Minor Thoughts from me to you

President Barack Obama won election, promising to mend our "broken" diplomatic relationships. He pledged to be more welcoming of our foreign allies. Earlier this week, President Obama met with Prime Minister Brown, of England. The two government heads exchanged gifts -- a time honored diplomatic tradition. PM Brown gave President Obama some very thoughtful gifts.

The Prime Minister gave Mr Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.

The unique present delighted Mr Obama because oak from the Gannet's sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880.

Mr Brown also handed over a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.

President Obama gave PM Brown some similarly thoughtful gifts.

Barack Obama, the leader of the world's richest country, gave the Prime Minister a box set of 25 classic American films - a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks.

Mr Brown is not thought to be a film buff, and his reaction to the box set is unknown.

The DVD collection included Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Star Wars: Episode IV, It's a Wonderful Life, ET, The Wizard of Oz, and Vertigo. Those are great movies, but I'm sure that England has a least one video rental store. The article says that the set "was produced by the American Film Institute as a 'special request' for the White House last month." I'm not sure why that was even necessary. Most discount chains would be happy to sell you a box set of those same movies.

Not only that, but PM Brown probably won't get much usage out of the DVDs:

Going back to the topic of is he just that stupid or is he doing it on purpose, consider the fact that Gordon Brown is blind in one eye and has some visual deterioration in the other (how much is unclear). A calculated insult could not have been more on-target.

And what about the children?

In addition, Mr Brown and his wife showered gifts on the Obama children giving Sasha and Malia an outfit each from Topshop and six children's books by British authors which are shortly to be published in America.

In return, the Obamas gave the Browns two models of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, to take home to sons Fraser and John.

I'm pretty sure you can get those same models at the White House gift shop.

How embarrassing. This is the way that America strengthens our diplomatic alliances? By giving cheap and insulting gifts to the head of government of our oldest and most reliable ally?

Let's move on the new State Department. How are they doing with the outreach to Russia?

With a media gaggle looking on, Clinton handed [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov a green box tied with a green bow. He opened it to reveal a "reset button," a reminder of Vice President Joe Biden's recent remark that the Obama administration hopes to reset U.S. relations with Moscow.

Trouble was, the Russian-language label the Americans put on the button had the wrong word. Before she realized the mistake, Clinton assured Lavrov, "We worked hard to get it right."

"You got it wrong," Lavrov responded with a smile. He said the word the Americans chose -- "peregruzka" -- meant "overloaded" or "overcharged" rather than "reset."

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our new foreign policy team. Aren't they great?

I don't know about you, but I think there's something creepy about the way Obama carries his teleprompters with him where ever he goes.

President Barack Obama doesn't go anywhere without his TelePrompter.

The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president's prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks.

Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White House's stately parlors. They stood next to him on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared remarks.

Obama's reliance on the teleprompter is unusual -- not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small.

Democrats howled about suspicions that President Bush might be wearing a wire during debates with Senator Kerry. They claimed that he was programmed by his staff and couldn't speak unless he was being fed the words to say. President Obama seems unable to make a speech -- large or small -- unless a machine gives him the words to say. The rumors about President Bush were only rumors. (And thin ones at that.) The facts about President Obama speak for themselves. And they're not saying complimentary things.

I've read some good news on taxes today. At least, I think it's good news.

First, Senator Evan Bayh (D) wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed critizing the omnibus spending bill that's currently working it's way through the Senate.

The Senate should reject this bill. If we do not, President Barack Obama should veto it.

The omnibus increases discretionary spending by 8% over last fiscal year's levels, dwarfing the rate of inflation across a broad swath of issues including agriculture, financial services, foreign relations, energy and water programs, and legislative branch operations. Such increases might be appropriate for a nation flush with cash or unconcerned with fiscal prudence, but America is neither.

Drafted last year, the bill did not pass due to Congress's long-standing budgetary dysfunction and the frustrating delays it yields in our appropriations work. Since then, economic and fiscal circumstances have changed dramatically, which is why the Senate should go back to the drawing board. The economic downturn requires new policies, not more of the same.

The solution going forward is to stop wasteful spending before it starts. Families and businesses are tightening their belts to make ends meet -- and Washington should too.

The omnibus debate is not merely a battle over last year's unfinished business, but the first indication of how we will shape our fiscal future. Spending should be held in check before taxes are raised, even on the wealthy. Most people are willing to do their duty by paying taxes, but they want to know that their money is going toward important priorities and won't be wasted.

Senator Bayh voted for the "stimulus" package, so I'm not sure how seriously to take these criticisms. Still, it is refreshing to see a Democrat criticizing a spending bill.

Secondly, Senators are starting to rebel over some of Obama's tax hikes.

The resistance from Mr. Obama's own party -- focusing on a single element of the president's tax plans -- could foreshadow broader troubles for the rest of his proposed tax increases.

Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.), the Senate's top tax writer as chairman of the Finance Committee, told Mr. Geithner he was especially concerned about paying for expanded health coverage with a deductions curb that "has nothing to do with health care." He added: "I'm wondering about the viability of that provision."

Charitable organizations are also worried. Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy said Wednesday that Mr. Obama's proposals to limit deductions and raise rates, if applied in 2006, would have reduced giving by nearly $4 billion, or 2.1%.

"I'd like to think that people give out of the goodness of their heart, but that tax deduction helps to loosen up the heartstrings," Nevada Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley said Tuesday during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.

And, let's give credit to Washington Senator Maria Cantwell (D). She makes a great point:

Another Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, questioned why the administration wouldn't look for savings in the tax code through a comprehensive overhaul. "Why not look at a broader approach to tax policy, [rather] than coming in with this proposed change to marginal rates?" Ms. Cantwell said.

This is certainly an unusual post. When was the last time I praised two Democrat senators in one post? Maybe there is something to Obama's hope & change rhetoric after all.

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin had this to say about President Obama's budget.

I'm pleased that President Obama rejected the "creative accounting" of the Bush Administration, whose budgets never included the actual costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and never fully funded the domestic programs that we desperately need - in education, health care, infrastructure, and energy. President Obama has presented us with an honest assessment of the challenges facing our nation. He also makes the tough choices necessary to restore fiscal responsibility and begin reducing the deficit, while making critical investments to help our economy not only recover, but grow.

.

Did she mean this kind of honesty?

The president used the word "honest." That's astonishing. Look, all budgets are fiction. This one is fantasia.

Look, let's start with the projections in revenue. Obama has promised to cut the deficit by the end of the first term in half. He does it by pretending that in 2011 there will be a growth in the economy of about 5.5 percent, and in the next year it will be over six.

Now, these are Chinese-level numbers, and even the Chinese aren't achieving them anymore. It is completely fictional, those numbers.

Next year he says we will grow at about 3.5 percent. Next year we could still be in negative territory.

And then on the cuts, he speaks about the $2 trillion in savings. And, actually, in the speech he gave to congress, he spoke of $2 trillion in savings, and now he has amended it, and he says, well, budget reduction.

And that's because half of it isn't savings at all. It's tax increases. And the other half is a fictional saving of a projected spending on Iraq, which would go out to ten years at the current levels, and have us spending in 2018 at a level that we are today that nobody expects and nobody even imagines.

So it's a saving of about a trillion and a half of Iraqi spending that would never have happened in the first place. And that's how he gets his spending cuts….

And on the agricultural cuts, he announced it proudly. It is $20 million, which means that if you have a thousand of those, a thousand of those, it would be 1/10 of one percent of $2 trillion in cuts he has promised.

It is a matter of scale. The cuts he's talking about are miniscule and almost risible when you look at his promises. The big cuts are actually tax increases fictional Iraq savings.

Or possibly she meant this kind of honesty.

Well, I think this budget is politically and economically risky, and precisely because it doesn't have enough spending reduction. If you look at what you've got, you've got about $2 trillion in deficit reduction.

That comes from $1.5 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan reductions that are largely illusory. They pretend we would have spent $170 billion a year for a long time, and we're not.

And then a $700 billion increase in revenues from a cap-and-trade program that has never even come close getting through the U.S. Congress. So that's the deficit reduction, not obvious it'll come to fruition.

And then the rest is about $1 trillion of tax increases on high-income individuals and businesses to fund $1 trillion in tax cuts that are already on the books from the stimulus bill, with "Making Work Pay," Earned Income Tax Credit, things like that.

So you've got a dynamic where they're counting on things that are either illusory and hard to make happen politically -- cap-and-trade and tax increases -- to fund things that are already there. They didn't cut spending. And that makes all the deficits that are presented best-guess estimates. The risks are all the upside.

You know, I'm not sure that's really honest after all. That looks kinda like "creative accounting" if you ask me. I wonder what kind of honesty Congresswoman Baldwin meant? For Congresswoman Baldwin is an honorable woman.

David Bernstein talks about the rich:

My friends in this income bracket [$250-380K] tend to have have high mortgages, work 60-80 hours a week, pay 40-50K or more a year for child care (a nanny is necessary when you often work into the late evening--and even day care for two kids in the DC area costs close to 40K a year), and have six figures worth of student loans, primarily from professional school, that they are still paying off. In other words, approximately 100K of their pretax income is taken up by their student loans and child care costs, which are the equivalent of "startup costs". Their mortgage costs may seem excessive, but you don't easily make six figures in low-housing cost cities like Des Moines, and living in outer suburbs is very difficult when you work 12 hour days.

If a hypothetical couple's initial income is a total of $300K, and they work an average of 70 hours each, and assuming two weeks vacation, they are in effect getting a grand total of $28.57 an hour for their labors, and a fair percent of that is going to pay interest on the mortgage. I'm sure they are glad to know that they are rich enough to be taxed at over 50% of their marginal dollar.

