Friday 905P Eastern Time:  David Weidner, WSJ, Marketwatch.com, re Bush tax cuts win-win-win.

Friday 920P Eastern Time:  James Taranto, WSJ, re national security.

Friday 935P Eastern Time: Elizabeth Rosenthal, NYT, re fossil fuels and biomass.

Friday 950P Eastern Time:  Catherine Rampell, NYT, re Broadway "Spiderman" costs.

 

Friday 1005P (705P Pacific Time): Andrew Martin, NYT, Bank of America and foreclosures.

Friday 1020P (720P Pacific Time): Mark Oppenheimer, NYT, re evangelicalism, creationism and astronomy.

Friday 1035P (735P Pacific Time): Lawrence Solomon, Foreign Policy, Ontario renewable energy.

Friday 1050P (750P Pacific Time): Matt Kaminski, WSJ, re Petraeus in Afghanistan.

 

Friday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):Wide Awake: What I Learned About Sleep from Doctors, Drug Companies, Dream Experts, and a Reindeer Herder in the Arctic Circle - by Patricia Morrisroe .

Friday 1120P (820P Pacific Time): Wide Awake: What I Learned About Sleep from Doctors, Drug Companies, Dream Experts, and a Reindeer Herder in the Arctic Circle - by Patricia Morrisroe.

Friday 1135P (835P Pacific Time): Michael Barbaro, NYT, re Bloomberg for president?

Friday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):  Peter Bogudski, Princeton University, 5000 year old door.

 

Friday/Sat 1205A (905 Pacific Time): Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West by Stephen Fried.

Friday/Sat  1220A (920 Pacific Time): Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West by Stephen Fried.

Friday/Sat  1235A (935P Pacific Time): Jane Addams: Spirit in Action by Louise W. Knight.

Friday/Sat  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.

 

Friday 1150P (850P Pacific Time): continued .

Friday/Sat 1205A (905 Pacific Time): Ellison continued.

Friday/Sat  1220A (920 Pacific Time): Ellison continued.

Friday/Sat  1235A (935P Pacific Time): Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks - by Micah Toub

 .

Friday/Sat  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.

Co-host: Joseph Brusuelas, Bloomberg senior economic analyst

Thursday 905P Eastern Time: Mary Kissel, WSJ editorial board, in re: good time to be thankful that the economy appears to be on a modest upswing; also, 6,000-plus earmarks avoided; do we choose a lackluster recovery, such as we have now, or shall we have a responsible Congress?  Joseph Brusuelas:  housing deleveraging still in process, will take years to work off that debt.  DPRK: the Bill Richardson trip included a lot of preening; as "sanctioned by the White House" - which the WH denied, and the trip undermined our ally in South Korea.

Thursday 920P Eastern Time:  Gene Countryman, NewsRadio AM 1330 KNSS, Wichita, Kansas, in re: the economy in the heart of the country: doing well because we have three pillars - agriculture, aviation, and oil & gas. Land prices are good. New wind turbine company. Kansas means "People of he South Wind."No Democrat is left at the State level in Kansas.  Koch Brothers headquartered in Wichita. J Brusuelas: Most of the country is addicted to "meds and eds," will go through a structural adjustment.  

Thursday 935P Eastern Time: Gregory Zuckerman, WSJ and author, The Greatest Trade Ever, in re: gold, and insider trading

Thursday 950P Eastern Time:  Rich Tullo, chief analyst, Albert Fried and Co, in re:  Net neutrality. Waiting for FCC to put on its website the rules it promised to promulgate. None of this makes sense till we have the rules and specificity.  The FCC has decided to say that wireless broadband should not be regulated, whereas telephony - cell phone signals to animate an iPad, for example - ought to be regulated.  Thus, the feds choose a winner and a loser.  Advantage will go to companies that want to provide content without operating the broadband (e.g., hulu) - OTS, over the tops service. Creating a regulatory arbitrage - and nontransparently till the FCC finally publishes what it promised.

 

Thursday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD; Arif Rafiq, ForeignPolicy.com, in re: first recorded instance of the capture of Qods Force operative in Afghanistan. The operative doubled as a Taliban commander and shipped weapons from Iran to Kandahar province.

Thursday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  John Loftus, Esq, author, America's Nazi Secret, in re: WikiLeaks. Julian Assange's monopoly on the 251,000 cables has been broken - Oslo's Aftenposten has a copy.  Little Julian has been sidelined. He now announces that he's too important a figure in the world, that Cameron and the British people would never allow him to be extradited to the US.  Meanwhile, Pvt Bradley Manning stands to face the death penalty, and so probably will flip to testify against Assange. Possible itinerary: Assange to Sweden, then to the US. Cables: Anna Nicole Smith in the Bahamas; McDonald's tries to pressure El Salvador; after Iran jams the signals of the BBC's Persian TV service, Britain looks for ways to limit the operations of the Iranian state broadcaster in the UK.  

 

Thursday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Joe Rago, WSJ, in re: Sibellius regulations re what is "unreasonable profit" for insurers under Obamacare? 

Thursday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):  Mark Schroder, Stratfor, in re: Ivory Coast turmoil, Gbagbo  shunned by EU and endorsed by Angola 

 

Thursday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):  Andrew Martin NYT, in re: foreclosure errors and house ransackings by banks

Thursday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  Marko Papic, Stratfor, in re: Byelarus election, and the Stalinist Lite of Alexander Lukashenko moves closer to Kremlin,   

Thursday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Nicholas Wade, NYT, in re: house fly brains teach about neurons in the human brain

Thursday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):  Ben Casselman, WSJ, in re: Gulf of Mexico energy infrastructure outdated and fragile and not inspected. 

 

Thursday/Fri 1205A (905 Pacific Time):    Mallory Factor, co-founder of The Monday Meeting, in re: America in 2011 (and is broke).

