Progressives Take Aim at Bush Tax Cuts

No surprise Ed Schultz is mouthing talking points from the Soros-funded Think Progress smear machine. Schultz just came back from his suspension after attacking Laura Ingraham as a "right-wing slut." And here he is going off about exploding deficits and lost jobs, blah, blah. Is there a prize for being too obvious? The Anthony Weiner ethics disaster is just some foul topping for all the horrendous economic news of late, and Democratic prospects for 2012 are simply getting hammered. It's the smell of desperation, and it stinks.

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Here's Think Progress, "Ten Years Of The Bush Tax Cuts." And here's Joan Walsh, who just got beaten up on Twitter over her attacks on Andrew Breitbart and Weinergate, "Happy anniversary: Bush tax cuts turn 10." Folks can go back and forth on this forever. The truth is that higher taxes stifle initiative and entrepreneurship, and small businesses are among the hardest hit. Besides, no single variable explains current growth trends, least of all the first round up Bush tax cuts on 2001. As Mark Murray points out, "Judging the Bush tax cuts -- 10 years later":

Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, has a different take on the Bush tax cuts.

Edwards says the 2001 cuts (which included lower individual tax rates) turned out to be less effective than the later ones enacted in 2003 (on dividends and capital gains). "Bush's cuts were half and half in my view."

He also contends that it's too simplistic to extrapolate from the last 10 years that tax cuts -- in general -- don't work. "So much goes on in the economy," Edwards said, referring to external events, trade policies, and spending. "Clinton's higher tax rate doesn't prove any kind of relationship."

The current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls are continuing to bet on lower taxes. In his speech at the University of Chicago today, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed decreasing individual income-tax rates to just two levels: 10% and 25%; 35% is the current top level. And he also called for a lower corporate-tax rate.

"Growing at 5% a year -- rather than at the current level of 1.8% -- would net us millions of new jobs," Pawlenty said. "How do we do it? In short, we create more economic growth by creating more economic freedom."

See also Martin Feldstein, at Wall Street Journal, "The Economy Is Worse Than You Think":

The policies of the Obama administration have led to the weak condition of the American economy. Growth during the coming year will be subpar at best, leaving high or rising levels of unemployment and underemployment.

The drop in GDP growth to just 1.8% in the first quarter of 2011, from 3.1% in the final quarter of last year, understates the extent of the decline. Two-thirds of that 1.8% went into business inventories rather than sales to consumers or other final buyers. This means that final sales growth was at an annual rate of just 0.6% and the actual quarterly increase was just 0.15%—dangerously close to no rise at all. A sustained expansion cannot be built on inventory investment. It takes final sales to induce businesses to hire and to invest.

The picture is even gloomier if we look in more detail. Estimates of monthly GDP indicate that the only growth in the first quarter of 2011 was from February to March. After a temporary rise in March, the economy began sliding again in April, with declines in real wages, in durable-goods orders and manufacturing production, in existing home sales, and in real per-capita disposable incomes. It is not surprising that the index of leading indicators fell in April, only the second decline since it began to rise in the spring of 2009.

The data for May are beginning to arrive and are even worse than April's. They are marked by a collapse in payroll-employment gains; a higher unemployment rate; manufacturers' reports of slower orders and production; weak chain-store sales; and a sharp drop in consumer confidence.

How has the Obama administration contributed to this failure to achieve a robust and sustainable recovery?

The administration's most obvious failure was its misguided fiscal policies: the cash-for-clunkers subsidy for car buyers, the tax credit for first-time home buyers, and the $830 billion "stimulus" package. Cash-for-clunkers gave a temporary boost to motor-vehicle production but had no lasting impact on the economy. The home-buyer credit stimulated the demand for homes only temporarily.

As for the "stimulus" package, both its size and structure were inadequate to offset the enormous decline in aggregate demand. The fall in household wealth by the end of 2008 reduced the annual level of consumer spending by more than $500 billion. The drop in home building subtracted another $200 billion from GDP. The total GDP shortfall was therefore more than $700 billion. The Obama stimulus package that started at less than $300 billion in 2009 and reached a maximum of $400 billion in 2010 wouldn't have been big enough to fill the $700 billion annual GDP gap even if every dollar of the stimulus raised GDP by a dollar.

In fact, each dollar of extra deficit added much less than a dollar to GDP. Experience shows that the most cost-effective form of temporary fiscal stimulus is direct government spending. The most obvious way to achieve that in 2009 was to repair and replace the military equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan that would otherwise have to be done in the future. But the Obama stimulus had nothing for the Defense Department. Instead, President Obama allowed the Democratic leadership in Congress to design a hodgepodge package of transfers to state and local governments, increased transfers to individuals, temporary tax cuts for lower-income taxpayers, etc. So we got a bigger deficit without economic growth.

More at the link.

The bottom line is that the economy will continue to stagnate until the Democrats cut spending and lower taxes to spur entrepreneurship and investment.

Calls for Anthony Weiner to Resign

At the clip, Andrew Breitbart expects Antony Weiner's resignation.

And see New York Times, "Weiner Faces Calls to Resign and Tries to Make Amends" (via Memeorandum):

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Representative Anthony D. Weiner of New York, reeling from revelations of salacious online behavior that threaten his political career, moved rapidly on Tuesday to make amends as Republicans called for his resignation and leading members of his own Democratic Party distanced themselves from him.

Mr. Weiner spent much of the past 24 hours apologizing over and over to stunned Congressional colleagues and Democratic leaders angry at him for misleading them and the public. Even neighboring House Democrats seemed shaken, with many of them worrying that worse disclosures may still surface.

During a tense telephone call with Mr. Weiner, during which he apologized, Representative Nydia M. Velázquez of Brooklyn scolded him, as she recalled: “How can you explain that somebody can be so smart but so stupid?”

Asked if Mr. Weiner should resign, she replied, “The most important thing in this business is credibility.”

Signs of a redrawn political reality quickly emerged for Mr. Weiner, once considered a top contender to become mayor of New York. His campaign donors said they were especially shocked and furious because a week ago the congressman attributed his online travails to a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” a contributor who spoke with him said.

“Everything is going to be fine,” Mr. Weiner said, according to the contributor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the uncertainty surrounding the congressman’s future.

But Mr. Weiner’s problems have only intensified as new and more embarrassing details of his online relationships emerged. After adamantly proclaiming for a week that he had been the victim of a hacker, Mr. Weiner admitted during a tearful news conference on Monday that he had sent suggestive photographs and messages to at least six women and had repeatedly lied to cover up his actions.

RTWT. Bill and Hillary Clinton are said to be deeply upset by this (wonders never cease, I know). I'm personally surprised he's held out this long. I expected his resignation at the time of the press conference.

Amanda Marcotte's #Weinergate Embarrassment

I checked out Amanda Marcotte's Twitter feed yesterday morning. She's a strange woman. I was tempted to write something but didn't. Kinda burnout out on #Weinergate, although the complete destruction of progressives on this is simply too much. (Joan Walsh was off Twitter all day Monday, hoping to avoid an expected backlash.) Anyway, count on Robert Stacy McCain to come through with an epic report on Ms. Marcotte, "WeinerGate Götterdämmerung":

Life is a big joke and Ms. Marcotte is the punchline, so that all we need do is to say, “Hey, go read what this idiot wrote,” and everyone will see for themselves why she is so transparently absurd.

Yet Amanda Marcotte is taken seriously by influential people, who pay her to preach to the rest of us, and it would be wrong to dismiss her without at least attempting a serious analysis of her errors. It may be true of Ms. Marcotte, as Mary McCarthy said of Lillian Hellman, that every word she writes is a lie, including “and” and “the.” But exactly why and how her writing is so pervasively false requires further explanation.

Note how Ms. Marcotte deploys “ideologue” as an epithet against Breitbart when she is herself an avowed adherent of the ideology of feminism. Indeed, if it weren’t for her idolatrous devotion to feminism, Ms. Marcotte would have nothing to write about. Her entire raison d’être as a writer is to filter the world through a feminist lens.

