To: Bill Walsh, RicMinInform

From: La Junta Berlinsca

Subject: Egypt comments

You put that much verbiage in a comment thread? Put it on the front page, man! And stop with the budget requests! You’ll get what you get when you get it! XOXO —CB

Apologies to the junta. I replied at length to Peter’s quiz here. Quoth I:

B.

The situation is very opaque because the military's thinking is key. The $64,000 question: What conclusions did they draw from Tahrir Square?

If they believe that it’s time for a more liberalized political order leading to meaningful elections, then we could end up with more republican order. It should be noted that it is possible that the military, which has historically loathed the Muslim Brotherhood, will simply outlaw their participation in politics, even in the most liberal case.

If they believe a more effective authoritarianism is in order, then either they've bet right and Egypt 2.0 is more like Egypt 1.5; or, they've bet wrong and a full-blown revolutionary situation ensues with the Leninist Ikhwān having a good shot at seizing power.

It’s early days, and we should be doing everything we can to encourage liberal-institution building—not necessarily early elections—but we really don’t have a lot of leverage, and it’s in the Egyptians’ hands. I’ve met so many capable, smart, sophisticated Egyptians in my life, my prejudice is in the direction of hope.

At the moment, because the ball is in the military’s court, we don’t known what’s going on. In general, though, the military is against the things that the U.S. government is against: the Muslim Brotherhood and war with Israel. So that’s one reason for cautious (if perhaps temporary) optimism.

The other is that the military doesn’t exist apart from society—while one worries about scary trends infiltrating the military, it’s worth remembering that good trends can also soak in. I’m thinking here of the obvious desire of millions of Egyptians to simply live in a country where they can speak freely, criticize their government, and not be robbed blind by a political mafia and the corporatist robber-barons who were held out the face of economic liberation.

Egypt was a fear society built on lies, and it’s a tremendously hopeful sign that a huge segment of society seems to have become sick of it, no longer fearing the consequences of speaking the truth, claiming a legitimate public role for the people, and reaching for something better.

I hope they get it.

[And as a sort of P.S., I added:]

Oh, and B is my choice for the future. As to a non-violent uprising ousting a brute like Mubarak…it’s hard not to be thrilled. It’s the future that worries.

File this under "massively important international stories about which you're not hearing a word because foreign journalism is dead, so forget it unless Al Jazeera decides it's important."

The world is being tested--again--to see whether it means "never again"--again. As we know from Rwanda, among many other places, what that has in fact meant is, "Well, sometimes."

From everything we know, historically, about the warning signs of an impending genocide, the warnings are all over the Ivory Coast. 

A flare up of political violence following the vote prompted Francis Deng, the U.N. special envoy on the prevention of genocide, to warn that the situation could get out of control in the Ivory Coast.

"We remain gravely concerned about the possibility of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the Ivory Coast," he said in a statement.

This was reported in January:

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 20, 2011 (IPS) - United Nations officials said they were "gravely concerned" Wednesday that the current political deadlock over recent presidential elections in Cote d'Ivoire could ultimately lead to genocide, as both sides of the conflict consolidated their forces.

Addressing reporters at the U.N. headquarters in New York, the Secretary-General's Special Advisors on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect said "urgent action" was needed to prevent further loss of life, and failure to do so could push the West African nation to the "brink of destruction". 

"We are disturbed by allegations that the armed forces and militia groups that back opposing camps in the current political crisis are recruiting and arming ethnic groups allied to each camp," advisors Francis Deng and Edward Luck said in a joint statement. 

"We are also deeply troubled by reports of continuing hate speech that appears to be aimed at inciting violent attacks against particular ethnic and national groups," they said. 

"We urge all parties in Cote d'Ivoire to refrain from inflammatory speech that incites hatred and violence. Those responsible for committing atrocities or their incitement will be held accountable."

I challenge you to find more recent information about this. I've heard that people on the ground are saying this is what Rwanda looked like. Me, I can't tell--I'm not there, and there's just nothing in the news about it.

There are, however, warnings that Easter Bunnies might get pricey. Glad we've got our priorities straight.

Like Tommy De Seno, The Logo finds himself in a lot of political skirmishes with those on the Pretty Far Left. They often take this form:

Young woman with clipboard, wearing Greenpeace t-shirt and standing outside Apple Store (Activist): Hello, sir. Do you have a few minutes for the environment?

The Logo: Sorry, I don't think I'm a good target for you.

Activist: Oh! That's too bad. May I ask why?

Logo: Well, I disagree with a lot of your positions.

Activist: Which ones in particular?

Logo: You don't support nuclear power, unless I've missed something. And weren't you involved in that plastic shopping bag ban?

Activist: Plastic bags consume huge amounts of oil, and they make up a big part of the giant trash whirlpool off Hawaii.

Logo: I thought it was something about killing seabirds.

Activist: That's right.  Seals think they're jellyfish, and seabirds get tangled in them.

Logo: But I think the numbers Greenpeace used were based on false information.

Activist: Like what?  

Logo: I'm not sure... I read it somewhere.

Activist:  Well, it's hard to ignore that giant garbage dump in the middle of the ocean. Can I sign you up for a donation?

Logo: No, I'm pretty sure that there's some misinformation going on with that, and you'd have to change your views on nuclear power... [slinks away, muttering to self.]

That's how these things often go. She's armed with talking points, and I'm unprepared to really challenge her. What I'd have liked to have said was more like this:

...

Activist: Which ones in particular?

Logo (consulting iPhone): Your support of pacifism and your opposition to nuclear power, for starters. And you've been spreading disinformation to further your political goals.  

