ON THIS DAY, 15 YEARS AGO

BBC:

"1989: Romania's 'first couple' executed - Deposed Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena have been shot by a firing squad after a secret military tribunal found them both guilty of crimes against the state. They were charged and convicted of genocide and undermining the national economy among a series of other offences, officials said."

Looking back, it is impossible not to agree that the last 25 years have brought more of humanity than ever closer to lives of liberty and the prosperity that only liberty produces.

Today - and for the last two years - the struggle to liberate our brothers and sisters in the Middle East has taken a heavy toll, but the prize is closer than it has ever been: Palestinian Arabs are having a rolling election - local positions now, culiminating with a presidential election in a few weeks; Iraq will soon have a presidential election in five weeks; in Central Asia, Afghanistan just had one.

Twisted tyrannical utopianist maniacs will stop at nothing to prevent the spread of liberty. They know that their evil totalitarian ideology cannot prevail within a democracy, so they deperately try to prevent the democratic revolution from spreading.

They will fail. Because their creed is of a bygone era when people could be enslaved by rulers who claimed to know better - or claimed to have a divine right to rule - ideas that've been completely discredited, and are properly consigned to the dustbin of history. Their time has passed.

What we see now are the violent death-throes of the condemned and soon to be buried. Why am I so sure that liberty and democracy will defeat tyranny and terror; well... as the wise man once said: yesterday has never defeated tomorrow. Tomorrow is inevitable - so is the spread of liberty and democracy.

I only wish more people - especially the Left (and the Old Media they dominate), and the Old "take freedom for granted" Europeans - appreciated that spreading democracy and human rights is our responsibility (America's - because we're the world's oldest, richest and strongest democracy; and Old Europe's because they should extend a hand to others in their time of need as a hand was extended to them in WW2).

Post-modernist Leftist ideology prevents this. Through "the academy" it has dominated, the post-modernism has infected the Left here in the USA, and in most the nations of Old Europe since the middle of the last century. It has promulgated an anti-West/anti-colonial version of history and promoted the culturally and morally relativistic ideology that is its twin.

This immoral, false and politically impotent ideology asserts that all cultures and all value systems are equivalent. And since all systems are equivalent, the only reason one dominates another is brute force - and, it asserts using brute force to "foist" YOUR value system on any another culture is bad/wrong - unless there is international/cross-cultural unanimity (which is why they ADORE the UN, and have only momentary regrets when the UN fails to act to prevent genocide in Rwanda or the Sudan or anywhere else). To Leftists/post-modernists only CONSENSUS can authorize/legalize/justify one culture interfering in another - EVEN IF THERE IS WIDESPREAD SYSTEMATIC HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS INCLUDING GENOCIDE. Can anything be more morally bankrupt?

I think not. I think that all humans everywhere deserve their inalienable rights. If that makes me a neo-con then FDR and Eleanor were neo-cons. And Blair is a neo-con. That's good company. Better than Kofi or Chirac. Or Ceausescu. Or Castro. Or Milosevic. Or Arafat. Or Mugabe. Or Bin Laden. Or Kim Jong Il. Or Assad. Or Khomeini. Or Saddam.

IRAQI POLICE: "SYRIA BEHND NAJAF BOMBING!"

KHALEEJ TIMES - Iraqi police see Syrian hand in Najaf bombing (AFP)

25 December 2004

NAJAF, Iraq - The Iraqi police chief in Najaf accused the Syrian government Saturday of involvement in last weekend’s deadly bombing that killed 52 people in the Shiite pilgrimage city. One of three suspects arrested in Najaf immediately after the attack “confessed that Syrian intelligence services had played a role in the blast”, on December 19 that wounded more than 140 people, said General Ghaleb al-Jazairi. “He had lived in Syria where he began to work for the Syrian intelligence” at a camp for Iraqi refugees, he said.

IT'S TIME TO RETALIATE AGAINST SYRIA, AND I DO NOT MEAN MORE SANCTIONS; IT'S TIME TO WHACK THEM MILITARILY!

JAPAN ABOUT TO TURN UP HEAT ON NORTH KOREA

JAPAN TIMES (by REIJI YOSHIDA) :

"Japan doesn't buy North's 'evidence' -- Pyongyang faces sanctions"

The information and items North Korea provided pertaining to 10 missing Japanese are not credible, the government said Friday, warning Pyongyang faces economic sanctions if it continues its "insincere" attitude over the abductions. "Options could include economic sanctions, although this has not been decided as the first choice," Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters. Friday's announcement is expected to raise diplomatic tension by another critical notch, as domestic pressure mounts for the government to slap sanctions on North Korea.

I think this story demonstrates that North Korea presents a real danger to the nations in the region (and through them the world) - and that (contrary to what Leftists would want you to think) this has NOTHING to do with American hegemony or Bush (or the neo-cons or the Likudniks), and everything to do with the fact that the Kim Jong Il regime is a savage, untrustworthy totalitarian regime.

