In the mean time in Palestine

Building Palestinian prosperity
By Alexander Joffe And Asaf Romirowsky

Modern café in Ramallah

The Palestinian cause has never been more marginalized than it is today. That was the message conveyed by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in a recent meeting in Ramallah. The Arab Spring has deflected the attention of the international community and the Arab world, to the detriment of the Palestinians. But Fayyad was also frank that the uprisings were inevitable. The fundamental lack of respect for citizens in places such as Syria, Tunisia and Egypt, he stated, could not be sustained forever. With understated pride, he pointed to the lack of similar protests in the Palestinian Authority.

But the drama of the uprisings has contributed to a "lack of focus" on the Palestinians, a situation that Fayyad clearly found both novel and disturbing. He also added forcefully that the missteps of world powers in the fall of 2011 had dramatically set back the cause of Palestinian statehood. Pushing for agreement on final-status issues such as borders and refugees, at the expense of incremental moves to build infrastructure, co-operation and confidence, had been disastrous.

Greece is not even trying anymore

Back to square one

by Wolf Richter

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, while visiting Japan, summarized it eloquently when he said, "The financial aspect of the crisis is over." The ECB, despite any apparently fake German reservations, has jumped with both feet on the money printing bandwagon where it happily joins the Fed, the Bank of Japan, and other central banks around the world. The endless flow of money has started in the Eurozone, and Greek politicians, it now turns out, have figured this out.

A conflict of visions

It's All About Race Now

By Pat Buchanan

If it had been a white teenager who was shot, and a 28-year-old black guy who shot him, the black guy would have been arrested.

So assert those demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.

And they may be right.

Black life doesn't hold so much value in the region Trayvon was killed

Trayvon Martin had it coming ...

by Gary Gibson

We read those words to that effect from an article linked to by a libertarian website we visit very regularly.

"In Zimmerman's case, Martin was an athletic six-foot-two-inch tall football player that had him on his back pounding on him. Martin got what he deserved."

So wrote Paul Huebl, a former Chicago cop and proud member of the Screen Actors Guild.

We've tried to avoid having to write anything publicly about the shooting of Trayvon Martin. But we feel we must let our thoughts be known, if only in passing...

You see, dear patron, we spent a few years of our adolescence in the Central Florida town just south of where Trayvon was killed. We have some experience with being Black in that corner of the world.

The Sultan of Swing

Swingin’ Kennedy

By Mark Steyn

Since the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, Swingin’ Anthony Kennedy has been the swingingest swinger on the Supreme Court, the big Numero Cinco on all those 5–4 white-knuckle nail-biting final scores. So naturally Court observers have been paying close attention to his interventions in the Obamacare oral arguments. So far he doesn’t sound terribly persuaded by the administration’s line:

“The government is saying that the federal government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases, and that changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way.” 

Human Achievement Hour

The gift of lighting

Light in North & South Korea

by Julie Kirsten Novak

It’s that time of year again when that rag‑tag coalition of conspicuously compassioned doctor’s wives, tambourining hippies still living as if they’re in the ‘60’s, ‘hug a whale’ do‑gooders, humanity =camphylobacter misanthropes, anti‑coal wowsers, and eco‑warriors brainwashed by standardised school curricula exhort the general public to replicate North Korea by turning off the lights for Earth Hour 2011.

The practical curiosity and problem-solving inclination of previous generations to seek to transform night into day, for mass convenience, started to produce real outcomes from 1800. The English chemist Humphry Davy connected two pieces of wire to a battery with a piece of charcoal between the ends of the wires. The carbon fragment glowed, producing light.

Dimming the light on human ingenuity

The candle-lit world of Earth Hour is a decadent celebration of an era that we ought to be glad we’ ve left behind.

On 26 March 1886, the House of Lords debated amendments to the recently enacted Electric Lighting Bill, with Lord Houghton proclaiming electric lighting had a ‘very brilliant future before it’. Exactly 125 years later,  the lights will go out on this optimistic vision of a better future.

by Colin McInnes

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is asking for lights to be switched off in homes, public buildings and historic monuments for 60 minutes during Earth Hour, an annual event highlighting the impact of energy use on the environment. ‘Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth… [L]eaving them on is a vote for global warming’, states WWF. Unfortunately the symbolism of this gesture is entirely misplaced and ignores the socially and environmentally progressive story of artificial lighting.

The sweet, and deadly, sides of President Assad

Reports that President Assad sent his wife sentimental pop lyrics perfectly fits the profile of a modern despot.