Activist: Disinformation?

Logo: On your website's page about plastic bags, you state that "up to 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles die each year as a result of plastic debris."

Activist: That's right.

Logo: Those numbers are based on a 1987 Canadian study that estimated that 100,000 marine mammals are killed each year by discarded fishing nets. In 2002, an Australian report misstated this as plastic bags, an error that was corrected in 2006. Why's Greenpeace still passing along this bad data, and basing legislation on it?

Activist: I don't know. What's your source?

Logo: The Times of London, March 8, 2008. Would you like to see the URL?

Activist: No, that's OK.

Logo: And then there's the matter of Greenpeace's co-founder, Patrick Moore. He wrote that he quit the organization because "Greenpeace has evolved into an organization of extremism and politically motivated agendas." This was in the Wall Street Journal in 2008. Do you want the URL to that?

Activist: Not really. Look, I need to be moving on. Have a nice day.

Logo: You too!

The Logo recognizes that we're not going to convert the Greenpeace activist (as Franco notes below, there are fundamental differences at work here), but we should want to plant a seed of self-doubt. And more important, we need to be persuasive to relatively apolitical observers: the mom waiting at the crosswalk near the exchange above; the relatives at the family barbecue overhearing an exchange between you and your left-wing uncle; the neighbor who asks your honest opinion about global warming.

What this requires is a concise, compelling and credible encapsulation of our political positions. In other words, an elevator pitch. Each encapsulation should be accessible from a handheld, and it should leverage the power of a community for its creation and maintenance.

You probably see where we're going with this.

Deferring further elaboration to future posts, it makes sense to start with some pilot efforts. We can work on them together, figure out the most effective format, and use the results as templates for what we hope will be a wide range of positions (some positions will be at odds, because conservatives don't hold uniform views -- that's OK).

But first: what are some arguments you'd like to win?

I went to get a haircut yesterday and saw February's GQ with Tim Lincecum on it. I figured that if I ever meet member Trace Urdan I might need to know something about this kid, so I picked up the magazine.

Apparently, he's been named one of The 25 Coolest Athletes of All Time. (Lincecum, not Urdan. Sorry.)

This is the brief pre-list explanation about what makes an athlete "cool":

The icons we remember and revere are not always the guys with the best stats or the slickest end-zone dance. They're the ones who played the game like it was an extension of who they were and taught us how to be big-time with grace, style, and swagger. They're the guys we never got tired of watching. And never will.

They also say they "consider time to have begun when GQ did, in 1957."

I'm okay with their definition. Fine. 

Here's their list: Joe Namath, Mario Andretti, Allen Iverson, Arthur Ashe, Bjorn Borg, Pele, Walt Frazier, Evel Knievel, Jean-Claude Killy, Pete Maravich, Tom Brady, Muhammad Ali, Julius Erving, Bob Gibson, Bo Jackson, Arnold Palmer, George Best, Derek Sanderson, Lincecum, Kenny Stabler, Michael Jordan, Gary Player, Ted Turner, Jim Brown and Kelly Slater.

I wholeheartedly agree with Namath, Iverson, Maravich, Ali, Best, Jordan and Slater.

I think they missed Roger Federer and Tony Hawk.

How about you?

So, whose words are these? 

Perhaps the most helpful change we can make is to change in our own thinking. In the West, there's been a certain skepticism about the capacity or even the desire of Middle Eastern peoples for self-government. We're told that Islam is somehow inconsistent with a democratic culture. Yet more than half of the world's Muslims are today contributing citizens in democratic societies. It is suggested that the poor, in their daily struggles, care little for self-government. Yet the poor, especially, need the power of democracy to defend themselves against corrupt elites.

Peoples of the Middle East share a high civilization, a religion of personal responsibility, and a need for freedom as deep as our own. It is not realism to suppose that one-fifth of humanity is unsuited to liberty; it is pessimism and condescension, and we should have none of it.

We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. [We] have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold.

As recent history has shown, we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found.

Answer here. Please don't give it away before everyone's had a chance to guess.

When I explain to my young friends tempted by the promises of Marxism why precisely a command economy is disastrous, I describe the long lines for consumer goods in the former Soviet Empire. I tell them about the lack of choice in those goods, their shoddiness, the sullen indifference of the government apparatchiks who provided them. Competition in the marketplace, I explain, ensures that most of the time, consumers receive good customer service. In a free market, a business that treats its customers with contempt will quickly lose them. All obvious to most of us, I'm sure.

By the same logic, when I see a business treating its customers with contempt here in America, it immediately occurs to me to wonder what kind of market distortion is allowing it to do this and stay afloat. What I saw yesterday at American Airlines really has me wondering. 

I took my brother and my nephew to National Airport early yesterday morning. They were scheduled to fly back to Port-au-Prince, where my sister-in-law works for the United Nations. It's an arduous trip with a toddler, and my brother hadn't had much sleep the night before--Leo had a sniffle, and my brother was coming down with it. They had a ton of heavy luggage with them. You can't travel light with a baby.

When we reached the check-in desk, the clerk did none of the things one would imagine a company that wishes to stay in business would instruct its employees to do. She did not smile or make eye contact with us. She was loudly smacking chewing gum. 

But the Soviet part was this. Apparently, American Airlines years ago entered erroneous information in its computer system that for some reason--one journey out of ten--causes a hassle to passengers. The system says you need a visa or an outbound ticket to travel to Haiti. You do not. It is not Haitian law. As my brother's passport clearly shows, he has flown in and out of Haiti some forty times without a visa. And as he explained to her--miraculously politely and patiently, given that he was standing there with a weeping toddler, a thousand tons of luggage, a flight to catch, and a long line of impatient people behind him--the United Nations and other customers have written to American to ask them to correct this mistake. He has copies of his own letters to this effect. 

