JustOneMinute

Bracing For The Future

People like to play sports and they like to watch sports (and pretend for a moment they can Be Like Mike.) Now, thanks mainly to better technology, people who like to play video games can watch others play video games. 

The NY Times and the Guardian cover the phenomenon, inspired no doubt by Amazon's purchase of Twitch. The Times has this interesting factoid on market interest:

A championship tournament last October for League of Legends, an arena battle game, streamed around the world, attracting 8.5 million simultaneous online viewers at its peak — the same as the peak viewership for the deciding game of professional hockey’s Stanley Cup finals in June.

As to the motivation of viewers, the Times has this:

Twitch’s viewers aren’t removed from the action. They learn tactics for their own play, revel in the inside jokes and bond with fellow gamers. 

Sort of like golf fans.

And we get a glimpse of the future of other sports:

Because professional gamers often practice on sites like Twitch, fans can get behind-the-scenes peeks at practice sessions by their favorite players. The more generous ones even invite fans to play a round with them.

“Imagine if LeBron James and Michael Jordan, in every practice and every live N.B.A. game, had a GoPro camera strapped to their chest and they had an earbud where they can hear people ask direct questions and occasionally answer it when they’re playing,” said Dennis Fong, 37, an early professional gamer who is the new chief executive of Raptr, a social network for gamers. “That level of access is unprecedented.”

Television needs limitless content. And of course, future leagues will be vexed with allegations of match-fixing, drug abuse (snorting Adderall?) and labor unrest as gamers unionize. I can hardly wait.

President Sigmund Obama On The Threat From ISIS: "We Don't Have To Be Vigilant"

The transcript of Obama's remarks from a recent fundraiser contains a mystifying Freudian slip [Mystery solved by AliceH in comments; see HMMMM... below] on the subject of ISIS and our national security (my emphasis):

We have, since 9/11, built up the capacity to defend ourselves from terrorist attacks.  It doesn’t mean the threat isn’t there and we can’t be -- we don’t have to be vigilant, but it means that we are much less vulnerable than we were 10 or 12 or 15 years ago. 

As someone almost said, eternal vigilance is the price we don't have to pay. Well, Obama needn't worry - I doubt anyone considers him to be excessively vigilant.

But the mystery is, what word was the Greatest Speaker In The History Of Forever looking for? He clearly was fumbling for something, but what? "We can't be complacent"? "We don't have to be paranoid"? Or did "don't" creep in to the sentence about vigilance just as Freud would have predicted?

Well, I would not presume to put words in Obama's mouth. "We don't have to be vigilant" it is, unless someone at the White House wants to clarify that.

Presumably he misspoke, and understandably - Obama must be exhausted after working a whole week. He probably needs a vacation.

HMMM... What Obama said makes more obvious sense if the stray "we can't be" is dropped. "It doesn't mean" relates to both "the threat isn't there" and "we don't have to be vigilant":

It doesn’t mean the threat isn’t there and [] we don’t have to be vigilant, but it means that we are much less vulnerable...

OK, maybe I need a vacation.

Save It For The Funny Papers, Or, The Long Slow Flip-Flop Into Light

John Kerry gets guest space in the NY Times on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend - geez, I guess whatever it is couldn't wait until the day after Thanksgiving.

Kerry is exhorting the world to rally itself into a grand coalition to battle ISIS, or ISIL, or whatever. Maybe agreeing on a name would be a useful first step for this coalition.

Kerry's message of fear is totally at odds with Obama's message of numb complacency; per the Times, Obama is telling donors we are "pretty safe", and these mixed messages have the WaPo alarmed. But it is Kerry's conclusion that leaves us laughing:

Coalition building is hard work, but it is the best way to tackle a common enemy. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the first President George Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III did not act alone or in haste. They methodically assembled a coalition of countries whose concerted action brought a quick victory.

Extremists are defeated only when responsible nations and their peoples unite to oppose them.

I know you remember that Kerry voted in favor of the 2003 Iraq attack by Bush 43 because he spent the whole 2004 campaign repudiating it. And he voted for the war in 2003 because he voted against it in 1991!

Say it with me - he was against the Bush 41 coalition before he was for it.

As to the notion that the world stage today has counterparts to Bush, Baker and Thatcher - we wish it were so.

BUT ON THE BRIGHT SIDE (WHICH IS ALSO THE DARK SIDE): Nixon went to China, so maybe Obama and Kerry are especially well-positioned to put together a coalition of warrior-nations. Maybe! But who will join a coalition formed by Red Line Barry and Johnny Waffles when six months later they will be leading the protests against it?

Reassurance From Alfred E. Obama

Our 'What, Me Worry' President reassures his well-heeled supporters that these current foreign policy distractions are just distractions:

Obama: Media makes you think ‘world is falling apart’

President Obama on Friday said social media and the nightly news are partly to blame for the sense that “the world is falling apart.”

"I can see why a lot of folks are troubled," Obama told a group of donors gathered at a Democratic National Committee barbecue in Purchase, N.Y.

But the president said that current foreign policy crises across the world are not comparable to the challenges the U.S. faced during the Cold War.

Acknowledging "the barbarity" of Islamist militants and Russia "reasserting the notion that might means right," Obama, though, dismissed the notion that he was facing unprecedented challenges.

“The world’s always been messy ... we’re just noticing now in part because of social media,” he said, according to a White House pool report.

“If you watch the nightly news, it feels like the world is falling apart,” said Obama.

He's right! The original Cold War is over, and we aren't protesting the Vietnam war or eyeballing Russia over nukes in Cuba (or Germany)! So, per Obama, are you better off now than you were forty years ago? 

And please - don't ask whether we seem safer now than we were three years ago, when Obama claimed "we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq", or six - the world has always been messy. Russia invading a neighbor that borders NATO? Been there! An Islamic terror state in the heart of the Middle East? Done that! There is nothing that Barry hasn't seen before, so chillax. Like him. 

And did I hear a question about ISIS? Don't ask. In Britain they are raising the terror alert level because so many ISIS members have British passports, but not over here:

The alarm in Britain contrasted with reassurances in the United States, where Mr. Obama told supporters at a fund-raiser in Newport, R.I., that the tumult in the Middle East did not “immediately threaten the homeland” and added that the country had hardened its defenses since Sept. 11, 2001, so that it is “pretty safe.”

We're "pretty safe"! Well, Obama certainly is - he has the Secret Service and I guess there is no intel suggesting ISIS has managed to plant IEDs on golf carts. Send in the clowns? We have to wake them up first.

The WaPo editors are exhorting Obama to talk to his own team, including his Secretary of State and Attorney General:

Similarly, his senior advisers uniformly have warned of the unprecedented threat to America and Americans represented by Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq. But Mr. Obama didn’t seem to agree. “Now, ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] poses an immediate threat to the people of Iraq and to people throughout the region,” he said. “My priority at this point is to make sure that the gains that ISIL made in Iraq are rolled back.” Contrast that ambition with this vow from Secretary of State John F. Kerry: “And make no mistake: We will continue to confront ISIL wherever it tries to spread its despicable hatred. The world must know that the United States of America will never back down in the face of such evil.”

The discrepancies raise the question of whether Mr. Obama controls his own administration, but that’s not the most disturbing element. His advisers are only stating the obvious: Russia has invaded Ukraine. The Islamic State and the Americans it is training are a danger to the United States. When Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. says the threat they pose is “in some ways . . . more frightening than anything I think I’ve seen as attorney general,” it’s not because he is a warmonger or an alarmist. He’s describing the world as he sees it. When Mr. Obama refuses to acknowledge the reality, allies naturally wonder whether he will also refuse to respond to it.

Well, that is just more media noise, and why Holder and Kerry are contributing to it I don't know. And for whatever reaason, Kerry takes up space in the NY Times (on the Saturday of a holiday weekend) to spread a message of fear:

IN a polarized region and a complicated world, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria presents a unifying threat to a broad array of countries, including the United States. What’s needed to confront its nihilistic vision and genocidal agenda is a global coalition using political, humanitarian, economic, law enforcement and intelligence tools to support military force.

In addition to its beheadings, crucifixions and other acts of sheer evil, which have killed thousands of innocents in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, including Sunni Muslims whose faith it purports to represent, ISIS (which the United States government calls ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) poses a threat well beyond the region.

He leaves us laughing:

Coalition building is hard work, but it is the best way to tackle a common enemy. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the first President George Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III did not act alone or in haste. They methodically assembled a coalition of countries whose concerted action brought a quick victory.

Extremists are defeated only when responsible nations and their peoples unite to oppose them.

Bush, Baker and Thatcher - do we see their like today? And if memory serves (and I know it does!), Kerry felt obliged to vote for the war in Iraq in 2003 because he voted against the Bush coalition in 1990. Say it with me - he was against the Bush Middle East coalition beofe he was for it.

MORE HERE: A partial transcript of Obama's remarks includes this Freudian slip relating to the idea that we are safer (my emphasis):

"But -- and here’s the main message I have for you -- the truth of the matter is, is that American military superiority has never been greater compared to other countries. Our men and women in uniform are more effective, better trained, better equipped than they have ever been. We have, since 9/11, built up the capacity to defend ourselves from terrorist attacks. It doesn’t mean the threat isn’t there and we can’t be -- we don’t have to be vigilant, but it means that we are much less vulnerable than we were 10 or 12 or 15 years ago. 

The full transcript is at WhiteHouse.gov. and includes the same admonition against vigilance.

Obama - The Man Sans Plan

Obama admits that we don't have a plan for dealing with ISIS, and why should we? After all, it was only last January that the JV suited up. 