By Theodore Dalrymple

Some men are born evil, some achieve evil, and some have evil thrust upon them. Bashar al-Assad of Syria falls into the third category; but from the point of view of his victims, it hardly matters. For them, evil is evil and death is death. The psychological origins of a man’s crimes don’t make them less real or horrible to those who suffer from them.

You are being herded and the gate is closing.

“Rise and Rise Again until Lambs become Lions.”

by Mike Krieger

When Central Banking Dies: China and Oil

1. China

China is a topic on which I have differed greatly from many analysts and macro commentators with whom I generally share a similar economic philosophy.  What I have heard from many in this camp is this story about how China was the next great power and that they are going to revalue the yuan higher.  In that process, they would be able to shift their economy away from a dangerous overemphasis on fixed asset investment and toward consumption.  


There was this notion that China had its house in order and was about to totally shift the balance of economic power in the world as the West melted away.  In the middle part of the last decade I heard this argument yet it always seemed a little preposterous.  In 2007/2008 as the Western housing markets and banking systems came apart this view was expressed in the now much maligned (and rightfully so) “decoupling thesis” which turned out to be nothing but a fantasy.  Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the implosion in the West there was still this notion that China was ok.  

Liberal Whitewashing

The Media and Black Homicide Victims

By Heather Mac Donald

Cable mogul Evan Shapiro had a stunningly clueless Trayvon Martin entry on Huffington Post yesterday asking: Why doesn’t the media cover more black crime victims?

Shapiro, the president of indie cable broadcaster IFC, should pose the same question to Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and every member of the black protest establishment: Why don’t you protest more black crime victims? The answer would be the same in all cases: Because the only black victims who interest the race industry and its mainstream media handmaidens are blacks who have been killed by “white” civilians, including honorary whites like Martin’s killer George Zimmerman, or blacks who have been killed or offended by the police (black officers will do here in a pinch).

Unfortunately, there are very few such victims. Ninety-three percent of all black homicide casualties from 1980 to 2008 were killed by other blacks, and are thus of no interest whatsoever to today’s race advocates, because they fail to support the crucial story line that blacks remain under siege by a racist white power structure.

Integration, Not Ideology

The French civic model will survive the recent terror

BY GUY SORMAN

Following a radical Islamist’s cold-blooded murder of seven French citizens—four Jews, two Muslims, and one African—in the Southern cities of Toulouse and Montauban, one could deduce that homegrown Islamic terrorism has become a major threat in Europe, and that racism and anti-Semitism remain pervasive in France. After all, the perpetrator was a French citizen of Arab origin. This may describe the facts, but it doesn’t help us understand them.

The massacres occurred in the midst of a French presidential campaign, and the candidates wasted little time in trying to link them to their own agendas. On the far right, Marine Le Pen argued for a halt to all new immigration and expulsion of all immigrants who have committed crimes, as well as revoking French citizenship for those naturalized immigrants with criminal records. On the left, candidates charged that the incumbent president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was responsible for fostering racial hatred—an absurd accusation against the first French head of state to appoint French citizens of Arab and African descent to major ministerial positions. As for Sarkozy himself, he touted his strong commitment to security, but he couldn’t explain how the killer was able to commit his crimes even as police were well aware of the threat he posed.

Green Extremes

Germany's Failing Environmental Projects

The energy-saving light bulb ends up as hazardous waste, too much insulation promotes mold and household drains are emitting a putrid odor because everyone is saving water. Many of Germany's efforts to protect the environment are a chronic failure, but that's unlikely to change.  

By Alexander Neubacher

Germans support protecting the environment, and they have a special relationship with nature. They like animals and plants, blue skies and the ocean. They want their children to grow up in an intact environment, and try to set an example for others. When it's time to save the world, the Germans are there, doing their utmost. They are determined that conservation efforts won't fail because of them.

Germany used to declare war on its neighbors. Today we explain how they can renounce nuclear power. We've lost the title of the world's top exporter and only manage to come in third place in global soccer rankings, but no one can get the better of us when it comes recycling our waste. Acid rain and forest decline have opened our eyes to the destructive force of civilization from an early age, even though Germany's forests, contrary to expectations, have somehow survived.

Welcome to the United States of Orwell

The Trojan Horse  has passed the gates

1. Our One Last Chance to Preserve the Bill of Rights   

"This Congress and President Obama have shredded the Bill of Rights. We have one last chance to restore the Founding Fathers' bastion against a rogue Central State: the Bill of Rights."

"Everything that Richard Nixon did to me, for which he faced impeachment and prosecution, which led to his resignation, is now legal under the Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)." Daniel Ellsberg. Can Congress legalize tyranny by passing a law that says it can? Can Congress shred the Bill of Rights by passing a law that says it can? Well, Congress has passed such a law, and President Obama--the most effective Trojan Horse president in American history, a plutocrat dressed as a "progressive"-- rushed to sign it on New Years Eve 2011 when nobody was looking.

