Wizblog

Trouble in Paradise

The freshly-unified Europe is barely out of the gate under the EU's Treaty of Lisbon, and they are already paralyzed by internal conflict over such weighty matters as which of their various leaders should be the recipient of the newly traditional bow from the President of the United States. In turn, The One declines to grace them with a visit until they get their ceremonial shit together.

Paul Belien at Brussels Journal:

At this point Europe is not even halfway its 100-day political “honeymoon” since the Treaty of Lisbon, which transformed the EU into a state in its own right, came into force. So far the honeymoon has been a nightmare. Since the beginning of the year, the EU’s currency, the euro, is on the brink of collapse; Greece has been placed under EU financial supervision to prevent it from going bankrupt. Now U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that he will not attend next May’s EU summit in Madrid. It was to have been Obama’s first visit to post-Lisbon Europe – the consecration of the new political order.

Washington informed Brussels last week that Obama is not coming because it is not clear who is his European counterpart. Since the Lisbon Treaty came into force on January 1st, Europe has its own President, Herman Van Rompuy. This former Belgian politician chairs the European Council, the assembly of the heads of government of the 27 EU member states. However, there is also José Manuel Barroso, a former Portuguese politician, who is the president of the European Commission, which is the EU’s executive body. And there is José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, who is hosting the Madrid meeting and as such co-chairs the summit meeting of the EU heads of government with Mr. Van Rompuy.

Messrs. Van Rompuy, Barroso and Zapatero all want to be the first to shake Mr. Obama’s hand and receive the deep bow which the American President is in the habit of making to foreign leaders. Because of the embarrassing intra-European squabble about who should have the honor, Obama has declined the invitation until the Europeans have figured out which of them is the most important.

Obama’s decision has come as an unexpected blow to the European leadership. It has upset them so much that they are considering postponing the summit to the autumn. Meanwhile, they have begun quarreling about who is to blame for the present debacle. The Europeans generally agree that the vainglorious Zapatero is mostly to blame, but others are damaged more. “The Spanish have made a mess of the summit but Van Rompuy and the post-Lisbon EU institutions will carry the can in the long term. The squabbling has damaged the EU in the eyes of the most powerful nation in the world,” a senior EU official said.

Haven't they heard? We're not interested in being the most powerful nation in the world anymore.

Miscellany - Super Sunday

Avoiding pre-game shows at all costs...here's some stuff I tagged in the last couple days...

George F. Will throws some weight behind Rep. Paul Ryan's proposals; - How to get the country to solvency on entitlements

A very long but entirely readable Weekly Standard cover story by Charlotte Allen: The New Dating Game. Who knew there was a phenomenon called seduction blogs? What was the maitre d's line in Ferris Buehler? ...."I weep for the future"

Margaret Wente in The Globe and Mail - The Great Global Warming Collapse

Examining liberal condescension in the Washington Post ?...Gerard Alexander

Christopher Sabatini in the Americas Quarterly - The 7 Things President Hugo Chavez Has Taught Me

New Bucks

Thoughts and links on the OSU football recruiting class over at The Cleveland Fan.

Not Getting Massachusetts

Haven't gone three weeks without posting in this blog's seven years of existence. No excuses...outside of the Twitter addiction. Prompting this interruption of my sloth were stellar columns this week by two of the ranking wordsmiths of the center-right, Charles Krauthammer and Mark Steyn. Excerpting the first few paragraphs of each, but get it all.

Krauthammer - The Electorate vs. Obama's Agenda

WASHINGTON -- "I am not an ideologue," protested President Obama at a gathering with Republican House members last week. Perhaps, but he does have a tenacious commitment to a set of political convictions.

Compare his 2010 State of the Union to his first address to Congress a year earlier. The consistency is remarkable. In 2009, after passing a $787 billion (now $862 billion) stimulus package, the largest spending bill in galactic history, he unveiled a manifesto for fundamentally restructuring the commanding heights of American society -- health care, education and energy.

