More at the link.To remain free, free societies must shed our politically correct shackles and address this growing menace to everything we hold dear.
*****This week we learned that Nazareth is an al-Qaida hub. Sheikh Nazem Abu Salim Sahfe, the Israeli imam of the Shihab al-Din mosque in the city, was indicted on Sunday for promoting and recruiting for global jihad and calling on his followers to harm non-Muslims.
Among the other plots born of Sahfe's sermons was the murder of cab driver Yefim Weinstein last November. Sahfe's followers also plotted to assassinate Pope Benedict XVI during his trip to Israel last year. They torched Christian tour buses. They abducted and stabbed a pizza delivery man. Two of his disciples were arrested in Kenya en route to joining al-Qaida forces in Somalia.
With his indictment, Sahfe joins a growing list of jihadists born and bred in Israel and in free societies around the world who have rejected their societies and embraced the cause of Islamic global domination. The most prominent member of this group today is the American-born al-Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki.
US authorities describe Awlaki as the world's most dangerous man. His jihadist track record is staggering. It seems that there has been no major attack in the US or Britain - including the September 11 attacks and the July 7 attacks in London - in which Awlaki has not played a role.
Sahfe and Awlaki, like nearly all the prominent jihadists in the West, are men of privilege. Their personal histories are a refutation of the popular Western tale that jihad is born of frustration, poverty and ignorance. Both men, like almost every prominent Western jihadist, are university graduates.
So, too, their stories belie the Western fantasy that adherence to the cause of jihad is spawned by poverty. These men and their colleagues are the sons of wealthy or comfortable middle class families. They have never known privation.
Armed with their material comforts, university degrees and native knowledge of the ways of democracy and the habits of freedom, these men chose to become jihadists. They chose submission to Islam over liberal democratic rights because that is what they prefer. They are idealists.
This means that all the standard Western pabulums about the need to expand welfare benefits for Muslims or abstain from enforcing the laws against their communities, or give mosques immunity from surveillance and closure, or seek to co-opt jihadist leaders by treating them like credible Muslim voices, are wrong and counterproductive. These programs do not neutralize their supremacist intentions or actions. They embolden the Western Islamic supremacists by signaling to them that they are winning. Their Western societies are no match for them.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Addressing Our Homegrown Enemies
Marisa Miller Supports the Troops
Previously: "Explosive Marisa Miller Rule 5 Roundup!"
BONUS: At Washington Rebel, "I am an AMERICAN."
Viral Footage: Abusive White Woman Gets Black Postal Worker Fired
There is no wrath more obnoxious yet powerful than that of an annoying white woman with time to spare. Evidence: This video of a woman verbally abusing a USPS worker and, ultimately, calling him a racial epithet.And as usual, Gawker's having a load of fun with it: "Postal Worker Secretly Films Customer's Racist Rant."
Newsweek Merges with Daily Beast
The merger of Newsweek magazine and the Daily Beast website, which seemed to have fallen apart three weeks ago, is back on. The deal, announced Friday by The Daily Beast, is a little like a May-December marriage:The merger makes sense to me, although I'm wondering how these folks are going to make money.
The 77-year-old Newsweek, recently purchased for a dollar by audio pioneer Sidney Harman, gets an infusion of energy and immediacy from the 2-year-old Beast and its irrepressible editor and co-founder Tina Brown.
The Daily Beast, part of media mogul Barry Diller's InterActive Corp., gets the gravitas, reach and stable platform of an old, though fading, media icon. Harman and Diller will co-own the new Newsweek Daily Beast Co.
And Brown, a journalistic trophy if ever there was one, will be editor-in-chief of both. She will become the first female editor of Newsweek.
In an interview Friday with National Public Radio, Brown said the Daily Beast will become the digital operation of Newsweek, while Newsweek will continue as a weekly newsmagazine.
"It means that the Daily Beast's terrific young vibrant team who've created this front line of news and adrenaline of the site, can also take that energy and have a different rhythm when they're producing magazine articles."
The only cloud on this rosy horizon: Neither is profitable. Advertisers have fled Newsweek, and circulation is down to about 1.5 million worldwide, from 3.1 million in 2007.
The symbolic price of $1 came with substantial debt; Newsweek's 2010 operating loss is expected to be $20 million, according to The Daily Beast, which aggressively covered the sale and in August published a leaked copy of the memorandum circulated to potential Newsweek buyers by its owner the Washington Post Co.
The future of Newsweek, said the Daily Beast at the time, "will depend on finding a near-genius editor and an inspired publisher and on their freedom and shared approach, as well as on their bankroll."
Diller, who owns about 30 websites, will not disclose how much the Daily Beast has cost him, but has said the site is working on generating premium rates from high-end advertisers who are unaccustomed to paying print-like prices on the Web.
RELATED: "The Death of Real News?"
The Death of Real News?
To witness Keith Olbermann - the most opinionated among MSNBC's left-leaning, Fox-baiting, money-generating hosts - suspended even briefly last week for making financial contributions to Democratic political candidates seemed like a whimsical, arcane holdover from a long-gone era of television journalism when the networks considered the collection and dissemination of substantive and unbiased news to be a public trust.More at the link.
