The French (former) Hostages Mystery solved, theory one
Via Eric of ¡No Pasarán!

[Mohamed al-Joundi] forsook Syria for Iraq a short time after Hafez al-Assad's régime forced the party's founders, including Michel Aflaq, into exile in 1963. In Baghdad, he became an employee in the party of Saddam Hussein, whom he still calls 'president'. His contacts at the heart of the fallen régime interested the two French reporters who were investigating 'the Iraq resistance'.

Theory #1: Two French journalists hire Ba'athist Syrian with "contacts at the heart of the fallen régime". Said contacts see fund-raising opportunity. Fund-raising delays ensue. The rest is history.

Social Security
Some of the more annoying arguments against individual investments for Social Security go like this: "It’s too risky. It’s too expensive. It’s too complicated." Donald Luskin points out in his article, The Lesson of Thrift that Personal accounts already work (which might be why the critics are so scared)

The critics never mention that there’s already a government-administered retirement system that has shown for over 15 years that personal accounts are prudent, inexpensive, and simple. It’s the Thrift Savings Plan of the United States federal government, currently serving 3.3 million government employees.

I wonder why senators and congressmen aren't being asked why should the public at large be deprived of a benefit good enough for the same congressmen & senators to enjoy. Luskin has a theory,

The Thrift Savings Plan proves that there’s nothing too risky, too expensive, or too complicated about personal accounts for Social Security. So what are the critics really worried about? I think they’re afraid that personal accounts are too empowering. Once a nation of voters becomes a nation of empowered investors — there’s just no telling what kind of empowerment they’ll want next.

José Carlos Rodríguez would probably agree.

Nice day in NYC, updated
Yesterday we went to New York. Our first stop was Radio City Music Hall. We arrived before 10AM and went to the head of the box office line, to ask if they had any available tickets for the day's shows. Luckily, there were excellent center-orchestra tickets available for the 1PM show. There are two more days left (nine shows) so if you're flexible and get to the box office first thing in the morning you might still be able to catch a show.

From there we went to the Museum of Modern Art. The line to buy the admission tickets was long enough you'd thought Cecil B. DeMille was holding an open casting call for one of his biblical epics. I remembered that Roger L. Simon had posted that members don't have to wait in line, so I left family members waiting in line outside -- just in case things had changed since Roger was there -- and went in to purchase a membership. A dual membership for two adults is $120, which is not bad considering that each single ticket is $20 (but, whoa! Roger paid only $60?). Children age 16 and under get free admission, but just the fact that you don't have to stand in line outside is worth the membership price. Membership admission in hand, I went back & retrieved the family from the serpentine waiting line, and went back in. We had a very nice lunch and viewed several of the galleries.

The building is spectacularly good, and even with wall-to-wall crowds you don't get the claustrophobic feeling one sometimes gets in other museums during high season. Particularly beautiful is the atrium with the Monet water lilies visible from five floors. I also loved the Jason Pollock room. Will have to come back at a quieter time of year and really take a better look. As we left, the people that were in line ahead of us were just coming in.

Back to Radio City, where the Christmas Spectacular had five, count 'em, five Rockette numbers. The Husband was pleased. This year the choreographers didn't limit the precision dancing to just Rockettes, they also had precision-dancing Santas. It was a full house, and a great show.

In all, a lovely day in the big city, and just before we arrived to our station on the train back we noticed that the compulsive-talking man in the seat in front of us was not nuts, he had a really tiny cell phone and hadn't just been talking to himself for an entire hour.

Update: A visitor emailed asking if I'd bring pre-schoolers to the MoMA. Considering the very large numbers of visitors, I'd bring pre-schoolers later in the year, but not now since they'd only be looking at a sea of legs (and bear in mind that all installations are "don't touch"). Otherwise, for a non-stressful visit, bring along the Olivia books with you and take them to the Pollock room (because of Olivia) and the sculpture garden only, followed by a hot chocolate on the 5th floor.

Jerry Orbach has died
of prostate cancer. Mr. Orbach was one of the great Broadway artists of our time:

On Broadway, the Bronx-born Orbach starred in hit musicals including "Carnival," "Promises, Promises" (for which he won a Tony Award), "Chicago" and "42nd Street." Earlier, he was in the original cast of the off-off-Broadway hit "The Fantasticks," playing the narrator. The show went on to run for more than 40 years

I first saw Mr. Orbach in the original Chicago, playing the slimy lawyer, where he stripped to the love song in the grand finale. I saw him also in the first stage version of 42d Street. Truly a great performer. People who only know him from Law & Order don't know what they missed.

The one time I saw Mr. Orbach not on stage was one morning a few years ago here in The Principality, when he was walking down Nassau Street. I recognized him immediately and I whistled a few bars of Razzle Dazzle 'Em as I walked past him. He was pleased, smiled, and whistled along.

Classy guy.

Public debt in the USA and the EU
is the subject of Constantin T. Gurdgiev's article at TCS, A Pivotal Year for the European Left. Prof. Gurdiev looks at three items, finding that:

• Publicly Held US Debt as percent of GDP: the US debt is less than 66% of GDP (the EU Stability & Growth Pact (SGP) limit is 60%, while current EU15 average is 63.2%)
• Public Debt, per cent of potential GDP: the real measure of the public debt burden, i.e. the ratio of publicly held government debt to potential GDP is lower in the US than in Canada, France, Italy and Japan<.li>
• Net Government Lending as percentage of potential GDP: The difference in correlation between the deficit and the private savings rate between the US and the European economies arises from greater capacity of the American economy to absorb added spending into productive economic activity, contrasted by the general inability of the welfare-focused European public spending to generate private sector growth effects.

and states,

"In the debate about debt and deficits, the ultimate determinant of the public acceptance of higher spending is not the amount spent, but the growth opportunities created."

Richard at EU Referendum asks if the EU's destructive trade policies towards the third world are Worse than a tsunami?, and also asks, Whose health and whose safety?

Stein and Hitchens, updated
Two articles at the American Spectator (via Jim), the first one, by Ben Stein, talks about Gratitude

Today and every day, men and women are fighting in Iraq in horrible conditions, with saboteurs and terrorists among them to give that poor nation a chance to live in peace and democracy and to deny it as a haven for terrorism.

How much do we owe them? Far, far more than we can ever pay them. How much do we owe them for spending Christmas so far from their families, so far from safety, so far from comfort? How much do we owe men and women who offer up their very lives for total strangers like the people like me who were strolling up and down Beverly Drive?

The second article's a book review of Christopher Hitchens's latest collection of essays Love, Poverty, and War, titled Contrary to Popular Belief by Shawn Macomber. Macomber quotes

"I did not, I wish to state, become a journalist because there was no other 'profession' that would have me," Hitchens writes in the introduction. "I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information."

I'll have to read the book!
Update Mike referred me to Shawn Macomber's blog. Thank you Mike!

The earthquake in Indonesia
has had unexpected consequences: Earthquake speeds up Earth's spin

The deadly Asian earthquake may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation -- shortening days by a fraction of a second -- and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, US scientists say.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or one millionth of a second, faster and to tilt about 2.5 cm on its axis.

When one huge tectonic plate beneath the Indian Ocean was forced below the edge of another "it had the effect of making the Earth more compact and spinning faster," Gross said.

For a change, at the UN, Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland realized that "The international assistance that has come and been pledged from the United States, from Europe and from countries in the region has also been very generous," after complaining the US & Other developed nations were stingy and should raise their taxes and give that money to the UN. It isn't the first time someone suggests that the USA raise its taxes to give more money to the UN. Just last September Jacques was suggesting just that.

Back on the subject of the earthquake, Simon Winchester's article at the NYT, The Year the Earth Fought Back, talks about plate tectonics and Gaia Theory,

In recent decades, thanks largely to the controversial Gaia Theory developed by the British scientists James Lovelock, it has become ever more respectable to consider the planet as one immense and eternally interacting living system - the living planet, floating in space, every part of its great engine affecting every other, for good or for ill.

