War in Israel brings out the useful idiots

For instance, Cynthia McKinney:

“Our boat was rammed three times, twice in the front and one on the side,” McKinney told CNN Tuesday morning. “Our mission was a peaceful mission. Our mission was thwarted by the aggressiveness of the Israeli military.”

Actually, mission accomplished. What we tend to forget is that war is many-faceted. There is the military component. And then there is the information component. McKinney, a longtime anti-Israel advocate and former congresswoman from Georgia, understands the power of information.

The mission was NOT a peaceful mission. Entering a war zone, even with relief supplies, to not only give aid and comfort to one side, but also to weaken another, is an act of aggression itself. The existence of an organization like the International Red Cross was an attempt at a non-aligned relief organization in times of war. In this case, Israel is forced to deal with the unarmed occupants (as far as they know) is a nonlethal manner.

That said, anyone entering a war zone expecting to be greeted with rose petals is truly an idiot. Which McKinney is not. Her goal was to give Israel a black eye. Israel Matzav, however, has some interesting details:

The moonbats on the boat have accused Israel of 'piracy on the high seas.' But their understanding of international law is incorrect.

The movement's spokeswoman Greta Berlin told Israel National News that the incident occurred approximately 50-60 miles off the Gaza coast, in international waters. Any vessel can be legally required to identify itself in order to prevent it from entering prohibited territory although its passengers cannot be arrested in international waters, explained Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

They're also claiming that the Navy gunboat rammed the yacht, but Palmor shows that contention is ridiculous as well:

The Free Gaza boat, dubbed the Dignity, collided with a Navy boat, but Berlin said the activists on board have pictures to prove it was rammed, an allegation that Palmor said is ridiculous. "If we wanted to hit it intentionally, everyone would have drowned," he told Israel National News.Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy was quoted by a CNN correspondent on board the 60-foot vessel as saying that the collision occurred when a Navy boat tried to turn around. Free Gaza claimed that at least half a dozen Navy boats surrounded the Dignity.The activists reported they did not have enough fuel to return to Cyprus and that the Navy did not allow the boat to proceed to Egypt but is allowing the vessel to sail to Lebanon after originally ordering it to turn back to Cyprus.

While Israel allowed earlier 'mercy missions' to land, the government has apparently now had enough of this nonsense.

Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said "the time has come to put a stop to these anarchists" who he said are not bringing any significant amount of
humanitarian supplies. He pointed out that Israel has opened Gaza crossings for
hundreds of tons of aid despite the ongoing rocket and mortar attacks on Israel.

More than 120 trucks entered Gaza Sunday and Monday, and 100 more are expected to reach the area Tuesday.

Free Gaza is a coalition of several groups, including the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR). All of those groups are financed by European governments.

We must recognize "humanitarian efforts" for what they are: a war on Israel. I have nothing against, and in fact desire, ending the suffering in Gaza. But not at the expense of the Israeli people.

Truth in advertising

Mamma Mia!

I just saw this movie, which my wife enjoyed very much and got on DVD. All fine, very entertaining at a surface level. But having read this dispatch from Robert D Kaplan of The Atlantic, I saw something disturbing:

Youth unemployment is high throughout the European Union, but it is particularly high in Greece, hovering between 25 and 30 percent. With few job prospects, rampant poverty in the face of nouveau riche prosperity, a public university system in shambles, a bloated government sector in desperate need of an overhaul, and a weak, defensive conservative government with only a one-seat majority in parliament, it is a ripe period for protests, which have had as their aim the fall of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. [Emphasis added]

Some more perspective:



Mamma Mia! the movie takes place in a Greek isle. The all the protagonists - the hotel owner, her daughter, the fiancee, the fathers, the guests - are all non-Greek. The local Greeks are all extras - servants, lifters, carriers, cleaners, etc. I can't imagine that this movie would leave a nice taste with the locals these days.

Speaking of extra faux pas, I also caught a guest on Ina Garten's cooking show on the Food Channel mock a soup kitchen just before singing a song about how nice it was to be in the Hamptons. Maybe it's the economy that brings out the best in us.

Science advisor to the POTUS

John Holdren, professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, was named Science Advisor to the Obama administration.

