"... I begin to feel that business leaders, when talking of the malaise affecting their brethren, of the depressive mood swamping investment and the entrepreneurial spirit for which the country is rightly renowned, I begin to feel what they're really saying, consciously or not, is that they're quite over the brief charm of the Obama story and have concluded that the man is just too confoundingly leftish in his habits and inclinations to be trusted and accordingly have decided to sit on their hands until the dead weight of his historical eminence has limped from the stage, at which point they will rise and cheer the new new with vigor... I get the feeling that the business community is so looking forward to Obama not being around anymore or are so anxious regarding the prospects of such and what that may mean to them that they can't look past the blessed event for fear it won't come..."

What if Palin decides to run in order to keep her brand viable? Meaning - she never really intended to run - but as her cat and mouse game of an endless teasing of a possible run starts to do more harm than good for her image and status within the party, what if she's coming to the conclusion that in order to stay relevant, to keep the brand viable, she now has no choice but to run? Amusing: I'm running for president so as to keep my celebrity status intact - sounds ridiculous but in reality not that much different from Obama.

Such a turn could signal the approaching nadir of American political culture and portend the looming decline of the West, sure - but I've always said, don't sell this girl short - she's a great retail politician - she's an excellent populist speaker, as good if not better in front of a teleprompter than Obama [better because the potential demographic she would appeal to is bigger and more influential than his] - and it's impossible to say for sure at this point whether or not her strategy for winning the nomination [if that's what it is] has been hopelessly misguided or brilliantly outside the box.

That being said, she still has a huge problem - well, two huge problems - she has yet to demonstrate that she can speak in an ad hoc yet thoughtful way about policy and therefore still suffers from the impression of not being smart enough to be president - and half the electorate seems to have already decided they hate her. Add a third: as much as the press is in love with Obama and shamelessly extol his putative virtues, they can't stand Palin - if she ran it would literally be a feeding frenzy of contempt and ridicule. Big obstacles. Which is why I never believed, and still don't believe she'll run - but that wasn't the question.

"... what jobs plan will Obama be announcing on Thursday? Judging from what we've seen of Obama so far, seems obvious... blame Bush, implicate cynical Wall Street greed for creating a crisis so bad it defies simple solutions, fan flames of a class war, although he'll no doubt do so subtlety... then declare or argue that rather than having been a failure so far as concerns the economy his presidency, through bold, sage actions has actually saved the economy and accordingly he'll offer up more of the same... he'll paint the picture that, as bad as things may seem, but for his enlightened leadership there'd be nothing but a smoking crater nestled between Canada and Mexico and therefore imply that the country should thank him for this... in short, since what he's likely to propose on Thursday will either expressly or by insinuation be so afflicted by left wing ideology and so obviously designed to make republicans look bad it has virtually no chance of getting through congress, Obama at that point will be in full campaign mode and engaged in the one thing he's ever shown any talent for, manipulating peoples perceptions of him for the sake of getting elected... the man's arrogance is so great that he effortlessly, almost as a matter of course manages to confuse getting elected with actual leadership... in other words, since he's so brilliant, how could supporting him not be brilliant too...?"

[editor's note: for evidence that this is probably what we will get from Obama on Thursday look at his recent short term suspension of certain EPA industrial pollution regulations - a move that will do little or nothing to spur the economy, given that the actions are short term, but much to give impression that Obama is a moderate looking to make 'difficult' compromises - and so when republicans reject his policy proposals on Thursday he can then with seeming legitimacy cry 'you see how unreasonable these people are? Here I am, this decent, honorable guy looking to reach out to them across the aisle and all they can do is say no...'. This is classic Obama - the man's a con artist, pure and simple.

But what if Obama does try a Clinton? Fine - but the problem with that is that Clinton actually was a moderate, he didn't have to fake it like Obama does - he had been governor of Arkansas for christ sake! More over, Clinton didn't owe his political fortunes to the left wing of the democratic party - he could afford to piss the uber lefties off - hell, doing so only enhanced his popularity - Obama owes everything he has to the uber lefties - they hated Hillary and promoted him, relentlessly promoted him and that's why he's president - how can he survive without their undying loyalty and enthusiasm, especially given his declining popularity among independents?]

