The United States has some immutable traditions, which, to be fair, are based on the French Revolution and the European Enlightenment. The United States' Founding Fathers took those further, and the federalism of the United States also, of relatively powerful states trying to constrain federal government from becoming too centralized. Also added some important democratic controls and understandings. So there is a lot of good that has historically come from the United States.

But after World War II, during World War II, the federal government of the United States started sucking the resources to the center, and the power of states started to diminish. Interestingly, the First Amendment started overriding states' laws around that time, which I see as a function of increasing central power in the United States. I think the problems with the United States as a foreign power stem from, simply, its economic success, whereby it's, historically at least, a very rich country with a number of people and the desire left over as a result of

Let me explain this a bit better. The U.S. saw the French Revolution and it also saw the behavior of the U.K. and the other kings and dictatorships, so it intentionally produced a very weak President. The President was, however, given a lot of power for external relations, so as time has gone by, the presidency has managed to exercise its power through its foreign affairs function.

Herb Caen used to say that there is always a local angle in any news story. Well, the local angle in the story about three Americans who have been detained in Iran is a doozy; the 3 are UC Berkeley grads on some sort of Extreme Internet Journalism Expedition. They are also, naturally, "idealists." Not that this will make the slightest bit of difference to their jailers: Detained US Hikers Described As Idealists

Three Americans whose disappearance in Iran has prompted concern from U.S. officials are idealistic UC Berkeley graduates whose interest in Middle Eastern culture and human rights led them abroad to study and do freelance journalism, friends and colleagues said today

Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, who are 27, once lived in the same Oakland co-op and taught a student-led class at Berkeley that envisioned a harmonious, postcapitalist society. Sarah Shourd, 30, describes herself on one Web site as a lover of "fresh broccoli, Zapatistas and anyone who can change her mind."

Normally, these are the sort of goofy progressives that I like to make fun of, but as they are presently in some trouble, I will simply note that they do not sound like the sort of people who would do well under prolonged detention in Iran. Bauer, for one, is the sort of person who - in the wake of 9/11 - decided to learn to speak Arabic and major in "peace studies" at UC Berkeley.

Bauer graduated with honors from UC Berkeley in 2007, earning a bachelor's degree with a major in peace and conflict studies and a minor in Arabic. He went to Sudan's Darfur region to research a thesis on the crisis there.

In a course on producing photo projects, Bauer's essay on residential hotels in San Francisco's Tenderloin was selected by classmates to appear on the cover of a magazine that featured the semester's best work, said Adjunct Professor Ken Light.

"He just had a natural sense of how to get inside a story, how to reach out to people," Light said. After graduating, Light said, "He chose to be kind of a foreign correspondent in the new age of journalism. You have to find stories people are interested in, that haven't been done, and that you can sell."

Shourd sounds like the sort of girl you can find all over the Bay Area; a Berkeley grad working with kids who has a touchingly naive view of other cultures and who is astonishingly well traveled (Yemen would not be my choice for vacation).

Shourd is described by those who know her as passionate about teaching, traveling and politics. After receiving a bachelor's degree in English in May 2003, she worked as a tutor with Americorps, a tutoring service in Berkeley and a charter elementary school in Oakland.

"She's a lovely person," said Lisa Miller, director of Classroom Matters in Berkeley, where Shourd tutored mostly middle-school students for about a year. "She's very devoted to making a difference in the lives of young people."

Shourd also worked as a freelance journalist, writing about the Middle East on political and travel Web sites. For a travel site, she wrote a story about Yemen titled "Brave Eyes, Laughing Hearts" about wearing a veil and joining a local family for a Ramadan celebration.

Fattal appears to be the most traditional hippie in this group. If and when he emerges from capaivity, we can expect that he will be blathering about the gentle poetic souls of the men who were holding him prisoner:

Fattal, who earned his bachelor's degree in environmental economics and policy, is a Pennsylvania native who recently worked and lived at a sustainable living research center in Oregon.

A friend, Emily Busch, 25, of San Francisco said Fattal founded a class in spring 2005 called "Liberation and reality: moving toward a collective autonomy" through UC Berkeley's student-run DeCal program.

