JAMES TARANTO

Two days before Barack Obama took office as president, the New York Times weighed in with an editorial--not its first--denouncing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay for violating the rights of terrorists:

In a long series of valedictory speeches and interviews, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been crowing about Guantánamo Bay, secret prisons and abusive interrogations, claiming they met the highest legal standards and that no prisoner had been tortured. Fortunately, the truth broke through the noise, in the words of some of the very people ordered to carry out the policies. . . .

That is the real nature of Mr. Bush's grotesque legacy: abuse and torture at an outlaw prison where hundreds of men--many of whom did nothing--have been held for years without real evidence or charges. And truly dangerous men were treated so badly that it may be impossible to bring them to justice.
This weekend, however, a news story carried the headline "Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Pentagon Study Finds." And this is not a study from the bad Bush Pentagon:

A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantánamo Bay detention center concluded that the prison complies with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Conventions. But it makes recommendations for improvements including increasing human contact for the prisoners, according to two government officials who have read parts of it.

The story appears in . . . the New York Times. Of course the Times editorialists could not have known in January about a report that would not be commissioned for days or completed for a month. But surely they are embarrassed to have gotten the facts so wrong.
Tim Rutten does not have the defense that he could not have known. The Los Angeles Times columnist this Saturday published an anti-Guantanamo rant similar to that Times editorial:

Of all the collateral damage America suffered on 9/11, none may have been more catastrophic than the Bush/Cheney administration's rejection of our established civilian and military legal systems to deal with the country's criminal enemies. In fact, the murky, torture-ridden parallel gulag they tried to create may have pushed some of the most culpable Al Qaeda criminals--like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind--nearly beyond the reach of justice.

An L.A. Times news story the same day reported on the Obama Pentagon findings.
Everyone is entitled to his opinion, of course. But the Times editorialists and Rutten seem to think that they are immune from Pat Moynihan's dictum that no one is entitled to his own facts.

"a sickening vertigo into chaos and plunder."

• Drug-related conflicts bring waves of violence, death that some liken to a civil war
  
• U.S. helps fuel violence with market for illegal drugs, weapons supply for drug gangs
  "
• The drug gangs are better equipped than the army," expert says
  
• Pervasive corruption among public officials also at center of drug cartels' success

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/02/18/mexico.drug.violence/#cnnSTCText

I cant believe this lady totally nailed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI

I am shocked! SHOCKED!

Prominent Orchard Park man charged with beheading his wife
By Gene Warner
News Staff Reporter

Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband — an influential member of the local Muslim community — reported her death to police Thursday.

Police identified the victim as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37. Detectives have charged her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with second-degree murder.

"He came to the police station at 6:20 p.m. [Thursday] and told us that she was dead," Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said late this morning.

Muzzammil Hassan told police that his wife was at his business, Bridges TV, on Thorn Avenue in the village. Officers went to that location and discovered her body.

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light.

The killing apparently occurred some time late Thursday afternoon. Detectives still are looking for the murder weapon.

"Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible," Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said today.

Authorities say Aasiya Hassan recently had filed for divorce from her husband.

"She had an order of protection that had him out of the home as of Friday the 6th [of February]," Benz said.

Muzzammil Hassan was arraigned before Village Justice Deborah Chimes and sent to the Erie County Holding Center.

gwarner@buffnews.com

The BBC brings us a humdrum bit of dire news:

The planet will be in "huge trouble" unless Barack Obama makes strides in tackling climate change, says a leading scientist.
Prof James McCarthy spoke on the eve of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which he heads.
The US president has just four years to save the planet, said Prof McCarthy.

Just four years to save the planet! And McCarthy's is not the only such "scientific" prediction. Just before President Obama's inauguration, London's Guardian weighed in with this report:

Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added.
Soaring carbon emissions are already causing ice-cap melting and threaten to trigger global flooding, widespread species loss and major disruptions of weather patterns in the near future. "We cannot afford to put off change any longer," said Hansen. "We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead."

Let's see, four years: That would that we are all doomed if nothing changes by January or February 2013. And we have at least two prominent scientists saying the same thing, and as we've all learned "scientific consensus" is always right.
Or is it? We have some questions: From what data did McCarthy and Hansen derive this deadline? How long have scientists "known" that the beginning of 2013 was the point of no return? Can anyone find an example of a scientist in, say, 2007 saying we have six years to act, or in 2002 saying we have 11 years? Is it a mere coincidence that the deadline is almost exactly the same as the end of the term of a new president who gives indications that he may be both.