It was obvious that he was telling the truth: How could he have flown in and out of Haiti so many times without a visa if a visa was required? The proof was right there on his passport.

This story gets worse, and the details don't bear repeating; suffice to say the solution was ridiculous and patently irrational and ended up costing my brother a lot of money.

Now, the point is not that she was unrelenting. I fully understand that an employee of an airline has to follow the rules she sees on her computer screen, whether or not they seem logical, and I understand that the original mistake here was not hers. But what I cannot fathom was her attitude. No smile. No effort to be mannerly, gracious or helpful. No, "I'm so sorry, I can see that this is a terrible inconvenience for you, I wish I could help more." She instead told my brother it was his fault: "You should have written to tell them to change it," she shrugged indifferently, at which point my brother refrained from leaping over the counter to strangle her only out of a desire to set a good example for his son.  The expression on her face when she said this was one I know well, but associate with communism, not with competitive economies in which consumers have a choice.  

I asked for her name: She refused to give it to me. ("Jackie," she said finally. American Airlines management: This was the 8:50 flight to Miami, and if you ask me, I'd say you have a problem on your hands there.)

The strange thing is, consumers do have a choice on that route: They can fly Delta. And my brother surely will from now on, and he and his wife will advise their friends and colleagues to do so. Given how often they fly this route and the number of other people they know who fly it regularly, this actually represents a substantial chunk of change to an airline. 

This isn't typical of America. I'm always boasting to my friends overseas about the marvels of American customer service, and generally, I'm right to boast. She may have been a bad apple, a rogue employee. But something tells me she wasn't. She had the attitude of an employee who for some reason was confident she would not be disciplined or fired. 

Why is that? Does anyone know? What's going on in the airline industry generally and at this airline in particular that even during a recession, an employee of American Airlines would feel this certain that she can abuse a customer without losing her job?

I'll bet you there's a good reason. Now that I'm over being furious, I'm just curious to figure out what it is. 

Let me add a tiny, insufficient note to Craig McLaughlin's noting Josh Goldberg’s shockingly untimely passing. I can’t claim to have known Josh, even as an internet friend (though he was apparently a very good one), but I did meet him once socially and was profoundly, lastingly impressed by the radiant sweetness of his personality and his hilarious sense of humor. I can barely imagine how much he’ll be missed by his beautiful wife, Chantal, his brother, mother, sister-in-law, and niece.

Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace.

Maybe I did not dig down enough into Ricochet archives to see what has been written about it already here, and of course the Treasury/HUD announcement came out at the same time as President Mubarak was cashing in frequent flyer miles, but I think readers might want to pay attention to the fact that the Obama Administration has decided to bring down the curtain on the two big GSEs.

The report recommends using a combination of policy levers to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, shrink the government’s footprint in housing finance, and help bring private capital back to the mortgage market.  The Obama Administration is committed to proceeding with great care as we work toward the objective of ensuring that government support is withdrawn at a responsible pace that does not undermine the economic recovery. 

The plan winds the two giants down 10% per year, shifting to a private market along with a renewed Federal Home Administration that makes the old kind of loan guarantees (10% down payments, smaller mortgage limits, etc.)   Of course, they don't trust the private market too much, so there are these really vague options on some kind of not-really-guarantee/backstop that still has to be worked out.  As economist Arnold Kling noted, the full report reads like a public policy grad student starred paper ... and appears to be just that.

There are two temptations I see, both to be avoided.  First, that we should rejoice over the death of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  I'm seriously tempted to do that, but what replaces it?  Canada exists without these institutions, but its mortgage market doesn't give you 30-year loans and if you prepay the mortgage there are substantial penalties.  And they still have a government agency selling mortgage insurance if you put less than 20% down.  Is that what you really want?

Neither does the Obama Administration, which is why they have this hybrid public-private vague institution in the report.  Every time I hear private-public partnership in legislative discussions I see lots of smiles and nods.  But if you could create a new mortgage agency and tell it to only by mortgage-backed-securities of below-median-income folks who are creditworthy and have enough down payment ... well, why couldn't you just tell Fannie and Freddie to do that?  What makes the new institution better?  Smiles and nods become dumb stares.

The report deserves a one-handed clap by the Congress that now receives it.  It will be interesting to see if the new class of 2011 in the House takes the lessons of TARP to mean to wind up Fannie and Freddie and just leave the market to fill the void.  And if that happens, what does the leadership do?  Not that a laissez-faire solution would ever pass the Senate, but it might make a good moment by the House to show they learned that lesson ... if indeed that's the lesson to learn.

Kenneth's post about the loss of his beloved dog has prompted in all of us, I know, an aching sympathy. We all understand what it means to love an animal. I do not think any of us could feel that love if we believed a dog was no more than some kind of insensate carbon-based furry machine. We instinctively know, just looking at a dog, that it feels love and pain and many other things that resemble our experience of life in important ways.

Pigs too are highly intelligent animals. All mammals, clearly, have much in common with dogs. So how can we do this to them?

”It is usually a sign of crimes against nature that we cannot bear to see them at all, that we recoil and hide our eyes,” writes Matthew Scully. ”And no one has ever cringed at the sight of a soybean factory.”

I am not going to post a photo of a pig factory. The sight makes me cringe. 

