If Adam thought Dana Milbank’s hyperventilation over the proposed constitutional amendment to allow two-thirds of the states to overturn federal laws was overwrought (and it was – Dana’s snarky tone is bringing him perilously close to becoming the Beltway Perez Hilton, no?), he should brace himself for the response penned by Dahlia Lithwick and Jeff Shesol at Slate.

The piece is rife with the same straw men we’re used to hearing every time conservatives entertain the notion of constitutional modification: how can people who think the document is sacrosanct be in favor of amendments? (answer: we actually think the constitutionally defined amendment process is pretty good too); Isn’t conservatism fundamentally – and solely – about conserving the old order? (answer: only when Sam Tanenhaus is trying to sell a book); And – my personal favorite – Slate’s assertion that “The Constitution is—by design—a nationalist document”. This, of course, is one of those facts that’s true except when it isn’t (See: Amendment, Tenth).

Of course, the sine qua non of these sorts of pieces is the macabre hypothetical, which Lithwick and Shesol produce by quoting Rick Ungar, a California attorney who blogs at Forbes. The section they excerpt:

Would the city of New Orleans ever be rebuilt following a Katrina disaster if 2/3 of the states were empowered to repeal federal legislation appropriating the money to do so? After all, what's in it for Texas? Or Ohio? While the port of New Orleans may be essential to the movement of goods into the nation—and certainly important to the economic viability of the city—the loss of the port would mean more business to other ports of entry in Texas or other regional centers. What, exactly, would be the motivation of any state that is not Louisiana to support the economy of New Orleans?

Slate then goes on to cite Ungar’s conclusion that "If this sounds familiar, it should. We've seen what happens when regional economic interests trump the desire to maintain the unity of our states. It was called the American Civil War."

Two problems here. The first is the assumed venality of the American people. I’d be shocked if one state had voted against post-Katrina emergency aid, let alone 34 of them. Even most doctrinaire libertarians don’t want to die on that particular hill. The second is the gratuitous invocation of the Civil War, which is the example of choice for those who don’t want to have a serious discussion about federalism. Remember, the Confederacy managed to secede without the repeal amendment (not that it would have made a difference – the confederacy consisted of only about 1/3 of the pre-Civil War union. They wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of the mechanism).

I’m still a bit of an agnostic on the proposed amendment itself, but it does strike me as an interesting substitute for the idea of repealing the Seventeenth Amendment. The reason? It moves towards restoring the erstwhile state influence on federal policy while reducing the incentives for corruption inherent in having the legislatures choose U.S. senators.

An accused killer, on trial for murder in Florida, has his tattoos covered up by a makeup artist.  Apparently, he feels that his swastika tattoo might influence the jury.

From today's NYTimes:

When John Ditullio goes on trial on Monday, jurors will not see the large swastika tattooed on his neck. Or the crude insult tattooed on the other side of his neck. Or any of the other markings he has acquired since being jailed on charges related to a double stabbing that wounded a woman and killed a teenager in 2006.

Mr. Ditullio’s lawyer successfully argued that the tattoos could be distracting or prejudicial to the jurors, who under the law are supposed to consider only the facts presented to them.

And of course you knew this was coming:

The court approved the judicial equivalent of an extreme makeover, paying $125 a day for the services of a cosmetologist to cover up the tattoos that Mr. Ditullio has gotten since his arrest. This is Mr. Ditullio’s second trial for the murder; the first, which also involved the services of a cosmetologist, ended last year in a mistrial. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

He got those tattoos after he was arrested.  For a capital crime.  And the state is paying for them to be covered up.  Because jurors might think, "Hey, a guy with a swastika on his face just might be someone worth wonderin' about."

These are tattoos he chose, voluntarily, to etch into his skin.  These are things he wants us -- all of us -- to see.  So why shouldn't the jury see them?

Please join me in welcoming Troy Senik, Ricochet's Guest Contributor of the week.  Troy is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom.  He served in the White House as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, and previously wrote for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.  His writings have appeared in numerous publications including City Journal, National Affairs, and The Guardian.

A: They are the only countries in their respective regions which did NOT send Ricochet any visitors during November.

Yup. We had visitors from 156 countries last month, and they seemed to completely blanket every part of the globe except Africa and the poles.

But then I noticed a few, isolated empty spots:

South America: French Guyana

Europe: Monaco

Central Asia: Turkmenistan

Southeast Asia: Laos

East Asia: North Korea

Oceania: Papua New Guinea

Africa's only about 50% represented, and we completely struck out in Antarctica, Greenland, and a couple of arctic islands called Svalbard and Jan Mayen.

We have our work cut out for us.

The authors of e21, an economics blog, have been examining a new study of the Obama stimulus by Daniel J. Wilson of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.  What has Mr. Wilson found?

[T]hough the program did result in 2 million jobs “created or saved” by March 2010, net job creation was statistically indistinguishable from zero by August of this year. Taken at face value, this would suggest that the stimulus program (with an overall cost of $814 billion) worked only to generate temporary jobs at a cost of over $400,000 per worker. Even if the stimulus had in fact generated this level of employment as a durable outcome, it would still have been an extremely expensive way to generate employment.

We all knew the stimulus was nuts from the get-go.  Good to see the professionals catching up with us, no?

(Hat tip to the invaluable Peter Suderman of Reason.)

...because the good teachers don't have seniority, see?  And that's the important thing.  To the teachers' unions, anyway.  From today's LATimes:

John H. Liechty Middle School opened in 2007 in Los Angeles' impoverished Westlake neighborhood with a seasoned principal, dozens of energetic young teachers and a mission to "reinvent education" in the nation's second-largest school district.
The students had come from some of the lowest-performing schools in the city. But by the end of the first year, their scores on standardized tests showed the most improvement in English among district middle schools and exceptional growth in math, according to a Times analysis.
But when budget cuts came in the summer of 2009 — at the end of the school's second year — more than half of the teachers were laid off.  By the end of the last school year, Liechty had plummeted from first to 61st — near the bottom among middle schools — in raising English scores and fallen out of the top 10 in boosting math scores.

