Board Says Military Retirement "Unaffordable"

From the Military Officers' Association of America (MOAA):

On July 22, the Defense Business Board task force recommended that the Secretary of Defense reduce the DoD civilian workforce by more than 111,000, and laid the groundwork for potential future recommendations to cut spending on military retirement, health care, family support, and other programs.

Additionally, the task force recommended drastic reductions in combatant command staffing, hiring freezes, and elimination of organizational duplication. These preliminary recommendations will be followed in October by additional cost-cutting proposals.

For the last year, the Defense Business Board has predicted major problems for the Defense budget as the nation deals with deficit reduction efforts, the economic slowdown, escalating health care and personnel costs, and the potential exit from two wars.

Board members believe that avoiding a looming fiscal crisis will require cutting the Defense budget beyond Secretary Gates' recently announced target of a $100-billion reduction in "overhead" spending.

The Board's "Initial Observations" briefing devoted an entire section to costs for military compensation, retirement, health care, veterans affairs, concurrent receipt, commissaries, dependent education, and military family housing. It particularly highlighted costs associated with TRICARE For Life.

A page titled "The 'Military Retirement' sacred cow is increasingly unaffordable" cites increases in the number of military retirees since 1980 (as if this weren't the direct result of decisions by every administration and Congress since the 1950s to induce a large standing career force to protect America and the world) and criticizes the 20-year retirement system (as if the military could have sustained the force over the last 10 years of repeated wartime deployments without it).

Another cites personnel cost growth since 1998 - conveniently overlooking that 1998 was the nadir of two decades of erosion of military pay, retirement, health care, and other benefits and that the resulting retention problems of that era were what sparked Congress to embark on an extended program to fix them.

Unfortunately, the Defense Business Board report is only one of the early shots in what likely will be years of budget battles to reconcile military and other needs with truly daunting deficit projections. 

As you may imagine, this is a topic I am highly interested in. But facts are facts, and this fact is that military retired pay is an entitlement that has to be examined just like every other entitlement. As I have written before, we are facing the end of entitlements, no matter what their name or reason.

One day we will wake up - either by being reality-jerk-slapped across the face like the Greeks or by finally knowing that we have to shrink the government, its role in our lives and what we expect to be done for us. I much prefer the latter, I am far from confident it won't be the former.

There is a continuing pattern here that disturbs me, though. It's the call for enormous cuts in DOD's budget and manpower when, as always before, the rest of the government stays bloated and gets budget increases. In fact, every department of government needs to belly up to the bar and take a hit in staffing, budgets and programming at least equivalent to what is proposed for DOD. And so do the Congressional staffs and budgets - but there is literally no oversight or checks and balances over Congress' internal budgeting.

The problem is that almost alone among the executive departments, DOD's entire budget is considered discretionary.

Discretionary spending is that part of the U.S. Federal Budget that is negotiated between the President and Congress each year as part of the budget process. It includes everything that is not in the mandatory budget, which are programs required by law to provide certain benefits, such as Social Security and Medicare. ...

Discretionary spending in FY 2010 was $1.39 trillion, or 38% of total spending. More than half ($844 billion) was security spending, which includes the Department of Defense, overseas contingency programs and Homeland Security.

So more than 60 percent of federal spending is "mandatory," or required by existing law. But of the discretionary spending, DOD's budget accounts for more than half:

Discretionary spending is not what is breaking the bank of this country. The problem is mandatory spending (which includes military retired pay), programs that are direct entitlements to individuals and in many cases are effectively welfare and redistribution payments of one kind or another. Those must be cut hard to preserve the solvency of the country.

Charts from National Priorities Project 

But those are also precisely the programs that Congress (no matter which party controls) has been using to buy votes from the recipients. Don't look for those payments to change soon, later or ever.

Related:

How democracies perish

Government's new motto: It's good to be king!

America is, in fact, bankrupt

Recession unexpectedly deeper!

Recession was deeper than gov't previously thought:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The recession was deeper than the government previously thought.

The Commerce Department, in revisions issued Friday, estimates the economy shrank 2.6 percent last year -- the steepest drop since 1946. That's worse than the 2.4 percent decline originally estimated.

The economy's plunge underscores why the unemployment rate surged to 10.1 percent in October, a 26-year high.

With this administration, it's just one surprise after another.

What About Me?

Indeed.

The end of the world, again

"Asteroid could raze London:"

A GIANT asteroid could be on course to hit Earth causing massive devastation, space boffins revealed today.

An international team including NASA experts warned a 560m wide space rock has been discovered heading this way.

If it did hit Earth it would blast a crater several miles wide and could devastate a city the size of London, wreaking death and destruction for hundreds of miles in every direction.

Once again, it's The End Of The World As We Know It.


Don't forget the scenario in 2012 as an obscure Planet X -- or Nibiru -- heads toward or collides into Earth. Or the supernova and galaxy-attack scenarios. And then the massive gas cloud speeding toward a collision with the Milky Way! Then we learn that the earth's atmosphere may detonate. And then the asteroids. Then the black hole death stars! And we might be swallowed whole by the sun. And there's an intense beam of gamma rays coming our way. Then there was the fear that "human society is very quickly headed to a violent and disturbing end." Then the earth began to kill people for changing its climate. Then there is thevoracious, galactic Hoover in Switzerland that will suck the whole planet into a black hole. And the massive destruction along the coasts of countries like the USA, UK and many on the African continent, within a matter of hours.

I tell ya, I'm starting to think that sooner or later, every one of us is going to wind up dead.

Hillary 2012 - the rolling ball gets larger

I hate to say I told you so (well, actually, I don't hate to tell you), but I told you so.

Here's my take. If the November House and Senate elections turn out to be the Democrat train wreck that politicos of both parties say it will be, Hillary will resign from Secretary of State effective the first or so of 2011. Magically, her book about international politics and her experience as secretary will hit the shelves before Labor Day. She'll already have formed her presidential race exploratory committee by then and the full campaign apparatus will be in place by the end of October. The 2012 Iowa caucus will be in early January as usual and the Hillary 2012 train will be in full steam.

2012 is, effectively, Hillary's last chance. In 2016 she'll turn 69 just before election day. Only Ronald Reagan has been elected at that age level; Hillary surely recalls that Bob Dole and John McCain, each with extensive government experience and both bona fide war heroes and only a little older, were rejected by the electorate.

Remember that today, 18 months after he took the presidential oath of office, American voters think Obama is nonetheless less qualified for the presidency than Hillary. Clintonistas, prominently James Carville, have been alternately promoting Hillary or blasting Obama for months, especially over the oil spill.

Cokes now Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who, without naming Hillary, said that President Obama will likely face a primary challenge in 2012 if the Afghanistan war goes badly (which it will).

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell predicted on Tuesday that if the president escalates America's military involvement in Afghanistan he could very well face a primary challenger in 2012.

In an overlooked "Morning Joe" segment on Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Democrat offered his distinct brand of eccentric, conversation-driving political foresight. He couched his statement about the possibility of a primary challenge by stressing that if Obama sticks to his current plans for Afghanistan -- a reduced military presence beginning in July of 2011 -- there would not be political insurrection within the party.

I will be predictively bolder than Gov. Rendell and say that the chance of Obama "getting primaried" is high regardless of what does or does not happen in Afghanistan. Les Kinsolving thinks so, too.

Dare I make a prediction?

Well, of course I'll dare – to predict that on Thursday morning, Nov. 4, after final results are in and the House of Representatives goes back to a Republican majority:

Look for further Big News.

Hillary Clinton announces her resignation as secretary of state.

And – within one week – national news is dominated with reports of the opening of HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT campaign headquarters in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Texas and California – to begin with.

Well, her actual campaign will not start that fast, but Kinsolving agrees with me on the initial timeline.

ShrinkWrapped: I Believe the War is Over: Part I

ShrinkWrapped: I Believe the War is Over: Part I

On the same theme of my thoughts on why Petraeus doesn't matter in Afghanistan, but written (unlike my post) after the Wikileaks papers were put online.

What makes a hero?

Doug Mataconis at OTB writes a provocative post, "Not Every Soldier Is A 'Hero'.” His thesis, which is not original with him as he admits, cites retired Lt. Col. William Astore's piece in the Los Angeles Times.

Ever since the events of 9/11, there’s been an almost religious veneration of U.S. service members as “Our American Heroes” (as a well-intentioned sign puts it at my local post office). But a snappy uniform — or even dented body armor — is not a magical shortcut to hero status. ...

Whether in civilian life or in the military, heroes are rare — indeed, all too rare. Heck, that’s the reason we celebrate them. They’re the very best of us, which means they can’t be all of us.

Astore's essay is worth reading, ending thus:

So, next time you talk to our soldiers, Marines, sailors or airmen, do them (and your country) a small favor. Thank them for their service. Let them know you appreciate them. Just don’t call them heroes.

Which brings to mind my essay of 2004 at my previous blog, which I am essentially reposting here. Links were good at the time.
-----------------
Army tanker Andrew Olmsted has been advising a National Guard unit preparing to deploy to Iraq, where he says some will certianly die.

Not a cheerleader for the Guard in the past, Andrew relates a training incident that changed his own attitude.

Looking at them, I can only wonder if I could be half as dedicated were I in their shoes.

Where do we get such men? And can we ever be worthy of them?

What strikes me is how much veterans stand more in awe of the new-generation soldiers (and Marines!) than non-vets. Of course we know what the deal is and civilians don't, but still, when Andrew asks whether we can be worthy of them, it acknowledges something excellent in their character that we, for some reason, aren't sure we possess.

In my essay, "What makes a hero?" I told of now-deceased B-17 pilot, a member of my church.

He flew 16 complete combat missions over Nazi Germany. He only flew half of number 17, because a Focke-Wulfe fighter got him. He and the crew bailed out, but two crewmen didn't survive. He landed safely, near his copilot, who broke his leg upon landing. Bob stayed with him and shortly a farmer came out. Bob said he didn't try to resist. He and the copilot were deep in the heart of Germany and he knew that Nazi police or troops would surely be coming for them soon. The farmer took them on a horsecart to his house. He spoke no English, but his wife began to prepare them a large dinner. After awhile, a 15-year-old girl bicycled up. She spoke some English, having taken it in school.

Bob and his copilot wound up staying the night. The next morning the Luftwaffe took them into captivity. Bob always spoke warmly of the German family who was so hospitable to them even though they were the family's enemies. Bob was a POW for 10 months. He stretched the camp rules as far as he could go. POWs were required to salute German officers of equal or greater rank. So Bob grew a toothbrush mustache like Hitler's and every time he encountered a German officer he snapped to rigid attention, glared straight forward, clicked his heels together and threw his right arm up and out in an exaggerated Nazi salute. Then he would shout, "Guten morgen, Herr Offizier! Eet giffs me grosse happiness to greet you!" or some similar line.

Needless to say, the Germans were not amused. After awhile they pinned him down and told him he would be severely punished if he didn't shave off the mustache and stop the mockery. ...

After Saving Private Ryan was released, Bob and I talked about it some. He said he had never really realized what the ground troops had gone through in the war. "Boy," he said, "those guys really had it rough."

Here was a man who had flown 17 times through the worst Germany had to offer. He had lost three crewman to enemy fire (two when they were shot down, one on a previous mission). He had seen his friends blown to pieces by flak and had watched other bombers collide in foul weather, killing all aboard. Finally, he had bailed out of a burning plane. He had endured 10 months of captivity. And what did he say about the infantry? "Those guys had it rough."

I ended the essay by observing, "I think that the real mark of a hero is thinking that the real heroes are the other guys."

But I tell you, I know the guys today have it rough, and I sure don't think I'm a hero.

I need to add that Maj. Andrew Olmsted was killed in action in Iraq on Jan. 3, 2008.

I was shocked to learn that Maj. Andrew Olmsted was killed in action Jan. 3 in Iraq. I began corresponding with Andy back when he started his blog at http://www.andrewolmsted.com/. He posted, naturally enough, on military affairs. Through his emails and blogging, and he mine, I feel I came to know him quite well.

Andy volunteered to return to Iraq. Thursday, Andy and another officer, Capt. Thomas Casey, were killed in an ambush. Both officers are reported to have died from small-arms fire in Diyala province.

Andy left a Final Post with friends to be put online if he was killed.

Even instinctively agreeing with Lt. Col. Astore's point, I still ascribe heroism to Andrew.

In government, failure is rewarded

Opinion: Government Seems to Reward Agency Failures:

Want to know why the federal government often seems so inept? Maybe it's because the one sure-fire way to get a bigger budget for your agency is to fail spectacularly.

Consider this revealing story, buried at the end of the part one of The Washington Post's massive investigative series this week on the post 9/11 national security system.

The story tells what happened after the government managed to let Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with a bomb last Christmas.

Did heads roll? People get fired? Not exactly. Instead, National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter put in a request for more analysts, and the Department of Homeland Security asked for more air marshals, more body scanners and also more analysts. As the Post reports, they'll likely get their wishes.

In government, it seems, agencies only fail up.

Quite so.

Does North Korea scare the administration more than Glenn Beck?

Consider this headline that ran just this morning:

North Korea threatens 'physical response' to US military exercises

Now consider Howard Kurtz of the WaPo on the firing of USDA factotum Shirley Sherrod:

Sherrod may be the only official ever dismissed because of the fear that Fox host Glenn Beck might go after her. As Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tried to pressure her into resigning, Sherrod says Deputy Under Secretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday to say "do it, because you're going to be on 'Glenn Beck' tonight."

Just think: this administration might be even more frightened of North Korea than of Glenn Beck.

That'll give you a good night's sleep tonight, eh?

Why Petraeus won't matter

Let me be clear up front: there is no better general for the command of Afghanistan than Gen. David Petraeus. And, if the Stan is the main effort today in what used to be called the War on Terror, then there is no better general to take Petraeus' place at US Central Command than Gen. James Mattis.

Mattis and Petraeus go together like peas and carrots. They jointly wrote the U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (though Petraeus usually gets sole credit). There are not two senior commanders anywhere as well versed and expert in counterinsurgency (COIN) as these two.

And they will fail.

They will fail not through lack of effort or of insight or because of poor planning and execution. One would be surprised if every operation and campaign they plan is executed much less than magnificently well. There is nothing that they carry with them into Afghanistan that will fail them, nor will they fail their troops.

They will fail because COIN is a tactic, not a strategic objective, and the United States has no strategic objectives regarding Afghanistan. The generals will be conducting COIN for COIN's own sake, not really to achieve something else. As far any anyone can tell, President Obama's only national objective regarding Afghanistan is to pull American forces out by the end of next year. That's not a strategic objective. It's an admission of aimlessness.

This is not to beat up on Obama. I would make exactly the same criticism of President G. W. Bush until the day he left office. This is one time that Obama could, with integrity, claim that he had been left a mess to clean up. Bush never set clear national strategic objectives for Afghanistan qua Afghanistan. From the outset, Bush enumerated the US's objectives almost exclusively in terms of fighting al Qaeda, which had made the country its base and practically its client.

According to US Army Lt. Col. G.K. Herring of the US Army War College, Bush named six national strategic objectives in warring against Afghanistan ("The War in Afghanistan: A Strategic Analysis"): They were (quoting Herring):

1. ... to disrupt, and if possible destroy, the al Qaeda network in Afghanistan.

2. The United States also sought to convince, and if necessary compel, the Taliban to cease
their support for terrorist organizations; the al Qaeda network in particular.

3. In addition, the Bush Administration sought to demonstrate that the United States was not
at war with the Afghan people or the Islamic religion.

4. The Bush Administration also sought to demonstrate U.S. resolve in this war on terrorism.

5. The strategy also included an objective to build international support for the war in
Afghanistan.

6. The final objective of the Bush Administration was to stabilize Afghanistan following the
fighting there.

The intent was to avoid creating a vacuum in a notoriously turbulent, unstable nation. When the fighting was over, the Administration wanted to establish conditions that would foster security and stability in Afghanistan. Moreover, the Administration wanted to eliminate the conditions that promoted terrorism and support for terrorism. The Administration’s overall intent was to prevent the re-emergence of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the use of Afghanistan as a sanctuary for terrorist organizations.

Of these six, only the first and the last actually matter now. And I am not persuaded that the first objective, disrupt or destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan, matters anymore since al Qaeda's core  has moved to Pakistan where it operates mostly unhindered.

We are eight years into this war and neither of the only two important objectives have been accomplished. Nor is there a realistic prospect that they will be. The Taliban have not thrown in the towel inside the country. The prospect of stabilizing Afghanistan are dim, indeed, since the government there does not operate despite corruption. It operates by corruption. Hamid Karzai is no friend of the United States, but then, neither is any potential  successor.

The fact is that the Obama administration, like Bush's before it, does not know what it is trying to do in Afghanistan.

So why did we invade to begin with? Because the attacks of 9/11, planned, funded and commanded inside Afghanistan, left us no choice. If the US was to defend itself, and importantly, to be seen as defending itself, it had to attack its enemy where the enemy was, and that meant going into Afghanistan. We hoped thereby to cut off the head of the snake by killing and isolating al Qaeda's high command from the most of the rest of its organization and allies around the world.

In that we were significantly successful. However, we were (and are) like the proverbial dog chasing a car - once it catches it, what does it do with a mouthful of bumper? Probably no one in the Bush administration expected the Taliban government to fall so quickly, just as there was likely little understanding that al Qaeda was not nearly as dependent on its Afghanistan base as we thought. No doubt, al Qaeda was disrupted. That there has been no repeat of 9/11 is strong evidence for it, but this cannot be laid solely to the credit of invading Afghanistan (or in my view even primarily to it). The shadow wars of international intelligence, counter-finance and covert operations outside Afghanistan are just as credit worthy, and the truly massive effort al Qaeda mounted against US forces in Iraq sucked lives and resources from al Qaeda that it has never recuperated.

Der Spiegel explores American prospects in Afghanistan in some detail, including this nugget that I think is quite accurate:

The Americans and their allies are winning all the battles, and they are losing the war. This week, the global public is now being prepared for a major, supposedly decisive offensive against Kandahar, the home of the Afghan Taliban. The corresponding rhetoric is reminiscent of the situation reports submitted by the failing generals in Vietnam. And it doesn't take an oracle to predict that a hailstorm of bad news will soon be coming from Kandahar, proving, once again, that this war -- whether it's called a battle against terrorism, counterinsurgency or a peacekeeping operation -- cannot be won.

The majority of the Afghan people, complete with their corrupt, incompetent government in Kabul, no longer seem to have an interest in the success of the Americans and their allies. In fact, today it seems that the Afghans would like nothing more than to see all of the foreigners disappear from their soil and go back to where they came from, even if it comes at the cost of a new Taliban government.

How will the Afghan war end? It won't. It will sputter along for all the foreseeable future, with combat waxing and waning until eventually this president or one of his successors simply tires of it all and leaves the Afghans to their self-inflicted fate. The country has known naught but war since the Soviets invaded on Dec. 25, 1979. The warlords there no longer really know the purpose of their fighting, all they know is the fighting itself. And it will not be long before the same shall be said about the United States.

Comments on

Update: Two responses via email. First from an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel who has served in Afghanistan and commanded a combat battalion in Iraq:

I think your article is spot on. I do think our national strategic objective is a combo of 1) terrain denial to AQI from AFG, 2) elimination of AQI wherever, and 3) advancing human freedom as a way of permanently keeping down AQI. I think however that accomplishing all three objectvices is a gerenational endeavor. As such we need to acknowledge that, announce it to our citizens and to the world and set “timelines” and shape expectations accordingly and then Charlie mike. Otherwise we need to drop objective #3 and bpt work with strong but dirty allies who keep their fokls oppressed and hope that over time we can nudge them to some semblance of democratic freedom that fits their culture.

I think the moral thing to do is to keep all three objectives and know this will take a long time at some cost. But I do not think the American people have the will to see this thru – ours is not exactly a culture of discipline and focused patience. However, the enemies’ culture is.

Second from a U.S. Marine Reserve field grade infantry officer with both combat and civilian years in Iraq, and who has known Gen. Mattis personally for many years.

Unfortunately, I think you nailed it...lack of goal and corruption color everything. Optimally, we extricate our forces with the least amount of damage -- tangible and intangible -- as possible. I trust Petraeus will do that, and keep realistic goals. The only point I don't agree with (based on my folks who have been and have first-hand knowledge) is that I don't think we have lost the Afghani public. At least those beside those who hate ANYONE from outside their square mile of turf.

I'd love to be more optimistic, but just don't see evidence to be.

Israel as the "ram in the thicket"

Dexter van Zile:

In the course of my work, I have become increasingly worried about the message offered by mainline Protestant churches (and some quarters of the Roman Catholic Church) about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Not only is the narrative offered by these institutions distorted, it has a negative impact on the safety of Jews throughout the world.

My concerns, which are still coalescing, can currently be summarized as follows:

1. There is a continuum of anti-Israel rhetoric. One end of the continuum is marked by hate toward Israel and Jews rooted in deeply hostile beliefs about the nature of the Jewish people. The other end is marked by polite de-legitimization through an obsession with Israeli policies and silence about the behavior of its adversaries. ...

2. One’s presence at the more benign (and less hateful) end of the spectrum does not guarantee that one will stay there.

3. Efforts to de-legitimize Israel contribute to insecurity for Jews throughout the world. (Israel gets attacked in the Middle East and Jews are threatened in the West).

4. One’s presence at the “softer” end of the continuum described above makes it unlikely that one will challenge the extremism of people on the other, more hateful end of the continuum. People who root the continued existence of the Arab-Israeli conflict solely in Israeli policies have a difficult time seeing the motivation and actions of Israel’s adversaries for what they are.

5. This is not the first time mainline Protestant institutions have engaged in this type of behavior. For example, in the 1930s, Christian Century, the house organ for mainline Protestantism in the U.S. exhibited a troublesome hostility toward Jews and their desire for a state of their own and to expressions of Jewish identity. The publication gave prominent and laudatory coverage to anti-Zionist Jews and attacked Rabbi Stephen Wise, a prominent Zionist in the U.S., for bringing the Holocaust to the attention of the American people in 1942.

6. Part of the problem is that many people in mainline churches have embraced a view of history that portrays Western civilization as the dominant, if not unique source of suffering in the world today. Given this understanding, and the self-hate it engenders, members of these churches feel as if they deserve punishment.

In this sense, the members of mainline churches are like Abraham’s son Isaac on the way to Mount Moriah. They see the wood and the fire and have a vague sense that an immolation is going to take place, but hope desperately that they will not be the victim of this sacrifice. They feel on one level that if it weren’t for their exquisite moral sense, that they would deserve to be immolated.

And how do they demonstrate and give voice to their exquisite moral sense?

By condemning Israel.

Israel, for these folks, is the ram in the thicket on Mount Moriah. Israel is the entity that they can thrust into the fire of moral judgment.

In sum, what we are witnessing is an intellectual process by which people are preparing themselves to justify the re-abandonment of the Jewish people. If we continue with this process, it will have great consequences for the Jewish people in particular and Western civilization in general.

Read the whole thing.

"De-baptized?"

In the "news of the weird" category comes this report: "U.S. Atheists Reportedly Using Hair Dryers to 'De-Baptize'."

American atheists lined up to be "de-baptized" in a ritual using a hair dryer, according to a report Friday on U.S. late-night news program "Nightline."

Right: hair dryers, the nemesis of God!

Leading atheist Edwin Kagin blasted his fellow non-believers with the hair dryer to symbolically dry up the holy water sprinkled on their heads in days past. The styling tool was emblazoned with a label reading "Reason and Truth."

Kagin believes parents are wrong to baptize their children before they are able to make their own choices, even slamming some religious education as "child abuse." He said the blast of hot air was a way for adults to undo what their parents had done.

Okay, let me get this straight: they are atheists so therefore must believe that baptism is itself a ritual devoid of content. The application of water by priest or pastor in the Trinitarian formula, the invocation of the Holy Spirit and so forth - all these things have nothing real behind them. They are as devoid of divine presence as, say, hitting a golf ball on Sunday morning.

If they really are atheists, that's what they have to believe about the efficacy of baptism. So if baptism both symbolizes and accomplishes nothing real, then how can s-called "de-baptism" do so? There are only two choices here:

1. Baptism is nothing and means nothing. It's a zero, a null set. Therefore, de-baptism is nothing and means nothing. You cannot subtract from zero or take away from an empty set. So exactly what is the point?

2. Baptism does have some reality to it, so by going through motions with this hair dryer, that reality is presumed removed from the life of the de-baptized.

So which of these two, mutually-exclusive conclusions does someone standing before the dryer affirm? If baptism is not real, it can have no hold on you. But if baptism is real, at least in some way, then it cannot be revoked by human word or deed, since baptism is the work of the Holy Spirit with the priest or pastor as effective, but not original, agent. In most Christian theology of baptism, someone can no more be de-baptized than a Jewish man can be de-circumcised.

But all's well that ends well.

Ironically, Kagin's own son became a fundamentalist Christian minister after having "a personal revelation in Jesus Christ."

Bet he's baptized now.

Could be worse

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I never thought of myself as a horror writer, but thanks heavens I don't write like James Fennimore Cooper.

Reporting gold sales to IRS

ABC News:

Those already outraged by the president's health care legislation now have a new bone of contention -- a scarcely noticed tack-on provision to the law that puts gold coin buyers and sellers under closer government scrutiny.

Every time a member of the public sells more than $600 worth of gold to a dealer ... the transaction will have to be reported to the government by the buyer.

Note that does not mean $600 of gold (or silver or platinum) per transaction. It means $600 worth total per year. The problem?

With spot market prices for gold at nearly $1,200 an ounce, [coin dealer Pat] Heller estimates that he'll be filling out between 10,000 and 20,000 tax forms per year after the new law takes effect.

But cheer up! Did not the administration and its advocates say that Obamacare would make the economy rebound and lead to new jobs? Why, yes they did: "New Jobs Through Better Health Care Health Care Reform Could Boost Employment by 250,000 to400,000 a Year this Decade."

In the analysis that follows, we combine these two [previously cited] studies to show that health care reformcould increase the number of jobs in the United States by about 250,000 to 400,000 per year over the coming decade.

And so it shall be! Back to coin shop proprietor Pat Heller:

"I'll have to hire two full-time people just to track all this stuff, which cuts into my profitability," he said.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?

Wanna see something really scary?

Derek Thompson at The Atlantic:

The median duration of unemployment is higher today than any time in the last 50 years. That's an understatement. It is more than twice as high today than any time in the last 50 years.

This is a scary picture! But is it the scariest picture on the Internet?

What defines the cultural elite?

Victor Davis Hanson hits it out of the park with "Pity the Postmodern Cultural Elite."

The thing to remember is that the Political Class of both parties fall into this category, especially at the national level of politics.

But not only at the national level. Take for instance Bell, Calif., a city of 38,000 residents where per capita income is less than $25,000 per year. So what about Bell?

Hundreds of residents of one of the poorest municipalities in Los Angeles County shouted in protest last night as tensions rose over a report that the city’s manager earns an annual salary of almost $800,000. ...

It was the first council meeting since the Los Angeles Times reported July 15 that Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo earns $787,637 -- with annual 12 percent raises -- and that Bell pays its police chief $457,000, more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck makes in a city of 3.8 million people. Bell council members earn almost $100,000 for part-time work.

"California law limits the salaries of council members to several hundred dollars a month," reports Bloomberg. But "Bell’s City Council voted to operate under its own charter, rather than adhere to state laws on how cities should be run."

That's the Political Class in action, folks. And that's how you wind up with people who make <$25K per year paying taxes so their mayor can haul home more than 32 times as much.

"Black parents, white baby"

The Sun, UK:

THE stunned black dad of a newborn, WHITE, baby girl declared yesterday — "I'm sure she's my kid ... I just don't know why she's BLONDE."

British Nmachi Ihegboro has amazed genetics experts who say the little girl is NOT an albino. ...

Blue-eyed blonde Nmachi, whose name means "Beauty of God" in the Nigerian couple's homeland, has baffled genetics experts because neither Ben nor wife Angela have ANY mixed-race family history.
Pale genes skipping generations before cropping up again could have explained the baby's appearance.

Ben also stressed: "My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn't been, the baby still wouldn't look like that.

"We both just sat there after the birth staring at her for ages - not saying anything."

Photos at the link. Indeed, the baby does appear to be a "typical white person" (couldn't resist). The Sun quotes experts who say that such births are very rare but not unheard of. And another thing I can't resist is the chance to post another clip (see here) from that cutting-edge, deeply sociological movie, The Jerk, starring Steve Martin as Navin Johnson, a white guy who was "born black."

Life imitating art? Not the first time.

Obama's fundamental mistake

How fallen are the mighty! Entering the presidency with approval ratings in the 70s, President Obama's approval rating is now below his disapproval rating.



Various explanations have been proffered. Erstwhile Obama promoter Mort Zuckerman of USN&WR wrote that the main problem with Obama and administration is that they simply are amateurishly incompetent. (I am reminded of the Steve martin SNL skit as Thedoric of York, a medieval doctor, to whom Jane Curtin exclaims, "You charlatan! You killed my daughter, just like you killed most of my other children! Why don't you admit it! You don't know what you're doing!")

Well, Zuckerman gets no argument from me on the inherent competence of this administration, but this is a collateral effect of the president's fall from heights, not its cause. In a different essay, "Obama is barely treading water", Zuckerman hits closer to the target:

Americans today strongly support a pro-growth economic agenda that includes fiscal discipline, limited government, and deficit reduction. They fear the country is coming apart, while the novelty of Obama has worn off, along with the power of his position as the non-Bush.

That Obama almost completely misunderstands what the American people want - and hence, what they really elected him to do - is both unsurprising and also secondary, though it is joined at the hip to the central mistake Obama et. al. have made.

What is that mistake? Simply this: Barack Obama does not understand that people say they want change but almost never actually mean it.

Anyone who has become the chairperson of a volunteer organization, whether a civic club, the county chapter of a political party or, say (cough) pastor of a church, soon learns that what people say they want and what they will actually support are extremely divergent. The members say they want change, but it is crucial to understand that they are not united in this desire, even if sincere. That is, they each individually really may want change, but not collectively.

Translation: when someone says he wants change, what he really means is that he wants other people to be affected but not himself: "change for thee, but not for me." Each wants more of what he already has with no adversity in his personal situation.

So everyone wants cheaper and better health care, as long as the expense is borne by others. Everyone wants more government services, as long as his personal taxes do not rise.

In short, voters do indeed want to have their cake and eat it, too. What Obama never understood, and does not to this day, is that the enthusiasm with which the majority of Americans embraced his campaign message of hope and change should never have been confused with their willingness to be the changee. Voters always want everything to be better, but what they really mean is that they just want more of the same, not different.

An example closer to home for me. Almost everyone in a church will agree that the church should grow numerically. But what they almost always mean is that the church should simply be an identical, larger version of the status quo (push play button to play):

Peter Drucker once observed that human institutions, including governments, churches and families, exist to protect and extend the status quo. There is enormous inherent resistance to change in the human psyche. Overcoming this resistance requires the status quo to become so intolerable that its preservation repulses. But such intolerability almost never comes from within, but from without.

A prime example is the American Revolution. The oppression of the British Crown was exterior to the colonies whose people were quite content with the status quo even into the 1760s. The Crown's oppression was not sudden. It built up over time until, convinced that the Crown would never relent but would continue harsher measures, Americans accepted revolution as preferable to the status quo. Even then, a minority of Americans joined the revolution and almost as many fought for the Crown than against it.

What is surprising, though, is how the Founders expected the tumult of the Revolution's days to be the new status quo. The Federalist Papers show that the Constitution's authors expected the Congress to be riven with multiple small factions continually at political war with one another. They were in fact surprised at the birth of the two-party system and the rapidity with which it was born.

Two-party politics in the United States is designed to preserve the status quo, not change it.

But more specifically, Obama, like all "progressives," thinks that the masses are not merely chafing at the iron grip of the status quo but are actually eager to be embrace statist control of their lives. The progressive world view really is that ordinary people are basically incapable of living rightly and that therefore they must be managed for their own good - and the more closely the better. Furthermore, they think that the masses agree. Hence, the Democrats' basic reason that they call Republicans heartless is that the latter are not as eager to micromanage the lives of Americans as the Democrats are.

It is critical to realize, though, that "change for thee but not for me" is also the motto of the Political Class. That's why the president and his family are not going to be the beneficiaries of Obamacare. Nor will the Congress or its staff. The Political Class is just as resistant to change as the rest of the country, really more so because they are far more heavily invested in it. They are the ones who have the power to tell the rest of the country how to live, but their rules for you and me never decrease their wealth or power. What identifies the Political Class? Angelo M. Codevilla explains:

Rather, regardless of where they live, their social-intellectual circle includes people in the lucrative "nonprofit" and "philanthropic" sectors and public policy. What really distinguishes these privileged people demographically is that, whether in government power directly or as officers in companies, their careers and fortunes depend on government. They vote Democrat more consistently than those who live on any of America's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Streets. These socioeconomic opposites draw their money and orientation from the same sources as the millions of teachers, consultants, and government employees in the middle ranks who aspire to be the former and identify morally with what they suppose to be the latter's grievances. ...

Its first tenet is that "we" are the best and brightest while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained.

The Political Class is much more approving of itself than the rest of us proles.

In their opinions on policy and politicians ranging from President Barack Obama to Sarah Palin, elites in Washington have a strikingly divergent outlook from the rest of the nation, according to a new POLITICO poll released Monday. ...

Overall, the 1,011 people surveyed nationally have a very pessimistic take on the direction of the country.

Only 27 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 61 percent who think the nation is on the wrong track. Likewise, when asked whether the national economy is heading down the right or wrong track, just 24 percent chose the right track, compared with65 percent for the wrong track.

Yet among the 227 Washington elites polled, more think the country is on the right track, 49 percent, than the wrong track, 45 percent. On the economy, 44 percent of elites think the country is on the right track, compared with 46 percent who believe it is not.

This divide between the people and the pols is not much different whether the pols are Democrat or Republican. Both parties are dominated by members of the Political Class, who think the people exist to serve them rather than the other way round. Codevilla explains:

Our ruling class's agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof. Like left-wing parties always and everywhere, it is a "machine," that is, based on providing tangible rewards to its members. Such parties often provide rank-and-file activists with modest livelihoods and enhance mightily the upper levels' wealth. ... Hence our ruling class's standard approach to any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government -- meaning of those who run it, meaning themselves, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc. Hence more power for the ruling class has been our ruling class's solution not just for economic downturns and social ills but also for hurricanes and tornadoes, global cooling and global warming. ... [T]here can be no doubt that such power and money makes Americans ever more dependent on those who wield it.

The problem is not that Republicans and Democrats are not different. They are. The problem is that they are different in ways that mean that neither party enhances personal freedom of individual Americans, and instead concentrates power and wealth in their hands.

All this has been many decades in the making, nay, at least a century, since the advent of American Progressivism under Theodore Roosevelt. The question now is whether the American people are aroused enough to do anything about it and if so, whether they still have enough power actually to do so. We'll see this November.

The high flying First Dog

Much ado is being made about the Obamas' dog and its transportation to Maine for the Obamas' latest vacation.

Arriving in a small jet before the Obamas was the first dog, Bo, a Portuguese water dog given as a present by the late U.S. Sen Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.; and the president's personal aide Reggie Love, who chatted with Baldacci.

You know: the president most devoted to environmental concerns in our history is flying his dog around in a personal jet. Roger Simon, commenting, hails back to the campaign and candidate Obama:

Pitching his message to Oregon’s environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to “lead by example” on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries.

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.

“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.

It dod not occur to me back then, but it does now: Exactly why do we need other countries to say OK to our SUVs? This was a tip way back in May 2008 that Obama really does believe that the freedom of Americans needs to be regulated by extra-national bodies. And today, we're getting it. Surely we should not be surprised.

Iraq update - 2d Battalion, 278th Armored Cav

Lt. Col John Krenson, commanding 2/278 ACR, TNARNG, sends this update from Iraq, where the battalion's tour of duty is nearing its end. Click images for larger view.

Thank you for your service, soldiers of 2/278! You've done a magnificent job!

My son is world ranked

Okay, the proud dad gets to gloat a little here. My second son, Thomas, graduated from Wake Forest University in May. He was a thrower on the track and field team all four years. Today he sent me an email to The Throwers Page that shows the world rankings in combination throwing events. (The throwing sports are Shotput, Discus, Hammer, Javelin and Weight.) Thomas is world ranked in three events, placed 17th, 14th and 12th, respectively (click image to enlarge):

Yeah,. we're pretty happy around here!

Death panels? They're here

CNS News:

Obama Administration Approves First Direct Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Through New High-Risk Insurance Pools

(CNSNews.com) - If you want proof that President Obama's Executive Order on taxpayer-funded abortion was a sham, look no further than Pennsylvania, says House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio).

Boehner and other Republicans point to reports that the Health and Human Services Department is giving Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new high-risk insurance pool that will cover any abortion that is legal in the state.

"The fact that the high-risk pool insurance program in Pennsylvania will use federal taxpayer dollars to fund abortions is unconscionable," Boehner said in a statement on Tuesday.

But wait! Didn't President Obama issue an executive order forbidding the use of federal monies for abortion? Why, yes he did.

And what has been the White House's and HHS's response to Congressional requests for information of how - or even whether - this order has been implemented? Simple:

Transparency? Ha.

When Thomas Jefferson changed his mind

This is the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Jefferson. The Library of Congress discovered through spectral analysis that the word "citizens" is a strikeover - Jefferson originally wrote, "subjects."



Click for the rest of the story.

Obamacare's few small problems

Grabbed from Ka-Ching!. Chris Hedges' piece is here.

Duct tape fixes iPhone!

Okay, we know that duct tape can fix darn near anything - but can it fix the new iPhone's reception problems?

Are you kidding me??? Of course it can!!

Yankees owner Steinbrenner dead at 80

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner died this morning at age 80 of a heart attack.

George Steinbrenner, a towering and intimidating figure who dominated the New York sports scene for 35 years, winning 11 American League pennants and seven world championships as owner of the Yankees, in and around two suspensions from baseball and multiple feuds and firings, died Tuesday morning in Tampa after suffering a massive heart attack. He was 80.

"The Boss" - as he was so aptly named by his longtime antagonist, Daily News columnist Mike Lupica – died at around 6:30 a.m. according to a high placed Yankee source. He had been suffering from failing health, the result of a series of strokes, for the past few years.

It's a cliche to say this marks the end of an era, but it does. Steinbrenner's influence of major-league baseball was enormous, whether you think for good or not.

Stop using air conditioning? Washington first!

Stan Cox at The Washington Post reports that the save-the-planet crowd wants Americans to stop using air conditioning:

In a country that's among the world's highest greenhouse-gas emitters, air conditioning is one of the worst power-guzzlers. The energy required to air-condition American homes and retail spaces has doubled since the early 1990s. Turning buildings into refrigerators burns fossil fuels, which emits greenhouse gases, which raises global temperatures, which creates a need for -- you guessed it -- more air-conditioning.

Big Government - as we have come to know it - is really an invention of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, but it didn't really take off until America's entry into World War 2. The demands of global war and massive domestic mobilization and industrialization required an enormous, year-round federal bureaucracy. Before then, Washington, D.C. pretty much shut down during the summer. The city was built partly upon swampland and the heat and humidity there during summer are atrocious. So members of Congress and much of their staffs fled the city after Memorial Day and did not return until after Labor Day.

Activist, Big Government is the natural result of year-round government. Congress's summer recess is now called the August recess, and it lasts this year from Aug. 9 - Sept. 10. A lot of the government does go on vacation then, but the staffs toil on. World War 2 made year-round government necessary. Air conditioning made it possible, though of course federal buildings did not get air conditioned all at once.

But federal buildings did start to get air conditioned in the 1930s at a high rate. Here is a blowup of a graph showing the penetration of mechanical cooling in federal buildings during FDR's administration through 1940, the second during the 1940s. All the source data is found here.

The charts are a little unclear whether they refer to proportions of federal buildings converted to AC or the rate at which AC is added. I believe the former, since by the 1990s the charts hit the top line. Above, the top of the blue bars in the 1930s chart actually don't make it quite to halfway, this being a section of a larger chart.

Whichever the chart displays, the end of the war did not return us to part-time government. The increased power over the country seized during the war was to Congress and its staffers like catnip to cats. "The job of bureaucrats is to regulate," explained Steven Den Beste, "and left to themselves they will regulate everything they can." So the newly-enlarged bureaucracy was not at all willing to go gently into that good night, and didn't. After all, had not Big Government and large-organizational effectiveness beaten Hitler and Tojo? And now they would meet the challenge of demobilizing the armed forces and transitioning back to a peacetime economy.

And increasing air conditioning of federal buildings made permanent bureaucracies easily possible.

So, says the WaPo, the Tea Party people should unite to shun air conditioning.

Best of all, Washington's biggest business -- government -- is transformed. In 1978, 50 years after air conditioning was installed in Congress, New York Times columnist Russell Baker noted that, pre-A.C., Congress was forced to adjourn to avoid Washington's torturous summers, and "the nation enjoyed a respite from the promulgation of more laws, the depredations of lobbyists, the hatching of new schemes for Federal expansion and, of course, the cost of maintaining a government running at full blast."

Post-A.C., Congress again adjourns for the summer, giving "tea partiers" the smaller government they seek.

Yeah, as if. But the writer doesn't see the whole picture. In fact, the feds have been getting out of air conditioning at increasing rates, using new technologies and engineering to cool buildings without artificially cooling the air. The motive is not saving the planet but saving money. Much of the new designs are less cutting-edge breakthroughs, though, than using modern engineering and design to improve pre-1930s design and architecture, "like architect Thom Mayne's design for an 18-story federal building in San Francisco that features windows that actually open and a perforated-metal "skin" that reflects the sun's heat and minimizes the need for air conditioning."

But even if this kind of design becomes widespread, nay, universal, it will not shrink the government as Mr. Cox fantasizes. Its iron grip on power and control is not a comfort issue, it is a political-philosophical, even theological, issue.

The fastest I have ever driven

Glenn Reynolds echoes this headline: What’s the Fastest You’ve Driven?

It’s a safe bet few among us has the skill, not to mention the car, to do 268 mph like Bugatti pilote officiel Pierre Henri Raphanel. But that’s not to say many among us haven’t tried.

Raphanel’s amazing run made the new Bugatti Veyron Super Sport the world’s fastest production car.

Glenn says he once drove, "A shade over 135, on U.S. 50 in Nevada, back before I had any dependents. . ."

When I was stationed in Germany, I drove 125 with my wife and parents in the back seat of my Mercedes S-Class sedan. That was my usual cruising speed on the autobahnen, although most of the time the autobahn was so crowded that such speeds were practical for not very long. Early one Sunday morning though, I drove to the Frankfurt international airport to pick up my brother, who was coming to visit. Few Germans go to church on Sundays, preferring to sleep in, so the A5 Autobahn was practically empty. Sure made the drive quick!

But that's not the fastest I have driven. One night, heading to Frankfurt, I turned onto A5 heading to Hanau by mistake. Once on the on-ramp, you are committed because backing up on the entrance or exit ramps can land you in prison there, not just jail. Knowing that the next exit was 20 kilometers away, I had no choice but to floor it.

I made it to my appointment in Frankfurt with five minutes to spare. En route, my Benz's speedometer read 240 kph, or 149.1 miles per hour. I am sure that I pushed to 150 at least a couple of times, so that's the fastest I have ever driven.

Don't care to again, though. It was night and at that speed headlights are a mere formality.

A few years later I had the chance to get a driving lesson from Darrell Waltrip. I mentioned that I had driven 150 on the autobahn. "That's nice," he politely replied.

Netherlands deserved to lose

I saw most the the World Cup final game on TV. I started off rooting for Netherlands but was cheering for Spain long before the end. Netherlands deserved to lose. Their play was the dirtiest I have ever seen. For example:

This AP photo is cutlined,

Netherlands' Nigel de Jong, left, fouls Spain's Xabi Alonso during the World Cup final soccer match between the Netherlands and Spain at Soccer City in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, July 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

I remember this play. Heck, it wasn't a "play," it was a mugging. De Jong just plain put a kung fu kick on Alonso square in Alonso's chest. Going for the ball? Not even close. This was a deliberate attempt to take Alonso out of the game. See it on the highlight reel at ESPN.

The ref was liberal with yellow cards against Netherlands, which wound up with A finals-record 14 yellows and which finally drew a red card for a foul during Spain's play on the goal. That card sealed Netherland's loss, and I wonder what took the ref so long - one of the Dutch players had seven yellows by himself (another record).

With red-carded Dutch player John Heitinga off the field - and his position empty - it was not long before Spain exploited the hole and drove home the only goal of the game by Andrés Iniesta in the 116th minute of the game. Justice was done.

English referee Howard Webb has already come under criticism for issuing too many yellow cards. His critics say he was too quick to show the card. I say he was too slow and was amply forebearing. I fault him not for too many yellows, but not enough reds. In playoff games, the yellow is a real penalty. It doesn't take the player out of the game but it does mean he can't play the next game.

But in the championship game, what does a yellow card mean? Pretty much nothing. There is no next game. The Dutch knew this, of course, and apparently figured they had nothing to lose by being as physically offensive as they could get away with, and Webb let them get away with plenty. National Post reports,

Heitinga was most obstinate, throwing himself into passing and shooting lanes. The 26 year old made himself a pest particularly for Iniesta. As Iniesta darted between the Dutch defenders, Heitinga kept close watch, but in the 109th minute he was too close. Iniesta collapsed under a soft challenge, Heitinga’s softest of the game, but referee Webb showed no remorse.

Was there Oscar-caliber acting by Iniesta? Of course. And of course any experienced ref knows to ignore theatrics after the foul. The play for which Heitinga was ejected was not much and I was surprised at his ejection for it, but he should have seen red long before then, anyway.

Good for Spain, and tough luck, Netherlands, but no tears fall here for your early bedtime last night.

Recovery!

Good news is where you find it: posted in the window of a deli in the Bellevue section of Nashville:

Sorry about the glare. I snapped the pic with my HTC Incredible. I wish I had entered to ask the manager whether this job was an addition to his staff or a replacement. I'm guessing the latter.

That times are tough no one can gainsay. I know a young man who has been employed by a department-store chain for three years and who has been regularly ranked as one of the top-five sales associates for the entire district. He just left the job because the store cut his hours down to a handful per week. Everyone's hours were cut, he told me. The sales volume just isn't there.

Since in most retail outlets there are only two or three full-time employees (the sales staff are all part time without benefits) he had to quit to seek other pastures to pay his bills. Why, you may ask, did he not tough it out until the economy perks up and sales volume, hence work hours, go up?

Surely you jest. Or maybe you just haven't been paying attention. The economic news is all consistently bad, and always unexpectedly.

Photo-Op

Netanyahu is flying to Washington today to meet with Obama tomorrow. The goal of both is to survive the meeting with kissy faces. Arutz Sheva reports that both men are strategically interested in doing nothing controversial.

Both leaders “have a deceptively simple mission: getting their picture taken together,” the Washington Post reported Monday night. “There are going to be more photographers there than at the Academy Awards,” Israeli’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren quipped.

Prime Minister Netanyahu left Israel late Monday night, leaving behind almost wall-to-wall opposition by the whips of his coalition parties who oppose an extension of the 10-month building freeze against building for Jews in Judea and Samaria. The freeze is to expire in September, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has demanded it be extended permanently as a condition for his entering direct talks with Israel over the establishment of the PA as a new Arab country.

The only coalition partner not opposing the freeze is the Labor party, which has only 13 Knesset Members but which is headed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who has been on much better terms with U.S. President Barack Obama than the Prime Minister.

Netanyahu is still remembered for selling out to Clinton and Israelis are scrutinizing his every move right now for signs of a repeat performance with Obama. The fact that he betrayed his foreign minister and coalition partner, Leiberman, last week with a completely useless appeasement gesture to Turkey pretty much put the prime minister on notice.

In fact, the abortive diplomatic effort with Turkey has resulted in exactly the opposite. Yesterday, YNET News reported that the Turkish foreign minister said that unless the Israelis apologize and compensate Turkey for the flotilla incident, Turkey will sever all relations with Israel. In the words of another Nobel Laureate, Professor Yisrael Aumann, Turkey like the PA is utilizing the Game Theory gambit called the Blackmailer's Paradox.

Israel’s political stand is based on the principle that agreements must be reached with the Arabs at any price, that the lack of agreements is untenable. In the Blackmailer’s Paradox, Reuben’s behavior is the result of his feeling that he must leave the room with some money, no matter how little. Because Reuben cannot imagine himself leaving the room with empty hands, he is easy prey for Simon [who makes unrealistic demands up front from which he will not budge], and ends up leaving with a certain amount of money, but in the role of the humiliated loser. This is similar to the way Israel handles negotiations, her mental state making her unable to reject suggestions that do not advance her interests.

Right now, Netanyahu is perceived as a Reuven--an actor willing to give anything to close a deal. When Israelis ask why, they can only assume that Netanyahu caves in to US demands. Shafting his coalition partner does not help matters at all.

The key person to watch here, however, is Mr. Obama. Despite his tanking support at home, he's perceived as desparate to score some political mileage. Alas, his stature in the Middle East is pretty thin. More to the point, his best chance to improve his standing across the board is to support vigorously Israel, ignore the building freeze, and talk tough to the Turks.

Israelis are not hopeful.