Thursday/Fri  1220A (920 Pacific Time):  Dan Henninger, WSJ, cheerful at Christmas, looking to the New Year and the new Congress, 112th

Thursday/Fri  1235A (935P Pacific Time):  H.W. Brands, author, American Colossus.

Thursday/Fri  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.

Co-host: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents

Thursday 905P Eastern Time:  David Drucker, Roll Call, in re: remaining business in the Senate today: Omnibus spending bill, Dream Act, DADT

Thursday 920P Eastern Time:  Patrick O'Connor, Dow Jones, in re:  About the tax bill, 250 Democratic votes plus a few Blue Dogs; how many Republican?  "The partisan warfare that has characterized the lame-duck session enveloped the Senate's debate over the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty on Wednesday, with Republicans' vowing to block ratification and Democrats' countering that the GOP has negotiated in bad faith."

Thursday 935P Eastern Time:  John Loftus, Esq, in re: WikiLeaks, Assange's release from prison today

Thursday 950P Eastern Time:  Adam Nossiter, NYT, Ivory Coast bloodshed 

 

Thursday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Shelley Berkley (D-NV-1), in re:  . . .  Stuart Levey.  palestinain leaders refuse to act like grown-ups, which leaves the Palestinian people to be treated like children and endure a see-saw, a bouncing ball of politics.  JB: Shelley Berkley speaks for the United States, not for any party; hope she runs for Senate.

Thursday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  Michael B. Oren, ambassador from Israel to the US, in re: Arab League advises that it no longer supports continued negotiations.  BBC: 'Arab foreign ministers have rejected further Palestinian-Israeli peace talks without a "serious offer" from the US on ending the Middle East conflict."  US Congress has made an historic decision to maintain Israel's capacity to protect itself; in response to the sale to Saudi Arabia, redress the imbalance with Israeli purchases of jets.  Refugees, borders, security, Jerusalem, are the central issues in the talks.  Mr Abbas: if he can turn to South and Central American countries and the UN, not have to recognize Israel or make real peace, why should he do it?  That's why yesterday's Congressional resolution is so important.

Thursday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: Durban I: originally a conference called in South Africa to deal with xenophobia and racism, turned into a marathon against Israel.  Durban II had one keynoter, Ahmadinejad, and failed. Now the UN has voted to approve a Durban III - the week after 9/11 of 2011, in New York - to celebrate Durban I.  Canada and other states have announced they will not participate in such a travesty.  Richard Holbrooke: had an overwhelming personality; he and his mother were my guests in Germany. Once he called me, asked me to meet him immediately; Malcolm left a meeting, raced over - and was taken into the General Assembly, seated next to Holbrooke, to clarify to the Arab nations the position of the United States. Iran: a Basij general has threatened to kill US general in reaction to Stuxnet - a gangster state casually exposes its ethos tot he world.  Ahmadinejad is confident that he won't be reproached.  Has threatened to destroy the tomb of Queen Esther in Hamadan.  Mottaki fired, replaced by the nuclear weapons negotiator; turmoil in the Cabinet? No - a demonstration of power. Ahmadinejand fired Mottaki when he was overseas.  Montazeri was supposed to be successor; he died and the junior Ahmadinejad secured his power. It's a Stalinist state. Said that he's cut Hizballah's budget by 40%  Stuart Levey, Dept of the Treasury, works on interrupting illegal flows of cash to Teheran; the Hizballah budget curt may be due to his good work; also inadequate funds to refuel leadership's jets. Jundalla and he explosions.  Rather than the regime's growing weaker, the leader simply tightens its grip on the populace and makes them suffer more.

Thursday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):  Dina Siegel Vann, director, Latino and Latin American Institute, AJC, in re:  in 2005 Chavez signed a cooperative relationship treaty with Iran, which is now active in multiple Latin American countries. Recall the 1992 attack in Buenos Aires, and another in 1994; proven unequivocally that Hizballah ran the attacks. We need to be clear about the scope of the danger and stop it before it becomes too late.   Anti-Jewishness now expressed openly and physical attack s in Venezuela. In Brazil and Argentina, in the last week both countries recognized a unilaterally-declared Palestinian stat within the 1967 borders. This is occurring when the US has established  new framework for peace in the Middle East.  There are large - huge - Palestinian communities in Chile, Brazil, Argentina. 

 

Thursday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):  David Makovsky, Washington Institute, in re: Israeli-Palestinian talks and negotiations. Arab foreign ministers now reject the peace talks, endorses Abbas's rejection.   This administration made a mistake in setting the bar to high on the settlements issue, and so boxed in both Netanyahu and Abbas. Now we see a refocus, jettisoning the appetisers, turning to the main course. The US now will be negotiating with each side; the differences are narrower than people think so there's some basis for continuing. Rooting out imams who agitate  for suicide bombings, reducing manned checkpoints from 42 to 1, building 120 new schools, and the like. In the Middle East, when it's all or nothing, it's always nothing.  You can make progress on a host of minor issues, but when you deny someone's holy sites, you bring everything to a halt. Last year, the totality  of disagreements was 4% of the issues. Unilateralism: not going to be solved that way. In the Middle East, two can be unilateral.  

Thursday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  Herb Keinon, dip correspondent, JPost, in re: Arab foreign ministers reject peace talks; they threaten to take the whole settlement issue to the Security Council. Tactically, smart for Arabs, as that's Israel's Achilles' heel.  To go to the General Assembly would be a no-brainer.  Let the world know that there were 750,000 Palestinian refugees, while there were 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab nations: all obliged to flee, their property was seized, no court to hear the cases. Israel has absorbed that depredation all this time without complaint.

Thursday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Bret Stephens, WSJ, in re: Europe needs a tea party   

Thursday 1150P (850P Pacific Time): Joshua Teitelbaum, Hoover, in re:  Saudi succession   

 

Thursday/Fri 1205A (905 Pacific Time): Dan Henninger, WSJ, in re: what are taxes for?   

