Sunday, January 4. 2009
From guest poster Bruce Kesler:
The primary and overriding obligation of a government and its military during war is to accomplish its objectives. Support among its own public and that of influential outside powers is surely important, particularly the longer the armed engagement.
The press’ role can be either constructive toward this, or not. The government may, or may not, be correct in its management of the war and of the press, but it is the government at war that has the requirement to decide, not the press.
It is argued, often correctly, that the press in a war sometimes sees more clearly than the government or offers useful additional insights. Still, it remains that it is the government and its people that suffers from failing to meet war’s objectives, not the press. Failure at war is a far more grievous harm than can be recompensed by a corrections column or apologetic retrospective re-analysis in the newspaper.
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, in Gaza and the West Bank, have always focused on this priority. All journalists and stringers there are under their strict control, only allowed access to those areas and stories chosen by Hamas and the PA, and physically penalized for straying into criticism or embarrassment of Hamas or the PA. The Western media has gone along with this, in virtual silence and even cover-up, in order to retain any access at all. Meanwhile, the world’s media has had unlimited access and freedom to report anything it wishes in and about Israel. Mostly hewing to excess Western sensitivities and even to anti-Israeli attitudes, much of the world’s media have in effect been active accomplices of Palestinian propaganda. Western and world audiences have thereby been manipulated into undue negativity toward Israel and sympathy toward Palestinians.
Israel recognizes this imbalance and in the current Gaza offensive has taken measures to restrain the press’ undermining of its war effort.
This lengthy article, http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/86631with much more detail than here offers a useful summary of the measures that Israel has taken, and of the establishment press’ opposition. Among Israel’s new approaches is going around the West’s established reporting screen and filters by going directly to the increasingly influential alternative media outlets, including YouTube. As reported in the Jerusalem Post: “'In terms of communicating our message, new media is the future', Brig.-Gen. Avi Benayahu, the IDF's spokesman, told The Jerusalem Post.”
The ending observation made by the Israeli Defense Force spokesman gets to the heart of the matter: “An army has to fight, not to spend its time in front of television cameras.” Israel is not allowing journalists in Israel to enter Gaza at will, to flash emotional scenes – often stage managed by Hamas – to incite the natural distaste the world’s civilians have toward the hell that is war. For that matter, Egypt is also barring entry for journalists via Egypt.
The Israeli Supreme Court, in the manner of a civilized state, has ruled that some safe pooled entry will be allowed. Egypt has no such civilized, independent court. The response by the Western media, from its Foreign Press Association in Israel: “We believe the Israeli Government should ensure unfettered access for the world's media to Gaza during this crisis.” Of note, there is no such press entity or hue allowed in Egypt, but that is not mentioned or mentionable by these Western press representatives.
It is not the responsibility of Israel to cut its own throat by allowing the sensationalist emphasis, negativity and bias of much of the West’s media “unfettered access.”
Saturday, January 3. 2009
Among other things, Kindleberger's classic Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. From a review at Amazon: If you believe in efficient markets or the overriding importance of macroeconomics, you will be angered and annoyed by this book. Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes each take their shots here, although in polite ways. As Peter L. Bernstein summarizes nicely in his introduction, Professor Kindleberger's argument boils down to four principles: (1) Irrational behavior does occur from time to time in financial markets. (2) There is a general, repeatable pattern in how this irrational behavior plays out (a positive economic displacement is followed by euphoria that takes the form of overtrading, then distress following revulsion, discredit by lenders in the overtraded assets, and then panic leading possibly to a crash brought on by those who bought high). (3) The economic system needs a lender of last resort to step in at the right time and in the right way to restore confidence and liquidity. (4) Trying to solve these problems by being doctrinaire is "wrong . . . and dangerous."
How about a net worth test for Charlie Rangel? The medical and spiritual dangers of WiFi Good point, via Driscoll. Be sure to read the Jamie Lee Curtis link. Reasons global warming may not exist at all New Year's resolutions you can keep Peoples' Paradise update: Cuba celebrates 50 years of oppression, fear, and misery. Powerline A book: Larry Elder's Stupid Black Men
Friday, January 2. 2009
 Was 2008 really all that bad? Only to us who have been spoiled and expect life to be easy.