It is time for regime change - and (in large measure) that will depend on China assuming its responsibilities as the biggest power in the region with close ties to North Korea.

UPDATE: more on the Japan angle HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.

More on the China angle HERE.

AND NOW THIS UNDER-REPORTED STORY:

Only last week was it revealed that last month in Austria somebody made an attempt to assassinate Kim Jong Il's son - Kim Jong Nam. According to GOOGLE NEWS, this story was reported by only a handful of news outlet they cover; HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE - most of them South Korean outlets. Nothing in any of the stories has convinced me of who was behind the attempt - pro-Kim Jong Il or anti-Kim Jong Il forces. ONE THING IS FOR SURE: it can only indicate that the situation within North Korea is dire and desperate, and that the regime is teetering... STAY TUNED!

THE MYTH OF AMERICAN CULTURAL HEGEMONY - or - WHY SO-CALLED "AMERICAN CULTURE" PREVAILS

American culture prevails over other cultures because American culture is AD HOC.

AD HOC: "Something that is ad hoc or that is done on an ad hoc basis happens or is done only when the situation makes it necessary or desirable, rather than being arranged in advance or being part of a general plan."

American culture evolves in ways that are determined AD HOC by the people - not by the design of "the academy" or "the politburo" or "the Upper West Side" or "the chattering classes" or the "chic degenerati" or the elitist Left and the Old Media they dominate.

That's why American culture is an ever-evolving amalgam of the marketplace of ideas & products & services. The people - at any given time and place - determine for themselves what their culture is.

That's why American musical culture has gone from Brass Band to Big Band to Jazz Combo to Rock & Roll to Disco to Hip Hop - it's not the result of what some big-shots in some big offices decide. In America: "Culture happens!"

SO... when you hear leaders in other nations (or cultures) argue that they "want to prevent American Culture from overtaking their own" what they are really really proposing and doing is to prevent their people from reading & writing and listening & playing and filming & viewing and dressing or doing as they please. In effect, it is nothing more than fascism.

One of the favorite targets of culture elitists (who would prefer a system in which they themselves would pre-determine what YOUR culture "should be") is Hollywood - as if Hollywood movies were somehow uniquely American.

This is false, if not: absurd.

First of all, the Hollywood movie style was developed by trial & error in an effort to discover a way to manufacture a "moving picture story" that could be most widely distributed to a mass market comprised of disparate elements. To discover this style the studio moguls (themselves nearly all immigrants from various non-American cultures) hired talent from all over the world: Europe, Asia - everywhere; the who's who of early Hollywood is utterly international and multi-cultural. What this multi-cultural group was able to discover and perfect was a moving-picture story-style which was TRANS-CULTURAL and therefore "available" to audiences from any culture.

Further proof that this style is itself non-cultural is the fact that this style can be used to manufacture a moving-picture story in any language, and on just about any subject, with any political POV: elitist; subversive; anti-American; Marxist; porn; NAZI, etc.

So when you hear elitists (like Chirac) say that they want to put quotas on Hollywood movies to protect their own industry or their own culture from "American Cultural Hegemony" what they are really doing is preventing the people from deciding for themselves what they want to watch.

And this is the same attack on personal liberty when Chirac makes it against Hollywood, as when Bin Laden makes it against the West.

Neither wants the people themselves to decide for themselves what to: read or write; or play or listen to; or how to dress - or anything. They are both cultural elitists who think they know better what anybody should write or read or view or listen to; (YES: France has IMPOSED quotas on their radio-stations against too much "Anglo-music"). Neither trusts the people to decide for themselves.

If they had real confidence in their own culture, then they wouldn't fear competition with any other culture. They wouldn't have to ban the hijab on the one hand, or mandate the burkha on the other. They are - like all statists/elitists - birds of a feather.

The strength of American culture - so-called - is that it is FREE TO EVOLVE HOWEVER THE PEOPLE WANT IT TO EVOLVE. It absorbs whatever it wants from wherever it wants for as long as it wants - and "it" is the people, the "marketplace" if you prefer.

Within this ever-evolving culture, people are of course free to maintain enclaves of whatever they wish: they can be more devout & conservative (like 50's greasers, or Amish), or they can be xenophiles (like Woody Allen and Michael Moore and their fixation on the pre-eminence of French culture), or they can even be trekkies. This is because a FREE culture doesn't demand that everybody tows the line - heterogeneity and pluralism are fine in an open culture. That's why it evolves. America's culture is open-sourced and free; anti-American elitists are closed-minded and dictatorial.

And, that's why the LAND OF THE FREE is the home of world culture: because here the public determines what culture is (at any given moment) - and not members of the Academy or Mullahs or aristocrats of any stripe.

