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MARCH 5,  2011

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 9:06 P.M. ET:

From Fox:  We are not alone in the universe -- and alien life forms may have a lot more in common with life on Earth than we had previously thought.  That's the stunning conclusion one NASA scientist has come to, releasing his groundbreaking revelations in a new study in the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology.

I'm not convinced.  When I hear a leader from outer space calling for hope and change, and delivering nothing, I'll be sold.

March 5, 2011       Permalink

EDITOR'S NOTE – AT 8:56 P.M. ET:  A number of readers have asked how to spell the last name of the Libyan dictator, Moammar _______.   The fact is that the Western press uses a number of spellings.  Our style here is to use the spelling used in the material we're quoting, and in our comment on that material.  That means that the spelling may vary from post to post. 

This policy will continue until Libya has a leader named O'Hara.

March 5, 2011      Permalink

LIBYA UPDATE – AT 8:33 P.M. ET:  Severe clashes continued in Libya on Saturday, leading observers to suggest that the battle is becoming a civil war.  The Gadhafi government still controls Tripoli, but rebels have made gains elsewhere.  Neither side seems on the brink of victory.

Meanwhile, some rebel forces are trying to form the semblance of an alternative government.  From CNN:

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Foes of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi claimed successes Saturday on two key battle fronts, preventing pro-government forces from taking Zawiya near the nation's capital and capturing the strategic eastern oil town of Ras Lanuf.

They announced on opposition-controlled radio the seeds of an alternative government in the form of a National Transitional Council and declared it to be the country's sole legitimate representative.

The council held its first meeting Saturday in the eastern city of Benghazi. The council called Benghazi its temporary location until the "liberation" of the capital, Tripoli, according to a decree it issued late in the day.
The strife engulfing the besieged North African nation is reverberating across the country, the region and the world. Death toll estimates range from more than 1,000 to as many as 2,000, and the international community has been pondering strategies on how to end the violence and remove the Gadhafi regime.

The government has been reviled across the globe for violence against civilians, and the International Criminal Court this week launched an investigation of Gadhafi, some of his sons and other leaders for possible crimes against humanity.

COMMENT:   What will it take to end this?  Increasingly the term "foreign intervention" is being used.  If the civil war ends in a Gadhafi victory, after Obama demanded that Gadhafi leave, American foreign policy will have suffered a severe blow.  We are already perceived as increasingly weak and indecisive.  Jimmah Carter is back in the White House, in a thin disguise.

March 5, 2011      Permalink

NOT THE WAY TO DO IT – AT 10:09 A.M. ET:  It is a truism in politics that running for president is exceptionally hard.  And one of the hardest things, given constant press attention, is avoiding gaffes.  Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana learned that recently, and now former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, and Fox News host, is learning it himself.  They don't give you too many chances in the politics business.  From The Politico:

Mike Huckabee walked back his criticisms of actress Natalie Portman for "glamorizing" out-of-wedlock pregnancies Friday, with a statement insisting he was only talking about society and that he's glad the Oscar winner plans to wed her baby's father.

It's the second time in a week that Huckabee, who suggested in the initial comments that the starlet was "boasting" about being unmarried and a mom, has walked back or explained away something he said during his book tour.

Not a good idea to bash a pregnant actress by name, especially a popular one who just, and with good reason, won the Oscar.  The public may not approve of Natalie Portman's choice, but there is a residue of sympathy, especially since she's marrying the father.  America loves its movie stars a lot more than it loves its politicians.

"In a recent media interview about my new book, A Simple Government, I discussed the first chapter, 'The Most Important Form of Government Is a Father, Mother, and Children,' " Huckabee said, referring to his appearance on The Michael Medved Show.

"I was asked about Oscar-winner Natalie Portman's out-of-wedlock pregnancy," he added. "Natalie is an extraordinary actor, very deserving of her recent Oscar and I am glad she will marry her baby's father.

"However, contrary to what the Hollywood media reported, I did not 'slam' or 'attack' Natalie Portman, nor did I criticize the hardworking single mothers in our country," he said.

COMMENT:  It's also reported that Huckabee is building a mansion with his new-found wealth, apparently from media appearances.  Hmm.  Al Gore built a mansion.  John Edwards built a mansion.  Things didn't work out too well for either of them.  I'm not sure building a mansion is a good move for a pastor-turned-governor, who wants to run on old-fashioned values.  One of those values is thrift.

I like Mike Huckabee, and think he usually makes a lot of sense.  But Mike, if you're going to run seriously, please get into the swing of things.