Good news. Earth has cooled since Bush took office. Good going, George. But I think you overdid it. School endowments are saving for what? It's greed, I tell ya. This guy Senator Burris sure does dig himself. I wonder what it feels like to have that much "self-esteem." (h/t, Betsy) Related: Bobby Rush says take a chill pill. I'm fresh out of 'em. Our cuz Mr. Free Market not only pokes a friendly stick in Maggie's eye, but, more importantly, into the eye of the Nannies. Make my day, Nanny. How did California become so suicidal? We always knew they were nutty and flakey, but not suicidal. Unpleasant truths about Germany. No, not about the Nazis. Quagmire update: Most under-reported item of yesterday: Green Zone handed off to Iraqis. I know she's good, but how does Small Dead Lemmings do this? Jealous? Who, me? Pondering parenthood in that agonizing, Liberal way. Sheesh. What a putz. The C of E today: Crazy people. Certifiable. Student of the Great Depression Amity Schlaes on What Obama should do. He won't. George Will: Health care costs keep growing All this rug stuff on Maggie's. Now I've been bidding on old rugs on eBay. Most of the eBay rug items are coarse new crap, but some looks very nice. Life does need beauty in it. But does one need to own it? Photo: Borrowed from Moonbattery. At first I thought it was satire, but now I wonder. That shirt has got to come off.
Thursday, January 1. 2009
From guest poster Bruce Kesler:
There are better states of “peace” and lesser ones. A better peace is one that leads to or allows increases in mutual safety and respect; a lesser peace increases the security risks and leads to or allows more or larger conflict and suffering.
If that critical distinction is not understood, dictating decisions, then by default a lesser peace will result as actions are taken that undermine the focus and measures necessary for a better peace.
The primary element needed for a better peace is recognition by all sides that it is preferable to the alternatives. This may require one side to lead the other to this thinking, and that thinking to be reinforced.
Sometimes, either sooner or later, or more usually as a last resort, this will require the side desiring a better peace to take forceful action, including armed ones.
That has always been the regretful but necessary course by Israel since its founding.
Successfully and decisively fending off repeated attacks by neighboring Arab states, soundly defeating them, Jordan and Egypt finally accepted the sense of a better peace with Israel. The intervention of Iran and Syria into Lebanon’s nascent better peace with Israel, via their Hizbullah proxy, destroyed that better peace. But, although Israel’s 2006 incursion into Lebanon was far from decisive, and Hizbullah has rearmed to more lethal levels than before, Hizbullah was severely bloodied and has restrained armed and missile attacks on Israel longer than most expected.
Within, Israel has tried to neutralize the enmity of Palestinians through raising their economics and education above that in Arab countries, succeeding in that but it failing to prevail against the power-lusting thuggery of almost all Palestinian leadership from 1967 to now who see greater personal advantage and profit from encouraging the hate that entrenches their position. Even exiting Gaza, trying to have constructive trade and relations with it, failed to create a better peace as the most extreme of major Palestinian factions – Hamas – forcefully took control and destroyed all facets of external cooperation and internal development, further endangering Israel by thousands of terror missile and mortar attacks moving deeper into Israel till now about 700,000 in Israel are within range.
The West, particularly the US, has properly labeled Hamas as the primary culprit in Gaza’s downward spiral, and its targeting by Israel’s restrained and focused retaliations. But, at the same time, the West has insisted on allowing flows of “humanitarian” food and medical supplies to enter Gaza, including from Israel. This relieves suffering, but both through waylaying by Hamas for its own benefit and through reducing Gazan’s need to demand compromise or have hostility toward Hamas, it has contradicted the quest for a better peace. Even now, during active hostilities, this Western demand continues.
It is harsh but necessary that all supplies to Gaza be cut off during present circumstances. That is war.
