to the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance of terrorists and insurgents nested in Pakistan's tribal regions. He is also said to have benefited from a significant contribution in his failed first run for prime minister from none other than Usama bin Laden - to the tune of $3 billion rupees. For the West, he is not a trustworthy ally at all against al-Qaeda in his midst.

The elections slated for January 8th will almost certainly be delayed by Musharraf, who can be expected to announce another phase of emergency powers if violent street protests do not abate - effectively enacting a state of emergency with the constitution suspended and martial law in place.

It should be noted that instability and disunity are a requirement of any successful insurgency campaign....

Destabilization and disunity are, likewise, the basis of any successful counterinsurgency campaign, as witness post-911 American intervention in Afghanistan, Libya, Liberia, the Sudan, Iraq, Palestine, etc.. Indeed, the specific steps required in Pakistan involve destabilization and disunion, carving out the Tribal Areas into a separate state or states and imposing on them the sovereign responsibility to quash their own extremists or we will. The notion that what Pakistan needs is moderation is lunacy. What made Ms Bhutto useful was the unlikelihood that she'd be as liberal as her rhetoric once in power.

MORE:
Al Qaeda is right under Musharraf's nose (B Raman, December 28, 2007, rediff)

Since 9/11, there has been hardly any jihadi terrorist strike anywhere in the world in which there was no Pakistani connection.

Since 2002, there has been hardly any jihadi terrorist strike in Pakistani territory in which there was no connection of the Pakistan army's general headquarters. By GHQ, one does not mean the entire army; one means some elements in the GHQ.

Was Al-Qaida Behind Bhutto's Slaying?: President Pervez Musharraf was quick to blame Islamist terrorists for the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Thursday. Now the United States is trying to determine the validity of a purported claim of responsibilty by al-Qaida. (Der Spiegel, 12/28/07)

It is clear that slain Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto did not want for enemies. While her supporters initial reaction to news of her assassination (more...) on Thursday had been to point the finger at President Pervez Musharraf, the president blamed Islamic militants for the attack.

The terrorist network al-Qaida was quick to claim responsibility for killing the veteran politician who had twice been prime minister and was hoping to serve a third term following forthcoming elections on Jan. 8. Pakistani broadcaster ARY TV reported that the terror network had said it had carried out the gun and bomb attack which killed Bhutto and at least 16 others.

Irrespective of who was actually responsible, our intelligence services (such as they are) should be spreading rumors that al Qaeda did it and playing up their imaginary resurgence in order to increase pressure on Pakistan to deal with its West and with infiltration of its military by Islamicists.

MORE/MORE:
Pakistan After Bhutto (SIMON ROBINSON, 12/28/07, TIME)

Even as Pakistan buries assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto today, mourning Pakistanis are beginning to think about what comes next for their beleaguered nation. Bhutto supporters vented their anger late into Thursday night, burning shops, police stations and buses in Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi, the site of yesterday's suicide attack. Rioting continued on Friday. "It has released bottled up national energies," says lieutenant general Hameed Gul, the former director general of Pakistan's intelligence organization, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). "[The assassination] is going to really excite the people, bring them out."

Which is why it represents another massive strategic miscalculation by the Islamicists. Their best interest was served by Pakistani lassitude. Energized populations are an existential threat to them.

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WHICH IS WHY THE ENERGY BILL'S DEADLINE SHOULD BE SHORTENED:

New efficient bulb sees the light (BBC, 12/28/07)

A new type of super-efficient household light bulb is being developed which could spell the end of regular bulbs.

Experts have found a way to make Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) brighter and use less power than energy efficient light bulbs currently on the market.

Libertarians will still only read by whale oil lanterns....

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...WHILE LIBERTY'S CENTURY ROLLS RIGHT ALONG...:

Vote Counting Under Way in Kenyan Presidential Elections (VOA News, 28 December 2007)

Vote-counting is under way in Kenya following presidential and parliamentary elections, and the first official results are expected later Friday.

About 14 million Kenyans were eligible to cast ballots Thursday in a close presidential race between the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, and his main challenger, Raila Odinga.

Witnesses say voter turnout appeared to be high, but no official figures have been released. According to unofficial returns announced on Kenyan television, Odinga is holding a commanding lead over Mr. Kibaki.

