Declarations [Peggy Noonan in WSJ.com]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120241915915951669.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Mrs. Clinton is losing this thing. It's not one big primary, it's a rolling loss, a daily one, an inch-by-inch deflation. The trends and indices are not in her favor. She is having trouble raising big money, she's funding her campaign with her own wealth, her moral standing within her own party and among her own followers has been dragged down, and the legacy of Clintonism tarnished by what Bill Clinton did in South Carolina. Unfavorable primaries lie ahead. She doesn't have the excitement, the great whoosh of feeling that accompanies a winning campaign. The guy from Chicago who was unknown a year ago continues to gain purchase, to move forward. For a soft little innocent, he's played a tough and knowing inside/outside game.

The day she admitted she'd written herself a check for $5 million, Obama's people crowed they'd just raised $3 million. But then his staff is happy. They're all getting paid.

Political professionals are leery of saying, publicly, that she is losing, because they said it before New Hampshire and turned out to be wrong. Some of them signaled their personal weariness with Clintonism at that time, and fear now, as they report, to look as if they are carrying an agenda. One part of the Clinton mystique maintains: Deep down journalists think she's a political Rasputin who will not be dispatched. Prince Yusupov served him cupcakes laced with cyanide, emptied a revolver, clubbed him, tied him up and threw him in a frozen river. When he floated to the surface they found he'd tried to claw his way from under the ice. That is how reporters see Hillary.

And that is a grim and over-the-top analogy, which I must withdraw. What I really mean is they see her as the Glenn Close character in "Fatal Attraction": "I won't be ignored, Dan!"

We're all Conservatives for Obama now!

Adoption of Islamic Sharia law in Britain is 'unavoidable', says Archbishop of Canterbury

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23436203-details/Adoption+of+Islamic+Sharia+law+in+Britain+is+'unavoidable',+says+Archbishop+of+Canterbury/article.do

The Archbishop of Canterbury has today said that the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK is "unavoidable" and that it would help maintain social cohesion.

Rowan Williams told BBC Radio 4's World At One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

He says that Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court. He added Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".

Dr Williams said there was a place for finding a "constructive accommodation" in areas such as marriage - allowing Muslim women to avoid Western divorce proceedings.

William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn on John McCain & 2008 on National Review Online

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmI2YjE1Y2QxODI1ZGI1ZGNhNmQwOThlNWVlMmNlMTc=&w=MQ==

Let's admit the concern: Some people predict that a President McCain will open the borders, close Guantanamo, and tie our policies to some false premises related to global warming. We hope he doesn't, but even critics must admit it is just as likely — if not more so — that his legacy will be the following: He pursued al-Qaeda to the ends of the Earth and vanquished them; he cut deficit spending and vetoed pork-barrel spending over and over again; he appointed four good justices to the Supreme Court; and he reinvigorated a sense of thoughtful patriotism, citizenship, and unselfish devotion to the Republic.

Senator John McCain has a great deal to recommend him. He has a great deal more to offer the country, and it is our sincere hope that, as we move toward the general election, more and more people will see that. In the interim, it is our equal hope that Senator McCain will take the next several months to build his support among conservative doubters within our party. We deserve that, too, so that — come September — we will all be confident we have nominated the right man.

We have endorsed no candidate in our party as of yet, but we wholeheartedly unendorse any notion that either Senator John McCain or Governor Mitt Romney will ruin the party, the movement, or, for that matter, the election. They are both heads and shoulders above would-be presidents Senator Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, and once we see the whole record, and these men in the totality of their careers and records, we will, we pray, realize that.

I strongly disagree.  McCain will ruin the party for me.  I will not support him.  As a caller on Bennett's "Morning in America" radio show said today: we're suicide voters.  We're not just going to sit the election out -- we're going to vote against McCain.  The Republican party needs to be purged of the McCainites (Lindsay Graham is another one), and that won't happen until he loses the election.  Call me a Conservative for Obama.  I feel liberated!

One-Legged Stool [Mark R. Levin on NRO]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2M4NWMzNDdhY2U0MjZiYWIyODBhMzRjOTk4MjU0M2Y=

The problem is that McCain has a number of factors working against him, including his own long career of hostility toward the people he needs to win the general election. If you can't consolidate and motivate your base, you will not win the presidency. It has been his strategy to distance himself in numerous and provocative ways from his own party. He has used the tactic of alienation to pander to constituencies outside the party. And he has been so prominent and antagonistic in the execution of his strategy that it's difficult to see how he can overcome his own record. This is one of the reasons why many of us have opposed him from the start, i.e., he will likely be an unelectable stand-bearer and a drain on the rest of the ticket. To say, from one's computer keyboard, that the Reagan coalition should unify behind McCain to prevent the specter of a Clinton or Obama presidency is, I believe, wishful thinking. Even here, where the smartest minds are trying to make the case, some use the perverse argument that Reagan wasn't all that conservative anyway, and that's a reason to back McCain. Not only does this defy history, but it offends those who lived through that history and were shaped by it. Moreover, Republican voters won't buy it. McCain is sitting on a one-legged stool, having broken the two other legs. 