That is the plan, and it’s making extraordinary progress with a minimum of violent extremism. As Soeren Kern elaborates, in England Islamist organizations are now pressing to turn twelve British cities into Islamic emirates: autonomous Muslim enclaves governed by sharia law, independent of the national justice system. They call one proposed emirate “Londonistan” — surely not to honor Melanie Phillips, who wrote a book by that title, but confirming nevertheless the phenomenon she so brilliantlydiagnosed. In these cities, non-Muslims are serially harassed, women are threatened (and worse) for failing to don the veil, and visiting officials such as former home secretary Jon Reid are heckled, “How dare you come to a Muslim area?”

In France, the government now posts on its official website the list of 751 zones urbaines sensibles, the Muslim enclaves considered no-go zones. Non-Muslims are on notice: Enter at your own considerable risk. The police no longer go in. The nation no longer exercises sovereignty. The same pattern is seen in Brussels, Rome, Amsterdam, and the Ruhr: As the number of Muslims increases, so does the number of enclaves. The policewill not enter without police escorts, which often means the police will not enter, period. As one police chief told the German press, the governments may deny it, but everyone knows these no-go zones exist, and “even worse, in these areas crimes no longer result in charges.” The Muslims are “left to themselves. Only in the worst cases do we in the police learn anything about it. The power of the state is completely out of the picture.”

These are the wages of a myopic concentration on the physicality of violence coupled with an irrational denial that the violence — jihadism — is only is part of an ambitious plan to govern in accordance with sharia. Violent jihad is not wanton. It is part of a strategy to implement sharia as the foundation of a fundamentalist Muslim society. That is why sharia is worth studying. The idea is not to kill non-Muslims; it is to overcome resistance. Sometimes that is done by “violent extremism,” but it is just as effectively done by demoralizing the police. It is even more effectively done by infiltrating the councils of government policy.

This from McCarthy over at National Review - always can be relied on to conjure up some boilerplate viz Islam - and ya know, it's not like I'm anti-Islam per se - what I am is anti church getting all mixed in with state and Islam unfortunately seems especially vulnerable in this regard - such works against fundamental aspects of the Western tradition, one could even argue the most fundamental of the fundamental attributes defining the West - my problem with Islam is that I don't believe as currently understood and practiced that it as a belief system can function as its overlords of doctrine see fit and really as the Koran itself sees fit without a significant political component being operative - that's my problem with Islam - if people want to follow that faith and believe in that god, go ahead, I don't really care - I tend to view all religion as somewhat silly; when it comes to people and their gods I weave between utter disdain, bemused scorn and besotted indulgence - whatever - but in addressing the complications raised by Islam let's not forget what makes the Western tradition the Western tradition - let's not through some phony, manufactured, naive sense of absolute tolerance or cowardly denial fail to defend and celebrate the very things that make us us. That's all I'm saying. Acceptance of the essential, of the defining characteristics of Western history and culture should at least be the minimum standard for citizenship, no? If you're a Muslim, or any one else wedded to a creed for that matter, and you have a problem with what it actually means to be a citizen of the West, to be an American, well, ya don't have to live here - it's not required - after all, it's not like there's thousands upon thousands of infidel American despoilers clamoring to emigrate to Pakistan or longing to crack open a beer in Mecca. I may not agree with a lot D Rumsfeld had to say, but I agree with this: America may not be perfect, but America ain't what's wrong with the world [well, in a manner of speaking - put another way, there's much more wrong with the world than simply blaming America can even remotely account for]

A few interesting facts here: recent poll suggests about half of American Muslims believe that Muslims themselves do not express sufficient criticism of Islamic extremism - interestingly, a strong majority of Muslims who feel this way are women. Are Muslim women the beachhead of fundamental reform of Islam in keeping with the requirements of a modern society? Maybe - therefore does that make one agree with France viz the banning of the burqha? Possibly - France like all of Europe has a Muslim integration problem that looks almost unfixable given current thinking and approaches - possibly the burqha ban is the kind of strong medicine needed that regardless of the bad taste ends up doing good. - on the other hand the ban could indeed be the manifestation of an innate cultural enmity, of an intractable incompatibility not amenable to persuasions of any sort and thus a precursor of dire troubles to come. So it is that one should remember, that if Europe has a Muslim problem, and it seems pretty clear it does, it was foolish, ill conceived policy decisions concerning immigration and social welfare and other endemic dysfunctions spawned by years of bad or otherwise misguided governance that created the problem - Europe brought the calamity on itself. Unfortunately, there's little consolation to be found in this acknowledgement - solving this problem will not be like fixing budgetary deficits or backing out of an unwise treaty or foreign policy misadventure - you can't simply say to the roiling, disgruntled Muslim underclass of Europe "Sorry guys - this really hasn't worked out the way we thought it would - do you mind just all going back to from whence you came?". Nope - I don't see how this gets anything but worse - I mean, Europe is broke - austerity measures are going to mean cuts in gov't services - that's gonna exacerbate the problem, no? I mean, sure, runaway social welfareism helped create the crisis - but you pull that lid from the pot without turning down the heat - well, something bad's gonna come boiling out of there.