I wonder how many people think about that when they think about soaking the rich?

Obama Delivers $3.6 Trillion Budget Blueprint - WSJ.com

The president blamed the nation's economic travails on the administration that preceded him and on a nation that lost its bearings. His budget plan projects a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion for 2009, or 12.3% of the gross domestic product, a level not seen since 1942 as the U.S. plunged into World War II.

"This crisis is neither the result of a normal turn of the business cycle nor an accident of history," the president states in an opening message of the 134-page document. "We arrived at this point as a result of an era of profound irresponsibility that engulfed both private and public institutions from some of our largest companies' executive suites to the seats of power in Washington, D.C."

By 2013, the deficit would drop to $533 billion but begin to climb from there again as the heart of the Baby Boom begins drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Mr. Obama proposes large increases in education funding, including indexing Pell Grants for higher education to inflation and converting the popular scholarship to an automatic "entitlement" program. High-speed rail would gain a $1 billion-a-year grant program, part of a larger effort to boost infrastructure spending even beyond the funds in his $787 billion stimulus plan.

In one of the budget's most ambitious proposals, the president plans to cap the emissions of greenhouse gases, forcing polluters to purchase permits for emissions that would be slowly brought down to 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. The sale of those permits, beginning in 2012, would reap $646 billion through 2019. Of those revenues, $525.7 billion would be devoted to extending Mr. Obama's signature "Making Work Pay" $800 tax credit for working couples. Another $120 billion would go to clean energy technology.

Obama's 2% Illusion - WSJ.com

Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

As the journal points out, incomes are falling fast right now. Taking a bigger share of a smaller income isn't really going to give you any extra money.

The Obama Baseline - James C. Capretta - The Corner on National Review Online

Politicians like to say they are "cutting the budget." But budget cutting can only be understood in context. Compared to what?

In budget-speak, there is a "baseline" against which budget decisions are measured. Normally, the "baseline" assumes current law and policy. But if you want to look like you are cutting the budget without really doing so, the answer is to inflate the "baseline" so that the cut is measured against an artificially high target.

President Bill Clinton did exactly that in 1993. In 1990, President Bush 41 had negotiated hard caps on appropriations spending that lasted through 1995. The "baseline" Congress used in 1992 assumed these caps held because a breach would trigger across-the-board cuts. In the first year of his presidency, Clinton wanted to look like he was cutting one dollar in spending for every dollar of taxes he was increasing, even though he wasn't willing to take the heat for real cuts. The solution? He redefined the baseline to assume the caps were no longer operative, announced his support for keeping what was already the law of the land, and claimed a sizeable spending "cut" as his own.

Pres. Barack Obama may be about to do the same thing.

Hope, change, and transparency gives way to huge, bloated budgets and more of the same old Washington tricks.

Happy Thursday!

You want an easy way to make me angry? Threaten my kids. You want an easy way to make me really angry? Assume that every parent is a bad parent and then threaten my kids because you can't be bothered to figure out which type of parent I am. This story from "Great" Britain makes me furious.

A couple forced to give up three children for adoption despite a judge ruling they may have been wrongly accused of abuse yesterday vowed to take their legal fight to Europe.

Mark and Nicky Webster said they will never give up the battle to win back their daughter and two sons after the Appeal Court ruled this week that it was 'too late' for the family to be reunited.

The couple's nightmare started in October 2003 when Mrs Webster took their second son to hospital with a swollen leg. He was found to have a number of small fractures which doctors said could be caused only by physical abuse. The following year they were permanently removed and put up for adoption after a one-day court hearing.

Medical experts later concluded that the injuries were not caused by violent twisting and shaking, but were symptoms of rare case of scurvy. Mr Webster, 35, and his 27-year-old wife fled to Ireland in 2006 to stop their fourth child, Brandon, being taken into care at birth.

The Appeal Court ruled on Wednesday that even though the Websters 'may well' have been victims of a miscarriage of justice the adoption order on their eldest three children could not be revoked because the youngsters are now settled with their adoptive parents.

The couple have not seen the children, now aged nine, seven and five, since they were put up for adoption four years ago.

You want a model of unjust government? It's right there. Right there in one story. Screw up the investigation, take the kids, then refuse to let the parents have their kids.

I'm not honestly not sure how I would react in their situation. Let's just say: "not well". Stories like these are why I hate the very idea of Child Protective Services and other similar government agencies. There is no justification for this behavior.

My heart -- and prayers -- go out to Mr. and Mrs. Webster.

The Obama administration is working on a mortgage bailout plan. Supposedly, they only want to help the people who are responsible home owners. That's a good aim. Given that 41% of modified mortgages end in default, we shouldn't send good taxpayer money after bad results. If the administration is sincere about their desires, I have a proposal.

We should only help homeonwers who have either made a significant investment or spent a significant amount on their house. Here's how I define those terms.