March 5, 2011      Permalink

LIBYA THIS MORNING – AT 9:50 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

TRIPOLI, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s militia stormed the rebels controlling the town of Zawiyah on Saturday morning in what two residents described as a “massacre.”

“I am watching neighbors dying unarmed in front of their homes,” one resident said in a telephone interview, with the sounds of heavy weapons and machine-gun fire in the background. The resident said the militias were using tanks and heavy artillery, attacking from both the east and west gates of the town. “I don’t know how many are being killed, but I know my neighborhood is being killed,” the resident said.

And...

But four hours after the fighting began, two rebels said in phone interviews that after heavy casualties, the battle was over. They said they held the center of town, but a tight military siege made it impossible to enter or leave. It was impossible to determine the number of casualties in the latest fighting.

COMMENT:  Western aircraft, or the grossly ineffective UN, should be dropping leaflets informing Qaddafi's forces that they could be charged with war crimes if this continues.  It might prompt some to defect. 

There are very few reporters in front-line positions in Libya, so it is difficult to verify information, including that provided by rebel spokesmen.  But, at least at this hour, Qaddafi shows no signs of surrendering or even purchasing a villa in some nice African city.

March 5, 2011      Permalink

WILL BRITAIN LAND "ON THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI"? – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:  We cannot confirm this
story,  from London's Daily Mail, but we think it's important enough to report, with that note of caution:

Britain is to send teams of spies and diplomats into Libya to help oust Colonel Gaddafi, it emerged last night.

MI6 operatives backed by the SAS are to land in the east around the key rebel stronghold of Benghazi 'within days'.

In addition, 600 soldiers of the Black Watch are on 24-hour standby to fly in and avert a humanitarian catastrophe as Libya erupted into a new wave of bloodshed.

And...

British diplomats and spies have been engaged in intensive efforts to speak to opposition forces, which are led by Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the rebel National Libyan Council.

Now ministers have approved a presence on the ground to gather information and boost the chances of the rebels.

The liaison teams will be primarily composed of envoys but will include some intelligence officers.

They will link up with Special Forces already in Libya to provide protection and give informal military advice to the Libyan opposition.

COMMENT:  That would be a spectacular move, and certainly hazardous for the Brits involved.  The Obama administration has made clear its reluctance to get involved in military action in Libya, but we may be pushed by events, especially if the humanitarian catastrophe increases.

Can Gaddafi survive?  Well, who really knows?  There are press reports this morning that Washington's "new" or "newest" or "revised" policy in the Mideast is to urge protesters to work with the existing governments toward reform, rather than to push for a total overthrow.  The policy is based on the concern, entirely reasonable, that the replacement government may be worse, especially for our interests.  But that new policy, assuming the reporting is correct, does not seem to include the exalted Libyan colonel.

March 5, 2011     Permalink

MARCH 4,  2011

WE'RE SHOCKED, SHOCKED, TO FIND CORRUPTION IN THE ACADEMIC WORLD – AT 9:13 P.M. ET:  It turns out that the famed London School of Economics has been quite cozy with the supreme exalted dictator of Libya.  But that, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg, which itself is threatened by global warming.  From Commentary:

The Director of the London School of Economics, Sir Howard Davies, has resigned after fresh revelations of LSE ties to Libya emerged on Thursday morning. The LSE was already under intense fire for taking a donation of 1.5 million pounds from Qaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, who studied at LSE and — it appears — may also have plagiarized his thesis. The straw that broke the LSE’s recalcitrant back was a WikiLeaks cable that revealed that U.S. diplomats were told by Libya’s “National Economic Development Board” that it was cooperating with “the UK government and the London School of Economics, among other UK institutions, on an exchange program to send 400 ‘future leaders’ of Libya for leadership and management training.”

It gets worse:

...the U.S. is implicated too. The Guardian reports that Michigan State is home to a similar, if smaller, program of training future “Libyan leaders.” Musa Kusa, Libya’s foreign minister and the second most powerful man in Libya after the Qaddafi family, got his master’s degree in sociology from MSU in 1978, which is probably no coincidence.

MSU isn't the only problem university on this side of the Atlantic.

Georgetown’s reliance on Saudi money is notorious, but it’s simply one of the crowd. I would love to be a fly on the wall at any elite U.S. university with a Middle Eastern Studies program now: administrators across the country know that what happened at LSE could happen here. And it should.

COMMENT:  The funding, by dictatorial regimes, of programs in American universities is an old story, and, while disgusting, isn't shocking.  American universities have a decidedly mixed record on democracy and human rights, despite all their pompous rhetoric.  The record will show that a number of U.S. colleges, including the elite "seven sisters," made up of Eastern women's schools, were sending students to Nazi universities right up until the start of World War II, even though the nature of the Nazi regime was well known.