Liberation and Reality? Moving Toward a Collective Autonomy? Send this guy to Qom immediately! He will keep the mullahs tied up in philosophical "dialogue" until the Islamic Republic falls of its own accord.

Along with the North Korea 2, the Iran 3 represent the second set of Bay Area connected young adults who have been forcibly detained by a regime that is hostile to the US. In both cases, the detainees were hip, citizens of the world who made the elementary mistake of crossing over the border into a country that (1) would not be happy to see them (2) is paranoid about espionage and CIA plots and (3) has long practiced hostage taking as a diplomatic weopon.

Most people reading this probably think these folks are naive, but I would say their problem is their ignorance. Surprising as it may seem, the fraught, decades-long hostilities between the US and countries like Iran, North Korea, and Cuba is largely unknown to the under-30 crowd in general*. For people educated in "peace studies" and the like, their ignorance is compounded by their education, which emphasises US "oppression," rather than the tyrrannical, war-like posture of our enemies. We can only hope that these three survive an experience for which their backgrounds have left them woefully unprepared.

*starting about 10 years ago, I started meeting undergrads who had no idea that there had been an Iranian hostage crisis, the central drama between the US and Iran, and the basic reason why many in the US feel an instinctive hostility toward Iran. Yes, I blame our lousy public schools and superficial MSM for this state of ignorance.

I don't believe in global warming. I agree that there is climate change - it has changed over the millenia, for good and for bad - but I don't believe that humans have had an appreciable effect on climate change, and have little chance of manipulating the climate to our benefit. I suspect a lot more people share this view. Sadly, the poli-sci majors and law school graduates who make up the West's political elite are absolutely convinced that we are doomed doomed doomed based as much on scary graphics and movies with portentious music as on "science." Things have gotten so bad that our foreign policy has descended into the farce of nagging developing countries about their emissions. Unsurprisingly, we are being rebuffed out of hand India Rejects US Carbon Limits Plan

India dismissed suggestions that it accept binding limits on carbon emissions, with a top official Sunday delivering a strong rebuke to overtures from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the two countries to work together to combat climate change.

The rejection of the U.S. proposal was made in the middle of Mrs. Clinton's first visit to India as secretary of state and came just as the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is gearing up to push for a new global pact on climate change.

"There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told Mrs. Clinton and her delegation."And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours," he said, according to a written account of Mr. Ramesh's remarks to Mrs. Clinton in their meeting. Mr. Ramesh handed out copies of the account to reporters at a news conference afterward with Mrs. Clinton standing nearby.

India is an ally, but don't worry, we are nagging our rivals, too: Energy Secretary Warns China On Emissions

In meetings with senior Chinese energy officials and in a speech at prestigious Tsinghua University, Mr Chu continued the Obama administration's efforts to push for greater action on climate change. China recently surpassed the US as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. While acknowledging that the world's developed Western nations have contributed most of the carbon dioxide already trapped in the atmosphere, Mr Chu warned that China could add more in the next few decades than everything the US emitted since the Industrial Revolution. Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas. Mr. Chu said in the speech to students of China's top science and engineering school that "The developed world did make the problem, I admit that. But the developing world can make it much worse." Painting a grim picture of a world faced with making a tough choice between something bad might happen or something very bad might happen even if global warming is addressed, Mr Chu urged China to invest more in energy efficient technologies in partnership with the US.

While the US government is filled with nervous nellies like Sec. Chu, who fears the Heavens & the Earth, and possibly his own shadow, China and India are filled with ambitious technocrats who would like to make as much wealth as we ahve over the decades, but which we have now declared to be politically incorrect. According to the Obama Administration, if other countries won't get on board, we will just have to pay for the emissions reductions ourselves. Has this been thought through? Commerce Secretary America Needs To Pay For China's Emissions

It’s bad enough that the Obama administration wants to penalize all Americans for their energy use through the cap-and-tax scheme that will hobble our economy and hike electricity and gas costs, but until now they only proposed to penalize us for our own energy use. With China refusing to join the West in economic suicide, who will pay for their emissions? Commerce Secretary says that the American consumer is to blame for China’s energy-production emissions — and we’ll pay for that instead of the Chinese:

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said something amazing—U.S. consumers should pay for part of Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions. From Reuters: “It’s important that those who consume the products being made all around the world to the benefit of America — and it’s our own consumption activity that’s causing the emission of greenhouse gases, then quite frankly Americans need to pay for that,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke told the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai

So we'll either have a trade war or more massive increases in the cost of living - for Americans. Where's the diplomatic leverage? I would love hear what the developing world's diplomats have to say about our climate proposals behind closed doors. Whatever it is, the word "smart" probably doesn't come up.

