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  • Orthodox Jews on the Dole in a Big Way

    In Israel, at least:

    But Ben-David said the government has relied too heavily on a quick fix. With heavy lobbying from ultra-Orthodox parties that often prove crucial in forming government coalitions, Israel has increased welfare payments fivefold since 1970, while the standard of living has doubled, he said.

    Nearly a decade ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then finance minister, won praise for slashing welfare payments, including monthly per-child allowances. But last year Netanyahu, in a nod to his right-wing coalition partners, agreed to nearly double some child allowances.

    Reasons differ for the non-employment of Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews.

    Over the last 30 years, the percentage of working ultra-Orthodox men has decreased because of government programs that subsidize their religious study, experts say.

    Such programs are now facing a backlash from Israel’s secular and non-Orthodox citizens. A radio talk-show host recently described ultra-Orthodox Jews as “parasites.” Tel Aviv’s mayor said the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox community was “endangering” the economic strength of the “silent majority.”

    But defenders of the ultra-Orthodox credit them with preserving Israel’s Jewish identity, saying that without the high birth rates of ultra-Orthodox families, Israel could see an Arab majority in future generations.

    The Evangelicals should try this in the US, if they really want to bring their left-wing opponents to heel in a hurry.  OTOH, the threat of millions of “religious right fanatics” going on the dole en masse just might make the left think twice before expanding the welfare state.

    It’s not good for Israel (the Israeli Arabs are in the same boat, for a different reason) but the possibility for mischief vis-à-vis our secularist masters is endless.

  • Elena Kagan's Most Principled–and Idiotic–Position

    Yet Peter Beinart at the Daily Beast wants her to apologise for it:

    The day after the story appeared, I received an email from a prominent Democratic lawyer offering me the same kind of assistance that the Obama administration seems to have provided the Times. In a previous Beast column, I had criticized Kagan’s action as dean, arguing that barring recruiters from Harvard Law School because the military discriminates against gays was as counterproductive as banning ROTC from Harvard during Vietnam. That comparison, my correspondent insisted, “rests on a fundamental category mistake…what happened at Harvard Law School [during Kagan’s tenure] was not anything like the anti-military policies of the ‘70s that were directed at the military because they were the military.”

    Conservatives will criticise Kagan for wanting to ban ROTC recruiters from Harvard.  But Kagan did what any self-respecting liberal should do, if the immediate reason was wrong.

    Back in the days of the Vietnam War, real, McGovern liberalism was synonymous with an anti-war stance.  Trying to parse the difference between not liking the military and not liking the Vietnam War was, in the context of the time, irrelevant.  All war became immoral, as did those who waged it.  It was that simple.  That’s the heritage of 60’s liberalism, and until the 60’s liberals and their disciples repudiate it once and for all, they should stand by it.

    Kagan did so by trying to keep the ROTC off of campus, and that’s consistent with past principle.  But the immediate reason she did so was because of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the military towards homosexuals.  But this raises another question: why should a group of people who claim moral superiority want to be in an institution like the military?  Some of us remember the time when “good people” didn’t join the military, not voluntarily at least.  Some of us also remember that “good people” shacked up, which made some scratch our heads when same sex civil marriage became a cause.

    Beinart’s angst over this situation is simple: it caused the military to shift to a decidedly “red state” institution.  The problem with that is also simple: now that we have a left-wing régime in power, a right-wing military is a potential obstacle to control, especially when our government starts having serious financial problems.  That’s one reason why Barack Obama wanted a different security force.  He’s like the leader of a banana republic; he’s got to check periodically and make sure the military’s on his side (which is one reason why, IMHO, he didn’t pull the plug in Afghanistan the way he should have.)

    Come to think of it, with our current debt, he is the leader of a banana republic…

    FWIW, I’ll note that Kagan is an Ivy Leaguer, the necessary prerequisite in these United States for avoiding a life of provincial ignominy.

  • War at the Opera: Opening of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser in Paris

    “Classical” music is widely perceived to be boring, but one composer that succeeded in changing that (if we ignore the sheer length of his operas) was Richard Wagner.  Controversial in life and death, he changed the face of Western music in ways that few have, even (in some ways) paving the way for cinematic music of the following century.

    With initial success in Germany, Wagner brought his opera Tannhäuser to Paris, which opened 13 March 1861.  The style was completely new to the Parisians.  Things didn’t go smoothly, as described by Adolphe Jullien in his book Richard Wagner: His Life and Works:

    The first tableau, although it was written quite in Wagner’s latest style, passed without opposition, but when after the change of scene, the strains of the little shepherd were heard, playing upon his pipe, the first murmur of discontent arose.  Wagner, who sat in the director’s box, as yet quite innocent of the meaning of this demonstration, leaned forward in order to command a better view of the audience-room, and remarked to his collaborator who sat beside him: “It is the arrival of the emperor (Napoleon III).”  Alas no! It was the first sign of rebellion from the leaders of the opposition.