So who was laid off?  The bad teachers?  The ineffective ones?  Nope:

Quality-blind layoffs are just one vestige of seniority rules introduced decades ago to promote fairness and protect teachers from capricious administrators. Enshrined in state law and detailed in teachers' union contracts, the prerogatives of seniority continue to guide many of the key personnel decisions made in public schools across the country, including pay and assignments. The effects are most keenly felt by students during layoffs.

Because seniority is largely unrelated to performance, the district has laid off hundreds of its most promising math and English teachers. About 190 ranked in the top fifth in raising scores and more than 400 ranked in the top 40%.
Schools in some of the city's poorest areas were disproportionately hurt by the layoffs. Nearly one in 10 teachers in South Los Angeles schools was laid off, nearly twice the rate in other areas. Sixteen schools lost at least a fourth of their teachers, all but one of them in South or Central Los Angeles.

How can anyone read this and not be furious?  How could, say, a Democratic politician read this and not be ashamed of his party's slavish kowtowing to the teachers unions?

Why do we still have to politely tiptoe around the truth?  The single greatest obstacle to reforming education in America is the teacher's union.  The single greatest reason that poor and at-risk kids get a substandard education is the teacher's union.  The only way to improve standards and results in the public education sector is to end their reactionary and appalling stranglehold on reform.

GOP Rep. Rob Bishop has introduced the Repeal Amendment in the House.  As I described here, the Repeal Amendment would allow a supermajority of states to overturn federal law, thus undoing some of the damage done to federalism by the 17th Amendment.  Incoming majority leader Cantor reportedly praised the amendment, saying, "The Repeal Amendment would provide a check on the ever-expanding federal government, protect against Congressional overreach, and get the government working for the people again, not the other way around."

Over at the Washington Post, Dana Milbank reacted by regurgitating the now well-rehearsed liberal line: "Hey, if these guys are originalists, what are they doing amending the Constitution?"  I wouldn't ordinarily dignify this absurd argument, but I was delighted to see that The Economist's "Democracy in America" blog has devoted a lengthy (by blog standards) post explaining to Milbank and his ilk that the original Constitution allows for amending -- the Economist tartly comments: "Mr Milbank may be surprised to discover that originalists do not consider the Bill of Rights an intolerable assault on the constitution's initial design."  But the Economist blog goes even further to explain why the Repeal Amendment might further the worthy cause of decentralizing political power (invoking Hayek, no less).   I would never describe The Economist or its associated blog as "conservative," but when they get it right, they really nail it.

This one's going viral--and deserves to.

(Hat tip to one of my oldest and best of friends, Mark Klugmann.)

I don’t go to a lot of comedy clubs anymore; that’s really a young man’s game. However, for a variety of reasons, I’ve attended three comedy events in the past couple of weeks, and the experiences haven’t been pretty—or funny, for that matter. Maybe there’s just a certain age over which the repeated adjectival use of the f-bomb isn’t quite as amusing as it used to be. It seems to have become filler; the comics’ version of “y'know” or “umm.” I wasn’t offended by the word as much as I was annoyed by this verbal tic that seemed to seemed to affect virtually every performer I saw.

There was a surprising (to me) lack of political humor, and, not surprisingly, whatever such efforts there were tended to be more or less from the liberal side of the spectrum After all, these were, for the most part, relatively young comics struggling to become successful and who wanted to be liked. But it was that lazy kind of political humor, where the audience reacted--not to well-crafted lines or amusing observations--but merely to references. It reminded me of the old joke about the guy thrown into prison who hears other inmates laughing hysterically when one of their own would merely shout out a number. It was explained to him they had been penned up together for so long, they had numbered the jokes, and the number alone was enough to get a big laugh. “How about that (verbal tic) Sara Palin?” Can you believe those (verbal tic) Republicans?”

The most shocking and depressing aspect of my visits to the world of stand-up comedy, however, was the virulently racist and misogynistic language routinely tossed out by these men and women. I don’t have much patience with political correctness, but these were remarks that should have offended anyone long before the PC business began booming. And yet, they tended to get the only real laughs of the evenings. They were comments I would never even consider writing here and I would be reluctant to quote privately, much less in public. The logic escaped me. Was it, “We’ll show the world just how tolerant we are by using the most degrading language possible to describe others?” I don’t know, but I do know it would end or severely damage a career if that stuff came from the “wrong” person’s lips.

Strangely, other than the insults aimed at blacks, Asians, gays and women, there were very few remarks that generated laughs. There was lot of shouting and screaming and clapping and nods of recognition, but not much real laughter. You know that euphoric feeling a good belly laugh can give you, and that kind of shared joy an audience talks about when filing out of a particularly entertaining performance? Well, there was none of that. It was as if everyone wanted to change the subject. Maybe I just picked some particularly bad performances, and these didn’t really represent what passes for comedy these days. I (verbal tic) hope so.

Make your case in the comments section.

I don't suppose we'll settle the matter once and for all, but considering the question should settle two others of some importance: Was German society the most brilliant in history? Does God exist? 

I don't see how you can listen to either for long and say "No" to either question. 

Helen Thomas defends the remarks that led to her resignation:

In a speech that drew a standing ovation, Thomas talked about "the whole question of money involved in politics."

"We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where there mouth is…We're being pushed into a wrong direction in every way."

I see.

Here's a partial list of American lobbyists, consultants, and public relations firms that have reported income from Saudi Arabia since September 11: 

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP: $220,770

Boland & Madigan, Inc: $420,000

Burson-Marsteller: $3,619,286.85

Cambridge Associates, Ltd: $8,505

Cassidy & Associates, Inc.: $720,000

DNX Partners, LLC: $225,000

Dutton & Dutton, PC: $3,694,350

Fleishman-Hillard: $6,400,000

Gallagher Group, LLC: $612,337

Iler Interests, LP: $388,231.14

Loeffler Group, LLP: $10,349,999.99

Loeffler Tuggey Pauerstein Rosenthal, LLP: $2,350,457.12

Loeffler, Jonas & Tuggey, LLP: $1,260,000.00

MPD Consultants, LLP: $1,447,267.13

Patton Boggs, LLP: $3,098,000.00

Powell Tate, Inc.: $900,732.77

Qorvis Communications, LLC: $60,314,803.80

Sandler-Innocenzi, Inc.: $8,885,722.65

These are just contracts between the Saudi government and American firms. I leave it as an exercise for you to discover how much Saudi companies spend.