A year later, after stunning Democratic setbacks in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Obama gave a stay-the-course State of the Union address (a) pledging not to walk away from health care reform, (b) seeking to turn college education increasingly into a federal entitlement, and (c) asking again for cap-and-trade energy legislation. Plus, of course, another stimulus package, this time renamed a "jobs bill."

This being a democracy, don't the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don't they understand Massachusetts?

Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly. (the rest)

Mark Steyn - Unsustainable

At the National Prayer Breakfast, Barack Obama singled out for praise Navy Corpsman Christian Bouchard. Or as the president called him, “Corpseman Bouchard.” Twice.

Hey, not a big deal. Throughout his life, the commander-in-chief has had little contact with the military, and less interest. And, when you give as many speeches as this guy does, there’s no time to rehearse or read through: You just gotta fire up the prompter and wing it. But it’s revealing that nobody around him in the so-called smartest administration of all time thought to spell it out phonetically for him when the speech got typed up and loaded into the machine. Which suggests that either his minders don’t know that he doesn’t know that kinda stuff, or they don’t know it either. To put it in Rumsfeldian terms, they don’t know what they don’t know.

Which is embarrassingly true. Hence, the awful flop speeches, from the Copenhagen Olympics to the Berlin Wall anniversary video to the Martha Coakley rally. The palpable whiff given off by the White House inner circle is that they’re the last people on the planet still besotted by Barack Obama, and that they’re having such a cool time starring in their own reality-show remake of The West Wing they can only conceive of the public — and, indeed, the world — as crowd-scene extras in The Barack Obama Show: They expect you to cheer and wave flags when the floor-manager tells you to, but the notion that in return he should be able to persuade you of the merits of his policies seems entirely to have eluded them.(the rest)

Coakley's Record

Is Martha Coakley committed to justice?

Radley Balko asks that question in a Politico piece on the public track record of the Democratic candidate for the open Senate seat in Massachusetts. I hadn't heard before of her involvement as a district attorney in the infamous Amirault child abuse case in the 80's.

If you aren't familiar with the Amirault case, or would like a refresher, look no further. In a 2004 post I assembled links to the whole series of Wall Street Journal articles on the case by Dorothy Rabinowitz for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. If you're new to the story, prepare to be chilled to the bone.

Asked recently by the Boston Globe about Coakley's participation in the Amirault case, Rabinowitz replied:

“Martha Coakley was a very, very good soldier who showed she would do anything to preserve this horrendous assault on justice.”

Great....just what Americans are looking for in the next generation of U.S. Senators....good soldiers....who do what the higher-ups in the political hierarchy tell them to do.

Ace has lots more on Coakley's role in the Amirault aftermath, including this excerpt from a Coulter column....

Google-China

Google says they are reconsidering their relationship with China, based on cyber-attacks they have experienced, as well as regime attempts to target Chinese human rights and democracy activists.

But not everybody is convinced of Google's sincerity. I'm not as cynical as this guy. I don't think Google just realized that they call it totalitarianism for a reason. But I am inclined to believe they have learned some lessons in three years about the nature of the regime. They need not have any base, profit-driven motive for drawing a line in the sand for the Chinese government. It's not as though China is a huge revenue source for the company.

UPDATE 1/13: WaPo - Google China cyberattack part of vast espionage campaign

More at Hot Air

UPDATE 1/14: via Slashdot, a report that VeriSign researchers have determined that the cyberattacks were in fact carried out by "agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof."

UPDATE 1/15: Another FP article says censorship may be an excuse for China to monopolize their Internet industry

An Arrest in Qom

An Arrest in Qom by John Hannah at FP.

On Jan. 12, several agents from the Islamic Republic's intelligence ministry raided the home of Mohammed Taqi Khalaji. They took Khalaji into custody and confiscated his computer, satellite receiver, and hundreds of notes, books and personal letters. The agents also seized the passports of Khalaji and members of his family, banning them all from leaving the country. Khalaji's family does not currently know where he is being detained and Iranian authorities are refusing to provide any information.