A significant investor is someone who has equity equal to at least 20% of the purchase price of their house. For example, someone who took out a loan for $200,000 would need to have already paid off $40,000 in order to qualify for assistance. Anyone who owns less than that, isn't really a home owner -- they're more like renters with extra privileges. We should only help those who have invested a significant amount in their homes. They've already proven that they can meet payments and put considerable resources into their homes. They're likely to continue doing so, given a little help.

A significant spender is someone who spent at least 6 months gross salary on a downpayment. They're someone who has demonstrated an ability to scrimp, save, and plan for the future. They've locked up a considerable amount of capital in their house and made sacrifices to do so. They've already demonstrated an ability to manage their money and defer spending. They're likely to continue doing so, given a little help.

Both of these criteria would apply no matter what the current value of the house is. Those who are prepared to stay in their house long-term shouldn't be worried about whether or not their mortgage is currently underwater. It may yet rise back above water. And if it doesn't, the government shouldn't be worried about helping them earn a profit on their investment. Rather, our sole focus should be on keeping responsible homeowners in their homes, if at all possible.

These two criteria can help us identify who the responsible homeowners truly are. What happens after they've been helped over their current financial short fall is up to them.

What do you think?

(Updated on Feb 25, to reflect James' suggestion.)

Democrats Affirm Support for Daschle

Senate Democrats rallied around Obama's Health nominee Tom Daschle, despite his failure to pay over $100,000 in taxes in a timely fashion.

And that, right there, is what's wrong with Washington. Last night, I heard political analysts on CNN saying that Daschle would likely be confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services because "he's really very embarrassed by this" and "it's hard to overstate just how much he's liked and respected in Washington".

Well, he's neither liked nor respected in my household. If I had "failed to pay over $100,000 in taxes in a timely manner" I'd be more than just embarrassed. I'd be on my way to prison after a high-profile prosecution by the IRS. The IRS, you may remember, is headed by tax cheat Tim Geithner.

I have two questions: 1) why do President Obama's appointees get to ignore the rule of law and escape the consequences of their inaction? 2) What happened to the change that President Obama was supposed to bring to Washington? At least President Bush's appointees set the example by paying their taxes. And, if they didn't, their nominations were withdrawn.

This is certainly change, but it isn't the change I expected.

Private colleges want equitable portion of need-based state aid

Tough. They're private. Try lowering your prices for needy students, not charging someone else (namely the forgotten taxpayer) who doesn't have a say in the matter.

Who should you fear more, rich people or your local government bureaucrats? That's an easy question. You should fear the nice lady down at Village Hall. She has far more control over your life than any member of the upper class.

Walter Williams states it beautifully.

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, with about $60 billion in assets each, are America's richest men. With all that money, what can they force us to do? Can they take our house to make room so that another person can build an auto dealership or a casino parking lot? Can they force us to pay money into the government-run retirement Ponzi scheme called Social Security? Can Buffett and Gates force us to bus our children to schools out of our neighborhood in the name of diversity? Unless they are granted power by politicians, rich people have little power to force us to do anything.

A GS-9, or a lowly municipal clerk, has far more life-and-death power over us. It's they to whom we must turn to for permission to build a house, ply a trade, open a restaurant and myriad other activities. It's government people, not rich people, who have the power to coerce and make our lives miserable. Coercive power goes a long way toward explaining political corruption.

I don't fear the rich. I fear a President and Congress who think they know how to run my life better than I do. I fear state and local governments that have the power to fine and imprison me if I don't live by their prejudices. I fear the government.

Do you?

The Medicare Advantage program gives seniors a choice. Instead of participating in the traditional Medicare program, they can "spend" their Medicare dollars on a health plan from a private insurer. President-elect Obama thinks we should eliminate that choice.

We've got to eliminate programs that don't work, and I'll give you an example in the health care area. We are spending a lot of money subsidizing the insurance companies around something called Medicare Advantage, a program that gives them subsidies to accept Medicare recipients but doesn't necessarily make people on Medicare healthier.

And if we eliminate that and other programs, we can potentially save $200 billion out of the health care system that we're currently spending, and take that money and use it in ways that are actually going to make people healthier and improve quality. So what our challenge is going to be is identifying what works and putting more money into that, eliminating things that don't work, and making things that we have more efficient.

His statement is a blatant misrepresentation of Medicare Advantage. The money isn't a subsidy, it's a payment. The government gives the health plan a fixed amount of money and in return the health plan cares for the senior. If the senior's health care costs less than the payment, the health plan makes money. If not, the health plan loses money. It's a great incentive for the health plans to find cost-effective ways to treat people.

Eliminating that incentive won't "make people healthier and improve quality". It will probably bloat costs -- traditional Medicare pays doctors for each service performed, regardless of need or outcome.

No, this isn't about saving money or increasing quality. This is about kicking my grandmother off of her much-loved Kaiser Permanente plan and forcing her back into the arms of government bureaucrats. It's about increasing the government's control over us and eliminating our health care choices.