Fortunately is calm (and natty!) as he tries to simultaneously reassure the world that the US is not adrift while reassuring his base that he will do nothing.

Yesterday the Times reported on the daisy-petal plucking around the question of Congressional authorization for (in)action against ISIS in Syria. Obama didn't need authorization to lead from behind with his kinetic action in Libya, did need it to defend his red line in Syria, and didn't need it to support the Kurds in Iraq. So which way will the dial spin this time? Who knows? My guess is that with an election coming up Democrats won't want to be bullied into posing as tough guys and supporting an action they will later feel obliged to disavow, so any Congressional action will be deferred.

The Times notes an idea floating around that is so stupid that I expect the White House, or factions therein, are actually pushing it:

If the authorization is drafted narrowly enough — limiting military action to Iraq and Syria, ruling out any ground troops and placing a time limit on the operation — Mr. Obama could claim that it enshrines, rather than undercuts, his vision of a counterterrorism policy for the post-9/11 era.

That would mirror Obama's absurd 'Hokey-Pokey' surge in Afghanistan from which the Administration promptly distanced itself.

Now, as then, Obama is looking for a way to advance US objectives while sending a reassuring signal of weakness and vacillation to his base. Good luck.

An Ongoing Golden Age For Mice

Has there ever been a better time to be a mouse? In addition to extending lifespan and reversing Alzheimer's, scientists can now relieve mice of the sting of their unpleasant memories.

Scientists Take the Edge Off Bad Memories in Mice

...

Now, using a technique in which light is used to switch neurons on and off, neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology appear to have unlocked some secrets about how the brain attaches emotions to memories and how those emotions can be adjusted.

Their research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, was conducted on mice, not humans, so the findings cannot immediately be translated to the treatment of patients. But experts said the experiments may eventually lead to more effective therapies for people with psychological problems like depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder.

 

All We Are Saying Is Give Noemie Emery A Chance

Noemie Emery of The Weekly Standard roasts our passive President and his progressive enablers. My favorite line (so far!):

When one thing goes wrong, it may be an accident, but when five do at once—Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and our border—the man at the helm may have something to do with it, and a foreign policy based largely on John Lennon lyrics may be the proximate cause.

Bazinga.

The Mean Streets Of New York

The NYPD sergeants are warning Democrats that the streets won't be safe for their proposed 2016 convention on the mean streets of New York.

They have a full-page open letter in today's NY Times but try and find it online or at their website!

Ahh, here we go. And some NY Times coverage.

Wrong-Way Columnist - It's Perry-Bashing Time!

Paul Krugman is worried enough about Rick Perry that he engages in a bit of preemptive Perry-bashing. Troubling! The last time Krugman messed with Texas the results weren't pretty. So here we go again:

Wrong Way Nation

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is running for president again. What are his chances? Will he once again become a punch line? I have absolutely no idea. This isn’t a horse-race column.

What I’d like to do, instead, is take advantage of Mr. Perry’s ambitions to talk about one of my favorite subjects: interregional differences in economic and population growth.

Interregional differences is one of his favorite subjects? There is that Nobel Prize thingy, but let's hold that thought.

...[Rick Perry's] national appeal, if any, will have to rest on claims that he knows how to create prosperity. And it’s true that Texas has had faster job growth than the rest of the country. So have other Sunbelt states with conservative governments. The question, however, is why.

The answer from the right is, of course, that it’s all about avoiding regulations that interfere with business and keeping taxes on rich people low, thereby encouraging job creators to do their thing. But it turns out that there are big problems with this story, quite aside from the habit economists pushing this line have of getting their facts wrong.

To see the problems, let’s tell a tale of three cities.

One of these cities is the place those of us who live in its orbit tend to call simply “the city.” And, these days, it’s a place that’s doing pretty well on a number of fronts. But despite the inflow of immigrants and hipsters, enough people are still moving out of greater New York — a metropolitan area that, according to the Census, extends into Pennsylvania on one side and Connecticut on the other — that its overall populationrose less than 5 percent between 2000 and 2012. Over the same period, greater Atlanta’s population grew almost 27 percent, and greater Houston’s grew almost 30 percent. America’s center of gravity is shifting south and west. But why?

Is it, as people like Mr. Perry assert, because pro-business, pro-wealthy policies like those he favors mean opportunity for everyone? If that were the case, we’d expect all those job opportunities to cause rising wages in the Sunbelt, wages that attract ambitious people away from moribund blue states.

We would expect rising wages as people moved to an area? With high and capital labor mobility why wouldn't we expect the reduced supply in New York to prop up wages there and the increased labor supply in the Southeast to keep a lid on wage hikes there?

Pressing on, with my emphasis:

It turns out, however, that wages in the places within the United States attracting the most migrants are typically lower than in the places those migrants come from, suggesting that the places Americans are leaving actually have higher productivity and more job opportunities than the places they’re going. The average job in greater Houston pays 12 percent less than the average job in greater New York; the average job in greater Atlanta pays 22 percent less.

So now we are talking about "average" wages across all sectors? If (purely hypothetically) New York became a haven for high-priced professionals and all the blue collar jobs disappeared to Texas, I for one would expect average wages in New York to *rise* as the proportion of lower-paying jobs in the greater New York area fell. As to Texas, I would expect total employment to rise; whether average wages rose or fell would depend on the change in the job mix.

How I would use those average wages to draw useful inferences about productivity and "job opportunities" is hazy at best. Certainly I would encourage a guy with a high school education to see if Goldman Sachs is hiring on their trading desk, but if a job there doesn't come through I might tell him to check out Texas. Retooling the US economy so that everyone trades mortgage backed securities but no one actually builds those pesky houses would certainly raise average wages and measured productivity but is a longer-term project.

Still more:

So why are people moving to these relatively low-wage areas? Because living there is cheaper, basically because of housing. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, rents (including the equivalent rent involved in buying a house) in metropolitan New York are about 60 percent higher than in Houston, 70 percent higher than in Atlanta.

In other words, what the facts really suggest is that Americans are being pushed out of the Northeast (and, more recently, California) by high housing costs rather than pulled out by superior economic performance in the Sunbelt.

If New York State was so whiz-bang people would be getting pushed to low-rent Utica, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo instead of to Houston and Atlanta. Instead, upstate New York has continued its slow fade from the halcyon days of the Erie Canal.

And if the Northeast was so well-run Krugman could have chosen to write about Hartford, a former financial services center, or Bridgeport, a former hub of light manufacturing. Or more broadly, he could have picked Detroit specifically and Michigan generally as an area with no apparent shortage of land. I think rent and land availabilty is an incomplete explanation.

We do get this brief nod to reality:

But why are housing prices in New York or California so high? Population density and geography are part of the answer. For example, Los Angeles, which pioneered the kind of sprawl now epitomized by Atlanta, has run out of room and become a surprisingly dense metropolis. However, as Harvard’s Edward Glaeser and others have emphasized, high housing prices in slow-growing states also owe a lot to policies that sharply limit construction. Limits on building height in the cities, zoning that blocks denser development in the suburbs and other policies constrict housing on both coasts; meanwhile, looser regulation in the South has kept the supply of housing elastic and the cost of living low.

So conservative complaints about excess regulation and intrusive government aren’t entirely wrong, but the secret of Sunbelt growth isn’t being nice to corporations and the 1 percent; it’s not getting in the way of middle- and working-class housing supply.

Mo mention of the lack of unions in the South? Whatever. Krugman then returns to polemicizing:

And this, in turn, means that the growth of the Sunbelt isn’t the kind of success story conservatives would have us believe. Yes, Americans are moving to places like Texas, but, in a fundamental sense, they’re moving the wrong way, leaving local economies where their productivity is high for destinations where it’s lower.

If doctors are leaving Manhattan to stock Walmart shelves in Atlanta becasue the rent is lower, yes, we have a problem. Otherwise, we await more details on productivity and job growth by comparable sectors.

Krugman closes with a punchline:

So Rick Perry doesn’t know the secrets of job creation, or even of regional growth. It would be great to see the real key — affordable housing — become a national issue. But I don’t think Democrats are willing to nominate Mayor Bill de Blasio for president just yet.

I'm reeling - if working class jobs come back to New York average wages will fall. Will Krugman then declare this to be a success?

He'll be here all week. And be sure to tip your waiter or waitress.

Not As Easy As Black And "Not White"

I question this headline at the always-interesting Gateway Pundit:

HYPOCRISY ALERT: Media Refuses To Mention Race When Black Cop Shoots White Teen

The story is out of Salt Lake City. The police chief identified the police officer as "not white". As best I can pry out of Google, there are no news services describing the officer as black; that description came from a caller to Rush Limbaugh, who was himself careful to stick with the "non-white" label (until he slipped late in his general commentary).

So what are the odds? Bing tells me that Salt Lake City as of 2012 was roughly 74% white, 17% Hispanic, 1.7% black and 5% Asian or Pacific Islander. Since 2000 whites are down a bit (82% to 74%) and Hispanics up a bit (12% to 17%).

I should add that the Police Chief Burbank told Congress something different in testimony about racial profiling back in 2010:

In Salt Lake City, approximately one third of the population is Latino and subject to inappropriate police scrutiny.

Maybe the census is missing a lot of illegals.

In any case, if the people in charge are hiring a police force to reflect the diversity of their city (even with lags that may not capture the changing ethnic mix) the Salt Lake City police force would have a lot more Hispanics than blacks. Also more Asians. So a default assumption that "not white" means "black" seems very dubious here.

This is from the chief's bio:

Additionally, in 2010, Chief Burbank was recognized by the Utah Minority Bar Association as their Honoree of the Year for his service to minority communities and dedication to diversity.