I thought this picture - call it "Iranian Critic Quotes Khomini Principles" - was fantastic:







It presents an almost Medieval tableau; the old revolutionary denounces the present regime while the past and present Supreme Leader look on and a gent with an assassain's mien lurks behind a curtain. The heavy use of blue adds to the sense of heaven at war with the earth, as clerics war with one another over earthly concerns about power and corruption, cloaking their dispute in the words of religion.

The NY Times runs a story about young Somali men in Minneapolis who - for some reason that no one can understand - have left their comfortable jobs in Minnesota Nice to travel to a failed state like Somali to blow themselves up. Yeah, it's a mystery: A Call To Jihad, Answered In America

In November, Mr. Hassan and two other students dropped out of college and left for Somalia, the homeland they barely knew. Word soon spread that they had joined the Shabaab, a militant Islamist group aligned with Al Qaeda that is fighting to overthrow the fragile Somali government.

The students are among more than 20 young Americans who are the focus of what may be the most significant domestic terrorism investigation since Sept. 11. One of the men, Shirwa Ahmed, blew himself up in Somalia in October, becoming the first known American suicide bomber. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert M. Mueller, has said Mr. Ahmed was “radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota.”

(snip)

The men appear to have been motivated by a complex mix of politics and faith, and their communications show how some are trying to recruit other young Americans to their cause.

I'm sorry, but if you travel to east Africa (or anywhere else) to wage jihad, the word "American" does not apply. See you in Hell, boys.

This week's explosion of violence in western China between native Uighurs and Han Chinese has exposed the deadly fault lines in China's ethnic mix. It has also exposed the hypocritical silence from the International Community that cares not a whit for the behavior of autocrats but happily jeers the US's imaginied sins: China Locks Down Restive Region After Deadly Clashes

The Chinese government locked down this regional capital of 2.3 million people and other cities across its western desert region on Monday and early Tuesday, imposing curfews, cutting off cellphone and Internet services and sending armed police officers into neighborhoods after clashes erupted here on Sunday evening between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese. The fighting left at least 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured, according to the state news agency

To begin, there is the odd silence of the grievance mongers in the "Muslim Street," who stand ready to riot over rumors of flushed Korans in US prisons, but who are over the hills and far away when a dictatorship like China's kills their co-religionists. I am not a whiny Leftist, so I won't bore you with any fake outrage. I prefer the grim acknowledgement of eternal truths about human nature: China Silences The Muslim World

Han settlers take almost all the good jobs, business opportunities, and positions in the government and Party apparatus. Beijing has continually stripped Xinjiang of its mineral resources and crops. And now the Han are trying to take from the Uighurs their distinct identity. Beijing once thought that economic development would assimilate this minority, but relentless modernization — exploitation, really — has only created resentment. And so have policies that are intended to repress Uighur culture. Uighurs are ordered to shave their beards, not fast at Ramadan, and not pray in public outside mosques. Mosques are tightly controlled, and religious instruction for the young forbidden. Uighur-language instruction has been eliminated. In Kashgar, now known as Kashi, the government has been razing the buildings in the Old City to destroy the remnants of Uighur culture.

And, of course, Beijing employs brute force. The latest official death toll from this week’s disturbances is 184, but that number appears to undercount the dead. Observers say that this is the most deadly series of riots in China since the Tiananmen massacre twenty years ago, but that assessment is questionable. Ethnic fighting flared in Yining, the capital of the short-lived East Turkestan Republic, in early 1997. The unrest is thought to have led to at least several hundred deaths, and subsequent executions added to the toll.

Yet the death of hundreds, and probably thousands, of Uighurs and the systematic destruction of their culture has been met with an eerie silence from Muslim nations.