Back then, a policy against political contributions would have aimed to avoid even the appearance of partisanship. But today, when Olbermann draws more than 1 million like-minded viewers to his program every night precisely because he is avowedly, unabashedly and monotonously partisan, it is not clear what misdemeanor his donations constituted. Consistency?
We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable.
The commercial success of both MSNBC and Fox News is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft-quoted observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.
And so, among the many benefits we have come to believe the founding fathers intended for us, the latest is news we can choose. Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be. This is to journalism what Bernie Madoff was to investment: He told his customers what they wanted to hear, and by the time they learned the truth, their money was gone.
I'm also not so worried about this bit about the profit motivations for the news. Seeing how traditional news outlets (newspapers) are in their death throes, it seems that finding a news model that sells would be a plus. Koppel has credibility, of course. I always held him up as the epitome of journalism back in the day, and if I could be up at that hour, I'd rarely miss Nightline. But that's a long ago era. Cable, talk radio, and the Internet have been changing news delivery for decades, so it's not as if we're just now at some new moment in time. And I doubt Koppel even wants to credit blogs as being a positive development in the information universe. That said, his discussion of early network journalism is fascinating. I miss Peter Jennings:
I recall a Washington meeting many years later at which Michael Eisner, then the chief executive of Disney, ABC's parent company, took questions from a group of ABC News correspondents and compared our status in the corporate structure to that of the Disney artists who create the company's world-famous cartoons. (He clearly and sincerely intended the analogy to flatter us.) Even they, Eisner pointed out, were expected to make budget cuts; we would have to do the same.
I mentioned several names to Eisner and asked if he recognized any. He did not. They were, I said, ABC correspondents and cameramen who had been killed or wounded while on assignment. While appreciating the enormous talent of the corporation's cartoonists, I pointed out that working on a television crew, covering wars, revolutions and natural disasters, was different. The suggestion was not well received.
The parent companies of all three networks would ultimately find a common way of dealing with the risk and expense inherent in operating news bureaus around the world: They would eliminate them. Peter Jennings and I, who joined ABC News within a year of each other in the early 1960s, were profoundly influenced by our years as foreign correspondents. When we became the anchors and managing editors of our respective programs, we tried to make sure foreign news remained a major ingredient. It was a struggle.
Biomechanics of Feline Water Uptake
And at Science, "How Cats Lap: Water Uptake by Felis catus."
Animals have developed a range of drinking strategies depending on physiological and environmental constraints. Vertebrates with incomplete cheeks use their tongue to drink; the most common example is the lapping of cats and dogs. We show that the domestic cat (Felis catus) laps by a subtle mechanism based on water adhesion to the dorsal side of the tongue. A combined experimental and theoretical analysis reveals that Felis catus exploits fluid inertia to defeat gravity and pull liquid into the mouth. This competition between inertia and gravity sets the lapping frequency and yields a prediction for the dependence of frequency on animal mass. Measurements of lapping frequency across the family Felidae support this prediction, which suggests that the lapping mechanism is conserved among felines.
'Unstoppable' in Theaters Today
"Unstoppable" is as good as its name. A runaway train drama that never slows down, it fashions familiarity into a virtue and shows why old-school professionalism never goes out of style.RTWT.
With action auteur Tony Scott directing, "Unstoppable" certainly features a lot that we've seen before, from its vehicle-from-hell format to its venerable advertising line: "1,000,000 Tons, 100,000 Lives, 100 Minutes." Yes, they still do make them that way.
This is also the second straight Scott film (after the underappreciated "The Taking of Pelham 123") involving a train and the sixth of his career to star Denzel Washington, here sharing the screen with "Star Trek's" Chris Pine and one very out of control locomotive. But while continually doing the same kind of movie might anesthetize some directors, it energizes Scott, who has gotten better and better at building and sustaining traditional kinds of tension.
Also, an interview with the director: "Q&A: How Tony Scott kept 'Unstoppable' real — at 60 mph."
A Growth Agenda for the New Congress
More at the link.For now: Extend the Bush tax cuts, repeal ObamaCare, support free trade. After 2012: Enact a flat tax, stabilize prices, balance the budget, give politicians incentive pay.
*****
Since its cyclical zenith in December 2007, U.S. economic production has been on its worst trajectory since the Great Depression. Massive stimulus spending and unprecedented monetary easing haven't helped, and yet the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve still cling to the book of Keynes. It's an approach ill-suited to solving the growth problem that the United States has today.
The solution can be found in the price theory section of any economics textbook. It's basic supply and demand. Employment is low because the incentives for workers to work are too small, and the incentives not to work too high. Workers' net wages are down, so the supply of labor is limited. Meanwhile, demand for labor is also down since employers consider the costs of employing new workers—wages, health care and more—to be greater today than the benefits.