PoliticsObama Debuts Annoying Catchphrase
February 10, 2009 | Issue 45•07


WASHINGTON—In an unexpected turn of events that even his most ardent supporters are calling extremely ill-advised, President Obama, known for his simple yet stirring slogan "Yes we can," debuted a new, extremely annoying catchphrase Monday during an address on proposed economic policy reform, saying, "It is time for America to move forward, not backward—and in conclusion, hot diggity ding dang!" The new catchphrase, White House officials announced, will replace the former slogan as the focal point of the president's public image effective immediately, and will be implemented in all appearances, official correspondence, and executive paperwork from now until at least mid-2012. Publicity materials featuring the wince-inducing phrase—and picturing Obama smiling wildly and giving a double thumbs-up to the camera—were distributed this week to thousands of media outlets. "We have no idea why he's chosen to do this," said former Obama supporter Kyle Hammersley. "It's unbelievably irritating." "Hot diggitty ding dang" was reportedly selected by Obama and his advisers from a final list of potential taglines that also included "Hanker down—soup's on!" "That's what the doctor told me!" and "Mama mia, where's-a mah pizza?!"

A New Rendition of an Old Song

Barack Obama has been president for less than three weeks, and it's sometimes hard to remember how different everything was before change. Example: President Bush's policy of "extraordinary rendition," in which, it is said, terrorists were turned over to foreign intelligence services for interrogation. Legend has it that the foreigners tortured the terrorists.
Technically, this was not Bush's policy exactly. It was instituted by President Clinton. But that just shows how averse Bush was to change. Not only did he refuse to change his own policies, he didn't even change some of his predecessor's policies.
Now, however, everything really has changed, as detailed in this Associated Press report on CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta's confirmation hearing:
The United States will continue to hand foreign detainees over to other countries for questioning, but only with assurances they will not be tortured, Leon Panetta told a Senate committee considering his confirmation as CIA director.
OK, we guess not everything has changed. The U.S. will still do rendition, but the important thing is that now, for the first time, we will demand assurances that they won't be tortured.
Oh, wait:
That has long been U.S. policy, but some former prisoners subjected to the process--known as extraordinary rendition--during the Bush administration's anti-terror war say they were tortured.
Panetta must be toughening the demands for assurance, insisting that foreign governments pinky-swear and that the whole process be witnessed by a notary public, or something like that.
Or not:
"I will seek the same kind of assurances that they will not be treated inhumanely," Panetta said Friday in his second day before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Hmm, what could it be that the Obama administration is doing differently? Oh, we know! At least now the U.S. will no longer render terrorists for the purpose of having them tortured.
Uh, guess that's not it either:
Panetta formally retracted a statement he made Thursday that the Bush administration transferred prisoners for the purpose of torture.
"I am not aware of the validity of those claims," he said.
Heraclitus observed that change is the only constant. Finally, that paradox makes sense!

the difference between equality of opportunity versus equality of outcomes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaE98w1KZ-c

Let the intimidation begin!

http://gawker.com/5149276/map-of-anti+gay-donors-created-by-big-chicken

The Fierce Urgency of Pork

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 6, 2009; A17



"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."

-- President Obama, Feb. 4.



Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

The mad mullahs who run Iran have again defied President Obama, the Associated Press reports:

The Obama administration on Wednesday expressed disappointment with Iran's refusal to issue visas for an American badminton team and said it did not bode well for possible similar outreach programs in the future. . . .
"This is a very unfortunate situation," State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters, adding that the U.S. had not received any official notification of the reason for the visa refusal. He noted that both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton remained committed to engaging with Iran under the proper circumstances.
"It's not a good sign," Wood said. "You know, as the secretary and others have said, when the Iranians unclench that fist, there will be a hand waiting to greet them."

Part of the problem here may be that Obama has already lost control over the State Department, with Secretary Clinton's spokesman attributing one of his best lines to her and reducing the president to the ranks of "others."

Strom Thurmond Calls For Construction Of Transcontinental RailroadAugust 19, 1997 | Issue 32•03