Israel, it is said by all observers, cannot realistically afford to nor hope to eradicate Hamas. But, it – with the West’s support – can at least hope to so bloody and weaken Hamas as to possibly – not probably, but better prospects than any other alternative – create conditions for a better peace through so weakening Hamas’ stranglehold on Gaza as to allow the opening for Gazans with Arab states’ active involvement to develop a better peace of security and respect under the realistic deterrence of facing a sharp sword of retaliation.
Along with a complete cutoff of external supplies, it may be necessary for Israel to launch a short land offensive into Gaza to further uproot Hamas strongpoints and infrastructure, to drive the point home that Hamas dare not face Israel’s purposeful and firm deterrence measures.
Stopping now, especially when the point is not sufficiently driven home, and appearing to kowtow to misled pacifist demands from the West, will only accomplish a disrespect for Israel’s deterrence and lead to another shorter-lived lesser peace.
Although, according to the latest Rasmussen poll, only 31% of Democrats back Israel’s choice to take military action in Gaza (75% of Republicans do), ironically soon to be president Barack Obama can right now provide the voice that can lead to a better peace. Obama’s coy silence fosters Hamas’hope or expectation that a soon less resolved US will, in effect, save its necks by demanding Israel halt its attacks on Hamas. If Obama would forcefully speak out now in favor of Israel’s measures and express his determination to continue to do so until Hamas assuredly ceases its missile attacks upon Israel, Obama could both prevent the necessity of Israeli troops having to enter Gaza and persuade Hamas that it can only lose more by its intransigence. A better peace could emerge.
That would be real hope and change all would welcome.
A review of a new bio of Arthur Miller. A quote: One good test of a literary biography is whether it sends one back to the author. I finished this one relieved that I never had to hear anything more about Arthur Miller.
CT newspapers want government $. We knew this would come up. Related, via Insty: How can newspapers cover somebody they love? Related: Village Voice lays off Nat Hentoff. Nat Hentoff? They are done. Ireland's enviro minister: Climate change is a con Thomas Frank on the un-wisdom of markets. WSJ. Methinks he does not understand the history of bubbles in economics. Chantrill at Am Thinker: A Conservative Narrative
Wednesday, December 31. 2008
 How does he know? And what exactly is he really saying about them, then? Furthermore, what about him? Does he have a dirty mind, and find God's splendid artistry prurient?
Aussie MP/Reverend wants topless beaches banned out of sensitivity to Moslem men. Sheesh. Australia has lots of other beaches to go to, if they want to swim or surf. Or they can do as I do, which is to keep my eyes discreetly down when visiting topless beaches...admiring my pedicure. How about banning burkhas for the happiness of the non-Moslem men? Funny thing is, I know a couple of Moslem men. They might be the exceptions, but they seem to appreciate females quite a bit. Photo: From a naked surfing contest in Australia.
Photo is one of several from a commenter to Free Republic's Obama's silence on Gaza angers Arabs. It is A.N.S.W.E.R. people, it appears. Useful idiots, for whom Israel is always in the wrong. But what the US has to do with this is beyond me. My view is that Hamas deliberately provokes Israel into responding, for their own political purposes. Their pathetic political purposes, it seems to me, are to maintain a privileged victim status, to deflect attention from their failures to create a decent society by scapegoating Israel, to collect $ from other countries - and to stay in power. No wonder the Arab countries dislike and distrust the Palis to the extent that they refuse to take them as refugees. 
 The Hollywood Che Cult. A sadistic, totalitarian murderer and rapist. But it was all "for the people." There are apparently no limits to what you can do "for the people." Stalin had many American apologists too.