This appointment has "conservatives" in a tizzy because of his past associations with Paul Erlich, author of The Population Bomb:

[H]e has been an activist on the ecological left and no friend of free markets. Perhaps more striking is his activism well beyond his own academic specialty, arguing, for instance, that scientists have a responsibility to advance the cause of the elimination of all nuclear weapons and seeking controls on population growth. And he didn’t say all this in the 1970s either—have a good look at the speech he delivered when he assumed the leadership of the AAAS in 2006. It describes a fundamentally activist liberal mentality about the very purpose of science and its place in our kind of society. [Emphasis added]

No doubt Prof. Holdren is a liberal. So what? Since when is science supposed to be a "friend of free markets"? Science is science, facts are facts, even when "free markets" get perturbed. I think we have seen enough "science" from the Republicans, thank you very much.

Bail for Jews with means

Debbie Schlussel has herself in knots over this story about the U.S. Attorney's office in Cedar Rapids seeking to deny bail to Sholom Rubashkin, who stands accused of multiple counts of violating federal statute on hiring illegal aliens in the now-defunct Agriprocessors plant.

I am NOT--nor is this Rubashkin dude--a citizen of Israel. I don't hold dual citizenship, nor do most Jews in America--5.2 million of us.

And, aside from that, America has an extradition treaty with Israel and for the most part has returned defendants to justice here. On the other hand, we have no such treaty with Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Somalia, and all of the other Muslim countries with a few million living here. Many Muslim criminals have fled to those countries to escape justice here.

No, we are not. But I know that, if I so desired, I could become a citizen of Israel yesterday if I had the means. And Schlussel must be aware that this sort of thing has happened before. Whether or not Israel complies with an extradition, it is a pain in the ass. And I am sure that if Rubashkin made it to Israel, it would be more than difficult to get him out.

I hate that our immigration laws were enforced on the back of the kosher industry. But the Rubashkins have themselves to blame for this crisis. And we consumers of kosher food are the ones who suffer. Meanwhile, Schlussel saves venom for...Muslims. This is the sort of bigotry that antisemites use against Jews, and if you can read her blog without barfing, it is there in spades.

But apparently, right before we start celebrating the mighty Channukah story, the Justice Department bigots don't get this. With a ton of Muslims fleeing to Arab countries every time they commit a crime, who is the Justice Department seeking to deny bail for? The Jews, that's who.

Yes, that's right: treat me special because I'm a Jew. We're so downtrodden in this country that we reserve the right to take on another citizenship when we are accused of crimes that we obviously committed.

Look, the WSJ and Schlussel may think that this applies to all Jews. No. Just Jews with means and clear intent. I don't think that the State of Israel would be interested in granting sudden citizenship to Americans accused of crimes. Sheinbein's case was complicated by the fact that he was already Israeli. Rubaskin's case is ocmplicated by the fact that he is no ordinary shmoe, and has means and connections. Don't worry, Debby, you and I are just ordinary shmoe Jews. We'll get bail if we're arrested.

Pastor Rick

Obama attempts civility in our political discourse by inviting Pastor Rick Warren at speak at the inauguration. Here's Pastor Rick on Prop 8:



Fine. Look, I get opposition to gay marriage within Christianity, Islam, Judiasm as a biblical mandate against anything homosexual. Religions have a right to keep such things as verboten within the confines of their practice.

But Prop 8 goes beyond those boundaries. Note the faux pas Warren makes when he almost said "Christian marriage". But that would be the truth, and would also invalidate his reason for interfering in the definition of "civil marriage".

Meanwhile, note the "for life", for 5000 years. Astounding. Nothing said about divorce, mainly because the majority of them happen in the Bible Belt, to conservative Christians. Baptists, born-agains, Warren's flock. This hasn't changed marriage?

Anyway, Obama is under the impression that he will score points by giving Warren more attention at his inauguration. Not if Tony Perkins has anything to say about it:

Let's hope that Rick Warren will use his channel of communication to the new President to press him for more pro-family policies-rather than simply being used by Mr. Obama to make political inroads with evangelicals.

The level of mistrust is astounding. The way people like Perkins spoke of Obama before the election, you have to wonder what the point is anyway. How about this: learn to be the opposition, or split away and form your own damn theocracy. Hey, I'll even throw in morally correct Jews like (twice-divorced) Dennis Prager, Daniel Lapin, and Mark Levin, they're all yours.

United Kingdom of America?

Andrew Sullivan, on Caroline Kennedy filling Hillary Clinton's Senate seat:

I just hurled. Kennedy is not as dumb, crass or as uneducated as Sarah Palin. But she is less qualified to be a Senator than Palin. I am so sick of this nepotism. What are we, some kind of neo-monarchy? Clinton got her seat because of nepotism and now Kennedy gets it be the same methods.