Thursday/Fri  1220A (920 Pacific Time): Michael Slackman, NYT, in re: German raids on Islamic centers      

Thursday/Fri  1235A (935P Pacific Time):  Abbas Milani, Hoover, and author, 

Thursday/Fri  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.  

.

First Island Chain: Japan, the Ryukyus and Taiwan;

first barrier to China's navy having free access to the Pacific

______________________________________________________

Co-hosts: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com; Jeff Bliss, The Bliss Index

Wednesday 905P Eastern Time (605P Pacific Time):  Joseph Sternberg, WSJ Asia, in re: WikiLeaks methods drip into China's uncomfortable leadership. Intellectual property. "China WikiLeaks Itself: Perhaps the threat of cyber crime will finally lead to a long-awaited intellectual-property epiphany."   Who will be the Chinese Bradley Manning, the Chinese Julian Assange?

Wednesday 920P Eastern Time (620P Pacific Time):  Gordon Chang, in re:  Inflation in China: in 1989 China suffered inflation and reacted too little too late. Has no independent operation comparable to the Fed.  Wen Jia-bao makes decisions. Currently 5.1%; fourth-generation leaders will give way to fifth-generation leaders in 2012, and no one wants to be responsible for a big decision right now. Rare earths: in September, China cut off exports to Japan, then three weeks later to the US and EU.  Is China going into reverse on almost everything? A real problem in the political system; we need to worry about it all.  Beijing's tone becoming increasingly belligerent, causing neighbors to turn to the US for protection. In 2002, Pakistan sent P2 centrifuges to DPRK, used Chinese military facilities to implement the exchange.

Chinese Shelter Operator Is Accused of Selling Laborers: A pig farmer who operated a shelter in Szechuan Province was detained, and the police seized the owner of a construction materials company.   Also, Amid Tension, South Korea Holds Nationwide Air-Raid Drill: Fighter planes roared overhead and schoolchildren were hustled into subway stations in Seoul, a city still tense after last month's artillery exchange. 

Wednesday 935P Eastern Time (635P Pacific Time): Devin Nunes (CA-21), and David Drucker, Roll Call, in re: Hotel California. Devin Nunes has written a pension bill; Gov Schwarzenegger has recently admitted that the Cal pension system is in rough shape.  Cong Nunes's bill:  These old Socialists never go away; they just believe that the next exit off the highway will be that last exit to Utopia. Bluntly, not everyone can work for the government. There are 2,500 public pensions across the country; we ask for each to report. If not, why should we subsidize your taxpayer-sponsored government bonds? Transparency?  Yikes.  DN: if they fight it, let's go, let's fight it. The next meltdown will be in state and municipal pensions, in pensions and bond debts. (The munis are attached to the states's inability to repay their bond obligations.) These subprimes are offering 8 to 12%; private businesses can't muster 4%.  The governor is really up against it.  

Wednesday 950P Eastern Time (650P Pacific Time):  Michael Moore, Bloomberg, in re: bonuses at Goldman and J P Morgan Chase (for Dimon and Blankfein)

 

Wednesday 1005P Eastern  (705P Pacific Time):  Martin Fackler, NYT Tokyo bureau chief; Gordon Chang; Jeff Bliss, in re: Japan has had painful relations with both China and Korea for centuries; now, however, as DPRK turns extremely dangerous and China militarily challenges the interests of all East and South Asia, Japan needs to emerge from its post-WWII shell and take a lead role in protecting independence and democracies. Adm Mullen pushed for South Korea and Japan to collaborate; South Korea remembers the fearful Japanese depredations and resists.  Meanwhile Chinese aggression in the East China Sea obliges Japan to defend the First Island Chain, although domestic Japanese public opinion tends to be passive. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces are proud of their training and history, a bit less passive.  Okinawa bears too much of the burden: 75% of US bases are in that one prefecture. Nonetheless, the alliance with the US has worked for 60 years, protected Japan, and allowed t to achieve an excellent economy, so not yet time to jettison the collaboration.

Japan plans military shift to focus more on China, is about to release guidelines reducing forces pointed toward Russia in favor of units that can respond to China 

Wednesday 1020P Eastern (720P Pacific Time):  Reza Kahlili, atimetobetray.com, in re:  Iran's plan to kill American generals is not an idle threat; a Basij general is making a clear warning to the US military, feel pain of the assassination of their top nuclear scientist, for whom they had high hope to solve the Stuxnet virus; are worried about their future. The al Quds force is capable of projecting power very widely; can execute US generals in Iraq and Afghanistan, Middle East and Europe.  Most Iranians are frightened that these madmen are taking them toward war but the populace are prisoners. High level of anxiety among Iranian people. Terror attack in Iran associated with Jandallah, which is also active in Baluchistan; Teheran accuses them of being supported by the CIA.  Right now, there's division among the IRGC; if the US increases pressure, the government might collapse - why are the US and Europe silent?  Minister Mottaki was fired: trouble at the top - Parliament, president, Khamenei, the clerics in Qum, and across the spectrum.

Wednesday 1035P Eastern  (735P Pacific Time):  Toshi Yoshihara, author, Red Star over the Pacific, and Naval War College, in re: Tokyo can't defend its key interests without he backing of the US Navy.  Joint exercises and close jointness are relatively new. In the past decade, Japan has signed on to peacekeeping operations, now find that their assets need to be closer at home to defend their own island, protect its own territory.  Not historically designed for force projection, more for self-defense.  Ongoing service dispute within Japanese forces, will need to break down institutional practices among the services. Boomers (missile-bearing submarines): the kind of technology are sensitive. Underwater detections system to discern Soviet subs breaking through the First Island Chai; can apply this to Chinese subs.   China will therefore have to limit its travels to the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea till it can defeat US and Japanese technology. Chinese subs are noisy; re building missile boats to control the bastion seas and push out in to the Pacific. Execute an "anti-access strategy": missile lethal to our surface combattants, esp the "Carrier Killer," 2,000 km launched from Chinese mainland to create a no-go zone against the US. Then their Boomers can operate with relative immunity. The Yellow Sea is thus their strength - and their weakness. Having the Senkaku Islands: having the dispute is a managed conflict with Japan; is strategic in that China sees them as part of a broader package to weaken Japan and Thence Taiwan.  See: Sir Julian Stafford Corbett*.