There is always talk about whether there is such a thing as American Exceptionalism. I don't think I will step on any toes when I say that the sophisticated American liberal elite would say "no, not really." The president himself has said as much. But, there is such a thing as Ameican Exceptionalism, whether you want to believe in it or not. Any country that takes it upon itself to stand astride the world stage has this. Would you deny that there is Russian Exceptionalism? French Exceptionalism?

This week we have seen Chinese Exceptionalism at work: Chinese Exceptionalism

The great part about being a Chinese dictatorship in a world with one rule set (Adam Smith's), is that your paramilitary forces can slaughter 140 156 protestors without even a whimper from the global community. Western political elites just don't care because a) business with China is more important than human rights and b) China reacts like a spoiled child when chastised, which makes it not worth the hassle. Of course, the reaction we see today on Chinese repression may become the same we see when similar things happen in the developed world.

America is still hearing about slavery and Bull Connor, events that are decades in the past, and which represent a vanished world. China is engaging in deadly ethnic and religious chauvanism right now. This is a vision of the world as it has been and as it apparently will be. Do you like what you see? The liberals at the NY Times do :A Strongman Is China's Rock In Ethnic Strife:

The nine-minute speech by the bureaucrat, Wang Lequan, was mostly government boilerplate: the riots were no homegrown problem, but “a massive conspiracy” to sabotage ethnic unity; Urumqi citizens should “point the spear toward hostile forces at home and abroad,” not at their neighbors; attacks on Han or Uighurs alike were heartbreaking.

Then he turned to the Han who were on the streets, repaying the riots’ blood debt. “Comrades, to start with, such action is fundamentally not necessary,” he told them briskly. “Our dictatorial force is fully able to knock out the evildoers, so there is no need to take such action.”

The four BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - are trying to move from a random acronym first decribed by an economist at Goldman Sachs (boooo!) to an actual trading bloc. Emerging Economies Meet In Russia

Leaders of the four largest emerging market economies discussed ways to reduce their reliance on the United States at their first formal summit meeting on Tuesday. But they concluded with only a cautious statement suggesting a move away from the dollar’s role in global commerce and a call for greater representation of developing countries in global financial institutions.

That's nice. Is it rude to point out that three of these four (India being the exception) have repeatedly expressed semi-hostile views about the United States, including Brazil's Lula blaming the financial crisis on "blue-eyed devils?"

Along with its good relations with the US, India is in many ways the odd man out in this group:

Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said the main point of the meeting was to show that “the BRIC should create conditions for a more just world order.”

The four countries produce about 15 percent of the world’s gross domestic product and hold about 40 percent of the gold and hard currency reserves, but they are not a unified bloc and do not do enough business among themselves to justify a trade alliance.

Russia and Brazil export natural resources, China exports manufactured goods and India bases its growth primarily on domestic demand. As such, India is not as concerned with the status of the dollar and is by no means as intent on scoring ideological points against the United States as is Russia.

Actually, the fact that these countries have been roped together in the BRIC is the least of their areas of common interest. In addition to being the most successful among the world's emerging economies, the BRIC are also among the world's most populous; China, India, and Brazil rank 1st, 2nd, and 5th, I believe. All are the dominant powers in their regions. All but India are at least quasi-socialist in their governance, with India having only recently moved away from the sway of socialism. And for all the talk of emerging middle classes in each country, the reality is that each of the BRIC countries has teeming masses of very poor people, with a small population of wealthy folks on top.

Still, it's not as if this is some ideologically cohesive group. Mostly what they are interested in is business, not politics.

Mr. Medvedev encouraged China, the world’s largest holder of dollar reserves, and other nations to put their money in some other currency or financial mechanism. He also urged members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to use their national currencies in conducting bilateral trade.

“There can be no successful currency system, and particularly a global system, if the financial instruments that are used are denominated in only one currency,” Mr. Medvedev said. “Today, this is the case and the currency is the dollar.”

The question of what sort of currency should be used in global trade is an interesting one, and is very much up in the air at this point. Short of a war or catostrophic economic collapse, it's hard to imagine that this will be the vehicle for a change in global finance.