Firms choose whether to hire based on the total cost of employing workers, including all federal, state and local income taxes; all payroll, sales and property taxes; regulatory costs; record-keeping costs; the costs of maintaining health and safety standards; and the costs of insurance for health care, class action lawsuits, and workers compensation. In addition, gross wages are often inflated by the power of unions and legislative restrictions such as "buy American" provisions and the minimum wage. Gross wages also include all future benefits to workers in the form of retirement plans.
For a worker to be attractive, that worker must be productive enough to cover all those costs plus leave room for some profit and the costs of running an enterprise. Being in business isn't easy, and today not enough workers qualify to be hired.
But workers don't focus on how much it costs a firm to employ them. Workers care about how much they receive and can spend after taxes. For them, the question is how the wages they'd receive for working compare to what they'd receive (from the government) if they didn't work, plus the value of their leisure from not working.
The problem is that the government has driven a massive wedge between the wages paid by firms and the wages received by workers. To make work and employment attractive again, this government wedge has to shrink. This can happen over the next two years, even with a Democratic majority in the Senate and President Obama in the White House, through the following measures...
RELATED: Paul Krugman, "The Hijacked Commission," and the additional commentary at Memeorandum.
Blogging Aliteracy
The background, with links, is at David's post, "Do Not Blog About Something If You Haven’t Adequately Studied It. Why is This a Hard Concept?" Lisa has been hammering Ayn Rand's theory of objectivism, although she's never read Ayn Rand. To which David tweets:
Sorry Lisa but I can't respect your analysis of Objectivism until you read more of Ayn Rand's books.Lisa says she's able to form an intelligent opinion based on Ayn Rand's Wikipedia entries and her television interviews, including this one with Mike Wallace:
Lisa's response at her own blog is here: "Dave Swindle Accused Me of Fervent Anti-Intellectualism?"
I'm not invested in this debate personally, although the topic is fascinating. I'd argue that Lisa is certainly and rightfully able to opine on the moral validity of Ayn Rand's theories. The problem is that the program at the David Horowitz Freedom Center is essentially a scholarly one. The debates are about books. And it's kind of inappropriate to be a representative of that problematique while being out and proud about not having read books you intend to criticize. Thus, I'd have to agree with David's point on anti-intellectualism, although all of this reminds me of an article at the Washington Post almost ten years ago: "The No-Book Report: Skim It and Weep: More and More Americans Who Can Read Are Choosing Not To. Can We Afford to Write Them Off?" As a professor, my job is to get folks to read more, much more. But I was especially interested in this discussion at the Washington Post, since I'd just recently finished my Ph.D and started my academic career:
Jeremy Spreitzer probably wouldn't read this story if it weren't about him.More at the link. (And food for thought, in any case, especially for armchair intellectuals who don't read the books they're claiming to criticize.)
He is an aliterate -- someone who can read, but chooses not to.
A graduate student in public affairs at Park University in Kansas City, Mo., Spreitzer, 25, gleans most of his news from TV. He skims required texts, draws themes from dust jackets and, when he absolutely, positively has to read something, reaches for the audiobook.
"I am fairly lazy when it comes to certain tasks," says Spreitzer, a long-distance runner who hopes to compete in the 2004 Olympics. "Reading is one of them."
As he grows older, Spreitzer finds he has less time to read. And less inclination. In fact, he says, if he weren't in school, he probably wouldn't read at all.
He's not alone. According to the survey firm NDP Group -- which tracked the everyday habits of thousands of people through the 1990s -- this country is reading printed versions of books, magazines and newspapers less and less. In 1991, more than half of all Americans read a half-hour or more every day. By 1999, that had dropped to 45 percent.
A 1999 Gallup Poll found that only 7 percent of Americans were voracious readers, reading more than a book a week, while some 59 percent said they had read fewer than 10 books in the previous year. Though book clubs seem popular now, only 6 percent of those who read belong to one. The number of people who don't read at all, the poll concluded, has been rising for the past 20 years.
The reports on changes in reading cut to the quick of American culture. We pride ourselves on being a largely literate First World country while at the same time we rush to build a visually powerful environment in which reading is not required.
The results are inevitable. Aliteracy is all around. Just ask:
• Internet developers. At the Terra Lycos portal design lab in Waltham, Mass., researcher William Albert has noticed that the human guinea pigs in his focus groups are too impatient to read much. When people look up information on the Internet today, Albert explains, they are "basically scanning. There's very little actual comprehension that's going on." People, Albert adds, prefer to get info in short bursts, with bullets, rather than in large blocks of text.
• Transportation gurus. Chandra Clayton, who oversees the design of road signs and signals for the Virginia Department of Transportation, says, "Symbols can quickly give you a message that might take too long to read in text." The department is using logos and symbols more and more. When it comes to highway safety and getting lifesaving information quickly, she adds, "a picture is worth a thousand words."
• Packaging designers. "People don't take the time to read anything," explains Jim Peters, editor of BrandPackaging magazine. "Marketers and packagers are giving them colors and shapes as ways of communicating." For effective marketing, Peters says, "researchers tell us that the hierarchy is colors, shapes, icons and, dead last, words."