Wednesday 1050P Eastern (750P Pacific Time): Andrew Jacobs, NYT, in re: ethnic Mongolian dissident released by China is missing - Hada, imprisoned on charges of espionage and "separatism," was released last week when his 15-year term was up, but remains missing along with his son and wife.

 

Wednesday 1105P  Eastern (805P Pacific Time): Gordon Chang, and Bruce Bechtol, Angelo State, in re: 

Wednesday 1120P Eastern (820P Pacific Time):  Tom Keene, Bloomberg, in re: US recovery in train?

Wednesday 1135P Eastern  (835P Pacific Time):  Fouad Ajami, Hoover, in re: remembering Richard Holbrooke

Wednesday 1150P Eastern  (850P Pacific Time):  John Bolton, AEI, in re: New START in the Senate debate

 

Wednesday/Thurs 1205A  Eastern (905 Pacific Time):  Mark Schroeder, Stratfor, in re: Ivory Coast face-off and bloodshed 

Wednesday/Thurs  1220A Eastern (920 Pacific Time):  James Taranto, WSJ, in re: Obamacare, the courts, Eric Holder, Kathleen Sebelius

Wednesday/Thurs  1235A  Eastern (935P Pacific Time):  Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, author, Dreaming of Eden

Wednesday/Thurs  1250A  Eastern (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.

.

Co-host: Larry Kudlow, 77WABC radio and CNBC

Tuesday 905P Eastern Time: Jeremy Siegel, Warden School, in re: Fed Policy

Tuesday 920P Eastern Time: Larry Kudlow, CNBC and 77WABC, in re: Bush tax cut deal

Tuesday 935P Eastern Time:  Greg Zuckerman, author, in re: gold bull and inflation

Tuesday 950P Eastern Time: Joe Brusuelas, Bloomberg, in re: Retail sales and GDP 2011

 

Tuesday 1005P (705P Pacific Time): Joe Rago, WSJ, in re: Obamacare challenge in federal court

Tuesday 1020P (720P Pacific Time): Larry Kudlow, CNBC and 77WABC, in re: Mitt Romney and the Bush tax cut deal

Tuesday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Louise Story, NYT, in re: derivatives and the big banks

Tuesday 1050P (750P Pacific Time): John Loftus, author, in re: Assange, bail and a secret grand jury in VA

 

Tuesday 1105P (805P Pacific Time): Bill McGurn, WSJ, in re: billionaires and class warfare

Tuesday 1120P (820P Pacific Time): Mark Schroeder, Stratfor, in re: Cot D'Ivore

Tuesday 1135P (835P Pacific Time): Bob Zimmerman, BehindTheBlack.com, in re: Virgin Galactic, Voyager

Tuesday 1150P (850P Pacific Time): Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times, Michael Steele runs again

 

Tuesday/Wed 1205A (905 Pacific Time): Ravi Somaiya, NYT, in re: Stockholm bomber

Tuesday/Wed  1220A (920 Pacific Time): Paul Dales, Capital Economics, in re: retail sales / GDP

Tuesday/Wed  1235A (935P Pacific Time): Richard Epstein, Hoover Institution, in re: Henry Hudson decision on healthcare unconstitutional 

Tuesday/Wed  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt. Jeff Bliss, The Bliss Index, in re: Cuban cigars

 

 .

"Henry Clay may have thundered at those who opposed him privately but, outwardly, he would never have called call his opponents 'hostage-takers.' Why? Because it would have placed him in a position of weakness -- exactly where Obama is right now, oddly portraying himself as a victim."  see below, 935P

Co-hosts: John Avlon, CNN and The Daily Beast

Monday 905P Eastern Time (605P Pacific Time):   Phil Izzo, Dow Jones, in re: economic growth

Monday 920P Eastern Time (620P Pacific Time):   David Drucker, Roll Call, in re:  Cornyn shifts to Phase 2 of majority battle plan, volunteered for a second consecutive tour of duty as National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman to finish the job of reclaiming a GOP majority in 2012. 

Monday 935P Eastern Time (635P Pacific Time):   Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in re:Last week's tax-cut deal was no compromise. It was a log roll.  Henry Clay may have thundered at those who opposed him privately but, outwardly, he would never have called call his opponents "hostage-takers." Why? Because it would have placed him in a position of weakness -- exactly where Obama is right now, oddly portraying himself as a victim. 

Monday 950P Eastern Time (650P Pacific Time):   Adam Nagourney, NYT, in re: Los Angeles seeks to shed homelessness reputation  

Monday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):   Taegan Goddard, PoliticalWire, in re: Poll finds broad support for tax deal. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that 69% of Americans back the tax deal negotiated last week by President Obama and congressional Republicans.

Large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike favor the agreement -- including 69% of liberal Democrats. Also: More Republicans come out against Palin - several more prominent Republicans have questioned Sarah Palin's qualifications for president because she quit in the middle of her term as Alaska governor. 

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) told the Kansas City Star, "I have reservations about anyone who quits as governor halfway through the term." 

Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman (R) told CNN that, "I mean, she was a governor. But the fact that she left office before even completing her first term is -- that's just not an attitude that I think is necessarily in the best interest of your constituents -- rather what's in your best interests."


Monday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):   continued: Obama approval hits new low - a new McClatchy-Marist poll finds President Obama's approval rating has fallen to 42% -- the lowest of his presidency.   