She is one of those writers who, despairing of achieving notoriety in the larger literary world, seeks a readership in some ghetto niche occupied almost entirely by third-rate talents, so that her occasional second-rate contributions appear conspicuously impressive by comparison. And in her feminist niche, the only standard by which anyone may be judged is according to their zealous devotion to The Sacred Cause:

Weiner has an outstanding record supporting sexual rights of others, with100% ratings from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, and has a strong record of support for gay rights.

See? He votes the right way. And isn’t that what really matters?

RTWT. It's a long exegesis of Amanda Marcotte's utter depravity. She's got some kinda record. Wow. Even Jill Stanek piles on: "Liberal Feminists Blow Off Weiner Sex Scandal." (And linked there is Jessica Dweck at Slate, "The Case for Tolerating Left-Wing Lotharios.")

My interest wavers on radical feminism, because it's so complicated, frankly (radical feminists can be found on the left and right, although those on the latter side deny it). But considering all that's happened of late, I should probably have more on this in upcoming posts shortly.

Photo Credit: Flickr.

'Room for Debate' — Can Weiner Survive?

That's survive electorally. Whether his marriage survives is another question.

At New York Times, "Can the Democrats Keep Weiner's Seat?" An interesting panel of debaters, but I like Kay Hymowitz, "Parochial, Not Puritanical":

Will the people of New York’s Ninth District give their disgraced Congressman, Anthony Wiener, the boot? On the face of it, it seems they will – and hard. The bizarrely shaped district, designed to facilitate the election of black leaders in an adjacent area, is largely white and ethnic: Italians, Irish, and Jews, not Upper West Side Jews mind you, but Orthodox and Russian immigrant Jews.

In fact, the Ninth seems to be among the last of 20th century ethnic enclaves in the outer boroughs. And as everyone knows, that crowd tends to be socially conservative, anti-abortion, anti-same sex marriage, and, it would follow, more unforgiving of philanderers.

On closer inspection, however, a culture war-inspired ouster of the besieged Congressman seems unlikely. Yes, the district has trended more Republican in presidential races in the past decade, but that has more to do with 9/11 than with hot button social issues. The Irish of Breezy Point and the Rockaways like Weiner because of his support for the first responders; the Jews of Ocean Parkway are on his side because of his enthusiasm for Israel, which also explains why Chuck Schumer, no virtuecrat, retains a strong standing among his Orthodox constituents.

Remember also: white ethnics are no longer so predictably seeped in family values. A 2010 report from the National Marriage Project found a dramatic rise in single motherhood, cohabitation and divorce among the working class, which presumably would include many of Weiner's constituents.

And then there’s this: for Weiner to lose, someone has to win. But in the Ninth District, as in New York City as a whole, interests are parochial -- and the Republican Party, weak as a kitten.

Yep. His constituents may be forgiving, although there's still a campaign next year. See ABC News, "Anthony Weiner: Poll Finds Majority of New York Voters Think He Should Not Resign."

Yale Kills Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism

From Abby Wisse Schachter, at New York Post, "Yale's Gift to Anti-Semitism":

Yale University last week killed the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplin ary Study of Antisemitism -- the only program of its kind in the country, an academically stellar one-stop anti-Semitism research shop. Worse, it almost certainly did so because YIISA refused to ignore the most virulent, genocidal and common form of Jew-hatred today: Muslim anti-Semitism.

Citing an official review by a faculty committee that it refuses to identify, Yale will shut down the program at the end of next month. The university's top flack, Director of Strategic Communications Charles "Robin" Hogen, wrote an e-mail claiming that YIISA had failed a key test: It was supposed to "serve the research and teaching interests of some significant group of Yale faculty and . . . be sustained by the creative energy of a critical mass of Yale faculty."

Funny, last year, at YIISA's hugely successful inaugural conference on global anti-Semitism, Yale Deputy Provost Frances Rosenbluth said just the opposite, noting that YIISA was "guided by an outstanding group of scholars from all over the university representing many different disciplines," including professors of history, sociology, comparative languages, psychiatry, economics and political science. Actually, Hogen's e-mail itself contradicts Yale's stated excuse: He notes that "the steering committee did express continued support for the faculty reading group on anti-Semitism." Plus, "institutional support will remain for the group of faculty who wish to continue their scholarly exploration of this important subject."
Which is it -- no faculty interested in studying anti-Semitism, or lots of faculty interest in studying anti-Semitism?

Well, depends on what kind of anti-Semitism. Can't be studying the Islamic kind, now can we?

Oh, Pretty Baby...

I know this is a romantic song, but when it comes on the radio it reminds me of my whole family. Love your loved ones. My wife and children are miracles to me. I can't take my eyes off of them. They're too good to be true ...

Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America

A longer discussion with Ann Coulter, at Sean Hannity's.

I've been looking forward to reading this. I'm interested in Coulter's theory. She talks about how mobs are always demonic, but there's more to it. So, until I've read some of it. Available at Amazon: Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.

Ashton Sweet Memorial Service

The story made the front-page of this morning's Orange County Register, "1,000 attend funeral for Ashton Sweet." And also the second section at Los Angeles Times, "About 300 gather to celebrate life of Irvine teen Ashton Sweet." I don't know where the Times got that figure. There were well over 300 people, if not quite 1000. And the local media turnout was huge. See KABC-TV Los Angeles, "Loved ones remember Irvine teen Ashton Sweet at funeral service." My wife spoke to Michael Ghaemi, the driver. He said he could never forgive himself for what happened. My wife gave him a hug. And from the Register's report:

Michael Ghaemi, who was driving the car carrying Sweet and three friends when the crash took place, described "slow-motion flashbacks" with scenes of glass shattering, teenage girls screaming and a prayer he said to himself that none of them would be harmed.

Seconds after the wreck, Ghaemi said, "I knew that my wish was not granted."

Ashton's mother was forever grateful for the love everyone shared with her. Her daughter was loved in the community. Too soon an angel.

Breitbart on 'The Today Show'

There's a big long post at NewsBusters, "NBC's Lauer Claims Breitbart Violated Conservative Principles by Breaking Weiner Story."

The full clip is at Big Government, "Breitbart on TODAY: Big Gov’t Publisher Tells the Incredible Story Behind the Weiner Presser."

Watch how hesitant Matt Lauer is to credit Breitbart with legitimacy and vindication. He tries to trip up Breitbart as a conservative hypocrite.

And at New York Times, "A Conservative Blogger Looks for Legitimacy."

Ann Coulter on 'Good Morning America'

She talks WeinerGate and her new book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.

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Supreme Court Allows In-State Tuition to Illegal Immigrants

At Los Angeles Times, "Supreme Court allows California to grant in-state tuition to illegal immigrants."

And also, "Supreme Court ruling on California immigrant tuition rates could affect other states' policies."

And checking that link we see a picture of students with "DREAM" signs, like "The DREAM is Coming." More like the open borders nightmare is coming. See: "America’s Bad DREAM."

RELATED GRAPHIC: "Illegal immigrants and state universities."

Al-Qaeda Still World's Greatest Threat

Political instability bolsters Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, via AEI:

And at Reuters, "Interpol says al Qaeda remains biggest global threat":

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Al Qaeda and groups linked to it remain the world's biggest security threat despite the killing of Osama bin Laden, the head of Interpol said on Tuesday.

Airlines and other forms of public transport are most at risk, with terrorists using fraudulent passports to travel undetected an area of particular concern, Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble told reporters on the sidelines of an aviation meeting in Singapore.

"Even before bin Laden was captured and killed, the biggest threat was not only al Qaeda but al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups around the world," he said "I think that remains the biggest threat now as it was before his death.

"The airline and air industry continues to be a prime target for terrorists, but we've seen from recovered intelligence etc that they are also focusing a lot on mass transit. But airlines continue to be a special target."

