Just re-stating the obvious:

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has directed enrichment of a portion of that country’s stockpile of uranium to 20 percent. Experts regard this as a significant step forward for Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The reaction of Defense Secretary Robert Gates seems significant:

At a news conference with French Defense Minister Herve Morin, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised President Barack Obama’s attempts to engage the Islamic Republic diplomatically and chided Tehran for not reciprocating.

“No U.S. president has reached out more sincerely, and frankly taken more political risk, in an effort to try to create an opening for engagement for Iran,” he said. “All these initiatives have been rejected.”

So Gates was, evidently, praising Obama for pursuing a policy that has been, by the Secretary’s own admission, a complete failure.

One has to feel sorry for Gates having to carry on with such levels of incompetence as we see in the Obama Administration. He’s doing the best he can and I’m grateful he’s there as at least it means we’ve got someone who will look after the troops. But one Gates cannot carry an entire Obama Administration – and while he’s loyal to his boss, it clear that our policy towards Iran has been a failure.

It is time to re-assess our goals and means of attaining them.

Are we really going to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? If so, then engagement and UN sanctions have to be set aside in favor of much stronger action – blockade backed by a threat of aerial bombardment of power, oil and nuclear sites.

Are we going to live with an Iranian nuclear force? If so, then we’d better start working out theater ballistic missile defense systems with Iraq, the Gulf States and others who will be under the Iranian gun. And then we’d better be prepared for a decades-long stand off punctuated by various flare ups of violence – and, of course, the prospect that the lunatics in Tehran will actually launch a nuclear war.

The one thing we can’t do is continue on as we are – Obama’s policy, as all liberal policies for dealing with rogue regimes, has been an utter failure. A failure, by the way, which everyone with any sense at all predicted. There never was a question that Iran’s government would respond to anything other than a mortal threat to its existence. Everyone knew this and knows this – except, of course, for President Obama and his Administration.

Time to start learning fast, Mr. President.

Profligacy and death go ill together:

Bankers are not the cause of the global economic crisis, according to the president of the Institute for the Works of Religion. Rather, the cause is ordinary people who do not “believe in the future” and have few or no children.

“The true cause of the crisis is the decline in the birth rate,” Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, said in an interview on Vatican Television’s “Octava Dies.”

He noted the Western world’s population growth rate is at 0% — that is, two children per couple — and this, he said, has led to a profound change in the structure of society.

“Instead of stimulating families and society to again believe in the future and have children […] we have stopped having children and have created a situation, a negative economic context decrease,” Gotti Tedeschi observed. “And decrease means greater austerity.”

“With the decline in births,” he explained, “there are fewer young people that productively enter the working world. And there are many more elderly people that leave the system of production and become a cost for the collective.

And, of course, tens of millions of abortions – we’ve lost a great deal because we wanted to be rich without working and loved without family responsibility. I plead guilty, guilty, guilty.

We must return to sanity – to a willingness to do hard, physical work; to commit to one person and raise as many children as God provides; to put off personal gratification in favor of having a gift to leave our children. If we do this, then we will be happy – and prosperous, in to the bargain. If we don’t do this, then we’ll eventually die out.

The choice is ours – decline is never an thing of fate but an act of will.

Via NRO’s The Corner:

We welcome President Obama’s announcement of forthcoming bipartisan health care talks. In fact, you may remember that last May, Republicans asked President Obama to hold bipartisan discussions on health care in an attempt to find common ground on health care, but he declined and instead chose to work with only Democrats. Since then, the President has given dozens of speeches on health care reform, operating under the premise that the more the American people learn about his plan, the more they will come to like it. Just the opposite has occurred…

…scrapping the House and Senate health care bills would help end the uncertainty they are creating for workers and businesses and thus strengthen our shared commitment to focusing on creating jobs. Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over so that we can develop a bill that is truly worthy of the support and confidence of the American people? Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that the President is “absolutely not” resetting the legislative process for health care.

If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate. Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan way, does that mean he has taken off the table the idea of relying solely on Democratic votes and jamming through health care reform by way of reconciliation? As the President has noted recently, Democrats continue to hold large majorities in the House and Senate, which means they can attempt to pass a health care bill at any time through the reconciliation process.

Eliminating the possibility of reconciliation would represent an important show of good faith to Republicans and the American people.If the President intends to present any kind of legislative proposal at this discussion, will he make it available to members of Congress and the American people at least 72 hours beforehand? Our ability to move forward in a bipartisan way through this discussion rests on openness and transparency. Will the President include in this discussion congressional Democrats who have opposed the House and Senate health care bills? This bipartisan discussion should reflect the bipartisan opposition to both the House bill and the kickbacks and sweetheart deals in the Senate bill. Will the President be inviting officials and lawmakers from the states to participate in this discussion?…

…We look forward to receiving your answers and continuing to discuss ways we can move forward in a bipartisan manner to address the challenges facing the American people.

That certainly isn’t pulling any punches. Obama hopes to either co-opt a few Republicans to vote for a stripped down version of ObamaCare, or set the GOP as the “do nothing” party preventing work from getting done. The House GOP, at least, has seen right through this gambit and answered right back – if Obama and the Democrats are in any way sincere and honest, then we can move forward with the required assurances.

Given that Democrats would have to reach for a dictionary to figure out what “sincere” and “honest” mean, there’s not much hope of progress here. Even with 41 Senate GOP votes, Democrats still entirely control this – they can do as they please. If they want us along, they’ll have to divvy up the pie and ensure there are genuine free market and pro-life elements to whatever health care reform emerges. They don’t have to do this – they can muscle it through on their own – but if they want to cross the aisle, then there are requirements.

“Bi-partisan” no longer means “Republicans go along with the Democrats” – it means 50/50 give and take. And Democrats from Obama on down can take it or leave it.