And this: in the last year about a quarter million increase in amount of students choosing education in Madrassas in Turkey; also, in order to get into a university in Turkey, it is no longer required that you have graduated from a 'secular' high school, or whatever the high school equivalent is in Turkey. Do I trust Erdogan? Absolutely not. I'll be very curious to see how both he and Ahmadinejad try and manipulate events in Libya to their advantage - remember, Libya is backdoor entrance into Egypt - they both would love increased influence in Egyptian political matters - and one assumes the Muslim Brotherhood would welcome that influence.

I won't pretend to know much about economic theory, tax policy etc etc - I read some things from which I glean parcels of useful info but in the end the arguments hover well above my understanding - I do find it interesting that reputable and often well known Phds in the field can express diametrically opposed opinions when asked to comment on causes of current dire state of Western economies and indebtedness and what elected officials should or should not be doing about such - that's interesting and forces one to wonder if economics is a science or an ideology - maybe ideologies that manifest consequences to which scientific analysis can be provisionally applied - but regardless, I try to approach the issues with a sense of practicality - and so when democrats talk of raising taxes I make the what seems obvious objection: when you've so completely demonstrated your inability to spend the public's money wisely, why on earth would I think entrusting you with more of it a good thing? Likewise, when republicans talk about cutting taxes I say: I get how it seems counter intuitive to punish your most productive citizens, I get how big government can become a threat and impediment to the expression of vital freedoms - but how can I be certain that simply letting 'the rich' keep more of their money will result in greater productivity that benefits all? So it is it cheered my heart this morning while watching CNBC that a former CEO of a major enterprise [can't remember who and what] basically made the same points, ie - giving the gov't more money is like loosening the leash on the dog that's threatening to kill you; cutting taxes without incentivizing that stimulus towards increasing domestic productivity does not seem particularly enlightened either - he used the example that when he was a CEO and the Bush tax cuts were enacted those savings for the most part ended up being invested in China.

So, in short, for the average voter unencumbered by ideological bones in need of picking, it becomes I think fairly straight forward - the gov't spends too much money and often for reasons of highly dubious merit; the tax code is grossly inefficient and counter productive. Fix those things and maybe we can forestall a complete collapse of Western civilization.

Pentagon released its analysis of Chinese military modernization efforts - these things in last decade(s) have been notoriously bad, as in significantly underestimating the state of PLA upgrades - I've only browsed through it, but others with much more expertise than me seem so far to believe no egregious flaws jumping out - other than continuing attempt by Pentagon to say out one side of its mouth that China isn't a rising threat while out the other that they are - a perfunctory dance that I guess is necessary but is also starting to seem a bit silly - can't believe either side is much fooling the other at this point - but I suppose ambiguity has its sundry uses for both - China [that is gov't sponsored editorial] has of course declared that the Pentagon is way out of bounds with it's declarations even though what China is up to is pretty much obvious to anyone with a brain and an internet connection.

One phrase though did  jump out at me - that China lacks operational expertise - in other words, they may be acquiring the tools of modern war making, but they have no real world battle experience of putting those tools to good use - in other words, they've paraded, they've done the pep rallies, but haven't played an actual game yet. China's only significant military experience of the remotely modern variety was Korea and then briefly against Vietnam in the late 70's - but those experiences are of little to no relevance when it comes to 4th generation war, war as it has existed since Iraq, 1991. That's a big shortcoming, a significant roadblock to modernization if the point of that modernization is to compete with the vastly more experienced, battle tested and operationally vetted US military [and of course that is the point of the modernization - not that I'm saying China seeks war with America - rather, they want control of their corner of Pacific - at least that - and so their goal is to either gradually force the US out through various stratagems and intimidations and opportune alliances or, should hostilities come, to quickly get the advantage so as to convince America that pursing a military solution to the disagreement really wouldn't be worth it]