Townhall.com::McCain's Straight Lies::By Thomas Sowell

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/02/01/mccains_straight_lies

When confronted with any of his misdeeds, Senator McCain tends to fall back on his record as a war hero in Vietnam.

Let's talk sense. Benedict Arnold was a war hero but that did not exempt him from condemnation for his later betrayal.

Being a war hero is not a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card. And becoming President of the United States is not a matter of rewarding an individual for past services.

No to McCain

http://instapundit.com/archives2/014970.php

Instapundit publishes a comment from Bill Whittle:

I am not impugning anyone's motives. I believe I have a reasonable understanding of principled behavior. But if your goal is to see the country punished because---

You can stop right there. If your goal is to see America punished, and her people open to attack and/or ruined financially in order to prove a point for any reason, then you do not deserve politial power nor are you likely to achieve it. A party is a compact. It is, essentially, a pleage of mutual support. As a matter of fact, it's nothing more or less than a promise.

A political party is a series of personal compromises in order to achieve a goal unattainable by the perfect political party: one's own self. If McCain is the legal and lawfully selected nominee, and Republicans decide to walk away from their party in droves, what makes them think they will be able to count on those who, you know, actually went out and voted Republican either joyfully or through clenched teeth, in order to prevent The Deluge?

There seems to be a major misunderstanding among some Republican loyalists about the opposition to McCain.  First, let's get this straight:  I'm a conservative who happens to be a Republican because the party of Reagan was closest to my views.  The party doesn't own me.  If they don't work for conservative causes and govern as conservatives, then they will lose my vote.  I supported Bush even when he slapped me in the face with his compassionate policies on prescription drugs and amnesty for illegal aliens because the war on terror was the most important issue for me.  Perhaps, it's better to say that Bush had the right enemies, even if he didn't always have the right policies.  John McCain has the wrong enemies (conservatives) and the wrong friends (Feingold, Kennedy, etc.), and he'll still have the wrong policies.  So if the Republicans want him as their candidate, I no longer want them as my party.  I can't win either way so why support the guy who hates me for who I am?  We survived four years with Jimmy Carter, which lead to Ronald Reagan's historic victory.  I think we can manage with Hillary or Obama for a term while we regroup.  A McCain failure will do more good for the country in the long run than his victory would.

The Die Has Been Cast (Victor Davis Hanson on NRO)

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmRkNzI1NDk5M2I4MDVkM2NjZWQ3MmZjZDUxYmJhNDc=

It is clear that pragmatism or expediency is not seen as a sin greater than erroneous conviction, in the sense that it is to be understandable that Romney had to do or say some liberal things in blue-Boston to get elected, but that McCain did them willingly when he did not have to in red Arizona. Or maybe it is the magnitude of the sin (McCain-Feingold is felt worse than once being pro-choice and distancing oneself from Reagan)? Or perhaps the chronology of the sin (the 1990s were then, 2007 is now)?

Either way it doesn't really matter anymore, the McCain animus is deeply ingrained and apparently can't be retracted. It only makes things worse either to attack sincere anti-McCainites or to ask them to reconsider, or to ask them to vote for the lesser of what they see as the two evils.

As they say, the die has been cast, and everyone will have to live with the results.

Count me as a sincere anti-McCainite.  I agree with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.  McCain will end up with the same policies as a Democrat and blame the conservatives for all his problems.  I'd rather have an honest liberal in office than a conservative impostor.  I'll do my best to vote for Gridlock until we get another chance to promote a real conservative.

Limbaugh on McCain: It's Better to Be Right All the Time

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/04/AR2008020402798_pf.html

Rush Limbaugh has been relentless in his criticism of John McCain, prompting suggestions that he may have to soften his stance if the Arizona senator wins the nomination and faces off against Hillary Clintonor Barack Obama. But if that happens, Limbaugh said in an interview over the weekend, he would rather see the Democrats win the White House.