Mr. Lovelock's notion, which he named after the earth goddess of the Ancient Greeks, makes much of the delicacy of the balance that mankind's environmental carelessness increasingly threatens. But his theory also acknowledges the somber necessity of natural happenings, many of which seem in human terms so tragically unjust, as part of a vast system of checks and balances. The events that this week destroyed the shores of the Indian Ocean, and which leveled the city of Bam a year ago, were of unmitigated horror: but they may also serve some deeper planetary purpose, one quite hidden to our own beliefs.

Mr. Winchester is the author of "Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883", and "The Professor and the Madman", books that I highly recommend. Both books are available through Amazon, which has page for donations to the Red Cross. Apropos of Amazon, Prof. Reynolds has a Stinginess Update,

And while amateurs outperform the French government, the United States government is sending $35 million plus two Naval groups. Not that that has stopped people from bitching about the United States' response. It's almost as if they're determined to find fault no matter what.

However, at this rate the Amazon donations will soon pass the German government's contribution of 2 million Euros (2.7 million dollars), too.

Jack, however, has a comment on Gaia Theory and the NYT readers,

Winchester makes passing reference to the Gaia Theory, which holds that the earth is an eternal living organism, but he never suggests (as Gaia lunatics propose) that the planet has some sort of consciousness that is visiting retaliation for man's environmental depredations. The idea that the earth "fights back" reflects the liberal guilt of a newspaper that serves the most physically unnatural city on the planet. If the Times readers believe that the earth really does "fight back," and I do not doubt for an instant that many of them do, why are they living on a densely populated slab of bedrock almost entirely covered in concrete?

Good question.

Tom Johnson helps out in Sierra Leone

Johnson is a sort of surgery broker and last year arranged operations in Ghana for two little girls suffering from tuberculosis of the spine. The disease paralyzed the girls from the hips down. Johnson has been told that they are now back on their feet and he was hoping to dance with them on Christmas Eve.

Johnson is a college graduate who makes his living as a handyman. He likes to work alone, unbossed and free to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He is a little guy, but powerfully built and very strong. He seems to prefer work clothes that most people would have thrown away years ago. A fiddler with the Dicey Riley band, he plays Irish music regularly at the Pub at the Marriott Hotel on Route 10 in Whippany.

Don't miss the rest of John McLaughlin's article.

Best comment on Bin Laden's latest:

It is well past time that this moron was on the receiving end of "the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch," that "thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy..."

said by Michael

Misinformation today
Manel from Hispalibertas links to a long post by JR at Transatlantic Intelligencer on the Ukraine. JR says that Le Sabot Postmoderne/The Post-modern Clog, a blog that has been following the elections, is a propaganda site:

The friendly but fatuous style of the Postmodern Clog - and it is curious that this same style extends also to a large part of the commentaries on the site - lends itself perfectly to the purposes of propaganda. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the Discoshaman is in fact an English language editor working for the "Orange" youth organization PORA. He himself announces this in a post dated 24 November that is reproduced on Free Republic. Indeed, the title of the original post as reproduced on Free Republic is "Updates from PORA -- The Revolution WILL be blogged". The references to PORA have, however, been removed from the archived version of the post on the Postmodern Clog - as has the cheerful admission "I am writing from HQ".

To those bloggers who have in good faith adopted the Discoshaman as their authoritative source on the Orange "revolution", I would suggest the following: you have been used.

It wouldn't be the first time a political party uses the internet for that purpose.

Hindrocket (via Betsy) writes about Misinformation at The Times, specifically misinformation by Thomas Friedman, who gets it wrong in everything from Pell Grants to military spending:

So, while some of what Friedman says is true, much of it is simply misinformation. But let's make a more fundamental point: Friedman's key contention is that America's priorities are out of whack because we are not spending enough money on education and foreign aid. This claim is absurd. Let's look at education spending first. Check out the actual data from the Department of Education. The U.S. spends more per capita on secondary education than any country except Switzerland.
. . .
Are there problems with our education system? Sure, but they have nothing to do with "priorities" as Friedman means the term; i.e., budgetary priorities. Our problem stems from the fact that we put the welfare of administrators and teachers' unions above that of students. But on this topic, Friedman has nothing to say, and his newspaper bitterly opposes the only practical solution on the table, school choice.

while a Powerline reader points out that federal "general science and basic research" budget has risen much faster during the Bush administration than it did during Bill Clinton's first term.

Dan has some thoughts on the blogosphere:

As much as we celebrate the "birth" of the blogosphere this year, I think we should also be mindful of its infancy and the danger and challenges the future is going to present. How we meet those will determine if, or how quickly this medium becomes a powerful tool for real democracy, as opposed to just another avenue for a pedagogy that purports to instruct and inform but does little more than actually stall the potential growth of a broader democracy in our time. Either way, the greatest laurels for "blogs" most likely rest in their distant future. And that's a genuinely exciting topic to me.

Clueless about Cuba's quarantine
Yesterday's NY Times article, Cuba Counters Prostitution With AIDS Programs, skirts a few important issues, the least of which is sex tourism. The article quotes,

United Nations officials who track AIDS say Cuba has done a better job than most countries at corralling the disease. "Certainly there has been an increase in AIDS, but it is not big, not like you see in the Dominican Republic, or Haiti, or in Puerto Rico," said Paloma Cuchi, who oversees the United Nations AIDS program in Latin America. "They have a very good medical infrastructure, and people have access to care and prevention."

It all comes down to one word: quarantine.

In the early 1990's, Cuba quarantined people with the virus, and those discovered to be infected are still required to stay three to six months in one of Cuba's 13 government AIDS sanitariums, where they receive treatment and counseling on how to survive with the virus and how to avoid passing it along. Once they leave the hospitals, the patients are closely monitored in their homes by social workers, officials say.

The Dominican Republic, Haiti, or Puerto Rico do not force their citizens into compulsory testing, or internment.

The UN official brings up Puerto Rico, which has horrible AIDS statistics (two of my friends have died of AIDS), so let's look at Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico does have "a very good medical infrastructure, and people have access to care and prevention", the factors the enthusiastic UN official praises in Cuba. Puertoricans who suffer from this terrible illness don't get incarcerated for months, and afterwards aren't "closely monitored in their homes by social workers" and the government. Instead, all Puertoricans can access the internet for information, something forbidden in Cuba. Additionally, Puerto Ricans, as befits American citizens from birth, are free to travel to the US mainland for treatment anywhere in the USA, and airfares are inexpensive; those with means are free to travel anywhere in the world to seek treatment, and many do since the economic conditions in Puerto Rico enable them to pursue any treatment they can afford.

Castro of course will blame AIDS on the "US embargo", just as he blames everything else on it, ignoring the fact that there are some 100 other countries with which Cuba could trade. That is, when he's not denying that prostitution exists in Cuba. But I digress.

The Cuban internment program has been famously controversial because of the compulsory testing, and the fact that AIDS patients are incarcerated because of their illness:

In the mid-1980s, when little was known about the virus, Cuba compulsorily tested thousands of its citizens for HIV. Those who tested positive were taken to Los Cocos. They were not allowed to leave.

The policy, perhaps only possible in a highly controlled communist society, was condemned by human rights groups across the world.

Then there is the issue of reporting: Castro's regime closely controls all information on disease, since the mirage of a good health service is a great part of its propaganda. Believing the Cuban government's statistics on anything is absurd. The question is, What are the real numbers of people with HIV or AIDS in Cuba?