Pretty much everything I have to say about the matter is here.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: A competitive special election loom to replace Murtha.

Or, indeed, much of anything happening these days in politics – Roger Kimball writes:

…The hatred and contempt lavished upon Sarah Plain, from certain conservatives as well as from the Left, presents a dispiriting and, to me, hard-to-fathom spectacle. That is, I understand that the Left would regard her as a political threat and would therefore dislike her. But why the contempt? And why the contempt (and hatred) from the Right? I have several times explained why I admire Sarah Palin. Please note that I did not say I want her to run for the Presidency. But what (a locution that comes up often among her admirers) a breath of fresh air she is! Here you have a woman from a working-class background who, by dint of her own energy and ambition, becomes Governor of her state—a good Governor, too, by all account not tainted by The New York Times. She espouses good conservative principles: self-reliance, fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense. And, on top of all that, she is a courageous and loving mother to a passel of children.

What’s not to like? That she chose to keep and love a Down Syndrome child? That sets the teeth of many on edge, I know, though they are loathe to come right out and admit it. Granted: She’s not a lawyer. She’s not from the Ivy League. She’s not part of the Washington Establishment. Heavy liabilities, what? I acknowledge that her performance in front of Katie Couric and other barracuda-like interviewers was poor, embarrassing even. But put that and all the other charges in the scale on one side, then put her virtues on the other: which side wins out?…

Of course, to the left as a whole – and elitists conservatives, as well – it is the very fact that Palin lacks either a degree in law or journalism which is a flaw. Additional flaw: having more than one or two designer children. Really bad flaw: being married to a regular guy whom every other regular guy in the US wouldn’t mind going fishing/hunting with while not being willing to go within a country mile of, say, Al Gore (if she does become the GOP Presidential nominee there will be fierce competition among outsdoorsy GOPers for the VP slot…fishing trip to the Alaskan outback with Mr. Palin via Air Force One, anyone?). Final flaw: she doesn’t care what the left and sundry elites think of her.

Anyways, they won’t understand her. They are incapable of such comprehension because to understand Sarah Palin – and her appeal – is to understand the United States out side of the elite enclaves. It’ll be very fun to watch how this pans out over the next two years.

How on earth did we get saddled with such a fool at Treasury?

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the U.S. isn’t in danger of losing its AAA debt rating even though the Obama administration has predicted a $1.6 trillion budget deficit in 2010.

“Absolutely not,” Geithner said, when asked in an ABC News interview broadcast yesterday whether a downgrade is a concern. “That will never happen to this country.”

Yes it darn will, you two-bit tax cheat! All you have to do is keep spending more than we take in and its a certainty…and even if your boss is promising “deficit reduction”, all that does – at best – is delay the day of reckoning. Foreigners don’t have to park their money in US securities – heck, they are probably only doing it now out of habit and the only reason we’re not already downgraded from AAA is because no one wants to be the first to declare the United States bankrupt.

We’re broke and this is the economic leadership we have – people who’s only goal must be to keep the ball in the air until their own assets – and the assets of their friends – are safely parked in things which wills survive a second Great Depression.

Is right here:

Egyptian activists have protested in front of parliament and called for legislation giving Christians equal rights as Muslims to build houses of worship.

The demonstrators, both Muslim and Christian, were also protesting Wednesday against sectarian strains in the country, particularly in light of a Christmas Eve slaying of six Coptic Christians and a Muslim guard outside a church in southern Egypt.

The government maintains that sectarian harmony prevails in Egypt and says the January 6 attack had no religious dimension.

The ten percent of Egyptians who are Coptic complain of being denied equal citizenship rights.

A very big thank you to those Egyptian Moslems who showed up in favor of Christian liberty – that took rare courage.

But the fundamental conflict is this: that Christians, as such, are considered a pollution by many powers in the Moslem world. Jews are,too – as are any non-Moslems. There can be no real, lasting peace between Islam and Christians (and thus Islam and the West) until all Moslems respect the right of Christians to worship freely and gain converts in the Moslem world. And this includes in places like Mecca and Medina. Until there is this change in Islam, any peace will be the merest papering over of the cracks.

Just wanted to send out our congratulations – great season, great game!

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Sorry I was remiss on the writing, guys and gals, but we had the party last night and after four or five beers, I’m probably not in shape for political discourse…

Sarah Palin’s TEA Party speech on You Tube.

Sarah Palin: Smarter than her opponents.

The GOP is encouraging new comers to run for office – a smart, but risky move. Smart because it brings new blood in and taps voter anger with the political maching; risky because you might get the odd bad apple in there…

Gore Vidal called a “crackpot”…read to find out who, apparently, was the last person on earth to figure this out.

Following the money on Climategate.

Climategate – a failure of Old Media journalism.

Mark Steyn: “The president tells us, with a straight face, that his grossly irresponsible profligate wastrel of a predecessor took the federal budget on an eight-year joyride, so the only way his sober, fiscally prudent successor can get things under control is to grab the throttle and crank it up to what Mel Brooks in Spaceballs (which seems the appropriate comparison) called ‘Ludicrous Speed.'”

And the Saints win it by 7.

UPDATE: The Tebow ad. Leftist, pro-abortion people are idiots, ya know?

My, goodness, that’s a lot:

Gay, Mentally Challenged Biracial Male Cheerleader Claims Discrimination

No more problems, though – every corporation in America will be seeking to hire this guy to fill a score or so affirmative action slots…

This is, as I said, getting more and more fun all the time:

Not just any generic Democrat either. Debra Medina, businesswoman and “tea party acitivist,” 41; Bill White, mayor of Houston, 38.

She’s not an “official” tea-party candidate, of course, since there’s no such thing — for the moment.

Gonna be a really fun year…