We must be living through a Glorious Age of Progressive Values: now the FBI is ferreting out Communist spies in the State Department: Ex-State Department Official, Wife Face Cuba Spy Charges

A former U.S. State Department official and his wife have been arrested for spying for the Cuban government for nearly 30 years, the Justice Department said on Friday.

Walter Kendall Myers, 72, aided by his wife Gwendolyn Myers, 71, used his Top Secret security clearance to pass on classified information to the Cuban government and at one point met with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, according to court documents

What's amazing (to me) is that Walter Myers was recruited, and essentially told "go get a job at the Yanqui State Department and start spying!"

"Yes, sir! Right away, sir!"

According to court documents, the two were recruited in 1979 by a Cuban official who directed Kendall Myers to pursue a job at either the State Department or the CIA.

Myers worked part-time at the State Department since 1977 and joined full-time in 1985, eventually working his way up to a position of senior analyst specializing in intelligence analysis on European matters.

With a Top Secret/SCI security clearance, he had daily access to classified information and viewed more than 200 intelligence reports about Cuba, according to the affidavit.

He retired in 2007.

Gwendolyn Myers worked at a bank. The two received messages from the Cuban government via shortwave radio and hand-passed messages, and typically passed their responses to handlers by hand.

Gwendolyn Myers said her favorite way to pass information was by swapping carts at a grocery story, according to the affidavit filed by an FBI agent

Aw, that's nice. None dare call it treason, nor does anyone seem to think that these two are Communists, but we here at Free Will believe in calling a spade a spade and these two give every indication of being motivated by ideology, even if they say they were just trying to "help" Cuba.

A Justice Department official said they were motivated by a desire to help the Cuban government, not money. They traveled occasionally to Cuba and other locations across Latin America to meet with their handlers, and met Castro in 1995.

Kendall Myers told an undercover FBI source posing as a Cuban intelligence officer he had received "lots of medals" from the Cuban government.

What a peculiar life. A couple of progressive retirees, quietly living out their days in DC, fingering their Cuban medals and reminiscing about their meeting with The Beard.

To hear the Left tell it, there are no more communists. But, Cuba is still one of the Left's crown jewels, and Castro one of its Aging Lions. There are sitting US Congressmen who visit Cuba and declare it glorious. There are wealthy First World film makers who visit Cuba and declare that it is an example that "we" must follow. And, there is a seemingly endless supply of spies eager to "help" Cuba in its lonely fight against the Empire. They can't be blind to Cubas's manifest flaws: its poverty, its sexual exploitation, its gulags, its secret police, its political prisoners, its stultifying one party rule. These are well-known and beyond dispute. The Myers - and the rest of the Left - support all of that when they support Cuba and Castro. Isn't it time to stop pussyfooting around and simply call them communists until further notice?

Here's an amazing story about a group of amateurs led by a PhD candidate in Northern Virginia who have created a detailed map of North Korea using little more than Google Earth and scraps of information gleaned from the regime's propaganda photos. Gulags, Nukes and a Water Slide: Citizen Spies Lift North Korea's Veil

The great divide in American political life was on display during the dueling Cheney-Obama speeches. The Left was in raptures over Obama's rhetoric and "nuance." The Right was delighted that someone had finally issued a comprehensive defense of Bush-era War on Terror policy, complete with attacks on the NY Times (where was this 4 years ago?). Michael Ledeen is the lonely voice saying "You're both wrong." Cheney and Obama: The Great Evasion

For some years now, I have been concerned that the great national debate over the terror war has been systematically misguided. Instead of a discussion of the strategic issue, our leaders and pundits have dealt with tactical questions. And so it goes, most recently in Thursday’s speeches from former Vice President Dick Cheney and President Barack Obama. The strategic questions are finessed in favor of single pieces of the issue.

Ledeen is, of course, correct, not that this will do him any good.

American politics has always had a tendency towards reducing the great issues of the day to heated controversies over seemingly minor points, whether over the guilt of Alger Hiss, the propriety of Iran-Contra, or the definition of "is."