As I posted before, Cuba has a long history of persecuting gays, a fact the NYT article carefully ignores. Reading this 1988 article, one realizes that in the "two-bedroom apartments, each of which housed two married couples", not only there's no gay couple in sight, the authorities replied "with a little bit of pride in Cuban machismo, that Cuban men could not be expected to control their sexual behavior", the implication being that the sexual behavior would be exclusively heterosexual. Discussing AIDS as a human rights issue is impossible in Cuba. Even more clear is Richard Stern's article,

I wondered how long I, as an AIDS activist, would last in Cuba, if it were one of the target countries of the Treatment Access/Human Rights Program funded by the Association I direct. I also tried to imagine the demonstrations and "zaps" held by activist friends in the United States happening here, and could only picture a firing squad.

While the BBC and the NYT articles I link to above claim the Cuban program is a success, one sentence stands out,

Lydia says she is a prostitute because she needs the money to buy things like food and medicine.

Catherine's book, reviewed by the NYT
Animals in Translation : Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior was co-written by Catherine Johnson, frequent commenter at Roger L. Simon's blog. The other writer is Temple Grandin

In arguing for an animal-autism connection, Grandin sides with brain researchers who link many autistic symptoms to problems with the frontal lobes. In people with autism, she notes, these areas are either abnormal or they receive scrambled messages from other parts of the brain -- or both. In contrast, the frontal lobes of animal brains are simply undeveloped; normal animals function somewhat like off-kilter, autistic humans.

Which isn't so terrible, in Grandin's view. Characteristically, she describes many autistic symptoms as strengths rather than weaknesses, particularly the tendency to see details in isolation rather than as parts of a unified whole. For her, ''hyper-specificity'' -- the act of focusing on the trees rather than the forest -- is also the quality that connects what she calls ''animal geniuses'' with autistic savants. Whooping cranes can memorize long migratory routes they've flown only once for the same reason some savants can make drawings with perfect perspective: both accomplishments rely on an extremely fine perception of details. Tellingly, Grandin sticks with neutral terms like ''hyper-specific'' and ''particularize'' to describe this trait. In contrast, autism experts generally call it ''weak central coherence.''

I wish Catherine and Ms Grandin continued success.

Meanwhile, back in Kiev,
Pro-West Leader Appears to Win Ukraine Election

"Property taxes can be controlled. Really. Other states have done it",
Paul Mulshine writes,

It's been almost 40 years since the politicians started "solving" our property tax crisis. In 1966, they added a sales tax. In 1976, they added an income tax. They kept raising those taxes. Property taxes kept rising as well.

Why? Because there were no controls on spending.

Here in The Principality spending's so over-the-top that by now routine maintenance items, such as street repaving/rebuilding, are being financed by issuing debt. Mulshine concludes,

. "The reality is that the primary sources of high property taxes are schools and municipal spending. Until we deal with that, who's kidding who?"

The property tax task force is kidding us. That's who.

In other Jersey news, The re-enactors were out, but the river was too dangerous to cross, so this year Washington didn't cross the Delaware.
The Star Ledger's Auditor names former Gov. James E. McGreevey as Loser of the Year.

Hog-wild dining
over at Val's, with Steve's help,

Don't feel guilty. Enjoy it to the fullest, because everything we have here, whether we realize it or not, is very, very expensive, and to fail to enjoy it would be a colossal waste and an insult to the people who paid the bill.

I love these guys.

Hallucinating on Broadway
I'm not a Dickens fan, and agree with Trollope that Dickens milked popular sentiment to great financial gain. A Christmas Carol ranks high on Dickens's exploitive list: loving poor innocent family cruelly bled dry by heartless rich guy, which makes for a teary story, so of course everybody from Alastair Sim to The Muppets have done a version. (The Muppets' version is quite enjoyable because of the performances by Michael Caine and Ms Piggy.) As for the plot, I share Alan Behr’s opinion,

The film, based on the classic business training manual by Charles Dickens, presents a unique problem In the seven years since the death of business-partner Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge has struggled to keep his London concern competitive in an ever-changing market. Robert Cratchit, a disgruntled clerk, takes advantage of his company's vulnerability during the make-or-break fourth-quarter selling season to demand an immediate increase in vacation time.

Marley's Ghost then appears, advocating a reworked business model. The interjection of the supernatural is a clever device by which the filmmakers illustrate a shift in paradigms in the face of a labor action Ebenezer skillfully buys off the agitator with the gift of a turkey. That will assure Cratchit's loyalty--or at least his attendance--through the close of the quarter, after which Ebenezer will be free to can him.

But will he? Surely not until a suitable replacement is found. (See the companion work on outplacement, Apocalypse Now.)

Needless to say, several years ago, when a friend called me saying "You must go see Patrick Stewart do A Christmas Carol on Broadway", I was rather underwhelmed. I wasn’t all that impressed by him on film or TV. My friend went on: Her daughter was a big PS fan, and watched all the Star Trek: The Next Generation shows, so her daughter had dragged her to the show. The last thing I wanted to do was to pay Broadway prices for sitting in on a Trekkie/Trekker convention. My friend, who really really didn't like Star Trek, finally convinced me, particularly since she knew I love solo shows, and I'm ever grateful that she did.

Patrick Stewart's solo show was absolutely excellent. He dressed in (what looked to me like an Armani) perfectly tailored brown suit, wore soft shoes, used a few props on an otherwise bare stage, and narrated, no, lived, each character to perfection. His DVD version of ACC is nice and he did a good job, but the live solo performance has to be one of the best I've ever enjoyed. He had every person in the audience, old and young, hanging on to his every move and breadth. You actually saw each separate character, even when your brain told you he was alone on the stage. For the Fezziwig's party particularly, he populated the stage with dancing people, all from your imagination.

Indeed, Stewart had me (and the rest of the audience), hallucinating. He used the hallucinatory skills later on, at a lecture he gave at The University a couple of years later, but that’s a story for another post.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart.

(PS, while the IMDB says PS is 5' 10", I’d say he’s more like 5’8” – but never fear, he’s very attractive, particularly when dressed in charcoal-grey Armani. As another friend said, "For a short, bald guy in his sixties, he's hot!")

Twas the Night before Christmas at the Carnivorous Conservative's,
and Santa had bad hair!
Thank you, Dan.

Merry Christmas!

Tomorrow's the anniversary of the Battle of Trenton
which took place on December 25, 1776:

The effect of the battle of Trenton was out of all proportion to the numbers involved and the casualties. The American effort across the colonies was galvanized and the psychological dominance achieved by the British in the preceding year overturned. Howe was stunned that a strong German contingent could be surprised in such a manner and put up so little resistance. Washington’s constant problem was to maintain the enthusiasm of his army for the war, particularly with the system of one year recruitment and Trenton proved a much needed encouragement.

More links at The Patriot Resource

UNScam this week
Three U.N. Officials Leave World Body: Secretary-General Kofi Annan's chief of staff Iqbal Riza, the undersecretary-general for management Catherine Bertini, and the U.N. controller Jean-Pierre Halbwachs. Bertini spent 10 years as executive director of the U.N. World Food Program before taking the U.N. management post on Jan. 1, 2003. Of course, the UN claims these resignations are "coincidences", but Annan Says Oil-for-Food Produced a Bad Year. I'll say! There's the bugs, a minor issue, and the larger issue of sexual abuse, the homemade movies (via Instapundit):

The case has highlighted the apparently rampant sexual exploitation of Congolese girls and women by the UN’s 11,000 peacekeepers and 1,000 civilians at a time when the UN is facing many problems, including the Iraqi “oil-for-food” scandal and accusations of sexual harassment by senior UN staff in Geneva and New York.

The UN, haunted? Well, 'Ghosts' Hamper Iraq Oil-for-Food Corruption Probe (via Friends of Saddam)

A UN-ordered probe into Iraq oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to Saddam Hussein as he cheated the 60 billion dollar (£31.4 billion) program.

No wonder Koffi wants us to move on.