Why the 1918 Influenza was so bad. Obama will ration your medical care. Or try to, anyway. He'll deflect criticism by using Daschle as point man. Daschle will take the bullets, same as Hillary did. Related: The NHS death that shocked Britain Residential architecture: Never do this China reduces taxes to deal with slowdown. China has become more realistic, and less ideological, than the American Dem party. The WaPo and the amateur rockets. Would they object if the Palis lobbed some of them into their building? Yesterday we focused on the astonishing failures of New Jersey. Today, the flight from New York State Some folks are enjoying this recession Europe to the US: "Here, wear this millstone around your neck." Where are the real men? Armed and Dangerous (h/t, Vanderleun) One quote: One of the things this culture badly needs is a set of manhood ordeals. Unlike the tribal societies of the past, we’re too various for one size to fit all — but to reliably turn boys into men (or, to put it in more fashionable terms, to help them become mature and inner-directed) you need to put them under stress in a way that, except for the small percentage that go through military boot camps, we basically don’t any more.
Photo: Not only do I not particularly enjoy champagne or any other white wine, I do not enjoy New Year's Eve either. Never did. Always seemed like a time for phony, forced jollity (like that dumb dropping ball thing) and, as much as I enjoy a cocktail, I dread hangovers which have the power to steal a whole day of my precious time.
Tuesday, December 30. 2008
Bruce Kesler sends this post:
What does CNN cite for this? Groups, mostly of young Arabs, numbering several hundred to several thousand having street demonstrations in the following countries: England, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Iran, the Sadrist neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq, and even in Israel. Ironically, and tellingly, none interviewed saw any reason to protest Hamas terror rockets and mortar barrages into Israel. This is what CNN calls the world! Or, is this CNN’s market that it caters to?
 The Dutch Left rethinks "tolerance." (h/t, Insty) A quote:
"The multi-cultis just aren't making the running anymore. It's a brave step towards a new normalcy in this country. "
Given enough time, Reality always wins in the end.
Writing tips, plus "Happy Holidays" Volokh Earnestly-wrung hands. Jules Can the UAW survive? 25 unbelievable pictures. (h/t, Retriever) How porn shaped the web. Related: How amateurs are taking over the online porn biz. Napa Valley, China Do the Palis want anything except to kill Jews? Saving Lehman would have saved everybody a lot of grief. Bad call? We'd like to see a lot more people do this sort of conservation thing with their land. The necessary service government agencies provide Sounds kinda creepy-gay: “The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.”
More on the sad, slow death of Detroit
Monday, December 29. 2008
We think this toon is about 15 years old, or more: 
 Sent an email to our occasional guest poster Nathan in Jerusalem with the Sultan Knish review of Defiance. His reply:
good review. will see movie. great review of it by adam gopnik in the New Yorker. And Daniel Craig! How cool can that be? We are at the edge of war here; my neighborhood blocked off last eve bec of rock throwing; missiles reaching ashkeolon (one killed - an arab). I will write more, but it's a bit eery, as I continue to go about my work and life.
N Update: Israeli ground troops and tanks enter Gaza.
 I looked through our ABC Carpet link and found the rug in the photo. A Caucasian Kazak, my favorite "brand." Readers, buy it for me! It would add beauty to my life.
Malthus, Scrooge, and others. Lionel Tiger on bonobos and utopia What the heck is this "ranked choice voting" all about? Most embarassing global warming claims of 2008 Cigarettes are sublime. Too true. Harold Pinter hated us. Quoted at Big Lizards: The U.N. General Assembly split over the issue of gay rights on Thursday after a European-drafted statement calling for decriminalization of homosexuality prompted an Arab-backed one opposing it. Diplomats said a joint statement initiated by France and the Netherlands gathered 66 signatures in the 192-nation assembly after it was read out by Argentina at a plenary session. A rival statement, read out by Syria, gathered some 60.
The State is our shepherd Jeb Bush? Why not? Why we need newspapers. Surber. I agree. Just the facts, please. A final look at Barack, The Magic Negro From New England Repub: Obama isn’t going to put gas in your car nor pay your rent. As for Gov Patrick, he thinks you’re good for one thing, more taxes, and Barney Frank doesn’t like you. Now compete with Jose for the lawn mowing job.