That's democracy of culture, and like democracy in the political realm: it only frightens tyrants. As well it should.

FRENCH EX-HOSTAGE ON IRAQ: "IT'S JIHAD, STUPID!"

AFP:

"We really understood that these kidnappers were driven not by an Iraqi agenda, but by an agenda of Islamic holy war." (Said by ex-hostage Georges Malbrunot)

I hope that shuts up everyone who (like Michael Moore) claims that what's going on now in Iraq is an insurgency driven by Iraqi nationalism. It ain't. "It's Jihad, stupid!" And that means that Iraq really is the central battlefield in the GWOT.

And with stakes this large, we cannot afford to let Syrian perfidy make us fail. (See below.)

UPDATE: This article in the NYTIMES conveniently omits the above quote; this selective omission reveals that the NYTIMES doesn't want its readers to discover what the French hostages did discover: that the Iraq War as part of the GWOT.

**UPDATE - BBC: The Beeb has the quote translated this way:

"We were very aware of the fact that it wasn't the Iraqi agenda that motivated our kidnappers, but the internationalist jihadist agenda."

I think that the Beeb and the Kuwati press reports on this matter are less biased than the NYTIMES. Unlike the NYTIMES, they both make it CLEAR that the French hostage now believes that Iraq is now part of the war against Jihadoterrorism.

LEFTIST ILLOGIC

VIKINGPUNDIT: "I’m always amused that the same people who doubt the mathematical bankruptcy of Social Security also know that global warming is a genuine threat to mankind."

Brilliant.

May I add another: they're the same kind of people who say "Bush is Hitler" and "Zarqawi is an insurgent."

For more on why Social Security is nothing more than a Ponzi Scheme that is destined to go broke click HERE.

For more on why global warming is a hoax click HERE. For more on which global ecological problems we should be working on click HERE (hat-tip BETSY'S PAGE).

US PREPARING TO STRIKE IRAQI BAATHISTS WITHIN SYRIA

VIA POWERLINE (JPost):

The US is contemplating incursions into Syrian territory in an attempt to kill or capture Iraqi Ba'athists who, it believes, are directing at least part of the attacks against US targets in Iraq, a senior administration official told The Jerusalem Post. The official said that fresh sanctions are likely to be implemented, but added that the US needs to be more "aggressive" after Tuesday's deadly attack on a US base in Mosul. The comment suggested that the US believes the attack on the mess tent, in which 22 people were killed, may have been coordinated from inside Syrian territory.

Incursions are a start. Cruise missiles would make a convincing "chaser"...

PUTIN: "UNABASHED STATIST" IS PUTTING IT POLITELY

IHT:

"Today the state, using absolutely legal market mechanisms, is securing its interests. I consider this to be quite normal." As Russia moves toward greater centralization, Putin's remarks amounted to a restatement of his existing positions. They were also an explanation of views that are driving the nation in an autocratic direction. And they were notable at moments for their defiant tone, and even for the president's sharply personal lines of attack. Speaking of a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Texas, who had issued an injunction last week trying to block the auction of Yuganskneftegaz, the Yukos subsidiary, Putin used a manner surprisingly harsh for a head of state. "I am not even sure that the judge knows where Russia is," he said at an annual holiday-season press conference in the Kremlin.

"... SECURING THE INTERESTS OF THE STATE..." - These are chilling words (reinforced by many anti-reform/anti-libertarian deeds) spoken by a megalomaniac young enough to rule Russian with an iron fist for another two decades. SCARY.

RTWT.

FANNIE MAE WHISTLEBLOWER... a true hero

The "$9 BILLION Fannie Mae accounting scandal" whistleblower was a Clinton appointee - Armando Falcon.

His confirmation hearing in 1999, and his first few appearances on the Hill went badly: he seemed incompetent; ill-informed; and not ready for prime time.

Makes me wonder: IS THIS WHY HE WAS APPOINTED BY CLINTON? DID CLINTON THINK HE WOULD BE TOO INCOMPETENT TO CATCH HIS CRONIES THIEVERY?

Like the Sean Connery character in the much underrated SCI-FI flick OUTLAND - a seemingly incompetent investigator sent to a mining satellite where there have been a series of murders (which his bosses actually do NOT want solved) - Falcon proved them wrong; he was up to the challenge.

From The NY TIMES:

How this moribund regulatory agency [Ofheo] - which members of Congress were trying to strip of its powers as recently as last spring - transformed itself into a powerhouse that could force so consummate a politician and businessman as Mr. Raines to back down is a testament, several observers in Washington said, to the perseverance of Mr. Falcon, a soft-spoken and often underestimated 44-year-old lawyer. "This is not a crusader," said Stanley Sporkin, the former head of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has advised Mr. Falcon in recent months. "This is a very, very deliberate, decent, focused person, who once he makes a decision, he carries it out; he does not vacillate. [my emphasis - kinda sounds like our president, doesn't it? ...] Mr. Falcon's future is unclear: his appointment at Ofheo [the oversight agency] expired in October and he has said that he intends only to remain until his successor, who must be nominated by President Bush, is confirmed. But even among some of his critics, Mr. Falcon has now earned a new measure of respect. "He has been powerfully vindicated," Mr. Ely said."