So what does this money buy?

One of the first projects of Qorvis was to launch a multimillion dollar media blitz of thirty-second television ads and sixty-second radio spots aimed at promoting the image of the Saudis as friends of the United States and allies against terrorism. ...

One series of radio ads produced by Qorvis in 2002 ran in thirty U.S. cities on behalf of a group of Arab American organizations it referred to as the Alliance for Peace and Justice. The spots called for an end to Israeli “occupation.” They also praised the Arab League’s “fair plan”  for  a Middle East peace settlement. This was the plan originally formulated by Saudi crown prince Abdullah. Time reported that the ads were actually financed by a “bridge loan” of $679,000 from the Saudi embassy, which was repaid with funds solicited by al-Jubeir from businesses associated with the Chambers of Commerce in Saudi Arabia and believed to be close to the Saudi government.

In 2004, the FBI raided three of Qorvis’s offices and delivered subpoenas to a fourth as part of an investigation into whether the alliance, which ceased to exist after the ad campaign, was designed to avoid violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires “political” or “informational” messages to be clearly labeled with a statement that they are sponsored by a foreign government. The Justice Department also revealed that Saudi Arabia paid Qorvis $14.6 million over a six-month period, ending in December 2002, “to promote public awareness” of the kingdom’s “commitment in the war against terrorism and to peace in the Middle East.” No further publicity was given to the investigation.

 Here's a non-exhaustive list of donations to American universities from Arab states:

Arkansas, $20,000,000: Saudi Arabia: King Fahd

Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, Cornell, $11,000,000: Saudi Arabia

George Washington University, nearly $20 million from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait

Cornell, nearly $11 million from Qatar

The Colorado School of Mines in Golden, more  than $19 million from the UAE

University of Virginia, more than $29 million from Saudi Arabia

Harvard, more  than $42 million from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Oman

Rutgers, $5 ,000,000: Saudi Arabia

Georgetown, more  than $60 million from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman

George Washington, $3,300,000: Kuwait Foundation

Chair for Islamic Shariah Studies, Princeton: $1,000,000: Saudi Arabia

Harvard Law, $5,000,000. Saudi Arabia, King Fahd

Harvard, $2,500,000: Saudi Arabia

Harvard. $2,000,000: Saudi Arabia, Prince Khalid al-Turki

USC: Saudi Arabia

UC Berkeley, $5,000,000: Saudi Arabia—two Saudi sheiks

Chicago: Saudi Arabia

Georgetown, $8,100,000: Saudi Arabia: scholarship from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal

Texas A&M, $1,500,000: Saudi Arabia

MIT, $5 ,000,000: Saudi Arabia

UC Santa Barbara: Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud Chair in Islamic Studies

Columbia: $2,000,000: UAE and other donors, Edward Said Chair

UC Berkeley: $5,000,000: Saudi Arabia—Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud Foundation and Sheikh Salahuddin Yusuf Hamza

Harvard: $20,000,000 Saudi Arabia—Prince Alwaleed bin Talal

Abdeljawad: Harvard, $2,000,000—Sheikh Khalid al-Turki

Georgetown: $750,000, Libyan government, Al-Mukhtar Chair of Arab Culture

Georgetown. $20,000,000: Saudi Arabia—Prince Alwaleed bin Talal

Duke University: $200,000, Saudi Arabia—program in Islamic and Arabian development studies

USC: $1,000,000, Saudi government: King Faisal Chair for Arab and Islamic Studies

American University: $5,000,000 Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi

Georgetown: $250,000, United Arab Emirates—visiting professor in Arab civilization

Cornell: $10,000,000, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal

Phillips Academy:  $500,000, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal

Carnegie Mellon—nearly $111 million from Qatar

Helen, you Jew-hating gargoyle, I think we've heard quite enough from you.

(Source: Mitchell Bard, The Arab Lobby)

How has Israel responded to the WikiLeaks information dump? Mostly with a shrug.

Our anxieties about Iran's nuclear ambitions have been largely vindicated by the extent to which our Arab neighbors obviously share our concern. Iran's been put on defense, which marks a refreshing change. (Naturally, Israel/AIPAC/nefarious-Jews-in-general are now being accused of orchestrating the dump expressly for that purpose. Honestly, folks. We're not that organized.) 

What revelations there were about us are mostly positive, and they fall predominantly in the Friends You Didn't Know You Had category. We've had high-level covert contacts with the United Arab Emirates for quite some time, for example, and we have the sympathy of the Emir of Qatar (who knew?). We've also received anti-terrorism intel from the Pakistanis. Both the US and Israel are worried about the direction Erdogan is taking Turkey, but that's hardly stop-the-presses stuff.

I'm actually a little surprised that there weren't at least a few embarrassing cables flying around. Israelis can be spectacularly tactless -- their attempts at diplomacy are often flat-footed because they're genuinely, culturally ignorant of the term -- and I'd thought it probable that even if we'd managed to keep our own indiscretions safely hidden on encrypted phone lines, the reciprocal feelings of the Americans towards us might have been jotted down in a confidential memo or two. Nothing, though. A quarter of a million documents and not a single diss?

Huh. Maybe it really was us.

One sign a columnist is strapped for ideas: the conversation with the cabbie. Another: “here’s the speech I wish Politician X would make.” (If you have a cabbie describe a speech he wished a politician would make, you’re doubly desperate to meet the deadline.) Both ideas should be placed in a box with a glass front and a small hammer on a chain: use only in case of emergency. 

Anyway, enough shop talk. David Brooks has a column about the speech he wishes President Obama would make: 

“Over the past several months, Republicans and Democrats have been fighting over what to do with the Bush tax cuts. I have my own views, but it’s not worth having a big fight over a tax code we all hate. Therefore, I’m suspending this debate. We will extend the Bush rates for everybody for one year, along with unemployment benefits. But during that year we will enact a comprehensive tax reform plan.