In May 2009, Chief Burbank received special recognition from the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah for work in protecting immigrant civil rights.  In June 2009, he was recognized by the Latino Community Center for his dedication to community policing in building and maintaining a great foundation with the Latino community. 

Thomas Lifson of The American Thinker maintains the "not white" distinction and notes that the victim, Dillon Taylor, joins George Zimmerman as a white hispanic.

The New American goes black but probably ought to walk it back and await more credible reporting.

And FWIW, Radley Balko had a pretty favorable profile of Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank last October:

A Police Chief Tries To Reform The System From Within

...

Unconventional has been Burbank's modus operandi since he was appointed chief of police in 2006. Be it the drug war, immigration, or the handling of protests, Burbank's mantra to his officers is the same: Use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation. Or as Burbank puts it, "It's not can I do it, but should I do it?"

When it came time to evict the Occupy protesters in Pioneer Park, then, Burbank and his officers wore their standard, everyday uniforms, not riot gear, as police units in other cities had. Burbank also made sure he was first on the scene -- that the first person the protesters saw was the one with whom they had already had a conversation.

Most of the 200 protesters left voluntarily. Some took advantage of Burbank's offer to have his officers help with their belongings. Nineteen chose to be arrested. There was no violence, no rioting and little anger. And so as images of violent clashes between Occupiers and police in other cities made headlines across the country, in Utah, some Occupiers even praised Burbank for the way he had handled their eviction. It's one reason why the Salt Lake Tribune named Burbank its 2011 "Utahn of the Year."

"I just don't like the riot gear," Burbank says. "Some say not using it exposes my officers to a little bit more risk. That could be, but risk is part of the job. I'm just convinced that when we don riot gear, it says 'throw rocks and bottles at us.' It invites confrontation. Two-way communication and cooperation are what's important. If one side overreacts, then it all falls apart."

A chief who has the respect of his community and a reputation for clear-headedness doesn't merit a Ferguson level of demonstrations and media circus.

It Depends On The Meaning of "Terrorist". And "Attack". Also, "Golf".

Noah Rothman of Hot Air points out that describing the ISIS beheading of American Mr. Foley as a "terrorist attack" may not be the best way to defend the President:

When you see somebody killed in such a horrific way, that represents a terrorist attack,” [Ben Rhodes, the White House’s deputy national security advisor] said. “That represents a terrorist attack against our country and against an American citizen.”

“We see that as an attack on our country when one of our own is killed like that,” Rhodes added.

So, now the president was not just callously golfing in the wake of the horrific murder of an American citizen, he was golfing in the immediate aftermath of a “terrorist attack” on the United States of America. Oops.

But Obama did promise to be "relentless" in his search for the real killers, and he is not the first guy to search every bunker and rough in his quest to bring the real killers to justice.

STOP IT, YOU'RE KILLING ME! Eli Lake of The Daily Beast offers a howler of a parody, imagining that we had a real Commander-in-Chief:

Obama vs. ISIS: This Time It's Personal

When ISIS beheaded an American journalist, it meant to intimidate—and provoke—the United States. It should be careful what it wishes for. The gloves just came off.

 

The Obama administration signaled Thursday that the United States has begun a new war against the so-called Islamic State, and that group’s operatives will not be safe from America’s wrath in Iraq, in Syria, or wherever they can be tracked down.

 

Since U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed the authenticity of a video that showed the beheading of American journalist James Foley this week, the president and top cabinet officers have employed rhetoric about the jihadists of the Islamic State (also known as the “caliphate,” ISIS, or ISIL) that echoes the Bush administration in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

 

Obama has foud his inner George Bush and his base will think that is a good thing? Brilliant!

 

This actually merits a "hmmm":

In the aftermath of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Obama vowed to bring the attackers to justice. This week Obama struck a different tone, saying: “When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done.”

The difference between bringing suspects to justice and seeing that justice is done is roughly the same as the difference between treating terrorism as a crime and as an act of war.

The conclusion is comic gold:

Today, as Obama finds his country facing an utterly barbaric enemy, and after weeks and months of delaying action, he appears ready to mount a war with the ambitious goal of actually winning.

Because "winning" in Iraq or Afghanistan or even Libya would have been too easy but allying with Assad and Iran to defeat ISIS will justify Obama's second Nobel Peace Prize. Or something.

Well, if the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, why can't Obama win the battle against ISIS on the golf courses of Martha's Vineyard?

And Not Just The Usual Critics Either

The NY Times has a notable gap between their headline and story covering our cooler-than cool Commander-in-Chief:

A Terrorist Horror, Then Golf: Incongruity Fuels Obama Critics

WASHINGTON — He had just hung up the telephone with the devastated parents before heading in front of the cameras. Unusually emotional, President Obama declared himself “heartbroken” by the brutal murder of an American journalist, James Foley, and vowed to “be relentless” against Islamic radicals threatening to kill another American.

But as soon as the cameras went off, Mr. Obama headed to his favorite golf course on Martha’s Vineyard, where he is on vacation, seemingly able to put the savagery out of his mind. He spent the rest of the afternoon on the links even as a firestorm of criticism erupted over what many saw as a callous indifference to the slaughter he had just condemned.

In this case, the headlined "critics" did not refer exclusively to the usual suspects on the right:

But the criticism went beyond the usual political opponents. Privately, many Democrats shook their heads at what they considered a judgment error. Ezra Klein, editor in chief of the online news site Vox, who is normally sympathetic to Mr. Obama, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that “golfing today is in bad taste.” The Daily News published a front-page photograph of a grinning president in a golf cart next to a picture of Mr. Foley’s distraught mother and father under the headline, “Prez tees off as Foley’s parents grieve.”

“As a general rule, I think that he’s right that you can’t be held hostage to the news cycle — the man deserves a bit of downtime,” said Jim Manley, a longtime Democratic strategist. “But in this particular instance, I think a lot of Democrats flinched a little bit.”

The video, Mr. Manley added, “was just so shocking that the idea that he was going to immediately run to the golf course was just a little too much for folks; it was tone-deaf.”

Tone deaf? Well no kidding. The WaPo was a bit testier:

EDGARTOWN, MA — President Obama's second shot at an August vacation looks to be as star-crossed as the first — and his efforts to balance his presidential duties with a summer respite just as tricky.

The shocking news of James Foley’s execution broke as Air Force One landed at Cape Cod on Tuesday night. The president offered his condolences to the American journalist's family and angrily denounced Islamic State militants the following day. Then he went off for a round of golf — his seventh in ten days at Martha's Vineyard so far.

It wasn't the first time this month Obama has made a quick pivot from grim news to the green. Last week, the president was confronted by rising unrest in Ferguson, Mo. and upheaval in Iraq. After delivering a solemn statement on both crises, he hit the golf course just four minutes after leaving the podium.

It remains true that even for the most powerful man in the world, those golf balls won't tee themselves up. Whatever. Those who told us back in 2008 that Obama was a "lightworker" were close - "light worker" would be accurate.

On The Road Again

The traditional Thursday open thread.

Ebola In Monrovia

Now we are moving into science fiction territory as Ebola spreads to an urban area:

MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberia’s halting efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak spreading across parts of West Africa quickly turned violent on Wednesday when angry young men hurled rocks and stormed barbed-wire barricades, trying to break out of a neighborhood here that had been cordoned off by the government.

Soldiers repelled the surging crowd with live rounds, driving hundreds of young men back into the neighborhood, a slum of tens of thousands in Monrovia known as West Point.

...

The clashes marked a dangerous new chapter in West Africa’s five-month fight against the Ebola epidemic, already the deadliest on record. Outbreaks in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea have mostly been concentrated in rural areas, but the disease has spread to a major city, Monrovia, the Liberian capital.

Fighting Ebola in an urban area -– particularly in a place like West Point, an extremely poor and often violent place that still bears deep scars from Liberia’s 14-year-long civil war –- presents challenges that the government and international aid organizations have only started grappling with.

The risks that Ebola will spread quickly, and the difficulties in containing it, are multiplied in a dense urban environment, especially one where residents appear increasingly distrustful of the government’s approach to addressing the crisis, experts say.

Many people in West Point were already seething at the government’s attempt to open an Ebola center at a school in their neighborhood, complaining that suspected Ebola patients from other parts of the city were being brought there as well. Their neighborhood, they feared, was effectively being turned into a dumping ground for the disease.

On Saturday, hundreds of people stormed the school, carrying off supplies and allowing suspected Ebola patients to flee the facility, heightening concerns that the disease would spread through the city.

On Wednesday morning, the residents of West Point awoke to learn that their entire area was under government quarantine. Soldiers and police in riot gear blocked roads in and out of the seaside neighborhood. Coast guard officers stopped residents from setting out aboard canoes from West Point, the neighborhood with the highest number of confirmed and suspected cases of Ebola in the capital.

As residents realized that the entire area had been sealed off from the rest of the capital, frustrations began to mount. In one midmorning attempt to break through the cordon, at an entrance to the neighborhood next to an electrical station, soldiers fired in the air to dispel the protesters. But some of the bullets appear to have hit the crowd as well, intensifying the sense of a neighborhood under siege.

 

Who's In Charge Here?

Glenn links to a fascinating article ruminating on the possibility that we eat to please our intestinal bugs.

Different species of microbes thrive on different kinds of food. If they can prompt us to eat more of the food they depend on, they can multiply.

Microbial manipulations might fill in some of the puzzling holes in our understandings about food cravings, Dr. Maley said. Scientists have tried to explain food cravings as the body’s way to build up a supply of nutrients after deprivation, or as addictions, much like those for drugs like tobacco and cocaine.