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THE NFL MALAISE:

Steroids and the Culture of Narcissism (Paul Beston, 12/28/2007, American Spectator)

[Christopher] Lasch is best-known for his 1979 book The Culture of Narcissism, which achieved further notoriety when Jimmy Carter called on the author to advise him for his infamous "crisis of confidence" speech that year. Though he tended to look at life in America with the dialectical skepticism of a Marxist, Lasch's insights into how daily life had been degraded and trivialized, so that individuals were only capable of a crippling self-regard, still have value. The book has a chapter on how this diminishment has affected the sports world as well. Though written nearly 30 years ago, it is a penetrating examination of the traits that have gradually eroded sport's once uplifting qualities -- and which eventually may have helped give rise to a full-fledged doping culture.

Lasch differed with critics such as Michael Novak, whose own sports study had appeared a few years earlier, and who felt that sport's decline had to do with its becoming too mixed up in the affairs of the world, indistinguishable from business and politics. That critique is familiar to us today, with stories of athletes and their agents, stadium deals, and "collective bargaining agreements" between management and players' unions that represent a work force earning many multiples of the average American's wages. Alex Rodriguez, in signing a contract extension with the New York Yankees worth hundreds of millions of dollars, spoke of his desire to win a World Series -- and noted that this was an achievement that he had not yet added to his "resume." Try to imagine Lou Gehrig or, closer to our own time, Pete Rose, talking that way.

BUT AS CORRUPTING an influence as money has been, Lasch argued that what was really ailing sports wasn't that they had become wrapped up in the world of commerce but that they had been, on the contrary, sectioned off from the rest of the culture, fetishized into a fantasy world of entertainment and spectacle, thereby severing the ties they once had to our common lives. "It is only when games and sports come to be valued purely as a form of escape," he wrote, "that they lose the capacity to provide this escape." This was a complex and seemingly self-contradictory point: that the more sports focused on entertainment, the less of it they actually provided.

One of baseball's chief advantages over lesser sports is that it is played every day, so the game itself occupies time and space fully and pulses away in the background even when we aren't fully attentive. The actual games of football, by contrast, occur so seldom -- and interesting ones even less often -- that the industry has to gin up other nonsense just to stay in the public consciousness. It's revealing that the NFL Network can't even generate enough programming to get cable networks to buy the channel. They ought to just show old games 24/7, it's not like anyone remembers what happened from one season to the next anyway.

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ONE OF THE FEW MISSTEPS IN THE WoT:

Ethiopia leaves key Somali town (BBC, 12/28/07)

Ethiopian troops have withdrawn from a key town in central Somalia.

Islamist insurgents say they now control Guriel, where Ethiopia had a big military base to secure the road linking the two countries.

Because they can't win.

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ROWS AND FLOWS OF ANGEL HAIR:

Mitt fights his own past words in N.H. (Jonathan Martin, Dec 27, 2007, Politico)

That Romney has changed or at least modified his stance on a variety of issues is, of course, not new.

But as the primary campaign ramps up into its frantic final days before the first contests, and as Romney is forced to fend off a challenge from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Iowa and Arizona Sen. John McCain in New Hampshire, the problem is presenting itself anew.

Lacking a pure conservative record of his own, Romney is unable to get off any clean shots at his rivals without them — or the media — pointing to a past quote or stance that calls into question his own consistency.

Take last weekend in New Hampshire, when Romney took after McCain for opposing President Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

The Associated Press account of the day included Romney’s attack, McCain’s counter and then additional evidence muddying the original charge.

In 2003, the story noted, Romney told the Massachusetts congressional delegation that when it came to the Bush tax cuts, he wouldn’t “be a cheerleader” for proposals he didn’t support.

“But I have to keep a solid relationship with the White House,” Romney noted to his state’s representatives in Washington.

Similarly, when Romney raised McCain’s unpopular immigration views in a campaign appearance Wednesday, the Arizonan’s campaign was ready.

“Last Year, Romney Supported ‘Path Toward Citizenship’ for Illegal Immigrants, Said Republicans Breaking With President Bush on Immigration ‘Made a Big Mistake,'" McCain’s aides reminded in a press release over 2006 stories in the Lowell Sun and Associated Press.