Hot off the podium...

The banner headline on the Drudge Report at this hour:

WHO? MITCH DANIELS WOWS CPAC

Who?  Ricochet's own Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, that's who.

From the report in the Des Moines Register to which the Drudge Report links:

“We must be the vanguard of recovery, but we cannot do it alone,” Daniels told about 500 attending a banquet at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

“We have learned in Indiana, big change requires big majorities,” the second-term governor and former Bush administration budget director said. “We will need people who never tune in to Rush or Glenn or Laura or Sean. Who surf past C-SPAN to get to SportsCenter. Who, if they’d ever heard of CPAC, would assume it was a cruise ship accessory.”

The speech was a breakthrough moment for Daniels, who has hinted more in recent months that he is entertaining a 2012 campaign.

A breakthrough moment?  Not for those of us who have been following Gov. Daniels here on Ricochet, of course, but I see what they mean.

The correct response to events in Egypt is

A)  To be thrilled.  Ricochet member Trace Urdan:  "This is a moment where I am proud to be a squish....increasingly around the world the standard for a normal, respectable form of government is democracy and we should have more confidence in that truth."

B)  To feel warily optimistic. Ricochet member Tom Davis:  "[I]t looks like there will be elections; those elections will be at least a little free;  the military is probably going to keep a check on the Muslim Brotherhood....with a little luck, Egypt will be less of a dictatorship and more of democracy."

C)  To view events in Egypt as playing into the hands of the Islamic radicals.  Ricochet member Freeman:  "Mark my words:  the shouts for 'freedom' and 'democracy' are merely the same old populist utopian claptrap...waiting to be silenced by the most ruthless element in the society."

My choice?  B).  

The yearning for democracy appears genuine, I can see no obvious bad guy--no Khomeini--anywhere on the scene, and the Egyptian military, with which the American armed forces have developed close ties, has demonstrated prudence, restraint, and a fundamental respect for the Egyptian people. Something truly new may actually be happening in Egyptian society--and in the wider Arab world.

But it would indeed be truly new.  How many precedents for the organic development of democracy have some 1,300 years of Islam produced in the Arab world?  Zero.  Iraq is now democratic, more or less, but an outside force--us, obviously--made that possible.  Lebanon produced a functioning democracy for a few years during the nineteen-seventies, but the Christian minority played a central--perhaps the dominant--role.  What Egypt is about to attempt has never been done before.  Not once.

And the risks, pitfalls, and dangers prove numberless.  Has Egypt just produced a genuinely popular revolution?  Yes. But so did Russia in February 1917.  In October 1917, Lenin staged a putsch against the true revolution, enslaving Russia for more than seven decades.  Does the Muslim Brotherhood command the support of a minority of Egyptians?  Apparently.  But the Nazis won less than 44 percent of the vote in 1933.  They then concocted a crisis--the burning of the Reichstag--and jammed the Enabling Act through the legislature, giving Hitler dictatorial powers.

I've been as moved as anyone by the scenes of rejoicing in Tahrir Square, and I agree, for now, with Ricochet member Tom Davis.  "Given the situation in Egypt as it was," Tom wrote, "it is hard to imagine a better outcome than we have."  As I say, I agree with Tom--for now.  But dangers abound, the stakes involve not only Egypt but the entire Arab world, Israel, and, because the Middle East plays so central a role in world affairs, all the globe.  

I'm plenty happy.  But I'm also plenty wary.

Choice B).  That's me.

You?

Flownover asked me for my opinion about what the Turkish military is thinking today. I expect he meant, "What they're thinking about Egypt," but I have to imagine their minds are on more immediate matters: The courts have just issued orders to lock up 162 of their officers:

A Turkish court ruled Friday that 133 current and former military officers must be jailed pending the outcome of their trial on charges of plotting to overthrow the government and issued warrants for the arrests of 29 other officers, Anatolia news agency reported.

Security forces immediately closed all courthouse doors and detained the defendants, including the former air force and navy chiefs, broadcaster NTV reported. The officers began chanting military songs to protest the court's decision, the TV station reported.

The officers, including several high-ranking generals, are on trial accused of conspiring to topple Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government in 2003. All but one officer had been free until Friday's hearing.

Dani Rodrik, whose father-in-law Çetin Doğan is the main defendant, has written a detailed account of his efforts to persuade the Turkish public that these accusations are a sham:

THE REACTION we got from the country’s liberal intelligentsia was symptomatic. The Turkish intelligentsia has made common cause in recent years with the AKP government, thanks in large part to the AKP’s success in presenting itself as a force for democratization and civilianization of Turkish politics. These intellectuals see Sledgehammer and other similar trials as a chance to make ultra-secularists and militarists accountable for the crimes of the past. Given Turkey’s history of military coups, this is understandable; we saw things pretty much the same way until recently.

What was much more difficult to fathom was these intellectuals’ unwillingness to question their beliefs in light of mounting evidence that the defendants had been framed. Many of Turkey’s leading “liberals” simply turned their backs on the evidence that we had amassed. They refused to meet with us, failed to show up at panels where we presented our findings, and left our e-mails unanswered. The reporter who first broke the Sledgehammer story in the newspaper Taraf, a ubiquitous presence in the Turkish media, declined invitations to debate us on TV. Ironically, while we were in Turkey prosecutors were forced to reveal—after presistent demands from lawyers—reams of material pointing to the inconsistencies we had identified (and more), which they had chosen to disregard (and hide from the defense).

I suspect the minds of the Turkish military are concentrated on prison walls, Flownover. Of course, the world's attention is focused elsewhere. I challenge you to find any more information about this event, in English, than has been offered in the link I provided. 

