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Mark Steyn, Prairie Pundit.Blogspot.com

 

The world turns. In Indonesia, the principal of a Muslim boarding school in Tangerang who is accused of impregnating a 15-year-old student says the DNA test will prove that a malevolent genie is the real father.

 

In New Zealand, a German tourist, Hans Kurt Kubus, has been jailed for attempting to board a plane at Christchurch with 44 live lizards in his underpants.

 

In Britain, a research team at King's College, London, has declared that the female "G-spot" doesn't exist.

 

In France, a group of top gynecologists dismissed the findings, asking, "What do you expect if you ask Englishmen to find a woman's erogenous zone?"

 

But in America, Barack Obama is talking.

 

Talking, talking, talking. He talked for 90 minutes on the State of the Union. No matter how many geckos you shoveled down your briefs, you still lost feeling in your legs. And still he talked. If you had an erogenous zone before, by the end, it was undetectable even to Frenchmen. But on he talked. As respected poverty advocate and former Sen. John Edwards commented, "After the first hour, even my malevolent genie was back in the bottle."

 

Like any gifted orator, the president knows how to vary the talk with a little light and shade. Sometimes he hectors, sometimes he whines, sometimes he demands. "We do not quit," he said. Boy, you can say that again!

 

So he did: "We don't quit. I don't quit," he said. But throughout the chamber, Democrats were quitting. "I quit," says Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas, declining to run in November. "I quit," says Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, doing likewise. "I quit," says Beau Biden of Delaware, son of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., choosing not to run for his father's seat. Read article.

Garrett Epps, Politics Daily.com

 

The Democrats have had another hard week. On Monday, they learned that Beau Biden, son of the vice-president, has discreetly chosen not to run for the Senate seat they'd been keeping warm for him. Thus one more Senate seat the Democrats had thought of as safe is up for grabs in the fall. This comes after the loss of Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts and amid a growing sense that even President Obama's old seat in Illinois could fall in November to a Republican, Mark Kirk.

 

Democrats may have shot themselves in the foot three times, each time by trying to game the Constitution. For those of you scoring at home, the 17th Amendment, passed in 1913, took the power to choose senators away from state legislators and gave it to the voters. It begins, "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years."

 

But it took 30 years for popular election to overcome the resistance of the political class, who would usually rather appoint than elect. (Southern states unsuccessfully demanded a change to exclude blacks from voting in Senate elections.) During that process, the amendment picked up some flaws. As finally passed, it says that "the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies." This is the precise language that governs House seats, which are filled in special elections as soon as possible. But the drafters added, "the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct." Read article.

 

Fausta's Blog.com

 

China’s strident tone raises concerns among Western governments, analysts

 

China’s indignant reaction to the announcement of U.S. plans to sell weapons to Taiwan appears to be in keeping with a new triumphalist attitude from Beijing that is worrying governments and analysts across the globe.

 

From the Copenhagen climate change conference to Internet freedom to China’s border with India, China observers have noticed a tough tone emanating from its government, its representatives and influential analysts from its state-funded think tanks.

 

Calling in U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman on Saturday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said the United States would be responsible for “serious repercussions” if it did not reverse the decision to sell Taiwan $6.4 billion worth of helicopters, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles, minesweepers and communications gear. The reaction came even though China has known for months about the planned deal, U.S. officials said.

 

“There has been a change in China’s attitude,” said Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a former senior National Security Council official who is currently at the Brookings Institution. “The Chinese find with startling speed that people have come to view them as a major global player. And that has fed a sense of confidence.” Read article.

 

Jennifer Rubin, Commentary Magazine.com

 

In this must read piece , John Bolton reviews Obama’s brisk SOTU run-through of foreign-policy issues. On nuclear nonproliferation, Bolton observes that Obama made a “critical linkage” after touting the U.S.-Russian arms-control talks, namely that: “These diplomatic efforts have also strengthened our hand in dealing with those nations that insist on violating international agreements in pursuit of nuclear weapons.” Bolton says this is nonsense:

 

"Obama described the increasing “isolation” of both North Korea and Iran, the two most conspicuous—but far from the only—nuclear proliferators. He also mentioned the increased sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after its second nuclear test in 2009 and the 'growing consequences' he says Iran will face because of his policies.

 

"In fact, reducing our nuclear -arsenal will not somehow persuade Iran and North Korea to alter their behavior or encourage others to apply more pressure on them to do so. Obama’s remarks reflect a complete misreading of strategic realities. . . What warrants close attention is the jarring naïveté of arguing that reducing our capabilities will inhibit nuclear proliferators. That would certainly surprise Tehran and Pyongyang."

 

Really, there is a childlike assumption by the Obami that these powers will be impressed with the West’s disarmament efforts and want to get in on the back-slapping congratulations too. It is, as Bolton points out, further confirmation that rather than become more “realistic” in our approach to national security, the Obami crew have adopted fictions that bear no relationship to the behavior and motives of the regimes we face. The president has in essence doubled down on a dangerously misguided vision. Read article.

 

John Bolton, Weekly Standard.com

 

In his lengthy State of the Union address, President Obama was brief on national security issues, which he squeezed in toward the end. International terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even America’s relief efforts in Haiti all flashed past in bullet-point mentions. On Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama emphasized neither victory nor determination, but merely the early withdrawal of U.S. forces from both. His once vaunted Middle East peace process didn’t make the cut.