Monday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):   Bill Roggio, FDD, and Ann Marlowe, Forbes.com and WorldAffairs.org, in re: Afghan developments in civil society, Zabul Province.  In some respects, the presence of US troops has brought new violence.  The road from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif is now safe again (it's the north that's the bulwark that's keeping the Taliban at bay). The east is a work in progress: Khost Province shows some progress but has the same ominous signs one hears in Kandahar: a shift from bombs and IEDs to targetted assassinations of officials.

Monday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):   Arif Rafiq, Pakistan Policy blog, and Bill Roggio, in re: Amb Richard Holbrooke, as he was being rolled into surgery, told the surgeon, a Pakistani, said, "You've go to stop this war in Pakistan." US gives $1.5 bil PA to Pakistan; "the benefits will be seen long-term," say the American pols. Not to try, however, would alienate our friends there. VBIED attacks and kills six US soldiers in Kandahar Province, called "the heart of darkness."

The ruling family of North Korea may be made up of homicidal despots currently threatening South Korea with nuclear war, but they know their British rock legends. CNN reports that one of the leaked diplomatic cables WikiLeaks published reveals that a North Korean official suggested that the United States arrange an Eric Clapton concert in Pyongyang as an act of "good will."

Kim Jong Chol is Kim Jong Il's middle son and his oldest child with 4th wife Ko Yong Hui.  He was born 25 September 1981 in Pyongyang.  He grew up in Pyongyang at a residence near Samsok District (Samsok-kuyok), Pyongyang.  From 1994 to 1998, Kim Jong Chol attended the International School of Berne under the pseudonym Pak Chol. 

(left) Kim Jon Choi at lower left, in school under pseudonym Pak Chol.

Monday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):   Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re:    Chinese inflation, which is starting to gallop out of control (poor people spend half  their income on food), and the cadres haven't yet hit the panic button. Once before, they panicked too late and sent the economy into a tailspin.  Fine if China sells US debt.  No one is watching North Korea. US is overstretched in troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; since South Korea hasn't responded to recent provocations, the north is irrationally emboldened. In the south, former peaceniks are suddenly outraged, so in case of a bad act by the Kim regime Pres Lee will be obliged to do something, possibly generating a spiral.  Meanwhile, the north is in a complex succession situation, while in Beijing, the PLA is taking over more power.  One Kim son listens to Eric Clapton and one enjoys murdering people. In Burma, China supports the junta. When DPRK wants to transfer dangerous materials to Burma, such as nuclear materials, it does so through China.

Monday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):   Mary Anastasia O'Grady, WSJ, in re: troubled Haitian elections. The Haitian general election, originally scheduled in Haiti for 28 February 2010, was postponed to 28 November due to the January 2010 earthquake. Ten senators and all 99 deputies were to be elected. Presidential elections were also held, with a run-off scheduled for 16 January as no candidate received 50 percent of the votes cast. Candidates for run-off: 1. Jude Celestin, founder and executive director of the government's road-building outfit, the National Center of Equipment, and member of President René Préval's Unity (Inite) party. 2. Mirlande Manigat, a longtime opposition leader, professor, and former first lady.  3. Michel Martelly, a compas musician and entertainer whose lyrics have poked fun at the concept of the Haitian presidency.    Examples of commentary in French and Creo:http://www.haitielections2010.com/details.php?id=359 

Monday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):   John Loftus, Esq, in re:  America's secret Nazi agents in the Cold War. Lebed [pron: lyeh-bed], the Ukrainian monster. CIA, Moslem Brothers, Pakistan, Saudis. ("CIA didn't hire ObL; Bush did.") Justice and State desperately want to cover up the fact that they've been involved with some of the worst characters in  modern times.

Monday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):   Gretchen Morenson, NYT, in re:  the new FHFA boss - Mr Smith goes to Washington

 

Monday/Tues 1205A (905 Pacific Time):   Kamran Bokhari, Stratfor.com, in re:   Ahmadinejad fires Mottaki

Monday/Tues  1220A (920 Pacific Time):   Julian Piquet, The Hill, in re: federal judge rules health-care bill mandates unconstitutional

Monday/Tues  1235A (935P Pacific Time):   Adam Nossiter, NYT, in re: Ivory Coast - two presidents; trouble  

Monday/Tues  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.  

 

The fired Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and his replacement, Ali Akbar Salehi.

Saturday 11 December 2010

Saturday 905P Eastern Time:  America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History (Conspiracy Theories) -  by John Loftus     

Saturday 920P Eastern Time: continued.

        

Saturday 935P Eastern Time:  Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt by Robert Gottlieb.       

Saturday 950P Eastern Time:  continued.        

 

Saturday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer by Steven Malanga.    

Saturday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  continued.

       

Saturday 1035P (735P Pacific Time): The Hellhound of Wall Street: How Ferdinand Pecora's Investigation of the Great Crash Forever Changed American Finance by Michael Perino.        

 Saturday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):  continued.    

 

Saturday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):  Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception by Charles Seife.       

Saturday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  continued.       

Saturday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder.       

Saturday 1150P (850P Pacific Time): continued.        

 

Saturday/Sun 1205A (905 Pacific Time):  continued.    

Saturday/Sun 1220A: (920 Pacific Time):  continued.    

Saturday/Sun 1235A: (935P Pacific Time):  Driving on the Rim by Thomas McGuane.      

Saturday/Sun 1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.

Sunday 12 December 2010

 

Sunday  905P Eastern Time:  Jodi Schneider,  , and Mona Charen, NRO, in re:  Pres Obama suddenly invites Pres Clinton to sell the the tax accommodation/bill - that is, Axelrod invited Clinton to the WH to discuss 2012; then Pres Obama suddenly invited Clinton, with no preparation or advance warning, to join him in speaking to the press about the tax bill - gets him in front of the press and walks offstage. Curious. Pres Obama swiftly abandons Clinton, then Gibbs, the WH spokesman, tries to shoehorn Clinton off the stage and fails. Pres Obama's tax bill is "George Bush's greatest domestic accomplishment."