But both explanations fall short. Take chocolate: Many people crave it fiercely, but it isn’t an essential nutrient. And chocolate doesn’t drive people to increase their dose to get the same high. “You don’t need more chocolate at every sitting to enjoy it,” Dr. Maley said.

Perhaps, he suggests, the certain kinds of bacteria that thrive on chocolateare coaxing us to feed them.

John F. Cryan, a neuroscientist at University College Cork in Ireland who was not involved in the new study, suggested that microbes might also manipulate us in ways that benefited both them and us. “It’s probably not a simple parasitic scenario,” he said.

More research is needed and time will tell! But speaking for myself (and drawing on the experiences of others) I will say that sugar cravings are real but do pass with time and restraint. That could tie in to the idea that the intestinal bugs screaming for sugar eventually dwindle in number and influence. But I can't rule out evil sprits or demonic possession.

The Times (Finally) Opposes The Perry Indictment

The NY Times editors finally write out against the Perry indictment:

Is Gov. Rick Perry’s Bad Judgment Really a Crime?

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD AUG. 18, 2014

 

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is one of the least thoughtful and most damaging state leaders in America, having done great harm to immigrants, abortion clinics and people without health insurance during his 14 years in office. But bad political judgment is not necessarily a felony, and the indictment handed up against him on Friday — given the facts so far — appears to be the product of an overzealous prosecution.

 

So the prosecutor got one small benefit from the time-tested 'announce insane indictments on Friday' strategy - it took the Times a few days to sound out the experts and check the weathervane before they could chime in on this.

 

And we thank the editors for maintaining their sense of humor in describing the problem:

 

Ms. Lehmberg was arrested in April 2013 for driving with a blood alcohol level of more than three times the legal limit, and she verbally abused the officers who found her with an open bottle of vodka. She ranted and raved at the local jail, threatening sheriff’s deputies, and she had to be restrained in a chair with a hood over her head. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 45 days in jail. In addition to endangering people’s lives, she instantly lost her credibility as a prosecutor of drunken-driving cases.

 

Is that really all the credibility she lost?

Ferguson - None So Deaf As Those Who Will Not Hear

Yesterday we finally picked up on the analysis of a video of the aftermath of the Ferguson shooting. With credit to the Conservative Treehouse for listening carefully, we gleaned that an apparent eyewitness, explaining the circumstances to a bystander, said that Michael Brown ran from the police truck and then doubled back.

Right wing media have been on this, but today the NY Times delivers a surprising non-surprise - in a report on the Michael Brown autopsy they include a link to the video in question but utterly overlook the key bit (from 6:30 forward). Here is the Times:

A 10-minute video posted on YouTube appeared to be taken on a cellphone by someone who identified himself as a neighbor. The video, which has collected more than 225,000 views, captures Mr. Brown’s body, the yellow police tape that marked off the crime scene and the residents standing behind it.

“They shot that boy ’cause they wanted to,” said one woman who can be heard on the video.

“They said he had his hands up and everything,” said the man taking the video, speaking to a neighbor.

Here is the key exchange as excerpted by the Conservative Treehouse:

#1 How’d he get from there to there?

#2 Because he ran, the police was still in the truck – cause he was like over the truck

{crosstalk}

#2 But him and the police was both in the truck, then he ran – the police got out and ran after him

{crosstalk}

#2 Then the next thing I know he coming back toward him cus - the police had his gun drawn already on him –

#1. Oh, the police got his gun

#2 The police kept dumpin on him, and I’m thinking the police kept missing – he like – be like – but he kept coming toward him...

Let's cut to the Times coverage of the autopsy:

FERGUSON, Mo. — Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by a police officer, sparking protests around the nation, was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy performed on Sunday found.

One of the bullets entered the top of Mr. Brown’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York, who flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy. It was likely the last of bullets to hit him, he said.

Mr. Brown, 18, was also shot four times in the right arm, he said, adding that all the bullets were fired into his front.

The bullets did not appear to have been shot from very close range because no gunpowder was present on his body. However, that determination could change if it turns out that there is gunshot residue on Mr. Brown’s clothing, to which Dr. Baden did not have access.

Dr. Baden provided a diagram of the entry wounds, and noted that the six shots produced numerous wounds. Some of the bullets entered and exited several times, including one that left at least five different wounds.

“This one here looks like his head was bent downward,” he said, indicating the wound at the very top of Mr. Brown’s head. “It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”

That would be consistent with the statement above, that Michael Brown turned and charged.

Well, now that the Times has listened to the tape and deemed it a useful resource (by running other excerpts) I assume it is only a matter of time until they discover this evidence. It starts around the 6:30 mark with the "he double back/comin' back" just after 6:50. I'm sure they can take it from here!

Ferguson - If Facts Were Relevant This Would Be News

The Independent Journal Review (Who? A right-wings news site, obvi) gets a link from Matt Drudge for their story about Ferguson and the shooting of Michael Brown:

A Witness Conversation Unknowingly Captured at the Scene of the Ferguson Shooting is a Game-Changer

A witness to the shooting is videoing the aftermath and describing what he saw to his friend. His version roughly jibes with the police version.

So, is the tape authentic or a clever ex-post hoax? One presumes the authorities will investigate and the mainstream media will ignore.

A Character-Building Article On Nation-Building In Iraq

The NY Times has an excellent guest piece by Ali Khedery, described as

...the chairman and chief executive of Dragoman Partners. He served as special assistant to five American ambassadors in Iraq and as senior adviser to three heads of the Central Command from 2003-10.

The piece is "Iraq’s Last Chance" and he recounts the difficulties of turning this divided area into a nation.

I was involved in the formation of all five of Iraq’s governments between 2003 and 2010, and I know that the coming weeks will be decisive, turbulent and violent, as leaders from all factions jockey for both power and money — to help represent their respective communities and to siphon away billions of government dollars through systemic patronage.

After spending more than $1 trillion and losing some 4,500 soldiers’ lives, American politicians cannot dare reveal a dirty little secret: Iraq has since 2003 devolved into a combination of Lebanon and Nigeria — a toxic brew of sectarian politics and oil-fueled kleptocracy. The combination of religious rivalry and endemic corruption has hollowed out the Iraqi government, as evidenced by the country’s ongoing electricity crisis and the collapse of entire Iraqi Army divisions in the face of an advance by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, into Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, even though the Iraqi troops vastly outnumbered the militants.

Over the past century, Iraq has suffered from regional wars, British colonialism, numerous coups, disastrous invasions of its neighbors Iran and Kuwait, international sanctions, an American military occupation and nearly four decades of misrule by Saddam Hussein and Mr. Maliki.

Once the capital of Arab culture, philosophy and commerce, Iraq is today an international pariah and incubator of transnational terrorism, where regional actors are engaged in a bloody proxy war that threatens to spill across borders and destabilize the entire region.

Mr. Abadi has inherited a country on the verge of collapse. Whether Iraq will shatter or be salvaged is not in his hands alone. It will depend on a dizzying number of other leaders, political parties, nonstate actors, and neighboring and global powers.

Worth noting - regardless of Obama's protestations that this is a problem which must be solved by the Iraqis, Iran has and will continue to meddle:

Increasing Iranian influence has only made matters worse. America sat back and watched in 2010 as Mr. Maliki’s cabinet was formed by Iranian generals in Tehran, thereby assuring its strategic defeat in Iraq. ISIS is a direct outgrowth of that defeat. Sensing an American vacuum, both Mr. Maliki and his Iranian patrons sought to consolidate their gains by economically, politically and physically crushing their Sunni and Kurdish rivals. Consequently, today’s “Iraqi security forces” are almost exclusively Shiite, reinforced by militias financed, trained, armed and directed by Iran. Given Mr. Maliki’s blatant sectarianism and his complicity in Bashar al-Assad’s campaign of genocide against Syria’s Sunnis, Sunni radicalization and the spread of ISIS across the region were predictable.

Re-enlisting the Sunnis against ISIS won't be easy:

ISIS will also have to be defeated. The root cause of its rise was Sunni disenfranchisement and disillusionment. If the Sunnis turn on ISIS now, which they’re ready to do, then they risk being obliterated by Shiite militants within a year or two. It won’t be easy to repeat the “Awakening” of roughly 2006-10, when Sunni tribes in western and central Iraq turned against the Al Qaeda fighters who were the forerunners of ISIS.

Baghdad and Washington betrayed their promises to these tribal members in 2010, after the secular Sunni-led Iraqiya coalition won more seats than Mr. Maliki’s coalition, only to be deprived of an opportunity to form a government due to Mr. Maliki’s coercion of the judiciary.Although Iraqiya would have inevitably failed to form a cabinet in the face of Iranian objections, simply allowing it the chance would have respected the intent of the Iraqi Constitution, which America helped draft.

Mr. Maliki’s unjust victory and overt purges of Sunnis only compounded the problem. It will be much harder now to convince them that the same thing won’t happen again given that Iran has displaced the United States as the most influential actor in Iraq.

His conclusion is graphic and grim:

Sunnis can gain real influence in Iraq’s government only if Iran and its Shiite Islamist proxies allow them back to the table in Baghdad. And that would require overcoming deep fears and hatred. To Shiites, it is akin to bringing Hutu génocidaires into the Rwandan cabinet or appointing apartheid apologists as ministers in the South African government. 

...

Iraqis face a simple but defining question: Do they want to live with one another?