“The plan we will work on this year will look a bit like the 1986 reform plan. We will clean out the loopholes. We will take on the special interests. We will lower rates and make the tax code fair.”

Then Obama asks his aides to come up with a tax reform proposal he can lay before Congress. The State of the Union, he knows, is the one big chance he will have to redefine himself before the American people. On the big night, Obama stands before Congress. He gestures over to a giant stack of papers. “This is our tax code,” he tells the American people. “It’s rotten and we’re scrapping it.”

Yes, nothing cuts the Gordian knot like a sharp trouser-crease. When you write a speech for a politician, it’s your way of saying “I think this is who he really is,” despite all evidence to the contrary. Brooks, and others who projected upon the manque their hopes for a Really Smart Guy who would Do Important Stuff, seem to regard the President as a restless, protean intellect supremely interested in all the pressing problems of the Republic. 

At the end, this sad note:

“If Obama moved vigorously on tax reform, starting at the State of the Union, he would vindicate my description of him, which would be nice.”

I’m sure it would. 

Since taking over The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch has reconfigured it with an eye to destroying The New York Times – a consummation devoutly to be wished (and, with the help of Carlos Slim, likely to happen even if Murdoch were unwilling to assist). Of course, I live in the hinterlands – in the most extreme sense of the word – and not in New York, and I do not have a full appreciation of what is going on in the day-to-day maneuvers constituting that titantic struggle.

What I can say, however, from my obscure vantage point is that the new Wall Street Journal, which I find outside my door each morning six days a week, is not my father’s Wall Street Journal. It still covers the business news pretty well (though frequently not with the insight provided by The Financial Times, published from London), and its editorial pages are more informative than those of any newspaper in the world. But that was already true in my father’s day.

What is new is the addition of inserts devoted to subjects other than business, the economy, and politics. And, of course, the Journal now published a weekend edition.

Once a month, the weekend edition includes WSJ Magazine. The photography is fabulous; the articles are a high-class version of what can be found in the magazine called People; and, when I find it on my porch, I am embarrassed. Perhaps, I console myself, the lavish advertising included pays for other things.

This week, there was a section entitled Off Duty, dealing, we are told, with cooking, eating, style, fashion, design, decorating, adventure, travel, gear, and gadgets. This, too, I find an embarrassment. I do hope that the minions of Rupert Murdoch did not have me in mind when they designed it (that would be a humiliation). The recipes may be of some value, but I am not interested in royal engagements, Bordeaux wines, cookie news, designer wallpaper, Jaguars, HD projectors, Polaroid cameras, shopping in London,  vacationing in the Lake district, and the restaurants of Istanbul (where, frankly, I know as much, if not more than those whose advice was solicited).

When faced with the section entitled Review, however, I cannot help myself. I revel in it. I cannot testify that every article dealing with books, culture, science, commerce, humor, politics, language, technology, art, and ideas knocks my socks off – but, in fact, a fair number of them do. This week, for example, the genius who edits this insert asked spy novelists Alex Berenson, Joseph Finder, and Alex Carr to invent scenarios consequent on the recent release of State Department cables by the friendly folks at Wikileaks. In all three cases, I was immediately taken in, and I longed for more. The commentary on all of this by former Secretary of State George P. Shultz was instructive – as was David Rieff’s discussion of the violent struggle taking place between the government of Mexico and the drug cartels, Paul Davies’ account of the work done by Felisa Wolfe-Simon in producing bacteria based on arsenic rather than phosphate, Matt Ridley’s discussion of Sugata Mitra’s work in designing what he calls self-organized learning envinronments, Christopher Kimball’s review of the letters exchanged between Julia Child and Alvis DeVoto, and Graeme Wood’s review of Nicholas Ostler’s The Last Lingua Franca, to name only a few of the items that appeared. I read, with pleasure, almost every word in the section, and I look forward to its arrival each and every week.

If Rupert Murdoch and his minions were to find a way to introduce some substance into WSJ Magazine, and if they were to reconfigure Off Duty in such a fashion as to eliminate the suspicion that it is written solely for profligate sons of the filthy rich and for bored housewives possessed of a great deal more money than sense, they might achieve for the Journal a commanding position in this country of the sort once held by The New York Times. Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. has been busy for some time, turning what was once a great newspaper into a partisan rag. Opportunity beckons.

There are a number of issues at play concerning the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell':

1. The liberal community pushing for the changes is often the most critical of the military, especially its ROTC programs and its past deployment from Vietnam to Iraq; in contrast, those most supportive of the existing military protocols are the most critical of the proposed changes. How does all that political calculus work out? Do liberals suddenly embrace ROTC programs and become more pro-military; or do conservatives get less engaged with the military? Does the new policy have no effect on either? We do not know, but we can only note the irony that the liberal community usually associated with the most hostility to the military since the Vietnam era is now suddenly the most interested in changing how the military operates daily. Does a U.S. military with openly gay enlisted personnel and officers suddenly become  beloved by the left as emblematic of a new enlightened America?
2. The policy seems to affect combat troops differently than it might non-combat personnel, in the sense that how the policy is seen by Marines in a forward base near the Hindu Kush might matter in the short term more than among Air Force personnel at a supply depot in Nevada.
3. We do not the know the full effects of a policy in wartime that does not distinguish between heterosexual and homosexual behavior. Will more gays gravitate to the military in the new enlightened climate and will that in turn discourage recruitment of others, especially those from the more conservative south and midwest to join?

One could argue that much of the success of the US military, especially its officer corps, derives from its profile—more southern, more Christian, more traditional and nationalistic—being somewhat different from that of the upscale coastal suburbs. Will that change or not—and what would be the effect on combat operations if it should?

Clearly, the record in Afghanistan is that the US military remains exceptional in comparison with its European counterparts, especially in its eagerness to accept hazardous combat assignments. If the stereotypical Gung-ho types shy away from the military, will that matter; or will we learn that homosexuality makes no difference to them?  The data is ambiguous and may suggest that while troops in general may be indifferent to gays, those troops most likely to fight in ground combat operations may well care.