From Andy McCarthy: The question is whether the Palestinian people are educable. Which brings me back to the first point: the Palestinians voted to put in power — i.e., vest with the power of a quasi-sovereign government — a terrorist organization which thinks legitimate governing consists of bringing about the annihilation of its sovereign neighbor and, meantime, targeting the said neighbor's civilian population with bombing attacks. When you do that, you make yourself a target. There are worse things than war — like Hamas. They have to be defeated, just like al Qaeda had to be defeated in Iraq.
Sowell, via Betsy: Detroit and Michigan have followed classic liberal policies of treating businesses as prey, rather than as assets. They have helped kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. So have the unions. So have managements that have gone along to get along.
Toyota, Honda and other foreign automakers are not heading for Detroit, even though there are lots of experienced automobile workers there. They are avoiding the rust belts and the policies that have made those places rust belts.
A bailout of Detroit's Big Three would be only the latest in the postponements of reality.
George Bush, The Great Liberator. I'm down with that. Good man, lousy pol. Quoted at American Digest: President-Elect Man-Child: The man-child projects a simultaneous sense of not being comfortable in his own skin and perpetually on display to others. He's twitchy, approval-seeking, and doesn't know when to shut up. He's never been tested to anywhere near the limits of his physical or moral courage, and deep within himself he knows that because of this he is weak. Unproven. Not really a man. And it shows in a lot of little ways - posture, gaze patterns, that sort of thing. He'll overreact to small challenges and freeze or crumble under big ones. - Armed and Dangerous ? Blog Archive ? Where the men are
Reality will grow him up, as it does with all of us. He has had a charmed life thus far, in many ways.
Sunday, December 28. 2008
 Resist the urge to trash your husbands.
Global warming is caused by computers. Amazon's best year ever Computer ownership, by country. I don't see China on the list. Africa needs God "On the sick" in Britain. It pays to be fat or an addict in the UK. Cool, dude. How would this story be reported if it had been the other way around? Now they can say it: Bush has advanced health care Fashionable scientific illiteracy Hooking up update If not appointed, I won't run Can you give Wikipedia a hand? A wonderful site, but it doesn't make $. Like Maggie's. Teddy Roosevelt, Socialist? The top political scandals of 2008. AVI A Pomo Christmas Story: S,C&A Taliban fighting for freedom Sarah was a member of the wrong party: Palin vs. Caroline. Also, More on Palin Bad, kennedy Good. Also, she doesn't sound too bright or aware. I know plenty of heavyweight folks who need an easy job more than she does. Indeed, all reporting these days is partisan-motivated. See Barak's fancy vacation in Hawaii.  Michelle:
Fit Republican president = Selfish, indulgent, creepy fascist. Fit Democratic president = Disciplined, health-conscious Adonis role model.
J Post: Since the cease-fire went into effect in Gaza in June, Hamas used the lull in action to fortify its military posts in the Gaza Strip and to dig tunnel systems as well as underground bunkers for its forces. IDF estimates put the length of the tunnels at over 50 kilometers.
Related, from VDH: Certain deranged reactions are now anticlimactic—a local water main bursts and so we blame Bush for diverting resources away from infrastructure; an arctic freeze or a summer tornado alike evokes Bush and his wayward attitude toward global warming. In the same vein, Hamas blankets Israel for days with rockets and the Europeans are silent until Israel responds with force—only to be blamed for inordinate aggression—the subtext being both that the militarily capable party is to be condemned for being,well, too militarily capable, and that those who can field and deploy terrorists, or aid those who will, against Western targets are deserving of some sort of exemption.
Related: Hamas got what it wanted. No doubt. Does public spending stimulate? Why banks are a special case. Megan. I agree with that. Samuel Huntington, RIP: Huntington, who graduated from Yale College at age 18 and who was teaching at Harvard by age 23, was best known for his views on the clash of civilizations. He argued that in a post-Cold War world, violent conflict would come not from ideological friction between nation states, but from cultural and religious differences among the world's major civilizations. Huntington, who was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard, identified these major civilizations as Western (including the United States and Europe), Latin American, Islamic, African, Orthodox (with Russia as a core state), Hindu, Japanese, and "Sinic" (including China, Korea, and Vietnam). "My argument remains," he said in a 2007 interview with Islamica Magazine, "that cultural identities, antagonisms and affiliations will not only play a role, but play a major role in relations between states."