The upshot being here - if China truly wants to catch up to the US it needs to fight a war, several probably. Lucky for China, life being the perverse thing that it is, as an ambitious, rising power, war will inexorably find them out - such is the way of all flesh. Unfortunately, these 'wars' will also inexorably run up against American interests, directly or by insinuation - possibly forcing a charge into the breach betimes the readiness for such - and let's not forget, inexperience can foment an irrational enthusiasm for the thing not known.

But let's set aside jingoistic imponderables - what if China attempts to go the full Sun Tzu? And by that I mean taking Sun's dictum of the best victories being those won without having to actually fight for them, taking that dictum to its absurd extreme - if they never fight how can China ever truly modernize relative to the US? No doubt their heavy investment in cyberwarring is an attempt to address that paradox - still, sets up an interesting dilemma: either they truly modernize which means fighting wars and dealing with the complications and dangers arising thereof, not the least of which is inevitable conflict with American interests; or they eschew with Tzu, avoid the wars by means of other stratagems but by doing so fail to truly modernize and therefore remain vulnerable viz the US - with that vulnerabilty being dangerous not necessarily because it incites the US, but rather because it incites a wary and possibly paranoid delusional PLA to act rashly over some perceived slight or aggression - and remember, as I've remarked on before, there's a strong likelihood that the Politburo will increasingly come to rely on the stoking of hyper nationalism to control or subvert domestic problems - a dangerous combination that: autocracy, a strident sense of national purpose and unschooled militarism.

[Of course, this can all be rendered meaningless if Obama gets his way and turns the American military into the emasculated police force leftist European intellectuals have been dreaming about for awhile now - why do you think liberals are crowing about the false 'victory' in Libya, asserting it as proof of a new model for American military engagement?]

I see that a mere two days after my raising the notion of Huntsman running as an independent, that others are now doing same - I insist on believing I was the first to see the logic of it [although only the small comfort of this delusion shall be my reward] - apparently polls suggest that the electorate is particularly primed for a third party run this time around, what with the president seemingly not especially liked by anyone at this point and congress utterly despised by most as well -  to me it seems somewhat obvious since I don't know how else to explain Hunstman's doomed to fail strategy for winning the GOP primary. I mean, I suppose he could just simply be an idiot - so many of our best people are these days.

[and let's not forget Mitch Daniels as a 3rd party candidate since it seems the reason he dropped out was the critical attention his long separation from his wife would draw from social conservatives in the GOP primary - his wife apparently was none too thrilled by that prospect, and one can hardly blame her. But again, the thing about Huntsman is he's rich and it's hard to see anyone other than a rich guy being able to pull off a 3rd party run - I mean it's speculated that Obama could have as much as a billion dollars to put towards reelection - hell, this time next year the guy could be viewed by a significant majority as the worst president ever and still possibly pull out a victory with that kind of money to spend. Some people in this regard mention Trump - but that's mostly liberals trying to make conservatives look bad by linking their agenda with an idiot like Trump - the man's a clown and all that's needed is a cursory look beneath the veneer of his public persona to make that obvious to everyone and therefore he's not even remotely a serious candidate - shit, the guy appears in gaudy, low budget commercials in Canada hawking mattresses for one of his lousy companies - mattresses!! Again, liberals love the guy cause he makes conservatives look like morons - although, Trump voted for Obama, so... one almost starts to think that politics in America is in a perilously degenerative state]

Some reports coming out, supposed leaks from insiders, calling Mrs Obama's spending habits as Prima Donna 'disgusting'? That she's addicted to high end vacationing? That she's spent upwards of ten million on such in the last three years? I'm not a big fan of attacks on the prima donna, that comes across as cheap and petty - and this really has the feel of sour grapes from a disgruntled employee - I'm dubious of veracity of this story - having said that, if true, or if a reasonable semblance of truth attaches itself to the story, then Obama is toast - you might as well have him resign now and get Hillary in there - ten million? Jesus. I think even Sarah could beat him if that turns out to be accurate.