INDEED.

The last words of the "misunderestimated" Connery character in OUTLAND are two of the best words in the English language: "JOB DONE." They're especially sweet when you got the job is done when no one expected you to. As Falcon did. Unlike the character in OUTLAND, Falcon is a REAL hero. God Bless him.

Elections in the Occupied Territories May be the Beginning of the End for Arab-Palestinian Jihadoterrorism

Ramallah, West Bank, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- The first phase of Palestinian municipal elections kicked off in 26 West Bank towns and villages Thursday amid tight security. Israel agreed to allow 1,000 armed Palestinian police to deploy at the polling stations to ensure smooth proceedings for the first municipal polls to be held in the Palestinian territories since 1976.

As Natan Sharansky has eloquently argued, democracy is the road to peace.

Iran and Syria ADMIT they're an axis

KUWAITI NEWS:

DAMASCUS, Dec 23 (KUNA) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi affirmed ‏ on Thursday necessity of continuous coordination between Iran and Syria and ‏ ‏confirmed that his talks with President Bashar Al-Assad dealt with Iraqi ‏ ‏issues.‏

Need we say more?

HOW DID THE SUICIDE BOMBER GET INSIDE OUR BASE?

UK TIMES:

Mosul bomb raises fears of infiltration at US army bases

From James Hider in Baghdad

THE explosion that killed 22 soldiers and contractors on an American army base in Mosul on Tuesday was probably the work of a suicide bomber, not a rocket attack, the Pentagon disclosed yesterday. “At this point, it looks like it was an improvised explosive device worn by an attacker,” General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon briefing. [...] One Western security expert said that it was impossible to screen everyone entering the bases with so many personnel involved. “The sheer logistics of life support for the Americans make it physically impossible to check everything,” he said.

This is my guess: the suicide bomber got inside the base as member of the press - the MSM; the Old Media - he was probably not a blogger.

UPDATE: others also think the media have helped the enemy (hat-tip WINDS OF CHANGE).

UPDATE: over at BELMONT CLUB, Wretchard makes a powerful case that the media (specifically AP) may have been involved in the brutal execution of electoral workers in Baghdad.)

****UPDATE (from the Aussie HERALD SUN ): "It is now believed a 24-year-old man from Mosul who had worked at the base for two months strode into the dining room wearing a suicide vest and detonated it. "

******UPDATE (AP): BAGHDAD, Iraq - The suicide bomber who blew himself up in a U.S. military dining tent this week, killing more than 20 people was probably wearing an Iraqi military uniform, the U.S. general in charge of the region said Thursday.

MORE ON THE RANSOM PAID BY FRANCE TO THE JIHADOTERRORISTS

From the UK GUARDIAN:

"Nor has France shied away from paying ransoms in the past: it is known (although still officially denied) to have paid up to £2m to free hostages held in Lebanon in 1988, when Mr Chirac was prime minister and François Mitterrand president. Indeed, a former aide of Mr Mitterrand's confirmed in a 2002 interview that ransoms were 'perfectly normal' in such situations. The French defence minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, agreed in principle yesterday, telling French television: 'Why would we hide a ransom payment? Governments have to be clear about this kind of thing. Who would object to a ransom payment?' "

While we and the UK fight alongside brave Iraqis for democracy and human rights, the French pay ransom to the Jihadoterrorist enemy. NEED WE SAY MORE?! Okay... just this bit more: This ransom-paying and appeasing by the French to the Jihadoterrorists is ENTIRELY in keeping with the fact that the French surrendered to Hitler... while the USA and the UK fought and defeated Hitler.

KARZAI'S NEW CABINET NAMED

Not only is the not a single mullah in the crowd, most have Western PhD's!

IRANIAN MULLAHS PLAN THE DESTRUCTION OF 100 ANCIENT SITES - LOSS DWARFS TALIBAN'S DESTRUCTION OF THE "BUDDHAS OF BAMIYAN"

From the UK GUARDIAN:

"More than 100 of Iran's potentially most important but least examined archaeological sites, including fringes of Pasargadae, the city built by King Cyrus the Great, will be flooded in the next two years according to the UN, which appealed yesterday to international scientists to try to record what they can. The flooding of the eight-mile Tang-e-Bolaghi gorge because of the construction of a dam will destroy ancient Persia's imperial road which ran from Persepolis to Pasargadae. [...] Unesco said yesterday it was hopeful that the world heritage site of Pasargadae, Cyrus's capital city, renowned for its palaces, gardens and the tomb of the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty, would be only marginally affected. The city, which was included in Unesco's world heritage site list last year, is less than three miles from the end of the gorge. It was built on the site where Cyrus defeated Astyages, the leader of the Medes, in 550BC. It has added importance today because it is believed to be the capital of the first Asian empire which respected the cultural diversity of its people. "