WASHINGTON, DC—Citing the need for cheaper and faster shipping to the Western Territories, the need to unite the Republic after the long and bitter War Between The States, and the recent discovery of gold in the California region, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) urged Congress Monday to support funding for the construction of a transcontinental railroad.
U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) said that as the 20th century approaches, the U.S. must be a leader in the field of steam-powered locomotive technology.
"My friends, we stand at the threshold of the Age Of Steam—a glorious new age for the Republic," Thurmond said. "And the mighty steam locomotive is the new Steam Age's most powerful expression. I propose that the Union grant me the sum of 50 thousands of dollars, that I may work in concert with our beloved Captains of Industry to forge an iron road of rails across the untamed, unexplored wilderness of the Western Territories."
According to Thurmond, the proposed Great Western Trans-Continental Steam Rail-Road would stretch from already-established tracks in St. Louis to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, ending "near the white settlement at Sacramento Town."
Once operational, Thurmond told members of Congress, the railroad would move upwards of 24 tons of cargo a day at speeds approaching 30 miles an hour. "My claims may seem preposterous, but mighty steam is more than ample for this endeavor," Thurmond said. "A locomotive may someday leave New York at Thanksgiving and arrive at the Pacific Sea by Christmas-tide. Gentlemen of the press, take note: Such progress is more rapid than even the vaunted clipper ships of the East India Trading Company!"
Despite the enormous scale of the transcontinental railroad, Thurmond said that it could be built at a remarkably low cost, primarily through the use of cheap foreign labor. "Seeing as that slavery has recently fallen from favor," he said, "I propose the importation of the Chinee, through relations with a procurer of labor in the Orient."
The senator went on to point out that the Chinaman has the naturally industrious and servile nature of the ant, is as clever with tools as the common monkey, and will eat nearly anything he can find.
Reaction to the Thurmond proposal on Capitol Hill was overwhelmingly negative, with a majority of legislators—both Republican and Democrat—dismissing it before even hearing its details. Stung by the lukewarm reaction among his colleagues, an angry Thurmond lashed back Tuesday.
"I hear my Whig detractors mutter, 'Preposterous!' and, 'Who shall build this foul rail-road, and where?'" Thurmond said. "Well it is no mere Opium-dream, and I propose to build it in the great Western Desert, which will be ideal once the Great Canyon is filled in and its hellish mesas and cacti are destroyed by dynamite. The region is home to no one, save the Red Indian, and these heathen savages may be either exterminated or relocated to less valuable land, such as the so-called oil-fields of Oklahoma, where noisome substances bubble out of the Earth."
When questioned by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) about the necessity of the railroad, considering the existence of a fully functional Federal Interstate Highway System, Thurmond alerted the Senate Sergeant-At-Arms to the presence of a woman on the congressional floor and ordered her immediate removal.
"There is an individual of the female persuasion in the Senatorial chamber—with the facial cast of a Jewess, no less!" Thurmond said. "Guards, seize her!"

LGF

Barack Obama promotes his gigantic spending bill in the Washington Post, with a string of straw man attacks against critics: Barack Obama - The Action Americans Need.

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems...

I have not heard of a single person who says “tax cuts alone” are the solution.

... that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures...

Who has ever said this? Who would say such a ridiculous thing?

... that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

“Ignore energy independence and health care?” Again, where can I find the pundits who write these things? Because I read a lot of political opinion pieces, and I don’t recall ever seeing such a viewpoint advocated.
This is the same kind of empty, false rhetoric he employed in his campaign—attacking stances that no one has espoused, and no one even would espouse. The very definition of a straw man argument.

Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil
When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?

By JUDEA PEARL
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today's world emerged after his tragedy?
The answer does not come easily. Danny was an optimist, a true believer in the goodness of mankind. Yet he was also a realist, and would not let idealism bend the harshness of facts.
Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance." Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.
No. Those around the world who mourned for Danny in 2002 genuinely hoped that Danny's murder would be a turning point in the history of man's inhumanity to man, and that the targeting of innocents to transmit political messages would quickly become, like slavery and human sacrifice, an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.
But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of "resistance," has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words "war on terror" cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.
I believe it all started with well-meaning analysts, who in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy, but a tactic. Thus the basic engine that propels acts of terrorism -- the ideological license to elevate one's grievances above the norms of civilized society -- was wished away in favor of seemingly more manageable "tactical" considerations.
This mentality of surrender then worked its way through politicians like the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. In July 2005 he told Sky News that suicide bombing is almost man's second nature. "In an unfair balance, that's what people use," explained Mr. Livingstone.
But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.
Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.
The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.
Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society's role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera's management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.
Some American pundits and TV anchors didn't seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression." He then stated -- without blushing -- that for readers of the Hebrew Bible "God-soaked violence became genetically coded." The "cycle of violence" platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror's victims for violence as immutable as DNA.
When we ask ourselves what it is about the American psyche that enables genocidal organizations like Hamas -- the charter of which would offend every neuron in our brains -- to become tolerated in public discourse, we should take a hard look at our universities and the way they are currently being manipulated by terrorist sympathizers.
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.
The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.

Mr. Pearl, a professor of computer science at UCLA, is president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, founded in memory of his son to promote cross-cultural understanding.

Lunch-Thievery!

I am usually on the other side of this issue!

I hope that when I die, people say about me, 'Boy, that guy sure owed me a lot of money.'