Khalaji is a prominent cleric in Qom, the center of Iranian Shiism. Since June 12, he has been a courageious critic of the Iranian regime's crackdown on peaceful protests and a supporter of the so-called Green Movement. Khalaji was known to be close to Iran's most prominent dissident cleric, the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, and is an ally of Ayatollah Sanei -- another well-known reformist cleric who has come under whithering attack from the regime following the massive Ashura demonstrations of Dec. 28. Clearly, Khalaji's arrrest is of a piece with the Islamic Republic's escalating -- though so far miserably unsuccessful -- efforts to crush all signs of peaceful opposition. Khalaji now joins hundreds, if not thousands, of other brave Iranians dragged from their homes and illegally detained for exercising their most fundamental rights of citizenship.

Read the rest. (via Martin Kramer)

"Game Change" Excerpt

If you haven't seen the excerpt from John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's "Game Change" , in New York Times Magazine yet....do it. It's the John and Elizabeth Edward-Rielle Hunter-2008 campaign story in all its train wreck detail. Incredible really, how his advisors were forced to contemplate outing him to save their party from potential disaster.

See if You Can Get a Job This Way

Pepper and Salt in the WSJ

Reid's Dance

The attention Harry Reid is getting for his 2008 comments about candidate Obama seems to defy the old adage that all publicity is good publicity. Even as he is forgiven by Obama, rallied around by his congressional soulmates, and excused by the usual suspects from the racial grievance industry, Reid's public image continues to sink like a stone.

Racial insensitivity aside, people have got to be asking the same question about Reid that I ask myself every time I see Robert Gibbs....can't we, as a nation, do better?

Don't do anything rash, Democrats. We like Harry Reid right where he is....at least for ten more months. Besides, he's hoping to get the benefit of the doubt that he has been unwilling to grant so many others in his long history of racial posturing. He doesn't cut a sympathetic figure for either side. Is there any question now that many Democrats wish Reid would do a "Dodd", and go away so they'd have a chance to save his Senate seat in November for the party?

I don't think I'm departing much from conservative talking points when I say I didn't think what Reid said was particularly insensitive. He made a candid observation about the candidate's electability, which lots of people did and still do agree with. I found the quote from Game Change attributed to Bill Clinton to be far more insulting and objectionable than what Reid said, and I'm a little surprised more people haven't reacted to that.

In the same way, I suppose, that black rappers are cool to use the n-word in their songs and videos without causing offense, I guess the first black President is permitted to say things like "a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee", and get only a ripple of criticism.

Transparency

Jen Rubin notes that when Nancy Pelosi lies, she figures she might as well make it a whopper....

“There has never been a more open process for any legislation.”

Well, we can’t say this sort of thing is out of character, can we? She seems not to recall that the Senate hid the bill until Sen. Bill Nelson’s vote had been bought and then rushed a bill to a 1:00 a.m. vote right before Christmas. She seems not to recall that the House staged a Saturday vote and broke her pledge to post the bill online 72 hours before the vote.

Mark Hemingway asks, “It’s no secret that Pelosi and Democratic leaders are desperate to pass health care reform, but do they really think delusional lies are the best way to win over the public?” Well, yes, I think they do. That’s why they keep saying things such as “we must pass it or go bankrupt.” That’s why they deny that there will be health-care rationing while they cut $500B out of Medicare. That’s why they refuse to call taxes “taxes.” That’s why they insist we are going to keep our insurance as the Mayo Clinic gets out of the Medicare business. That is why they boast that they are cutting spending on health-care when, as the Heritage Foundation points out, “total U.S. health care spending would increase by 0.7%, or $234 billion through 2019. . . and that’s after taking into account what little savings would be achieved by cutting Medicare benefits and encouraging employer to cut health benefits by taxing private insurance plans that are ‘too generous.’”