Looks like the CIA figured out how to win friends & influence people.

The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills.

Who says we can't win the war or that people hate the West? Who would you rather help? Fundamentalist kill joy terrorists or the nice men with the blue pills?

This seems like a good sign:

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit harshly censured Hamas today (27 Dec), placing responsibility for the current situation on Hamas. At a noon press conference broadcast on Egyptian television, he said that Egypt had repeatedly cautioned against continuing the situation and that whoever did not listen (Hamas) should assume responsibility and not blame others. He added that Israel had publicly warned that continued rocket fire would lead to military action. Prime Minister Olmert said just two days ago in an Al Arabiya TV interview that if Hamas did not stop the rocket fire, Israel would respond militarily. The Egyptian foreign minister added angrily that right before Foreign Minister Livni's arrival in Egypt on Thursday, 60 rockets were fired, meant to foil Egypt's efforts to achieve quiet.

On Sunday, my pastor mentioned the new violence in Gaza. It surprised me, because I hadn't read any news reports all weekend long. I spent today getting caught up on the events. Here's what I found out: Israel attacked Hamas.

Israel launched Saturday morning the start of a massive offensive against Qassam rocket and mortar fire on its southern communities, targeting dozens of buildings belonging to the ruling Hamas militant group.

Palestinian medical sources said that at least 195 people had been killed in the strikes, which began with almost no warning at around 11:30 A.M.

Medical personnel in Gaza said that more than 200 people were also wounded in the series of Israel Air Force strikes. Egypt has opened its long-sealed border with Gaza to allow in the wounded for medical treatment. Hamas said that the attacks had caused widespread panic in the Strip.

The first wave of air strikes was launched by a 60 warplanes which hit a total of 50 targets in one fell swoop. The IAF deployed approximately 100 bombs, with an estimated 95 percent of the ordinance reaching its intended target. Most of the casualties were Hamas operatives.

Why? Well, Israel's getting tired of Hamas using them for rocket target practice:

"This operation will be extended and deepened as we find necessary. Our goal is to strike Hamas and stop the attacks on Israel. Hamas controls Gaza and is responsible for everything happening there and for all attacks carried out from within the Strip. The goals of this operation are to stop Hamas from attacking our citizens and soldiers. I would like to remind the world that Israel withdrew from the entire Gaza Strip more than three years ago. We gave a chance for a new reality, and all we’ve seen is Hamas firing rockets and missiles on our citizens and carrying out attacks against Israel. We have nothing against the citizens of Gaza, but we must fight against the Hamas leadership. We are making great efforts to prevent civilian casualties... We are not preventing humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip."

But what does it all mean?

Noah Pollak talks about What's at Stake in Gaza

The war that Israel joined today is superficially concerned with stopping Hamas' rocket fire, but substantially it is much more important than that. It is Israel's biggest military engagement since the 2006 Hezbollah war, and therefore it will be a retroactive judgment on that engagement.

The 2006 war re-defined the concept of Arab victory against Israel. Hezbollah is perceived as having won not because it displayed military superiority over Israel, killed more IDF soldiers than the IDF killed Hezbollah, or drove the IDF out of Lebanon through force of arms. The perception is due to a more modest metric: Hezbollah’s ability to thwart Israel from accomplishing the objectives the government announced at the beginning of the war, and Hezbollah’s ability to maintain a consistent level of rocket fire throughout the war.

Israel's job is not necessarily to topple Hamas rule — that would be a tall order, being that there is no competent Fatah force to replace Hamas in Gaza -- but to humiliate the swaggering resistance, to kill as many of its leaders and militants as possible, and to demonstrate to Hamas' allies that the IDF and Israeli government learned the right lessons from the 2006 war. This will require more strikes like those of this morning, and it will require the IDF to stop Hamas' rocket fire -- either through military dominance, or by forcing Hamas to conclude that it must cease its attacks lest its rule be terminated. The former is much more likely than the latter.

Charles Chuman answers Why Gaza? Why Now? over at MichaelTotten.com.

Israel's response is destructive and asymmetric. That is the point. Israel is proving to Hamas that it is willing and able to mount a war, regardless of Arab and international opinion, if that is what Hamas desires. Hamas and Hezbollah taught Israelis that unilateral withdrawal from territory only prolongs the violence. If Israel's enemies are willing to use violence, Israel has no qualms about using violence. If, like Syria, Israel's enemies remain non-belligerent, those enemies can exist in perpetuity. In fact, Israel might even help its enemies achieve their goals, as it has done with the Syrian regime.

A critical re-think of the situation is imperative to end this cycle of violence. The state of Israel is predicated on survival, and it has powerful allies to assist it. The Palestinians need and deserve a state, but rejection of the state of Israel is not how that state and a future peace will occur.

International demonstrations on behalf of Palestinians or Israelis supporting human rights and rejecting violence are commendable as manifestations of humanitarian concern and expressions of free speech. However, ideologies and facts on the ground must change before a solution is found.