Saturday, December 27. 2008
Quoted from Steyn: “Sales plunged across most categories on shrinking consumer spending.”
Hey, that’s great news, isn’t it? After all, everyone knows Americans consume too much. What was it that then Senator Obama said on the subject? “We can’t just keep driving our SUVs, eating whatever we want, keeping our homes at 72 degrees at all times regardless of whether we live in the tundra or the desert and keep consuming 25 percent of the world’s resources with just 4 percent of the world’s population, and expect the rest of the world to say you just go ahead, we’ll be fine.”
And boy, we took the great man’s words to heart. SUV sales have nosedived, and 72 is no longer your home’s thermostat setting but its current value expressed as a percentage of what you paid for it. If I understand then Senator Obama’s logic, in a just world Americans would be 4 percent of the population and consume a fair and reasonable 4 percent of the world’s resources. And in these last few months we’ve made an excellent start toward that blessed utopia: Americans are driving smaller cars, buying smaller homes, giving smaller Christmas presents.
And yet, strangely, President-Elect Obama doesn’t seem terribly happy about the Obamafication of the American economy. He’s proposing some 5.7 bazillion dollar “stimulus” package or whatever it is now to “stimulate” it back into its bad old ways.
Some people are impossible to please.
 2008 Media Research Center Awards for moonbat media
Kwanzaa is really over. I heard jokes about it at the beginning, but not even a joke for years now, which is proof that it is irrelevent. An Iditerod without dogs. Good grief. Anything without dogs is a drag. The final proof of climate change: Q&O Brit Hume: retiring, but not gone What happened to muni swaps. Caveat emptor. I am not guilty. So why should I pay for these messes? Obama's "job fetish." Reason Via Gene Expressions: We examined the effect of an image of a pair of eyes on contributions to an honesty box used to collect money for drinks in a university coffee room. People paid nearly three times as much for their drinks when eyes were displayed rather than a control image. This finding provides the first evidence from a naturalistic setting of the importance of cues of being watched, and hence reputational concerns, on human cooperative behaviour.
Liberal Joel Stein admits he doesn't love America. That explains a lot. He seems to like Sweden, partly for their sexual "freedom." So leave, Joel, and get your recreational sex! Sweden happily accepts immigrants, but they seem to prefer Moslems. Sweden and Moslems: Perfect Together. Not meant as a joke: Indulgences in San Francisco. Who expects to make $ from this scam? Jimmy Carter did the hope and change schtick too. Am Thinker Corporate welfare, institutionalized. At Marg Rev: I believe that moving more assets under government guarantees is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.
The Bernie Madoff I knew. Detroit Update. Where the sirens never sleep. Yet another corrupt Dem to add to the list? Gov. Richardson
Friday, December 26. 2008
I hope you had a merry holiday. I finally saw Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Hilariously un-PC and insensitive, and therefore highly recommended. Now, back to work.  Christmas in Baghdad. Photo from the piece at Gateway
Harvard's endowment likely lost much more than they are saying. University greed is the problem. What's with the double-counting? I don't get it. Handel's Messiah: I thought I saw the face of God. The alarmists are becoming increasingly shrill. Maybe they are worried that we quit listening, and have begun to mock and satirize them. Dang it, we want warmening - for the children. Coyote on the wind power scam and the green jobs myth. A year of scary, trumped-up myths about smoking and obesity. Spiked. Sounds like people don't like to feel pushed around by the government they pay for. AVI on Special Education. From everything I've read about education, "special" or otherwise, neither $, nor computers, nor fancy buildings make any difference at all. "More Science in journalism school, please." Surber. My impression is that journalists understand science about as well as they understand economics. Speaking of science, Politicizing Science at Powerline. Steyn on Subprime Education, ... in America, so-called "expanding opportunities for college" is an obvious crock to absolve high schools of their failure to educate.
