Poetic justice, indeed

Fort Hood Islamist psychiatrist/murderer taken down by female cop.


UPDATE: Alan Sullivan argues that Muslims in the US military shouldn't be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan:

If we’re going to have Muslims in our military — maybe not the best of ideas right now — then let us respect their sensibilities enough to refrain from sending them into Iraq or Afghanistan, if they ask to be excused on religious grounds. During WW II, the US had a contingent of Japanese-American troops. They were sent to Europe, not to the Pacific. Islam is not a nationality, but I think the analogy is valid nevertheless. At that time the Japanese nationality was virtually a religion. The mass murderer of Fort Hood was about to be shipped out for Afghanistan. He had been making scary statements about his deployment. And he snapped. One-man jihad ensued.

How to make the Middle East situation even worse

The first rule of foreign policy, as in medicine, is "do no harm."
 
This means that is you're Barack Obama and you're unschooled in diplomacy, as you are in all matters governmental, you should proceed cautiously. Instead, the Obama team has badly blundered in the Middle East, and is in fact doing harm there rather than good. As always, it must be kept in mind that this Administration has no particular affection for establishing and encouraging freedom abroad as a central tenent of its diplomatic mindset.  In this the Obami depart from what liberals have traditionally believed.
 
Jennifer Rubin:
 

Succinctly put, as former Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams has, the Obami’s Middle East policy is a “complete failure.” It is rare indeed that a diplomatic foray can be so unhelpful and destructive that it manages to “offend and demoralize” both sides. But give it to the “smart diplomacy” set — they did it. This was, as Abrams says, largely the result of the inane notion that Bibi Netanyahu could either be pushed from office or pushed to adopt an absolute, unworkable settlement freeze, which would in turn prompt the Palestinians to recognize the Jewish state and give birth to a final-status agreement.




Virtually everything about the gambit was wrong and ill-advised. Netanyahu was not to be pushed from office. Netanyahu’s skillfully calibrated resistance rallied public support while Obama’s sunk in single digits among the Israeli people. The Palestinians’ fondness for rejectionism and obstructionism was exacerbated. The elephants in the room — terrorism and Hamas — remained and undermined hopes of a grand deal. Yes, other than that, it is a splendid idea.

And, again, given that there are more than a million Arabs living in Israel, those Arabs living under vastly better conditions than they would enjoy in the Arab world, it is preposterous to say that no Israelis be permitted to live in the West Bank, whatever ultimate arragements are made there.

Stimulus jobs gamesmanship

Economist Greg Mankiw says it's perfectly okay for the Obami to say that they think the stimulus is responsible for creating or preserving some number of jobs. But it's economic quackery for them to say they know how many jobs have been "saved or created", Paul Krugman to the contrary.

 Note the sharp difference between the two arguments below. Mankiw:

That is, I do not object to claims such as,



A: "Based on our models of the economy, we believe there would be X million fewer jobs today without the stimulus."


But it is absurd to suggest that you can say,



B: "We have measured how many jobs the stimulus has saved or created, and the number is X."

UPDATE: We were told, as you'll recall, that with the stimulus in place unemployment would begin to drop by the third quarter of this year, and would top out at about 8%.

 Instead it's now 10.2%, and climbing.

This is how I want to die

Brazilian man surprisingly shows up at a funeral...his own.

Meet the unhappiest man alive...

...one Christopher Hitchens.

Happy Hitch's view of Mother Teresa:

The woman was a fanatic and a fundamentalist and a fraud, and millions of people are much worse off because of her life, and it’s a shame there is no hell for your bitch to go to.

Perhaps the sickness of the Christ-haters may lead some to Christ.

How to employ 508 people, yet save 935 jobs

It's the New Math, as promoted by bureaucrats who want you to think the Stimulus package has been a rip-roaring success.

A Moultrie, GA agency followed the guidelines supplied by the Administration-take the 508 people employed by the agency and multiply it by the 1.84% pay hike the stimulus funds made possible. That comes out to 9.35, actually, and not "jobs"-not anything. It's like saying twelve apples plus five railroad ties equals 17 Blackberries. It's meaningless.

It's the Multiplier Effect gone wild. Even Keynes wouldn't recognize this.


And no President has ever been so brazen before as to use Obama's "jobs saved or created" formula. This is Alice in Wonderland stuff.

Besides, the economy is still losing jobs on net, anyway.

"New York Marathon Winner Tests Positive For Performance-Enhancing Horse"

I'm not a stickler about testing, but this is just going too far.

Harry James-"Concerto for Trumpet"

Harry James was a trumpet player with enough technique to play anything-he certainly could've been a great classical  player had he chosen that route. Here he shows off those chops, and his great jazz skills, in a video from the Forties, I suppose. It wasn't that long ago that all sorts of bands were led by virtuosos of their instruments-James, Buddy Rich, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Maynard Ferguson, and more. Times have changed.

Another in a series featuring great trumpet players from the jazz and classical worlds.


UPDATE: I case you're wondering why I have so little Chet Baker posted, considering Chet's prominent position in the Rene's Apple Hall of Fame, it's mostly because the Chet Baker Foundation, perversely I think, has made sites take down most of the available Chet videos.

When is sexual abuse of a child not newsworthy?

When it's not committed by a Catholic priest.

The unraveling of the Obama majority?

Did last night's wins for the GOP in NJ and VA really represent the beginning of the end for the Obamanation?

Or was it it merely, to steal from Churchill, the end of the beginning?

The Dems are all too eager to tell us that people weren't voting for or against BHO-he wasn't on the ballot. No, but he was all over the place in NJ in recent days, with campaign stops, robocalls, etc., for moneyman Jon Corzine. Certainly, at the least, he was unable to help his preferred candidates. You'll notice the President didn't appear in NY 23, where the Democratic candidate did hold on for a win.

The larger point is that whether or not people were thinking about the President as they voted, what doomed Corzine and Deeds was rotten economic conditions, which Obama shows little sign of being able to repair, $787 billion in stimulus notwithstanding. If things are anything like this next November, the Republicans will retake the House, and maybe the Senate as well.

Closing the deficit isn't a big deal...

...all we need is a 95.2% rate on top earners.

You really ought to watch out for...

...those GOP Stalinists.

I understand that a GOP Stalinist is a lot like an illiterate novelist...or maybe a purple cow.

"And Congress resets the Sun"

Dustbury's  take on Daylight Savings Time.

The audacity of those people!

Next they'll be telling us man can change the climate.