Some of this shift away from words -- and toward images -- can be attributed to our ever-growing multilingual population. But for many people, reading is passe or impractical or, like, so totally unnecessary in this day and age.
To Jim Trelease, author of "The Read-Aloud Handbook," this trend away from the written word is more than worrisome. It's wicked. It's tearing apart our culture. People who have stopped reading, he says, "base their future decisions on what they used to know.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Emma Watson at World Premiere of 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince'
See London's Daily Mail, "Spellbinding Emma Watson Braves Abysmal Weather in Revealing Vintage Dress at World Premiere of Seventh Harry Potter Movie."
More pics at Just Jared Jr.: "Emma Watson: HP Premiere Pretty."
Tory Councillor Gareth Compton Suspended After 'Stoning' Tweet to Columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Twitter is not your friend, obviously.
44th Annual Country Music Association Awards
RELATED: "Glam Slam: Country's Night Out."
Success Stories at LBCC
P.S. Love the Dead Kennedys! Thought it was very cool you knew the lyrics to California Uber Alles when you were talking about Jerry Brown in class on Tuesday!
I don't know if that the kind of teaching excellence that Presdient Oakley is looking for, but that's cool my brief discussion of "California Ãœber Alles" went over well with the students.
Back to the Future with Jerry Brown at the Helm in California
But this is my chance to repost the Dead Kennedys, "California Ãœber Alles":
Tina Fey Gets the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
And from Daily Caller, "Tina Fey Thanks Palin, Trashes Right Wing Women During Mark Twain Prize Ceremony," and Michelle, "Tina Fey Recycles Palin Rape Kit Lie."
I would be a liar and an idiot if I didn’t thank Sarah Palin for helping me get here tonight. My partial resemblance and her crazy voice are the two luckiest things that have ever happened to me.
'The Taqwacores'
There's a burka-clad Riot Grrrl who scribbles Patti Smith lyrics on her wall and puts forward the notion that a woman doesn't necessarily need to make her face visible to qualify as an outspoken feminist. Another electric guitar-playing skateboarder character tests the limits of his faith by chugging beer and declaring, "I'm not big on the 'Islam is one way' approach."I'll believe it when I hear denunciations of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Taqwacores generally reject specific tenets of Koranic dogma: that homosexuality is a sin, that masturbation amounts to "self-harm" and that a man is justified in beating his wife to discipline her.
But outside of mashing-up of punk with Islam, "The Taqwacores" presents compelling ideas about how modern Muslims worship in this country. The film presents Islam as a dynamic faith that's endlessly argued and debated — and in one case, straight-up revised when a character crosses out a verse in the Koran — to fit unruly American lives in the post- 9/11 world.
"The point of the film was to portray Muslims in this whole new way," the director explained. "There's a notion that Muslims are zombies; they only regurgitate what they're told by the leaders of their community. But there's a huge spectrum. We're showing an extreme of it."
Democratic Activists Criticize Possible Compromise by Obama on Tax Cuts
And here's this from WaPo:
Democratic activists Thursday sharply criticized White House officials after a published report indicated that President Obama is likely to back a temporary extension of tax cuts for households with income over $250,000 a year.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, top Obama adviser David Axelrod said: "We have to deal with the world as we find it," in noting that the White House might compromise with the GOP on the issue. He said that White House officials have long opposed a permanent extension of the tax cuts on upper-income Americans. However, Obama aides also have repeatedly said that they have not ruled out backing a temporary extension of those cuts as part of a compromise with Republicans.
Both parties want to keep the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 for households with income below $250,000 a year. But the GOP wants all the cuts extended permanently, while Obama says the cuts for income over $250,000 do little to improve the economy and would increase the deficit.
Liberal groups cast Axelrod's comments as official capitulation on the issue, even as White House aides emphasized that his position was not new.
"Sign our petition telling President Obama that Americans want him to fight the Bush tax cuts for millionaires - and that Democrats will keep losing if he keeps caving," the Progressive Campaign Change Committee, a liberal group, told its members in an e-mail.
Republicans said that they still want to make all the tax cuts permanent, including those for income over $250,000 a year. In response to the controversy, Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio), said that Republicans hoped the White House would "show leadership by convincing Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi to stop these tax hikes permanently in the upcoming lame-duck session."
Abu Hussein Obama!
Unreal.
RELATED: "In Indonesia, Where Israelis Can't Enter, Obama Tells Jews Where They Can't Live."
Veterans Day 2010
The nation's elite fighting force celebrates its 235th birthday on November 10th, 2010. Since the inception of the Marine Corps in 1775, thousands of brave men and women have answered a call to serve our country and protect its freedom.
And at Hardin County News-Enterprise, "America's Veterans Deserve Our Honor and Praise":
Today is Veterans Day, the holiday that honors military veterans for their service to the nation.RELATED: At NYT (of all places), "Communities Embrace Veterans of Vietnam War." And more Veterans Day stories at the link.