The destruction of these sites will be a crime against humanity. It should tell everyone that the Mullahs - like the Taliban who destroyed the Buddhas, and the Jihadoterrorists who destroyed the WTC (and tried to murder 50,000 peple) - have NO RESPECT for human life or the richness and diversity of human heritage, but only contempt for anything and everything which runs counter to their narrow view of Islam. It proves they are a menace to all. One that must be confronted before they accomplish their goal - that therefore must be confronted BEFORE they get nuclear arms with which to blackmail us.

Those who would destroy their OWN non-Islamic heritage would certainly destroy ours, and anything and everyone who attempts to prevent them from achieving their "utopian" goal: a world where only state-approved/endorsed Mullah endeavors are permitted - under pain of death.

Anyone and everyone who sees the Iranians as non-threatening - like many in the EU and Putin and China - are dead-wrong...or they will be...

MORE EVIDENCE OF SYRIAN CONNECTION FOUND IN FALLUJAH

CSMONITOR (Nicholas Blanford): The Iraqi ambassador to Syria tells the Monitor that photos of high-ranking Syrian officials were found in Fallujah.

DAMASCUS, SYRIA – When US troops stormed the rebel-held city of Fallujah last month, they uncovered photos of senior Syrian officials that have further strained the already tense relations between Syria and Iraq, according to the Iraqi ambassador to Syria. Several captured insurgents were found in possession of the photographs, confirmation, according to Iraqi officials, that some elements in the Syrian regime - perhaps acting independently - are involved in Iraq's bloody insurgency. [...] US Marines in Fallujah released a report on Nov. 20 that revealed they had discovered a hand-held Global Positioning System receiver with waypoints originating in western Syria and the names of four Syrian foreign fighters contained in a ledger. The evidence has triggered renewed charges from US and Iraqi officials that Syria is knowingly providing assistance to several former Iraqi Baathists who are believed to be running the insurgency from Damascus.

Syria must be given an unambiguous ultimatum, NOW: "Clamp down on the elements within Syria which are aiding the Iraqi "insurgents" or you will get pummelled with cruise misslies until your economy and military are completely destroyed."

EU WARNED: NORTH KOREA REGIME NEAR COLLAPSE

UK: GUARDIAN -

European policymakers have been advised to prepare for "sudden change" in North Korea amid growing speculation among diplomats and observers that Kim Jong-il is losing his grip on power. A EU delegation to Pyongyang recommended a review of the union's policy towards the peninsula, including proposals for closer engagement with North Korea and contingency plans for a possible collapse of the reclusive state, the Guardian has learned. ... In the past month, however, the North Korean rumour mill has been working overtime. While no one is ever quite sure what is going on in one of the world's most closed countries, diplomats, intelligence agents, academics and defectors across the political spectrum and from several different countries are reporting signs of potentially destabilising change. There are strong indications of a power struggle centring on the successor to Kim Jong-il.

RTWT.

MORE HERE and HERE and HERE.

TSA Tells Jihadoterrorists How to Get on Planes

HAT-TIP DRUDGE - "TSA Changing Pat-Down Policy Updated; J.J. Green, WTOP Radio : Sources at the Transportation Security Administration confirm they're changing the way they conduct pat-downs. Some women have complained bitterly recently that the more thorough pat-downs to check for explosives just went to far - especially in the breast area. Federal News Radio AM 1050/WTOP has learned the examination in that area, and possibly other areas, will be tempered. People have been searched more intensely, including in intimate areas, since September, after two Russian planes were blown up by women who boarded strapped with explosives. "

So all the Jihadis now know that all they have to do is (1) get a fake driver's license as a woman, and (2) buy a ticket and board as a woman, and (3) wear false breasts which are actually bombs. Sheesh! Could we spell it out for'em any more easily?!?! What will it take for the TSA to get serious!? Either another horrific attack - God Forbid - or the dissolution of the ACLU.

Here's a link to the ACLU page - ALSO VIA DRUDGE - which instructs people how to file "groping complaints" with the TSA. (Which is just more proof: The ACLU isn't anti-war; they're on the other side!)

Statism on the March in Putin's Russia

BBC: "The little-known company which bought the main asset of embattled Russian oil firm Yukos has reportedly been sold to state-owned Rosneft. The Baikal Finance Group picked up Yukos' Yuganskneftegas unit on Sunday. Rosneft's purchase of Baikal would seem to confirm the predictions of analysts who said that Yuganskneftegas would fall into government-controlled hands. According to Russian news agency Interfax, Rosneft bought 100% of the shares in Baikal for an undisclosed sum. ... Baikal's background and its motives for buying the unit, which produces 11% of Russia's crude oil output, for $9.4bn, were unclear. There were widespread suggestions that it was established as a front for other interests."

