One of my favorite Billy Joel songs for years has been “Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)” because of its science-fictiony flavor. I’ve wondered at times if it was part of John Carpenter’s inspiration for “Escape from New York“, particularly since he says he wrote the first draft of the screenplay in the same year (1976) that “Miami 2017″ was released.

Anyway, the song came up on rotation on my iPhone while I was reviewing documents this morning, so I popped over to YouTube to see if there was a music video for it (original or fan-made). What I found was footage from a concert that Billy Joel gave (out in Brooklyn, I assume) post-9/11, intermixed with 9/11 footage. It hit me pretty hard, both because of the re-interpretation of the song and the footage itself. Sandra and I lived in DC from 1999 to 2005; on 9/11/01, we had just moved into a house about 5 miles due north of the Pentagon. We dealt not just with one (and almost a second) terrorist attack on DC, we dealt with the aftermath within DC for months and years. I have a son who has served in Iraq and a nephew who has served in Afghanistan. I understand the reasons why they were there, and why one or both may end up going back. I’m afraid a lot of folks don’t or have forgotten.  ..bruce w..

Tonight in an address to the nation from the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, the President finally disclosed his long suffering decision on General McChrystal’s troop surge for Afghanistan. The theatrics surrounding this decision have at times bordered on comical, and at long last the president has committed to supplying most of the forces for the “Medium Risk” approach requested by the commanders in the field.

The plan is to bring 30,000 or so additional forces into Afghanistan in the next 5 months. This is 75% of the amount requested by the generals. In an October 13th article in the Washington Post; the Pentagon with the Obama administration’s blessings, is reported to have staged over 13,000 non front-line forces to Afghanistan beginning this past summer, essentially hiding the size of the surge. Largely this has been done to pacify his loony left supporters.

The core of the surge will likely be 2 battalions of combat forces, one battalion each of Marines and Army. Expect the Marines to be given the dirty work in around around the southern city of Kandahar and Helmand provence, and the Army to take the long hard grind of securing the eastern frontier and stemming the flow of men and weapons in from Pakistan’s western tribal areas.

While the public decision and announcement has been carefully orchestrated to help channel the public reaction (especially on the left), the preparations for the surge have been underway since April of 2009. The above cited 13,000 troops perform support, administration and maintenance tasks for combat forces. This includes combat and civil engineering units, medical and hospital personnel, intelligence specialists and military police and security units. In other words, the support infrastructure has been slowly put in place during 2009, with the final announcement of 30,000 or so combat forces being the finishing touch.

Reports in the press dutifully remark at the “dramatic pace” of the deployment. This is pure political drama, as the preparations have been in place for some time. In fact, most of the units being deployed have known for several months that they were headed for Afghanistan, and have been undergoing intensive training at locations such as Fort Irwin and Camp Pendleton in California. Coupled with this surge of US combat forces, there will be increased commitments from NATO, and not just from the non-fighting countries, but from the hard warriors of the UK, Canada and Poland.

In reality the timing of the surge is as much about the calendar as it is about politics. Since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2001, the Taliban tend to wind down operations during the fall and winter months. It is simply too cold and hostile and environment to conduct other than background insurgent operations at a low level, such as IEDs and vehicle bombing of civilian areas. This seasonal slowdown provides a natural and handy window to transport and acclimate units into the harsh, high altitude conditions of the country. look for the surge combat forces to be in Afghanistan not later than late March, in time to train in-country in the cold, thin air. Once acclimatized, they will be forward based to the Afghan eastern and southern frontier for combat operations starting in the spring.

Even with the increased force levels, the President is in a very difficult situation. The Taliban and their imported Arab jihad goons know that in a square fight with US units, they are instant martyrs. Rather than facing them openly in the field of battle, the Taliban will continue to fight an insurgent strategy. Their plan is to wear down the Americans through attrition both kinetic and political. By drawing them into protracted battles in village areas (where they are more likely to find friendly locals) they increase the chances of causing the US to use their superior firepower in a situation where there are mass civilian casualties. Make no mistake, the Taliban’s desired end game looks like a replay of the fall of Saigon.