The tradition of setting aside a day to remember veterans dates back to the first World War. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, the “war to end all wars” came to an end. Since that time, America has designated one day a year to honor those who strive to ensure the liberty the founding fathers sought to establish in a fledgling nation.
Throughout history, our veterans have endured numerous hardships – altered lifestyles, separation from family and friends, trepidation of war. All made sacrifices so that we could enjoy the freedoms we have today. Whether the nation is at war or peace, the contributions of veterans cannot, and must not, be forgotten.
Today, all across the nation, grateful Americans will celebrate and pay tribute to the men and women in uniform, and rightfully so. Residents will fly flags, play patriotic songs, march in parades and detail through countless speeches the heroic deeds of veterans who have given their all to defend freedom and democracy.
Michelle Malkin Hammers President Obama's Jihad Junket to Indonesia
Via Gateway Pundit:
Also, at Atlas Shrugs, "Operation Fetal Position."
Why Left-Wing Women Hate Women on the Right
Left-wing feminists are furious that conservative women are wildly popular. It’s completely unnerving to them that Sarah Palin, a well-educated athlete with a political resume (but considered illiterate because of her western accent, marriage, children, and home state) is the most popular woman in America, even with leftists who obsessively cover all things Sarah. After all, aren’t women supposed to lock-step like a bunch of politically enslaved vote-only-Democrat drones, support abortion, demand better pay (but insist minimum wage stay intact) and sue bosses who fire female incompetents? This is America for heaven’s sake! Women are not supposed to think for themselves, that’s the job of the Democrat Party!More at the link.And then came 2008 and Sarah Palin, followed by Michele Bachmann, Nikki Haley, Christine O’Donnell, Linda McMahon, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Sharron Angle, Angela McGlowen, Star Parker … should I stop? This might be too much for anti-female-unless-she-hates-men-and-unborn-babies leftist women to bare.
Bachmann and Haley won, the other GOP ladies lost, much to the glee of left-wing feminists like The Nation’s Betsy Reed who declared:
This result should not come as a huge surprise, given that the GOP Year of the Woman was always mostly hype, fueled by a potent mixture of Republican propaganda, Democratic hysteria and the mainstream media’s fondness for loopy ladies.
As opposed to Nancy Pelosi who did wonders elevating women’s political status with her spoiled demands for military jet-set vacations and claims of not knowing anything about intelligence reports. And let’s not forget Hillary’s contribution to women’s equality–accepting her serial molesting husband’s philandering actions, something feminists allegedly abhor.
Leftists do nothing to elevate women, yet they demand women vote one way and only one way. When women break that iron grip, saying no thank you, I can think and vote for myself, radical feminists turn against women like a pack of rabid grizzlies.
Case in point is Amanda Marcotte, who described Nikki Haley’s win as “the second most telling example of the ‘mama grizzly curse.’”
Boehner to Fly Commercial as House Speaker
Presumptive House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday that he will not use the military jet provided to current Speaker Nancy Pelosi to fly from D.C. to his home district each week, but will board the same airlines as everybody else.
Pelosi had claimed after she became speaker in 2007 that a military aircraft was offered to her in light of position as second in line to the presidency. But Boehner said he's not so concerned.
"I've talked to our security folks about the security involved in my new role. Over the last 20 years I've flown back and forth to my district on commercial aircraft and will continue to do that," Boehner, R-Ohio, said.
Affirmative Action Bake Sales
Plus, "JOHN STOSSEL: Get Your Affirmative Action Cupcakes Here!"
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
1979 on 'The Sound'
I was a senior in high school in '79. This set brought back a lot of memories, from this morning's drive time:
10:02 - Dance The Night Away by Van Halen
10:06 - Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd
10:12 - Roxanne by Police
10:15 - Just The Same Way (live) by Journey
10:19 - London Calling by Clash
10:22 - Breakfast In America by Supertramp
10:25 - Is She Really Going Out With Him by Joe Jackson
10:29 - Highway To Hell by Ac/dc
10:32 - Don't Bring Me Down by E.l.O.
10:42 - Ballroom Blitz by Sweet
10:46 - Lay It On The Line by Triumph
10:50 - Nights In White Satin by Moody Blues
10:58 - Here I Go Again by Whitesnake
Joseph Nye and the Future of American Power
The twenty-first century began with a very unequal distribution of power resources. With five percent of the world's population, the United States accounted for about a quarter of the world's economic output, was responsible for nearly half of global military expenditures, and had the most extensive cultural and educational soft-power resources. All this is still true, but the future of U.S. power is hotly debated. Many observers have interpreted the 2008 global financial crisis as the beginning of American decline. The National Intelligence Council, for example, has projected that in 2025, "the U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will be much diminished."I've highlighted the second to last quote above, because it caught my attention. I can recall, almost twenty year ago, Nye offered the same basic analogy, in an article from Spring 1992 at Foreign Affairs, "What New World Order?":
Power is the ability to attain the outcomes one wants, and the resources that produce it vary in different contexts. Spain in the sixteenth century took advantage of its control of colonies and gold bullion, the Netherlands in the seventeenth century profited from trade and finance, France in the eighteenth century benefited from its large population and armies, and the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century derived power from its primacy in the Industrial Revolution and its navy. This century is marked by a burgeoning revolution in information technology and globalization, and to understand this revolution, certain pitfalls need to be avoided.