Putin is not behaving like a democrat or an advocate of the free market. Or an ally to be trusted. He seems to be taking Russia backwards on all fronts: Today in Russia there is less democracy, less capitalism, and less freedom then only a few years ago. If Russia stays on this course, it will collide with the interests of the free world. The USA and the EU need to continue to aggressively assist the former Soviet republics who want freedom, democracy and connectivity with the free world, and help prevent them from being drowned by the undertow of Putin's statist riptide.

UPDATE: "RUSSIA DOWNGRADED TO “NOT FREE” Putin’s Russia Declines Amidst Further Political Restrictions, Increased Authoritarianism: Political rights and civil liberties have become so restricted in Russia that the country has been downgraded to "Not Free," Freedom House announced in a major survey of global freedom released today." HAT-TIP: POLITBURO DIKTAT.

ANOTHER ONE OF BUBBA'S BUBBLES BURSTS: FANNIE MAE

The CEO and COO of Fannie Mae are resigning because of accounting irregularities that go back to 1998. The CEO - Mr. Raines - was the head of Clinton's OMB. Fannie Mae is accused of using illegal accounting gimmicks to boost profits and enable executives and members of the Board of Directors to reap HUGE bonuses. Jamie Gorelick - a Clinton appointee and CONTROVERSIAL member of the 9/11 Commission - was another Left-wing Democrat Fannie Mae Board member, and Vice-Chair, who received millions of dollars in salary and bonuses. SHE SHOULD RESIGN TOO - IN DISGRACE!

Congress is still investigating the scandal - which so far has found that Fannie Mae used lot of illegal "ENRONIAN" gimmicks (ENRON... remember that - it was ANOTHER Clinton Bubble!).

Fannie Mae's stock has lost $11 BILLION in market value since the accounting fraud was discovered... Uh-Hum: on Bush's watch. (For more on Bubba's Bubbles click HERE.)

And more HERE and HERE.

UPDATE HERE: SEC set to probe Fannie Mae - By Andrew Parker and Jenny Wiggins of THE FINANCIAL TIMES -

US regulators are set to investigate possible violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation on accounting and corporate governance by Fannie Mae's former senior management. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the chief US financial regulator, is expected to determine whether Franklin Raines, former chief executive, and Timothy Howard, former chief financial officer, infringed the legislation's requirements to certify the accuracy of its accounts. Mr Raines and Mr Howard, who were ousted by Fannie Mae's board on Tuesday, certified that its 2002 and 2003 accounts "fairly present in all material respects" the company's financial condition in signed statements filed with the SEC.

Last week Donald Nicolaisen, SEC chief accountant, ruled that the US mortgage finance company, had violated US accounting rules between 2001 and mid-2004 and called on it to restate its accounts. Fannie Mae, which agreed to restate, estimated last month that the move could lower its earnings by $9bn .

MORE HERE from the AP: Fannie Mae Turmoil Continues After Ousters

JIHADOTERRORISTS IN IRAQ RELEASE FRENCH HOSTAGES

This is good news. BUT... is it COINCIDENCE that Chirac was vacationing in Morocco at the time? Or was he there as cover to pay a bribe through Islamic channels? I have no proof - but I know it is a FACT that Chirac is no stranger to bribery, and I know that it is a FACT that the Moroccans are not strangers to Jihadoterror - and have often acted as middlemen; (for example: between Israel and more anti-Zionist Arab states). And I don't "believe in" coincidences or the goodwill of Jihadoterrorists. Chirac might have a slush fund from which he could have paid a ransom WITHOUT involving the French government. (Some have suggested that Berlusconi did the same thing to get Italian hostages - the two women - released.) Chirac is rushing back from Morocco to Paris for a photo op with the released hostages...

UPDATE: BBC - "The French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin rejected suggestions that a ransom was paid for their release. The men's captors said they were freed because of France's anti-war stance. "

OH... that's MUCH better!

UPDATES on French bribery/ransom HERE and HERE.

The Politically Correct "Christmas Song"

(With apologies to Torme-Wells)

Chestnuts roasting on an catalytically-converted non-polluting fire
Jack or Jill Frost nipping at your nose,
Yuletide carols – that don’t mention Christianity - being sung by a choir,
And folks dressed up like the Inuit.

Everybody knows some tofu and some re-plantable mistletoe
Help to make the season bright
Tiny tots – on over-prescribed Ritalin - with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight –

They know that Santa's on his way
He's loaded lots of toys
And goodies on his sleigh
And every mother's child is gonna spy
To see if reindeer – an endangered species we hope Santa is not mistreating -
really know how to fly.