This is not a partisan issue, though various flaks and toadies are attempting to make it so. Here is how the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) describes the NDAA: 

Indefinite Detention, Endless Worldwide War and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

He signed it. We'll fight it. 

If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail

How Brussels Stifles Democracy in Europe

By DANIEL HANNAN

How could so many clever people get it so wrong? The flaws in the euro project are not just clear with hindsight; they were visible at the outset and were widely pointed out. It was never going to be possible to jam widely divergent economies into a single monetary policy. It was plainly reckless to invite Italy and Greece to join the new currency when their government debt was at twice the permitted level of 60 per cent of GDP. Plenty of doubters said so at the time. Yet, in every national parliament, in every central bank, in every university faculty, in every television editorial conference, there was a collective suspension of disbelief. 

Afghan women are squashed between three enemies

For Afghan women little has changed

An old Pashtun proverb sums up the motivation for war in three words, “Zan, zamin, zar” – women, land and wealth. The progress of Afghan women has been promoted as a positive outcome of the international occupation of Afghanistan. Women and women’s rights were seen as just cause for war. And even while some progress has been made to uplift the station of women in Afghan society, much remains the same.

By KHADIJA PATEL.

October 2011 marked 10 years since British and American forces intervened in Afghanistan. Theirs was a mission to mitigate the threat to global security following the attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001. In November of that year, the US state department released an 11-page report on the Taliban’s “war against women”, enumerating the systematic repression of women in Afghanistan: girls could not go to school or university; women were very rarely allowed to work; they were denied access to healthcare; they had to wear a burqa outside the home, but could not leave their homes without a male relative.

Piling up Debt to Subsidize our Betters

Summarizing The True Sad State Of The World In Two Charts

USA Injustice System

In US 97% of convictions are the result of plea bargains

By Conrad Black

Every resident of or frequent visitor to the United States should rejoice at the Supreme Court’s decision last week expanding the rights of defendants to effective counsel in plea-bargain negotiations. As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, the country no longer has a “trial system,” but rather a system in which “the negotiation of a plea bargain, [instead of] the unfolding of a trial, is almost always the critical point for a defendant.” In federal cases, 97 percent of convictions — and in state cases, 94 percent of convictions — are the result of plea bargains.

The "German Problem"

We're Good Europeans, Yet They All Hate Us

By Christopher Caldwell

Once again, Europe has a country at its centre that is too big for its neighbours. Merely by keeping on its best behaviour, Germany has managed to reawaken the historic "German problem". It has succeeded its way into a crisis. Ever since Greece's finances became a matter of public concern just over two years ago, Germany has been regaining its status as the leading power in Europe. It subjected itself almost a decade ago to a painful reform of its welfare state and a freeze in real wages that has made it as competitive an exporter as any country in the world, including China. 

Now Germany's economy is better balanced than those of other European countries, its reputation for honest accounting stands higher, and it has kept its triple-A credit rating while France, Austria and others have been downgraded.

How the Left Turned Against the Jews

How the Left Turned Against the Jews

Separated at birth: The movements for Jewish self-determination and Russian Communism were inextricably linked 

by NICK COHEN

In Weimar Germany, riddled with resentment after defeat in World War I and the national catastrophe of the Treaty of Versailles, demagogues knew that they could win the attention of the mob by palming the race card from the bottom of the deck.

"You cry out against Jewish capital, gentlemen?" cried one. "You are against Jewish capital and want to eliminate the stock manipulators. Rightly so. Trample the Jewish capitalists under foot, hang them from the street lamps, stamp them out."

Ruth Fischer sounded like a Nazi. She used the same hate-filled language. She wanted to murder Jews. But Hitler would never have accepted her. Fischer was a leader of the German Communist Party. She made her small differences of opinion with the Nazis clear when she went on to say that her audience should not just trample Jewish capitalists to death, but all capitalists.

In the meantime, the debasement of paper money continues

Does the ‘recovery’ matter?

by DETLEV SCHLICHTER 

I was thinking of starting this blog with a cynical comment along the lines of, last week equity markets came off, I think we need another €1 trillion from the ECB! – Okay, maybe it wasn’t the greatest joke but you get the idea. But then the Wall Street Journal beat me to it, and they weren’t even trying to be funny. In an article on weaker data in the Euro Zone one could find this remark:

“The unexpected drop in the purchasing managers’ index survey suggests more stimulus from the European Central Bank through interest-rate cuts or additional bank lending may be required to protect the economy from a more severe downturn.”

Sure. And why not?