First, one must beware of misleading metaphors of organic decline. Nations are not like humans, with predictable life spans. Rome remained dominant for more than three centuries after the peak of its power, and even then it did not succumb to the rise of another state. For all the fashionable predictions of China, India, or Brazil surpassing the United States in the next decades, the greater threat may come from modern barbarians and nonstate actors. In an information-based world, power diffusion may pose a bigger danger than power transition. Conventional wisdom holds that the state with the largest army prevails, but in the information age, the state (or the nonstate actor) with the best story may sometimes win.
Power today is distributed in a pattern that resembles a complex three-dimensional chess game. On the top chessboard, military power is largely unipolar, and the United States is likely to retain primacy for quite some time. On the middle chessboard, economic power has been multipolar for more than a decade, with the United States, Europe, Japan, and China as the major players and others gaining in importance. The bottom chessboard is the realm of transnational relations. It includes nonstate actors as diverse as bankers who electronically transfer funds, terrorists who traffic weapons, hackers who threaten cybersecurity, and challenges such as pandemics and climate change. On this bottom board, power is widely diffused, and it makes no sense to speak of unipolarity, multipolarity, or hegemony.
In interstate politics, the most important factor will be the continuing return of Asia to the world stage. In 1750, Asia had more than half the world's population and economic output. By 1900, after the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States, Asia's share shrank to one-fifth of global economic output. By 2050, Asia will be well on its way back to its historical share. The rise of China and India may create instability, but this is a problem with precedents, and history suggests how policies can affect the outcome.
No single hierarchy describes adequately a world politics with multiple structures. The distribution of power in world politics has become like a layer cake. The top military layer is largely unipolar, for there is no other military power comparable to the United States. The economic middle layer is tripolar and has been for two decades. The bottom layer of transnational interdependence shows a diffusion of power.The top of the international remains unipolar with the concentration of military power in the United States. But I'm interested in how in 1992 Nye spoke of economic "tripolarity" but today mentions "multipolarity" going back from more than a decade ("tripolarity" was a hip term at the time, as Japan and Germany seemed to be emerging at "the new superpowers.") And the bottom layer --- now a chessboard and not a layer cake --- is transnational relations, which implies much larger system effects from non-state actors such as al Qaeda (clearly a nod to the dramatic importance of the global war on terrorism in U.S. foreign policy over the last decade).
Overall, I have little disagreement with Nye's analysis. The one thing that really concerns me, and perhaps more so that it does Nye, is the impact America's long-term debt burden will have on the sustainability of U.S. power. He writes later in the essay, for example:
On the question of absolute, rather than relative, American decline, the United States faces serious problems in areas such as debt, secondary education, and political gridlock. But they are only part of the picture. Of the multiple possible futures, stronger cases can be made for the positive ones than the negative ones. But among the negative futures, the most plausible is one in which the United States overreacts to terrorist attacks by turning inward and thus cuts itself off from the strength it obtains from openness. Barring such mistaken strategies, however, there are solutions to the major American problems of today. (Long-term debt, for example, could be solved by putting in place, after the economy recovers, spending cuts and consumption taxes that could pay for entitlements.) Of course, such solutions may forever remain out of reach. But it is important to distinguish hopeless situations for which there are no solutions from those that could in principle be solved. After all, the bipartisan reforms of the Progressive era a century ago rejuvenated a badly troubled country.I'll have more on this, but see, in the current issue, Roger C. Altman and Richard N. Haass, "American Profligacy and American Power." And Niall Ferguson, from March/April 2010, "Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of Chaos."
V for Vendetta Hacker Strikes at Washington State University
And at Chronicle of Higher Education:
In V for Vendetta, the protagonist V is a revolutionary fighting a fascist British regime in a dystopian future. V broadcasts a video message calling the British public to action on November 5 in honor of Guy Fawkes’s 1605 attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament and assassinate King James I. The film ends in a violent explosion—which had some university officials worried that the V-masked hacker might be threatening to do something similar.Here's the text: "V's Speech To WSU" (c/o Computer World, "V for Vendetta Hacker Broadcasts Video at Washington State University").
Horny? Just Go to the Airport
I think I am against legalized molestation. The jury is still out, but in all fairness I think it's a bad idea even in the name of national security. In my roller-coaster brain, it seems to me that our politically correct world has taken us here. We can no longer narrow down and label our enemy. Reality and truth are not permitted in political correctness, only appeasement and lies. We have to make equal the suspicion bombing field by groping old ladies, housewives, old men, young boys and girls and maybe even puppies. Really TSA? Our choice is either let us take a nude photo of your wobbly bits or let us feel you up when going on vacation? Work hard and prepare to get the goods felt when you want to relax. This is why I hate vacationing, it's seriously too much work. I can stay home and get my jollies and not have to pack my life into one 50 pound suitcase only to have it man handled at the airport. Good-bye Hawaii. Good-bye Vegas. It's not worth it to me to get groped or viewed like a porn star all to prevent some ARAB guy from blowing up an aircraft. See what I said right there? An Arab. A Muslim. Middle Eastern folk are the ones trying to blow us up.More awesome commentary, at the link.