Also included was the November 2005 story from the Boston Globe where Romney deemed McCain’s immigration approach “quite different” from amnesty and “reasonable.”

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AND SOMEWHERE INSIDE THE TUBE...:

'Test tube universe' hints at unifying theory (Roger Highfield, 26/12/2007, Daily Telegraph)

A "universe in a test tube" that could be used to assess theories of everything has been created by physicists.

The test tube, the size of a little finger, has been cooled to a fraction of a degree above the lowest possible temperature, absolute zero, which is just over 273 degrees below the freezing point of water.

Inside the tube an isotope of helium (called helium three) forms a "superfluid", an ordered liquid where all the atoms are in the same state according to the theory that rules the subatomic domain, called quantum theory.
...tiny little Dawkins's and Hitchens's stamp their tiny little feet and shriek that it isn't Created.

Comments

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FACING THE TRUTH IS NEVER A BAD THING:

Pakistan faces horror of civil war after Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in suicide attack (Isambard Wilkinson, Pakistan Correspondent, Richard Edwards and David Blair, 27/12/2007, Daily Telegraph)

Pakistan was facing the spectre of civil war last night after Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister, was assassinated in a suicide attack.

The nuclear-armed state faced its worst political crisis in decades, which could threaten President Pervez Musharraf's grip on power and his role in the US-led war on terrorism.

To the extent that Pakistan imagines the Tribal Areas to be a part of the state, it has been in a state of civil war since its founding, since it has never actually exercised effective sovereignty over them. If Ms Bhutto's assassination sufficiently shames the liberal elements that they acknowledge General Musharraf has been too lenient, rather than too authoritarian, then her death will have served a good end. If they instead persist in the delusion -- as Spanish liberals did about Franco or Chileans about Pinochet -- that it is only those who are preventing the takeover by extremists who make extremism possible then the American/Indian/Afghani/Russian/Iranian alliance will end up having to salt the earth.

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NOT THAT ANYONE EVER HAD A PLAUSIBLE THEORY OF HOW HE COULD LOSE:

How McCain Wins (Rick Davis, 12/27/07, Real Clear Politics)

If you've been watching the news or reading the paper in the past couple days, you're sure to have noticed a new tone emerging when reporters and pundits discuss John McCain. "He can win", "McCain Momentum", "McCain Comeback" are all phrases that seem to be standard whenever John McCain is mentioned. We couldn't agree more.

While in our minds we've been doing the same things: going to the townhall meetings, listening to voters and talking about the issues they care about; we're just glad they're talking about it.

We've been hearing something else over the past couple days as well. A shift in terminology from "can McCain make a comeback" to "McCain can win". This is enormously important and has the benefit of being both true and highly plausible. While it has been well-documented that John McCain is the best candidate to defeat Hillary Clinton or any Democrat in the general election, there have been lingering doubts about his ability to defeat his main opponents in the Republican Primary. Those doubts are being erased and his path to victory is becoming more clear.

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DISDAIN FOR THE BRIGHTS IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE:

Revisiting the Stupid Party (Lee Harris, 27 Dec 2007, Tech Central Station)

The nineteenth century English philosopher John Stuart Mill bequeathed to modern conservatism a lasting inferiority complex when he dismissed the conservatives of his day as "the stupid party." No one likes to be called stupid, as we can all agree, though Mill himself may not have understood this, since it is highly unlikely that anyone had ever called him by this disparaging epithet. In his famous Autobiography, Mill tells us that he was reading Plato in the original Greek when he was five, and by the time he was twelve, he was capable of discussing the fine points of economic theory with the leading authorities of his day—facts that may well have seriously skewed Mill's judgment about the intelligence of other people. Stupid, for Mill, may have meant those who only learned how to read Plato in Greek at the ripe old age of eleven, in which case the charge of belonging to the "stupid party" loses much of its sting.

Yet the sting of Mill's insult remains today, and it explains, in part, the conspicuous braininess of contemporary conservatism. Conservative think-tanks abound in PhD's and experts in every field imaginable, whose intelligence, as measured by IQ tests and academic credentials, is certainly a match for those of their ideological opponents. But has the emergence of a conservative intelligentsia proven to be an unmixed blessing? Or is the very phrase conservative intelligentsia an oxymoron?

