Blogs For Victory

Just can’t think of what to write for the AM shift – so, have at it boys and girls.

Over at NRO’s The Corner they have their usual run-down of Iran news, and this bit caught my eye:

The Islamic Republic Chief Inspector Hojjat al-Eslam Pour-Mohammadi says the Chief Inspectorate and the parliament guard the foreign exchange reserve against unauthorized withdrawals.

* Parliamentarian Hadi Qavami says the government has spent 73 percent of the foreign currency reserve to cover budget deficits.

* Former Revolutionary Guards and Law Enforcement Forces commander and current parliamentarian Rouyanian promises to fund extension of Tehran Metro with financing from the foreign currency reserve.

* Kargozaran criticizes raiding foreign currency reserve to fund gasoline imports.

* Government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham claims that the Ahmadinejad government has not made any unauthorized withdrawals from the foreign currency reserve. (emphasis added)

Gasoline is Iran’s big vulnerability – they import most of their gasoline, and now it seems that they are using up their scanty foreign reserves to pay for their gasoline. This is the result of collapsing oil prices – which hit Iran even harder than most oil exporters because Iran’s oil, it would seem, is of a lower grade and thus not preferred if there is other oil available. So, not only are the Iranians getting less money for their oil, they are also unable to sell as much as they used to as there is currently a glut of oil on the market. Now the story I heard a couple months back of Iran renting oil tankers just to store oil looms even larger.

The opportunities here for the incoming Obama Administration are fabulous – if they have the courage to play hardball with the mullahs. We can bring the Iranians genuinely to the negotiating table with the carrot of economic aid in return for Iran giving up its nuclear program – and the club of increasingly tight monetary restrictions on Iraq if they don’t give in. The Iranian need for cash is absolute – without cash the mullahs can’t buy support from some parts of the Iranian people, nor can they pay the goon squads which keep the unbought elements in line. A cash-strapped Iran is an Iran on the verge of societal breakdown and revolution.

There is, of course, the risk that the mullahs will opt for a mad-dog attack in order to distract the Iranian people from their plight. Militarily crushing Iran is a couple year process and lots of things can happen from start to finish in such a war…and the mullahs might reason that war would give them the excuse they need to keep control of the population with the population’s grudging consent – and, meanwhile, it buys them some time to convince Russia and/or China to intervene on Iran’s behalf, thus presenting the United States with the choice of leaving Iran alone, or going to World War III. This risk is real, and must be kept in mind.

With that risk in mind, however, it is still in our best interest to press our advantage at the moment – our army in Iraq is essentially free for non-Iraqi operations; our Navy is currently barely used in the War on Terrorism; our Air Force also has vast, untapped resources which can be brought to bear on Iran. We’re holding 51 cards right now, and we should be able to use this to trump the one card Iran continues to hold. Courage and a willingness to press the mullahs can bring us a tamed Iran no longer building nukes and no longer sponsoring terrorism in Lebanon and Afghanistan. We’ll swiftly find out if Obama is up to the task – or, indeed, if he even sees his chance.

As much as Obama will never admit it, Zombietime makes the case for why it is so.

Obama’s campaign rhetoric about Iraq – like all leftwing rhetoric about Iraq – was entirely divorced from reality. Now Obama will have to deal with reality – and the betting is that he’ll adhere to reality, as opposed to leftwing propaganda:

…in a near-unanimous vote, the Iraqi cabinet approved a security agreement that will keep American forces in Iraq through the end of 2011. The Iraqi parliament is likely to pass the agreement before the assembly goes into recess November 24.

What does this mean for the incoming American administration? What happens to the claim that Barack Obama’s drawdown plan was consonant with the hopes of the Iraqi leadership? The agreement calls for American troops to be in Iraq for three more years. That’s 36 months – more than twice the length of time Obama has proposed troops stay in the country.

Nevertheless, President Obama will heed the new reality.

There is far too much resting on the successful fulfillment of this agreement for Obama to defy it. For starters, it is a watershed moment for American-Iraqi relations and Iraqi sovereignty. At last, all the talk about American strings controlling the actions of a puppet regime can be retired. We went in; we didn’t leave; and we respected the wishes of the new regime. Any scoffing at the legitimacy of Iraq’s constitutional government is a thing of the past. It’s very important for Iraq that its neighbors see a burgeoning Arab democracy negotiating seriously and competently with Washington. It is further evidence of the possibilities engendered by consensual government. Tearing up a cooperative agreement so delicately arrived at would go down as a diplomatic and geopolitical travesty for the Obama administration — proving, as it would, that America’s talk of freedom and democracy is piffle.

Obama could, of course, entirely toss aside common sense and still demand a quick and total US withdrawal – but Obama is already proving himself someone unwilling to make actual decisions, so he’ll probably just lean on Bush’s decisions vis a vis Iraq and coast along…which will be better for the US than doing the wrong thing, but not as good as if we were getting a President willing to take hard and unpopular decisions in the advancement of good policy.