See also:

Victor Davis Hanson:  "The Obama Doctrine at Play in Egypt"

Absolutely the most eerie and disturbing thing about returning to America is being unable to find the Americans. Washington is so empty that a first-time visitor could be forgiven for imagining it had been the victim of a neutron bomb attack. 

There is no one here. Even at the height of rush hour, there's almost no traffic. Off of the main streets, you can walk for blocks without passing another soul.

There are almost no young people. I've seen none playing in the yards, and certainly none playing in the streets. I've seen a few parents with strollers, but not many. I don't think I've seen a single teenager. 

I'm looking out the window right now and seeing parking lots with only a handful of cars in them, empty streets with no one at all walking down them or driving, almost no sign of life. I'm in Georgetown. It's not the middle of nowhere. But it's empty.

And it's kind of giving me the creeps. 

As the news of Mubarak's resignation jerked and stuttered over Al Jazeera--the Internet didn't stream fluidly--my father recalled those lines from Henry IV. 

His first thought was that every president, prime minister or monarch whose rule is tainted by the faintest hint of illegitimacy will sleep poorly tonight.

But then it occurred to us both to wonder whether this is truly the psychological makeup of dictators. Was Shakespeare right? Or is it in fact the temperament of men who rule as Mubarak did to persuade themselves, until the very end, that they are beloved? 

Has Mubarak been lying uneasy for thirty years, fearing this moment? Or did this come as a complete surprise?

I wonder. 

• On Thursday, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl announced he would not seek another term in 2012. On Friday, Hosni Mubarak stepped down as President of Egypt. Coincidence, or was Mubarak district shopping?
  

• The most notable occurrence on the first day of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was a verbal spat between Donald Trump and Ron Paul. Political experts cited the dispute as proof of the old adage that American politics is fought between the 1 and the 2 yard lines.

• In news from the State Department, President Obama’s Ambassador to Ireland watched the professional football team he owns play in the Super Bowl. President Obama’s multimillionaire Ambassador to China began crafting plans for a presidential campaign. And President Obama’s Ambassador to Egypt wondered aloud why she never bothered getting that MBA.

• In perhaps the quickest political scandal in American history, Republican Congressman Chris Lee of New York resigned his seat less than 24 hours after revelations that he had posted shirtless photos of himself on Craigslist hit the press. Lee was quickly disowned by virtually the entire GOP establishment, with the exception of former Senator Larry Craig, who sent him a friend request on Facebook.

• Verizon rolled out its version of the iPhone this week, adding tens of millions of Americans to the ranks of those who are facing a choice between keeping their jobs or getting to the next level on Angry Birds.

• Only a few weeks after abruptly departing MSNBC, Keith Olbermann announced that he would return to television on Al Gore’s Current TV. The new show is expected to closely follow the format of the program that Olbermann has been doing in his basement with sock puppets for the last few weeks, though ratings are expected to be lower.

• Actress, singer, celebrity socialite and cautionary tale Lindsay Lohan was charged with felony theft in a Los Angeles courtroom after allegedly shoplifting a $2,500 necklace from a Venice jewelry store. Reaction in Hollywood was swift, with Variety calling the singer’s behavior “reckless”, the Los Angeles Times describing it as “troubling”, and Winona Ryder referring to it as “unimaginative and lacking in ambition.”

• America Online announced that it has acquired the Huffington Post for $315 million, a move that business insiders describe as an attempt to change AOL’s public profile from ‘irrelevant’ to ‘inane’.

• Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg went public with the news that he has been the victim of a Facebook stalker. In a related story, Zuckberg received a ‘poke’ on his Facebook profile from irony.

• In an appearance before the House Budget Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke – under intense scrutiny from new chairman Paul Ryan – reluctantly admitted that the policy of quantitative easing was designed primarily to mitigate his extensive debts to a series of Las Vegas casinos.

A 46 year old Canadian woman has filed a lawsuit against two US Customs Agents, accusing them of groping her after she failed to account for her raspberries.  No, I haven't been sniffing excessive amounts of diesel fumes, and yes, you read that correctly. According to UPI, the lady attempted to cross into the US at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit, Michigan when she encountered the customs agents. Making her way to her vacation home in Georgia, she failed report that she was bringing some raspberries with her. Such an egregious breach of US law cannot go unanswered.  Federal law on our southern border, of course, is another matter entirely. There you can stroll across the border with raspberries, marijuana, or a platoon of relatives on your back and you'll have government officials on the other side waiting to give you a free education, free medical care, in-state tuition for college, and a voter registration card. But cross the northern border with a nap sack of undeclared berries, and you're likely to get the full TSA.

The undeclared fruit resulted in a two hour ordeal during which, according to Loretta Van Beek, she was ordered to strip and was aggressively searched by two female customs agents. Station WXYZ in Detroit, reports that the 46 year old interior designer was so traumatized by the experience, which denied her of Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, that she is filing suit.