On Social Security reform,
a very interesting article (in Spanish) by José Carlos Rodríguez Adiós a Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Privatizar la Seguridad Social supone acabar con el legado de Franklin D. Roosevelt. Bajo su mandato se produjo un cambio radical en el papel del Estado en la economía en los Estados Unidos. El modelo público de pensiones se ha agotado y las reformas propuestas por Bush devolverían la iniciativa y la responsabilidad a los ciudadanos, arrancadas en este siglo por el omnívoro Estado. La apuesta tiene enorme calado y sus implicaciones sociales son de largo alcance. Los grupos sociales y de intereses que han servido de plataforma de la izquierda y que se han beneficiado tradicionalmente del favor estatal tiemblan ante la posibilidad de que desaparezca la partida más importante del presupuesto estatal y, especialmente, de que se cree una sociedad de ciudadanos ahorradores y autosuficientes, que vean con creciente desapego y desconfianza al Estado. Ya han empezado a reaccionar, actuando conjuntamente contra el plan de reforma. Se inicia un lucha política apasionante y de enorme importancia.
(
my translation)Privatizing Social Security implies ending Franklin D. Roosevelt's legacy. Under his mandate there was a radical change in the Governemnt's role in the American economy. The public pensions model is exhausted, and Bush's proposals would return initiative and responsibility, which had been pulled away by the omnivorous Governemnt, to the citizens. This wager has profound, long-term enormous social implications. Leftist social and interest groups that have traditionally benefited from Gevernemnt favors, are trembling now that they face the possibility that the most important share of the buget might disappear, and that a society of self-relying, saving citizens who see Government with increasing detachemnt and mistrust, might be created. They [the interest groups] are already reacting, working together against the refrom plan. This is the start of an intense and hugely important political fight.

Too bad Krugman doesn't read Spanish.

The Modern Movement has finally come full circle,
puns Brian Micklethwait about this:

An unusual apartment building was inaugurated in Brazil, each of whose 11 storeys turns independently, giving lucky residents 360-degree views of the eco-friendly city of Curitiba.

For US$300,000 you and your guests --and your pets, too -- can get dizzy every day, since "At low speed, each floor takes an hour to revolve." I don't know if they come with built-in karaoke, but one would expect a coctail lounge atmosphere. "Each apartment can revolve independently, spinning 360 to the left or to the right", I guess for political neutrality.

This building opens a whole new world of possibilities for Interior Desecration Style: "The Apartments are revolting! I mean, revolving!"

At least the one in the slide show is tastefully decorated.

the ACLU and Christmas, updated
(via Betsy) Mark Steyn

Forty years of effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to eliminate God from the public square have led to a resurgent, evangelical and politicised Christianity in America. By "politicised", I don't mean that anyone who feels his kid should be allowed to sing Silent Night if he wants to is perforce a Republican, but only that year in, year out it becomes harder for such folks to support a secular Democratic Party closely allied with the anti-Christmas militants. American liberals need to rethink their priorities: what's more important? Winning a victory over the kindergarten teacher's holiday concert, or winning back Congress and the White House?
. . .
In Italy this Christmas, towns and schools have banned public displays of the Nativity on the grounds that they "may" offend Muslims.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But who cares? The elevation of the right not to be offended into the bedrock principle of democratic society will, in the end, tear it apart. That goes for atheists threatening suits against New Jersey schools and for Muslim lobby groups threatening fatwas against The Telegraph. On which cheery note, Merry Christmas to all.

Continuing on a Christian note, The Economist has an article on Monasteries of the Christian east: Where mammon meets God that quotes a professor at The University, on the positive effect of prayer,

Peter Brown, the doyen of religious historians at Princeton University, gives a striking account of what early eastern monks thought they were doing. They “did not abandon the world, in the sense of severing all connection with it. Rather, in the imagination of their contemporaries, they transformed its wild edges. They ringed a careworn society with the shimmering hope of paradise regained. Having drained from themselves all hint of the dark passions that ruled the world, they validated the world by constantly praying for it.”

With ideals as lofty, and as other-worldly, as that, the eastern monks were willing to make whatever compromise was necessary with the expediencies of Earthly power to keep themselves in business. It was an act they more or less pulled off, until the 20th century threw them off balance. In a sense, however, modernity has taken the eastern monks back where they started. Their liturgy has always emphasised plucking new life out of death: redeeming the lifeless and demon-infested world of the “desert” and making it bloom like Eden.

In the rich, urban monasteries of late Byzantium, mired in power games, such language may have had a hollow ring. But think how it sounds on Anzer island in the Solovetsky archipelago. This is where, after an epidemic in 1929, prisoners were tossed into a mass grave, below a church named Golgotha where a tree grows naturally in the shape of a cross. In a place so drenched in suffering, the language of death does not have to be hammed up or invented. It is difficult to believe that anything can now bring light and life to such a spot. But, if anything can, it may be monastic prayer.

The ACLU's short-sightedness, our loss.

Update (via Mr. Minority), Jerusalem Distributes Free Christmas Trees to Christians

For decades, Israel has distributed the trees free of charge, particularly to the ex-patriot community of Christian leaders, journalists, diplomats and others.

Marry Christmas!

Disputed elections update:
Puerto Rico: Court won't revisit Puerto Rico vote

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a request to reconsider its ruling giving Puerto Rico's Supreme Court jurisdiction over disputed ballots in the island's gubernatorial election.

No de Boston y Domínguez cierra el caso Boston's No and Dominguez closes the case, (my translation)

Poco después de conocida la orden y mandato del Tribunal de Apelaciones, el juez federal de distrito Daniel Domínguez desestimó ayer en la tarde la demanda radicada por el ex gobernador Pedro Rosselló y un grupo de estadistas en el foro federal. Ya para efectos del tribunal federal en Puerto Rico, el caso promovido por el PNP está cerrado, según aparece en el expediente electrónico.
Shortly after the order from the Appelate Court, federal district judge Daniel Domínguez dismissed the suit filed by former governor Pedro Rosselló and a pro-statehood group. As far as the federal tribunal in Puerto Rico goes, the PNP case is closed.

Ukraine: Elections on Sunday, December 26. Yushchenko Urges Ukrainians to Vote, Defend Choice

Washington state Day by Day says it best:

The French hostages have been released. Will the mystery be solved? Updated x 3
This time the news of their release is for real, unlike the time a press conference was held in October to announce their release, to no avail. Christian Chesnot, 38, of Radio France Internationale, and Georges Malbrunot, 41, of the French daily Le Figaro, were freed Tuesday by the Islamic Army of Iraq, a group that has claimed responsibility for the killings of some other hostages. They had been held for 124 days. Le Figaro has a timetable (in French).

Their Syrian driver, Mohamed Al-Joundi, had previously been rescued by the Marines in Fallujah on November 12 [the French press says Al-Joundi "had been released", not rescued, and doesn't mention the Marines; I had as much as predicted the press would obscure that fact].

The news of Chesnot and Malbrunot's release was first announced on Al-Jazeera, which read an official statement from the Islamic Army of Iraq. According to the NY Times,

Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite channel, reported earlier on Tuesday that Iraqi militants had handed over the two men to the French Embassy in Baghdad, but their liberation was not confirmed by France until later in the day

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told party leaders the government had not bought the two journalists' freedom and insisted that no ransom had been paid. According to President Jacques Chirac, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier would meet the hostages in Cyprus.

French newspapers, among them Libération are discussing the damage to French foreign policy, referring to the hostage story as "a 124 day mystery", (my translation),

French diplomacy's future is in doubt. Its traditional Arab policy and its non-alignment in the Bush crusade in Iraq neither prevented the worst, nor prevailed in the international scene. It will have to draw its conclusions. And explain its dysfunctioning.