Sunday 920P Eastern Time:  continued; exemption? House can blame the Senate. Krauthammer says the extension of the jobless claims and the low-percentage payroll tax constitute another stimulus bill, a ploy for Pres Obama to get re-elected.

Sunday 935P Eastern Time:  Henry Miller, Hoover, in re: 

Sunday 950P Eastern Time:  John Loftus, Esq, author: America's Nazi Secrets, in re: WikiLeaks report. Mikola Lebed [pron: lyeh-bed], highest Ukrainian Nazi war criminal.  Truman had two CIAs: OPC, working for Dulles, and the regular CIA.  In 1952, Ike elected; Dulles brothers (esp Allen) then take over CIA for keeps.  Lebed was one of his agents; Dulles even prevailed on State to bring in Lebed's lieutenants, the dregs of Ukrainian mass-killer intell.  . . .  and on from there. Ghastly tale.  Lebed now thought to be the longest ranking Soviet agent to penetrate CIA.  Allen Dulles didn't care; his central goal was to conceal the role his old corporate clients in funding the rise and continuation of Hitler. Dept of Justice definitely knew.

 

Sunday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  John Fund, WSJ, and John Avlon, CNN and The Daily Beast, in re: 

Sunday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  continued. Seventy-two hour waiting period: after the final version of a bill is drafted, Members have at least 72 hours in which to read it before it's taken to the floor--but not here, not now.

Sunday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Jim McTague, Barron's; Larry Johnson, No Quarter blog, and Jeff Bliss, The Bliss Index, in re: Holbrooke's grave health condition. Assange doesn't know enough to avoid doing massive damage in WikiLeaks releases.  Some of the cables are worth looking at, esp Britain's charade in releasing the Libyan bomber on fraudulent pretext.  China's 5% inflation: will raise retail prices in the US (Wal-Mart, Cosco); two of Jim's friends at dinner, just back from China, expect it to have a financial meltdown within a decade, at latest. Seven hundred people laid off in South Bend. Corporate collapses to come - creative destruction. "By the end of 2011, things will look a bit better." California hasn't yet left the Union. Gov-elect Brown turning Sacramento into "a wonk town."   Bush tax-cut deal: neither side will give up the public theater that's part of DC politics. Pres Obama lost a major opportunity to look presidential. Eighty-five Republican freshmen in town; having the equivalent of an AA meeting to keep themselves from spending; are refreshingly naive; two years from now will be co-opted.  Then: Pres Obama and Pres Clinton at the hurriedly-assembled press conference with the mysterious and amusing denouement; Mark Madoff's suicide; Nixon's tapes show him to be the racist (vs Irishmen, Jews, Blacks) everyone thought he was; the retail numbers; PIMCO drops down a small chasm.

Sunday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):   continued

 

Sunday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, and Bruce Bechtol, Angelo State and

author, Defiant Failed State ["about the predator, North Korea, and its master, Beijing"], in re:  Adm Blair: ROK has beefed up rules of engagement; Min Defense will not rule out using airpower for any future counterstrike.  Finally, ROK citizens are together reaching a consensus that DPRK is genuinely dangerous problem: DPRK may not take ROK president seriously, and will savagely strike again.   . . . Tides change by as much as 50 feet. A potentially truly dangerous situation in which each side appears to be miscalculating.  DPRK is building water-cooling systems for Burma (again confirmed by WikiLeaks), naked proliferation. Clear that it's a nuclear weaponization program. Best addressed through the Proliferation Security Agreement.  We need to check both ships and flights entering Burma, in conjunction with the 95 other members.  1990s Beijing decision to spread nukes around the world in order to distract the US at some future time when China might look like a belligerent to Washington.  Btw, the Syrian reactor taken out looked exactly like Yongbyon.  The Burmese facility is underground, may be a uranium plant. (Finally, North Korea asked US to set up Eric Clapton gig?)

Sunday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  Gordon Chang, in re: Depraved human monsters in DPRK and China starve and murder their own populace. Another, nonhuman monster, is galloping inflation. It's rising above 5% in China; and Chinese people spend half their income on food, being 11+% inflation on food.  Scares the cadres silly because it most damages poor people, who're likely to rally in the streets if it gets worse. Cadres are so fixated on growth that they keep avoiding doing anything about inflation.

The 16 October incident of a young drunk driver's killing a pedestrian has created a new phrase known throughout the Chinese internet.  News story:  When he was eventually stopped by security guards and angry students, Li Qi-ming showed no remorse. In fact, he taunted  them, challenging them to take him to court if they thought they could. "My father is Li Gang," he said, flouting the law with his father's status as a senior police official. This enraged the entire Chinese populace.  Now, when Chinese people don't want to do something, like take out the garbage, they say "My father is Li Gang!"   (我爸是李刚).

..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

Wikipedia:  Four days after the incident, an online poetry contest invited entrants to incorporate the sentence "My father is Li Gang" (我爸是李刚) into classical Chinese poems. The contest was created by a female blogger in northern China nicknamed Piggy Feet Beta on MOP, a popular Chinese Bulletin Board System, and received more than 6,000 submissions. The phrase has since become a popular internet catchphrase and meme within China, frequently seen on various forums and message boards, and in similar competitions using ad slogans and song lyrics, and used ironically in conversation by speakers trying to avoid responsibility. An artist in Chongqing created an installation based on the phrase.

Sunday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: BBC: "Hillary CLinton frustrated at setbacks to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks" - because the PA has no intention of actually achieving any progress. Fatah Revolutionary Council (legislative council disbanded last year; Pres Abbas's term ran out two years ago).  Secy Clinton came out clearly against unilateral steps (to recognize Palestine as a state ).  Prince Naif, the apparent successor to Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, is unlikely to grow too intimate with China, which is known to be sponsoring Iran.