    In the entr’acte a bright idea for amusing themselves crossed the minds of these individuals; most of the subscribers, members of the Jockey-Club or of the Cercle Impérial, went out and bought up all of the hunting-whistles they could find in a certain gunsmith’s shop in the passage de l’Opera, and the disturbance recommenced with the second act, increasing to the very end of the performance, save during the march with the chorus, when the whistlers had to subside.  It must be said that in this uproar, the chevaliers of the corps de ballet had been sustained by the personal enemies of the master (Wagner)–he always excelled in creating them–while the impartial spectators, indignant at such pre-conceived hostility, and at such as scandalous outrage, joined their bravos, often very warm ones, to those of Wagner’s friends.

    For an instant it seemed as if the victory would remain to the defenders; but the finale to the second act, encumbered with harps and troubadours, brought irrevocable defeat; of the third, nothing could be distinguished, and the recitative of the pilgrimage to Rome, in particular, the real climax to the whole work, was drowned from beginning to end in furious yells.  The interpreters, however, did not give way before these hostile demonstrations, and at least two distinguished people in the room bravely defended the author: Mme. won Metternich, who seemed to wish to be revenged upon Solferino; and the emperor, who on several occasions gave the signal for applause.

  • Obama Shouldn't Bemoan the Diversions of the Technological World

    He did anyway, in his address to Hampton University:

    US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.

    Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious issues, told a class of graduating university students that education was the key to progress.

    “You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter,” Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

    “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,” Obama said.

    He bemoaned the fact that “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,” in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

    “All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.”

    This is disingenuous.

    First, no politician in American history has used these “new media” better than Barack Obama.  And the diversional aspects of the technology make it easier to advance your own agenda while people are interacting with their electronic devices.

    Second, he’d be better off ignoring what isn’t to his taste than make his press secretary waste press conference time discussing it, as he did here.  OTOH, making Gibbs play “whack a mole” diverts attention from what Obama is really doing…

    Third, a nation where everyone is on the dole to some degree and privacy is eviscerated by the technology he bemoans won’t be a real “democracy” much longer anyway.  That is, in reality, what saved Labour in the UK from a total trashing in this last general election.  Too many people are dependent upon the government to risk losing anything from it, especially when the providers have been in power for 13 years.  Obama figures that, if he can rack up eight years of dependency, they’ll never boot the Democrats.

    But national bankruptcy just might boot many people from their “safe” positions…

  • Our Government's Real Intentions: Obama Dodges Breaking Up Big Banks, and the Continuing Threat to 401(k)'s and 403(b)'s

    The first, from Mother Jones:

    Late on Thursday night, an effort to rein in the mega-banks that brought the American economy to the brink of disaster died on the Senate floor.  Sens. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) had offered an amendment that would have broken up the biggest banks and forced them to scale back the amount of money they borrow to amplify their bets in the financial markets (a reform known as leverage limits). Experts said the Kaufman-Brown amendment, which failed by a vote of 60-33, would have helped safeguard the economy against another crisis. So why did the Obama administration, which has urged Congress to overhaul the financial system, distance itself from—and even oppose—this measure?

    It makes sense that, if one is worried about “too big to fail,” the easiest solution is to keep banks from getting too big!  Breaking up monopolies is a well-honoured technique in this country; Teddy Roosevelt made his reputation in part on “trust busting.”  But our current régime is too much in the pocket of large financial institutions–and too enamoured with centralisation as the answer–to do something that sensible.  And I’m not sure the Republicans, who still think that breaking up large entities is a slap at upward social mobility, have connected the dots on this either.

    The second, from the House Republicans (HT to a relative):

    As members of the Republican Savings Solutions Group, we write today to express our strong opposition to any proposal to eliminate or federalize private-sector defined contribution pension plans, such as 401(k)s, or impose burdensome new requirements upon the businesses, large and small, who choose to offer these plans to their employees.

    The whole idea of centralising the retirement system in the US–with the transitional taxable events as the existing 401(k) and 403(b) holders stampede for the exits–is another irresistible temptation for our centralising élites.

  • Why is Right-Wing Campaign Food Better Than Left-Wing Campaign Food?

    Ben Macintyre at the Times wants to know, and so do we:

    On the Cameron plane in Scotland: prosciutto, mozzarella and peach salad, followed by rare roast lamb on a bed of lentils, with chocolate mousse for dessert. On the Brown bus, in Scotland: a bottle of Irn-Bru and a curly sandwich. George W. Bush served barbecued ribs to the press, whereas Al Gore provided, at most, a packet of M&M’s. Campaigning with Jacques Chirac was a sort of rolling banquet, with every stop involving a minimum of three courses. Lionel Jospin’s campaign served dry brie baguettes. Why is right-wing campaign food consistently better than left-wing campaign food?