``We must ask for explanations about all stages of their detention,'' said Francois Hollande, leader of the opposition Socialist Party. Just this Tuesday, prior to the announcement of the hostages' release, Reporters without Borders (RSF) secretary general Robert Menard was saying the talks were "bogged down" and that France's Arab policy "has been overestimated, we bypassed the acting Iraqi interim government and France is suffering from its worsening relationship with Syria which backs the resistance in Iraq".

Interestingly, while there has been videos of the hostages' families and the public at large celebrating, no video of the released hostages has yet been shown.

Update: Freed French hostages arrive in Cyprus

Update 2, via Roger, Chirac's been saying that he credited their freedom to "the responsible and tenacious action of the government and all the services which mobilized with determination and efficiency."
Yeah, right.

Update 3: They've arrived in France. Video at France2 (go to right sidebar, Vidéos, and Le retour des otages).

Latest gimmicky contest
at The Economist: The wisest fool

Today we are after that rarer oxymoron: the wisest fool. He or she must be fundamentally an idiot, but a shrewd or cunning one. Candidates need not inhabit Christendom, but they must be alive, or have been in the past 50 years. They may come from the world of politics, or academia or business—or perhaps the church, the stage or journalism. Or somewhere else: on the Titanic, one of them was seen heading for the bar when everyone else was taking to the boats.

Republicans would likely nominate Jimmy Carter; Democrats, GWB. Me, I'd nominate Osama Bin Laden, who "must be alive, or have been in the past 50 years".

The Economist says Chronic stress really does cause you to age faster, (and new word watch bonus)
because your telomeres get shorter:

Body cells have age limits. They have caps called telomeres on the ends of their chromosomes, and these caps shorten after each cell division. Eventually, the telomeres become too short for division to occur again. When this happens the cell dies. This “limit to life” was first discovered in the 1960s by Leonard Hayflick, at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, and it has become known as the Hayflick limit.

The obese also suffer from premature shortening of the telomeres. So far there's no treatment of this condition.

Until then, there's always yoga class. ooooohhhmmmmm.

Bonus: New word watch: telomeres.

Global warming, updated
is certainly not the phrase that pops to mind in the past two days, since right now it's 14oF, and yesterday it was 11oF. That's -10 to the decimally-inclined. Regardless, two articles at TCS bring some light to the subject of climate change.

The first article, What Defines the Arctic? A Discussion of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment dwells on the importance of what is being measured, and how, raising the question of scientific misconduct:

There is the astronomical definition of the Arctic, which is defined by the Arctic Circle at 66.5ºN, where there is at least one 24-hour day and one 24-hour night each year. There is the ancient Greek definition, which divided the world into three zones -- the Torrid, the Temperate and the Frigid -- which would make the Arctic Frigid third start at 60ºN. And then there are definitions used to create the temperature record. It is an important matter because the temperature record differs with each Arctic definition. Where one looks often determines what one measures.

The second article, Buenos Aires: Kyoto's Waterloo, also dwells on scientific miscunduct:

Newcomers to the global warming debate are often surprised to notice that passions are running high, which has an adverse impact on both form and substance of scientific intercourse. In this respect the accusations and the subsequent process against Bjorn Lomborg represented an absolute low. Fortunately, he was completely vindicated afterwards on appeal. The arguments which were advanced in the second ruling were the spitting image of those which had already been developed by an international group of scientists, who were all experts in the field of scientific integrity, with the Netherlands' Arthur Rörsch, as lead author. Recently Rörsch has embarked on a new project, exposing infractions of good scientific practice which he encountered when joining the global warming debate. They include a wide variety of scientific misconduct, including: intimidation and expulsion of sceptical scientists; deriding and ostracizing opponents; other sorts of ad hominem attacks; the invocation of consensus, while ignoring opposing views, even those which have been published in the peer-reviewed literature; dismissing the right and/or competence of scientists of neighbouring scientific disciplines to participate in the climate debate, especially if they hold opposing views and refusal to enter into scientific debate to sort out differences; accusing opposing scientists of representing commercial interests, such as those of the oil and coal industry; manipulation of data and spin-doctoring of 'scientific' reports; attribution of extreme weather events to man-made global warming; the use of models as evidence, etc. All these infractions will be well documented in the report.

The article points out that, "Since the refusal by the G-77, China and India to accept any commitment to reduce emissions as from 2012, when Kyoto Mark I expires, and -- more surprisingly -- the announcement by Italy that it will withdraw from the Kyoto process in the same year, we have entered a totally different ball game."

In the meantime climate scepticism is gaining ground in Western Europe. It is even becoming respectable. Many organisations, often cum websites, provide ample information about the views of the climate sceptics, thus breaking the de facto information monopoly of the pro-Kyoto scientists belonging to the 'established climate science community'.

Scientific integrity, not scientific misconduct, is what is needed.

Update: Mr. Minority and Mark Steyn have more on the subject.

Today's round-up
Good News From Iraq, Part 17, from Arthur, The Great One,

Terrorism, violence and insecurity continue to plague Iraq, and the pace of reconstruction and the economic reform try the patience of people who, having suffered so much, are starved for a better life. Yet amongst all this, there is good news coming out of Iraq. Soon, the Iraqis will have the opportunity to elect their government and thus institutionalize the process of reform taking place over the last year and a half. A few among them want to turn back the clock to before March 2003, other want to turn it back by hundreds of years, and they will stop at nothing to achieve their dream. Let us hope that the other dream - that of the silent majority of Iraqis - will in the end prevail.

Photos here, via Eric.
Mary asks Are our intelligence agencies still so accustomed to reflexively treating Saudis kindly that they’ve forgotten 9/11?.
Francis continues to work on The Quilt.
Jack's posting on US-India relations.
Via Michael, LaShawn notices that Kwanzaa Is for Pagans, and I say festivus is for idiots.

And don't tell me about global warming, it's 11oF right now.

Interior Desecration Style, updated
While I read Lilek's book, Interior Desecrations, a laugh-out-loud book if there ever was one, I kept having ugly-house-flashbacks.

The first house my husband and I bought was done in Early Mexican Restaurant style (at least the prior owners had mercifully removed the whiskey barrel furniture when they moved out -- we declined their offer to sell it to us for a reasonable price), with the added bonus of buffalo plaid carpeting in the kitchen and den, and PINK bathroom walls. We bought it at a really good price. The house we live in now was the lowest priced house (for its size) in the Township, probably due to an overzealous (and pricey, I'm sure) interior designer who used 5 different shades of maroon in the living room, smurf-blue walls and Williamsburg-print curtains in the dining room, cheap paneling in the basement with equally cheap (and old) vinyl floor tile that imitated cheap brick, and brown background/small flower print wallpaper in TWO, count 'em, bedrooms. To spare the innocent I won't describe the kitchen. The Husband and I both have spent some quality time ripping out carpeting, tiling a kitchen floor, and painting, painting. Had I known, I should have bought some Home Depot stock when it first was offered. As a result of all this home improving I have become inordinately fond of the many shades of white or beige wall paint available at the local paint stores. To me, a loud color is what you find at Restoration Hardware.

Lileks has obviously been there, done that.

When I sold houses I saw hundreds of houses afflicted with Interior Desecration Style. There are several types of such style, for the 1970s opened the floodgates to what was an unfortunate form of self-expression. Kleenex tissue box foil wallpaper in bathrooms, covering walls, doors and ceiling. Mario Buattaesque (some actually done by Mario himself) explosions of lace, ruffles, flower prints and color-related pastel plaids, accentuated with Staffordshire china dogs on the mantel. An entire foyer, stairway, and all doors covered in mirrors, fun-house style. Taos pastels used throughout an entire 8-room condo, where everything including the dish detergent matched (visitors' clothes would inevitably clash, unless they wore the right shade of grey). Plaid, really plaid, dens (I leave the iniquity to you). An entire mansion (all fifteen rooms, except for the basement) decorated in small, pink, Laura Ashley prints. Psychodelicesque pop art in rooms with ruched fabric ceilings and bead curtains on the windows (well, maybe this was a 1960s retro style, not a 1970s leftover) -- you could almost smell the bong and hear Grace Slick in the background. Moulin Rouge boudoirs. Personal quirks materialized in room after room.