In short, the Democrats are reduced to making up stuff, both on substance and on process, because what is in the bill is unpalatable to a majority of voters. And they certainly don’t want to discuss the details or put any of the final back-room bribery . . . er . . . legislative compromising . . . on C-SPAN.

And if Obama has lost Jack Cafferty of CNN....well...one can only ask what's next?....dogs and cats living together in harmony?

UPDATE 1/9: This short note from Jay Nordlinger's column today:

Reading about Obama’s campaign promises, and the stark un-transparency of the health-care legislating, I thought of a famous story about Earl Long: Shortly after being elected in Louisiana, he broke some campaign promise. His press secretary said, “They’re asking about this. What do I tell ’em?” Earl shrugged and said, “Tell ’em I lied.”

Catch Phrases To Forget

Bloggers (especially) take note of Ron Rosenbaum's Slate column on the worst of the clichés, catch phrases and comments we all encounter every day on the web and in the media and popular culture, many of which are long overdue for the scrap heap. Just sayin'.

The catchphrase of the decade.

Leftist Projection

Noemie Emery - Secondhand Hate

For years now, those on the left have conflated resistance to any item of their agenda--high taxes, extravagant spending, laxity on crime, what have you--with motives of a dark nature: racism, nativism, fear of "the other," and various species of "hate."

[...]

But it was the appearance in 2009 of the real first black president that lifted this theme to a whole new level: The left, which invented first "hate speech" (opinions they didn't like) and then "hate crimes" (crimes judged less on the criminal's actions than on what he was presumed to be thinking), has now gone on to its epiphany, which is "hate" defined not by your words or deeds but by what other people have decided you really think. "Hate" is no longer what you do or say, but what a liberal says that you think and projects on to you. You are punished for what someone else claims you were thinking. It hardly makes sense, but it does serve a political purpose. You could call it Secondhand Hate.

Emery has examples galore. MoDo is Exhibit A. Read it all.

Missing A Moment in History

Stephen Hayes at the Standard blog...

The Iranian regime -- fragile now as never before -- continues to support terrorism, to kill US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, to enrich uranium and to arrest and murder its own citizens. And the goal of US policy continues to be non-punitive engagement? Shameful.

As Krauthammer said the other day, the democratic revolution in Iran is a moment in history, and Obama is missing it.

Revolutions happen quickly. There is a moment here in which if the thugs in the street who are shooting in the crowds stop shooting, it’s over and the regime will fall. The courage of the demonstrators and their boldness isn’t only a demonstration of courage, it is an indication of the shift in the balance of power. The regime is weakening.

This is a hinge of history. Everything in the region will change if the regime is changed. Obama ought to be strong out there in saying: It is an illegitimate government. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people in the street. He talks about diplomacy. He should be urging our Western allies who have relations [with Iran] to cut them off, isolate the regime, to ostracize it. He ought to be going in the U.N. — at every forum — and denouncing it. This is a moment in history, and he’s missing it.

Here's Amir Fakhravar, writing in the NY Daily News:

The only question now is how long it will take. Three elements can affect this time line. The first is Iranians inside Iran, who are already doing their part. The second is a coalition including different Iranian opposition groups to synchronize future protests and help shape the foundations of a new democratic and secular government upon the downfall of the Islamic Republic. The third is Western governments, who must impose hard sanctions on the regime to dramatically reduce the inflow of money, thus freeing the region and the world of a tyrannical and dangerous government.

Dave Barry's 2009 in Review

Dave Barry's year in review: 2009. Read it all, or the Somali pirates will have won. (I believe the person I stole that line from was Ed Driscoll)

VDH

Learning From Abdul Mutallab - Victor Davis Hanson. Read it all, but here's a slice...