Michael B. Oren sees both A Crisis And An Opportunity

CNN International's coverage of yesterday's fighting in Gaza concluded at midnight with a rush of images: mangled civilians writhing in the rubble, primitive hospitals overflowing with the wounded, fireballs mushrooming between apartment complexes, the funeral of a Palestinian child. Missing from the montage, however, was even a fleeting glimpse of the tens of thousands of Israelis who spent last night and much of last week in bomb shelters; of the house in Netivot, where a man was killed by a Grad missile; or indeed any of the hundreds of rockets, mortar shells, and other projectiles fired by Hamas since the breakdown of the so-called ceasefire. This was CNN at its unprincipled worst, grossly skewering its coverage of a complex event and deceiving its viewers. Yet Israel should not have been surprised.

... Nevertheless, the current round of fighting provides Israel with an opportunity to end its painful chronicle of indecision on Gaza and to embark on a lucid and realizable policy. Can Israel co-exist with a Hamas-dominated Gaza? What are the alternatives (the reintroduction of Egyptian forces, for example) to a renewed Israeli occupation of the area? To what degree will the international community accept a zero-tolerance approach to rocket attacks against Israel, and, more crucially, will the incoming Obama administration publicly endorse that stance? These and other questions might be answered in the coming days if Israel, withstanding the media backlash, dares to ask them.

I've also been checking Israellycool for updates on the situation.

Governor Blagojevich isn't the only corrupt politician to be in the news recently. Let's hear three cheers for corrupt New York Representative Charlie Rangel:

The New York Times and New York Post have reported in recent months that Rep. Rangel occupies several rent-controlled apartments in New York; that he failed to report rental income from a vacation home; that he took a tax break for primary residences on a Washington, D.C., home while he also had a rent-stabilized apartment in New York that required a similar residency claim; and that he worked to preserve a tax loophole that benefited a company at the same time its chief executive was pledging $1 million for the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service.

This is the guy who takes it upon himself to write the nation's tax laws. So far, he's remained the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Do you think you'd get such good treatment if you violated the tax laws the way he has?

We finally get a good, old-fashioned, political scandal -- the kind involving money and power rather than money and sex. Illinois Governor Arrested on Corruption Charges - WSJ.com

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday on charges of conspiring to get financial benefits through his authority to appoint a U.S. senator to fill the vacancy left by Barack Obama's election as president.

A 76-page FBI affidavit said the 51-year-old Democratic governor was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps over the last month conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat for personal benefits for himself and his wife, Patti.

"I want to make money," the affidavit quotes him as saying in one conversation.

I knew Governor Blagojevich was corrupt but Illinois politics are just a cut above (below?) everyone else.

"In other conversations, FBI agents say the governor, his aide and others tried to use the governor's position to withhold state assistance to the Tribune Co. to induce the firing of a Chicago Tribune editorial board member critical of the governor."

I wonder what the editorial board member could have possibly been critical of? After all, the Governor is a reformer!

"Mr. Blagojevich took the chief executive's office in 2003 as a reformer promising to clean up former Gov. George Ryan's mess.

Mr. Ryan, a Republican, is serving a 6-year prison sentence after being convicted on racketeering and fraud charges. A decade-long investigation began with the sale of driver's licenses for bribes and led to the conviction of dozens of people who worked for Mr. Ryan when he was secretary of state and governor."

Then you read things like this: Senate Sale - Jonah Goldberg - The Corner on National Review Online.

"Following a 90-minute audition meeting today with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. said he was confident in the process the governor is using to make his choice for a Senate successor to President-elect Barack Obama.

"Jackson has mounted the most highly visible campaign among several people who are being considered for the Senate post. He said the meeting with Blagojevich amounted to a "very productive conversation, very thoughtful" that covered a broad range of issues."

Does that mean what I think it does? Exactly how thoughtful was that conversation and what range of issues did it cover? Byron York provides some juicy excerpts from the Federal indictment.

"if . . . they're not going to offer anything of any value, then I might just take it." ... "unless I get something real good for [Senate Candidate 1], shit, I'll just send myself, you know what I'm saying." ... "I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I'm saying. And if I don't get what I want and I'm not satisfied with it, then I'll just take the Senate seat myself." Later, ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that the Senate seat "is a f---ing valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing."