- Jack Handey

LGF

ElBaradei: 'I'm Not Taking Sides' on the Destruction of Israel
World Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 10:28:17 am PST

In an interview with the Washington Post, the leader of the UN’s blind, toothless International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei (on whose watch Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been able to advance almost unhindered), compares Iran to Japan and asks, “Why isn’t the world worried about Japan?”

So you think it’s Iran versus the West?
Well, it’s a competition between Iran and the West. Iran wants to have its role as a regional security power recognized. They feel they are the most powerful state in the region right now, and that is true, to a large extent. . . .
They see that if you have the technology that can allow you to develop a nuclear weapon in a short period of time, it gives you power, prestige and security. So it’s a security issue [relating to] how great a role Iran will have as a regional power, the grievances the West has vis-à-vis Iran about alleged Iranian support for extremist groups, about its human rights record. All these are legitimate issues, but these issues are not going to be resolved by calling each other names across the ocean. When you call Iran [part of] “an axis of evil,” you do not expect them to say, “Well, we will give up our nuclear program.” Obviously, they look for their own security, and they have seen that if you have nuclear weapons or at least the technology, you are somehow protected from an attack. . . . Obama’s change of page is absolutely, in my view, the way to go. . . .
The concern about Iran . . . is that if Iran were to develop [nuclear] technology, they’d walk out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they’d develop highly enriched uranium and the weapon. These ifs are based on, “I don’t trust Iran’s future intentions.” . . . Why isn’t the world worried about Japan, which has the full cycle of technology? Because there is trust that this country is not aiming to develop nuclear weapons.

But that’s not all. ElBaradei also denies that Iran has issued numerous statements calling for Israel to be utterly destroyed.

The Japanese government hasn’t said that its aim is to destroy the state of Israel.
There have been a lot of offensive statements, frankly, on the part of Iran, although from what I understand, Iran wants a one-state solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] — not, as reported in the media, that Israel should be wiped off the map.

And ElBaradei won’t “take sides” on whether Israel should cease to exist.

And you know that one state means the end of Israel because there are more Palestinians than Jews.
I’m not taking sides on that. . . .

Note to this malevolent ogre: you just did take sides.

Newsbusters

During a news brief on Monday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reported on the 30th Anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution:
"At a musical gala, a choir sang revolutionary songs. Beneath a full-scale replica of the plane that brought Ayatollah Khomeini back to Iran from exile in 1979. On a video screen, 30-year-old scenes of jubilant crowds." Palmer continued to describe the celebration: "Nearby in the Ayatollah's tomb, the faithful shout ‘Death to America.’ But to millions, this is just ritual now. They would like to see improved relations with the United States."
Maybe not wishing America’s death would be a good start.
Palmer followed up by explaining: "Iran's leaders are still committed to the revolutionary ideals." Even Barack Obama has not been able to weaken Iranian principles: "And so far there's little sign they're in a hurry to accept the direct negotiations proposed by Obama's administration."

Iran is going to tell us to Fuck Off. They always (since 79) have, and will continue to. GW or the Chosen One, it makes no difference. Can we at least know our enemies?
It will be embarrassing when we concede to meet them and they just tell us to suck it. Then what?

How Government Prolonged the Depression
Policies that decreased competition in product and labor markets were especially destructive.
Article
more in Opinion »