Thus, the "Guantanamo Question" is not really about civil liberties or the "tragic fall" of American morality. It has become a proxy battle for Leftist resentments against the Bush Administration, which reacted to 9/11 by repudiating the Left's carefully constructed civil liberties regime, after it had proven a deadly millstone around our national security. Rather than attack the Bush policies themselves (which were popular and necessary in the wake of 9/11), the Left has attacked them indirectly through wild claims about flushed Korans, "torture," and Abu Ghraib. Like a defense attorney chipping away at a beat cop's credibility on the witness stand, these attacks have been effective, but that doesn't change the fact that their clients are guilty as hell.

The problem with these proxy battles is the way in which they obscure the big picture issues for which they are a substitute. And, Republicans enable this by playing along, trying to match wits with Leftists arguing in bad faith, rather than keeping things on the simple plain level that the Cheney speech managed. But, even Cheney nods:

Neither asked, let alone answered, the big question: what are we facing? Who is our enemy? So neither had an answer: what should our overall strategy be? How will we win? How do we measure our progress?

From the beginning we have dealt with each theatre—whether Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Europe, the homeland—as a thing in itself, something requiring its own distinct approach. At no time, save for some general statements shortly after the 9/11 attacks, has any leader discussed the fact that we are involved in a big war, in which specific enemies are engaged against us. We have debated military tactics, ideological imperatives (from winning hearts and minds to challenging radical Islam, todeconstructing Islam itself), nation building, methods of interrogation, the use of one sort of court or another. But we have yet to face the central fact of the broad war, the big war, what I insist is the real war, the one that has been waged against us for decades, in which our enemies aim at our domination or destruction.

The problem for Ledeen is that no one really wants to confront a world-wide conspiracy. And yet, no one - especially on the Left - wants to be the one to say to the American public that he intends to stand down from the War on Terror. Thus, we are left with these proxy battles until the real one is joined again.

Bill Kristol surveys the carnage of the post-Pelosi press conference and declares a winner and MVP: Dick Cheney Is the Most Valuable Republican

Dick Cheney is reminding Republicans that they need to defend themselves when attacked.

When President Obama released the Justice Department interrogation memos a month ago, Cheney denounced him for doing so. He explained why it was inappropriate and unwise to release such documents. But he did more. He didn't just defend himself and the administration in which he served. He fought back, and encouraged others to do so.

He challenged the president to release CIA memos evaluating the effectiveness of the enhanced interrogation techniques. He raised the question of whether congressional Democrats--Nancy Pelosi, for one--had known of, and at least tacitly approved of, the allegedly horrifying abuses of the allegedly lawless Bush administration.

Now, a month later, Pelosi is attacking career CIA officials for lying to Congress, and other Democrats are scrambling to distance themselves from her. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has pulled back on threats to prosecute Bush-era lawyers, reversed itself on releasing photos of alleged military abuse of prisoners, and embraced the use of military commissions to try captured terrorists. The administration now looks irresponsible when it lives up to candidate Obama's rhetoric, and hypocritical when it vindicates Bush policies the candidate attacked

The weakness of the GOP is the tepidness of its political leaders. No matter what the issue, there is always a Lincoln, Chaffee, a John McCain, an Arlen Spector (well, not anymore), a George Voinovich willing to betray the party on some groundless "principle." Often, the principle is little more than a combination of personal aggrandizement and a desire to shut off the latest media/Lefty political - but I repeat myself - firestorm. That's no way to build a majority.

The "torture" debate has gotten so out of hand because GOP'ers spent years absorbing and internalizing attacks about the "shredding of the Constitution" that they'd forgotten why enhanced interrogation was necessary in the first place. 90% of the time GOP politicians cringe under the spotlight, rather than fight back against the dishonest attakcs of the Left. The Cheney Way, which is hardly radical (he simply and plainly states his case. What a concept!) is the only way to deal with the bad faith arguments of our political foes who are either clueless or want to disarm and weaken the power of the United States.

And who cares if Cheney has a 19% approval rating? A lot of that is the result of dishonest political attacks and the simple, mindless repetition of the "fact" that his poll numbers are low. Why in the world should that matter to conservatives? Cheney will never be allowed to obtain approval because - like Rush, Ann Coulter, Gov. Palin, Justice Thomas, and a few others - he is one of our best spokesmen. The other side knows this and thus tries to dminish him at every turn. We should not accept this sort of marginalization of our own side.