Sunday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Did climate change drive prehistoric culture change? Falcon. Active vulcanism on Venus. Car runs on air.

 

Sunday/Mon 1205A (905 Pacific Time):   Arif Rafiq, Pakistan Policy blog, in re: 

Sunday/Mon 1220A: (920 Pacific Time):  David Henderson, Hoover, in re: Stimulus 1 and Stimulus 2, how they work for non-Keynesians

Sunday/Mon 1235A: (935P Pacific Time):  Mark Feldstein, author, Poisoning the Press

Sunday/Mon 1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.

Friday 905P Eastern Time: Joseph Brusuelas, Bloomberg senior economic analyst, in re: •U.S. Consumer Confidence Climbs to a Six-Month High, Benefiting Retailers  •Treasuries Drop, S&P 500 Index Gains as U.S. Economic Data Beat Forecasts  •Jobless Rate May Decline Below 9% Over Next Year, Trennert Says: Tom Keene 

      "The proposed favourable change to the tax treatment of capital expenditure raises the question of whether it will actually be businesses, rather than consumers, that rescue the economy from a number of years of subdued growth. However, while some further improvement in investment spending is likely, businesses still aren't superhero material."

Friday 920P Eastern Time:  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: Nobel Peace Prize

(left) Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind: neuroscientist explains consciousness 

Friday 935P Eastern Time: Jeff Bliss, The Bliss Index, in re: Ronnie Chasen murder investigation 

Friday 950P Eastern Time:  John Cochrane, University of Chicago, in re: trouble with the euro is coming our way

 

Friday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Sebastian Gorka, FDD, in re: soft jihad as hired by Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; as the king lies failing.

Friday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  John Loftus, Esq, author, America's Nazi Secrets, in re: WikiLeaks, Julian Assange arrest imminent under the 1917 Espionage Act.

Friday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Rufus Phillips, author, and Arif Rafiq, Pakistan Policy blog, in re: Wikileaks and Pakistan, and Afghanistan; Richard Holbrooke weakens. 

Friday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):  continued re Assange arrest imminent

 

Friday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):  Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re: wealth gap and a tale of two cities, London and Washington. 

Friday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  continued, re FDR March 4, 1933, inaugural speech, "Fear Itself."

Friday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Michael Barbaro, NYT, in re: Bloomberg for president?

Friday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):  Ramit Sethi, author,  I Will Teach You To Be Rich  

 

(right, above) Consciousness: Tibetan tanka

Friday/Sat 1205A (905 Pacific Time):  Peter Lattman, NYT, in re: Madoff trustee sues Austrian banker to recover $19.5 billion

Friday/Sat  1220A (920 Pacific Time): Emily Heil, Roll Call, in re: jobs for Hill staffers of defeated Congressmen

Friday/Sat  1235A (935P Pacific Time):  Antonio Damasio, author, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain

Friday/Sat  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt

(below) Consciousness: Holistic (H) E8 Vector Visualisation in String Theory (Q+R) like the 1,000 Petal Sahasrara Lotus in Spirituality

.

Co-host: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents

Thursday 905P Eastern Time:  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: Liu Xiao-bo will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia. The unelected tyrants of Beijing react with rage and hysteria, demanding that their minions around the world not attend the ceremony in Oslo, nineteen of whom have acceded.  Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House, Mrs Nancy Pelosi, is even now on a plane to Norway to represent the American people, all of whom applaud the bravery and intelligence of Liu Xiao-bo and endorse Mrs Pelosi's excellent deed.

Thursday 920P Eastern Time:  John Loftus, Esq, author, in re:     Ukraine ships antique. Soviet T-72 tanks to Southern Sudan in advance of January referendum on dividing into two countries. Burma: has a secret nuclear facility built by North Korea - as probably do Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and very likely Sudan.  This is consonant with a decision taken in the early 1990s by the Chinese Politburo to disperse nuclear capability around the word specifically to divide the attention of the United States (then the global hegemon) lest it focus too harshly on CHina and its expanding nuclear weapons capacity; also to give US targetting too many foci: Burma, Caracas, Nigeria, Bolivia

Thursday 935P Eastern Time:  David Drucker, Roll Call, in re: the work of the lame-duck session in the Senate. DADT: gone. Dream Act: probably gone. Cloture for the president's version of the tax-cut bill is scheduled for 3PM Monday. ALso have to do the government funding bill or the whole government shuts down on Dec 18; ergo, not enough time to cover the New Start treaty.

Thursday 950P Eastern Time:  

 

Thursday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: Pres Obama dropped pressing Israel on Jerusalem building, and on settlements.  F-35s. Palestinians maintained total demand, which the administration decided was unrealistic.  President switched to talks in Washington, with the US saying it wants to focus on "substantive issues" and borders.  The PA has been endeavoring to sabotage the talks in order to continue fundraising.    Pres Abbas is not leagally permitted to be in the talks; also, Fatah voted to oppose talks till every nail of building is ceased, and would not negotiate a  land swap.  Lula said Argentina would recognize Palestine as a country having pre-67 borders, as then did all the Chavezistas in South America.  Iran is about to take over as chairman of _____.  Argentina is virtually a vassal of Venezuela; its economy is broken and Mrs Kirchner seems to be for sale.

Thursday 1020P (720P Pacific Time): Brad Sherman (CA-27), in re: Iranian nuclear capability; recalcitrance of the mullahs; DPRK.  Iran grows closer to having nuclear weapons every day, and therefore grows more militarily powerful;. Had we started a decade ago, we'd have had tine to use sanctions slowly; now, we have little time left. Iran has enough uranium ore for a bomb program but not for energy provision.  Parading weapons is the viagra of tyrants.  China: I've introduced legislation to do the only thing they'll understand: take away their Most Favored Nation Status.  Currently, China is fully supporting North Korea, buying oil from Iran, and so on.  