Without a change in the rules of engagement, and a willingness to hunt and kill the Taliban, house to house if needed, the US is in a precarious position. With Pakistan unable to stop the flow of arms and men into the eastern Afghan provinces, the Taliban are willing to fight down to the last Saudi martyr.

Last but certainly not least is the thorny issue of the declared summer of 2011 withdrawal date. As with the delay on announcing the surge (which was just window dressing), this was largely to provide political cover for the president. In conversations with military leaders, that date will arrive and victory will be declared, even if they are still busy stomping the daylights out of the Taliban. As one clever military officer relayed “There was no promise on the rate of the draw down, just the start date”.

To avoid the trap and seize the initiate, this rookie President, whose political base won’t let him embrace the enemy must allow his generals to surprise the enemy starting in the next few months. They must take the fight to them with overwhelming numbers and “over the top” violence, in spite of the uproar it will cause among the so called “Arab street” and the democratic fringe. Superior strength and the demonstrated ability to use it will be respected., weak dithering and worrying over collateral damage will quickly invite defeat.

By stepping up and committing to the surge, President Obama has taken ownership of this war. Win or lose, he has reluctantly, at long last, acted as commander and chief.

I haven’t written much about ‘Climategate’ because so many others are doing such a great job (for example, see here, here, and here). But this video (hat tip to Ace of Spades) pretty much sums things up (and with a catchy tune, too!).  ..bruce w..

Matt Welch over at Reason reminds us of a critical historical event that, curiously, we don’t celebrate:

November 1989 was the most liberating month of arguably the most liberating year in human history, yet two decades later the country that led the Cold War coalition against communism seems less interested than ever in commemorating, let alone processing the lessons from, the collapse of its longtime foe. At a time that fairly cries out for historical perspective about the follies of central planning, Americans are ignoring the fundamental conflict of the postwar world, and instead leapfrogging back to what Steve Forbes describes in this issue as the “Jurassic Park statism” of the 1930s (see “?‘The Last Gasp of the Dinosaurs,’?” page 42). There have been more Hollywood hagiographies of the revolutionary communist Che Guevara in the last five years than there have been studio pictures in the last two decades about the revolutionary anti-communists who dramatically toppled totalitarians from Tallin to Prague (see Tim Cavanaugh’s “Hollywood Comrades,” page 62). And what little general-nonfiction interest there is in the superpower struggle, as Michael C. Moynihan details on page 48 (“The Cold War Never Ended”), remains stuck in the same Reagan vs. Gorby frame that made the 1980s so intellectually shallow the first time around.

Please read the whole thing.  ..bruce w..

Springtime in New Zealand

ITEM: I reported earlier one possible end-run by the Senate to pass the increasingly unpopular “public option” in healthcare reform.  Here’s another one:

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option — making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster — and then adding the provision later as an amendment.

The public option amendment would be there waiting, but the 60-vote test would technically be on a bill without the government plan. Then moderate Democrats could drop out for the vote on the public option, which requires just 51 votes for passage.

“It’s brilliant,” said a top Senate Republican aide. “It gets you your votes on cloture for a package that does not include a public option.”

Yeah, brilliant. I think the Democrats are seriously underestimating the growing public backlash over healthcare reform; a trick such as this will just make things worse.

ITEM: Speaking of backlash, the Anchoress has a thoughtful and spot-on analysis of the arrogance that seems to be driving the Obama Administration (and, I might add, the Democratic leadership in Congress):

The American mind is a duality of sorts. A country founded by displaced nobles and built by the strongest and most resourceful commoners from around the globe, America’s can-do attitude is one that doesn’t mind looking out for the little guy, as long as his own share is a fair one, and his options are open. The American mind is constantly dreaming; even her most newly-arrived immigrants dream, because until very recently all dreams were pronounced “welcome,” and the greatest restrictions were the ones you put upon yourself, or allowed others to put upon you. The dreaming made us exceptional; the dreams made us indispensable.