Can Shiite Islamists who suffered mightily under Hussein stomach the thought of sitting in a cabinet meeting with neo-Baathist Sunnis? Can those Sunnis stand the concept of sharing power with a currently serving Shiite cabinet minister who was a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and is a death-squad commander behind an ongoing campaign to ethnically cleanse Baghdad of Sunnis by taking power drills to their skulls? Can the Kurds, who suffered decades of oppression at the hands of both Shiite and Sunni Arabs, stomach the idea of remaining part of a dysfunctional country that shares neither their language nor their traditions? This is not a hypothetical scenario but precisely what members of Mr. Maliki’s cabinet were forced to consider for the past eight years. Thus far, the results speak for themselves.

As I’ve told numerous American ambassadors and generals, I believe the answer to all these questions will ultimately be “no.” To date, I’ve seen no indication that there is enough tolerance or willingness among Iraq’s leaders to forgive, forget and move on.

Hmm. That takes us back to Joe Biden's Partition Plan. Well, the Sunni and Kurdish portions would be natural US allies as the Shiite section leapt into remained in Iran's lap. Two out of three ain't bad, but at this point it is hard to see Obama bestirring himself to achive even that.

The Rick Perry Project

Jonathan Chait of the New York Magazine pans the Perry indictment:

This Indictment Of Rick Perry Is Unbelievably Ridiculous

They say a prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and this always seemed like hyperbole, until Friday night a Texas grand jury announced an indictment of governor Rick Perry. The “crime” for which Perry faces a sentence of 5 to 99 years in prison is vetoing funding for a state agency. The conventions of reporting —  which treat the fact of an indictment as the primary news, and its merit as a secondary analytic question —  make it difficult for people reading the news to grasp just how farfetched this indictment is.

As if to illustrate his point about conventional news coverage missing the point, the NY Times delivers a long piece which barely touches on the absurd legal foundation of this indictment. Readers are offered this legal background:

The charges set in motion a battle of competing narratives over just what kind of overreach the indictment reflects. Democrats say the charges describe the arrogant overreach of a governor with unchecked power. Republicans took up the argument made by Mr. Perry on Saturday that the excess was in the investigation and indictment themselves, which they described as political in nature and extremely dubious in legality.

So its as simple as Democrats versus Republicans? Maybe they meant to limit themselves to Texas, without wasting the pixels to insert the extra five letters. But Mr. Chait is a reliable lefty, as are luminaries such as David Axelrod and Alan Dershowitz.

The Times also included this gem of an insight:

The indictment’s more fundamental challenge to Mr. Perry is that it could serve as a distraction from his well-choreographed comeback plan. Should he become a threat in the 2016 primaries, his opponents will almost certainly use it against him.

So Republican Presidential candidates will woo engaged (and enraged!) conservatives by backing a drunk Democratic partisan prosecutor?

Uh huh. Just as any Democrat who emerges to challenge Hillary will use Bill Clinton's impeachment against her, because the death wish knows no partisan boundaries. Or something.

For real coverage we turn to Eugene Volokh of the WaPo and Patterico. And from their archives, Ross Ramsey of the Texas Tribune was covering this local story more than a year ago, and is back on it.

PROGRESS: In a follow-up story covering Perry's effort on the Sunday talkies, the Times adds this:

The governor said he had received support from a range of political figures, not just Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and the former Florida governor, Jeb Bush, but also, less predictably, from the other end of the political spectrum. He quoted a Twitter post from David Axelrod, the former senior adviser to Mr. Obama, as saying the indictment seemed “pretty sketchy.”

Mr. Axelrod’s full post read: “Unless he was demonstrably trying to scrap the ethics unit for other than his stated reason, Perry indictment seems pretty sketchy.”

Mr. Perry also cited Alan M. Dershowitz, a retired professor of constitutional and criminal law at Harvard University. Mr. Dershowitz told Newsmax, the conservative news website, that he was a “longtime Democrat who would never vote for Rick Perry,” but that the indictment represented an unacceptable “criminalization of party differences.”

The Times needs to be careful not to leave their readers alone on a limb and looking foolish when the rest of the world is in agreement that this indictment is a travesty. On the other hand, bad news like that needs to be unwrapped slowly. Tricky!

 

Saturday Morning

So, is it Ebola, Ferguson, Mt. Sinjar, the Ukraine, Rick Perry or some new outrage? Just remember, there is little Obama can do - it's beyond his control.

Gun Madness, Jersey Boys Version

Radley Balko has more on the absurd case of Shaneen Allen, a Pennsylvania mom facing three years in a Jersey jail for bringing her Pennsylvania-legal handgun into the Garden State.

But just to elevate the old blood pressure let's hear from Bryan Miller of Heeding God's Call, who apparently thinks that God wants this 27 year old mother of two in prison:

Recent reporting in the Courier-Post and elsewhere has made much of the plight of a South Philadelphia woman, Shaneen Allen, reportedly charged in New Jersey with transporting and concealing a handgun loaded with armor-piercing bullets — three transgressions of long-standing state law.

Heeding God’s Call, the faith-based and grass-roots movement to prevent gun violence headquartered in Philadelphia and operating in New Jersey and other states, applauds the fact of the coverage, if not all of its tone.

The good news is that, by working to promote attention to this case, pro-gun zealots, such as Allen’s lawyer, have inadvertently done an important public education service, as the case’s notoriety may make it less likely Pennsylvanians holding permits to carry concealed and loaded handguns in public will bring them across Delaware River bridges, thereby making themselves and New Jersey safer from gun violence.

Yeah, it's those rampaging moms I worry about when I hit the mean streets of Jersey. And far be it from me to suggest that this guy has no idea what he is talking about, but... every other report I have seen (e.g., here) describes her bullets as "hollow point". Although I would consider myself a very casual observer of the gun scene, (as family members will attest, and they know who they are), I am highly confident that "armor piercing" is essentially the opposite of "hollow point".

Maybe the next time Bryan hears from God he can clear that up.

Salt - The Science Was Settled!

The science was settled on salt, or at least the talking points were - less was better, and the typical American consumed too much.

Now it turns out the low-salt deniers may be on to something; here is NBC News:

Pour on the Salt? New Research Suggests More Is OK

BY JUDY SILVERMAN AND LISA TOLIN

New research suggests that healthy people can eat about twice the amount of salt that’s currently recommended — or about as much as most people consume anyway. The controversial findings could potentially undercut widespread public health messages about salt.

An international study of more than 100,000 people published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that while there is a relationship between salt intake and high blood pressure, if you don’t already have high blood pressure and you’re not over 60 or eating way too much salt, salt won’t have much impact on your blood pressure. 

In fact, people who consumed 3,000 to 6,000 milligrams per day had a lower risk of death and cardiovascular events than those who had more than 6,000 mg or less than 3,000 mg. 

Oh, no - another Big Government dietary fail?!? The WSJ also managed to find the lead. However, dead-enders such as the LA Times and NPR led with the conventional wisdom and only lit the candle of truth late in their coverage. Here is NPR:

Death By Salt? New Study Finds Too Much Sodium Is A Global Killer

by Allison Aubrey

Americans are accustomed to being nagged about salt. We're told we consume too much — particularly from processed foods. And that all this salt can increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes.

Turns out it's the same story most places around the globe. Worldwide, people consume an average of 3,950 milligrams of sodium a day, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. And though there are regional daily differences, ranging from about 2,000 milligrams to 5,500 milligrams, the global average is nearly double what the World Health Organization recommends.

This salt overload is taking its toll. The study concludes that about 1.65 million deaths from cardiovascular disease each year can be attributed to sodium consumption.

Wait a second! Are these people reporting on the same study? Well, no - three related studies were published simultaneously and diligent readers will learn a lot as they press on. First, where is the "too much salt" belt?

So, where are the global hot spots, when it comes to death by salt? This study finds that (see figure 2 and figure 4) the proportion of deaths from heart attacks and strokes attributable to sodium ranges quite a bit. In Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, about 10 percent of cardiovascular deaths (among people 70 and younger) are linked to high salt intake.

But there's a wide band in the study map, stretching from Eastern Europe all the way across into Central Asia and East Asia. There, the percentage of cardiovascular deaths attributed to sodium consumption jumps up to 20 to 25 percent.

"What seems to be linking those countries [in this band] ... is that this is the Old Silk Road [trade] route, where people traveled many distances and needed salt to preserve their food," says Mozaffarian. Centuries later, this tradition of eating salt-preserved foods remains strong.

So this story is especially topical to their listeners living along the Old Silk Road. So what was NBC going an about with salt being OK here in the US?

Not all researchers are convinced that consuming high levels of sodium is harmful. In fact, the same issue of theNew England Journal of Medicinepublished another study that questions whether recommendations for low sodium consumption are valid for everyone.

The study found the link between sodium and cardiovascular disease is strongest when blood pressure is elevated — and that potassium, a nutrient found in fruits, vegetables and beans, can help lower blood pressure. The study suggests that if you don't have high blood pressure, it might be okay to consumer 3,500 milligrams of sodium a day, as is typical among Americans.

The author of this study, Dr. Salim Yusuf of McMaster University in Canada, told the AP, that it's better to focus on healthy patterns of eating instead of a single element. "That is something everyone can rally around," Yusuf told the AP.

Oh. So the takeaway is that Mayor Bloomberg ought to be leading Kazakstan. Works for me.

The LA Times went with the scare headline:

Excess sodium intake linked to 1.65 million deaths annually

The WSJ seized the day:

Low-Salt Diets May Pose Health Risks, Study Finds

Findings Are Latest Challenge to Benefits of Aggressively Low Sodium Targets

Something for everyone, especially the many folks seeking affirmation rather than information.