Money talks.  So does the cry of "academic freedom," a war chant that is being used these days to justify all kinds of academic corruption and influence peddling.

March 4, 2011      Permalink

NO JUICE – AT 10:09 A.M. ET:  Americans love new technology...some new technology.  The iPod, after all, had an impact.

But some technology just doesn't seem to cut it, especially when the customer is asked to write a large check for something that, to put it mildly, lacks pizazz.  Consider:

Peruse Chevrolet's February sales release, and you'll notice one number that's blatantly missing: the number of Chevy Volts sold. The number – a very modest 281 – is available in the company's detailed data (PDF), but it certainly isn't something that GM wants to highlight, apparently. Keeping the number quiet is a bit understandable, since it's lower than the 321 that Chevy sold in January.

Nissan doesn't have anything to brag about here, either (and it didn't, avoiding any mention of the Leaf sales in its press release). Why? Well, back in January, the company sold 87 Leafs. In February? Just 67. Where does that leave us? Well, here's the big scorecard for all sales of these vehicles thus far:

Volt: 928
Leaf: 173

Ouch.

Maybe the car guys didn't notice that most Americans have one of those little ten-dollar calculators that you get at Staples.  You hit the numbers and realize you'll have to own one of these little primitive buggies for a long time before they pay off in gas savings.  And if you visit grandma's, and the car needs a charge, and grandma lives in an apartment house without a charging station...well, you might be at grandma's a long time.

The technology is undeveloped.  The cars are cosmetically unexciting, or worse.  Americans are practical.  No deal.

March 4, 2011       Permalink 

BOY, IS THIS SCARY – AT 9:30 A.M. ET:  According to the Washington Post, the Obamans are now preparing to accept regimes in the Mideast that are more Islamic.  Given the president's appeasement of radical Islam, and his refusal even to speak about it as an enemy, the stoic view of Islam is not surprising, but it should scare the daylights out of anyone who lives in the real world:

The Obama administration is preparing for the prospect that Islamist governments will take hold in North Africa and the Middle East, acknowledging that the popular revolutions there will bring a more religious cast to the region's politics.

The administration is already taking steps to distinguish between various movements in the region that promote Islamic law in government. An internal assessment, ordered by the White House last month, identified large ideological differences between such movements as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Qaeda that will guide the U.S. approach to the region.

"We shouldn't be afraid of Islam in the politics of these countries," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal policy deliberations. "It's the behavior of political parties and governments that we will judge them on, not their relationship with Islam."

Islamist governments span a range of ideologies and ambitions, from the primitive brutality of the Taliban in Afghanistan to Turkey's Justice and Development Party, a movement with Islamist roots that heads a largely secular political system.

This is complete madness, utter, complete madness.  No, of course not, the situation in Turkey is not comparable to Afghanistan, but Turkey is becoming increasingly Islamic, increasingly hostile to the West, and increasingly friendly to Iran.  And Turkey this week came out against sanctions, even sanctions, against the Libyan regime.  To say that this is some kind of "acceptable" Islamism is delusional.

Some within the U.S. intelligence community, foreign diplomatic circles and the Republican Party say Obama's readiness to accept Islamist movements, even ones that meet certain conditions, fails to take into consideration the methodical approach many such parties adopt toward gradually transforming secular nations into Islamic states at odds with U.S. policy goals.

Hoorah.  Someone said it.  Nazism had different stages, as did Soviet Communism.  Genocide didn't occur every day, only on some days. 

There is a distinct possibility that the force that will gain the greatest power on Obama's watch will be Islamism.  Those who raise questions will be labeled Islamophobic, just as those who raise any questions about leftist influence in America's universities are labeled McCarthyites. 

I've never believed that Obama is a secret Muslim.  I don't think he has any religion.  I think his joining of that church in Chicago was merely a matter of political necessity.  But, culturally, he has Muslim roots and leftist roots, and that is not a winning combination.  Compound that with Obama's remarkable indifference to democracy, which he apparently regards as a Bushian concept, and we can be in the soup pretty quickly.

Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories have prospered in democratic elections and exert huge influence. Neither party, each with an armed wing, supports Israel's right to exist, nor have they renounced violence as a political tool.

And their attitude toward the United States, and our system of freedom, is not overflowing with admiration.

If Obama gets a second term, and thus unrestrained by any need to seek further election, we can only anticipate with dread where he might take this nation's foreign policy.