 

Nonetheless, during this windshield tour of the world, the president found time to opine more explicitly than ever before that reducing America’s nuclear weapons and delivery systems will temper the global threat of proliferation. Obama boasted that “the United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades” and that he is trying to secure “all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in four years, so that they never fall into the hands of terrorists.”

 

Then came Obama’s critical linkage: “These diplomatic efforts have also strengthened our hand in dealing with those nations that insist on violating international agreements in pursuit of nuclear weapons.” Obama described the increasing “isolation” of both North Korea and Iran, the two most conspicuous—but far from the only—nuclear proliferators. He also mentioned the increased sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after its second nuclear test in 2009 and the “growing consequences” he says Iran will face because of his policies.

 

In fact, reducing our nuclear -arsenal will not somehow persuade Iran and North Korea to alter their behavior or encourage others to apply more pressure on them to do so. Obama’s remarks reflect a complete misreading of strategic realities. Read article.

 

LA Times via PrairiePundit.Blogspot.com

 

The CIA sequence for a Predator strike ends with a missile but begins with a memo. Usually no more than two or three pages long, it bears the name of a suspected terrorist, the latest intelligence on his activities, and a case for why he should be added to a list of people the agency is trying to kill.

 

The list typically contains about two dozen names, a number that expands each time a new memo is signed by CIA executives on the seventh floor at agency headquarters, and contracts as targets thousands of miles away, in places including Pakistan and Yemen, seem to spontaneously explode.

 

No U.S. citizen has ever been on the CIA's target list, which mainly names Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, according to current and former U.S. officials. But that is expected to change as CIA analysts compile a case against a Muslim cleric who was born in New Mexico but now resides in Yemen. Read article.

 

J.R. Dunn, American Thinker.com

 

The Jihadi pinprick terror campaign that debuted last autumn has exposed some very large holes in this country's security system.

 

Nidal Hasan did everything but walk around Fort Hood with "kill infidels" tattooed on his forehead. He continually expressed support for the Jihadis, disparaged U.S. anti-terror efforts, and attempted to proselytize his patients. He was in contact with the al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who had been chased from the U.S. to Yemen. Yet he was not questioned, discharged from the service, or even put under observation. 

 

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was turned in to American security by his own father. He was on a general "watch" list. He was known to have set out for Yemen, an al-Qaeda hotbed (to meet the very same Anwar al-Awlaki, among others. Just coincidence, I'm sure.). At the same time, intelligence intercepts learned of a "Nigerian" about to carry out an operation. He fit the established guidelines for a potential terrorist -- payment in cash, one-way ticket, no baggage -- to a tee. American security knew he was on the plane and were looking forward to having a chat with him once he landed. Yet he passed two distinct checkpoints without even being looked at twice.

 

After literally setting his pants on fire, Abdulmutallab was at last bagged and confronted by the FBI. He talked like an Oprah guest for nearly an hour, at which point he was taken in for surgery. Afterward, a second team spoke to him. Their first action was to give him his Miranda rights, at which point he clammed up. No further effort was made to interrogate him. Read article.

 

Editorial, Washington Times.com

 

When a man is apprehended with a cache of weapons, body armor, a map of a military installation and Jihadist personal effects, the natural response of most Americans is to assume the situation is terrorist-related. The Obama administration says otherwise.

 

Lloyd R. Woodson was arrested Jan. 25 in rural New Jersey. He had been observed behaving strangely, wearing military-style fatigues and a bulletproof vest. He had a weapon modified to fire .50-caliber rounds from beneath his jacket. He had a hotel room full of weapons and ammunition. Despite all these warning signs, the immediate response from the government was that this was "not a terrorism thing."

 

Bureaucratic lack of concern raises a critical question: If this is not the behavior of a terrorist, what is?

 

It's not clear what the Obama administration thinks terrorism is, if it thinks it exists at all. The administration doggedly maintains that political, especially Jihadist, violence by individuals with no international linkage is not terrorism. This definition might come as a surprise to the Unabomber, who for years was the most sought-after terrorist in America. Read article.

 

Stephen F. Hayes, Weekly Standard.com

 

Top White House adviser David Axelrod believes the U.S. government properly handled the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, despite the fact that Abdulmutallab stopped talking to interrogators after having had Miranda rights read to him. In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, Axelrod was asked about the decision to read Abdulmutallab his rights after just 50 minutes of interrogation. "We have not lost anything as a result of how this case has been handled," Axelrod said. It was an updated version of the claim that Robert Gibbs made last week, when he said that FBI interrogators had gotten "all they could get" from Abdulmutallab in their brief session.

 

If the White House political and spin teams believe this is true, the actions of the FBI officers themselves suggest that the claim is not true. After a five-hour break following the first interrogation session, the FBI sent a second team to interrogate Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day -- something that would have been unnecessary if the FBI had, in fact, gotten everything it could from him. And on Friday the Washington Post reported that Justice Department officials are still trying to get more from Abdulmutallab. The Post reported that U.S. government officials are now working on a plea bargain with Abdulmutallab's lawyers -- a deal that would allow interrogators access once again to Abdulmutallab. That wouldn't be necessary if we had gotten everything we could have gotten from him.

 

Intelligence collection is an ongoing process. It doesn't stop after just one interview with a terrorist. The best information often comes after a series of back-and-forth sessions with the subject that last days, even weeks. Read article.