More at the link above.

Also, at National Journal, "The Latest in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia."

RELATED: At Telegraph UK, "Online preachers of hate: Anwar al-Awlaki, ‘bin Laden of the internet’."

Who Should Trust Anthony Weiner Now? No One. He Should Resign

Watch this clip with James Poulos (via Instapundit). Then read Emily Miller's commentary, "Anthony Weiner Should Resign Now":

Mr. Weiner is out for himself and has shown no regard for his constituents or the duty of his public office. From his embattled stance, it seems that the only way to force him out of office is for the Pelosi- launched ethics investigation to determine what he has lied about and what rules and possible laws he has broken. If he had any decency, he would resign.

Charles Johnson Won't Apologize for Smearing Andrew Breitbart

Read it all at Legal Insurrection: "Charles Johnson: I Won't Apologize to Breitbart."

Take a minute and send your thoughts to the Lizard Man, via Twitter.

Plus, Glenn Reynolds has more.

And C.J.'s response is available through Google, if you're interested. He's all about science and facts and stuff. Except when he's not.

Weiner Scandal on 'Nightline'

Just caught this segment, with Terry Moran. ABC News is in the news, of course. See, American Glob, "Watch Anthony Weiner Lie Through His Teeth Just Three Days Ago."

Weiner Admits He Lied

The headline's long at NYT, "Weiner Admits He Sent Lewd Photos; Seeks Not to Resign." Just read the whole thing. Amazingly good piece. I especially like the suggestion that by the standards of Rep. Christopher Lee, who resigned from his own shirtless scandal, there's really no reason Weiner should stay in the House. And Nancy Pelosi's not pleased. She's promised an ethics investigation, and while normally that's a joke, I think Weiner's travails are hurting Democratic prospects for 2012, and they know it.

Andrew Breitbart Vindicated

Great video.

Breitbart challenges the media to prove he's a liar. And he says, "I'm here for some vindication."

Also, at Politico, "Andrew Breitbart's day of vindication":

In Andrew Breitbart’s up-and-down career as a conservative agitator, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Ten days ago, he broke the Rep. Anthony Weiner Twitter scandal on his website, Big Government, then on Monday pushed it to its conclusion with the release of more photos of Weiner, forcing the beleaguered New York congressman to hold a self-flagellating press conference hours later.

At the same time, Breitbart managed to steer clear of the accusations of selective editing and bias that have stuck to him as a result of several high-profile “scoops” that turned into fiascos, while painting himself as a victim of a left-leaning press quick to blame him for somehow engineering a scandal that, in the end, was entirely of Weiner’s own making.

Breitbart’s glee was apparent even before Weiner’s confession when he jumped up on the podium before the New York congressman’s press conference Monday afternoon to take questions from reporters and demand an apology. So, too, was his sense of exoneration after the way the left-leaning and mainstream media had painted him as a questionable source in the past.

“I would like an apology for allowing his political protectors – and this was his strategy – to blame me, to blame me for hacking,” Breitbart said. “’Don’t worry, Breitbart is a regular whipping boy. We can accuse him of anything and the press will not hold those journalists to account no matter what they say.’

“So I’m here for some vindication,” he said, declaring that “the big problem here is the coverup and the problem of trying to deflect blame on a journalist for doing his job.”

I checked Google trends a little while ago and Breitbart was trending "spicy" and above "Rep Weiner" searches.

Read all of Politico at the link. And more at Memeorandum.

Added: At Yid With Lid, "The Revenge of the Nerds: Breitbart Vindicated Again."

Where's NOW and Planned Parenthood? Anthony Weiner Stands for Women?

I meant to post this earlier. I promised I'd have more on my dislike of Anthony Weiner, which goes beyond his epic personal moral failures. His policy advocacy is way, way to the left. His fall is thus a major defeat for Democrat party progressivism, and I'm glad.

Here's the embattled congressman speaking at the New York Planned Parenthood's Rally to Protect Women's Health in February.

I don't see statements from NOW or Planned Parenthood, but if they comment I'll update.

Meanwhile, see Jenn Taylor at FrontPage Magazine, "Anthony Weiner's Feminist Rhetoric Meets Reality."

Meagan Broussard

Tells her story at Big Government.

And get all your updates at The Other McCain: "Anthony Weiner Press Conference UPDATE: Admits Trying to Send DM UPDATE: He Will Not Resign."

Added: At London's Daily Mail, "‘I am stalking you’: 26-year-old single mum reveals how Weiner 'pursued her online' after she ‘liked’ YouTube video of one of his speeches."

Anthony Weiner Sexting Scandal Update

The Other McCain reports: "#WeinerGate: It Gets WORSE - UPDATE: Press Conference 4 p.m. ET UPDATE: ABC News Interviews Woman."

And at RadarOnline, "Weinergate Grows: Another Woman Provides Sex Messages From His Account." And Hollywood Life, "Anthony Weiner Sexting Scandal Continues As Another Woman Comes Forward!" (The post includes photos from Andrew Breitbart's Big Government!)

Added: At The Atlantic Wire, "Anthony Weiner: Resign or Not Resign?" And Nick Gillespie, "Probably About Time to Say Goodbye to Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)."

1:20 PM: I'm following on Twitter. Also, a Breitbart live feed.

Anthony Weiner Upper Body Nude Photos!

God, that resignation's gotta be any minute now!

Seriously.

At Big Government, "Déjà Vu: Another Congressman Bares Naked Torso (and More) for Online Pal." (At Memeorandum.)

Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis!

Mutually assured groping, at the MTV Movie Awards 2011:

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See Long Island Press, "Mila Kunis & Justin Timberlake Get Frisky on MTV Movie Awards." (More at Us Weekly and WeSmirch.)

67th Anniversary of D-Day

At Long Island Press, "D-Day Marks its 67th Anniversary." And Weasel Zippers, "Today Is The 67th Anniversary of D-Day…"

On Memorial Day I was trolling around for videos and ended up watching some long clips from "Saving Private Ryan" on YouTube. After a few minutes I checked over at my Facebook page and Marooned in Marin had linked the video. Anyway, here's the first few minutes. It's still my favorite movie:

Weiner's Roasted: Andrew Breitbart Will Trickle Congressman's Tweet Photos All Day

Well, the rush of Weiner traffic's died down around here, but the blog's still a top result at "Anthony Weiner Resignation," an outcome that's looking more likely with the new batch of revelations.

Robert Stacy McCain is doing massive roundups, here: "New #WeinerGate Allegations? UPDATE: Weiner’s Photo: ‘It’s Me’," and here: "#WeinerGate Fallout: Democrats Criticize Weiner for Missing Israel Day Parade UPDATE: Breitbart Releases 2nd Photo."

And from Andrew Breitbart at Big Government, "‘It’s Me’: Rep. Weiner Sends Playful Photo to New Friend," and "‘Me and the pussys’: Weiner Sends Intimate Home Pic; Apparently Relishes Double Entendres, Too." (Via Memeorandum.)

Plus, Ed Morrissey weighs in, "More controversial tweets from Weiner?"

Protesters Killed at Israeli Border

At New York Times, "Israeli Soldiers Shoot at Protesters on Syrian Border":

JERUSALEM — Israeli forces fired at pro-Palestinian protesters on the Syrian frontier on Sunday as they tried to breach the border for the second time in three weeks, reflecting a new mode of popular struggle and deadly confrontation fueled by turmoil in the Arab world and the vacuum of stalled peace talks.

Wave after wave of protesters, mainly Palestinians from refugee camps in Syria, approached the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers opened fire on those who crossed a new trench and tried to attack the border fence near the towns of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights and Quneitra in Syria.

By nightfall, the Syrian news agency SANA reported that 22 protesters had been killed and more than 350 had been wounded. Israeli officials said that they had no information on casualties but suggested that the Syrian figures were exaggerated.

