(First published in the Vallejo Times-Herald) 

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Analyst Barry Rubin argues here that the United Kingdom has turned a corner in dealing with radical Islam. He cites three decisions:

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The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens reviews here a play he just saw in New York, where it arrived after a run in London. Entitled “Seven Jewish Children,” the play traces the history of a family from the Holocaust to modern-day Israel, depicting the Jews in the story as having morphed from victims into perpetrators.

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(First published in the Vallejo Times-Herald) 

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At a time when California is cutting services and raising taxes, it is nice to know that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is making careful use of our money. From the Los Angeles Times:

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Nothing easier. There are, after all, only two stories.

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The president of the United States just fired the CEO of a major American company.

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In an article in last week’s Jewish Week, editor/publisher Gary Rosenblatt qualifies his co-sponsorship of an evening at a Westchester Jewish film festival in which a documentary entitled Waiting For Armageddon was screened. Although he praises the film’s production values and calls it “riveting and provocative,” he worries that the film is misleading, leaving “the viewer with the impression that all Evangelicals are as zealous as these folks, who hope the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem will be destroyed as soon as possible and who seem to relish the prospect of the monumental bloodbath that will herald the Second Coming.” It’s no secret that liberal Jews, many led by the Reform movement, have regarded Evangelical Christians as more worrisome than Radical Jihadists and have distanced themselves from their sustained support by questioning their motivation. Despite the fact that Evangelicals continued their missions to Israel throughout both Intifadas while many Jewish organizations canceled their programs, the Christian Right is viewed as too great a threat to the separation of church and state for liberal Jews to tolerate. The same Jews who call for dialogue with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah want no truck with Evangelists under any circumstances.

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So little time, so much to comment on. A few more quick hits:

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Rarely has a story without physical violence struck with such impact. The United States Government, presumably limited in power under our system, has forced out the head of General Motors, and is requiring Chrysler to merge, as conditions of further federal aid. From The New York Times:

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The administration’s plan to send 4,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan is a step in the right direction. The fight against the jihadi war machine in that region must meet the strategic threat posed by the Taliban network and the Al Qaeda organization. They threaten not only NATO troops and the government in Kabul, but also Afghan civilians and, just as importantly, the democratically elected government in Pakistan.

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As I’ve described in the past, the Investor Village message board–a disgraceful vehicle for misinformation during the subprime lending crisis–has distinguished itself in the cause of investor poverty.

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There has been a lot in the news lately about marijuana, both its use for medicinal purposes and its possible legalization in general.  President Barack Obama revealed that the matter of potential legalization was the most asked question by people participating in his internet town hall this week.

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This morning’s news is that the Obama administration has a new approach to combat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan; that Al Qaeda represents a very serious threat to the United States. This threat analysis is confirmed here, in an article on the administration’s commitment to keep counterterrorism as the top priority of the Department of Justice and the FBI.

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Capitalism has a basic weakness. No, it is not greed. It periodically causes production to outstrip consumption. That is what happened during the great depression and this is what is happening now. There are two possible solutions to the conundrum. The World War II one: Redirect production to weapons and then to rebuilding of what the weapons destroyed. The second - increase the number of consumers.

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I am back from Israel where the combination of watching helplessly the mental and physical deterioration of my beloved mother, listening to the unabashed negative coverage of Bibi Netanyahu’s efforts to construct a broad coalition able to face down the Iranian challenge and pitying the impossible conundrum in which Ilan Shalit’s parents placed Ehud Olmert by insisting that he place their son’s well being above that of the country severly limited my ability to smile.

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     I recently watched a softball game played by seven and eight year old girls, one of whom is my granddaughter and my only reason for being there.  The opposing team had a gung-ho coach who believed that every child, no matter how unathletic, required loud re-enforcement for every swing of the bat. She stood about twenty feet away from the plate and yelled instructions to “touch the plate, give me a practice swing, take your time, keep your eye on the ball,” the usual bromidic advice for young batters and certainly not harmful to hear.  After each failed swing, she had a different positive message that increased in ludicrousness with every strike.  The first one elicited “good eye contact,” which progressed to “good watching,” and finally “good waiting” and “good job.”