The news shows are so full of celeb-worship that this is what dominates the idiocy. Maybe the news is so universally bad that such thoughts as this serve as an elixir for our troubles. Yecchh. Still, the more I see of this, the more I want to hurl much like Andrew. Spare a thought for someone like him, who left England to escape monarchical idiocy.

Justice for the NY Critical Mass cyclist

I posted a story on FB some time ago about a police officer that chlotheslined a cyclist taking part in a Critical Mass demonstration.

The NYPD officer, one Patrick Pogan, is going to pay the consequences:

The officer, Patrick Pogan, has been instructed to report to State Supreme Court in Manhattan for the unsealing of the indictment, his lawyer, Stuart London, said.
...
It is believed that prosecutors were seeking felony charges of filing false records in connection with the police report that Officer Pogan filed after arresting Mr. Long. Officer Pogan, who was stripped of his gun and badge in July after the video emerged, also could be charged with a misdemeanor count of assault.

“My client denies any wrongdoing in this matter,” Mr. London said in an interview Monday afternoon. “I would have people withhold judgment until all the evidence comes out about the bicyclist’s actions prior to my client taking action.”

OK, here is the video again. Please tell me, someone, what other evidence is needed?



Oh, and the Ofc. Pogan falsified an arrest report to boot. Better get a lawyer son, better get a real good one:

Gas Tax + Payroll Tax -

Michael Kinsley has proposed a revenue neutral gas tax: increase the gas tax while lowering FICA:

[T]his is the perfect moment for the other part of many proposals for an energy tax, which is to give the money back to people by lowering the payroll tax. The payroll tax, or FICA, collects about 15% of your wages or salary — half from you and half from your employer. It is expected to bring in close to a trillion dollars in 2009. Using our windfall from plummeting crude-oil prices alone, we could cut the FICA tax by more than half. Including other forms of energy would bring in even more.

FICA is, in effect, a tax on job creation. It applies to the very first dollar earned by a minimum-wage worker, but most of it tops out at an annual income of about $100,000 and doesn't apply at all to income from investments. For most Americans holding jobs, FICA now takes a bigger chunk of their income than the income tax itself. And yet it rarely enjoys the tender concern of tax-cutting Republicans, who prefer to concentrate on tax breaks for capital gains. Cutting the FICA tax in half, for workers and for employers, would make it more affordable for employers to hire — or avoid layoffs — while giving everyone who makes less than $100,000 a 7.5% raise to spend and stimulate the economy even further. People making more than $100,000 would get a tax cut too — as big as anyone else's, though a smaller percentage of their incomes.

I say why the hell not, while we're playing G-d with the economy. Given the priorities we have before us, it makes perfect sense. Unless of course you think GW is a hoax, in which case the reverse makes sense.

Steven Chu

Forget the fact for a minute that this is a Nobel Laureate in Physics ("for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light"). Or that he's a fellow University of Rochester alum. This dude is the real deal for running the Dept of Energy. Why? Because he is passionate about energy.

Here he is at the National Energy Summit:



The message is here:

Refrigerators consume a lot of energy; all alone, they account for almost fifteen per cent of the average home’s electricity use. In the mid nineteen-seventies, California—the state Chu now lives in—set about establishing the country’s first refrigerator-efficiency standards. Refrigerator manufacturers, of course, fought them. The standards couldn’t be met, they said, at anything like a price consumers could afford. California imposed the standards anyway, and then what happened, as Chu observed, is that “the manufacturers had to assign the job to the engineers, instead of to the lobbyists.” The following decade, standards were imposed for refrigerators nationwide. Since then, the size of the average American refrigerator has increased by more than ten per cent, while the price, in inflation-adjusted dollars, has been cut in half. Meanwhile, energy use has dropped by two-thirds. [Emphasis mine]

Can you imagine such a thought amongst the Bushies? They're still fighting about whether evolution is a fascist notion, and can barely acknowledge that global warning has a manmade cause.

Thank G-d it is the adults running the show.

Southern Accents

Marc Ambinder poses the question: where are they? My answer: good riddance. They were overrepresented as a result of the "Southern Strategy" originating from the Nixon era. About time we let some people who believe in, say, evolution run things for a change.

More Blag

The Human Lego. (H/T Patrick Appel) Does Rod's hair come off that easily? I suspect...

The triple-dog dare

Oh my. IL Gov Rod Blagojevich yesterday:



Uhhmmm, did he think nobody would take him up on the offer? Did he actually think? Jesus Christ, what an idiot.

BTW no evidence whatsoever that Obama or his team were involved in the hijinks. Doesn't mean they can ignore all this, but at least, in the beginning, they can avoid distractions in the short term.