Even so, it was the worst bloodshed in the Golan Heights since Israel and Syria fought a war there in 1973.

RTWT.

This is a Damascus production. See, Ynet, "Syrian opposition: Anti-Israel rioters paid $1,000." And Gateway Pundit, "Anti-Israel Protesters Reportedly Paid $1000 to Storm Across Israel Border."

Also, from Rick Moran, at FrontPage Magazine, "Besieging the Israeli Border: A Syrian Production."

Yigal Allon — 'Israel: The Case for Defensible Borders'

The Los Angeles Times has a new essay from Dore Gold, "The long view in Israel against the 1967 line." Recall that Gold is a former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations. I cited his recent commentary piece at Wall Street Journal, "Israel's 1967 Borders Aren't Defensible." At the Times he discusses Yigal Allon's 1976 essay at Foreign Affairs, "Israel: The Case for Defensible Borders." I'm reading it. Here's this from the introduction:

It is impossible to plumb the depths of the Arab-Israeli conflict, not to speak of formulating proposals for its solution, if no true understanding exists of the full significance of its cardinal characteristic-the extreme asymmetry of its two sides. This asymmetry is manifest not merely in one or two, but in all, of its aspects. It is obvious in such objective data as the comparison between Arab and Israeli territories (of the Arab League states 8,500,000 square miles; of Israel, including presently administered areas, about 28,500); or of the relative population statistics (of the Arab League states 134,000,000; of Israel 3,500,000 citizens); not to mention their contrasting actual and potential wealth.

But of primary importance are the subjective asymmetric factors affecting relations between the two sides. In this respect, there is absolute polarization. Whereas the Arab states seek to isolate, strangle and erase Israel from the world's map, Israel's aim is simply to live in peace and good relations with all its neighbors.

These diverse objectives have determined the war aims of both sides. It is within this context that we should mention the chain of terrorist acts that was designed not merely to sow death and destruction in Israel but also to extend the conflict, and thus embroil the Arab states in full-scale wars. It is almost superfluous, and certainly tiresome, to quote the legion of statements of Arab leaders that represent this aim, ranging from the "Palestine Covenant" to current governmental declarations.

As opposed to this total Arab goal, Israel's war aims have been confined to repelling the offensives of the Arab armies as determined by strategic and political circumstances, whether by reactive counter-offensives such as those of 1948 and 1973 or by preemptive counter-offensives as those of 1956 and 1967. Military defeats, indeed, cost the Arab states losses in lives, destruction of equipment, political setbacks, and damage to national prestige-and perhaps even danger to their regimes. However, such defeats have never been, nor ever will be, a threat to their very existence as sovereign states or to the lives of their civilian populations. In contrast, a military defeat of Israel would mean the physical extinction of a large part of its population and the political elimination of the Jewish state. In highly realistic and clear terms, therefore, the Arab states can permit themselves a series of military defeats while Israel cannot afford to lose a single war. Nor does this reflect a historical trauma in any sense. To lose a single war is to lose everything, and this is a most real and stark fact.

And about the 1967 borders:

One does not have to be a military expert to easily identify the critical defects of the armistice lines that existed until June 4, 1967. A considerable part of these lines is without any topographical security value; and, of no less importance, the lines fail to provide Israel with the essential minimum of strategic depth. The gravest problem is on the eastern boundary, where the entire width of the coastal plain varies between 10 and 15 miles, where the main centers of Israel's population, including Tel Aviv and its suburbs, are situated, and where the situation of Jerusalem is especially perilous. Within these lines a single successful first strike by the Arab armies would be sufficient to dissect Israel at more than one point, to sever its essential living arteries, and to confront it with dangers that no other state would be prepared to face. The purpose of defensible borders is thus to correct this weakness, to provide Israel with the requisite minimal strategic depth, as well as lines which have topographical strategic significance.

And not quoted is the key issue raised by Dore Gold at the Los Angeles Times: There's never been a final recognition of boundaries. Israel is not now nor has it ever been required to withdraw behind the 1967 armistice lines.

Anyway, check the discussion at LAT. It's perfectly sound, but detailed arguments like this have little effect on those determined to drive the Jews to the sea.

Skylar Grey at L.A. Times Magazine

"Hooked":

Her name doesn’t ring a bell when mentioned, though you certainly know the voice. There was Skylar Grey, front and center amid the smoke and shadows at February’s 53rd annual Grammy Awards, singing the hooks she wrote for Eminem, Dr. Dre and Rihanna during a haunting performance of “Love the Way You Lie” and “I Need a Doctor.”

Now the 25-year-old is making her move on the spotlight. Previously known as the girl who pens the lyrics or adds the inimitable vocal track (think Diddy-Dirty Money’s “Coming Home,” Lupe Fiasco’s “Words I Never Said” and T.I.’s “Castle Walls” featuring Christina Aguilera), she wants to be more than hip-hop’s go-to girl.

RTWT.

And check the photos at the Skylar Grey News fansite.

Blasphemes Blog Ripping Off American Power

I caught this guy last November ripping off one of my posts, "Leftist Group Demagogues START Debate With New 'Daisy Girl' Ad." Here's the dick's post: "Daisy 2010."

And now I caught the guy stealing my stuff again last night, at "Anthony Weiner's Weinergate." The post links to the Politico piece I linked and then steals these passages:

Also, check the #Weinergate hashtag on Twitter, where the essential coverage has been developing.

Image Credit: The People's Cube.

Compare that to my report, "#Weinergate! — Back Rep. Anthony Weiner Retains Legal Counsel!"

Fair use is fine. But this is not fair use. My content is getting ripped off outright all around the web. Before Its News just started posting my stuff. They solicited an approval, which I didn't authorize, but started posting my essays anyway. Then there's American Insurance, Back to Basics, If Bush Did It, Scroll Posts, and who knows what else? They just snag your stuff and start reaping Google ad revenue or what not. And there's not a whole lot you can do about it unless you're all registered under U.S. Copyright law and/or are willing to litigate. Actually, if my stuff's gonna be this valuable I might be looking into that. As it is, I'm going to be bugging the hell out of dirtbags like Blasphemes to stop stealing. After that I'll start putting in some take down requests at the other places and then go from there. This is ridiculous.

'Breastaurants'

At Entrepreneur, "'Breastaurants' Ring Up Big Profits" (via Instapundit):

Franchises inspired by the Hooters model--such as Celtic-themed sports bar chain Tilted Kilt Pub & Eatery and faux mountain sports lodge chain Twin Peaks--have expanded rapidly over the last half decade, while corporate-owned chains like Brick House Tavern + Tap and Bone Daddy's House of Smoke are picking up steam regionally. In fact, for the next couple of years, this segment (often referred to as "breastaurants") is poised to be one of the fastest-growing restaurant categories.

More at the link.

Obviously not the kinda place for guys like ASFL Scott Eric Kaufman.

Howard Kurtz Covers #WeinerGate on CNN's 'Reliable Sources'

This video's edited a bit. At about 3:30 minutes Gawker's Maureen O'Connor says:

Is this relevant to Anthony Weiner’s career as a politician? Maybe. . . . This is what we do. We cover human interest stories. We cover the strange case of a person, a powerful person, ending up falling to the exact same ridiculously stupid follies that everyone does. Taking a picture of his dick and getting caught doing it.

"Dick" is deleted, but Howard Kurtz responds that that's not a word he'd use on the air.

[VIDEO TAKEN DOWN]

That said, Jeff Jarvis is a bleedin' idiot. He's all about "if this were Europe" no one would give a hoot ... Well bud, it's not Europe, but I'm sure you'd do well over there. Bye bye!

RELATED: At POWIP: "Weinergate: Whole Lotta Love." And Patterico, "More Weiner Messages to Young Girls? Evidence the Media Was Duped into Dropping the Investigation." (At Memeorandum.)