Video c/o American Digest.
Four Million U.S. Hispanics Would Migrate Permanently
At Gallup:
Gallup's survey suggests that U.S. Hispanics who would like to migrate are more likely to be struggling, foreign-born residents who are ready to give up the American dream and move home or try again somewhere else. These findings not only have implications on the national debate about immigration reform in the United States, but also on the immigration policies and economies of other countries to which these potential migrants would like to move.
Frontier Records' 30th Year Anniversary Concert
Check OC Weekly for a report.
Proposed Cigarette Product Warning Labels
Commentary at Weasel Zippers, "Nanny State Gone Wild – New Graphic Cigarette Warnings From the FDA."
I don't know. Maybe some folks are so stupid they actually need these warnings. Besides, what would folks like egghead JBW do without some Nanny Statism to gripe about? Get rid of warning labels and marijuana laws in one fell swoop!! Then everyone would have equal opportunity to death!
Added: At Doug Ross, "The FDA's 10 Most Terrifying Proposed Cigarette Warning Labels."
MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan Calls for Violent Revolution
I wrote on this previously, "Cartoonist Ted Rall Calls for ‘Proletarian Dictatorship’ in the U.S."
But Dylan Ratigan's endorsement is getting some major play across the 'sphere. At Big Journalism, "MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Promotes Book Advocating Violent Revolution." And from Ed Morrissey, "MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan, Ted Rall Call for Violent Revolution?" Actually, no need for that question mark at the end there.
'The World Ahead' at Foreign Affairs
Meanwhile, here's this from James F. Hoge, Jr., "Editor's Note":
Two decades ago, the Soviet empire and its ideological engine, communism, simultaneously died. Thus ended the Cold War, with unexpected suddenness. Looking forward at the time, many observers foresaw a placid future with few challenges to approximate the hot and cold wars that had so scarred the twentieth century. Peace and prosperity were predicted. In fact, peace did not break out. The last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century were full of challenges and surprises, including several long and debilitating wars that are not yet over.More at the link.As the post-Cold War world unfolded, Foreign Affairs addressed some of the discernible changes just getting under way. It was an early witness to the rise of Asia, the growth of globalization, and the emergence of economics and environmental issues as primary concerns in international relations. One essay, published in 1993, sounded a much-noted alert that conflict would still be a central concern. It was Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations?" which predicted that the fundamental source of conflict would be not ideological or economic but cultural, consisting of clashes "between nations and groups of different civilizations."
Today, unlike 20 years ago, there is widespread recognition of a long list of simmering conflicts, unsettling trends, and mounting global problems. Mindful that the unexpected is always lurking in the future, the contributors to this special issue of Foreign Affairs address a broad range of challenges that are likely to arise in the world ahead. In general, the subjects break down into three categories: the changing balance of power among states and peoples, the urgency of planetary issues, and the role of the United States.
Here are a few of the notes struck by our authors:
- The return of Asia to the world stage will define the era.
- The chasm between the United States and China could widen as their differing interests become more pronounced.
- Emerging powers, even democratic ones, will have separate agendas, making international integration more difficult.
- Cooperative approaches to an array of global issues, such as climate change, will be difficult to accomplish.
- Nonstate actors, ranging from unofficial governing entities to terrorist organizations, will grow, particularly in weak states.
- The United States' influence, diminished by the rise of other states and nonstate actors, will be fatally undercut if the country does not curb its unsustainable reliance on debt.
- Avoiding famine will depend on a vast expansion of Africa's lagging agricultural productivity.
- The resurgence of all the major religions will be marked by post-Western versions of Christianity and a return of religious practice to secular Europe.
- Half the world will experience "fertility implosions," thus leading to shortages of working-age populations, with only sub-Saharan Africa producing a surplus of working-age men.
- The technology revolution, epitomized by the Internet, will empower both people yearning for democracy and repressive tyrants.
- The United States will remain the primary source of clean-energy innovation.
- Those states that best educate their citizens will win the economic competition.
Check back for some commentary on all of this in the days ahead.
Republicans May Yet Have Upper Hand in Senate
On paper, the numbers tell you the Democrats held on to a majority in the Senate last week.I discussed the situation in the Senate in classes yesterday, but I hadn't thought of the high number of Dems running for reelection in 2012. McConnell's a smart cookie.
In reality, things won't be quite that neat. In fact, on some issues the Republicans actually may have a functional majority, given the sentiments likely to prevail among certain Democrats who face the voters in two years.