"If I believe the country will suffer with either Hillary, Obama or McCain, I would just as soon the Democrats take the hit . . . rather than a Republican causing the debacle," he said. "And I would prefer not to have conservative Republicans in the Congress paralyzed by having to support, out of party loyalty, a Republican president who is not conservative."

When it comes to the McCain mutiny, Limbaugh has plenty of company on the right side of the dial. Laura Ingraham endorsed Mitt Romney last week, saying, "There is no way in hell I could pull the lever for John McCain." Sean Hannity, who also endorsed the former Massachusetts governor, regularly rips McCain. Hugh Hewitt is urging the audience for his syndicated radio show to fight for Romney against what he calls a media-generated "McCain resurrection." But with a program heard on 600 stations, including Washington's WMAL, Limbaugh is the loudest and brashest voice inveighing against the man he derides as "Saint John of Arizona."

Limbaugh dismissed the notion that a McCain victory would be a "personal setback" for him. "My success is not defined by who wins elections," he said. "Elected officials come and go. I am here for as long as I wish to stay. . . ."

Zubrin on NRO

Energy Victory author Robert Zubrin writes on NRO:

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDVkZDkzZTRjYjNkMjA4NjhmNTc5NjMxNjMxYjBmNzc=

The Islamists are rich in oil. We are rich in coal and biomass. If we want to win against them, we need to take action that increases the value of our resources while decreasing the value of theirs. Coal and biomass can both easily be turned into alcohol fuels. But the cars on the road today can't use alcohol fuels. By making it a standard that any car sold in the USA be flex fueled — i.e. capable of running on either alcohol or gasoline — we will make flex fuel the international standard, and force gasoline to compete at the pump against alcohol everywhere in the world. In doing so, we will open the world fuel market up to what WE have, not just what THEY have. That's how we win. If we don't do that, they will win.

So it comes down to this: Who do you want to win, us or them?

Steyn on McCain

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDEzYzkxNDMzMWNlOTBiYWZhY2FiZjUzOWYyMjdlNGU=

I'm getting a bit tired of Senator McCain's anti-business shtick. The line about serving "for patriotism, not for profit" is pathetic. America spends more on its military than the next 35-40 biggest military spenders on the planet combined: Where does he think the money for that comes from?

As for his line about "some greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished", aside from being almost entirely irrelevant to the subject under discussion (the subprime "crisis"), it reveals, I think, one of the most unpleasant aspects of McCain. For a so-called "maverick", he's very comfortable with the application of Big Government power, and the assumption of Big Government virtue. Undoubtedly there are "greedy people on Wall Street". Why should he and his chums be the ones who decide whether they need to be "punished"? If greed is to be punishable, why doesn't he start with a pilot program applied to, say, the United States Senate and report back to us in five years how that's going?

Samuel Gregg on Jesuits on National Review Online

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjMyMWI5MTdjYzViMTJmMmNhMWMwMDA1YzM2NzdlODA=&w=MA==

Yet it's hard to deny today's Jesuits are in trouble. In raw numbers, the Jesuits have dropped from 36,000 in 1965 to about 19,000 today.

A key figure in the story of the Jesuits' implosion is Fr. Pedro Arrupe — another Spaniard who lived in Japan — and who, oddly enough, employed Nicolás as his personal barber. Elected 28th General of the Order in 1965, Arrupe was either a "second Ignatius" of prophetic proportions or a well-meaning naïf, depending on whom you talk to. Under Arrupe's guidance, the Jesuits' 1974 General Congregation decreed "the promotion of justice" as an "absolute requirement" for Jesuit activities.

The problem is that many Jesuits' "promotion of justice" collapsed almost immediately into radical left-wing activism. Sensible Jesuit-authored critiques of Latin American oligarchies, for example, soon degenerated into Marxist versions of liberation theology. 

Many Jesuit universities have become virtually indistinguishable from your average left-wing secular academy. Some Jesuits candidly say the order's intellectual edge began seriously fraying in the 1970s, corroded by an idolatry of the contemporary — marked particularly by an embrace of Marxist critiques that would engender bad politics and even worse theology, including efforts to water down Christ's uniqueness in the name of that ubiquitous word: "dialogue."

By the early 1980s, Rome had had enough. In 1981, John Paul II took the radical step of suspending the order's normal governance. In 1983, Fr. Kolvenbach was elected Father-General. Though widely considered a good man, it's unclear he affected any significant change in the Jesuits' direction.

Scott Ott: Hillary Clinton's Confederate Coalition

[Regarding the South Carolina Democratic primary...]

http://scottott.townhall.com/g/3b48db50-5a99-448d-a0d7-80e7f3e575e3

Sen. Clinton can claim only one clear victory niche. Among those who think the country is "not ready" for a black president, she won handily (48-23). 

