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Jennifer Rubin spots the difference between two presidents.
Secretary of State John Kerry’s testimony on Tuesday served to remind us how a single presidential decision can have monumental effects. For the president who said a decade of war was ending, the decision not to act in a bloody war in which WMD’s had been repeatedly used was the tipping point in an already floundering foreign policy. The contrast with his predecessor is stark.
George W. Bush’s arguably finest moment as president and President Obama’s worst moment involved a similar dilemma: When does the commander in chief put country above politics and lead on foreign policy despite the adverse political consequences? When the chips were really down, Bush championed the surge in Iraq; when the chips were down in Syria for violation of the red line, Obama blinked.
Bush went outside the chain of command to find experts and a general to devise a new strategy when he saw the war strategy wasn’t going well. Obama hid behind obvious catastrophizing by the military when he decided to avoid holding to his red line.
Bush took full responsibility for the strategy. Obama claimed it wasn’t “his red line,” but Congress’s and the international community’s.
Bush knew it would cost him politically and his party the House. (It did.) Obama saw the results of the vote in the British parliament and ran for cover. He punted the decision at the last moment to Congress to provide him with a vote on authorization for use of force. …
Jonathan Tobin explains Kerry’s lies about Israel.
… Kerry probably thinks no harm can come from blaming the Israelis who have always been the convenient whipping boys of the peace process no matter what the circumstances. But he’s wrong about that too. Just as the Clinton administration did inestimable damage to the credibility of the peace process and set the stage for another round of violence by whitewashing Yasir Arafat’s support for terrorism and incitement to hatred in the 1990s, so, too, do Kerry’s efforts to portray Abbas as the victim rather than the author of this fiasco undermine his efforts for peace.
So long as the Palestinians pay no price for their refusal to give up unrealistic demands for a Jewish retreat from Jerusalem as well as the “right of return” for the 1948 refugees and their descendants and a refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and end the conflict, peace is impossible no matter what the Netanyahu government does. Appeasing them with lies about Israel, like the efforts of some to absolve Arafat and Abbas for saying no to peace in 2000, 2001, and 2008, only makes it easier for the PA to go on saying no. Whether they are doing so in the hope of extorting more concessions from Israel or because, as is more likely, they have no intention of making peace on any terms, the result is the same.
Telling the truth about the Palestinians might make Kerry look foolish for devoting so much time and effort to a process that never had a chance. But it might lay the groundwork for future success in the event that the sea change in Palestinian opinion that might make peace possible were to occur. Falsely blaming Israel won’t bring that moment any closer.
Charlie Gasparino provides another grown-up look at Michael Lewis’ book about high frequency trading.
It’s easy to bash Wall Street as the root cause of all financial problems (and some non-financial ones), which is why Michael Lewis is getting away with blowing so much smoke about the latest supposed ripoff of the “little guy.”
Easy, but completely and utterly disingenuous.
The “scandal” Lewis points to in a new book (and in his high-profile publicity campaign) is something called high-frequency trading, or HFT. In a scam of epic proportions, we’re told, smart Wall Street fellows can miraculously figure out when, where and how much stock you, the individual investor, want to buy — and then rip you off.
The HFT guys supposedly do this by jumping in front of your order at the speed of light and forcing you to pay more for a stock than you would’ve if the high-speed computer never existed. Even as the market hits record highs, Lewis wants you to believe the system is rigged.
The book is a fast read — as long as you suspend your disbelief over Lewis’ thesis: These evil traders are screwing the American people once again, just as they did during the financial crisis.
But, as with that easy lefty interpretation of the 2008 crisis, Lewis conveniently leaves out some important facts …
Well, here’s something to burst some bubbles! According to a study from Great Britain the consumption of organic foods does little to help women avoid cancer. You’ll learn a new word here – boffin. It is British slang for scientist or technical expert. Sounds derogatory, but it’s not. So you wouldn’t call someone a boffo boffin because it would tend to be redundant. The story come from The Register, which looks to be a Brit equivalent to Wired.
One of the primary drivers of the growth in organic food sales over the last couple of decades is the perception that organic food is healthier than conventionally farmed food.
It stands to reason, doesn’t it? After all conventional crops depend on chemicals and organic food doesn’t.
And we all know that chemicals, in this case mainly pesticides, are bad for you. Ergo organic food should be healthier, and the strong growth in organic food sales (up 2.8 per cent last year, after a few years of downturn during the recession) attests to how popular opinion has accepted this assertion.
This is why the results of a new UK study that looked at cancer risk and the consumption of organic food is so damned inconvenient. Where organic food advocates have pushed organics as a way of reducing cancer risk, the study shows that it makes little difference one way or another. Hence uncomfortable headlines from the likes of the Daily Mail: Eating organic foods does NOTHING to reduce the cancer risk among women, says new study.
The study in question appears in the latest edition of the British Journal of Cancer and is by OxfordUniversity cancer epidemiology boffin Dr Kathryn Bradbury and co-workers. Part of the Million Women Study funded by Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council, this particular bit of research tracked 623,080 middle-aged British women for almost 10 years and looked at their pattern of organic food consumption and the incidence of 16 different cancer types, as well as overall cancer incidence. …
Since we’re in the business of bursting bubbles today, how about a blind taste test for violins? Do you think the $3 million Stradivari did well? A blog named Phys.Org has the answers.
Ten world-class soloists put costly Stradivarius violins and new, cheaper ones to a blind scientific test. The results may seem off-key to musicians and collectors, but the new instruments won handily.
When the lights were dimmed and the musicians donned dark glasses, the soloists’ top choice out of a dozen old and new violins tested was by far a new one. So was the second choice, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Of the six old violins tested, five were by made by the famous Stradivari family in the 17th and 18th centuries. The newer violins were about 100 times cheaper, said study co-author Joseph Curtin, a Michigan violin maker. But the Strads and other older Italian violins have long been considered superior, even almost magical.
The idea was to unlock “the secrets of Stradivari,” the study said.
So the study tries to quantify something that is inherently subjective and personal, the quality of an instrument, said Curtin and lead author Claudia Fritz of Pierre and MarieCurieUniversity in France. A few years earlier, the duo tested violins blind in an Indianapolis hotel room, but this one was more controlled and comprehensive, putting the instruments through their paces in a rehearsal room and concert hall just outside Paris. They even played with an orchestra, the results of which will be part of a future study.
“I was surprised that my top choice was new,” said American violinist Giora Schmidt. …
Late night humor from Andy Malcolm.
Conan: Did you know, Texas was an independent nation that bordered the U.S. from 1836 to 1845? And then in 1845, the U.S. surrendered to Texas.
Fallon: The White House says it’s surpassed its goal for people enrolled in ObamaCare. Man, it’s amazing what you can achieve when you make something mandatory and fine people if they don’t do it, and keep extending the deadline for months.
Fallon: If you don’t enroll in ObamaCare you might get a penalty of 1% of your salary. Then Americans said, “Man — good thing I don’t have a job!” …