Intercepted note from Obama to ice cream shop

Guys, loved the ice cream last night. Just one suggestion: could you rename your vanilla frozen custard "Neda"? It will always remind me of the great time the girls and I had at your shop.

Hope to see you soon.

Your President, bringing the hope and change to the world -- except for Iran, Barrack

Obama's message to Iran is failing

Yes, I know Obama wants to send a measured and -- dare I say it -- nuanced message to Iran's leadership in the hopes of eventually getting Iran to foreswear their nuclear ambitions. On its face this shows how naive the administration is. Iran has no intentions of giving up it's dream of being a regional hegemon, and no matter how Obama tries to put a friend-to-the Muslim-world face on his administration, he'll get little from his efforts.

Perhaps Arab nations will appreciate his not taking Iran out to the verbal woodshed, but it is unlikely any nation will see their national interests altered by Obama's not stepping in with harsh words for Iran's terroristic government.

Other than offer to hold Iran's coat while it puts the boot into its own citizens, Obama has done little in this affair. Being a global realist is one thing, but refusing to speak out forcefully against a theocratic regime is quite another. Obama and his advisors miscalulated on a grand scale.

America is a Muslim nation (as least compared to Muslim nations)

If Muhammad came back to Earth, which countries would he think are doing a better job of upholding the pillars of Islam? Sure wouldn't be any Arab country. They are so corrupt and do so little for their poor that Muhammad would weep to think that nations like Saudi Arabia and Egypt claim a special prestige among the faithful. Arab nations also do very little about cleanliness -- something quite important to the prophet; streets are filthy, government buildings even more so.

Same for non-Arab Muslim nations. Iran and Indonesia? Corrupt and venal to the bone.

Certainly individuals struggle to keep behave as Muhammad would want, but the governments, many of which claim to act in accordance with Islamic values, would be viewed as abominations.

No, Muhammad would look around and pick out Japan, North America and Western Europe as doing the best job of putting his principles into action. People are clean, respectful (well, in Japan, at least), and take good care of the poor. Compared to Muslim nations, which tend to be dirty, corrupt and whose Islamic observances are fixated on the performance of public acts of faith (prayer five times a day) and are obsessed with alcohol and sex, the West is far more in tune with what we understand Muslim values to be.

You can help me win this bike!

I'd really like to win this bike. You can help by clicking this photo. Thanks.

Followed the link from the Podium Cafe, a really good place to follow road bike racing.

Sotomayor: physiology is destiny

Pretty bad on its face. Hopefully she doesn't really think being born female and Hispanic produces a superior person/Supreme Ct. justice:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life....”

Of course, it's possible to take her comments as dumping on her own people. That is, it takes a "wise" Latina to perform better than an average white male, but I think that interpretation can be dismissed given that the context of her quote is comparing wise white males with wise Latinas. Nor is it conceivable that she could have put down her own people -- especially as it appears she embraces her identity.

One thing is certain, any white male uttering such drivel would be forced to withdraw, and rightly so.

This can't be good: potential for warming rate underestimated

From MIT comes this sobering assessment:

The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that.

The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge. Other research groups have estimated the probabilities of various outcomes, based on variations in the physical response of the climate system itself. But the MIT model is the only one that interactively includes detailed treatment of possible changes in human activities as well - such as the degree of economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries.

Time to invest in companies positioned to provide geo-engineering services, because if these predictions are correct, only geo-engineering can have an effect on global temperatures. Certainly China, which is committed to raising its peoples' standard of living, won't slow its rush to build coal fired plants. Nor will the rest of the developing world put aside their dreams of better lives.

Followed the link from The Cost of Energy

Obama nearly had me w/his national security speech

Overall, I was enjoying Obama's national security speech. Yes, he got in several gratuitous political digs, but on the whole he sounded pretty good. Good, that is, until I heard this, which made wonder if he really understands the nature of Islamic terror (emphasis supplied):

And I do know with certainty that we can defeat al Qaeda. Because the terrorists can only succeed if they swell their ranks and alienate America from our allies, and they will never be able to do that if we stay true to who we are; if we forge tough and durable approaches to fighting terrorism that are anchored in our timeless ideals.

Actually, what swells the terrorists' ranks is the fact that America is America. They can't abide our tolerance, our values, our culture. In short they hate us, and join terrorist plots precisely because we stay true to who we are, not because of anything we've done since 9/11. Closing Gitmo, and ceasing all EITs will make us feel better about ourselves, but it won't stop terrorists from seeking our destruction or subjugation. Only a naif would claim this.

Soaring rhetoric, to be sure. But it masks a blind spot big enough to fly a jumbo jet through.

Study: Muslims misunderstood, blame natives for not being nicer to them

So quoth the AP:

Joblessness and poverty are a more potent source of tension between Muslims and wider European and U.S. society than religious differences, one of the first major studies of Muslim integration since the Sept. 11 terror attacks claimed on Thursday.

I see it as a chicken or egg question. Many Muslims spent years refusing to integrate (at the same time, little was asked of them by their host countries). Consequently, jobs and education were hard to come by, leading to reduced opportunities and expectations.

The survey also offers this, which is contradicted by nearly all previous studies, and by Muslim protesters around Europe:

Another key finding of the study was that that Muslims don't prioritize their faith over patriotism

If we listen to many of the more firebrand (and thus quoted) imans, to be a Muslim requires a certain separation between Muslim and non-Muslim, making integration a tricky thing, indeed.

I suspect many of the responses to this latest survey were self-serving. Perhaps a survey of how Muslims sought to integrate and were rebuffed could be performed.

Hmm, maybe Obama is changing the world's opinion of America

Many of my favorite bloggers on the right side of blogland are quick to point out that Obama's election hasn't materialy changed the world's opinion of us. After all, they rightly point out, Muslim terrorists haven't loosened their grip on their weapons in order to respond to our Messiah., and just because people love the man, doesn't mean that nations will alter their policies to dovetail with our interests.

Now, however, there is evidence that Obama's appeal is leading to opportunities to push the fabled "reset" button. Hillary Clinton is in Lebanon to urge the Lebanese to vote for moderates, something that under Bush would have been the kiss of death -- probably literally -- for the moderates.

Let's see if Obama's coat tails extend to the Near East.