I've had my own encounters with customs agents at the Canadian border. The Canadian officials were quite friendly and professional.  But the agents on the US side were another breed entirely.  As a matter of fact, I stopped making cross-border runs into Canada in my 18 wheeler precisely because of the hassle I received from US Customs Agents while trying to get back into my own country. Crossing back into the US several years ago at a check point north of Detroit, an agent with the demeanor of a bulldozer directed me to drive to the back of the building, where he again met me and yelled that I had gone to the wrong building. As a consequence, I was directed to allow him full access to the trailer and the cab of my truck, though I was not permitted to be present during his search. And since no government operation is truly complete without enough paperwork to kill a redwood, I first had to accomplish a number of forms, one of which asked if I had any meat products in my possession. Since I had already disposed of the deli meats in my cooler, I answered no. Then, as this paragon of professionalism was making his way toward my truck, I remembered the can of beanie weenies and so called out to him that I had made a mistake on the form. He regarded me with grave impatience and snapped that my little can of beanie weenies could have landed me in serious trouble with hefty fines or even worse. Having survived that ordeal, I pledged that I would either cease accepting loads into Canada, or wear a turban the next time around. I've since opted for the former option, and haven't made a border crossing since.

While I don't know all the facts in the case of the raspberry-laden interior designer, she certainly has my sympathy.

From a friend who grew up among the Coptic Christians of Alexandria (Christians make up some five to ten percent of the Egyptian population), who still has many relatives in Egypt, and who still returns to Egypt nearly every year:

It is definitely a great day for Egypt.  Since the beginning of time, Egypt has not had an elected government.  In 1952, we had a military coup; Nasser was in power for 18 years, Sadat for 11 years, and Mubarak for 30 years.  None of these men were ever elected by the people of Egypt.

What’s important is what’s next.  This is not the end, it is just the beginning. 

1)  If we end up with the military ruling, the peaceful protests of the young people in Egypt will have been in vain.

2)  If we end up with the Muslim Brotherhood in power, the Coptic Christians, secular Egyptians, and the United States' relationship with Egypt will all suffer because there will be no freedom of expression, religion, or anything else.

3)  If we end up with a secular government that is tolerant of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Brotherhood will reorganize, recruit new members, and most likely take over within ten years. 

4)  The best option for Egyptian Christians and the rest of the world is a secular free government that is not tolerant of the Muslim Brotherhood and that will adopt the separation of church and state.  We must remember that the Christians in Iran and Iraq did better under their previous oppressive regimes because even though the Shah and Saddam were both dictators, they were even-handed in the treatment of their people.

Another excellent video from the mysterious Political Math guy on YouTube:

The more of these the better, I say.  When the numbers get that high, drinking is the only solution.

In bidding farewell to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs this afternoon--this was soon after the President's remarks on Egypt, which is why I still had the radio on--Barack Obama produced a remarkably self-involved performance, rehearsing his career for the press corps beginning with his primary in the Illinois senate campaign, which, he noted, he wasn't expected to win, and for which, he was understaffed, having only six or seven people working for him, until...blah, blah, blah...he finally hired Robert Gibbs.

At this point, you might have supposed, Obama might finally have changed the subject from himself to Gibbs.  Instead Obama launched into a long, tedious story about trying to decide which tie to wear when, as the junior senator from Illinois, he spoke at the Democratic National Convention.  He'd brought five or six ties with him.  Michele disliked them all.  David Axelrod liked one or two.  Finally someone pointed to Gibbs's tie, suggesting that Obama wear that one.  And this is about the point at which the YouTube video picks up the President's remarks.  But don't bother watching unless you like solipsism.  For Barack Obama quite clearly believes that the most remarkable aspect of the life of Robert Gibbs was his involvement with...Barack Obama.

I'd like to hear what everyone else has to say about the President's remarks this afternoon, but I'll get the conversation started by offering a few thoughts of my own.  In brief, his remarks struck me as no better than okay.

Literary merit?  Memorable lines or phrases?  Zero.  In a couple of places, indeed, the writing proved just plain bad.  In a single sentence, for example, we had the president speak of bringing "voices to the table"--whatever else you might do with "voices," you don't sit them down at a table--and the "powerful wind at the back of this change," an image so tired and insipid his speechwriters might have slipped it in just to embarrass the man.

As to the substance, the President did a fine job of associating the United States with the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people.  Emphasizing the role of young Egyptians struck me as particularly shrewd.  The "new generation," the President said, "uses their own creativity and talent and technology to call for a government that represented their hopes and not their fears...."  (Note that the mixed tenses--"uses" is of course in the present tense, "represented" in the past--appear in the transcript.  I hope the President simply misspoke.  If his writers are responsible, someone should be shown the door.)   The young people who used Twitter to help stage this revolution seem to possess a basic openness to modernity--and will, or so we can hope, resist any efforts to drag Egypt into some sort of medieval Islamic past. 

But Barack Obama is the President of the United States.  Egypt was looking to him for more than a handsome pat on the back.  A couple of notes on what he should have said--but didn't:

• A word to the generals.  The final step in ousting Mubarak was taken not by the citizens massed in Tahir Square but by military officers meeting behind closed doors.  The president should have stated unambiguously that this country would insist on a peaceful, expeditious transfer of power to civilians.  
• A new constitution.  The President made no mention of the need to draft a new constitution.  He could very easily have held up our own as a model.  He said nothing.
• A warning to the Muslim Brotherhood.  There is simply no doubt--none--that the next battle in Egypt will comprise a struggle between secular forces, struggling to organize, and the Muslim Brotherhood.  The President should have stated, utterly unambiguously, that the United States would oppose any effort to capture this revolution for narrow, sectarian purposes.  His remarks contained not even a hint of any such warning.

Those are my thoughts.

Yours?

Hey, am I the only one who's noticed this? I just watched Obama's speech about Egypt and found myself thinking, "Who is this kid? Do I have to watch the rest of this?"

Maybe it's just me. 