And so, I'm offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two
Although its been said
Many times, many ways
Happy Holidays, happy holidays, happy holidays to you!

BTW: I'm a Jew - who grew up in the radically chic Left-wing "gilded ghetto" of Great Neck, NY - singing religious Christmas Carols in the PUBLIC school choir - and enjoying it! I think that, just as many on the Left are not merely anti-War; they're on the other side - so too are they not merely secularist; they're anti-Christian. I think that many on the Left actually oppose traditional middle-class practices and beliefs (from Christmas Carols, creches, to hetero-sexual marriage, the work ethic, and the concept of personal accountability) in order to replace them with their atheistic, socialistic, utopianistic ideology. And I say: Screwge them!

To all my Christian friends, I say: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MORE HERE. UPDATE: And a cute photo here.

PRIVATIZATION WILL HELP POOR PEOPLE MOST

The Social Security system is merely a Ponzi Scheme - one that hurts poor people most.

First, it's the biggest tax poor people pay - bigger than the income tax (which many do not pay, because they earn so little; Bush's rax cut exempted more poor people from paying any taxes - this is why rich people pay a GREATER share of federal revenue now, than before).

Second; poor people generally start work at an earlier age and die younger than rich people. Especially poor minorities. So they end up paying more into the Social Security "Trust Fund" (so-called) and taking less out. And since - under the current system - the benefit is not transferable to heirs, all that "input" - the lifetime of payroll taxes - goes back into the system.

POOR PEOPLE ARE GETTING SCREWED BY SOCIAL SECURITY. Social Secuirty is a collossal rip-off of poor people and a transfer of money to richer people who live longer.

If we gradually privatize Social Security (which means that each worker OWNS their own retirement fund), then poor people will keep everyhting they input, and be able to pass along what they don't use themselves to their children - thereby increasing family wealth and increasing the chances that the family will emerge from poverty.

Gradual or incremental conversion to a private system is very doable - ON PAPER. It would take only a few minor, across-the-board changes:

(1) We gradually increase the age at which a person may collect benefits (say... one month every four months. In 15 years benefits would be available to people at age 70 - an age more in keeping with current real-world demographics.

(2) We should exempt the first $15,000 of income from the payroll tax, and raise the ceiling of the payroll tax to make up the reduction.

(3) We gradually allow payroll tax-payers UNDER THE AGE OF 50 to divert from 5% to 15% of their payroll tax to special accounts IF AND ONLY IF they agree to take a proportionately larger reduction of benefits when they retire (let's say twice as much). In other words, if they divert 15% of their payroll tax into a personal account, then they must take a 30% reduction of their benefits upon achieving retiurement age. This guarantees that the diversion of payroll tax won't deplete the outflow of benefits, and keeps the current Ponzi Scheme afloat for older people who are stuck in it.

(4) We gradually increase the amount that people may divert to personal accounts until every worker has a personal account, and the current Ponzi Scheme disappears through attrition - probably around 2050.

The incremental nature of this plan - combined with the exemption of lower income people from the current payroll tax (and raising the income ceiling of the tax) - makes it very friendly to poor people who - after all - have less assets to depend on for their own retirement; (this was - after all - the target group for the scheme to begin with).

Another way to make retirement easier for poor people is to increase home ownership; home ownership is a MAJOR source of middle class wealth. We should aggressively PRIVATIZE low income/public housing and make poor people OWNERS and stakeholder in their homes and neighborhoods. By sweat equity alone, they can increase the value of their homes, and thereby create a nest egg.

All it will take to accomplish ALL of this is for the public to THINK ANEW.

The public must be encouraged to be bold enough to seek new contemporary solutions to these issues, and not remain shackled to the solutions which seemed workable in 1935. We should no more expect a retirement scheme designed in 1935 to be viable now, than we should expect a 1935 plane to be able to fly us around the world, or a 1935 telephone to afford us wifi connectivity.

In this sense, privatization of Social Security must be seen as a long overdue innovation (and not merely something needed as a result of demographics).

IRAQ'S BORDERS WITH SYRIA AND IRAN SHOULD BE MINED

To prevent infiltration by Jihadoterrorists, Iraq's borders with Syria and Iran should be mined. YEAH: LANDMINES; ANTI-PERSONNEL WEAPONS. The kind that the late Princess Diana fought to outlaw because they were "inhumane"(as opposed to all other weapons?!?). Well, IMHO, killing Jihadoterrorists - who would behead charity-workers and poll-watchers inside Iraq - BEFORE they get into Iraq would be a GOOD THING. And humane. And it would help stabilize Iraq by ensuring that the enemy within Iraq - whether Batthist of Jihdadist - cannot be reinforced or resupplied.