By HAROLD L. COLE and LEE E. OHANIAN
The New Deal is widely perceived to have ended the Great Depression, and this has led many to support a "new" New Deal to address the current crisis. But the facts do not support the perception that FDR's policies shortened the Depression, or that similar policies will pull our nation out of its current economic downturn.
The goal of the New Deal was to get Americans back to work. But the New Deal didn't restore employment. In fact, there was even less work on average during the New Deal than before FDR took office. Total hours worked per adult, including government employees, were 18% below their 1929 level between 1930-32, but were 23% lower on average during the New Deal (1933-39). Private hours worked were even lower after FDR took office, averaging 27% below their 1929 level, compared to 18% lower between in 1930-32.
Even comparing hours worked at the end of 1930s to those at the beginning of FDR's presidency doesn't paint a picture of recovery. Total hours worked per adult in 1939 remained about 21% below their 1929 level, compared to a decline of 27% in 1933. And it wasn't just work that remained scarce during the New Deal. Per capita consumption did not recover at all, remaining 25% below its trend level throughout the New Deal, and per-capita nonresidential investment averaged about 60% below trend. The Great Depression clearly continued long after FDR took office.
Why wasn't the Depression followed by a vigorous recovery, like every other cycle? It should have been. The economic fundamentals that drive all expansions were very favorable during the New Deal. Productivity grew very rapidly after 1933, the price level was stable, real interest rates were low, and liquidity was plentiful. We have calculated on the basis of just productivity growth that employment and investment should have been back to normal levels by 1936. Similarly, Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas and Leonard Rapping calculated on the basis of just expansionary Federal Reserve policy that the economy should have been back to normal by 1935.
So what stopped a blockbuster recovery from ever starting? The New Deal. Some New Deal policies certainly benefited the economy by establishing a basic social safety net through Social Security and unemployment benefits, and by stabilizing the financial system through deposit insurance and the Securities Exchange Commission. But others violated the most basic economic principles by suppressing competition, and setting prices and wages in many sectors well above their normal levels. All told, these antimarket policies choked off powerful recovery forces that would have plausibly returned the economy back to trend by the mid-1930s.
The most damaging policies were those at the heart of the recovery plan, including The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which tossed aside the nation's antitrust acts and permitted industries to collusively raise prices provided that they shared their newfound monopoly rents with workers by substantially raising wages well above underlying productivity growth. The NIRA covered over 500 industries, ranging from autos and steel, to ladies hosiery and poultry production. Each industry created a code of "fair competition" which spelled out what producers could and could not do, and which were designed to eliminate "excessive competition" that FDR believed to be the source of the Depression.
These codes distorted the economy by artificially raising wages and prices, restricting output, and reducing productive capacity by placing quotas on industry investment in new plants and equipment. Following government approval of each industry code, industry prices and wages increased substantially, while prices and wages in sectors that weren't covered by the NIRA, such as agriculture, did not. We have calculated that manufacturing wages were as much as 25% above the level that would have prevailed without the New Deal. And while the artificially high wages created by the NIRA benefited the few that were fortunate to have a job in those industries, they significantly depressed production and employment, as the growth in wage costs far exceeded productivity growth.
These policies continued even after the NIRA was declared unconstitutional in 1935. There was no antitrust activity after the NIRA, despite overwhelming FTC evidence of price-fixing and production limits in many industries, and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gave unions substantial collective-bargaining power. While not permitted under federal law, the sit-down strike, in which workers were occupied factories and shut down production, was tolerated by governors in a number of states and was used with great success against major employers, including General Motors in 1937.
The downturn of 1937-38 was preceded by large wage hikes that pushed wages well above their NIRA levels, following the Supreme Court's 1937 decision that upheld the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act. These wage hikes led to further job loss, particularly in manufacturing. The "recession in a depression" thus was not the result of a reversal of New Deal policies, as argued by some, but rather a deepening of New Deal polices that raised wages even further above their competitive levels, and which further prevented the normal forces of supply and demand from restoring full employment. Our research indicates that New Deal labor and industrial policies prolonged the Depression by seven years.
By the late 1930s, New Deal policies did begin to reverse, which coincided with the beginning of the recovery. In a 1938 speech, FDR acknowledged that the American economy had become a "concealed cartel system like Europe," which led the Justice Department to reinitiate antitrust prosecution. And union bargaining power was significantly reduced, first by the Supreme Court's ruling that the sit-down strike was illegal, and further reduced during World War II by the National War Labor Board (NWLB), in which large union wage settlements were limited by the NWLB to cost-of-living increases. The wartime economic boom reflected not only the enormous resource drain of military spending, but also the erosion of New Deal labor and industrial policies.
By 1947, through a combination of NWLB wage restrictions and rapid productivity growth, we have calculated that the large gap between manufacturing wages and productivity that emerged during the New Deal had nearly been eliminated. And since that time, wages have never approached the severely distorted levels that prevailed under the New Deal, nor has the country suffered from such abysmally low employment.
The main lesson we have learned from the New Deal is that wholesale government intervention can -- and does -- deliver the most unintended of consequences. This was true in the 1930s, when artificially high wages and prices kept us depressed for more than a decade, it was true in the 1970s when price controls were used to combat inflation but just produced shortages. It is true today, when poorly designed regulation produced a banking system that took on too much risk.
President Barack Obama and Congress have a great opportunity to produce reforms that do return Americans to work, and that provide a foundation for sustained long-run economic growth and the opportunity for all Americans to succeed. These reforms should include very specific plans that update banking regulations and address a manufacturing sector in which several large industries -- including autos and steel -- are no longer internationally competitive. Tax reform that broadens rather than narrows the tax base and that increases incentives to work, save and invest is also needed. We must also confront an educational system that fails many of its constituents. A large fiscal stimulus plan that doesn't directly address the specific impediments that our economy faces is unlikely to achieve either the country's short-term or long-term goals.

Mr. Cole is professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ohanian is professor of economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at UCLA.