U.S.-Born al Qaeda Spokesman Adam Gadahn Calls for Attacks on Americans

Blazing Cat Fur had his YouTube account suspended for posting this video of Adam Gadahn:

ABC News has the background, "New Al Qaeda Video: American Muslims Should Buy Guns, Start Shooting People." (Ilyas Kashmiri, mentioned as a remaining top al Qaeda leader, has now been killed in a U.s. drone attack.)

And Amy Alkon covered this:

Gotta love those silly "COEXIST" bumper stickers, which include Islam in among the other religions, despite the fact that Islam's mission (per the Quran and Hadith) is not "coexistence" but the conversion or death of all who do not believe as they do.

More at Quoth the Raven: "GOOGLE/YOUTUBE SUSPENDS BLAZINGCATFUR WHILE SUPPORTING JIHAD."

The Other America: Mountain View Workers Struggle as High Tech Booms

Fascinating piece at New York Times, "In Mountain View, 2 Contrasting Economic Worlds Intersect":

At the Google campus on the outskirts of Mountain View, employees sip lattes under brightly colored umbrellas as others pass on company bicycles, laptops secured in the front baskets. This year the company will add substantially to its work force of more than 5,000 in that Silicon Valley city, and it has just leased nine acres to expand its campus.

But closer to downtown, Carolina Rivera finds herself in a decidedly less attractive environment — the crowded office of the Community Services Agency, where she is looking for a job. She has three children to support and has not found anything since her hours at an organic-food factory were reduced. Those like Mrs. Rivera find life difficult in Mountain View: the competition for work is fierce, housing is expensive and cuts in government services are pending as the city tries to balance its budget.

Mountain View, home to technology kingpins like Google, LinkedIn and Symantec, illustrates the disconnect between the current technology boom and the daily economic realities of many in Silicon Valley. The five biggest tech companies with headquarters in town are valued at more than $200 billion, but Mountain View, with a population of 74,000, faces a $2.6 million budget gap and has an unemployment rate of 7.7 percent.

“We really are seeing two very different economies emerging,” said Emmett Carson, chief executive of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. “We have the Google campus; they’re expanding, they’re adding employees, they’re doing very well financially. But the nonprofit sector and local government have been stretched to the maximum.”

But these people are supposed to be progressive:

Part of the problem is that corporate campuses, with their own cafeterias, day care centers and other employee perks, are not always very integrated into the surrounding community.

“The industry doesn’t create a lot of demand for services,” said Terry Christensen, a professor at San Jose State University who specializes in Silicon Valley politics. “The Google campus, they pay their taxes, but their workers don’t necessarily use parks, police and other traditional services, so you get a disconnect between the businesses themselves and the people who work in them.”

Just as important, many local residents are simply not in the talent pool for high-tech jobs. The people looking for work at the Community Services Agency have skills in other areas, like housecleaning, gardening and washing dishes, and those jobs are scarce.

Actually, Google acts exactly as it should. It's an extremely successful business that creates a self-sustaining social support system. The trick is to create more Googles, that is, to expand the employment sector to include more companies providing goods and services to an expanding marketplace, which will increase the demand for labor and take the strain off local governments, which don't have the money to care for the sick and unskilled. The rub is that Googe and other progressive tech firms are left-leaning business organizations that operate according to a vision more like Milton Friedman's than Paul Krugman's. It's all in the messaging. New York Times is going off the reservation on this one.

Kate Upton Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2011

More video from Sports Illustrated:

RELATED: At Maggies, "Rule 5 Saturday Night: Penelope Cruz Pirate’s Edition." And Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup."

Signs of Rising Momentum for Herman Cain

I met him briefly at CPAC. Robert Stacy McCain was already pumping up his candidacy. And perhaps to good effect. See New York Times, "A G.O.P. Hopeful Gathers Momentum as More Voters Like What They Hear." (At Memeorandum.)

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Michele Bachmann was campaigning just north of here, the Sarah Palin tour was rumored to be arriving soon, and Mitt Romney was on his way to announce his entry into the presidential race.

Yet here was another voter swooning for Herman Cain.

“I watched you at the Republican debate, and I have to be honest, I’d never heard of you, but ever since that. ...” said Nathan Lyons, 29, his voice trailing off wistfully. “You say it like it is.”

Joan Silvernail, 68, pumped Mr. Cain’s hand, then turned to her husband. “It’s his enthusiasm,” she said. “Wasn’t that what we felt with Ronald Reagan, his enthusiasm?”

Those not frequenting Tea Party rallies or the living rooms and coffee shops of New Hampshire and Iowa might dismiss Mr. Cain, a talk radio host and former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, as a frivolous candidate — “the pizza guy” as some call him.

But there are signs of what Mr. Cain, in his booming baritone, calls “Old Man Mo — Momentum!”

A Gallup poll released last week showed Mr. Cain with the highest voter intensity score of any Republican presidential contender — far higher than Ms. Palin, a former governor of Alaska, or Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts. While Mr. Cain’s name recognition was at 37 percent, it had risen 16 points since March.

Many pundits and voters declared him the winner of the first Republican debate last month. And he won the straw polls at the Tea Party Patriots convention in February and the Conservative Values Conference in Iowa in March.

If few people think Mr. Cain can win the nomination, he is satisfying voters’ desire to fall in love with a candidate. Their passion for him says as much about what the Republican field is lacking as it does about any specifics he is offering.

RELATED: At Daley Gator, "Herman Cain Leads Newt Gingrich By 2-1 Margin Among Georgia Voters."

Anthony Weiner Car Registration Expired in New York?

And what's more strange is that Weiner drives a 20 year-old Nissan Pathfinder? Dude's a Member of Congress, for crying out loud.

At New York Daily News, "Rep. Anthony Weiner's car is registered in New York but way out of date."

And The Other McCain is plugging away: "‘Is He the New Tiger Woods?’," and "‘You Can’t Lawyer the Media’." And the investigation continues, at The Daily, "WEINER'S TALE UNRAVELING." (Also at Memeorandum.)

And see Mark Steyn, "Weiner helping junk the country."

Israel Opens Fire on Naksa Day Protesters

At Washington Post, "Palestinian protesters attempt to cross Israeli border from Syria, troops open fire."

Israeli army spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai accused Syria of creating “a provocation” at the border to divert attention from the Syrian government’s deadly crackdown on the uprising in that country.

In a sign of official backing for the protests, the border clashes were broadcast live on Syrian television, with comments from participants, and reporters were permitted direct access to the normally closed frontier zones.

Near the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, scores of Palestinians and Syrian supporters who arrived in buses from Damascus streamed down a hillside and marched toward the frontier, carrying Palestinian and Syrian flags and chanting “Palestine is Arab!” and “the Golan is Syrian!”

When the protesters tried to cross a trench and earth berms topped with razor wire, which had been put up by the Israeli military to block their approach, army sharpshooters opened fire at the marchers from a border fence nearly 150 yards away.

The army spokesman said that troops had fired warning shots before shooting at the legs of the demonstrators. The gunfire was accompanied by loudspeaker warnings in Arabic that those who approached the border fence were endangering their lives.

Also at Los Angeles Times, "Israel fires on pro-Palestinian protesters at Syrian border."

Added: At Legal Insurrection, "Assad Sends More Palestinian Cannon Fodder Over Israel Border." (via Memeorandum).

Dozens Killed as Syrian Security Forces Open Fire on Protesters

At Los Angeles Times, "Dozens reported killed as Syrians continue protests":

Thousands of antigovernment protesters marched in Damascus, Homs and other Syrian cities Friday in opposition to President Bashar Assad, chanting, "These are the last days of your season."

Security forces responded by firing on protesters in several cities. Dozens of people were killed, with the toll particularly high in Hama, Syria's fourth-largest city and the site of a bloody crackdown ordered by Assad's father nearly 30 years ago. Snipers reportedly fired from rooftops at thousands of protesters. The reports could not be independently verified because Western journalists are barred from entering the country.