Needless to say, those houses weren't selling. Brave buyers with the time, energy and inclination to undo what has been wrongly done are few and far apart, and when they make an offer, they low-ball. That is the plain, unadorned, undecorated truth.

HGTV, A&E, and BBCA have come to the rescue. HGTV has Designed to Sell, where a young woman decorator brings in a team of people to repaint and redo. The decorator actually helps with some of the heavy work. Her budget is $2,000. A&E's Sell This House has a young woman who paints and moves furniture and a male body builder decorator who doesn't do heavy lifting, on a lower budget (well under $1,000), with the homeowners doing all the penance/work. BBCA's House Doctor is an American decorator in the UK who removes all evidence of bad taste (of which there's an abundance), for a budget of 1%-2% of the total listing price, but she brings in workers. The aim is to render the abodes into mostly neutral anonymity. Here's what the three programs do

• Clean up, weed, and replant the yard. Remove all hazards, such as a lean-to that was about to collapse.


• Paint all walls in pale neutral colors, mostly shades of beige.


• Remove all old carpeting. If not feasible, have carpeting professionally cleaned.
  
• Remove 1/3 to 1/2 of all the furniture


• Send the pets on vacation


• Remove all family pictures and mementos. Remove all clutter


• Remove all noticeable patterns, such as wallpaper, curtains, etc.


• Clean the entire house until it shines.

There you have it. Express yourself all you want, but don't expect people will buy it.

And I'd definitely give Lileks book as a present. Just be sure none of the people receiving it have been heavy-handed in their self-expression.

Update, Dec. 21. The flasbacks continue: I remembered this morning one of the worst, the brown plush (the stuff teddy bears are made of) covered bathroom walls. Darn.

Brief movie review: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Gloomy colors, dreary stories from which any humor and wit from the books had been excised, odd-looking clothes (not quite Victorian, not quite Nosferatu), and an exhausting amount of screen time devoted to the most annoying actor of our time, the film would be best titled A Series of Dysfunctional Guardians. Parents will watch the film and will probably contact their attorneys ASAP to make clear their choices for their children's guardian(s) are clearly spelled out in their wills.

Aside from that, the baby (played by Kara and Shelby Hoffman) was darling.

Back to The Incredibles.

Volokh's Orin Kerr's looking at the ACLU

Have you heard about the powerful international organization that engages in invasive, Big Brother-esque data mining; creates digital dossiers on people in violation of their own privacy policies; does all of this with no oversight and no judical review; and when challenged, tries to cover-up its practices?

According to the NY Times,

The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to collect a wide variety of information about its members and donors in a fund-raising effort that has ignited a bitter debate over its leaders' commitment to privacy rights.

Back in the olden days I used to believe in the ACLU standing for civil liberties. Believe no more, as far as I go, as the ACLU has made a complete mockery of civil liberties.

Arthur got's the goods on Branson's plan
to send Nelson Mandela to meet with Saddam Hussein to persuade him to go into exile,

You certainly can't deny Sir Richard a quirk for high-profile publicity stunts, from cross-dressing to circumnavigating the globe in a balloon. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall improve their name recognition.

At least Branson's better looking than Ross Perot, and nowhere near as phobic as Howard Hughes.

The Anchoress's vagina's politically incorrect
and she's on a roll!
Back when the Vagina Monologues came out I thought two things,
1. It was the latest form of navel-gazing, only with potty language
2. Some smart-a** guy would some come up with the Penis Soliloquies.
I was wrong on item 2, but maybe not. Now The Anchoress roars,

Fear me, liberals, fear The Vagina of Common Sense, The Vagina of Staggering Competence, The Vagina of Victory! Don't make my Vagina come into Washington and smack you silly, because after reading that item, it is feeling mighty tempted and rambunctious! To arms! To arms! Gird thy vulvas! Equip thy clitorae! Now, onward, Vaginas, to Victory!

Awsome.

Sunday Santa bloggin
Lisa sent this,

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring.

Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa's
reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.

We should've known... ONLY women would be able to drag a fat-ass man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.

Merry Christmas!

Honoring traditions,
Val explains the name of his blog,

The song made famous by Desi Arnaz - and the reason for this blog's name - is actually a tribute to San Lazaro, Babalu Aye.

and don't miss the comments.

That's Saint Lazarus for you.

Is Juan Cole the next Anna Nicole Smith? Mary at exit zero has the evidence.

"Just Leave Christmas Alone",
says Krauthammer, in yesterday's WaPo,a nd I agree with him,

To insist that the overwhelming majority of this country stifle its religious impulses in public so that minorities can feel "comfortable" not only understandably enrages the majority but commits two sins. The first is profound ungenerosity toward a majority of fellow citizens who have shown such generosity of spirit toward minority religions.

The second is the sin of incomprehension -- a failure to appreciate the uniqueness of the communal American religious experience. Unlike, for example, the famously tolerant Ottoman Empire or the generally tolerant Europe of today, the United States does not merely allow minority religions to exist at its sufferance. It celebrates and welcomes and honors them.

Wednesday The Anchoress was writing about Christmas and the Holy Name:

In our age and in our wisdom, better we should turn away from the stores not in anger, but in contemplation. There are ten days left before Christmas. I cannot bring myself to spend those days shaking a fist and looking for ways to be insulted. They don't want to say "Christmas?" They don't want to utter the Holy Name? I'm not surprised - we are living in a distracted and deeply darkened world. Better I should suffer a bit for His name, rather than foist it on those who will only spit it back.

Cast not pearls before swine, nor give Holy Things to the dogs. Let the secular world keep its secular "holidays." We, like Scrooge, are meant to keep Christ-mas in our hearts, all the year.

Lileks asks, "Come on! It's Christmas! What's the problem?" Michael's a little more direct (take a look at the alerts!).
Dr Krauthammer gets the last word,

it is time that members of religious (and anti-religious) minorities, as full citizens of this miraculous republic, transcend something too: petty defensiveness.

Merry Christmas. To all.

Having a good time at the DMV
Yesterday afternoon I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my driver's license. I was well prepared, taking with me all the necessary documents for the new "Six Point ID Verification System", and also my freshly-arrived new issue of RealSimple magazine to read while waiting.

Here's the shocking news: There was no wait!

I spent all of 20 minutes there. RealSimple wasn't even opened. The photo on the jazzy-looking digital driver's license was nice, too. Nothing like the time I spent an afternoon in Morristown, in soaking-wet clothes (a downpour started as soon as I left my car in the parking lotand I got drenched), and they took my photo while water still dripped down my hair.

I'm impressed.

Privatize Social Security? updated Sat. Dec 18
Krugman thinks doing so would be Buying Into Failure, saying that "Privatization dissipates a large fraction of workers' contributions on fees to investment companies," and he tells us that Chileans spend 20% on management fees.

I don't know a thing about Chile (for that you'd have to ask my cousin, who lives there) but I know a thing about the variety of investments in the USA. Here in the USA you might spend 20% or more if you go through some Mutual Funds, but you can look up the Forbes list of funds and find no-load funds with much lower transaction costs. The Husband tells me that at Schwab, purchasing stocks costs $29 per transaction for US companies, and at Wachovia, 2.25%. Buying Treasuries is even cheaper, and those are the most secure financial investments. You can participate in the TIPS auction for free, and Series I savings bonds are also very inexpensive to purchase. In view of Krugman's ignorance, it's hardly surprising that he sees Social Security as "stupidity insurance". Todd Zywicki at the Volokh Conspiracy answers the question Is Social Security Stupidity Insurance?,

Thus, the program is in fact designed to have some redistributionist, or perhaps more accurately stated, "equalizing" component to it.

