:: Looking Back at 2011 (12:20PM)
Dave Barry’s Year in Review: The 2011 Festival of Sleaze
I’m not saying that the entire year was ruined by sleaze. It was also ruined by other bad things. This was a year in which journalism was pretty much completely replaced by tweeting. It was a year in which a significant earthquake struck Washington, yet failed to destroy a single federal agency. It was a year in which the nation was subjected to a seemingly endless barrage of highly publicized pronouncements from Charlie Sheen, a man who, where you have a central nervous system, has a Magic 8-Ball.
:: Happy New Year (11:14AM)
George Will offers measured optimism for conservatives in 2012.
Although they have become prone to apocalyptic forebodings about the fragility of the nation’s institutions and traditions under the current president, conservatives should stride confidently into 2012. This is not because they are certain, or even likely, to defeat President Obama this year. Rather, it is because, if they emancipate themselves from their unconservative fixation on the presidency, they will see events unfolding in their favor. And when Congress is controlled by one party, as it might be a year from now, it can stymie an overreaching executive.
:: New Year's Eve 2011 (09:42PM)
Hugh Laurie's "Let Them Talk" sessions helping bring us to the very brink of a new year.
:: Secrets of "Wicked" (01:16PM)
"Wicked" is the rare — maybe even unprecedented — show rich enough to effortlessly carry multiple meanings for multiple demographics, all of them valid, even if the messages that endeared it to my cynical heart are different from a 10-year-old's take-away....To recap: Women are hungry to be told that their friendships matter. Kids are hungry to be told that individualism is worth it, even at the cost of being bullied. Seniors relate to the show's wistful look back on relationships that had to pass. Sexual and racial minorities relish the themes of pride and prejudice. With all that cross-demographic appeal in one popular entertainment, is there anything left for the middle-aged straight malcontent?
Yes: Oddly enough, we're starved for stories that tell us no one in power can be trusted, life is full of persecution and politics and compromises, and ambiguous fates befall even the empowered and enlightened … in a show that's got a good Reagan joke and you can dance to it.
:: Shocking (09:20AM)
Solyndra: Politics infused Obama energy programs
Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials....The documents reviewed by The Post, which began examining the clean-technology program a year ago, provide a detailed look inside the day-to-day workings of the upper levels of the Obama administration. They also give an unprecedented glimpse into high-level maneuvering by politically connected clean-technology investors.
They show that as Solyndra tottered, officials discussed the political fallout from its troubles, the “optics” in Washington and the impact that the company’s failure could have on the president’s prospects for a second term. Rarely, if ever, was there discussion of the impact that Solyndra’s collapse would have on laid-off workers or on the development of clean-
energy technology.
Should be a major scandal. Is anyone paying attention on Boxing Day? Will Mitt make use of it? But the real shock is that this is appearing in the Washington Post. It's almost like real, objective journalism.
:: 25,000 Angry Christmas Lights (02:38PM)
:: Christmas 2011 (10:23AM)
"A day, Bright Day of Glory! Glad day that ends our woe!
A day that tells of triumph against our vanquished foe!
For us this Christmas sunrise, this bright December morn,
So sing, let us be joyous, For Christ, our Lord, is born!"
Merry Christmas!
:: 10 Years - Never Forget (11:15AM)
"But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:30-31)
:: Thumbs up (07:37PM)
Glad to hop on The King's Speech bandwagon - an excellent movie.
Also a useful reminder about how the pro-Nazi Edward did Great Britain and the world a huge favor by abdicating. As king he would have been dangerous, not just a public nuisance.
:: Terror, again (12:42PM)
The one-sided Muslim war on Christians continues, again targeting Egypt's ancient Coptic community.
A powerful bomb, possibly from a suicide attacker, exploded in front of a Coptic Christian church as a crowd of worshippers emerged from a New Years Mass early Saturday, killing at least 21 people and wounding nearly 80 in an attack that raised suspicions of an al-Qaida role.The attack came in the wake of threats by al-Qaida militants in Iraq to attack Egypt's Christians. A direct al-Qaida hand in the bombing would be a dramatic development, as the government of President Hosni Mubarak has long denied that the terror network has a significant presence in the country. Al-Qaida in Iraq has already been waging a campaign of violence against Christians in that country.
:: Happy New Year (12:01AM)
Best wishes for a Happy New Year and a prosperous 2011.