Does the policy refer to admissions of being homosexual or to homosexual acts per se? That is, knowing that fellow soldiers are gay in their private lives may not be as startling to comrades under arms as displaying homosexual affection in off-combat hours. Gays will argue that we have analogous situations already with women and men serving side by side who obviously are attracted to one another, sometimes date in private life, and on occasion engage in inappropriate conduct while on duty. But does homosexuality add a new dimension to those affinities in military units that function differently from those in the civilian world? More importantly, currently men and women are not serving long periods intimately together on the ground in combat. Would fighting side by side those whom one has a natural physical attraction toward change, improve, or imperil combat morale? History is ambiguous I think on that count.

Bottom line? I don't think anyone has any idea how overt homosexuality will affect combat operations, and even less idea whether they should worry about that uncertainty during ongoing fighting in Afghanistan.

From everything I've seen of Nikki Haley, she's wonderful. She's obviously a talented politician with all the right instincts. I'm delighted she was elected. She looks to me like everything admirable about America. I have nothing but good things to say about her, which is exactly why I'm appalled to read this in National Review: "With her wide smile, Sikh-American heritage, southern charm, and conservative values, she has been cited in Beltway circles as a potential 2012 vice-presidential pick."

Which Beltway circles? Are they out of their minds? She's 38 years old, and she is the governor-elect, not even the governor yet, of South Carolina. No matter what miracles she performs in the coming year, she will not be qualified to run for vice-president. Have we learned nothing? Nominating her would be no favor to her, no favor to the GOP, no favor to the country. Please, for the love of God, let this talented woman get some experience. 

She, at least, seems to have the good sense to find that idea as ridiculous as it is.

By now most of you know that I live in Istanbul, but it occurred to me this morning that I'm not sure where most of our members live. Are there other expatriates among us? Outstripp, you're in Japan, right? I know we have a lot of Californians. Where do the rest of you live? Did you grow up there? If you moved there, why? Do you like it there? 

Local flora and fauna? Favorite local pastime? Are your neighbors friendly? Do you think you'll stay there? 

Is there some place you'd rather live? Where?

The photos are places I've lived. I don't think I've written about either place. Does anyone recognize them?

At City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple puts his finger  exactly on something I've been groping to express about Wikileaks: 

It is not, of course, that revelations of secrets are always unwelcome or ethically unjustified. It is not a new insight that power is likely to be abused and can only be held in check by a countervailing power, often that of public exposure. But WikiLeaks goes far beyond the need to expose wrongdoing, or supposed wrongdoing: it is unwittingly doing the work of totalitarianism.

The idea behind WikiLeaks is that life should be an open book, that everything that is said and done should be immediately revealed to everybody, that there should be no secret agreements, deeds, or conversations. In the fanatically puritanical view of WikiLeaks, no one and no organization should have anything to hide. It is scarcely worth arguing against such a childish view of life.

The actual effect of WikiLeaks is likely to be profound and precisely the opposite of what it supposedly sets out to achieve. Far from making for a more open world, it could make for a much more closed one. Secrecy, or rather the possibility of secrecy, is not the enemy but the precondition of frankness. WikiLeaks will sow distrust and fear, indeed paranoia; people will be increasingly unwilling to express themselves openly in case what they say is taken down by their interlocutor and used in evidence against them, not necessarily by the interlocutor himself. This could happen not in the official sphere alone, but also in the private sphere, which it works to destroy. 

As I put it to a friend who was enthusing about the great service these leaks provided to transparency, "Do you feel that way about your bank information and your PIN code?"

The hypocrisy and double-standard of journalists, in particular, who fail to understand why the government must sometimes protect its sources of information is mind-blowing. Journalists, of all people, should understand this better than anyone else. Many sources would lose their jobs, their reputations, their liberty or their lives for talking to journalists on the record. If the people who spoke to us didn't think we could keep their names out of the story, they would never open their mouths again. Would that make the world more transparent? 

The only way you could argue that this logic doesn't also apply to the US government is by assuming that all journalists only have good intentions and do only good things--all the time--and the US government only has bad intentions and does only bad things--all the time. This appears to be the justification offered by the Guardian, but I suppose that's to be expected. 

I serendipitously happened on to a speech that Mike Pence delivered at Hillsdale a few months ago on the presidency and the Constitution, which was very timely, given the current White House occupant’s routine abuse of executive authority.

I’ve known for some time that Pence is a serious and substantive guy, but was particularly impressed with this speech and wanted to share a few thoughts about it. In a site search I discovered that Professor Rahe had written about the speech on Big Government.com, which he earlier linked on Ricochet.  I’ll read his piece shortly.

Pence’s speech deserves attention because it is an eloquent and stirring call to a return to first principles. Many of us expend a great deal of energy criticizing liberals for their cynical disregard for the Constitution as written. But I don’t think we spend enough time making the affirmative case that the framers purposely structured our government to achieve the proper balance between the power of government and individual liberties. They were learned students of history and statecraft, and proceeded largely from a worldview that recognized the fallen human condition. They understood that investing the government with too little or too much power would jeopardize liberty. “If men were angels,” they wouldn’t have had to pit the branches and levels of government against each other in an effort to “oblige government to control itself,” and avoid tyranny.

Pence affirms that our republican government is one of laws, not men, which was designed to avoid the development and elevation of a ruling class that operates above the law or outside its established constitutional constraints.

In his speech, Pence argues, in effect, for a reawakening of our first principles and a return to true constitutional governance. He reminds us that like the framers, we must not place our hope in our fellow mortals, but in adherence to a system that best accommodates the human condition so as to maximize our liberties.