March 4, 2011      Permalink

A FAVORABLE JOBS REPORT – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  Some pundit last week declared Obama a lucky man, and maybe he is.  Throughout his career, luck seems to have fallen on him at critical times.  Now, just as we see the first stirrings of the 2012 election season, a new jobs report may confirm the "lucky" scenario.  From Bloomberg:

U.S. employers added 192,000 workers in February, amid an improving economy and more seasonable weather, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly declined to 8.9 percent, the lowest level since April 2009.

The gain in payrolls followed a 63,000 increase in January and compared with the 196,000 median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Employment rose in manufacturing, construction and temporary help agencies, while state and local government payrolls slumped.

Bigger monthly job gains would substantiate Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s testimony to Congress this week that there are “grounds for optimism” about the labor market in coming months. Employment growth and increases in confidence are contributing to sales gains at companies like J.C. Penney Co. and Macy’s Inc. (M) as Americans continue to spend.

COMMENT:  Obviously, this can change in coming months, up or down.  But if progress continues, Obama will get a huge boost in his reelection prospects, especially if Americans are prepared to look the other way as our foreign policy crashes and burns.

March 4, 2011      Permalink

ON THIS DAY – AT 8:28 A.M. ET:  March 4th is a day rich in American history.  At one time this was presidential inauguration day.  A president would be elected in November, and would have to wait until March 4th to take office.  (George Washington's first inaugural was actually held on April 30th.  His second was on March 4th.)  The wait was so long that some people probably forgot who the new president was, and in some cases that was easy.  So, the date was changed to January 20th.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural, March 4, 1933, was the last to be held on the March date.  His second inaugural, in 1937, was the first held on January 20th.  The January 20th date was set by adoption of the 20th amendment to the Constitution.

The most memorable January 20th inauguration was probably John F. Kennedy's in 1961 because of the heavy snowstorm that hit Washington, and was no doubt caused by global warming.  Actually, only eight inches of snow fell, but Washington is a government city, and eight inches of snow creates a disaster requiring many meetings, decisions and an occasional plow.  The inauguration was held in 22-degree cold, outside. 

The least memorable January 20th inauguration was Jimmy Carter's in 1977...because it was Jimmy Carter's inauguration. 

The final March 4th inauguration, FDR's in 1933, was famous for the words, "...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  After speaking those words,  President Roosevelt gave a blunt, cold, and stark description of where the country stood, as the Depression was hitting with a full blast.  Americans understood that they had a lot more to fear than fear itself, but it was that one declaration of hope that became famous.

Our next inauguration will be January 20, 2013.  And the president will be...?

March 4, 2011     Permalink

WISCONSIN TRAVEL NEWS – AT 8:17 A.M. ET:  As we reported yesterday, the Wisconsin state senate has ordered the arrest of Dem senators who escaped to Illinois to avoid voting on the governor's budget reform plan.  The order, though, is only valid in Wisconsin. 

Some senators are apparently risking the trip back to their native soil.  You know, it's so important to have clean shirts.  From the Washington Examiner:

One of the reasons Wisconsin Republican senators voted to place warrants on what are now called the fugitive Democratic senators is that at least some of those Democrats -- the same ones who vowed to stay out of state until they prevail in the controversy over Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal -- have in fact been returning to Wisconsin for personal visits.

"We know that certain senators have been coming back on the weekends and spending time with their families or coming back at night," Republican Sen. Randy Hopper told me Thursday night. In an interview with Fox News' Greta van Susteren, Majority Leader Sen. Scott Fitzgerald said much the same thing. "There's no doubt that the Democratic senators have been sneaking back and forth," Fitzgerald told Fox, "and some being as bold as to stay overnight in their own homes."

After Thursday's action in the Senate, coming back to Wisconsin will be considerably riskier for the 14 Democratic fugitives. "They will now have warrants on them that if they come back into the state at all, law enforcement will have the authority to detain them," says Hopper. "Before, law enforcement could just say, 'You need to get back to the Capitol.' If the Democrats say, 'We're going to stay away until we get what they want,' then this will tell them, you better stay away." Hopper says the warrants are not criminal or civil, and state police will "not be actively searching" for the fugitive Democrats, but law enforcement will have the authority to detain the lawmakers and take them to the Capitol if they are spotted in Wisconsin.

COMMENT:  I'd love to see one of these birds spotted by a state trooper and arrested.  What's the culprit going to say?  He can always rely on the standard line of politicians when they run from office:  "I wanted to spend more time with my family."

Of course, if law enforcement becomes more active, and can't find the escaped senators, they can do what we all do.  Send them a FedEx package.  FedEx finds everyone.

Governor Scott Walker has warned that, unless a budget deal is in place by today, he will announce the start of layoffs.  That might concentrate the minds of those who think he's joking.

March 3, 2011       Permalink