Naked Capitalism links to a Financial Times article about China's stockpiling of gold as a way of diversifying away from the dollar: China reveals big rise in gold reserves

China has nearly doubled its gold reserves in the last five years as it
diversified its enormous foreign exchange reserves away from US dollar assets,
the head of the country’s secretive foreign exchange administration said in a
rare disclosure on Friday.

The country now holds 1,054 tons of gold, up from the 600 tons it last
disclosed in 2003, according to Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe), which manages the country’s $1,954bn in foreign exchange reserves.

The spot gold price rose 1 per cent on Friday as investors saw the news as a
sign China will further increase its gold holdings as it continues to diversify
reserves away from the US dollar.

The pessimistic view is that this as an attack on US economic and political power: breaking news: China has been secretly stocking up on gold:

My analysis is this: The Chinese want to weaken the U.S.'s power derived through its currency status. They have been setting the stage to do so for some time. However, they want to act in a way that benefits them in the short- and long-term. Cutting loose in an uncontrolled fashion now benefits no one with the world economy in dire straits. However, when the economy does right itself, you should see some major changes in the currency markets.

Or, we could be getting out of the grip of China's unhealthy focus on holding our currency and acting as our creditor. It would perhaps also reduce the phenomena of oceans of money flowing around the world that was memorably described in Smick's "The World Is Curved."

Perhaps without intending to, the US has become too dependent on China's investments in US currency, equity, and debt as a means of funding our ever-expanding budget deficits. China is welcome to try to diminish US power by reducing the dollar's reserve status. However, doing so would harm China as much as it would hurt us. It is hard to imagine such a thing coming to pass without a major war or economic disruption as its proiximate cause.

We had previously discussed the successful paternity suit that a woman brought against the President of Paraguay, who fathered a child while serving as a Catholic bishop. Now, a third child has surfaced. Wait, where did the second come from? Woman: Paraguay's Lugo has Third Child

The latest woman to claim a child with Lugo is a 39-year-old divorcee with
two adult children who said she met Lugo three years ago, after he gave up his
church leadership position. And while the two other women are pursuing paternity
claims, she says has no plans to sue the president.

Unbelieveable. Lugo was a noisily Leftist "priest" throughout his career. I have to wonder about the sincerity of his religious faith, as his adherence to Catholic teaching was non-existent. Has anyone asked him if he even believes in God?

The third woman, for her part, seems to have loved him for his skills as a community organizer:

"I fell in love because as a man, he is phenomenal. He is charismatic. He was
my ideal of a man and social-political leader," Moran told Channel 4 television.
"I do not need money or his last name for the child, because I can support my
family. I am the owner of a child day care center and have plenty of work."

Blah Blah Blah. Lugo stands revealed as yet another Leftist, "marching through the institutions," weakening them from within while aggrandizing his own political power. In this case, he was willing to trade on the religious faiths, not just of his parishoners, but also of his lovers. No one seems concerned about how a such a fabulous "social political leader" could also father and abandon children like a petty feudal baron lording it over his serfs. Some would call that hypocracy, but he did it for The Cause, so everything's cool. While Progressives have forever proclaimed themselves to be the vanguard of the future, they never fail to reveal themselves to be the proponents of political and personal arrangements that are older than recorded history.

This essay by George Friedman at Stratfor crystalizes what I think of the Renault-esque "torture" debate we are having: Torture_and_u_s_intelligence_failure

The endless argument over torture, the posturing of both critics and
defenders, misses the crucial point. The United States turned to torture because it has experienced a massive intelligence failure reaching back a decade. The U.S. intelligence community simply failed to gather sufficient information on al Qaeda’s intentions, capability, organization and personnel. The use of torture was not part of a competent intelligence effort, but a response to a massive intelligence failure.

That failure was rooted in a range of miscalculations over time. There was the public belief that the end of the Cold War meant the United States didn’t need a major intelligence effort, a point made by the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan. There were the intelligence people who regarded Afghanistan as old news. There was the Torricelli amendment that made recruiting people with ties to terrorist groups illegal without special approval. There were the Middle East experts who could not understand that al Qaeda was fundamentally different from anything seen before. The list of the guilty is endless, and ultimately includes the American people, who always seem to believe that the view of the world as a dangerous place is something made up by contractors and bureaucrats.