I think the year-long mantra of "Bush destroyed the Constitution" is now almost over, and we will begin again worrying about our collective safety rather than scoring partisan points by citing supposed excesses in our anti-terrorism efforts. With the delay in closing Guantanamo (from the promised shuttering on Jan. 20, 2010 to . . . sometime in 2011?), Obama's quiet copy-catting of Bush security protocols (such as wiretaps, intercepts, tribunals, and renditions), and the popular outcry against the upcoming show trial of KSM in New York, a public consensus is growing that radical Muslims like Hasan and Mutallab will continue to attempt to kill Americans. Citizens increasingly understand that the last eight years of relative safety following 9/11 were due only to heightened security at home and proactive use of force abroad, that we should cease trying to appease radical Islam by dreaming up new euphemisms ("overseas contingency operations," "man made disasters," etc.), and that it is time to stop the apologetics and kowtowing, and grudgingly accept that thousands of radical Islamic fundamentalists worldwide want to kill Americans — and dozens of governments, at least on the sly, hope that they do. Such venom has nothing to do with past American behavior or George Bush's strut, nor can it be ameliorated on the cheap by Barack Obama's Nobel Prize, middle name, or reset-button diplomacy.

Mayhem in Iran

At the Browns game today, so it wasn't until tonight that I started reading about the tumult in Iran all day Sunday. Haven't read much of Andrew Sullivan for the last couple years, but he's been covering events there all day, and has tons of links and video. Just keep scrolling.

At The Daily Beast, Rouzbeh and Trita Parsi suggest the regime may have reached its breaking point...

With the government growing increasingly desperate—and violent—the new clashes on the streets in Iran may very well prove to be the breaking point of the regime. If so, it shows that the Iranian theocracy ultimately fell on its own sword. It didn't come to an end due to the efforts of exiled opposition groups or the regime-change schemes of Washington's neoconservatives. Rather, the Iranian people are the main characters in this drama, using the very same symbols that brought the Islamic rfepublic into being to close this chapter in a century-old struggle for democracy.

Protests flared up again because of Ashura, the climax of a month of mourning in the Shiite religious calendar. It is a day of sadness for the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussain, who was martyred in 680. And this year the commemoration coincided with the seventh day after the death of dissident Grand Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, adding to the significance of the day. Ashura is also a reminder that the eternal value of justice must be defended regardless of the odds of success. This has provided the relentless Green movement with yet another opportunity to outmaneuver the Iranian government by co-opting its symbols and challenge its legitimacy through the language of religion.

This battle cry for justice in all its simplicity is where most political conflagrations start. It is the deafness of the powers that be that often make them the kernel of something larger and more earth shattering. It is testimony to the arrogance of power that a simple and rather modest call for accountability and justice is beaten down only to return, demanding more, and less willing to compromise and accommodate.

X-Mas Miscellany

Christopher Caldwell reviews a new biography of Arthur Koestler in the NYT.

A couple of reviews of Avatar, at Brussels Journal , and at Hot Air, make me less likely to put myself through it. I'm thinking I could do without another sanctimonious lecture from Hollywood about the greedy, earth-ravaging, war-mongering white man pillaging the lands and lives of the peaceful indigenous people living in harmony with nature, etc. etc....no matter how ground-breaking the technical movie-making might happen to be. Almost forgot the "calling out" of James Cameron...by Kurt Schlicter at Big Hollywood.

Mark Steyn's latest on climate: "Why climate change is hot, hot, hot". And PowerLine links to a scientist's summary of what we do know about climate and the effects of CO2 on temperature.

No apologies from the disgraced "Gang of 88" faculty members at Duke University. Stuart Taylor, co-author of a book on the Duke rape hoax, reports on recent developments.

Bret Stephens reviews Jean-François Revel's Last Exit to Utopia, and the subtitle says a lot: "The hard-left former groupies of totalitarianism keep searching for new murderous ideologies to defend."

Holmgren Is In

Gary Benz says Credibility. Finally.

The Browns have hired Mike Holmgren as Club President...and whatever else he wants to be called. The big question now is the fate of coach Eric Mangini.