This might also provide an argument for why we are concerned about people frittering away some of their SS on bad investments. If you invest the bit of your money that would otherwise go in SS in a bad investment, that may mean that you have to work an extra couple of years before you retire. If we think that people have an entitlement to retire at the age specified by SS, then perhaps this is contrary to the purpose of SS. I personally don't find the argument to be all that persuasive, but it strikes me that a persuasive argument against Social Security reform must be grounded in the actual purpose of the program, rather than overwrought and unrealistic concerns about starving old people.

already having taken on the issue of riskiness. But then, Krugman believes Social Security is a "retirement system that works", and that people would need someone else to decide for them.

Krugman mentions the Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Choice, and I invite all visitors to read their website. Also don't miss Eric's round-up at Vikingpundit. Learning is the only insurance against stupidity.

December 18 update Kathleen lets it rip,

I fully understand what it means to invest in the stock market: it's about as chancy as placing your all your chips on the spin of a roulette wheel. The difference between that spin and Social Security is that I at least have a chance at a return on my investment with the roulette wheel, whereas with Social Security, I know I'm not going to ever see dime one. I'd rather take my chances with the stock market, and as it's my money, and not the government's, I fail to see where they get off denying me the opportunity to do just that. Moreover, that they would deny me this opportunity because the faulty house of cards they've built would collapse if privatization were ever to come to pass is insulting. They're covering their asses with my retirement money and that pisses me off more than Kinsley will ever know.
If Social Security were investigated by the SEC, it would be shut down in a New York Minute. I fail to see why I should be legally required to keep throwing my money into a failed system. It does no one any good in the long run to keep blathering on about the worthiness of a "social contract," when the real issue at hand is the breach of the current social contract by blatant mismanagement.

Yeah, Kathleen!

Eric the VikingPundit posts on The Amazing Race,
saying Wife-beating isn’t fun to watch. It sure isn't. The Amazing Race is the only "reality TV" I watch (if you don't count HGTV -- to which I'm addicted -- as "reality TV"). The last episode was painful to watch, when Jonathan reached for new lows in his treatment of his wife Victoria.
It's time TAR disqualifies Jonathan the wife abuser.

Boston Court of Appeals decides on PR elections
that that the case be remanded to the PR Supreme Court

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, sitting in Boston, ruled that the U.S. District Court of San Juan did not have jurisdiction over a lawsuit filed by the runner-up in the Nov. 2 election over disputed ``double-split ballots.''

Instead it referred the lawsuit to the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, which has already ordered that the controversial ballots be recounted in an election saga reminiscent of the Florida vote fiasco of 2000.

The ruling means that Popular Democratic Partycandidate Anibal Acevedo Vila, whose party favors the status quo of the island as a U.S. commonwealth, is likely to become governor after a recount of ballots is completed.
. . . The ruling in Boston does not quite end Puerto Rico's election saga yet as a recount of all votes is not expected to be completed until around Dec. 23.

See also El Nuevo Dia's article in Spanish.
Prior posts on the elections: Dec. 14, Dec. 7, Nov. 28, Nov. 23

Claudia Rosett: "I will hazard the prediction that if we of the free world stick to our principles--and, where necessary, defend them with our guns--we stand on the verge of a global renaissance."
In today's WSJ,

Ukraine is telegraphing around the globe a reminder that freedom brings with it the great gift of dignity. That is precisely why it is so stirring to watch such revolutions. They speak to the best part of the human spirit, because we are witnessing people, often against big odds and at great risk, recovering their self-respect.
And right there is the basic remedy for the miseries of the Middle East. There has been plenty of debate about the humiliations of the Muslim world, and how to redress or contain the rage and hate this breeds. There have been endless disquisitions on the complicated politics, the complex cultural and religious divides, and the--how did Mr. Rybachuk put it?--the idiocy, romanticism and naiveté of the idea, put forward as policy by President Bush, that living under the rule of some of the world's most corrupt thugs are vast silent majorities who given any room to maneuver would prefer to create free societies.

The bottom line is simple, and universal. Freedom brings with it a degree of dignity that repression can never confer. No amount of handouts from the likes of the Saudi royals, or Libya's terrorist tycoon, Moammar Gadhafi, or United Nations-sanctioned rations under a Saddam Hussein, can make up for the self-respect that comes with the self-determination of free people.

In neighboring Romania, the opossition party, speaking against corruption and the status quo, is also wearing orange (the color of Mr. Yushchenko's party in the Ukraine), and Pressure Grows on Romanian Left to Give Up Power.
(If you can't get the video from the prior link, go to this page, look at the right-side sidebar and click the "Roumanie: Basescu victorieux" under "Vidéos".)

Freedom: It's contagious.

Christmas shopping report
Roberto's done <10% of his shopping, but is right on schedule. Jim went to watch the bull riding instead. I've done 100% of my shopping but also bought myself a scarf and matching hat, and a pair of shoes.
Not bad. Not bad at all.

More for the neurosis/worrying department
"A fake bomb that eluded detection by federal security screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport was found in a bag on a Continental Airlines flight that landed yesterday morning in Amsterdam, federal officials said."

Meanwhile the French are still looking for the bomb they lost last week at Charles DeGaulle airport. It contained 5 ounces of plastic explosives, but no detonators.

Rich in the spotlight

Mickey Kaus was writing about the Rich news this Monday,

Even if the latest allegations about Marc Rich--that he helped broker Saddam's oil-for-food deals--prove accurate, accurate, that won't be the main reason Clinton's pardon of the fugitive financier was scandalous. Saddam could presumably always get someone to broker his lucrative schemes--if not Rich, then another high-level operater. The Marc Rich pardon was scandalous mainly because it taught a generation of Americans that you could buy your way out of punishment. ... But buy with what? ... Here's an instance where the convenient case for public figure privacy in matters of sex--made most conveniently by Clinton himself, but also by Jeffrey Toobin,*** Andrew Sullivan, etc.--completely breaks down. It turns out to be fairly important whether Clinton was or wasn't not having sexual relations with Denise Rich, Marc's glamorous ex-wife, who lobbied for the pardon (or with someone else who might have gotten to Clinton). It's hard to explain Clinton's gross error any other way. Lord knows I've tried! ... Someday some historian will focus on this sort of interpersonal causal chain and win a National Book Award for his provocative thesis--as Philip Weiss memorably put it, "Follow the nookie." But if reporters had been more irresponsible in reporting on Clinton's personal life--and less cowed by the Stephanopouloses and Carvilles--actual voters would have had this highly relevant information in real time when they made their decision in 1992. ... P.S.: Do Democrats really want to elect the woman who let all this happen under her nose? Just asking! ...

*** When defending Clinton, Toobin ludicrously declared that a politician's sex life "tells you absolutely nothing about their performance" in office. Marc Rich might disagree. ...

The Denise Rich-Bill Clinton affair theory isn't new; Christopher Buckley implied as much in is novel, No Way to Treat a First Lady. But that was fiction, of course.

(Prior posts on Marc Rich Dec 13, Dec 3, Dec 2.)

Time for a Kofi break.

Viking Pundit has the score on Social Security

1. Social Security will begin running a deficit by 2018.
2. The average worker can expect a rate-of-return of less than 2% on his or her Social Security taxes.
3. The Social Security payroll tax rate has grown from just 2 percent in 1949 to 12.4 percent today.
4. Social Security faces an unfunded liability of more than $26 trillion.
5. "Saving" Social Security without individual accounts could require a 50% increase in Social Security taxes or a 27% cut in benefits.

Read the rest. Star Parker wants to End Social Security

In my view, there is only one honest approach to Social Security: fulfill obligations to pay benefits to those who have already paid in and allow the rest of us as quick and expeditious an exit out as possible. Then shut the doors forever.