In other words, Sen. Clinton runs strongly among those who judge a person by the color of his skin rather than by the content of his character, or who believe that America is still too racist to elect a black candidate, though they might personally harbor no such prejudice.

Although she got more support among whites than Sen. Obama did, she didn't win the white vote -- John Edwards did (at 40 percent). She only won the "America's not ready for a black president" vote. Call it Hillary Clinton's Confederate coalition.

Columnist Dick Morris, the disgraced former adviser to the disgraced former president, has already written that the Clintons will play this loss for all the "white backlash" they can get. However reprehensible, Mr. Morris thinks it's a winning strategy.

[...]

The Clinton presidential duo plays this tune at their own peril. (If she had won South Carolina, would her partisans have said "Hillary triumphed despite the high black turnout"?) Methinks Mr. Morris and the mainstream media misjudge most Americans, even most Democrats.

Kudlow on Gates and Capitalism

(via Instapundit.com)

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWI5ZDVjODBkZDI2YWM1N2Y0M2MzYjdkOTE0MmQxMjk=

According to the front-page of today's Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates is issuing a clarion call for a kinder capitalism to aid the world's poor. Mr. Gates says he's grown impatient with the shortcomings of capitalism. He thinks it's failing much of the world, and he's slated to say as much in a speech later today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

This from a guy worth around $35 billion. (Give or take a billion.)

It appears Gates is ignoring the global spread of free-market capitalism that has successfully lifted hundreds of millions of people up from poverty and into the middle class over the last decade or so. Think China. Think India. Think Eastern Europe (and maybe even France under Sarkozy). Gates wants business leaders to dedicate more time to fighting poverty. But the reality is that economic freedom is the best path to prosperity. Period.

My comments:

Many very rich men seem to feel a bit guilty about their wealth.  I imagine they did a few things in the heat of battle that they're not proud of, probably hurt a few other people on the way up.  "That's business", as they say.  Now, they look back and decide that they want to be remembered for something kinder and gentler.  This is a natural and mostly good impulse, akin to a religious conversion.  They will do some good with their money and they deserve credit for that.  But they overgeneralize when they imply that the system is bad -- I guess because it made them do bad things.  Free markets and capitalism are still the best way for the general welfare of the world.  And let's remember, freedom is the most important part of the free-market system.  When governments try to make things "better", they typically start by restricting freedom in the name of equality.

Kathryn Jean Lopez on Fred Thompson & 2008 on National Review Online

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjM3NzRkNjg4YjQyNmNiODQ3NjA4NzA0MDA3ODhiOTA=&w=MQ==

What his campaign may have lacked in organizational luster and ambition it made up for in authenticity and charm. You knew his greatest dream in life wasn't to be president. You knew he'd be happy living life with his family, advising those who wanted his opinion and expertise, talking federalism with Beltway friends on weekends. When he was on Meet the Press a while back, Claremont's Seth Leibsohn said, admiringly, "Fred came off like his hour there was not the most important thing he had to do that day." There's something attractive about that.

Jonah Goldberg on Daily Show on National Review Online

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjdjOTU4MWFlOWEyYTI4ODAyYjQ2YTUyNzA2NzA3ODg=

I tried to explain, for those whose feelings were so hurt they didn't even crack the spine, that the title Liberal Fascism comes from a speech delivered by H. G. Wells, one of the most important and influential progressive and socialist intellectuals of the 20th century. He wanted to re-brand liberalism as "liberal fascism" and even "enlightened Nazism." He believed these terms best described his own political views —views that deeply informed American progressivism and New Deal liberalism. 

As for the smiley face, that's a reference to comedian and social commentator George Carlin, who explained on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher that "when fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jackboots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Smiley-smiley." 

I'm persuaded that Carlin was right — to the extent that fascism of any kind will come to America, it will do so in the guise of something "progressive." Indeed, American progressives, particularly before Hitler arrived on the scene in the 1930s, were openly sympathetic to Italian fascism. This isn't to say they copied it (or the fascism of Soviet Russia), as many claim. But rather that the ideas that gave birth to and fueled American progressivism — philosophical pragmatism, Bismarckian "top-down socialism," Marxism, eugenics and more — share common intellectual sources and impulses with those that gave us both socialism and fascism.

— Jonah Goldberg is the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

Roy Spencer on Global Warming

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWFjMDkyNTljYmEwYzUyNTkwZWJkMjEyODJjZTM3Nzc=

Compared to the carbon dioxide that humans produce, Mother Nature routinely transfers 40 times as much CO2, and 24,000 times as much water vapor (Earth's primary greenhouse gas), back and forth between the atmosphere and the Earth's surface, every day. 