Jim Brown is lobbying for another year for Mangenius. On the other hand, ESPN's John Clayton is pretty well connected. He says:

"Eric Mangini doesn't have a chance of being in the building one day after the season if Holmgren takes the job Monday."

Gary suggests Lerner's low-profile hiring of Cleveland legal icon Fred Nance could be almost as important in stabilizing the franchise as the landing of Holmgren. Follow developments at TCF.

Browns Smash Records in KC

Josh Cribbs and Jerome Harrison didn't break records today. They obliterated them.

Cribbs came into the game tied with five other guys for the NFL record for career kickoff return touchdowns with six. By halftime today he had eight. Cribbs is moving quickly from Pro Bowl stature toward Hall of Fame stature.

Then Harrison blew away Jim Brown's 48-year old record of 237 yards in a game (done twice) with a spectacular 286-yard performance, including the game-winning touchdown with 44 seconds left.

After Adrian Peterson (296) and Jamaal Lewis (295) , Harrison put up the third best rushing performance in NFL history.

Once in a great while these Browns make a payment on the massive debt to their fans. We're permitted to bask for a moment, even at 3-11. Besides, we're streaking.

Is Holmgren signed yet?

1000 Words

Residents brushing snow off the overheating globe in Copenhagen....(via Power Line)

This seems an appropriate spot for Victor Davis Hanson's Five Commandments for climate alarmists:

Given the disturbing news about the growing green business empire of Gore, Inc., the private jetting by grandees into Copenhagen to harangue us about our incorrect lifestyles, and the expansive estates of prominent green advocates, it seems that the movement is in need of a formal code of conduct to restore the reputation of climate-change advocacy. Here are five simple commandments that all prominent global-warming activists need to embrace after the blowback from Climategate and various disclosures about the big money involved in green advocacy:

(1) No green public advocate shall have personal business interests predicated on climate-change remedies.

(2) No green public advocate shall fly in a private jet.

(3) No green public advocate shall ride in a limousine.

(4) No green public advocate shall live in a mansion.

(5) Every green advocate shall limit transcontinental jet trips to one per year.

The New Order

Lord Monckton is assaulted and knocked out by a Copenhagen cop. Read his words, via Greg Pollowitz at Planet Gore

"Facts Are Stubborn Things"

Michael Tanner at Cato. Five Health Reform Whoppers

Naked Threats

This is how desperate the Democrats are to socialize health care.

From Michael Goldfarb:

Source: Dems Threaten Nelson In Pursuit of 60

While the Democrats appease Senator Lieberman, they still have to worry about other recalcitrant Democrats including Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. Though Lieberman has been out front in the fight against the public option and the Medicare buy-in, Nelson was critical of both. Now that those provisions appear to have been stripped from the bill, Lieberman may get on board, but Nelson's demand that taxpayer money not be used to fund abortion has still not been met. According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn't fall into line.

Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a "naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson's vote." They are "threatening to close a base vital to national security for what?" asked the Senate staffer.

Indeed, Offutt is the headquarters for US Strategic Command, the successor to Strategic Air Command, and not by accident. STRATCOM was located in the middle of the country for strategic reasons. Its closure would be a massive blow to the economy of the state of Nebraska, but it would also be another example of this administration playing politics with our national security.

I've heard of arm-twisting and mutual back-scratching in big-time politics, but this is absolutely disgusting.

Distinguished Guests

Greg Pollowitz on the all-star lineup of speakers at the warmfest, which includes Chavez and Ahmadinejad.

Mugabe and Naife are particularly offensive. If the U.N. is serious about saving lives in Africa, these two should not be allowed to return to their respective home countries.

From the looks of things in Iran, maybe Ahmadinejad will find they locked the door behind him when he left.

Reid's Hail Mary

Jen Rubin - Did Harry Reid Kill Obamacare?