But does Obama understand those dreams? If he does not, then in truth he does not understand the people he undertook to govern. He appears to have decided that “governing” could be accomplished with an endless campaign, meant to entertain a nation enthralled with hucksterism and side-shows; that notion betrays, in meaningful measure, a disdain for the people who placed their trust in him, with their vote.

You really need to read the whole thing.

ITEM: Meanwhile, the Onion assures us that under Obamacare, seniors would have a right to choose how they are killed:

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama held a nationally televised address Tuesday to “clarify any misunderstandings” about his health care proposal, assuring Americans that under the new bill senior citizens—and not the federal government—will have the right to choose how they are executed.

“Let me dispel these ridiculous rumors once and for all and set the record straight: Under my plan, seniors are going to be killed the way they want to be killed, end of story,” said the president, who acknowledged that “wiping out” the nation’s elderly population has always been his No. 1 priority. “If your grandmother would rather be euthanized in the privacy of her own home than be gutted and hanged on a high school soccer field, she is entitled to that right.”

“Once again, let me be perfectly clear,” Obama continued. “Seniors, rest easy knowing that I will never, under any circumstance, sign a bill that doesn’t give you the option of being murdered by my administration in a manner of your choosing. I promise you that.”

ITEM: Because of Obama’s refusal to see the Dalai Lama, human rights groups are now questioning his commitment to, well, human rights:

Human rights groups are beginning to question President Obama’s commitment to their issue as the administration engages authoritarian regimes, retains the option of sending terrorist suspects abroad to places where they might be tortured and puts off a presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Mr. Obama’s decision to wait until after he visits China in November to meet with the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists – who was on Capitol Hill Tuesday receiving an award – comes after a series of decisions that have underlined a classic tension in U.S. foreign policy between the head and the heart.

I would think that Obama’s warming up to Venezuela, Russia, Cuba, and other countries would have given them a clue. Nothing to see here. Move along.

ITEM: Remember back in 2006 how Nancy Pelosi said that the House would work five days a week now that the Democrats were back in control?

After taking control of the House in 2006 — and again when President Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) boasted that lawmakers would work four or five days a week to bring change to America.

But midway through Obama’s first year in office, Hoyer’s House has settled into a more leisurely routine. Members usually arrive for the first vote of the week as the sun sets on Tuesdays, and they’re usually headed back home before it goes down again on Thursdays.

Since the House returned for its fall session on Sept. 8, it has stuck around to vote on a Friday just once: to approve a 5.8 percent increase in Congress’s own budget.

A Democratic leadership aide vehemently defended the schedule, saying members shouldn’t be kept in Washington for four or five days when work can be completed in fewer.

On the other hand, given the track record of the House to date, I’m happy to have them gone as much as possible. Primum non nocere and all that.  ..bruce w..

Nothing to see here. Move along.

. . . and things are already getting interesting.

ITEM: Obama throws the Dalai Lama and the entire country of Tibet under the bus (emphasis mine):

In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama’s summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month, according to diplomats, government officials and other sources familiar with the talks.

For the first time since 1991, the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington this week and not meet with the president. Since 1991, he has been here 10 times. Most times the meetings have been “drop-in” visits at the White House. The last time he was here, in 2007, however, George W. Bush became the first sitting president to meet with him publicly, at a ceremony at the Capitol in which he awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’s highest civilian award.

There were rumblings about this some weeks back, but I couldn’t track down a firm source and so didn’t post about it. I swear, Jimmy Carter — at least, the 1970s version — is looking better by the minute.

ITEM: You know how Obama is going to pay for Obamacare by combating waste and fraud in the Medicare program? It looks as though he may be throwing Granny under the bus after all:

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The nation’s nursing homes are perilously close to laying off workers, cutting services — possibly even closing — because of a perfect storm wallop from the recession and deep federal and state government spending cuts, industry experts say.