    If the left can’t deliver something basic as decent grub on their own, what makes you think they can run your country?

  • American Exceptionalism Thrives in the Obama Administration: It Refuses Foreign Help on BP Oil Spill

    Which says they’re too proud for their own good:

    When State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley refused to tell reporters which countries have offered assistance to help respond to the BP oil spill, the State Department press corps was flabbergasted.

    “As a policy matter, we’re not going to identify those offers of assistance until we are able to see, you know, what we need, assess the ongoing situation. And as we accept those offers of assistance, we will inform you,” Crowley said.

    Reporters pointed out that the Bush administration identified assistance offers after the Katrina disaster, so what is this, a new policy? They pressed Crowley, but he refused to budge.

    Then they mentioned Iran’s offer of assistance, through its National Iranian Drilling Company. Crowley said there was no Iranian offer of assistance, at least in any official capacity. The reporters kept on it, asking why it was taking so long to figure out what was needed in the first place? That’s the Coast Guard’s decision, Crowley explained.

    Late Wednesday evening, the State Department emailed reporters identifying the 13 entities that had offered the U.S. oil spill assistance. They were the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations.

    This is ridiculous.  Forty years ago, the Gulf had something of a monopoly on offshore technology, but no more.

    I’m surprised that the Brazilians haven’t been contacted; they’ve been leaders in deep water technology for a long time.

    If you were hoping for a breakout from American exceptionalism and provincialism with this administration, think again.

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  • Robert Gibbs: When Conspiracy Theories Are Easier to Take Than the Truth

    That’s one way to deflect the sorry reality of the situation:

    “I would not be surprised if the White House said, you know, we might be able to, guess what, do what? Use this crisis to our advantage. Let this crisis get really bad, and then we will step in,” Brown told Neil Cavuto. “We will be able to shut down offshore drilling. We will be able to turn to all these alternate fuels.”

    Gibbs, responding to an oil leak query from (Wendell) Goler, called the network out for failing to challenge Brown, now a conservative Colorado radio host.

    “I watched Fox yesterday — you open both the double doors — and waaah! — here I am,” Gibbs said.

    As Goler tried to calm Gibbs down, the press secretary began talking about “the special and unique interview with Michael Brown, who for those who weren’t let in on the big secret … intimated on Fox and it wasn’t – didn’t appear — to be pushed back on real hard — that this spill was leaked on purpose in order for us to undo decisions.”

    The reality is that our government is completely at sea (pun intended) in this situation, as is the case with many things in the oilfield.  They do not have the capability to deal with a disaster such as this.

    Gibbs could have dispatched Foxnews and Goler by admitting this.  But that would have been worse than looking like a ninny, which he did.

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  • If the Cricket Team Wears Green, It Must Be an Islamic State

    As the Qur’an would say, it’s a clear sign:

    Pakistan was carved out of the Muslim-majority areas of British India in 1947, the world’s first modern nation based solely on Islam. The country’s name means “Land of the Pure.” The capital city is Islamabad. The national flag carries the Islamic crescent and star. The cricket team wears green.

    Humour (or the lack of it) aside, Mr. Dhume is correct: Pakistan was a “first” as an Islamic state in modern times when it was created in 1947.  The separation of Pakistan and India was one of the largest–and bloodiest–mass migrations known in history.

    Although the focus of Christians, Arabs and the Obama Administration is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the India-Pakistan divide (which took place at about the same time) is the largest flash point between the “region of peace” and the “region of war,” to use Islamic terminology.  And both participants have had nuclear weapons for a long time.

    Note: Sadanand Dhume is also the author of My Friend the Fanatic, about another predominantly Muslim country facing stress with its own hard-line Islamicists, Indonesia.  An interesting profile of the Times Square “almost-bomber” is given here by Syed Saleem Shahzad, who is up to his usual excellent game.

  • The Rich and Famous Move to Cut Government Spending

    Well, at least the rich:

    A fledging private effort to rein in the amount of taxes residents pay for county programs is taking shape.

    About a dozen residents met Thursday at the North End (of Palm Beach) home of Town Council President David Rosow to discuss how to achieve that objective, according to resident Stuart Shulman.

    The group is set to meet again May 27, when it will try to decide whether to form a political action committee or work in another way to convince members of the Palm Beach County Commission and other taxing entities such as the school district to spend town residents’ tax dollars wisely, Shulman said.

    “We pay so much taxes to the county and we get so little in return,” Shulman said. “We want to talk to people, go over their budgets and see where we can cut their budgets.”

    Part of the plan is to support candidates for elected offices in the county who pledge fiscal responsibility, Shulman said.

    “That’s pretty much it. If we can help the cut their budget, it will cut our taxes. It affects every single resident of Palm Beach who pays taxes,” Shulman said.

    If we could figure out how to put these people together with those of lesser means, we just might beat this “drunken sailor” spending by our government.  But in our current political climate, don’t hold your breath.

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