I had mentioned Krugman's lament for WWII type spending and ridiculed it with some light sarcasm - but I also thought at the time Krugman brought this argument up in a TV interview that it sounded quite flawed, that there was very little about America's position in the world then compared to now that would suggest such a huge spending spree would produce similar results - and Victor David Hanson has written this nice little piece making that very point. I like the analogy he makes that America under Obama has more in common with post war England, about to embark on a disastrous regimen of socialist policies, than with the hyper capitalist entrepreneurialism and, possibly more importantly for purposes of this post, robust industrial and manufacturing base of post war America. A soldier with just a high school education or even without had some reasonable expectation of returning home and maybe working for a Westinghouse, a Proctor and Gamble, a Bethlehem Steel, a General Motors - that is most decidedly not the case today.

What is really driving Zakaria’s commentary, I suspect, is what often happens when liberals are elected and fail: their supporters begin to lay blame on the American system of government. Jimmy Carter’s advisers did the same thing. It turned out the problem then, as now, wasn’t the American system of government; it was the American president. The failures of Obama cannot be laid at the feet of Madison. And if the public is wise, they will do to Obama in 2012 what they did to Carter in 1980.

That's from Peter Wehner at Commentary - I mean, it's an accruate statement and all, but mainly I like someone calling out Fareed Zakaria for what he is: a putatively 'objective' intellectual who was actually a shameless Obama promoter in 2008 and is now zealously morphing into a shameless Obama apologist as we head into 2012. We're seeing a lot of this - cadres rewriting history to suit the changing narrative of Dear Leader - Jon Stewart, another who shilled shamelessly for Obama in both primary and general elections, is now showcasing his objectivity by actually criticizing liberals as if to say 'no, it wasn't obsequious ideological blindness that caused me to blindly worship Obama - I honestly thought it was a reasonable idea to make a guy with no resume and few accomplishments president simply because he was black and gave nice speeches' - of course this is Stewart coming off his previous ploy of trying to convince people that Obama wasn't stumbling because of a too liberal agenda, but by not being liberal enough - this too is Krugman's life boat of choice: 'the stimulus plan should have been three times bigger!' - Krugman actually suggested a few days ago that WWII pulled us out of the last great contraction so something like that might be a good thing now - I don't think he was actually calling for a world wide military conflagration to save Dear Leader and the cherished illusions of the liberal agenda [boy, ironic doesn't even come close to capturing the twisted thinking there] but neither can I absolutely guarantee that he might not be willing to sacrifice a few million people in order to see the integrity of his uber lefty thinking redeemed. Hell, Mao had no problem killing about 50 million of his own people in order to preserve the sanctity of an idea [did I just compare Nobelist Paul Krugman to Mao? That can't be right]

[although, in fairness, seeing how much scorn I'm directing at Obama et al, in fairness I must say that republicans are idiots too - specifically I'm talking here about Gov Perry questioning the validity of the theory of evolution because, ya know, it's only a theory - I mean, these people can really put one in a foul mood - I still believe that great, powerful countries like America can only be governed successfully from the right, that enervation and decline, as we see presently playing out in Europe, are the natural consequences of leftist agendas - still, I'm not a fool - it often, way too often becomes a rock and a hard place conundrum trying to figure between republicans and democrats who's being the least annoying and idiotic in what they say -  related: haven't paid much attention to Huntsman's campaign for the nomination cause I figure he has no chance, and given the tactic he's taken up of criticizing his opponents with dead on assaults - for instance he faulted Perry on evolution silliness and Bachman on her ridiculous claim she'd lower gas to $2 a gallon -  that have thrilled democratic pundits he indeed does not stand a chance - but I caught a few interviews of his and I gotta say I came away somewhat impressed - which got me thinking: is it possible he's angling for an independent run? He's definitely got the money for it and the strategy he's employing may be suicide for a GOP primary but is probably perfect for an independent run - he seems too smart not to realize that what he's doing now can't succeed and therefore... - now, doubt he'd go with an independent run if Romney's the candidate since one Mormon is gonna be a tough enough sell for voters - but if Romney doesn't get the nod I dunno, how else explain what he's doing? I mean, he's been a successful governor, a businessman, as former ambassador to China he's got more foreign policy mojo than anyone else in the race - he speaks Mandarin for christ sake - did I say he's rich? I dunno - like I said, how else explain his strategy since one assume he's not an idiot]