If this seems radical, I'll ask one question. If Social Security did not exist, and we attempted to enact today a system like we currently have, would it pass? The answer is unquestionably no. There is no way that any working American would agree to turn over to the government 12.4 percent of his or her paycheck in exchange for a benefit that has no guarantee, on which ownership has been relinquished and that is less than what could be obtained by buying risk-free government bonds. No way. Zero chance.

If you invest the amount that is deducted weekly from you paycheck into TIPS and/or Series I Savings Bonds, you'd actually have a nest egg, which is not the case with Social Security, as Ms Parker knows.

One of the professors in The Principality, however, is against the idea, thinking that people would invest in financial markets, which to him is a bad thing. A worse thing is to see nothing of the money you earn that has been permanently taken away. As a letter to the NYT Editor said, "College students like me have begun to discover that our savings would be better stashed in our mattresses than sliced off our paychecks." Could the difference of opinion be explained in that tenured professors are vested in full for their pensions for the length of their lives (i.e., unlike private sector pensions, which you can outlive), and college students are not?

In the neurosis/worrying department
Can Lasers Really Bring Down Planes Actually, yes, says Slate, which is also asking What Is Dioxin, Anyway? Where does it come from? And are its effects reversible?, in case you're worried about that dinner you had with Viktor Yushchenko a couple of months ago (after flying there, of course). However, you might be relieved to learn that you can continue to annoy people while flying -- not just while you're on the ground, since apparently This week . . . the Federal Communications Commission is to consider how to ease the ban on cell phones in aircraft.

Meanwhile, at NRO they want to know WHO’s Afraid of Bird Flu?, but if you are, bear in mind that wearing a yellow bracelet while confined in hospital means "do not resucitate".

If it's any consolation (via Viking Pundit), UGLINESS CAN be good for you -- especially if you are not rich, powerful, or politically connected, at least when it comes to windmill farms. As far as Extreme Makeovers go, you're on your own. I wouldn't try it.

Around town and gown
Sunday the Princeton Symphony gave its annual holiday concert, which was very enjoyable, and completely sold out. Great fun was had by all, and a highlight of the programme was the March of the Wooden Soldiers danced by the New Jersey Tap Ensemble, with Maurice Chesnut doing some Savion Glover moves that had the place hopping.

In real estate news, Borough and Township are in the process of developing all sorts of projects. Just on this morning's paper, one finds that the Jazz Club Proposal Will Move Forward; 'Remand' Not Granted

A use variance granted to the the site formerly home to Mike's Tavern by the Township Zoning Board of Adjustment will move forward as planned, in spite of recent litigation and recent reports that indicated the orginal application would be sent back to the zoning board for review.

while Princeton Future wants to substantially change the Witherspoon Street area now that the hospital is moving (at least it sure looks like it's moving).

Gown-wise, I found from Betsy's Page that the Near Easter Studies department faces warring factions

Interviews with more than 20 professors and officials involved with the field at Princeton and elsewhere indicate that the Princeton NES department is seen by some scholars as isolated, increasingly out-of-touch and politicized.

Those critical of the department point to two problems.

Some believe that the perceived intellectual approach of several of he department's key scholars — Orientalism, a controversial method of studying the Middle East — is antiquated and objectionable. Others believe that the dominance of the conservative political leanings of the department's two most vocal professors — Bernard Lewis, an emeritus professor, and Doran, an assistant professor — shuns other political voices in Princeton NES. Still others believe that these two factors cannot be separated

It all makes for interesting living here in The Principality. Maybe I'll take tap-dance lessons in the new year.

Useful do-it-yourself project
A friend sent me this, from Polipundit

Duncan Hunter, the House Armed Services Committee Chairman, has some creative solutions for our troops in Iraq. He even made a video demonstrating how to armor a Humvee!

I know a couple of guys here that'd do both projects . . .

Pathetic item of the month
via Drudge, at the Beeb.
Looks like the Japanese market's ripe for a good matchmaker service.

The elections in Puerto Rico are still in the news,
with the Federal Appeals Court in Boston hearing arguments on Monday about how thousands of disputed ballots should be handled, as (link in Spanish) demonstrators demonstrated in Boston.

A panel of three judges at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will decide who has jurisdiction over thousands of disputed ballots: Puerto Rico's Supreme Court or a U.S. district judge in San Juan. The Boston-based 1st Circuit has jurisdiction over Puerto Rico.

Thousands of the disputed ballots favor Anibal Acevedo Vila of the ruling Popular Democratic Party. Vila, who was at the Hub courthouse yesterday, narrowly beat out former Gov. Pedro Rossello of the New Progressive Party on Nov. 2.

While some reporters say,

The case has intensified the divisions in the U.S. Caribbean territory of 4 million residents who have fought for decades over whether the island should remain a U.S. possession or become the 51st U.S. state. A tiny minority wants independence.

my own feeling is that people in PR have been arguing about the "status" for at least six decades now and that argument is not about to be settled any time soon.

Do stem cells cause cancer?
asks the cover of the latest (Dec. 27) issue of Forbes Magazine,

Dirks and a handful of other mavericks argue that this indiscriminate approach is wrongheaded. They believe a single type of cell may be cancer's main growth engine:mutant stem cells that, though barely present, spawn other cells that then spark growth. "This has profound implications," says researcher Thomas Look of Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "The major cells you see under a microscope may not be the ones you need to kill in order to cure the disease." He adds that the theory "is definitely still very controversial" in some quarters.

Figure out a way to isolate these mutant cells and target only them, Dirks says, and maybe cancer can be stopped outright--and the kids he treats might stop dying so soon after he operates.

These mutant stem cells already have been found in breast cancer, two types of leukemia and multiple myeloma. This fall Dirks and six scientists at the University of Toronto proved the existence of the cells in human brain tumors, pinpointing a small group of cells believed to be the driver of the tumors' growth. "In every brain tumor we have looked at, in both adults and kids, we are able to find these cells," Dirks says.

Again, it's the non-embryonic stem cell research that's producing the most promising results. Just a few days ago Betsy was posting about the woman who is walking again after doctors used stem-cell therapy to replace her damaged spine after being treated with umbilical cord stem cells, and the use of the patient's own stem cells to cure incontinence. Commenting about Newsweek's articles, Betsy concludes "It seems, however, that the major media is uninterested in stem cell research that is actually working now if it can't be used to beat up conservatives." That would be bad enough, yes, but the crucial question is, is the MSM emphasis on embryonic stem cells causing a diversion from the research (and the subsequent funding) that is actually rendering results?

Barcepundit's coverage of the 3/11 Commission
continues, now featuring PM's Rodriguez Zapatero's testimony:

As I wrote before, the possibility that it was a joint operation is real, but not too likely. But it makes you wonder when the Zapatero administration and its apologists, including the friendly media, are saying that there's almost a metaphisical impossibility that a secular ETA might want to collaborate with religious fanatics. Not for 11-M, but absolutely altogether. Which is simply stupid, for many spreading the myth do know about this; namely judge Garzón. Just go and see this other picture. And regarding March 11, there may not be conclusive evidence, but there are some very serious questions (many of them at Robert's post). And it simply makes you wonder why the current government refuses to investigate.

I personally think that if ETA had any role at all it was not in the bombings themselves but in the creation of an atmosphere in which, if any attack would take place, the government would immediately think of ETA. Sort of a disinformation campaign to dupe the government, knowing (from the contacts in prisons? from the jamboree in Tehran on January 2004, like every January?) that there was going to be a real attack by Islamists. Hence the van full of explosives intercepted a couple of weeks before March 11 (when he was located by the police, the driver shouted "please, don't do anything, I surrender, I'm from ETA" too soon, almost before the first cop "good evening"; and he was carrying a map with a big red circle conspicuously surrounding the exact same area where the bombs where eventually placed on the fateful day that the bombings took place).

Don't miss the rest of this post.