Joining us as our guest contributor over the course of the coming week, King Banaian.  Here's Power Line's John Hinderaker with an introduction:

King exemplifies the citizen legislator: he is an economist, the chairman of the Economics Department at St. Cloud State University, and as nice a guy as you could meet, imbued with good will toward everyone. We used to speculate about how many points the average I.Q. in the Minnesota House would rise, should King be elected to that body. After a career that has included stints advising foreign governments on economic policy (Mongolia and Ukraine) and after some years as a part-time radio talk show host, King took the plunge last fall and ran for the Minnesota House in the formerly-Democratic district where he lives. He won by something like 11 votes. Somewhere there may be better examples of public-spirited citizen activism, but there can't be many.

Please join me in welcoming King to Ricochet!

Ricochet member Joseph Eagar put up the following post earlier today in the Member Feed under the title "Calling Judith Levy, Do I Have This Right?":

Finding credible information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nearly impossible, and this is what I've managed to piece together.  I wouldn't be surprised if much of it is wrong, as the information simply isn't there.

You have two governments, the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel.  There are two factions, Palestinian terrorists and the Jewish settler movement.  In other to make peace, both governments must suppress both factions at the same time.  Thus, if Israel cracks down on the settlers the peace process is disrupted by Palestinian terrorists, while if Palestine manages to suppress its terrorists Jewish settlers will derail the peace process.

In a clever bid to solve two birds with one stone, the Israeli government built the Gaza wall; Palestinian terrorists would be kept out, and Jewish settlers would be kept in.  This would greatly simplify the peace process.  Unfortunately, the terrorists discovered rockets and the settlers found ways around it, bringing us back to stage one.

To make life even worse, the Gaza Strip's infrastructure is maintained, run, and financed by the Israelis.   The two governments are jointly investing in new infrastructure, but until the new sewage plants, power plants, and oil fields are completed the two-state solution cannot go forward.

Is this at all close to reality?

Glad you asked, Joseph! I'll do my best to answer. 

There are three governments operating, although only the first two are formally recognized: the State of Israel, the Palestinian Authority (Fatah), and Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The PA governs parts of the West Bank of the Jordan River and used to also co-govern Gaza, until it was forcibly evicted by Hamas in 2007. Note that after Hamas won a majority during the 2006 legislative election, it announced that it was not going to honor any previous agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel -- prompting the Americans and the Europeans to institute economic sanctions and the Egyptians and Israelis to blockade Gaza. The acute suffering of the Gazan population thus dates from Hamas's eviction of Fatah officials and the institution of an Islamist state, a kind of mini-Taliban on the Mediterranean.

Israel is a parliamentary democracy and the PA is a government of elected representatives with executive, legislative and judicial branches. (Their term limits are on the elastic side, but technically it's a democracy.) Domestically, the Hamas government has occupied itself with the enforcement of sharia law, which it imposed on the Gazan population and enforces by means of religious police. Because its raison d'être is jihad against the Zionist entity rather than state-building, Hamas has not accomplished much in the way of social, economic or political development. This contrasts quite strikingly with the PA, where the Palestinians' standard of living is markedly higher.

The state of affairs in Gaza is obviously exacerbated by the dual blockade, but Hamas has done everything it can to ensure that the blockade remain in place. The suffering of the Gazan population works in Hamas's interest, since it reinforces their narrative that they are oppressed by the Israelis. Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, forces its civilians onto the front line by concealing arms and launching attacks on Israel from within population centers, forbidding civilians to evacuate even when warned in advance by Israel of coming air strikes, and so on. (Gazans have many reasons to be dissatisfied with the Hamas government, which is why Hamas was so careful to squelch any protests sympathizing with the Egyptians.)

The PA has been attempting fitfully to negotiate peace with Israel; Hamas not only refuses to consider such a thing but aspires to the total destruction of the state of Israel. Both the PA and Hamas claim jurisdiction over one another's territories, but in practice, the territories function separately. (There is a Hamas presence on the West Bank that is a thorn in the PA's side; there is also a Fatah presence in Gaza that has clashed with Hamas.) The PA, in an attempt to forestall unrest in the wake of the Egyptian revolution, called for early elections that would apply to both the West Bank and Gaza, but Hamas denied its authority to do so.

The PA, and occasionally Hamas, will from time to time use language for foreign audiences designed to present an image of all Palestinians as a united front, but in reality, the Fatah-based PA and Islamist Hamas are natural enemies. In the event that Israel is removed from the picture, the PA and Hamas -- assuming anybody's still standing -- will not share power; they will fight it out until one of them wins.

In your question, Joseph, you've created a parallelism between Palestinian terrorists and Jewish settlers, and I must take issue with you there. While I understand the point you're making -- Palestinian terrorists and Jewish settlers both oppose the peace process and do what they can to disrupt it -- it's an inappropriate analogy, for the simple reason that Jewish settlers do not terrorize either the Palestinian population or the Israeli population that disagrees with them. For the most part, Israeli settlers spend their time trying to live as peacefully as possible. (The settlers of Ariel, for instance, had warm relations with their Palestinian neighbors for years, until Arafat decreed that such companionable relations should cease. He backed up that order by having Palestinian "collaborators" kneecapped and occasionally murdered.)

Now, it's certainly true that the settlers are trying to create facts on the ground by building as much as they can, and this most definitely inhibits the peace process. There is tension on occasion between settlers and Palestinians, there is hostility, there is ugly behavior, there are even clashes. But there has only been one instance -- the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in 1994 -- when a settler committed an act of full-scale, indiscriminate terrorism against Palestinian civilians, and that act was abhorred by the vast majority of settlers and by almost the entire population of Israel. Please do not conflate terrorists whose object is to kill or maim as many Israelis as possible -- who teach their children that their greatest aspiration should be to grow up to become mass murderers and suicides -- with settlers who want to live on their ancestral homeland, at peace (however chilly) with their neighbors. I'm a secular Israeli living inside the Green Line myself, but that kind of equivalence sticks in my craw.