SINCE YOU ASK: Gary Taubes, the King of Low Carbs, was a low-salt denier a while ago. And I stand by this old rant of mine about the USDA conventional wisdom:

WebMD includes a pictorial of the new Nos, which include salt, saturated fat, solid and trans fat, added sugars, fast food, and refined grains.

What is this, the Dietary Legion of Doom?  Instead of a clear message identifying a villain we have this muddled soultion cobbled together by a committee, with so many bad guys that the public won't have any idea who the real dietary villains are.

And to compound the puzzlement, check out this ignorance from the Times reporter:

And given the level of obesity in America, some question if anyone is paying attention.

Yike!  The whole point of the Gary Taubes book is that back in the 70's and 80's the medical establishment coalesced behind the idea that dietary fat led to fat in the bloodstream, and from there to heart disease.  Here is TIME magazine in 1984 and the NY Times very ownJane Brody in 1987 ranting against cholesterol.  (And FatHead has agreat riff on Ms. Brody's own struggle with cholesterol.)

And, per Taubes, people did listen, at least enough to embrace the message that carohydrates are heart-healthy. 

And how has that all worked out?

The good news is, the government scarcely has any credibility left to squander.

 

That Was Easy! Or Not...

Obama solves the Mt. Sinjar crisis!

Militants’ Siege on Mountain in Iraq Is Over, Pentagon Says

WASHINGTON — Defense Department officials said late Wednesday that United States airstrikes and Kurdish fighters had broken the Islamic militants’ siege of Mount Sinjar, allowing thousands of the Yazidis trapped there to escape.

An initial report from about a dozen Marines and Special Operations forces who arrived on Tuesday and spent 24 hours on the northern Iraqi mountain said that “the situation is much more manageable,” a senior Defense official said in an interview.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, speaking to reporters Wednesday night at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., said it was “far less likely now” that the United States would undertake a rescue mission because the assessment team reported far fewer Yazidis on the mountain than expected, and that those still there were in relatively good condition.

That's good news, and solves Obama's humanitarian dilemma about using ground non-troops in a non-combat role.

But not so fast!

Despite U.S. Claims, Yazidis Say Crisis Is Not Over

ISTANBUL — Yazidi leaders and emergency relief officials on Thursday strongly disputed American claims that the siege of Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq had been broken and that the crisis was effectively over, saying that tens of thousands of Yazidis remained on the mountain in desperate conditions.

...

Speaking from her hospital bed here, Vian Dakhil, an Iraqi member of Parliament and a Yazidi leader who was injured in the crash of a helicopterdelivering aid to the mountain on Tuesday, said she was aware of the American claims and had discussed them with Yazidi leaders still in the area.

“It’s not true,” she said.

“It’s better now than it had been, but it’s just not true that all of them are safe — they are not,” Ms. Dakhil said. “Especially on the south side of the mountain, the situation is very terrible. There are still people who are not getting any aid.”

She estimated the number of Yazidis trapped on the southern flanks of Mount Sinjar at 70,000 to 80,000.

Ms. Dakhil’s assessment of the seriousness of the Yazidis’ plight was supported by United Nations humanitarian officials, who on Thursday were unequivocal that there remained a major crisis among the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar.

“The crisis on Mount Sinjar is by no means over,” said David Swanson, the spokesman for the United Nations coordinator of humanitarian affairs in northern Iraq, interviewed by telephone from Dohuk, in northern Iraq. “Although many people managed to escape from the north side, there are still thousands of others up there, under conditions of extreme heat, dehydration and imminent threat of attack. The situation is far from solved.”

Hmm. I can see why Yazidi and UN officials might want to exaggerate, but I can also see why the Pentagon might feel pressured to declare everything to be hunky-dory. Normally it is CNN news crews that find and promote the next humanitarian crisis, so I guess we need to stay tuned.

Ground Troops In Iraq?

Might Obama send ground troops to Iraq? It depends on the meaning of "ground". Also, "troops" and "combat". Check out this groan-out-loud trial balloon from deputy national security Rhodes:

U.S. Could Use Ground Troops to Aid Rescue of Iraq Refugees

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and HELENE COOPER  AUG. 13, 2014

EDGARTOWN, Mass. — A senior White House official said on Wednesday that the United States would consider using American ground troops to assist Iraqis in rescuing Yazidi refugees if recommended by military advisers assessing the situation.

Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, told reporters on Martha’s Vineyard that President Obama would probably receive recommendations in the next several days about how to mount a rescue operation to help the refugees, who are stranded on a mountaintop surrounded by Sunni militants. He said those recommendations could include the use of American ground troops.

But didn't Obama just rule out the use of ground troops in Iraq? Well, yes, this is from Aug 9:

Number one, I’ve been very clear that we’re not going to have U.S. combat troops in Iraq again.

But hey hey! No one else takes his red lines seriously, so why should Obama or his advisers? Let's get back to the spin du jour from Mr. Rhodes:

But he drew a distinction between the use of American forces to help a humanitarian mission and the use of troops in the battle against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, something he said the president had rejected before and continued to oppose.

“What he’s ruled out is reintroducing U.S. forces into combat on the ground in Iraq,” Mr. Rhodes said. He added, using an alternative name for the militant group, that the deployment of ground troops to assist a rescue was “different than reintroducing U.S. forces in a combat role to take the fight to ISIL.”

He acknowledged that any ground troops in Iraq would face dangers, even if they were there to help the refugees find a safe way off the mountain. He said that like American forces anywhere, the troops would have the ability to defend themselves if they came under fire.

That is my idea of a Commander-in-Chief! Put some soldiers on a mountain top surrounded by crazed jihadists who behead their adversaries and tell them that while, yes, there is some danger, this is not a combat mission. But they are allowed to shoot back anyway!

Whatever. My Possibly Prescient Prediction is that after outraged screams from the left (and also from the right, but at frequencies Obama cannot hear) Obama will announce that, having responsibly considered all options he is rejecting the use of ground troops for now. Whew! As to whether advisers and observers are "combat troops", well, he can hash that out with Elizabeth Warren.

SINCE YOU ASK: Back in the early days of the Good War US Special Forces embedded with the Northern Alliance to coordinate air strikes against the Taliban. I would think that US Special Forces could team up with the Kurdish peshmerga today, since they seem to be willing and able to fight. But not only does that break the "no ground troops" pledge, it might seem to put the US even more directly behind the Kurdish push for autonomy. I'm sure Barack and Johnny Nuance have this buttoned down.

Feel Good Story du Jour

From Kansas City by way of the NY Times:

A Fan Visits From Afar, and the Royals Come Alive

By RANY JAZAYERLI  AUG. 12, 2014

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — How do I begin this story? How can I convince you that the greatest story for Royals fans in 29 years is unfolding before our eyes, and its protagonist lives a hemisphere away, speaks imperfect (but diligent) English and had never set foot in Kauffman Stadium until last Thursday?

I read on, and I was convinced. A nice guy visits a nice town and the result is a great story.

I'll Tell You What 'Horseshit' Is

In a recent Times interview Obama dismissed the notion of arming the moderate Syrian rebels as "a fantasy". Reportedly his language was more colorful in a meeting with senior lawmakers:

President Obama got angry at lawmakers who suggested in a private meeting that he should have armed the Syrian rebels, calling the criticism “horseshit.”

Let's flash back to the Times for more:

With “respect to Syria,” said the president, the notion that arming the rebels would have made a difference has “always been a fantasy. This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.”

Farmers and pharmacists? From this 2007 paper I see that that all Syrian males (other than Jews) were subject to mandatory military service. And the rebels were buttressed by what CJ Chiver of the Times described as "a cadre of army defectors".

But maybe leaving them unarmed, despite Obama's bold words that Assad must "step aside", was meant to provide a salutory lesson in the importance of non-violent confrontation. Too bad Assad didn't play along.

What's horseshit is that a failed community organizer with no discernible resume would have the last word on important questions emerging from the real world.

Stuck In Iraq

The Peshmerga makes progress, Maliki may or may not be staging a coup, and the US is (finally!) arming the Kurds. No word on Obama's golf score.

Regrets, He Has A Few...

Obama has a scream-out-loud sit-down with Tom Friedman, fo-po guru to the stars. I cannot, in hindisght, identify the specific passage that redlined my blood pressure, but here are a couple of candidates:

Intervening in Libya to prevent a massacre was the right thing to do, Obama argued, but doing it without sufficient follow-up on the ground to manage Libya’s transition to more democratic politics is probably his biggest foreign policy regret.

I'll quickly agree that Obama has allowed Libya to drift to disaster, but how, in an interview prompted by our return to Iraq, could Obama not acknowledge the failure to negotiate a sensible Status of Forces agreement with Iraq that left a stabilizing US presence behind? FWIW, he does have a rationalization for that:

But wouldn’t things be better had we armed the secular Syrian rebels early or kept U.S. troops in Iraq? The fact is, said the president, in Iraq a residual U.S. troop presence would never have been needed had the Shiite majority there not “squandered an opportunity” to share power with Sunnis and Kurds. “Had the Shia majority seized the opportunity to reach out to the Sunnis and the Kurds in a more effective way, [and not] passed legislation like de-Baathification,” no outside troops would have been necessary. Absent their will to do that, our troops sooner or later would have been caught in the crossfire, he argued.

So our troops left Iraq, tossing Maliki into the arms of his Shiite sponsor, Iran. But had we stayed, our presence would have been so ineffectual and irrelevant that Maliki would still have jumped wholly into the arms of Iran. Hmm - maybe Obama has more self-awareness than I credit him with.