He says that instead of operating as a check on each other, the executive and legislative branches, being dominated by a single party, have formed an “unholy unity,” and this “political class has raged forward in a drunken expansion of powers and prerogatives, mistakenly assuming that to exercise power is by default to do good." (Think of Obama’s post election delusion: “The American people did not vote for gridlock.”) Pence continues:

A republic is about limitation, and for good reason, because we are mortal and our actions are imperfect. … That is why you must always be wary of a president who seems to float upon his own greatness. For all greatness is tempered by mortality, every soul is equal, and distinctions among men cannot be owned; they are on loan from God, who takes them back and even accounts at the end. …

The president is not our teacher, our tutor, our guide or ruler. He does not command us; we command him. We serve neither him nor his vision. It is not his job or his prerogative to redefine custom, law, and beliefs; to appropriate industries; to seize the country, as it were, by the shoulders or by the throat so as to impose by force of theatrical charisma his justice upon 300 million others. It is neither his job nor his prerogative to shift the power of decision away from them, and to him and the acolytes of his choosing. …

No one can say this too strongly, and no one can say it enough until it is remedied. We are not subjects; we are citizens. We fought a war so that we do not have to treat even kings like kings, and—if I may remind you—we won that war. Since then, the principle of royalty has, in this country, been inoperative. Who is better suited or more required to exemplify this conviction, in word and deed, than the President of the United States? …

The powers of the presidency are extraordinary and necessarily great, and great presidents treat them sparingly. …

A sensibility such as this, and not power, is the source of presidential dignity, and must be restored. It depends entirely upon character, self-discipline, and an understanding of the fundamental principles that underlie not only the republic, but life itself. It communicates that the president feels the gravity of his office and is willing to sacrifice himself; that his eye is not upon his own prospects but on the storm of history, through which he must navigate with the specific powers accorded to him and the limitations placed on those powers both by man and by God. …

A president who slights the Constitution is like a rider who hates his horse: he will be thrown, and the nation along with him. The president solemnly swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He does not solemnly swear to ignore, overlook, supplement, or reinterpret it. Other than in a crisis of existence, such as the Civil War, amendment should be the sole means of circumventing the Constitution. For if a president joins the powers of his office to his own willful interpretation, he steps away from a government of laws and toward a government of men. …

Would it be such a great surprise that a good part of the political strife of our times is because one president after another, rather than keeping faith with it, argues with the document he is supposed to live by? This discontent will only be calmed by returning the presidency to the nation’s first principles. The Constitution and the Declaration should be on a president’s mind all the time, as the prism through which the light of all question of governance passes. Though we have—sometimes gradually, sometimes radically—moved away from this, we can move back to it. And who better than the president to restore this wholesome devotion to limited government?

 Pence's words reveal a refreshingly stark contrast between his adult approach to limited, republican government and Obama's statist ends-oriented manipulations -- especially in an age when arrogant politicians have become so far removed from their roots that they don't ever pause to consider, before acting, whether they have the constitutional authority to act. 

You surely remember the bizarre string of quotes from various Democratic senators and congressmen when asked by reporters under what authority they legislated Obamacare. Most were aghast that anyone would even dare question their legislative omnipotence. That's one of the many reasons that Pence's call for a restoration of our founding principles was so gratifying -- and encouraging.

The U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning that, in November, the unemployment rate jumped from 9.6% to 9.8%. And perhaps in anticipation of the bad news, President Obama flew off to Afghanistan to chat over the phone with Hamid Karzai and pose for photo ops with the troops. Back in Washington, Joe Biden was left holding the bag – which, let’s face it, is what he is there for.

Never mind the fact that the figure reported grossly understates the actual number of unemployed – since it excludes those who have given up on the search for jobs. Never mind the fact that it tells us nothing about the underemployed – those who once worked full time and are now relegated to part-time work. In November, we are told, 36,000 people joined the roles of the employed, and they were outnumbered by the young people coming of age and entering the market.

For fun, you should read Peter Whoriskey’s report in The Washington Post. It illustrates nicely what happens when journalists are reduced to flacks.

To his credit, Whoriskey states the facts, and he does not hide the fact that they are disappointing. But this he could hardly do. Non-farm employment went up by 172,000 in October, and for the official unemployment rate to go down to 8% by the first Tuesday in November, 2012 – a date on which folks in Washington are fixated – the job rolls would have to grow by 200,00 a month from now on: which is evidently not going to happen. As things stand, the number of Americans out of work exceeds 15 million.

But after acknowledging the bad news, Whoriskey does what he can to soften the blow. He quotes a fellow from the Brookings Institution who reports that salaries of those employed have increased by 2.3%. "Those are not terrible numbers,” this expert tells. They are "pretty good by post war standards.” And Whoriskey ends his piece with this:

In a post on the White House blog, Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, linked the jobs report to the Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment insurance.

"Today's numbers underscore the importance of extending expiring tax cuts for the middle class and unemployment insurance for those Americans who have lost their jobs. Failure to do this would jeopardize hundreds of thousands of additional jobs, and leave millions of Americans, who are out of work through no fault of their own, on their own."

Democratic lawmakers have been working to extend unemployment insurance into 2011, but Republicans are demanding spending cuts to offset costs. Without congressional approval, unemployment benefits will run out for 2 million people in December, and several million more will lose them in the coming months.

It seems not to have crossed Whoriskey’s mind of that of his editor that he should call up someone at the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, or the Cato Institute for a comment, and he appears not to have thought it appropriate to consult the Republican leadership in the House or the Senate. It will be interesting to see how The New York Times spins this story tomorrow and on Sunday.

The truth of the matter is that this is very bad news – bad news for the President who is going to be held responsible for the mess he has created, and bad news for the country – which is being made to pay heavily for putting Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid in charge of its economic well-being.

It is not at all clear to me that a genuine, sustained recovery is in the cards anytime soon. There are storm clouds on the horizon.

In Europe, Portugal, Spain, and Italy are likely to follow Greece and Ireland into insolvency, and this could break the German bank. In the US, property values have not hit bottom. They cannot do so until the 1.5 million homes awaiting foreclosure have been dumped on the market. And, of course, there is the problem of the states. Not to put too fine a point on it, Illinois, New York, and California are bankrupt – and there are a great many other states not far behind. Moreover, as I suggested on Sunday, at the federal level, we seem to have entered a fiscal trap. In the absence of economic growth, it is hard to see how we can cope with the debt we have already accumulated. But if there is economic growth – and interest rates go up – we may have trouble servicing that debt. I have trouble believing that, with the help of a bit of financial legerdemain on the part of Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, and some of the other folks who lead us into this mess, we can escape a painful reckoning.