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All too little attention has been paid to President Barack Obama’s shocking plan to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries.

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Caroline Glick has an interesting piece today on the Center for Security Policy’s web site in which she unpacks the story surrounding Israeli left-wing media outlets’ release of interviews of IDF soldiers recounting alleged abuse of Palestinian civilians during Operation Cast Lead.

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Joe Biden was wrong when he stated that he expected President Obama to be tested within six moths of his taking office by some foreign power. Not just Obama is going to be tried. The whole soft power, multilateralism, diplomacy-will-open-all-doors liberal foreign policy is on trial.

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I have a significant problem with the Treasury bailout of the financial system’s toxic assets announced Monday by Treasury Secretary Geitner. The problem is that the stock market went up almost 500 points on the Dow and is now up 21% in a couple of weeks. What’s the danger, you ask? Good question. The public is going to believe that the solution to the stock market decline was the government. They are going to believe that the Treasury rode in on a white horse, swooped up the damsel in distress and saved her from the fire breathing dragon.

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Remember when Candidate Obama reassured a Jewish audience that he would support the State of Israel? Well, as is the case with so many campaign promises, this one may be honored primarily in the breach.

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President Obama, in his recent offer to the Russians, appeared to propose abandoning the missile defense system that the previous administration wished to install in Poland and the Czech Republic. The quid pro quo was Russian support for keeping Iran from obtaining the missiles that the system was designed to stop.

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Let’s get this straight: Roman Catholic priests in Africa — some married with children, in blunt violation of church teaching — can further offend the doctrine of their faith by recommending condom use, and the story barely reaches our shores.

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The president “reached out” - that awful term - to Iran this week, sending a video message to the Iranian government and people. The first reviews are in from Iran, and they are less than raves. It seems that no one in the mullah regime is buying tickets to the negotiations with America. Instead, Iran’s leaders have lectured the president, insisting that Washington must change its policies before there can be any progress in reconciling the two nations. It would appear that the Iranian regime’s eagerness for mutual warmth is limited - unless we abandoned Israel, stopped objecting to Tehran’s support for terror, and went easy on this nuclear-bomb business. In other words, when the mullahs can inspect the towel we’ve thrown in, they’ll smile.

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In case you haven’t noticed, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are turning the United States into the Soviet Union.

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I haven’t prepared anything for March 24th on this 10th anniversary of America’s greatest shame. But as regular readers know, around here every day is March 24, 1999. So I’m going to just post most of an article that appeared last week in a northern San Diego paper — from which I learned that March 24, 1999 had been foreshadowed by March 24, 1946.

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This week I have a piece on the web site of the Center for Security Policy detailing former deputy national security advisor Elliott Abrams’ views on President Obama’s chances of effectively employing sanctions to squeeze Iran’s leadership as well as his take on possibilities if sanctions fail.

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In 2005, a young lady from Mountain Brook, Alabama, disappeared in Aruba after getting into a car with three local boys outside a bar called Carlos and Charlie’s. Her name was Natalee Holloway. Since then, there have been massive searches for her and endless speculation on her fate. To no avail. The main suspect in the case, Joran van der Sloot, is a pathological liar who has changed his story of the night of Natalee’s disappearance at least seven times. He was the final person to see Natalee on that fateful night. The final conclusion is that she will never be found alive again. The story now is the valiant effort of a father’s love still hoping to find his little girl. Against all odds, Dave Holloway is mounting a last ditch effort to recover the body of his beloved daughter by hiring a man and his dogs to scour a pond where a witness claims he saw Joran van der Sloot that night with a missing shoe in the vicinity of the pond. It is a long shot. It is likely nothing new will be found. That is not the point.

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