Folks not yet experiencing apoplexy can try their luck with this bucket of insight from Barack:

At the end of the day, the president mused, the biggest threat to America — the only force that can really weaken us — is us. We have so many things going for us right now as a country — from new energy resources to innovation to a growing economy — but, he said, we will never realize our full potential unless our two parties adopt the same outlook that we’re asking of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds or Israelis and Palestinians: No victor, no vanquished and work together.

“Our politics are dysfunctional,” said the president, and we should heed the terrible divisions in the Middle East as a “warning to us: societies don’t work if political factions take maximalist positions. And the more diverse the country is, the less it can afford to take maximalist positions.”

So to pick an example nearly at random, what about gay marriage versus civil unions? Ah, well, gay marriage is the common sense answer to Barack (now that he has evolved). Nothing maximalist about thinking that civil unions represent a compromise with evil.

Or take Hobby Lobby and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act - the US health insurance industry limped along for decades with a perfectly workable compromise in place which balanced acces to contraception with religious principles. But to hear Barack tell it, the people who now want to preserve that compromise are engaged in a War on Women.

And for a guy to lecture us about "no victor/no vanquished, work together" when he is about to shred the Constitution and impose by Executive fiat his vision of immigration reform which he could not push through Congress (and did not attempt to push through Congress when his party controlled both houses) is outrageous.

Well. Enjoy the day.

Obama, The Man Sans Plan

The WaPo editors deplore Obama's "half measures" in Iraq:

Obama’s authorization of Iraq airstrikes isn’t connected to a coherent strategy

And even the NY Times editors, while applauding Obama's prudence and restraint, are looking for more:

The United States, Turkey and other allies should move quickly to meet the Kurds’ needs for ammunition and weapons as well as advice on more effectively deploying the pesh merga and integrating Kurdish operations with Iraqi security forces. Under pressure from the United States, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq finally agreed this week to cooperate with the Kurds and to provide air support, and should continue to do so.

That will still leave Mr. Obama with the task of framing a broader strategy that involves Saudi Arabia, the Arab League and the United Nations, just to start.

Yeah, a unified strategy. Why that is urgent now as opposed to two months ago remains a Frequently Unasked Question.

THEY WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED: The US is implicitly partnering up with Shiite Iran against Sunni ISIS. Politics, bedfellows.

Back To Iraq

Obama is fired up and ready to go back to Iraq:

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Thursday that he authorized "targeted airstrikes" if needed to protect U.S. personnel in Iraq, as well as airdrops of food and water to religious minorities in Iraq who are under siege from Islamic militants and trapped on a mountaintop.

"Today, America is coming to help," Obama said.

The president's announcement Thursday amounts to a significant escalation of involvement in the growing Iraqi crisis, but Obama attempted to assure the American public that it would not lead to U.S. involvement in a ground war there.

The reassurance about no ground troops is hardly necessary - we all understand Obama is not committed to success here.

Peter Baker of the Times unleashed his inner auteur; it's "news analysis", not straight reporting, so let the prose flow:

WASHINGTON — In sending warplanes back into the skies over Iraq, President Obama on Thursday night found himself exactly where he did not want to be. Hoping to end the war in Iraq, Mr. Obama became the fourth president in a row to order military action in that graveyard of American ambition.

The mandate he gave to the armed forces was more limited than that of his predecessors, focused mainly on dropping food and water. But he also authorized targeted airstrikes “if necessary” against Islamic radicals advancing on the Kurdish capital of Erbil and others threatening to wipe out thousands of non-Muslims stranded on a remote mountaintop.

As he explained himself to a national television audience, Mr. Obama made a point of reassuring a war-weary public that the president who pulled American forces out of Iraq at the end of 2011 had no intention of fighting another full-scale war there. Yet his presence in the State Dining Room testified to the bleak reality that the tide of events in that ancient land have defied his predictions and aspirations before.

We see this "war-weary public" meme everywhere. But are we weary of war, or weary of endless, inconclusive struggles fought with no plan for victory? I opposed Obama's Hokey-Pokey surge in Afghanistan (You put the troops in, you take the troops out...) because Obama clearly had no conviction or commitment and becasue our hazy objectives were probably not attainable. I would oppose an effort by Obama to put troops back in Iraq for similar reasons. But under new leadership (not Hillary!) maybe a renewed US-led push in Iraq could make sense. Leaving ISIS to fester seems like an insane alternative.

WRONG ALL SUMMER: This is interesting if unsurprising, from Mr. Baker:

Mr. Obama has spent months resisting just that. Even after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, seized Falluja and other territory in the western part of the country at the beginning of the year and marched through Mosul and toward Baghdad by summer, the president expressed no enthusiasm for American military action. 

In June, he sent in 300 special forces troops not to fight but to assess the situation, an assessment that has yet to be completed, and he increased surveillance passes over Iraq. But Mr. Obama rebuffed calls, including those from within his administration, to quickly send in air power to hit ISIS forces.

Aides said his hand was not forced until ISIS won a series of swift and stunning victories last weekend and Wednesday night against the Kurds in the north, who have been a loyal and reliable American ally, especially compared to the Baghdad government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. ISIS threats to wipe out Yazidis and other religious minorities trapped on Mount Sinjar, they said, added to the urgency.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Or would have been.

The Next Crisis In Iraq

ISIS has Christians and ethnics trapped on a mountain top and the Kurds can't fight through to relieve them.

What to do? 

Robert Farley, writing in the WaPo, explains the many difficulties surrounding an airlift. Left unmentioned in his list of obstacles - relief of the cranial-anal impaction crippling the White House. And arming the Kurds, with vigor, might help (apparently, that has finally begun.) If Bloomberg News and the HuffPo are behind this, who is left to oppose it?

News You Can Use

Very convincing propaganda from the Feline Ministry of Truth.

Back On The Border; What Price Compassion?

The new NBC poll has an interesting question on the border crisis, the gist of which is, should we protect these unaccompanied minors or would that just be too expensive:

So by 51-43 respondents think we can't afford to take this problem on. Hmm. That might explain the White House about-face on accelerated deportations. From the Times:

After declaring the surge of Central American migrants crossing the border a humanitarian crisis, the Obama administration has shifted sharply to a strategy of deterrence, moving families to isolated facilities and placing them on a fast track for deportation to send a blunt message back home that those caught entering illegally will not be permitted to stay.

It is interesting to watch the Times stagger home to reality on the question of whether Administration policy helped fuel this crisis:

Until recently, most families were released to remain in the United States while their deportation cases moved slowly through the courts. But that policy fueled rumors reaching Central America that if parents arrived with young children, they would be given permits to stay. To stop such talk, officials said, they are moving swiftly to expand family detention.

Times reporters grasped this quite a while back, as did other media outlets; Times editors have been dead-enders, clinging to the original Team Obama talking point that it was all about the violence in Central America even after the Administration had abandoned it.

Those Damn Bitter-Clingers Are Everywhere!

Andrew Levison, writing in TNR, explains that Democrats have a problem with white working class voters that extends well beyond the South.

More Slush From The Wimp

The NY Times continues in its unexpected transition from Obama lapdog to watchdog, discovering, as if for the first time, waste and inefficiency in Big Government projects:

Delays Persist for U.S. High-Speed Rail

By RON NIXON  AUG. 6, 2014

...

The Obama administration has spent nearly $11 billion since 2009 to develop faster passenger trains, but the projects have gone mostly nowhere and the United States still lags far behind Europe and China, where trains on average top 220 m.p.h. Although Republican opposition and community protests have slowed the projects here, transportation policy experts and members of both parties also blame missteps by the Obama administration — which in July asked Congress for nearly $10 billion more for high-speed rail — for the failures.

I blame Bush, but:

Instead of putting the $11 billion directly into high-speed rail projects, they say, the administration made the mistake of parceling out the money to upgrade existing Amtrak service, which will allow trains to go no faster than 110 m.p.h. None of the money originally went to service in the Northeast corridor, the most likely place for high-speed rail. Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, all led by Republican governors, in the meantime canceled high-speed rail projects and returned federal funds after deeming the projects too expensive and unnecessary.

“The Obama administration’s management of previously appropriated high-speed rail funding has been as clumsy as its superintending of the Affordable Care Act’s rollout,” said Frank N. Wilner, a former chief of staff at the Surface Transportation Board, a bipartisan body with oversight of the nation’s railroads. 

The Times even dwells on Obama's "If you like your train service we can improve it" message:

“Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail,” Mr. Obama said in his 2011 State of the Union address. “This could allow you to go places in half the time it takes to travel by car. For some trips, it will be faster than flying — without the pat-down.”

But as Mr. Obama’s second term nears an end, some experts say the president’s words were a fantasy.

“The idea that we would have a high-speed system that 80 percent of Americans could access in that short period of time was unadulterated hype, and it didn’t take an expert to see though it,” said Kenneth Orski, the editor and publisher of an influential transportation newsletter who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations. “And scattering money all around the country rather than focusing it on areas ripe for high-speed rail, didn’t help.”

"Fantasy"? More of a shared delusion - the wheels of Big Government do not grind as smoothly as First Engineer Barack imagined, but how could he (or any other Democrat) have seen that coming? 

I Don't Want To Shut The Door On 'Stupid', But...

This year is far from over so I am reluctant to crown this is the stupidest idea of 2014, but heaven help us all if someone beats this brainwave from Matt Yglesias:

The case against time zones: They're impractical & outdated

And yet we make it out of bed in the morning. The aggravation is illustrated:

If the whole world used a single GMT-based time, schedules would still vary. In general most people would sleep when it's dark out and work when it's light out. So at 23:00, most of London would be at home or in bed and most of Los Angeles would be at the office. But of course London's bartenders would probably be at work while some shift workers in LA would be grabbing a nap. The difference from today is that if you were putting together a London-LA conference call at 21:00 there'd be only one possible interpretation of the proposal. A flight that leaves New York at 14:00 and lands in Paris at 20:00 is a six-hour flight, with no need to keep track of time zones. If your appointment is in El Paso at 11:30 you don't need to remember that it's in a different time zone than the rest of Texas.