A Medicare rate adjustment that cuts an estimated $16 billion in nursing home funding over the next 10 years was enacted at week’s end by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — on top of state-level cuts or flat-funding that already had the industry reeling.

And Congress is debating slashing billions more in Medicare funding as part of health care reform.

Add it all up, and the nursing home industry is headed for a crisis, industry officials say.

Move along folks, no rationing or cutting of services here.

ITEM: Meanwhile, if Obama is serious about cutting waste and fraud, maybe he should start with the Pentagon:

The agency, which last year was responsible for ensuring that taxpayers got good value for more than a half-trillion dollars in defense contracts, revised audits to curry favor with contractors, promoted a supervisor responsible for such revisions to a top position and rushed through other audits out of fear that the work would be outsourced if employees took too much time, the GAO said.

“Unbelievable problems at Def Contrctng Agncy [sic],” Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, wrote on her Twitter account just before a recent hearing on the report. “Top of my head is about to pop off.”

“I read a summary of the GAO report last night and quite frankly got sick,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, adding that he would not use all his allotted time for questions because he was “a little bit too upset to go where I really want to go.”

Oh, wait — this is the organization that was supposed to be preventing waste and fraud.  At least this seems to be something that both parties can agree upon.

ITEM: The TARP Inspector General, Neil Barofski, issued a report saying that US TreasSec Henry Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke were less than forthcoming during the bailout last year:

BFederal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. misled the public about the financial weakness of Bank of America and other early recipients of the government’s $700 billion Wall Street bailout, creating “unrealistic expectations” about the companies and damaging the program’s credibility, according to a report by the program’s independent watchdog.

Not exactly earth-shaking news, but something to keep in mind as the Obama Administration tries to assure us that their economic strategy is sound and working well. To quote from Raiders of the Lost Ark: “We have top men working on it. Top men.”

ITEM: On the other hand, misleading the public about the soundness of these institutions may have been just the right thing to do, if I read the always-excellent Robert Samuelson correctly:

Something analogous happened over the past year. Scholars will debate which interventions — the Federal Reserve propping up a failing credit system, the Troubled Assets Relief Program, Obama’s “stimulus” plan and bank “stress test” — counted most. Regardless, they all aimed to reassure people that the free fall would stop and thereby curb the fear perpetuating the free fall. Confidence had to be restored so the economy’s normal recovery mechanisms could operate. This seems to have happened. By last month, the consumer confidence index had rebounded to 53.1. Housing prices had stopped falling. By the Case-Shiller index, they’ve increased for three months.

Read the whole thing — it’s not an apology for the Administration but rather an analysis of just how close we may have come to a full-blown economic depression.

ITEM: Still, there are plenty of jobs available — they just require skills different from those held by the folks who have been laid off:

It’s become especially hard to find accountants, health care workers, software sales representatives, actuaries, data analysts, physical therapists and electrical engineers, labor analysts say. And employers that demand highly specialized training — like biotech firms that need plant scientists or energy companies that need geotechnical engineers to build offshore platforms — struggle even more to fill jobs.

The trend has been intensified by the speed of the job market decline, Koropeckyj said. The nation has lost a net 7.6 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Yet it can take a year or more for a laid-off worker to gain the training and education to switch industries. That means health care jobs are going unfilled even as laid-off workers in the auto, construction or financial services industries seek work.

“So we have this army of the unemployed” without the necessary skills, Koropeckyj said.

This is a constant issue in the modern economy, as some sectors dwindle and others continue to expand. But it’s a lot harder to deal with as unemployment approaches 10%.  Happy days are here again!  ..bruce w..

I keep coming back to this poster.

From Gaius over at Blue Crab Boulevard:

When George Bush was in office, Gadhafi surrendered his weapons programs. When Obama comes to power, he feels free to come to New York and lecture. That should tell you a lot about what the world thinks of Barack Obama.