"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual." (Mark Twain)
:: New Year's Eve 2010 (05:49PM)
It's New Year's Eve in Texas, and 2010 is almost done and gone. Down under, they've been celebrating for hours.
:: Why New START? (06:47AM)
Finally, an understandable review of New START, via Stratfor:
With the fall of the Soviet Union, the Soviets lost the Cold War. Military conquest was neither an option nor a requirement. Therefore, the U.S.-Soviet nuclear balance became meaningless. If the Russians attacked Georgia the United States wasn’t about to launch a nuclear war. The Caucasus is not Western Europe. START was not about reducing nuclear forces alone. It was about reducing them in a carefully calibrated manner so that no side gained a strategic and therefore political advantage.New START is therefore as archaic as the Treaty of Versailles. It neither increases nor decreases security. It addresses a security issue that last had meaning more than 20 years ago in a different geopolitical universe. If a case can be made for reducing nuclear weapons, it must be made in the current geopolitical situation. Arguing for strategic arms reduction may have merit, but trying to express it in the context of an archaic treaty makes little sense.
So why has this emerged? It is not because anyone is trying to calibrate the American and Russian nuclear arsenals. Rather, it goes back to the fiasco over the famous “reset button” that Hillary Clinton brought to Moscow last March. Tensions over substantial but sub-nuclear issues had damaged U.S.-Russian relations. The Russians saw the Americans as wanting to create a new containment alliance around the Russian Federation. The Americans saw the Russians as trying to create a sphere of influence that would be the foundation of a new Moscow-based regional system. Each side had a reasonable sense of the other’s intentions. Clinton wanted to reset relations. The Russians didn’t. They did not see the past as the model they wanted, and they saw the American vision of a reset as a threat. The situation grew worse, not better.
An idea emerged in Washington that there needed to be confidence-building measures. One way to build confidence, so the diplomats sometimes think, is to achieve small successes and build on them. The New START was seen as such a small success, taking a non-objectionable treaty of little relevance and effectively renewing it. From here, other successes would follow. No one really thought that this treaty mattered in its own right. But some thought that building confidence right now sent the wrong signal to Moscow.
U.S. opposition was divided into two groups. One, particularly Republicans, saw this as a political opportunity to embarrass the president. Another argued, not particularly coherently, that using an archaic issue as a foundation for building a relationship with Russia allowed both sides to evade the serious issues dividing the two sides: the role of Russia in the former Soviet Union, NATO and EU expansion, Russia’s use of energy to dominate European neighbors, the future of BMD against Iran, Russia’s role in the Middle East and so on.
Rather than building confidence between the two countries, a New START would give the illusion of success while leaving fundamental issues to fester. The counter-argument was that with this success others would follow. The counter to that was that by spending energy on a New START, the United States delayed and ignored more fundamental issues. The debate is worth having, and both sides have a case, but the idea that START in itself mattered is not part of that debate.
In the end, the issue boiled down to this. START was marginal at best. But if President Barack Obama couldn’t deliver on START his credibility with the Russians would collapse. It wasn’t so much that a New START would build confidence as it was that a failure to pass a New START would destroy confidence. It was on that basis that the U.S. Senate approved the treaty. Its opponents argued that it left out discussions of BMD and tactical nuclear weapons. Their more powerful argument was that the United States just negotiated a slightly modified version of a treaty that Ronald Reagan proposed a quarter century ago and it had nothing to do with contemporary geopolitical reality.
Passage allowed Obama to dodge a bullet, but it leaves open a question that he does not want to answer: What is American strategy toward Russia? He has mimicked American strategy from a quarter century ago, not defined what it will be.
Making Sense of the START Debate is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
:: Election Day (08:16PM)
So, Speaker Boehner. Don't blow this.
:: Nine years gone (08:51AM)
The memories of September 11th will never leave us. We will not forget the burning towers, and the last phone calls, and the smoke over Arlington. We will not forget the rescuers who ran toward danger, and the passengers who rushed the hijackers. We will not forget the men and women who went to work on a typical day and never came home. We will not forget the death of schoolchildren who were on a school trip.And we will never forget the servants of evil who plotted the attacks. And we will never forget those who rejoiced at our grief and our mourning.
- President George W. Bush, address to the FBI, September 10, 2003
Learn more:
• Pentagon Memorial Project
• Flight 93 National Memorial
• 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America
• Popular Mechanics - Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report
Ways to help:
• Fisher House Foundation
• Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust
• Wounded Warrior Project