Let's begin by noting that the eagerness to appear intelligent to others is a fairly recent development among conservatives. By and large, the English Tories whom Mill dubbed as the original stupid party did not share this desire in the least. If you read the delightful novels of Anthony Trollope, you will find them teaming with hilariously dim-witted Lords who feel no need to apologize for their mediocre minds, as long as they have their aristocratic pedigrees. Their stupidity, as many of them no doubt hazily realized, was their best defense against the inroads of clever madmen intent on turning their world upside down—men like John Stuart Mill, for example, to whom tradition meant nothing, and who was willing to throw out the solid heritage of the past in the pursuit of the latest fad, dubbed by him "experiments in living." Against the blueprints for a better world concocted by the brilliant they opposed the redneck wisdom encapsulated in the adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Today, no self-respecting conservative wants to be thought stupid, not even by the lunatics on the far left. Yet there are far worse things than looking stupid to others—and one of them is being conned by those who are far cleverer than we are.

Nothing becomes Americans, in general, nor conservatives, in particular (but I repeat myself), nor explains our avoidance of the -isms, than our anti-Intellectualism

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POD PEOPLE:

Quinoa: A Sacred, Super Crop (Nicole Spiridakis, October 31, 2007, NPR.org)

What was a sacred crop to the Incas has been classified as a "super crop" by the United Nations because of its high protein content. It is a complete protein, which means it has all nine essential amino acids. It also contains the amino acid lysine, which is essential for tissue growth and repair, and is a good source of manganese, magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorous.

While many think of quinoa as a grain, the yellowish pods are actually the seed of a plant called chenopodium quinoa, native to Peru and related to beets, chard and spinach. The plant resembles spinach, but with 3- to 9-foot stalks that take on a magenta hue. The large seed heads make up nearly half the plant and vary in color: red, purple, pink and yellow.

In the Andes Mountains, where they have been growing for more than 5,000 years, quinoa plants have overcome the challenges of high altitude, intense heat, freezing temperatures and little annual rainfall. Peru and Bolivia maintain seed banks with 1,800 types of quinoa. It has been grown in the U.S. since the 1980s, when two farmers began cultivating it in Colorado. [...]

When preparing quinoa, rinse the seeds before cooking to remove any lingering soapy saponin. The coating, which protects growing seeds from birds and the intense rays of the high-altitude sun, can make your quinoa taste bitter. (A quick rinse in cold water, after placing in a strainer, should do the trick). Then add one part quinoa to two parts liquid in a saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cover. In a mere 15 minutes, the seeds will be plump, fluffy and ready to eat.

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THE IVORY CHEF:

Food Network's Sandra Lee offers bio, quick (Margi Shrum, 12/27/07, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[A] while back, I discovered Sandra Lee on the Food Network. The purveyor of a style of easy cooking that she dubs "semi-homemade," she is at first glance about the closest thing to Barbie in the kitchen that you'll see.

She even wears shirtwaist dresses.

Her sets are color-coordinated. If her outfit has blue in it, the dessert has blue icing and all of the tchotkes in her kitchen are blue, as is the tableware, linens, curtains, etc.

But who knew that behind Ms. Lee's scenery there not only is not a Barbie, there's barely a Ken.

In her autobiography, "Sandra Lee: Made From Scratch" (Meredith, $24.95), Ms. Lee writes about rising from the ashes of an incredibly dysfunctional childhood.

The Wife disliked her until the Food Network telecast a biographical hour that told her story of overcoming adversity.

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NO MATTER HOW MUCH LIPSTICK YOU PUT ON THE PIG...:

The Speaker's Grand Illusion (David Broder, 12/27/07, Real Clear Politics)

After one year of Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, public approval ratings for Congress have sunk below their level when Republicans were still in control. A Post poll this month put the approval score at 32 percent, the disapproval at 60.

In the last such survey during Republican control, congressional approval was 36 percent. So what are the Democrats to make of that? They could be using this interregnum before the start of their second year to evaluate their strate