In my opinion, Pres. Obama is making the world a far more dangerous place, not a safer one.  ..bruce w..

Remember that old saying about never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel? It applies even more with someone with as solid a ‘net reputation as Michael Yon. The British Media Ops over in Helmand Province (where my nephew, USMC CPL Darren Green, is serving) ended Yon’s embed with the British Army in an effort to shut him up.  Wrong move:

The Major said again that Lt. Col. Nick Richardson demanded that I leave RC-South, and that Media Ops would forward my satellite and night vision gear that was in transit.  Before the Major had stomped out, I said that I was not leaving Camp Bastion until those packages were in my hands.  I told him to call Lt. Col. Nick Richardson at Lashkar Gah—a nearby base—and say that if Richardson wants me gone, he’d need to call the Royal Military Police (RMP).  The satellite gear is crucial to the operation and the night vision gear is expensive.  I was not going to leave without the gear unless under arrest.  I had heard the Major arrogantly tell a correspondent how a soldier had punched another correspondent and “knocked him on his ass.”  Bullying apparently had been working for him; he was still doing it.

“Go ahead,” I said, “Call the RMPs right now.  Have them come down and flex cuff me and put me on an airplane out of here.”  I waited for the RMP’s to arrive and arrest me.  At least they would be professionals.

There is the maxim that a customer can judge the cleanliness of a restaurant’s kitchen by the restroom.  After much experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, I have discovered another: Soldiers always treat correspondents they way they treat the local people.  When soldiers treat correspondents badly, they treat local people even worse and are creating enemies.  Those troops who brag about how they mistreat or detest correspondents are abusing and resentful of the local population, and they cannot win this sort of war.  The people will kill them and the media will bash them and they will blame the people and the media.  When a soldier alienates sympathetic correspondents, he has no real chance against mortal enemies such as the Taliban and al Qaeda, and they will defeat him.  Yet there is subtlety: for “the people,” in the case of Media Ops, is you.

Be sure to take the time to read the whole thing. If there were any sense and/or justice in the world of journalism, Michael Yon would have received the Pulitzer Prize several times over.

And while you’re at it, go support Yon. He’s entirely self-funded. I don’t subscribe to any news magazines or newspapers. But I pay $10/month via my PayPal account to keep Yon out in the field.

Worth every penny.  ..bruce w..

I guess we should make that modern Western Civilization.

ITEM: According to the Onion, the absolute low point of Western Civilization will be reached at 3:32 pm this coming Friday:

Experts predict that the penultimate catastrophe will occur at approximately 7:15 p.m. Thursday night, when the social networking tool Twitter will be used to communicate a series of ideas so banal they will instantaneously negate the three centuries of the Renaissance.

“The sciences, the arts, the humanities—all aspects of society as a whole will reach their respective low-points in just a matter of days,” said anthropologist Robert Davidson, gesturing toward a nearby line graph illustrating western society’s collapse. “We’ve been charting this cultural descent for generations now, from the advent of New Wave music, to the rise of scientific creationism, right through to the trampling death of several Wal-Mart greeters on the morning after Thanksgiving. Everything has been leading up to this Friday.”

According to the panel, the final event will occur at 3:32 p.m., when a tourist, believing the impressive structure to be a giant mall, will enter Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and, not finding what he is looking for, ask where “the damn Radio Shack is supposed to be.

I would dispute them, but I went grocery shopping yesterday, which means that I had to go through a check-out line with tabloids and women’s magazines.

ITEM: First day of Fall, and we have a winter storm warning issued for portions of Colorado east of the actual Rocky Mountains (that is, out here on the plains):

The first day of fall in Colorado felt more like winter, and Wednesday’s weather should be even more unseasonable, forecasters warned tonight.

The National Weather Service office in Denver has issued a winter weather advisory for the Front Range, foothills and Palmer Divide from midnight to 6 p.m. Wednesday.