Months after pro-democracy protesters unseated repressive regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, the so-called Arab Spring appears to have turned into a brutal stalemate in Syria. Assad has not been able to crush the protests; demonstrators take to the streets daily but have failed to gain enough popular support to topple him.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed alarm Friday over the violence in Syria, which has reportedly claimed at least 70 lives in the last week, and called for independent and transparent investigations of all the killings. Human rights groups say 1,000 people have been killed in the 11-week uprising.

Analysts say that Syria will play an important role in shaping the legacy of the regional reform movement, and that the opposition has the potential to influence other countries where uprisings also have stalled, such as Bahrain and Yemen.

"Many other countries are watching to see if they achieve regime change," said Mohammed Masri, a researcher at Jordan University's Center for Strategic Studies in Amman. "If they are successful, it could bring new momentum to the Arab Spring."

"There are now two roads," Masri said, "The road of Egypt and Tunisia, and the other, which is a brutal and bloody one."

Also at Instapundit, "SYRIA UPDATE: Tanks Move in on City as Thousands Mourn Protesters’ Deaths."

'Naksa Day'

Okay, should be a big news day, for example, at Jerusalem Post, "IDF on high alert for 'Naksa Day' border unrest," and "30 protesters gathering on Syrian side of border."

And at Ynet, "Security forces on high alert for 'Naksa Day'." Also, at New York Times, "Israel Braces for Clashes During Border Protests":

JERUSALEM — Israel on Saturday was bracing for possible clashes along its borders after Palestinian activists in the region called for protest marches on Sunday, three weeks after a similar wave of coordinated protests led to deadly clashes with Israeli troops.

Protests on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the Palestinian “naksa,” or setback, in the June 1967 Middle East war were being planned in the West Bank and Gaza, territories that were conquered by Israel then. There have also been calls on social networking Internet sites for Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria to march at the Israeli border.

That echoed the conditions that led to the violence on May 15, the day Palestinians mark as the “nakba,” or catastrophe, of Israel’s establishment in 1948. Taking a cue from the so-called Arab Spring movement, organizers in multiple countries and territories called for a coordinated action against Israel, and huge crowds of Palestinians responded.

They clashed with Israeli troops on four fronts, and breached the border between Syria and the Golan Heights for the first time in more than 30 years. At least 14 protesters from Lebanon and Syria were killed, stoking outrage in Palestinian camps across the region and intensifying pressure on Israel to create the conditions for a return to peace talks.

The Israeli military was not giving out details of its preparations, but television reports showed soldiers repairing fences and bulldozers digging trenches along the borders in the north. On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed Israeli forces to act with restraint, but also with determination, to protect Israel’s sovereignty and borders. According to reports from Lebanon, activists there canceled plans to march to the Israeli border after the Lebanese authorities declared the border area a closed military zone.

Plus, at Haaretz, "Thousands march in Tel Aviv in support of Palestinian state based on 1967 borders."

RELATED: Leo Rennert, at American Thinker, "Joel Greenberg, the Washington Post's Palestinian Propagandist."

Added: At Jihad Watch, "Palestinian Authority presidential adviser: 'refugee' assaults on Israel's borders are the 'new Palestinian nuclear weapon'."

Shopping at Wal-Mart

Out with the family, yesterday morning:

This is the Wal-Mart in Foothill Ranch. It's beautiful out there. That's Saddleback Mountain seen from the parking at the second picture below:

Turns out that Wal-Mart had its annual meeting on Friday, "Wal-Mart CEO pushes plan to keep retailer growing." And it announced a huge $15 billion stock buy-back: "Wal-Mart to Buy Back Billions More in Shares."

Cruising around the toy section:

I love Wal-Mart. Great selection of products, and of course great prices. And environmentally friendly? "Wal-Mart's motive is no secret: Going green saves it money." Well, better late than never, I guess.

Okay, here's the kid's Holy Grail, the Beyblades:

I wrote about Beyblades last November. They're still popular.

And it's back to the skatepark later today!

Professor Erik Loomis Lauds Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt, Black Panther Leader Convicted for 1968 Murder of Schoolteacher Caroline Olsen

After a while progressivism is just a cesspool of ideological hatred and stupidity. And as recent blogging has shown, the moral degenerates at Lawyers, Guns and Murder take the cake for such mindless malevolence and mendacity. That said, new LGM blogger Erik Loomis goes above and beyond in his encomium for convicted murderer Geronimo Pratt, who died Thursday in Tanzania, at the age of 63. Here's this, from Loomis:

As the surviving Black Panthers begin dying off, it’s worth revisiting their analysis of the 1960s inner city as a colonized space analogous to colonized Africa. The Panthers are popularly remembered for unnecessary violence (at least this is how most of my students interpret them) even if Malcolm X is a nice symbol we can deploy when we want. But given the conditions of the inner cities–police brutality, no social services, no jobs, no health care, no public transportation, no grocery stores, white flight and strictly segregated suburbs, etc., I am certainly not going to say the Panthers were wrong in their analysis. Given J. Edgar Hoover’s desire to kill them all, I might say they were quite right. One might criticize their methods, but that’s real easy to do in 2011 and I’m not going to attack them for arming themselves against the police. I’d probably think about picking up a gun in the same circumstances.

Even if Pratt did commit the murder, the justice system was so openly racist that it’s impossible to know. Today, we’ve really advanced on this front, having hidden just enough of the open racism and incorporated just enough black people into the machines of capitalism and the state to partially hide the fact that our spatially and racially unequal economic system combines with the courts to push as many African-Americans and other people of color into prison as possible.

And, well, here's this from Pratt's citation at Discover the Networks:

[In 1970] Pratt was arrested and charged with the December 1968 armed robbery and murder of Los Angeles schoolteacher Caroline Olsen. At his trial, witnesses identified Pratt as one of two men who had attempted to rob a local store shortly before Olsen was slain (also by two men, according to eyewitnesses). Olsen's husband, who was wounded by the assailants, testified that Pratt was his wife’s killer. Pratt's car, a GTO convertible with North Carolina license plates, was identified by witnesses at both crime scenes. His gun, a .45 automatic, was determined to be the weapon that had killed Olsen. Julius Butler, a member of the Panthers, testified that Pratt had boasted about the murder to him.

Pratt's alibi was that he was allegedly attending a Black Panther meeting in Oakland at the time of Olsen's murder. No Panthers stepped forward to corroborate his testimony. (Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, and Elaine Brown flatly denied it.) Pratt further claimed that his car was being used by other Panthers on the day of the murder; that the murder weapon, although it was later found in his apartment, wasn't his; and that two other Panthers (who were already dead by the time of Pratt's trial) had actually killed Olsen.

In 1972 Pratt was convicted of the Olsen murder. His counsel in the trial was a young Johnnie Cochran, who would eventually become widely known for his defense of O.J. Simpson in the latter's 1995 murder trial. Cochran has written that it was the Pratt case that radicalized him and convinced him that the American justice system was systemically biased against African Americans. Cochran also believed that his failure to "play the race card" (i.e., depict his client as the victim of a racist justice system) caused him to lose the case, a mistake he vowed never to make again.

And see Matt Krasnowski's piece, "Pratt isn't Home Free in '68 Slaying Case," orginally appearing at the San Diego Union Tribune, July 1, 1999.

Well, that gives some added punch to the title at Lawyers, Guns and Murder.

Erik Loomis is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the College of Wooster. And now an ASFL.

Circumcision Ban Gains Traction in California

At New York Times, "Efforts to Ban Circumcision Gain Traction in California":

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — When a group of activists proposed banning circumcision in San Francisco last fall, many people simply brushed them aside. Even in that liberal seaside city, it seemed implausible that thousands of people would support an effort to outlaw an ancient ritual that Jews and Muslims believe fulfills a commandment issued by God.

But last month, the group collected the more than 7,100 signatures needed to get a measure on the fall ballot that would make it illegal to snip the foreskin of a minor within city limits. Now a similar effort is under way in Santa Monica to get such a measure on the ballot for November 2012.