Here's the situation. After last week's midterm election, the Senate next year will have 51 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans. (The Republican from Alaska could be either Joe Miller, the tea-party candidate who was the official GOP nominee, or write-in incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. It appears Ms. Murkowski got enough votes to stick around, but all her write-in votes haven't been counted yet.)
So, in theory, that means Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, having survived his own election-day near-death experience, should be able to muster 53 votes if he keeps his troops in line.
But life is never that simple in the Senate and certainly won't be now. Among the Senate Democrats, 23 will face re-election in just two years, and, having just witnessed the drubbing some in their party took at the polls, they likely will be even less willing now to toe the party line. Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who caucuses with Democrats, often leans rightward, anyway.
More important, among those 23 Democrats who face voters in 2012 are a handful of incumbents from the kind of moderate to conservative states where Democrats took a beating last week: Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Jon Tester of Montana, Jim Webb of Virginia and Claire McCaskill of Missouri. Joe Manchin, who just won a Senate race in West Virginia by separating himself from President Barack Obama and his party's congressional leaders, also faces voters again in two years because he was elected only to fill out an unexpired term.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, looks at this field and thinks he may see some votes for his side. He points in particular to his desire to roll back parts of this year's big health bill.
"There are 23 Democrats up in 2012 and only nine Republicans," he said in an interview. "I think there is a widespread belief on the other side of the aisle that [the health bill] was a huge mistake. There could be, who knows, a growing number of Democrats who think that was the wrong thing to do."
More at the link.
Michael Steele, Republican Chairman, May Face Opposition
WASHINGTON — Turning their attention to the 2012 presidential election, Republican leaders are digging in for a battle over control of the Republican National Committee, judging that its role in fund-raising, get-out-the-vote operations and other tasks will be critical to the effort to topple President Obama.
Some senior party officials are maneuvering to put pressure on Michael Steele, the controversial party chairman, not to seek re-election when his term ends in January or, failing that, to encourage a challenger to step forward to take him on.
So far, the effort has been tentative, with Mr. Steele’s most ardent opponents working behind the scenes to persuade an alternative to run against him — fearful that any overt moves will create a backlash in Mr. Steele’s favor among those committee members who tend to view the establishment in Washington with suspicion.
One man leading the effort is a Mississippi Republican Party committeeman, Henry Barbour, who is a nephew of Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi — a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, himself. Governor Barbour is said by people involved in the discussions to be among those eager to see a change at the top the party and recently criticized party fund-raising under Mr. Steele.
Officials close to the presumed new House speaker, Representative John A. Boehner, and the Senate minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said that both men would prefer a new chairman, as well, but that they were also resigned to Mr. Steele’s continued leadership should no clear alternative emerge to defeat him.
In an interview Tuesday night, Henry Barbour said, “I like Mike Steele and I’ve worked hard to support him as chairman.” But, he added, “I do think we have to make a change and I have actively talked to some other members in the last week or so and encouraged a few of them to consider running.”
Among those Mr. Barbour has approached is a member of Mr. Steele’s “kitchen cabinet” of advisers, Reince Priebus, who is chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin and who helped manage Mr. Steele’s first election for the chairmanship two years ago.
Several officials involved in the discussions, all of whom requested anonymity to share details of the talks, said Mr. Priebus had recently warned Mr. Steele that a run for re-election could prove difficult this time around, and advised him to consider leaving the chairmanship at time when he could point to big Republican gains nationwide.
But Mr. Priebus has made it clear that he is personally uncomfortable with the idea of challenging Mr. Steele directly for the post, given their friendship.
The effort to woo Mr. Priebus was first reported Tuesday on the Web site of The Washington Post.
WaPo's piece is here: "Republicans Attempt to Recruit Alternative to Michael Steele."
RELATED: "Sarah Palin Rallies GOP at 'Victory 2010' in Anaheim."
BDS Lives: Critics Plan to Move Bush Memoir to 'Crime' Section in Bookstores
When Tony Blair released his memoir earlier this year, a facebook page was created calling for critics of the former prime minister to "Subversively move Tony Blair's memoirs to the crime section in book shops."At last count, the Facebook group had more than 14,000 members. The effort was a way for Blair's critics to protest his role in the war in Iraq. "Make bookshops think twice about where they categorise our generations greatest war criminal," the page says.
Now critics of President George W. Bush are trying to replicate the protest with a Facebook group tied to the release of the former president's memoir "Decision Points" tomorrow. The page has more than 1,000 members so far. "They did this to Tony Blair's book and I think we should do the same here," it says.
Left-leaning websites are promoting the idea and calling on people to post pictures of their efforts online.
Mr. Bush plans to sign copies of the book tomorrow in Dallas, and critics are vowing to protest the event, complaining on a protest-organizing Facebook page that "his unapologetic attitude" about the war in Iraq "is unacceptable."
Yeah, and Code Pink commie Jodie Evans is on the case, "Move W.'s Decision Points to the Crime Section."
This is going to be quite a week for Bush Derangement. See, "This Bid to Rehabilitate Bush Must Be Defeated: He Left a Trail of Destruction."