Hmm - no thoughts on that baffling "International Date Line"? Surely that should be poart of a comprehensive solution. Of course, scheduling international flights and arranging multi-zonal conference calls are what my kids call "First World problems". And even my Sarcasm Detector (Old Fogey edition circa 1960) lights up when they say it.

So, a factoid I like far too much to check - 90 percent of the people on Earth will die within ten miles of where they were born, kind of like Matt's latest idea. I don't think the farmers in Afghanistan or merchants in Somalia actually give much thought to Matt Yglesias' schdeduling challenges, and, maybe we are a poorer planet because of it. But seeing as how the tide of international cooperation seems to at a bit of an ebb just now, I doubt any international body will convene to laugh this idea out of the room.

And that's too bad - watching John Kerry's Undersecretary of Stupid make this pitch would be YouTube gold. And I have to believe some Minister of Malaise would rise up to denounce this transparent attempt at Western cultural hegemony. After which Obama could agree to base the standard time around Beijing, and we can have fun watching him explain that to the rubes in the hinterlands bitterly clinging to their TV Guide schedules. No, really, "Good Morning America" is coming on at 7 PM - get over it.

Hmm - I find myself warming to the notion. Someone will have to rewrite "After Midnight" and reshoot "Nine to Five", and somehow we have to get my mom to quit saying "Nothing good happens after 2 AM", but comedy isn't free.

A Phony Stat That Will Never Die (But Is Killing Me)

Last week I turned a blind eye to Nick Kristof's head-scratching comparison of automobile regulation with gun regulation. But now the Times editors are goading me with supportive letters highlighting a ludicrous statistic:

To the Editor:

Re “Our Blind Spot About Guns,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, July 31):

Regulating motor vehicles, drivers and roads has saved countless lives. The same must be done for a product intended not to provide transportation but to kill people.

If we continue with business as usual, guns will kill more Americans than cars by 2015. They already do in 14 states and the District of Columbia. New York is not one of these states thanks to strong laws that keep guns out of the wrong hands.

There are roughly 30,000 gun deaths per year, of which about 20,000 are suicides and 10,000 are homicides or accidents. Auto deaths are around 30,000 but the suicide-by-car crash rate does not seem to be reported separately (this possibly credible estimate cites a 1.7% rate). I am not alone in thinking that including 20,000 suicides is a misleading use of numbers.

So, are these gun control advocates ignorant of the real stats, or simply liars? Per Slate, we can't rule out ignorance. On the other hand, the NY Times is all about homicides-only when it suits their agenda, such as advocating for the rights of the mentally ill.

Puzzling.

AND BACK TO AUTOMOBILE REGULATION...

From the original Kristof column:

That question is a reflection of our national blind spot about guns. The truth is that we regulate cars quite intelligently, instituting evidence-based measures to reduce fatalities. Yet the gun lobby is too strong, or our politicians too craven, to do the same for guns. So guns and cars now each kill more than 30,000 in America every year.

One constraint, the argument goes, is the Second Amendment. Yet the paradox is that a bit more than a century ago, there was no universally recognized individual right to bear arms in the United States, but there was widely believed to be a “right to travel” that allowed people to drive cars without regulation.

A court struck down an early attempt to require driver’s licenses, and initial attempts to set speed limits or register vehicles were met with resistance and ridicule. When authorities in New York City sought in 1899 to ban horseless carriages in the parks, the idea was lambasted in The New York Times as “devoid of merit” and “impossible to maintain.”

Yet, over time, it became increasingly obvious that cars were killing and maiming people, as well as scaring horses and causing accidents. As a distinguished former congressman, Robert Cousins, put it in 1910: “Pedestrians are menaced every minute of the days and nights by a wanton recklessness of speed, crippling and killing people at a rate that is appalling.”

Courts and editorial writers alike saw the carnage and agreed that something must be done. By the 1920s, courts routinely accepted driver’s license requirements, car registration and other safety measures.

That is an interesting bit of history, although a famous car guy observed that "history is bunk". Well. As a practical, the concept of "rules of the road" surely preceded the invention and popularization of the automobile. In any urban setting it is hard to imagine how vehicles, whether horse-drawn carriages or automobiles, could co-operate without agreed conventions on right-of-way, traffic signs, and so on. 

But even today, it would be entirely legal for a New Yorker who lacked a driver's license to own an uninsured car that lacked seat belts and air bags. Shocking? Hardly - leaving the car in a private garage would be fine; taking it on the street would violate several laws.

So how does that analogize to guns? Beats me. If an gun enthusiast tried to possess a scary unregistered "assault weapon" in his own home he could be violating NY State law, even though he would get a pass on an unregistered non "Street Legal" car left in his or her garage.

And of course, if I drive down the street I am denying the space I occupy to other drivers; if I walk down the sidewalk with a concealed handgun, the additional space I occupy should not impede another's progress. Mostly.

Waddya Mean, "American"?

The NY Times covers Team Obama's debacle in Gaza and has trouble figuring out who is American:

Gaza War Strains Relations Between U.S. and Israel

By MARK LANDLER AUG. 4, 2014 WASHINGTON — When the State Department condemned Israel’s strike on a United Nations school in Gaza on Sunday, saying it was “appalled” by this “disgraceful” act, it gave full vent to what has been weeks of mounting American anger toward the Israeli government.

 

The blunt, unsparing language — among the toughest diplomats recall ever being aimed at Israel — lays bare a frustrating reality for the Obama administration: the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuhas largely dismissed diplomatic efforts by the United States to end the violence in Gaza, leaving American officials to seethe on the sidelines about what they regard as disrespectful treatment.

 

In the first paragraph it is "American anger"; by the second it has become "American officials". Mr. Landler holds off for a few paragraphs before delivering the punchline:

With public opinion in both Israel and the United States solidly behind the Israeli military’s campaign against Hamas, no outcry from Israel’s Arab neighbors, and unstinting support for Israel on Capitol Hill, President Obama has had few obvious levers to force Mr. Netanyahu to stop pounding targets in Gaza until he was ready to do it.

So "American anger" never actualy included the Congress or the majority of the Great Unwashed. So what or whom are we talking about?

The two statements are part of a recurring pattern for this administration: an angry outburst, followed by calmer words and the grudging recognition that little is going to change in the fundamental relationship between the United States and its closest ally in the Middle East.

Sort of like Red Line Fever with Israel substituting for Assad.

Disputes between the United States and Israel are hardly new. President Ronald Reagan sold Awacs surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia over Israel’s fierce objections. George H.W. Bush held up loan guarantees because of Israeli settlement construction. Bill Clinton fumed after his first Oval Office encounter with a newly elected Israeli prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu.

But the chronic nature of this tension is unusual — and, according to current and former officials, rooted in ill will at the very top. “You have a backdrop of a very acrimonious relationship between the president and the prime minister of Israel,” said Robert M. Danin, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

What, Obama is part of the problem rather than part of the solution? C'mon, how many Nobel Prizes has Netanyahu earned? Oh, we can all do the math - as many as Obama.

 

In ObamaWorld It's Never the Right Time To Arm Our Allies

Paul Mirengoff of PowerLine marvels that Team Obama won't arm the Kurds, who are now facing down ISIS along a new 650 mile border. I guess for this administration (sorry, "administration") it's akin to arming the Syrian rebels - it's complicated, so maybe later.

The NY Times tells us that ISIS is now pushing into Kurd controlled area, and includes this background:

The gains over the weekend by ISIS heightened the problems faced by American officials in Washington as they weigh how to respond to the crisis in Iraq. But decisions about a possible broader American military role in Iraq have been largely put off as Iraq’s politicians struggle to form a new government after April’s national elections.

The Kurds, who have been longtime American allies, recently asked for military assistance from the United States to fight ISIS. American officials, determined to keep Iraq together as one country, are reluctant to supply weapons to the Kurds without the approval of the central government in Baghdad. That is unlikely to happen given the worries by Iraq’s Shiite-dominated leadership that the weapons would further embolden the Kurds to form a new state.

Instead, American officials are hoping to see Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite who is struggling to secure a third term, replaced by someone who could persuade Iraq’s Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to form a national unity government. According to Iraq’s constitutional timeline, Iraq’s Shiite parties must choose a nominee for prime minister by Friday. The prime minister would then have 30 days to form a new government.

Oh, right then - by Friday we may, or may not, start a thirty day clock ticking, after which we might just maybe be able to help prop up the Kurds. I just hope ISIS is polite enough to wait.

Since no one is asking, let me just note that in an alternate reality from that inhabited by Team Obama (i.e., this one, the one that includes people like Putin), our covert operators would give a nod and a wink to someone and a shipment of, for example, Polish arms would arrive in Kurdistan (or do you prefer Bulgarian weaponry?). But I'll bet that the people who couldn't figure out how to arm the Syrian rebels won't figure this out either. Maybe that solution is insufficiently nuanced.

BELABORING THE OBVIOUS: Of course the Kurdish defense people will exaggerate the urgency of their requirements. That doesn't mean that the right answer is to do nothing. And we reportedly have US observers in Kurdistan - surely they can deliver an informed opinion?

Monday Already?

I need to regroup.

Saturday AM

Here we go.