If the anticircumcision activists (they prefer the term “intactivists”) have their way, cities across the country may be voting on whether to criminalize a practice that is common in many American hospitals. Activists say the measures would protect children from an unnecessary medical procedure, calling it “male genital mutilation.”

“This is the furthest we’ve gotten, and it is a huge step for us,” said Matthew Hess, an activist based in San Diego who wrote both bills.

Mr. Hess has created similar legislation for states across the country, but those measures never had much traction. Now he is fielding calls from people who want to organize similar movements in their cities.

“This is a conversation we are long overdue to have in this country,” he said. “The end goal for us is making cutting boys’ foreskin a federal crime.”

Right. An anti-Semitic conversion.

RTWT. The piece reports on the Hess's despicable comic book literature

RELATED: "'Grotesque Anti-Semitic Imagery' — Literature for Circumcision Ban in San Francisco Features 'Monster Mohel'."

Britain and France to Share Aircraft Carriers

I think every American should read Tom Clancy's, Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier. The ships are the sine qua non of global power projection, and a key indicator of great power status. CSM just reported last month on the increasing prestige of carriers among nations, amid heightened international security demands requiring that kind of operational mobility. See, "Aircraft Carriers Gain Naval Clout." At the clip below is the USS Abraham Lincoln, which I visited in 1999. It's a Nimitz-class carrier. The last carrier from the group is the USS George H.W. Bush, commissioned in 2009. The Navy is moving to the Gerald R. Ford class carrier program, with the first two ships expected to be commissioned in 2015 and 2019. Ten carriers from that groups are expected to be deployed, guaranteeing a global U.S. ocean-going preponderance throughout most of the 21st-century.

I mention this just as news reports indicate that Britain and France are set to share aircraft carriers. See Telegraph UK, "We should share aircraft carrier, say French." I wasn't quite sure what to think of this, so checking around I found this at Reuters, "INTERVIEW-French navy boss sees Libyan military humanitarian aid":

ENTENTE CORDIALE

One area earmarked for cooperation is the use of aircraft carriers. In a sweeping review last year, Britain cut its defence budget of 36.9 billion pounds by 8 percent in real terms up to 2015, scrapping its only aircraft carrier.

While the short distance between coalition bases and Libya means an aircraft carrier is not essential, Forissier said a British carrier would have been useful to reduce air time, boost attacks and relieve the Charles de Gaulle.

Forissier would like the French flagship to return to base to replace older Super Etendard jet fighters with the latest Rafales. If it were forced to continue its operations "it would only begin to have serious problems in the autumn," he said.

A new British carrier, the Queen Elizabeth, due by 2020 will be designed so each country could fly its planes off the other's ship. The aim is to have one carrier at sea at all times.

British crew will learn on the Charles de Gaulle so that the Queen Elizabeth can enter operation once finished. One British watch officer is currently operating on the French vessel.

While similar foreign policy aims made a Franco-British alliance inevitable, national sovereignty remained, he said.

"France needs its aircraft carrier and Britain needs one to carry out its sovereignty as it wishes, but what is important is to make the planes inter-operable so that we can train on either one in periods of maintenance."

Forissier believes the two governments should consider building together a cheaper carrier to be used for training.

"If we both want to have a permanent operating presence then we'll both need two aircraft carriers and I don't think given the financial situation our governments have the means."

While Paris has hardly touched its military budget, Forissier said he was "stunned" by the Royal Navy cuts, at a time when it has had costly operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The Royal Navy, which was always an example for us, is in a tough situation," he said. "It makes me wonder whether we'll also have to go through this in the future."

Part of avoiding that has been the closer cooperation.

"I know in Great Britain you pay tribute to Nelson and here we pay tribute to Napoleon, but really we have good reasons to work together," he said, looking at a painting celebrating a French naval victory over the Royal Navy in 1781.

Now, go check out James Fallows, who suggests we not belittle China's efforts to deploy an aircraft carrier fleet, "Please Read This Article About the Chinese Navy." And whether one agrees with Fallows or not, the key to remember is that at one point Britain's navy was the unrivaled master of the seas. Today the U.S. fills that role. Britain and France are now both struggling to maintain a single operational aircraft carrier, while in the U.S. our outgoing secretary of defense has recommended military downsizing. It all relates in the rise and fall of nations. Quite an interesting set of interrelated developments.

You Just Can't Get Good Goons Nowadays

Via Glenn Reynolds, although Kenny Gladney might quibble on the efficacy of union beatings, historical comparisons aside.

At Washington Examiner, "Sunday Reflection: Hard to get good goons these days":

So the public employee unions have been on the defensive across the nation, and they've been losing battles in state capitols from Wisconsin, to Ohio, to Tennessee.

Although there have been some violent incidents and death threats, overall, despite the talk from many right-leaning pundits about "union goons," the actual danger posed by the union members appears to have been very small by labor-historical standards. Apparently, you just can't get good goons nowadays.

And that makes sense. In the old days of the labor movement, the unionized industries were, you know, actual industries, involving miners, steelworkers and the like. And those are trades that foster exactly the qualities you need in good goons.

Why? Because they're very dangerous activities that put a premium on teamwork. (Even in totalitarian countries, people know that it's dangerous to get the miners upset.)

Those kinds of work foster a mind-set that's not entirely different from what you find in successful combat troops: team spirit, the sense that you have to rely on your peers to cover your back, and you'd better do the same for them. (Also, in those lines of work it's easy for those suspected of shaky loyalty to have "accidents.")

When people who are used to dealing with cave-ins, or ladles of molten metal, hit the streets, they're putting those traits to work in an environment that's probably less dangerous than the one they work in every day. That makes them pretty formidable.

In fact, it made them so formidable that they were able to put together unions solid enough to send the industries they depended on overseas, where labor was more tractable, because the bosses weren't willing to face the headache of trying to get rid of the unions, and couldn't afford to pay the wages the unions, with their toughness, had managed to extract.

Howard Dean, Former Presidential Candidate and DNC Chair, Says Sarah Palin Could Win

And economic conditions are going to be key, as I noted this morning.

At The Hill, "Howard Dean Warns Dems Sarah Palin Could Beat Obama in 2012" (at Memeorandum):

“I think she could win,” Dean told The Hill in an interview Friday. “She wouldn’t be my first choice if I were a Republican but I think she could win.”

Dean warns the sluggish economy could have more of a political impact than many Washington strategists and pundits assume.

“Any time you have a contest — particularly when unemployment is as high as it is — nobody gets a walkover,” Dean said. “Whoever the Republicans nominate, including people like Sarah Palin, whom the inside-the-Beltway crowd dismisses — my view is if you get the nomination of a major party, you can win the presidency, I don’t care what people write about you inside the Beltway,” Dean said.

VIDEO HAT TIP: Nice Deb.

John Edwards Mistress Cover-Up Casts Spotlight on Rachel Mellon, One of America's Richest Women

This was at ABC News some time ago, "John Edwards Meets Privately with Bunny Mellon, Potential Witness in Cover Up Case." And now at New York Times, "Edwards Case Casts Spotlight on a Long Reclusive Donor":

Rachel Mellon, now 100 years old and long one of the richest women in America, has lived a life of maximum discretion and minimum exposure. Even in her prime, in the 1960s, when she redesigned the White House Rose Garden for her friend Jacqueline Kennedy, she avoided the public eye.

So it was a rude shock when Mrs. Mellon, known chiefly for her passion for horticulture (she has collected more than 10,000 books on botany) and her simple yet impeccable taste, became ensnared in the protracted scandal surrounding John Edwards, the former Democratic candidate for president.

Mr. Edwards was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on charges that he violated campaign finance laws in an effort to conceal an extramarital affair while running for president in 2008, mainly by using $725,000 given to him secretly by Mrs. Mellon. Mr. Edwards pleaded not guilty, and the case is headed for trial. Mrs. Mellon was not named in the indictment — she was referred to as Person C — but is essentially an unindicted co-conspirator.