with a h/t to Viking who also quoted Professor X thus: There seems, as is often the case in colleges, to be a huge gulf between academia and reality. No one is thinking about the larger implications, let alone the morality, of admitting so many students to classes they cannot possibly pass. The colleges and the students and I are bobbing up and down in a great wave of societal forces-social optimism on a large scale, the sense of college as both a universal right and a need, financial necessity on the part of the colleges and the students alike, the desire to maintain high academic standards while admitting marginal students-that have coalesced into a mini-tsunami of difficulty. No one has drawn up the flowchart and seen that, although more-widespread college admission is a bonanza for the colleges and nice for the students and makes the entire United States of America feel rather pleased with itself, there is one point of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and that is the moment when the adjunct instructor, who by the nature of his job teaches the worst students, must ink the F on that first writing assignment. Rape or love? Sounds like love to me. What's the latest on Sen. Dodd? And why do Libs always get a free pass on their sleaziness? Jonah critiques the New Republic's critique of Liberal Fascism Well put, by Rick Moran: Our economic situation is dire – and being made more so by mortgaging our future so that politicians can be seen to be “doing something about the problem.”
Wednesday, December 24. 2008
Wanted to squeeze these links in before I begin my Christmas shopping. Maybe I will just pickpocket somebody's wallet and head for the jewelry store with their American Express card so I can finish up before church at 5. Heck, everybody I know would appreciate trinkets like Cartier watches or some diamonds. Somebody needs to remind me to take the day off on Christmas Eve next year. We'll only have pre-posted stuff 'til Friday.  Microwave oven Christmas song.
Why Santa wears red and other Christmas facts. Grinch du jour The Afghanistan slog, and the glorification of the Taliban. Jules What a joke: Objecting to Rick Warren. He's the Billy Graham of our time. What a joke: Merry Christmas from Ahmadinejad. I'm sure it will be da bomb. What a joke. Caroline Kennedy: "I have, you know, quite a lot to learn, but I feel like I bring a lot with me, as well," she said. "This is a time when nobody can afford to sit out. And I hope that I have something to offer."
Ah, the smell of noblesse oblige in the afternoon. I don't want no noblesse oblige from nobody. She wants to do the "job" for me! I'd rather see any one of 30 bloggers I know in the job. And they've all done more with their lives, too. Theo would of course be my first pick for the seat and he would enjoy it the most because Senators are chick magnets in the Georgetown pubs - but he's a Brit. Related, via Insty: JOURNALISM: Times City Room Will Not Mention Caroline Kennedy’s Special Friendship With Pinch Sulzberger.
Maybe that explains where the "Schlossberg" in her name went to. From Eurotrash to Lefty propagandist. Nice evolution. Related: Resistance to Caroline grows. No, I do not dislike the lady. Why would I? I am sure she and Pinch make a charming couple. I just think this political family stuff is ridiculous: how many generations before somebody gets a real job and learns about real life and about how business works? Same for Bush Jr, although he did pay his dues in the private sector.
Excellent, in the WSJ. Final quote: Politics is in charge -- in a way that makes a lost decade of subpar prosperity more likely than not. Happy Holidays.
 Let's begin with Scrooge.
Tierney at the NYT doesn't think much of O's science advisor. Sounds like a phony resume. More on Holdren here. (h/t, Insty) Reisman rips another O appointee - Larry Summers Huffington satirizes herself. (h/t, Jonah) The stimulus plan: $1 billion for Las Vegas roads. Since when is that a Federal issue? Talk about entitlement: Caroline not only refuses questions, she refuses to open her books. The arrogance and condescension aren't going over too well. But Uncle Teddy wants it. Teasing vs. bullying Expanding executive power? Who's complaining? Powerline. I am complaining. "We don't predict, we project." Ignore the weather: it's Apocalypse Later. The Apocalypse is always later. Related, at Flopping (this is amazing): “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective, and being honest.” –Stephen Schneider Lead Author of reports for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
And that, my friends, is exactly why we file our climate posts in the Politics category instead of our Natural History category. Photo: The Renaissance Christmas tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
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