On November 7, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with Advisor A about the Senate seat. ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that he is willing to "trade" the Senate seat to Senate Candidate 1 in exchange for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services in the President-elect's cabinet. 99. Later on November 7, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH discussed the open Senate seat in a three-way call with JOHN HARRIS and Advisor B, a Washington D.C.-based consultant. ROD BLAGOJEVICH indicated in the call that if he was appointed as Secretary of Health and Human Services by the President-elect, then ROD BLAGOJEVICH would appoint Senate Candidate 1 to the open Senate seat. HARRIS stated "we wanted our ask to be reasonable and rather than. . .make it look like some sort of selfish grab for a quid pro quo." ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that he needs to consider his family and that he is "financially" hurting. HARRIS said that they are considering what will help the "financial security" of the Blagojevich family and what will keep ROD BLAGOJEVICH "politically viable." ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated, "I want to make money." During the call, ROD BLAGOJEVICH, HARRIS, and Advisor B discussed the prospect of working a three-way deal for the open Senate seat. HARRIS noted that ROD BLAGOJEVICH is interested in taking a high-paying position with an organization called "Change to Win," which is connected to Service Employees International Union ("SEIU"). HARRIS suggested that SEIU Official make ROD BLAGOJEVICH the head of Change to Win and, in exchange, the President-elect could help Change to Win with its legislative agenda on a national level.

Oooh. That's good: three-way quid pro quo between a corrupt governor, a potentially corrupt union, and a newly elected President from a corrupt state machine. This could be the Teapot Dome or Grant years all over again!

Finally, it looks like that Senate seat will stay open and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald will get to keep his job. Merry Fitzmas in Illinois! - David Freddoso - The Corner on National Review Online

But for now, two important observations. First, no one wants a Senate appointment from a man accused of selling the seat. We may need a change of governor soon. There is no law in Illinois providing for situations in which the governor temporarily gives up his powers. The general assembly would have to pass such a law. An impeachment is probably more likely. Blagojevich could appoint someone from jail, but I don't think the Senate would seat such an appointment under these circumstances. Second, by arresting Blagojevich before Inauguration Day, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has done the one thing that absolutely prevents Barack Obama from removing him from his position. As he has worked doggedly to send corrupt politicians (many of them Obama's friends and political allies) to prison Fitzgerald has arguably become the most important man in Illinois politics.

And there's not a thing President Obama can do to stop any of this. His political support will start evaporating the moment he looks anything like a corrupt Chicago politician. Voters were hoping to elect a clean politician who would give them Hope and bring about Change to Washington. He can't afford to look like just another corrupt pol.

I'm going to pop some popcorn and settle back to find out exactly how many Illinois governors in a row can be arrested on corruption charges. We've got 2 so far. Can we make it 3?

Apparently, the Iranians don't like President-elect Obama as much as America does.

While the US election results and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's congratulatory letter to President-elect Obama have sparked debate among Iranian officials and media about the prospects for improved relations with Washington, media connected to key power centers in Iran, including President Ahmadinejad, have harshly criticized Obama, calling him a "house slave" days before Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qa'ida's second in command, used the same term.

• In an 11 November commentary, Borna News Agency, which is close to Ahmadinezhad, called Obama a "house slave," adding that those who "trust such a politician lack maturity, if they are not committing treason" -- a likely reference to Iranian moderates. A day earlier, in an interview with Borna, Ahmadinezhad's press adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr characterized Ahmadinezhad's letter to Obama as a "new political move" and advised Obama "not to make the mistake of not responding."

• In an editorial entitled "A Dark Person Rises to Remove Darkness From America," Sobh-e Sadegh, which is published by Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i's representative to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), wrote that "Obama's acceptance of unconditional negotiations with Iran" would signal a "new beginning" only if "coexistence with a nuclear Iran and acceptance of its regional role are part of the US negotiating position." It added that the "appointment of the extremist Jew Rahm Emanuel as the [White House] chief of staff is not a good sign" (10 November).

• In an editorial entitled "The Great Satan Masked as Obama," the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said that the "United States is the embodiment of Satan. Hence, in this circus, for anyone but the slaves of Satan to take charge of the government is impossible." It added that Iranians "who are ecstatic about Obama are either ignorant or have a plot [against Iran]" (5 November).

There's more.

Life Before Death:

When my western friends talk bad about Arabs, I think of places like UAE or Qatar where we are extremely welcome and safe. The idea that we are in a global religious war is untrue. Certainly there are wars unfolding that have religious basis, but this is not World War III. We are not in a war against Muslims, and the vast majority of Muslims are not at war with us. Islam is experiencing a culture-wide religious and political civil war, much like the wars that accompanied the Reformation in Europe. We are trying to put out the flames of the Islamic civil war. Yet sometimes we make it worse.

The whole thing is accompanied by beautiful pictures of Afghanistan.

(Via Michael Yon - Online Magazine.)

It amazes me that American liberals trust the U.N. to do a good job managing international crisises and other countries, but distrust the United States when it tries to do the same. It amazes me because the U.N. is an incredibly incompetent organization. Liberals are horrified by the perceived incompetency of the Bush administration. Yet the Bush administration is far, far more competent, capable and law-abiding than the vast majority of the U.N.

Take, just for example, the performance of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. Michael Totten recently reported on the situation.

There is no love for the United Nations in Kosovo.