MEXICAN-USA BORDER SHOULD BE SHIELDED WITH ANTI-PERSONNEL LAND-MINES

I can think of no good reason why the USA should NOT order the US Army to mine the entire Mexico-USA border with anti-personnel land-mines. They could dig a long trench, 10 yards wide, along the entire border, and then fill the dang thing up with land-mines. Then, they could put up a barbed-wire fence - with BI-LINGUAL warning signs - on both sides of the mine-field. After the first few hundred illegals get blown up, the deterrence factor will set in and the whole problem will go away. We should - at the same time - also expand LEGAL immigration, but only in such a way as the immigrants can be "checked out" BEFORE they get here.

I AM NOT ANTI-IMMIGRATION; I AM AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

IRAQ INSURGENCY IS A COUNTER-REVOLUTION

Democracy is the revolution; the so-called insurgency is the counter revolution. The counter-revolution will burn out if we can keep them from being resupplied and reinforced. We can do this with good border control - which will be easier to attain if Iran and Syria are threatened with military reprisals if they continue to fail in this regard. Reprisals should take the form of cascading missile attacks against their miltary infrastructure.

This threat should be made openly and immediately - well before the Iraqi election.

C O N G R A T Z T O P O W E R L I N E !!

on being named the "Blog of the Year" by TIME.

IS THE "UNIPOLAR" WORLD ENDING: China and France

France has bemoaned the emergence of the unipolar world since the end of the Cold War (WW3). The derisive term "HYPERPOWER" was coined by the French to describe the USA DURING THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION! Since then, the French have worked tirelessly to undermine the USA because they view the USA's emergence as the sole Super Power as a very serious threat to their security and culture - one they view AT LEAST as gravely as the threat posed by the Jihadoterrorists and Islamism/Salafism/Qutbism etc. - perhaps MORESO!

NOW, we hear that the French have launched a spy satellite WITH THE AID OF THE CHINESE!

Is this the fruit of their struggle to become a Super Power - or at least with the aid of the Chinese and banded together with the soc-called "non-aligned nations" - a sufficient "counter-weight" to the USA?

It seems so to me. It seems to me that France can only be depended on to do what is their narrow national interest - an interest that THEY INSIST on seeing as antithetical to the USA. This is not unlike how they dealt with the USA and NATO throughout ther WW3/the Cold War.

The only hope for France to change is Sarkozy: If Sarkozy wins the presidency (and Chirac is prosecuted for his voluminous crimes), and IF Sarkozy unencumbers France from their Socialist heritage -in effect becomes the French Thatcher - then France can become as an important ally to the USA in WW4 as the UK.

If Sarkozy loses - or wins, but without the mandate to effect real change - then France will probably continue to wither away, seeking refuge in the pungent and rapidly spoiling fruits of their double-dealing with the likes of China and Putin and Mugabe and Castro and Kim Jong Il.

In the meantime: the French are to be trusted about as much as we trust the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians and the North Koreans - which is to say NOT AT ALL.

BUBBA'S WARHOLIAN PRESIDENCY

Andy Warhol said, "Art is what you can get away with." To many people, this quote embodies the vapidness and decadence of post-modern art.

It also characterizes much post-modern politics. Especially Clinton. HOW!?

Well, it's NOT JUST that Clinton did whatever he could get away with in the Oval Office with Monica. Clinton and his administration also just stood and watched as EVERYBODY did as much as they could get away with - leading to bubble after bubble... bubbles which have all since burst:

the NASDAQ Bubble... BURST; the Telecoms Bubble... BURST; the Internet/New Economy Bubble... BURST; the California Energy Bubble... BURST; (Clinton's FDA approved whatever drugs were proposed, and now we're finding out that some big ones might be harmful - like Vioxx and Celebrex - so we might be on a cusp of a Pharma Bubble bursting. too); OSLO was a bubble of sorts too - Clinton oversold it, and then Arafat abused it (turning down a do-able deal at Taba) and instead burst the Oslo Bubble, and unleashed the Second Intifada; finally, there's the al Qaida Bubble - Osama kept attacking us - (in Somalia, the WTC in 1993; two of our our African embassies, the Khobar Towers, and the USS Cole) - and Clinton did nothing -- that bubble burst on 9/11. And - as if if that wasn't enough - Clinton also bequeathed us the Oil-For-Food Bubble!

HELL: there were so many bubbles we might as well call them all Bubba's Bubbles!

YUP: BUBBA'S PRESIDENCY WAS ALL FROTH - THE PEACE AND THE PROSPERITY!

Which gets us back on point: Clinton governed the way Warhol made art: he did whatever he could get away with. He just ran up the bill! And skipped town. And now Bush has to pay the bill that Bubba ran up! That's okay: Bush is up to the job. Heck: he'll clean up the Social Security Bubble (due to burst between 2018 and 2038) in his spare time!