A Liberal on Liberalism

Via a link from a Michael Barone column, William Galston writes on the future of liberalism. One of the best things I've read in weeks. Do it all.

Taking Sides in Iran

From Afshin Ellian, a report of a warning from the military in Iran. They're with the people...not the government.

The last section of this brief but powerful statement will surely immortalize these brave officers: “The army is a haven for the nation and will never want to suppress the people at the request of politicians. We shall remain true to our promise not to intervene in politics. But we cannot remain silent when our fellow citizens are oppressed by tyranny.”

They go on: “Therefore, we warn the Guards who have betrayed the martyrs (from the war between Iran and Iraq) and who decided to attack the lives, the property and the honor of the citizens. We seriously warn them that if they do not leave their chosen path, they will be confronted with our tough response. The military is a haven for the nation. And we will defend the peace-loving Iranian nation against any aggression.”

Ellian adds later...

It is ironic that once again the officers of the regular air force join the people against the regime. Thirty years ago the officers of the regular air force also joined the people. After a few weeks the regime of the Shah was overthrown.

The brave stand by elements of the Iranian military may be reflected in a somewhat tougher position toward Iran taken by the Obama administration, including the strongest statement yet in support of the freedom fighters among the Iranian people. Better late than never...

...if Iran continues to fail to bring its nuclear program into full compliance with the requirements of the United Nations Security Council and the IAEA, there will be consequences and we will be consulting closely with our partners to ensure those consequences are credible. We will continue to assess Iran's responses, and together with our partners will take appropriate measures in keeping with our common approach to the Iranian nuclear program.

The United States also remains deeply concerned about the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran. We continue to call on the Iranian government to end the use of violence and persecution against those who seek to peacefully exercise universal rights, and to abide by its international obligations, including under the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights.

From Red to Green

Krauthammer on old wine in a new bottle...

On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an "endangerment" to human health.

Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means over a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.

This naked assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society.

Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet.

Putting Warmists on Notice

A Memo To The Global Warming Cult

Dear global warming fanatics,

Please. Stop. You’re embarrassing yourselves. Take a deep breath, and try to understand what has happened to you during the past month. You need to accept that your dreams of global domination are over. Increasingly shrill attempts to terrify the masses into ignoring Climagate are only making you look foolish. The con job you’ve been running for the last thirty years is busted forever.

[...]

You aren’t going to frighten the world into reducing the human population. You’re not going to succeed in terrorizing free people into embracing totalitarianism, to fend off a phantasmal catastrophe that no democratic nation has the discipline to combat. We’re not going to politely ignore swarms of private jets and limos ferrying you to carbon-belching “climate summits,” where you draw up plans for the Western proletariat to live as primitive hunter-gatherers. We’re not going to let a pampered elitist, who once flew around the world to attend cricket practice, tell us that we need to make do without air travel and ice water.

We’ll never be foolish enough to allow a band of fanatics to use “peer review” to rule all dissenting opinion out-of-bounds, then declare themselves the proud owners of a mighty consensus. You global-warming fanatics underestimate how much you needed those tactics to gain power. You’ll never have that kind of unchallenged authority again, because we will never stop demanding the raw data, and we’ll drown you in laughter when you mutter something about deleting it by accident. We will never forget that you began with a conclusion and sought to harvest data that supported it – the exact opposite of the scientific method.

Your arrogant condescension to your critics is horribly misplaced. You have completely lost the ability to call anyone “stupid.” Your capacity for reason is the matter in question. Your status as “scientists” is on probation. It will take years of faithful adherence to the scientific method, and rigorous efforts to test and disprove your hypotheses, before you can regain the trust of thoughtful men and women. Until you have accomplished this, the attitude we expect from you is humility and contrition. You have much to answer for. The time for you to issue pompous lectures is over. The time for you to give sworn testimony may soon begin. We’re a year away from the American voter’s first opportunity to respond to the politicians who terrorized them by waving a loaded cap-and-trade bill in their faces.

Do read it all.