Our sprawling intelligence services are one of the many American institutions that have simply ceased to function properly. This is not just because of funding cuts or a liberal approach to law enforcement and war that instinctively wants to hamstring US power. It is also because of the services themselves, which cultivated an air of omniscence, even as they hunkered down in the DC suburbs and issued intelligence reports that were easily contradicted by commonly available sources, and even common sense. After completely missing 9/11 and declaring WMD's in Iraq to be a "slam dunk," we are now told (as of the last NIE) that Iran is not developing nukes. Does anyone outside of the CIA and the State Department believe this? Surely, the exemplar for the "modern" CIA is Valerie Plame, a middle-class suburban matron whose "spy" career was largely spent driving through the front gates of CIA headquarters every morning, where she helped lead the disastrous WMD team.

CIA apologists have fretted that Obama's release of the torture memo will cause "good people" to leave the CIA. The good people left long ago. I would love it if the deadwood resigned en masse over this suposed betrayal, but they won't. Like UAW members clinging to their over-priced union jobs in dying car maunfacturers, today's CIA employee is a comfortable bureaucratic lifer whiling out his days in Northern Virginia, producing (and leaking) reports with little bearing in reality. The illusions that they create are a far greater danger than the threats we face, as we focus on the CIA's fantasies, rather than harsh reality.

If you are a man and you are convicted of drug dealing and kidnapping, that's pretty much it. But, if you are a woman, you can always try to wiggle out by falling back on your assets - that is if you are a pretty French woman with a soulful look in her eyes.

The woman, Florence Cassez, was convicted of kidnapping and other crimes and was eventually sentenced to 60 years in jail. Case closed, it would seem.

But through it all, Ms. Cassez, 34, has maintained her innocence. Her boyfriend, Israel Vallarta, who confessed, said she knew nothing. And the television images of police officers storming the ranch? The raid turned out to have been staged the day after the couple was arrested and the hostages released.

The case has climbed back into the headlines here because President Nicolas Sarkozy of France wants her home — and all but said so in a state visit to Mexico last month. In France, television news shows and jailhouse interviews have been spinning a tale of a love-affair-turned-nightmare in the murky workings of Mexican justice.

Very touching, but her problem is a propensity for bad boys that got out of hand.

She has stuck to the main details of her story. She arrived in Mexico in
2003 to live and work with her brother, who was then here with his Mexican wife.
Through him, she met Mr. Vallarta the following year. The pair began a difficult
relationship that alienated her friends, who sensed that he was trouble. She
spent the summer of 2005 in France but Mr. Vallarta called her and she returned
to Mexico to live at the ranch. She found a job in a hotel and looked for an
apartment closer to her job.

Although she said in her police declaration that the couple had broken up,
she described eating meals with Mr. Vallarta and socializing with his family in
the days before the arrests. During that time, she said, he had left her alone
at the ranch while he took a trip.

Watch yourself on Spring Break, girls! This could happen to you! I love how she now says she "sensed he was trouble." I think we all know that's not how it worked at the time. She loved to good life and the danger of hanging out with a Bad Azz drug dealer.

The kidnappees report that, while imprisoned at the ranch, they were berated by a woman speaking with a French accent. Sounds good to me.

Hmmm. A Chinese national uses US banks to sell nuclear materials to Iran? Better put that story on page A19 in the "local & regional news section:"Indictment Says Banned Materials Sold to Iran:

Prosecutors in New York have charged a Chinese businessman and his company with a conspiracy relating to the sale of sensitive materials to Iran, covert transactions that prosecutors say violatedUnited Nations bans aimed at restraining Tehran’s rocket and nuclear ambitions.

According to an indictment unsealed in Manhattan on Tuesday, the Chinese company sold tungsten, high-strength steels and exotic metals to the Defense Industries Organization, an arm of the Iranian military, from 2006 to 2008, often using shell companies to hide the transactions. Both Defense Industries and the Chinese parent company, the Limmt Economic and Trade Company, are banned by the Treasury Department from doing business in the United States.

Obama has made a quick trip to visit the troops in Iraq: In Baghdad, Obama Presses Iraqi Leader to Unite Factions: