A poignant reflection from John Derbyshire.

Steven Malanga notes that "federal aid to states amounts to a subsidy by citizens of fiscally responsible governments to states where legislators have chucked responsibility out the window."

(Via NRO.)

From an interview of Egyptian cleric Zaghloul Al-Naggar, as translated by MEMRI:

Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "The Prophet Muhammad said: 'If [the enemy] treads upon even an inch of Muslim land, Jihad becomes a duty, and a child should set out on Jihad even without his parents' permission, a wife without her husband's permission, and a slave without his master's permission.'"
 
Interviewer: "So are you calling to wage Jihad?"
 
Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "Absolutely. There is no solution..."
 
Interviewer: "But who has the right to declare Jihad?"
 
Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "Let me be clear. Jihad is the only way to resolve this issue. With the Jews, one cannot achieve anything by means of peace, or a settlement, or open borders, or diplomatic and commercial ties. They are devils in human form. . . ."
 
[. . .]
 
"There is not a single Arab leader who understands or implements Islam.
 
[...]
 
"I blame the Islamic countries as well, not just the Arab countries. I say to Iran: Where are your missiles? You raise the banner of Islam, but where are your missiles? Where are all the soldiers you parade in military marches? I say to Hizbullah: Where are your missiles? When will you use them, if not now? I say to Syria, part of whose land has been occupied for over 30 years: Where is your army? Where are your missiles?"

From Iran. Michael Rubin reports:

Over the last month, Iranian rhetoric against the continued independence of the tiny Arab island nation has really picked up, with repeated declarations that Bahrain isn't independent, but really just a province of Iran. (Historically, Bahrain was part of Iran until the Portuguese separated it in 1522; it later became a British protectorate and a 1970 plebiscite confirmed the Bahraini desire to be independent). Iranian authorities have recently suggested seating Bahraini representatives in the Iranian parliament, categorizing Ahmadinejad's trips to the island nation as provincial trips, and broadcast interviews with Bahraini Shi'a predicting revolution within a year. Yesterday, Bahrain stopped allowing Iranians to travel to the island, and announced they were cutting off oil imports from Iran.

Of course, much of this may be simple rhetoric, but then again, so was Saddam Hussein's Kuwait-is-our-19th province rhetoric until he made good on his threats.

Rubin notes the US Navy's presence in Bahrain. I hadn't realized how significant that presence is:

Since 1948, Bahrain has been the headquarters of U.S. naval activity in the Gulf. Currently, the Naval Support Activity (NSA), occupying 79 acres of land in the center of downtown Manama, is the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. Manama also is the home port for four U.S. Navy minesweepers. During the Gulf War, U.S. and Bahraini aircraft flew thousands of sorties against Iraq. Most recently, Bahrain provided extensive basing and overflight clearances for a multitude of U.S. aircraft operating in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, and the Bahrain Monetary Agency moved quickly to restrict terrorists' ability to transfer funds through Bahrain's financial system. Bahrain also cooperated effectively on criminal investigation issues in support of the campaign on terrorism. In October 2001, President Bush announced his intention to designate Bahrain as a major non-NATO ally.

On the nation itself:

Bahrain is a small but important island nation in the Arabian Gulf. Over the past 20 years, the country has evolved from a bustling Gulf state to on international banking and buisness center. The population of approxamately 660,000 is probably one of the most cosmopolitian in the Middle East, including people from the Far and Near East, Europe, North and South America, and other parts of the Arab world. The capital city of Manama contains modern shopping centers and hotels from major international chains. . . .

The islands are about twenty-four kilometers from the east coast of Saudi Arabia and twenty-eight kilometers from Qatar. The total area of the islands is about 300 square miles [691 square kilometers], or about four times the size of the District of Columbia.

If we're stupid and cowardly enough to let Iran finish building a nuclear weapon, Bahrain could prove the site of the first showdown. Would we risk total war over Bahrain? I doubt it. But Iran's leaders would, because 1) their country is in turmoil and 2) many of them, including Ahmadinejad, welcome the prospect of a nuclear clash, which they believe would speed the arrival of the 12th imam. So if we retreat, Iran gets Bahrain and a resounding victory over the Great Satan, and if we fight, the messiah returns—a perfect win-win situation for them, and a perfect illustration of why we need to stop Iran from completing the bomb.

In a recent column, Rubin had recommendations for Obama: Don't bail out the "failing Iranian economy" or "slowly ratchet up sanctions." Instead, "designate Iranian banks — including Iran's central bank — as guilty of deceptive financial practices," which would effectively "remove Iranian banks from the international financial stage"; and begin a "quiet but steady buildup in the Persian Gulf," which "can do more than the most skilled diplomat when facing the Iranian clerics."

Rubin concludes, "George W. Bush had the luxury of time and squandered it. Barack Obama will not be so lucky. For him to succeed, he must abandon his idealistic notion that diplomacy by itself is a panacea." I'd bet the people of Bahrain would agree.

I've been looking, desultorily, for an honorable American leftist (Norm Geras is English) to add to the blogroll. (Trustworthy leftist bloggers appear as rare as Obama Cabinet nominees who pay their taxes unprodded.) Katie Granju is a possibility, but this kind of lazy thought makes me wary:

[A]s the good conservative you are, you must know that this should be about what I want. Because, you see, I am the consumer. The consumer's unmet needs should be driving the market, not a special interest lobby.

The attempt at humor notwithstanding, that's a leftist caricature, equating conservatives with businessmen. Conservative writers are constantly debating what conservatism is and should be, and not one of them I've read includes "satisfaction of consumers' desires" in the definition.

So, my blogroll remains unbroadened, for now.

(Link via Instapundit.)

I received an email yesterday from Stephen Sweet of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, asking whether I'd be willing to let (my largely hypothetical) readers know about the 2009-10 Koch Associate Program. Glad to. According to its page, the program

was established to identify up-and-coming leaders and entrepreneurs interested in liberty and help them develop the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary for careers with market-oriented think tanks, policy institutes, and other non-profit organizations.

The program offers promising leaders and entrepreneurs the opportunity to work on significant assignments within non-profit organizations while learning and applying Market-Based Management^®. During the year-long program, Associates are based in Washington, D.C., and spend four days each week at non-profit organizations working in full-time positions and one day each week at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation immersed in a Market-Based Management curriculum.

If I were younger and interested in that sort of career, I'd give the program a serious look. Here's Wikipedia's page on Charles Koch, and here's Amazon's page for his book. I like this detail from the Forbes review: "Not only has he digested the entire Ayn Rand syllabus of free market theory, but he's had the chance to put it to work from his headquarters on the plains north of Wichita." That by itself would be enough to make me consider applying.

Charming stuff from Carrie Frye.

Abe Greenwald on Sen. Gregg's decision not to seek the post of Treasury Secretary:

The most alarming aspect of this development is not President Obama’s outsourced anti-stimulative stimulus — and it’s not even his desire to have the Census Director report to the White House. It’s that person after person engages Barack Obama on vital topics only to look back and realize that they don’t quite know what the President said. During a phone chat, Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski thought Obama had promised him an Eastern European missile defense system; he was wrong. Gen. Anthony Zinni thought the administration had given him the ambassadorship to Iraq; he was wrong. Judd Gregg is only the most recent Obama interlocutor to be undone by the Audacity of Confusion.

This is bad. Does the President know where he stands on these topics at any given moment? The American public certainly doesn’t. On Monday night, we all shut off our televisions thinking we were just promised a rescue plan from Timothy Geithner the next day; we were wrong. Wall Street is still desperately waiting for some definitive answers. Will this ever agreeable, always unhelpful haze ever lift?

Alison Krauss has won more Grammy awards (26) than any other female artist. (She and Robert Plant won five this year for Raising Sand.)

No longer. J.G. Thayer, prompted by the tax troubles of prominent Democrats:

There are numerous explanations for this pattern of behavior, but here's a theory that's becoming less laughable: There simply aren't enough Democrats who are both competent and honest to fill all the vacancies in Obama's administration.

Here. He asks that readers donate to the Red Cross's Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

They won't, though. Mark Steyn:

I’m with Tom Daschle: I understand why he had no desire to toss another six-figure sum into the great sucking maw of the federal treasury. Who knows better than a senator who’s voted for every tax increase to cross his desk that all this dough is entirely wasted? Tom and Tim Geithner and Charlie Rangel and all the rest are right: They can do more good with the money than the United States government can. I only wish they followed the logic of their behavior and recognized that what works for them would also work for every other citizen. Instead, they insist that the sole solution to our woes is a record-setting, wasteful government-spending spree.

This monstrosity of a bill, and the assumptions underlying it (e.g., "Politicians are wiser than non-politicians," "Citizens don't own what they earn"), are making me consider joining the Republican Party. Not because the Republicans are great, but because they've shown they can be decent. The Democrats are just ravening parasites.

The rise, fall and execution of an Iraqi general.

Thomas Sowell:

Out of $355 billion newly appropriated, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only $26 billion will be spent this fiscal year and only $110 billion by the end of 2010.

Using long drawn-out processes to put money into circulation to meet an emergency is like mailing a letter to the fire department to tell them that your house is on fire.

Jay Nordlinger:

Why doesn’t the AP just title all of its articles from now on “Obama Better Than Bush, In Every Conceivable Way”?

Spengler:

"My job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives," United States President Barack Obama told an Arabic television channel on January 26. Really? What are their names? Word has come to the West of no extraordinary Muslim thinker since the 12th century. . . .

The trouble with a religion that permits no doubt - unlike Christianity, of which Pope Benedict XVI said that "doubt is the handmaiden of faith" - is that it becomes an all-or-nothing proposition. Either Islam regulates the totality of life and thought, such that questioning may intrude within its magic circle, or it becomes nothing. . . .

Muslims are overtaking the West only in one dimension: they are aging, and aging faster than any other part of the world. Iran is the fastest-aging country on the globe. The developed world today has a median age of almost 40, the sad result of two generations of demographic decline, while the largest Muslim countries have a median age of 25. But by the middle of the century, according to United Nations projections, the average age of the largest Muslim countries will be 47, converging on the aging industrial world.

Only with extreme difficulty will the developed countries manage the burden of a rapidly aging population. It is hard to envisage how the much-poorer Muslim world will manage it at all. The potential for civil as well as regional instability will continue to rise. Increasingly, the Muslims find themselves with the worst of both worlds, that is, with the same dependency profile as the populations of the West, but without the wealth or the capacity to generate wealth that gives the West some wiggle room. . . .

Most Muslims want to better their lives, as Obama said, but their lives are getting worse rather than better, and nothing they know can make things better. In theory, there might be a future state of the world in which the Islamic world could live in peace and prosperity, but today's Muslims cannot get there from here.

Tim Blair notes an example from an Aussie columnist.

Don't impose one.

Edward John Craig, noting (on Groundhog Day) that the sun is "still chillingly quiet":

Fingers crossed that we have only six more weeks of winter left.