Having a democratic and allied Iraq will, in and of itself, give us great leverage over the mullahs who rule Iran, but the leverage is only going to exist so long as Iran’s leaders think that Obama will actually use force, if pressed to it. The advantage Obama will have is that, thanks to President Bush, Iran is bracketed east, west and south with American and allied power – it will take a major amount of Iranian courage to even work up a genuine challenge to America. But if the challenge comes, we’re well placed to meet it provided President Obama keeps our power at strength in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How ridiculous is this?

It’s not exactly at the top of his agenda, but President-elect Barack Obama says there should be a college football playoff to determine a national champion. In fact, he knows exactly what he wants — an eight-team playoff.

In an interview with “60 Minutes,” Obama addresses a subject college football fans have debated for many years, and says he will use his influence to create such a system.

“If you’ve got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses, there’s no clear decisive winner. We should be creating a playoff system,” he tells CBS’ Steve Kroft in an interview to be broadcast Sunday.

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was something that the government had any business involving itself in. But then again, this is Comrade Obama we’re talking about here… he wants to control everything. Soon enough he’s going to be saying that 2+2=5 and his mindless supporters will say “Yes! This is change!”

We’re about to be put to it, as Victor Davis Hanson notes:

…the closing of Guantánamo, repeal of the Bush anti-terrorism legislation, rapid withdrawal from Iraq (though we are already past Obama’s original target date of March 2008 for withdrawal of all combat troops), cessation of pressure to democratize and the end of hectoring against Arab authoritarianism, soothing rhetoric from a new Chief Executive, renewed diplomatic reaching out to Teheran and Damascus, more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and rejection of the notion we are in some sort of war, much less one of a “global” nature, should ensure greater American popularity, win-over our critics, defuse tensions with Iran and Syria, and ensure another seven years of safety from a major terrorist attack at home.

So come late January and beyond we shall see, and we all should genuinely wish the Obama administration well in their promised radical departure from the past, since the stakes are high for us all.

And Obama will earn my undying affection and support should his policies work. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to be Obama if even one of the to-be-released Gitmo detainees kills Americans in a terrorist attack.

You see, liberals, a lot of what you believe only makes sense if President Bush is an idiot evil genius – which formulation is stupid, but its what you guys have put out over the past 8 years. If, on the other hand, President Bush is an intelligent and good man, then there would be some merit in detaining people in Gitmo, aggressively attacking terrorism around the world, refusing to work with unrepentant State sponsors of terrorism, monitoring enemy communications, etc, etc, etc. If you on the left are right about Bush, then Obama’s policies will work, and work rather swiftly. If you are wrong, then people may very well die due to your insistence on hating a man at the command of your leaders.

Haven’t had one of these for a while – but as more and more evidence starts to come in that anthropogenic global warming is the biggest hoax in human history, we’ll start having a lot of them. Meanwhile, this particular story is of either exceptional boneheadedness or, alternately, a bit of global warming alarmist book-cooking which was caught:

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs – run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious “hockey stick” graph – GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new “hotspot” in the Arctic – in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

Their biggest fear – that a year will come soon which shows a drop in average global temperatures. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that we’ve already had such, but the data has been so obscured by the global warming zealots that it hasn’t gotten out. Right now, the key for the alarmists is to keep the alarm up long enough for Executive and legislative steps to be taken under President Obama – they have to get global warming encoded in US law and regulation quickly, before the facts all come out. Once the laws and regulations are in, it will be exceptionally hard to get them out, even if we have 10 years of declining temperatures right after we’ve implemented the alarmist’s agenda.

I wonder, though, if we could work up a class action lawsuit against Al Gore and the entire environmentalist movement? Fraud must have a penalty, ya know?

Finally, someone with courage:

I find myself in a lonely position. While many states and local governments are lining up for a bailout from Congress, I went to Washington recently to oppose such bailouts. I may be the only governor to do so.

But I suspect I’m not entirely alone, as there are a lot of taxpayers who aren’t pleased with Christmas coming early for politicians. And I hope these taxpayers make their voices heard before Democrats load up the next bailout train for states with budget deficits…

…Community bankers tell me that they are now at a competitive disadvantage for being careful about who to lend to, because others that were less disciplined will get a federal bailout. This is also true for states. Those that have been fiscally responsible will pay for or lose out to the big spenders. California increased spending 95% over the past 10 years (federal spending went up 71% over the same period). To bail out California now seems unfair to fiscally prudent states.