Side note: As you can see, Jason Zengerle at The Plank was all over this. One reason why I not only subscribe to TNR, but after I cull most of my subscriptions (6 of them!!), TNR will be one of the two I keep. (The Atlantic will be the other.)

Farewell Bill.

I have been a faithful listener of the Radio Factor for some time. I can honestly say in retrospect, the best thing that ever happened to Bill was his radio show. Although O'Reilly get astronomical ratings on Fox News nowadays and is bringing in the big bucks, there was something charming about hearing Bill on the good old AM radio. His voice sounds different on the radio, almost a strange pied piper flute making me listen to more.

Well the time has come for Bill to go totally Hollywood. Bill, I hope you don't lose your roots and lose your attraction to the public, good or bad. Amazingly enough, everyone knows the guy, and everyone loves him, or hates him. But everyone watches or listens to him. Farewell to the Radio Factor.

Shinseki

Ret. General Eric Shinseki has been appointed as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. This has been widely seen as Obama's first real rebuke of the Bush Administration, and after seeing this post by James Fallows, I can see why.

...Paul Wolfowitz appeared before the House Budget Committee. He began working through his prepared statement about the Pentagon's budget request and then asked permission to "digress for a moment" and respond to recent commentary, "some of it quite outlandish, about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq." Everyone knew he meant Shinseki's remarks.

"I am reluctant to try to predict anything about what the cost of a possible conflict in Iraq would be," Wolfowitz said, "or what the possible cost of reconstructing and stabilizing that country afterwards might be." This was more than reluctance--it was the Administration's consistent policy before the war. "But some of the higher-end predictions that we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark."

This was as direct a rebuke of a military leader by his civilian superior as the United States had seen in fifty years. Wolfowitz offered a variety of incidental reasons why his views were so different from those he alluded to: "I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq's reconstruction," and "We can't be sure that the Iraqi people will welcome us as liberators ... [but] I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep requirements down." His fundamental point was this: "It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine."

Wow. I always defended Wolfowitz as the more mild of the Bushies. But, o man, I can now see why everyone thinks he was an asshole. How do you get to be so wrong about so much and still have a reputation? How does anyone take you seriously anymore?

Oh yeah, I forgot.

Big numbers

Zimbabwe was already beyond the basket-case stage when the world economy. Making matters worse - if that were possible - a cholera epidemic has broken out.

But, if you think that's bad, oh no. In this posting on the epidemic, hilzoy comes across this mind-boggling result of the crashing of the global economy:

As of Nov. 14th, Zimbabwe's inflation rate was estimated at
89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000%. (And no, my finger didn't just get stuck on the zero key: that is 89.7 sextillion percent.)

I find an interesting topic in recreational math to be the question of what are the largest useful numbers. For example, Skewes' number

\[10^{10^{10^{34}}}\]

is an upper bound in analytical number theory. One wonders at what point Zimbabwe's inflation makes it to the list.

Does Reid Work For The People?

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed relief that he would no longer be able to smell visitors to the United States Capitol, thanks to the new $621 million Capitol Visitors Center (CVC).

The center, which opened Tuesday, will now be the main public entrance for the Capitol.

“You could literally smell the tourists coming in to the Capitol,” Reid (D-Nev.) said in his remarks at the opening ceremonies.

Hey umm asshole? Yeah you Harry. That money you spend by the millions and billions came from the hard work--and sweat---of the people you just insulted. Once again Harry proves that he thinks his shit don't stink and he is too good to hang with the common folk.

Ebony and Ivory?

According to Fox News, the race to replace Barack Obama as Illinois' junior senator heated up Tuesday as Rep. Bobby Rush, (D-Ill)., called on Gov. Rod Blagojevich to name a black man or woman to the seat.

By invoking race, Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), who is black, drove a potential wedge between the prospective white and black contenders for the seat. Rush said it would be a "national disgrace" if Obama's seat were not filled by an African American. A disgrace? To this I say "Poppycock". May the best man or woman get the job regardless of race. this is a perfect example of and entitlement call out. It is preposterous and should be condemned by the President-Elect. Didn't we just elect a black President? To help end the racism perceived in this country the Black Leaders need to step up to the plate and recognize that their old, tired stories are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

It was the Zionists...

...who launched the deadly Bombay attacks they are now calling "26/11". This would be funny if it weren't so infuriating. Note also the given by the accusers that 9/11 was an inside job. Yes, of course, radical Pakistani Muslims never do anything bad.

Check the homework!

Words simply fail.

(H/T Megan McArdle)