For this, I plead simple mischief. Sing along if you like. Hit it, Maestro:

On the first day of Obama, the President gave to me:
A tax cheat at the Treasury.

On the second day of Obama, the President said to me:
"I'll spread your wealth around, with the tax cheat at the Treasury."

On the third day of Obama, the President gave to me:
Three Black Panther goons to spread my wealth around, with that tax cheat at the Treasury.

On the fourth day of Obama, the President gave to me:
Four groping screeners, three Black Panther goons to spread my wealth around with that snot-nosed cheat at the Treasury.

On the fifth day of Obama, the President gave to me:
SIXTEEN THOUSAND IRS AGENTS! Four groping screeners, three Black Panther goons who knocked me to the ground, and gave my wallet to the Treasury.

On the sixth day of Obama, the President gave to me:
The Individual Mandate, by SIXTEEN THOUSAND IRS AGENTS! Four groping screeners, three belligerent thugs, to spread my wealth around, and that (expletive) at the Treasury.

On the seventh day of Obama, the President gave to me:
A bill for my grandkids for the Individual Mandate by the SIXTEEN THOUSAND IRS AGENTS! Four groping screeners, three Black Panther goons who gave away my house, to that SOB at the Treasury.

On the eighth day of Obama, the President gave to me:
Trillions more in debt, with a bill to my grandkids, and the Individual Mandate by the SIXTEEN THOUSAND IRS AGENTS! Four pawing screeners, three common criminals, who shook a business down, and sent the proceeds to the Treasury.

On the ninth day of Obama, the President gave to me:
Shovel-ready speeches, 'bout the trillions in debt, with a bill to my grandkids, and the Individual Mandate with the SIXTEEN THOUSAND IRS AGENTS! Four peeping screeners, three Acorn perps, who registered my dog, who got a union job at Treasury.

On the tenth day of Obama, the President gave to me:
Dual teleprompters, for the shovel-ready speeches, 'bout the trillions in debt, with a bill to my grandkids, for the Individual Mandate, by the SIXTEEN THOUSAND IRS AGENTS! Four groping screeners, three pocket pickers who lifted my mom's purse, for the benefit of the Treasury.

On the eleventh day of Obama, the President gave to me:
A shredded Constitution, with dual teleprompters for the shovel ready speeches 'bout the trillions more in debt with a bill for my grandkids for the Individual Mandate by the SIXTEEN THOUSAND IRS AGENTS! Four feeling guards, three hired hoodlums who emptied my accounts, and dumped it all in the Treasury.

On the first week of November, my country heard from me:
Restore the Constitution, ditch the teleprompter and those infernal speeches, stop spending all those trillions that belong to our grandkids, repeal Obamacare, and FIRE ALL THOSE IRS AGENTS! Screeners screen for terrorists, tell your stupid thugs to go earn their own wealth, and restore some honor to the Treasury.

I have a problem.  I've just read The Identity Man, the new novel by Ricochet's own Andrew Klavan, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to tell you just how good the book is without giving away big pieces of the plot.

What can I tell you?  Let me think.  The central character, John Shannon, is a two-bit low-life, a petty thief about to be framed for a murder he didn't commit.  You'll like Shannon.  That's one of the wonders of the book.  He's a bad guy with a good heart, which is sort of appealing in itself.  But the character is so richly drawn that you'll find yourself wishing you could get to know Shannon--thinking you'd enjoy having a beer with him, or hearing his views on sports, politics, or the new city in which he finds himself living.  He's peculiar and quirky and, I repeat, a thief.  But he's so unassuming, so completely himself, so uninterested in high attainments or ambition, and so horrified by the adventure into which he finds himself thrust that John Shannon will become your best fictional friend--the best company you've kept--since, oh, let's say Bilbo Baggins.

The adventure?  Hm.  Again, what can I say?  As he's about to be framed for murder, Shannon finds himself summoned to a mysterious midnight meeting with a foreigner he has never before met.  Next?  Shannon wakes up in a hospital room--and discovers that he has undergone extensive plastic surgery, acquiring an entirely new appearance, and, as he soon learns, new ID cards, a new job, and a new place to live.  In a word, Shannon has been given a new identity.  Why has the foreigner done this for him?  Shannon doesn't know.  All he knows is that he's been given a second chance.  Shannon happily takes up his new life--he has even been given a new job--and then?  Well, strange and dangerous things begin to happen.

And that's all you're going to get out of me.

About the plot, anyway.

I think I can add that the prose moves, and that, as is his want, Andrew Klavan combines a page-turner of a thriller with an almost Dostoyevskian concern for good and evil and sin and redemption--and with brilliant insights about the politics and culture of contemporary America.  Just get a load of this passage, for instance, in which one of the supporting characters, an African-American preacher, addresses his congregation.  Andrew Klavan, as you'll see, possesses an understanding of white guilt as acute as that of Shelby Steele:

The white man in America...[is] full of the shame of racism, the shame of slavery and Jim Crow.  And he'll do anything to make that shame go away.  He'll give you money--welfare money for doing nothing.  He'll give you government jobs you didn't earn and don't deserve.  He'll say 'You wanna take drugs?  You wanna get your girlfriend pregnant?  You want to live without morality...?  I give you abortions to kill those babies.  I give the mother money so you don't have to marry her.  I give you some pro-grams for those drugs.  Pro-grams, that'll set you right up.  Just don't be calling me racist.  I'll give you anything you want, just set me free of my shame.'

The Identity Man.  A thriller.  A character study.  And a commentary on American life.

I'm writing this in a back room at my in-laws' apartment in Jerusalem. It's Shabbat, but I felt it was important to get you some details about the massive forest fire that is still raging through the Carmel forest in northern Israel. (Negligence, not arson, is suspected.) It's no exaggeration to describe what's happening here as a catastrophe of biblical proportions. Wildfires are by no means unknown in Israel, but this is by far the worst in the country's history. 