That said, let's look at your question. 

The Palestinian terrorists we're referring to are Hamas (as well as other Islamist groups based in Gaza, some of which are more extreme and threaten Hamas's authority). The PA cannot crack down on Hamas in Gaza and Hamas is obviously not going to crack down on itself. Nobody's going to crack down on Hamas besides Israel herself, and she does so (despite what you may have read) with extreme caution. It might help to clarify all this in your mind if you remember that Israel is trying to make peace with the PA, not Hamas. Hamas is outside the process, as it wishes to be and as it should be. It views the PA as traitors and sellouts for negotiating with Israel and will always step up to act as spoiler when it appears that progress is being made on the peace front. The settlers, for their part, view their settlement of Judea and Samaria as a race against time: they are trying to create an irrevocable Jewish presence on the homeland before the land is given away. Many settlements are indeed substantial enough and long-standing enough to have become permanent fixtures; the open question is whether their inhabitants will ultimately reside in Israel or Palestine. (The PA has said that it wants Palestine to be Judenrein, however, which complicates the peace process considerably.)

You refer to "the Gaza wall" in your question, and I'm not sure what you're getting at. Do you mean the blockade of Gaza, which Israel and Egypt enforced in 2007 when Hamas took complete control? Or do you mean the security fence between Israel and parts of the West Bank? If the latter, you're reading too much strategy into it. The point of the fence was simple: to put a stop to the constant stream of terrorists coming into Israel and killing people. I'm a big fan of the fence for the simple reason that it has saved countless lives. Once Arafat made the strategic decision to kick off the second intifada toward the end of 2000, Palestinians committed dozens and dozens of terrorist acts against Israeli civilians -- acts that killed almost 300 citizens and wounded almost 2,000 in the three years before the fence went up. Once it was built, the number of attacks plummeted by 90%. Islamic Jihad has even admitted publicly that the fence has hampered their ability to strike Israeli civilians. The fence seems to make people break out in hives in Brussels, but over here, a lot of us think it's swell.

You refer next to Hamas "discovering" rockets. It didn't have to discover them: its foreign policy focus is and has always been exclusively anti-Israel jihad, and they'll keep hitting us with whatever Iran sends them. If the rockets they shoot through the roofs of Sderot kindergartens provoke an IDF response, so much the better, from their point of view. The settlers, for their part, will build as much and as fast as they can. Their argument is simple: we gave up land for peace when we pulled out of the settlements in Gaza, and were rewarded with an even more emboldened and violent Palestinian enemy. By what logic should we make the same mistake and pull out of the settlements of the West Bank?

As to your infrastructure question: The Gaza Strip is indeed dependent on Israel for much of its electricity, water and other infrastructure requirements (although I just learned this week that it gets most of its fuel from Egypt through the smuggling tunnels). Over 70% of Gaza's electricity is provided by power plants in Ashkelon, a city inside sovereign Israel. (Hamas regularly aims rockets towards Ashkelon, which might seem counterproductive, but remember the upside to Hamas in cranking up Gazans' misery level.) Now, in your question, you jump from a reference to Gaza's infrastructure to a reference to "the two governments," but it's not clear which two governments you're referring to. Israel and Hamas are certainly not cooperating on new infrastructure, and the PA has shown itself dangerously (and oddly) unconcerned with infrastructure development. A recently published study indicates that over 60% of the PA's GDP is from foreign donations. The PA has not funneled those donations into infrastructure or business development, but has used them primarily to subsidize government institutions. To all intents and purposes, the West Bank Palestinians don't have a functioning economy. Once the donations dry up, they're in trouble. (And when the Palestinians are in trouble, so are we.)

You suggest at the end of your question that a two-state solution can't go forward until joint infrastructure projects are completed. I haven't heard anything of the kind. There are lots of other reasons why the two-state solution can't go forward -- the collapse of the Israeli left following the surge in Hamas violence that resulted from the Gaza disengagement, the disillusionment on both sides about the other's good faith, the reinforcement of Israel's security anxieties by the turmoil in the Arab world, the possible reintroduction of a hostile front to the west coupled with the political empowerment of Hezbollah to the north, the constant flow of money and materiel to Hamas via Iran, the refusal of the PA to countenance a Jewish presence in Palestine following an agreement coupled with the settlers' refusal to leave, the growing anxiety within the Green Line that the land-for-peace formula was never viable in the first place, the new perspective recent events have provided that show the Israeli-Palestinian problem not to be the crux of the Arab world's concerns, and more. But I don't think infrastructure's the hold-up.

Joseph, that brings us to the end of your question. I hope you're less confused than you were before you asked it. Each element can be answered at great length, and I've had to rein myself in a bit. Please let me know if I've confused more than clarified. I'll do my best to clear up anything that might still be unclear. 

Turns out the Girl Scouts will not -- Not! -- take the pledge to lobby against global warming.

The pledge, published online, would have committed Scouts to “Inform my elected local, state, and federal officials about my views on environmental policies and urge them to support legislation that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and promotes energy efficiency and renewable technologies.” According to CNSNews.com, the pledge was taken down after the conservative news site asked about it.

Apparantly not the first time our gals in green have wandered from the Norman Rockwell imagery, according to this article by National Review's Kathryn Lopez.