Scientists have simply assumed that these natural processes have been in balance for centuries. But, what if there have always been some small — but natural — imbalances in those large up-and-down flows that slowly change over time? In that case, our measured increases in greenhouse gases and global temperatures might well turn out to be more natural than manmade, lost in the noise of natural variability.

Can I prove any of this? No — not yet, anyway. But neither have any scientists produced one single scientific paper showing that Mother Nature isn't the dominant source of what we are seeing. Mankind is one possible explanation, and our measurements of natural variability in the climate system on time scales of decades to centuries are simply not good enough to find out how many natural sources of variability are also out there.

Sense of Events: The government has no money of its own

http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2008/01/government-has-no-money-of-its-own.html

Decades ago, economist Miltion Friedman explained that "found money" does not alter people's spending habits significantly. A tax rebate does not make people wealthier, leading them either to pay down debt with it (which is "stimulus" neutral) or put it into savings (also neutral).

For people to spend more, Friedman explained, they have to increase their regular income. They have to make more money over time, not just once.

The central fact to remember when assessing any government monetary policy is this: The government has no money of its own. Therefore, the government has no money to stimulate the economy. All it can do is return money that it took away from the economy to begin with.

Mature Human Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011700324.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Scientists at a California company reported yesterday that they had created the first mature cloned human embryos from single skin cells taken from adults, a significant advance toward the goal of growing personalized stem cells for patients suffering from various diseases.

Creation of the embryos -- grown from cells taken from the company's chief executive and one of its investors -- also offered sobering evidence that few, if any, technical barriers may remain to the creation of cloned babies. That reality could prompt renewed controversy on Capitol Hill, where the debate over human cloning has died down of late.

Five of the new embryos grew in laboratory dishes to the stage that fertility doctors consider ready for transfer to a woman's womb: a degree of development that clones of adult humans have never achieved before.

No one knows whether those embryos were healthy enough to grow into babies. But the study leader, who is also the medical director of a fertility clinic, said they looked robust, even as he emphasized that he has no interest in cloning people.

"It's unethical and it's illegal, and we hope no one else does it either," said Samuel H. Wood, chief executive of Stemagen in La Jolla, whose skin cells were cloned and who led the study with Andrew J. French, the firm's chief scientific officer.

Just like in the Sci-Fi movies, we're on the verge of creating clones for spare parts.

Transterrestrial Musings on Fred Thompson

http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/010398.html#010398

Now, I don't think that Fred Thompson is lazy. I just think that, despite the southern drawl, which many (mistakenly, as anyone who has worked with smart NASA employees and contractors in Houston, Huntsville and the Cape would know) think is a mark of a slow mentality, that he works smart, and cheap. Robert Heinlein once wrote that: "Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things."

Reason Magazine - The Coming American Matriarchy

http://reason.com/news/show/124402.html

Look, then, for rising pressure on government to provide new parental subsidies and child care programs, and on employers to provide more flextime and home-office options -- among various efforts to help women do it all. Look, too, for a cascading series of psychological and emotional adjustments as American society tilts, for the first time, toward matriarchy. What happens to male self-esteem when men are No. 2 (and not necessarily trying harder)? When more men work for women than the other way around?

Some of these adjustments will have international dimensions. Goldin, Katz, and Kuziemko note, "Almost all countries in the OECD"—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of advanced industrial countries—"now have more women than men in college and have had a growing gender gap among undergraduates that favors women." Yet much of the developing world, especially the Muslim world, remains predominantly patriarchal.

Many tradition-minded cultures in the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia already regard the Western economic and social model as emasculating. Radical Islam, in particular, abhors feminism. As the United States and Europe continue to feminize, will the anti-modern backlash, already deeply problematic in the Muslim world, intensify? As sex roles and expectations diverge, might hostility and misunderstanding mount between the West and the rest?

No, men are not about to disappear into underclass status. They will not become mothers anytime soon, and they will not stop secreting testosterone. Men's ambition will ensure ample male representation at the very top of the social order, where CEOs, senators, Nobelists, and software wunderkinds dwell. Women will not rule men.

Jonathan Rauch doesn't discuss the military, but it seems likely that the cultural conflict between Radical Islam and the feminized West could break out into prolonged military conflict, in which case, the West will depend on some of its men who never went to college to fight for our survival.  Women may end up running the government, but it's hard to imagine them taking over the military.