The weather has been unseasonably warm and dry of late -- we just had the hottest November in sixty years, winter shows no sign of approaching, and my kids are still in T-shirts and shorts. Yesterday (Thursday), sometime around midday, a fire broke out, apparently in an illegal landfill near the Druse village of Usifiya. Gusty winds and the extreme dryness combined to cause the fire to build and spread at shocking speed. It swept towards Haifa, prompting mass evacuations that as of this moment have affected about 17,000 people.

There is a prison called Damon in the Carmel hills near Haifa that houses both Palestinian and Israeli prisoners. The Prisons Service sent a busload of guards -- most of them trainees, and a good proportion of them women -- toward Damon to assist in the evacuation of the prison. Along the way, a tree collapsed in the path of the bus, trapping it directly in the path of the oncoming blaze. The bus was swiftly engulfed in flames and 36 people aboard were killed, as well as six rescuers (fire-fighters, policemen, and a 16-year-old boy who rushed in to assist). The dead were mostly Jews, but some were Druse; most of the funerals took place at noon today. (The prisoners at Damon were safely evacuated.) Two police officers are still missing.

The head of the Haifa Police Department, Deputy Commander Ahuva Tomer, was driving behind the bus. When she saw the flames begin to consume it, she jumped out of her car and rushed towards it in an attempt to pull people off. She was herself critically injured and is now clinging to life at Carmel Hospital in Haifa. 

The scale of the fire quickly overwhelmed Israel's capacity to fight it, leading Netanyahu to take the unusual step of requesting international help while continuing to pour what resources were available towards the area. As Claire noted earlier today, Turkey set aside its recent animus towards Israel and immediately offered to send two fire-fighting aircraft, an offer that was gratefully accepted. “I greatly appreciate this,” said Netanyahu, promising, “We’ll find a way to show how much.” Netanyahu and Erdogan spoke by phone about the crisis, the first time they have spoken since Netanyahu took office as Prime Minister. 

Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus also quickly responded with planes, personnel and equipment. More help is continuing to arrive from Spain, France, Croatia, Azerbaijan, Britain, Egypt, Jordan, Romania and Russia. Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, sent his condolences to the Israeli people on behalf of the Palestinians. (This might sound insignificant, but I for one appreciate it.) President Obama has also sent condolences and assured Israel that American help is on its way: as he put it, "that's what friends do for each other." The Israeli Air Force is coordinating the international aerial effort to douse the fire.

The savagery and power of the fire has been and continues to be terrifying, with quickly moving flames leaping up to forty meters in the air. Residents across the north are being advised to keep their windows closed to keep the smoke out. Beit Oren, a kibbutz in the Carmel hills, has been devastated and possibly destroyed (its population was evacuated before the wildfire reached its buildings). The University of Haifa was evacuated. At least 5,000 acres of pine trees in the gorgeous Carmel Forest are now ashes or still aflame. Routes Two and Four to the affected area have been closed, effectively cutting the region off from the rest of the country. Buses are on standby for further evacuations. 

This terrible event has made for a sobering Chanukah for us here in Israel. As Aluf Benn put it in Haaretz, "The enormous blaze that broke out on the Carmel will be remembered as the Yom Kippur War of the Fire and Rescue Service, who were not prepared to counter a disaster of such magnitude...it turned out that Israel is not prepared for war or a mass terrorist strike that would cause many casualties in the home front." It's a dark day here. Netanyahu has rightly praised the "divine heroism" of the many people who have put themselves in grave danger to fight this fire, but Benn is right. This is the worst kind of wake-up call.

It's 10:30 pm now and we have to get the kids home. Be safe, all of you, wherever you are.

I've been sick since Sunday.  I mean really sick.  Not the stuff-myself-with-OTC-Meds and soldier on sick, but old fashioned bed rest sick.  Started with my stomach turning inside out, moved to rack-like body aches, all mixed in with sinus headaches and a neck that was frozen to my shoulders by pain.  And I know pain...I've gone through child birth.

Here's the problem, I've got a pilot to write and other tv work and I just can't focus.   I'm not a Puritan, heck, I'm not even Christian, but I feel damn guilty.   You other writers out there, what do you do?  And if you're the type who writes even if they've just lost an arm in a combine accident, you're not going to help me. 

Thanks for letting me gripe.  I feel a little better already. 

Supersecret robot spaceship completes ultra-secret mission, officials say at press conference:

The U.S. Air Force's secrecy-shrouded X-37B unmanned spaceplane returned to Earth early Friday after more than seven months in orbit on a classified mission, officials said.

The winged craft autonomously landed at at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles, Vandenburg spokesman Jeremy Eggers said.

"It's very exciting," Eggers said of the 1:16 a.m. PST landing.

The X-37B was launched by an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on April 22, 2010, with a maximum mission duration of 270 days.

That’s very cool, and while I’m glad I know about it, you wonder why they feel compelled to have press conferences about secrecy-shrouded things that had absolutely no payload, nosirree, none at all. Theory: they tell us about these things to make us think they have really secret things they never tell anyone about. Or so I’d like to think. 

As for being secrecy-shrouded: well. Granted, that's the X-37, not the X-37B, but unless the B has phaser banks, you can probably gather the general idea. 

This week we had our first true homeowner surprise. On Wednesday afternoon, my wife phoned me from our basement where she was sloshing around in about 3 inches of water. We have two sump pumps down there, and apparently one failed. Only one room in our basement is finished, and that had the most water. So we spent most of Wednesday evening with brooms getting the water from that room to the other room way in the back where the functioning sump pump was.

Yesterday I spent the day cleaning out. Fortunately I had just cleaned the basement, and most of the stuff in the other rooms -- my precious power tools -- were well off the ground. This weekend I will be spending with a mop and some bleach. And of course the plumber will have to replace the pump (I could actually put it in, but I don't have the expertise to know what system is best for me).

I have to say I feel about my flooded basement the way other some people once felt about having a handicap or genetic disease: that the flood is somehow an indictment of me. How do you check a sump pump anyway if it is working? I'm also having issues with a new dehumidifier I bought which is running but producing no water. Any flood experts out there?

And Peter, I could have used you on the bucket brigade.