Kosovo is the fourth country I've visited where the UN has or has had a key role, and in only one of them - Lebanon - is the UN not despised by just about everyone. In Lebanon the UN has so little power to make a difference one way or the other that any anger at the institution would largely be pointless. In Bosnia, though, UN "peacekeepers" stood by impotently while genocide and ethnic-cleansing campaigns were carried out right in front of them. The UN's Oil for Food program was thoroughly corrupted by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq at the expense of just about everybody who lives there. Kosovo, meanwhile, declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, but the elected government is still subordinate to the almost universally despised UN bureaucrats who are the real power. Many Kosovars insist the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is actually a dictatorship.

UNMIK is the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. It has been the de-facto government of Kosovo since the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade lost control at the end of the 1999 war. Kosovo has its own nominal government, but it has little power.

"So you have UN rule," Kurti continued, "which is not leaving, and you have the ICO and EU-elects about to come. They are doubling the bureaucracy here. And we are stuck because we depend on their consensus. That means we depend on their lowest common denominator. What they care about is stability, never development or progress. For them, a crisis is only an explosion of crisis. If there is huge unemployment, poverty, they don't care."

"So if the EU is administering Kosovo's government," I said, "what does that mean for Kosovo's government? Will they be subordinate to the EU or operating in parallel?"

"They will be subordinate," he said, "because Peter Feith will have the right to sack our ministers and change our laws. So he is going to supervise the government. Peter Feith hopes he will not be challenged to use his powers where he can simply dismantle the parliament, call new elections, change a certain minister, or say this law is not good after it has been passed in our assembly. They are hoping for self-censorship from our government in order not to be challenged and not to use those powers which would unmask them as the dictatorship they really are. It is a dictatorship, but they do not want to be seen as one, so they say we are here only to supervise. They talk a lot with our prime minister and ministers, do this, do that, in order not to be seen in the background as a sort of monarchy."

"What is their reason for wanting to do this?" I said.

"They mediate between Prishtina and Belgrade after overthrowing Milosevic," he said, "and they simply don't use any more sticks, only carrots. Serbia is very aggressive, and in order to make sure that Serbia is not going to be indignant, they say Yes, Kosovo is independent, but don't worry, it is us there. That is one reason I think they are here.

"Second," he continued, "every bureaucracy seeks self perpetuation. A lot of people here have very high salaries, and they are like big fishes in a small pond. And they are more or less all of them into this process of privatization. Because we cannot touch them legally, they have free hands to do whatever they want. Many of them got very rich. 80 percent of the money from the international community that was poured onto Kosovo in these nine years went for technical assistance, seminars, conferences, and so on. A lot of money is in their hands this way. They direct it. It's an authoritarian law. So I think this is another reason why they're here."

"What kinds of things have the EU and the UN done here that are bad, specifically?" I said. "I get your general point, but what are the practical results of all this?"

"No economic development at all," he said. "Zero. No factories. No industry. Nothing. The fiscal policy is terrible. They promised us a market economy, and we ended up in a market without an economy. Then there is the internal division of Kosovo. The North is divided from the rest. The red is Serb areas, and here are new municipalities about to be created by Ahtisaari's plan where the soft partition is strengthening itself."

Now the vast majority of people think very poorly of UNMIK. If you talk to a person from Kosovo about UNMIK they might say it is not that bad, but if you drink a beer with that person they will tell you what he really thinks."

I didn't have to drink beer with Kosovars to hear uniformly and relentlessly negative opinions of the United Nations. I didn't meet a single person who approves of the performance of the UN. Anti-UN and anti-EU graffiti is common, and it sharply contrasts with the pro-American graffiti that is almost as common.

All the graffiti I saw about the UN and the EU was negative. All the graffiti I saw about the US was positive, without exceptions.

Not only that, many of the U.N. officials and employees are flat out incompetent.

"I was going to go to Macedonia," he told me, "and a UN guy from Ghana on the border asks for papers. I gave him random papers that weren't documents, just to joke with him, and he said Thank you sir, good day, you can go. I said give me your supervisor. So a guy from Germany comes up and says can I see your papers. I said those are my papers in your hand. He said These papers are nothing! I said I know, and this guy was going to let me go through with just a 'good day!' The German guy went crazy. When you send a mission to a troubled country, you have to send people who are educated, who will create the rule of law. But to send idiots - I swear to God, I was so mad. They came from Africa and got their drivers licenses in Kosovo. There were several kids who were killed by these guys crashing into them. Nobody cares. The UN is mad."

The Kosovars were stunned to hear about how well the Americans have treated the Iraqis.

"The government of Iraq has more sovereignty than you do," I said.

That shocked them. Iraq is in vastly worse shape overall than Kosovo. And yet Iraq regained much more of its sovereignty in a shorter amount of time, even while fending off a ferocious insurgency and civil war.

Right now, the Kosovars would love to have been occupied by the United States. If they had, they'd have more control over their own country, they'd have a functioning economy, and the Americans would have sent trained and competent administrators. Not only that, the American administrators would have been eager to pass their expertise and knowledge along to the Kosovars.

Why does the American left hate American interventions but love United Nations interventions?