“It was so sad,” said Mario Buatta, a New York decorator dubbed the Prince of Chintz who knew Mrs. Mellon in earlier days. “She’s had such a clean life.”

Check the whole thing. Mrs. Mellon was widowed to Paul Mellon, heir to the Mellon family banking fortune (think "Carnegie-Mellon"). Paul Mellon died in 1999 and Mrs. Mellon also lost her daughter, Eliza, from her first marriage, and a longtime companion, Robert Isabell, "a legendary events planner ... she buried him on her property." Basically, the old dame got lonely, and thus:

Mr. Edwards ingratiated himself with Mrs. Mellon to the point where she gave him millions of dollars as well as a gold necklace as a good-luck charm for the campaign trail, according to a tell-all memoir by Andrew Young, Mr. Edwards’s former aide, who is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

In May 2007, when Mr. Edwards’s mistress, Rielle Hunter, told Mr. Edwards she was pregnant, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Young began looking for people who could give them money to help conceal the affair, the indictment said.

About the same time, it said, Mrs. Mellon wrote a note to Mr. Young, saying: “I was sitting alone in a grim mood — furious that the press attacked Senator Edwards on the price of a haircut. But it inspired me — from now on, all haircuts, etc. that are necessary and important for his campaign — please send the bills to me. ... It is a way to help our friend without government restrictions.”

At that point, the indictment said, Mrs. Mellon had already contributed the maximum permitted by law — $2,300 — to Mr. Edwards’s campaign.

Over the next eight months, the indictment said, Mrs. Mellon sent checks for Mr. Edwards through Mr. Huffman, the decorator, totaling $725,000, “falsely” referring in memo lines to things like “chairs,” “antique Charleston table” and “bookcase.”

After Mr. Edwards dropped out of the presidential race in early 2008, Mr. Young said, he still hoped that Mrs. Mellon would give him $50 million and access to her private jet so he could lead a fight against poverty around the world. (This never occurred.)

I can't even express my contempt for John Edwards. Political scandals are a dime a dozen, but this one's among the sleaziest I can ever recall --- and that's saying a lot, considering the deep bench among Democrat Party scumbags.

11 Year-Old Abiah Jones Dies in Ferris Wheel Fall in New Jersey

A video report at WPVI-TV Philadelphia, "Girl who died in fall from NJ Ferris wheel identified."

Also at ABC News, "Girl, 11, Dies on Jersey Shore in Fall From Ferris Wheel at Wildwood Pier."

She was alone on the gondola, but that's all we know.

Economy is Rough Road for Obama

Economic issues are the toughest for a president seeking reelection. That's why whoever wins the GOP nomination will have an excellent chance of beating Obambi.

See LAT, "With economy stumbling, Obama hails auto industry bailout":

Reporting from Toledo, Ohio — Facing a cascade of slipping economic signs that could endanger his reelection, President Obama sought to shift attention to a decision he made early in his term that appears to be paying off: bailing out the auto industry.

Obama's appearance Friday at a Chrysler plant in this politically important state showed how few economic stories he can highlight. New figures Friday showed unemployment rose to 9.1%, the second straight month that the jobless rate climbed. Speculation grew that the economy might slip into another recession, which would hurt families nationwide just as the 2012 campaign begins.

Obama's trip — his 13th to Ohio since his inauguration — follows a week's worth of coordinated messages in which administration officials depicted him as being able to make the "gutsy" decisions that should give voters confidence in uncertain times.

Drawing attention to the auto bailout would have been risky at one point. Before the 2010 midterm elections, independent voters disdained bailouts, deficits and stimulus measures.

But Democrats now believe the auto bailout in particular is a way to distinguish themselves from Republicans. They see government intervention as an important tool in protecting both workers and business from the shocks of unfettered markets, and they believe voters buy that argument.

Ohio. It's a key battleground state, with 18 electoral college votes. Keep your eye on the Buckeyes over this next 18 months. Obambi will be traveling up that way a lot more.

NRCC Demands Comcast Boston Pull Blatantly False Democrat Attack Ad Targeting GOP Rep. Charlie Bass

This is an extremely interesting piece, and my sense is that the controversy goes to show how desperate the Democrats are. Seriously. Does "end" mean "end", or does it mean something else, like "reform." Because reform is not a dirty word. "Ending" Medicare sounds bad, so progressives have to basically lie to make the case that Rep. Bass "voted to end Medicare." See Andrews Stiles, "Medicare: To ‘End’ or Not to End." The piece links to PolitiFact, "Democrats say Republicans voted to end Medicare and charge seniors $12,000," which slams another ad making the exact same claim. Still, it's going pretty far to intervene in market decisions. Seems to me that NRCC should pursue a litigation strategy if they think the Democrats are lying. Either that, or take to the airwaves with counter-ads defending Rep. Bass.

NRCC's letter to Comcast Boston is here.

College is Too Easy

Bird Dog links to Mark Bauerlein's discussion of Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's research on student learning and college performance. And that reminds me of the Arum and Roksa piece that ran in Friday's Los Angeles Times, "College, too easy for its own good":

We recently tracked several thousand students as they moved through and graduated from a diverse set of more than two dozen colleges and universities, and we found consistent evidence that many students were not being appropriately challenged. In a typical semester, 50% of students did not take a single course requiring more than 20 pages of writing, 32% did not have any classes that required reading more than 40 pages per week, and 36% reported studying alone five or fewer hours per week.

Not surprisingly, given such a widespread lack of academic rigor, about a third of students failed to demonstrate significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing ability (as measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment) during their four years of college.

The students themselves must bear some of the blame for this, of course. Improvement in thinking and writing skills requires academic engagement; simply hanging out on a college campus for multiple years isn't enough. Yet at many institutions, that seems to be sufficient to earn a degree. At many schools, students can choose from a menu of easy programs and classes that allow them to graduate without having received a rigorous college education. Colleges are complicit, in that they reward students with high grades for little effort. Indeed, the students in our study who reported studying alone five or fewer hours per week nevertheless had an average cumulative GPA of 3.16.

To be sure, there were many exceptions to this dismal portrait of the state of undergraduate learning. Some academic programs and colleges are quite rigorous, and some students we followed pushed themselves and excelled. In general, traditional arts and science fields (math, science, humanities and the social sciences) tended to be more demanding, and students who majored in those subjects studied more and showed higher gains. So too did students attending more selective colleges. In addition, at every college and university examined, we found some students who were applying themselves and learning at impressive levels.

These real accomplishments do not, however, exonerate the colleges and universities that are happy to collect annual tuition dollars but then fail to provide many students with a high-quality education.

There's more, especially the discussion of why higher education got off track. Still, it'd be worth checking the book itself, for in my experience it's the absence of skills and the culture of anti-intellectualism that's most detrimental to college learning. I'm tempted to say I struggled with maintaining high standards when I first started at LBCC. But that wouldn't be quite accurate. Over time experience has shown how I can better maintain high standards AND improve student performance (it requires intensely personalized instruction, which is hard to do with hundreds of students). That said, I'm less rigid than I was 8 or 9 years ago, and in some cases that means I'm just plain easier (flexibility is key, which sometimes might mean "easier"). Professors are dealing with a range of abilities starting with students who'd be doing just fine at Berkeley or UCLA to those who can barely string a couple of correct sentences together. I'm sad sometimes when I meet students who literally can't read. I largely quit having students do expository reading in class (reading aloud) because I felt bad for the students who struggled to read through a paragraph from the textbook. It's not one particular demographic in particular, although a lot of Latino students are ESL and a lot of blacks demonstrate something of a stunted degree of formal learning, and I'm talking rudimentary basic skills acquisition. And worse, with the exception of the odd student here or there, black kids generally don't seem to care. (Don't even get me going about the black student athletes.)