Let GM go bankrupt – and let the States in financial trouble go bankrupt. Do you know what Schwarzenegger is asking you, fellow non-Californians, to bail out? Here’s a list of some of the agencies which have sucked dry California taxpayers and now wish to latch on to the Federal teat:

Acupuncture Board, Office of Administrative Hearings (One wonders if this was originally called Office of Office Affairs), Arbitration Certification Program, Arts Council (which wants to help “artistically underserved communities”), Asian Pacific Islander (API) Legislative Caucus (there seems to be 10 members of this), Latino Legislative Caucus, Legislative Black Caucus, Legislative Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Caucus (ok, so who’s the trans-gender in the Legislature, and how do we know?), Legislature Internet Caucus (cyber geeks have a caucus?), Bureau of Barbering and Cosmetology (’cause cutting hair is so vital!), California Council for the Humanities, Cemetery and Funeral Bureau (provides instructions on how to dig a hole?), Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair (does anyone still repair electronics?), Bureau of Naturopathic Medicine (huh?), Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation, Postsecondary Education Commission, Commission on the Status of Women…and that was just a glance through the directory. Trust me – California can get out of its mess if it just cuts spending to be in line with revenues. All it would require is forcing a lot of Californians to go out and get real jobs.

And through the States and municipalities looking for Federal swag, it is like this – totally useless spending implemented by liberals and RINOs, and now its time to pay the piper and they want you, dear taxpayer, on the hook for it.

To put it politely as possible: screw ’em.

With the Mexican drug cartels obtaining .50 caliber sniper rifles, we need that border fence for reasons other than just keeping gardeners and dry wall workers out:

The Nov. 7 arrest of Gonzalez Duran was a major victory for the Mexican government and will undoubtedly be a major blow to the Zetas. Taking Gonzalez Duran off the streets, however, is not the only aspect of these operations with greater implications. The day before Gonzalez Duran’s arrest, Mexican officials searching for him raided a safe house, where they discovered an arms cache that would turn out to be the largest weapons seizure in Mexican history. This is no small feat, as there have been several large hauls of weapons seized from the Zetas and other Mexican cartel groups in recent years.

The weapons seized at the Gonzalez Duran safe house included more than 500 firearms, a half-million rounds of ammunition and 150 grenades. The cache also included a LAW rocket, two grenade launchers and a small amount of explosives. Along with the scores of assorted assault rifles, grenades and a handful of gaudy gold-plated pistols were some weapons that require a bit more examination: namely, the 14 Fabrique Nationale (FN) P90 personal defense weapons and the seven Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifles contained in the seizure.

I happened to see that Barrett demonstrated on television a while back ago, and it is a formidable weapon which should never be out of military hands. One of the things I’d like completely investigated is just how a drug cartel came to possess such a devastating weapon – someone needs to see the inside of a jail cell over this, alone. Our police forces have nothing to match this and even a lot of our military forces are vulnerable to the fire of this weapon.

The incoming Obama Administration, which will put racial politics first, must be pressured to ensure that the border security project not only goes forward, but is made stronger all the time. We must gain 100% control of our border so only those goods and person we permit cross it. As long time readers know, I’m in favor of a path to citizenship for the long term illegals already in country and a guest worker program for those who wish to work in the United States, so there’s nothing in this view which can be construed as “anti-immigrant” – we must secure our border, for our own safety and, indeed, the safety of the long-suffering Mexican people. By controlling our border, we put the cartels out of business and thus provide everyone on both sides of the border a better life.

So much for that lobbyist ban thing:

One of the leading members of President-elect Barack Obama’s Health and Human Services transition team was an anti-tobacco lobbyist as recently as September, a position that would appear to break a transition team rule that prevents lobbyists from serving in policy areas they have worked to influence within the past year.

But in an example of how the tough-sounding rules can provide Obama plenty of wiggle room, the campaign explained how the lobbyist’s work didn’t violate the restrictions.

Bill Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, unsuccessfully pushed Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco. But because the legislation granting that authority failed, there is no dovetail between Corr’s lobbying and HHS policies, said a transition spokeswoman, who did not wish to be identified.

Asked whether it created a problem that Corr would now be in charge of reviewing HHS after having lobbied to increase the authority of the FDA, which falls under HHS’ jurisdiction, the spokeswoman said it wasn’t an issue because the HHS secretary and FDA commissioner are separately confirmed by the Senate.

Also, she said, Corr has agreed to recuse himself from tobacco-related issues.

Yeah, whatever. Bottom line: a guy who lobbied HHS is now going to be part of building Obama’s HHS team. And, no worries, he’s going to recuse himself from tobacco issues…which doesn’t mean that he won’t help implant anti-tobacco cohorts into HHS who will then carry out the policy he wanted HHS to follow.

“Wiggle room” doesn’t even begin to cover what Obama has allowed himself. Essentially, by not pledging to reform Washington from top to bottom – as McCain and Palin had – Obama has signaled that the only change he brings is that henceforward Executive and Legislative will be on the side of back scratching and sweetheart deals for favored individuals and groups. Now everyone will get to see how it goes when both Congress and the President are “pay to play” organizations.