A winter storm warning is in effect for central and northern Colorado from midnight until 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Snow should be widespread, leaving 6 to 16 inches in areas about 7,000 feet. . . .

Rain is expected to turn to snow above 6,500 feet tonight, with periods of heavy snowfall before daybreak.

Accumulations between 2 and 10 inches are expected, with the largest amounts forecast for southern Douglas and southwest Elbert counties.

Personally, I blame Bush. (Early morning update: here’s the latest from the Denver Post.)

ITEM: Mark Helprin gives some political and historical perspective to the burgeoning foreign policy blunders of the Obama Administration:

When Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich at least he thought he had obtained something in return for his appeasement. The new American diplomacy is nothing more than a sentimental flood of unilateral concessions—not least, after some minor Putinesque sabre rattling, to Russia. Canceling the missile deployment within NATO, which Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian ambassador to that body, characterizes as “the Americans . . . simply correcting their own mistake, and we are not duty bound to pay someone for putting their own mistakes right,” is to grant Russia a veto over sovereign defensive measures—exactly the opposite of American resolve during the Euro Missile Crisis of 1983, the last and definitive battle of the Cold War.

Read the whole thing. Hat tip to the Gormogons (and I agree it’s been way too long since Helprin published a novel).

ITEM: A group at MIT has a website up called Personas that is intended to show you how the ‘web’ views you.  It’s a bit weak — you can pretty much get the same sense from typing your name into Google. When I entered “Bruce Webster”, I got most of the usual suspects (and a few new ones); when I entered “Bruce F. Webster” instead, it only came up with items dating back 10-20 years. But, hey, it’s fun to try out.  Hat tip to Popehat.  ..bruce w..

The Left responds to growing public discontent.

ITEM: Lacking actual support for health care reform, Congress and the Obama Administration looks to manufacture it in order to give the mainstream media cover for how poorly they’ve covered the whole issue:

The plan for a series of grass-roots demonstrations Tuesday to promote President Obama’s health care agenda calls for tightly scripted events and an “escalation” of efforts against “enemies” of reform.

Organizers insist there is no comparison to rowdy summer town hall meetings and recent “tea party” protests that have challenged White House policies.

But Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which is backed by a coalition of labor unions and liberal groups including ACORN and MoveOn.org, organized the protests to target insurance companies and drafted the plan, which describes the demonstrations as part of its “insurance enemies project.”

“Grass roots”, eh? The same way that SEIU is grass roots? And, of course, we now have the DNC promising a “rain of hellfire”. Can you just imagine if someone at the RNC had made a statement like that?

ITEM: Interesting article in this morning’s Washington Post about SecState Hillary Clinton and her struggles within the Obama Administration:

But after eight months in office, Clinton, 61, sometimes seems torn between her inclination to lead and her need to function effectively within the administration, creating a certain tension between her aspirations and her status. . . .

Clinton arrived at the department with a large and loyal staff collectively known as Hillaryland. At times, it fits uncomfortably within the State Department establishment, which views the influx as a jobs program for her campaign acolytes. Some close aides still privately harbor hopes she will run again for president. . . .

Clinton said her years in the White House, where she watched conflicts among President Bill Clinton’s advisers spill out into the open, have influenced how she operates. “You can disagree with the president, you can argue for different policies, but at the end of the day you have to be part of a team that is there to serve the country and the president who the country elected,” she said. “It may sound very old-fashioned, but that is sort of how I view it.”

She is so lining herself up to leave the State Department so as to be free in 2012 if Obama looks as though his re-election is in trouble.

ITEM: And speaking of Clinton distancing herself from the Obama Administration, Con Coughlin at the Telegraph notes the curious absence of Clinton from the whole missile defense abandonment decision:

Excuse me, but when Washington announces a revolutionary change in the way it conducts its relations with the outside world it is normal for the American Secretary of State to be involved in some way.

So where’s Hillary Clinton? We’ve heard a lot from President Barack Obama and Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, about their lamentable decision to abandon the missile defence system in Europe, which has been a key pillar of the transatlantic alliance for a decade or more. But we’ve heard not a squeak from Mrs Clinton.

Could this be that, unlike Mr Obama and Mr Gates, she sees this decision for what it is, an abject surrender of American influence in Europe, and a shocking betrayal of all those former vassal states of the Soviet Union that are desperately seeking the support and protection of the West?

Compared with Mr Obama and Mr Gates, whose first instinct when faced with an international crisis is to make concessions, Mrs Clinton is a more hard-headed and hawkish operator. She might want to “reset” Washington’s relations with Moscow, but not at the expense of capitulating to Iran’s attempts to terrorise the world with its nuclear programme.

She, for one, will not be at all surprised that, within 24 hours of Mr Obama’s decision to abandon the missile defence system, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears on American television declaring that Tehran will never abandon its nuclear programme.

The more I look at the situation, the more certain I am that Clinton is lining up a 2012 run for the Presidency, possibly using a 2010 run for New York Governor as a graceful exit from the State Department.

ITEM: Speaking of abandoning missile defense, we now learn from the Obama Administration that it was all a matter of cost:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s scrapping of long-range missile interceptors in Europe wasn’t just about security and diplomacy, according to people close to the process: It also came down to money.

“A ground-based interceptor is generally about a $70 million-per-missile asset going after a $10-$15 million [Iranian] missile,” a senior administration official told arms-control analysts Thursday at a briefing explaining the rationale, according to a recording heard by The Wall Street Journal. “The trade is not a good one economically. It’s not a good one from a military strategy position.”

This statement makes absolutely no sense. The tradeoff isn’t between a $70 million interceptor and a $15 million Iranian missile; it’s between a $70 million interceptor and a given European city.

ITEM/Creeping socialism alert: Big surprise — the Obama Administration wants to regulate salaries in the banking industry, though from the tone of the article, the proposed regulation isn’t enough for the mainstream media:

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve and the Treasury are preparing broad new rules that would force banks to rein in practices that made multimillionaires out of many financial executives during the housing bubble, officials said.

The rules depart from the hands-off approach that dominated bank regulation for the last three decades, but are not as strict as proposals from some European leaders and suggestions from some members of Congress angered by the financial troubles of the last year.

Fed officials would give banks wide leeway in how they structure their rewards. They would not prohibit million-dollar pay packages or address issues of fairness. Rather, the rules are intended to restrict pay plans that encourage reckless behavior by rewarding only short-term gains.

And because the rules would be applied through the confidential bank examination process, it would be hard for consumers and investors to judge how strictly the rules were being applied.

The authors of this piece (Edmund L. Andrews and Louise Story) sound downright disappointed that the rules aren’t more intrusive and controlling.

ITEM: Funny, I didn’t see this news item in any of the major US newspaper websites that I browsed this morning:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A fund-raiser for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who was charged last month with defrauding Citigroup Inc is being sued by HSBC for deceiving it into lending him $100 million.

The lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court in early September accused private equity firm head Hassan Nemazee, 59, of engaging in an elaborate scheme to make HSBC Bank USA believe that its loan was secured by collateral in the form of U.S. Treasury Notes when it was not.

Nemazee, who sits on the board of the Iranian American Political Action Committee, typically donates more than $100,000 annually to Democratic political candidates.

He is listed as one of the top “bundlers” of contributions to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, according to OpenSecrets,org, a website run by the Center for Responsive Politics research group.

Now, if Nemazee had been giving “more than $100,000 annually” to Republican political candidates and was a top bundler for the McCain/Palin 2008 presidential campaign, I’m willing to be this would be front page news at the New York Times and the Washington Post. But I could be wrong.

Naaah.

Finally, the DNC’s “rain of hellfire” threat immediately calls this to mind:

“Our three weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to Obama! Our four…! No — amongst our weapons . . .” Now the DNC just needs the nice red uniforms.

Have a happy Saturday. Go Cougars! ..bruce w..