Thursday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: 

Thursday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):  Prof. Xu Xin, Director of the Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies, Nanjing University, in re: How Jews and Israel are perceived in China. Western Society is built on two pillars: Greco-Roman, and Judeo-Christian.  Much interest among Chinese grad students; there are in all a few thousand studying relevant courses, and a print run of 5,000 per year of the main text. In the 1920s and 30s, Japanese or European books translated into Chinese contained anti-Jewish thoughts, but there's no indigenous such sentiment.   Aat the beginning of WWII 20,000 Jews lived in northern China, then another 20,000 came as refugees.  Now there about 10,00 Jews (a wholly different group) who are expats from various countries.  We've heard the story that perhaps one of the Lost Tribes of Israel moved from Mongolia to Tibet and became the Chang tribe of the northwest - speculating that because they called father abba or ima - but it's a bit doubtful, seems to be an uncorroborated myth.

Thursday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):  Maj. Gen. (ret) Yaakov Amidror, program dir, Inst for Contemporary Affairs, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, in re: Iran; defensible borders.  Turkey represents a major shift in the Middle East; in effect, resurgence of the Ottoman Empire.   The sanctions are having a fiscal impact on Iran, but of course they don't care if they lose some money.  There is not even one hint that Syrians care to break their link with Iran, but that's entirely wishful thinking.  Damascus is fully informed that Hizbollah is excessively rearmed and the US State Dept knows this.  State's open hand to Damascus is naivete and wishful thinking. Syrians want to be sure that they control what occurs in Lebanon and want to hint to Iranians to be a bit careful.   The Hariri investigation? At the end of the day, I believe nothing will happen; at the end of the day, everyone will sacrifice some of his pride and nothing will happen.   

Thursday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: study shows that 74% of Muslims in the West Bank don't care for Hizbollah, and most detest suicide bombing.  Parents have begun to pay more attention; certainly, the payments to bereaved families are not a main factor. Reuters, AP, AFP: how Israel is portrayed in images, a profl photog reviewed 13,000 photos , saw astounding staging, unusual lens work, excruciating angles of shooting - reminiscent of whEn 900 reuters photos had to be removed because they'd been so doctored. Stringers acting alone, or Reuters command and control? Looks deliberate to demonize Israel by the way these pix were staged.

Thursday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):   Bob Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Japan's Akatsuki mission misses Venus, was to study the planet's weather 

Thursday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):   Russell Berman, The Hill, in re: Democratic caucus revolt from tax cut deal

 

Thursday/Fri 1205A (905 Pacific Time):  Dan Henninger, WSJ, in re: Grapes of Wrath Democrats

Thursday/Fri  1220A (920 Pacific Time):  Michael Slackman

Thursday/Fri  1235A (935P Pacific Time):  Fouad Ajami, Hoover, House of Saud succession

Thursday/Fri  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.

Co-host: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com

Wednesday 905P Eastern Time (605P Pacific Time):  Matt Gertkin, Stratfor.com, in re:  China's intimate connections with North Korea, dwindling economic prospects as the West diminishes it massive consumer purchasing, and China's own significant generational change of top leaders - even as China sees the US as using a containment policy against it; all together, much strain.

Wednesday 920P Eastern Time (620P Pacific Time): Marc Morano, climatedepot.com, in re: Cancun climate conference: developed world not to cut any of its own forests?  All countries promising to devote 1.5% of their GDP to an amorphous UN-run climate organization of some ilk?  China is a master polluter as it discusses greenhouse gasses.  Tom Friedman lauding China's wonderful green policies.  Unhappily, China is committed to carbon-based energy (has large stocks of lignite, not hard coal, and lignite burns extremely dirty).  

Wednesday 935P Eastern Time (635P Pacific Time): Hotel California: Devin Nunes (CA-21) and Bill Whalen, Hoover and NRO, in re: state's division in to inland and coastal.  The California Politburo of old, authoritarian leaders won't let go. Central Valley residents call their region the Alamo. 

Wednesday 950P Eastern Time (650P Pacific Time): Ari Berman,  The Nation, in re: Democratic base turns against Pres Obama

 

Wednesday 1005P Eastern  (705P Pacific Time): Evan Ramstad, WSJ Asia, in re: U.S. steps up its push on Korean crisis:  U.S. secretary of state said after a meeting with her counterparts from South Korea and Japan that talks with North Korea can't resume until Pyongyang ceases "its provocative behavior." 

Wednesday 1020P Eastern (720P Pacific Time):  Kori Schake, Hoover, and former member NSC, in re: WikiLeaks - espionage or freedom?  Also, veil lifted on China's next top duo; leaked U.S. dip cables shed rare light on the personalities of Xi Jin-ping and Li Ke-qiang. DPRK has killed South Korean civilians in an act of war in the last few weeks; not clear why - may be an effort to show that the new Kim endeavors to ward off internal challenges to his just-acquired power. 

Wednesday 1035P Eastern  (735P Pacific Time):  John Loftus, Esq, author of America's Nazi Secrets, defense analyst, and occasional writer for Mishpukhe, an Israeli magazine, in re: WikiLeaks report. Al Magrahi, Lockerbie bomber, released as "an act of mercy" because he was "dying of cancer." Ha.  UK pressured the Scottish government to release Magrahi so  Muammar Gadaffi wouldn't withdraw oil from the UK; then the US ambassador , Gene Cretz, said in a cable that the US should keep mum rather than risk having Gadaffi turn against US oil and gas.  A dirty deal.  State's attitude toward China and North Korea: abject and cloying.  Meanwhile, DOD points out that China has total control of DPRK (e.g., China runs all oil pipelines into DPRK, can close any or all in a moment). Beijing-Pyongyang-Islamabad-Teheran-Damascus.  JL: possible that China could become a military dictatorship in a few short years. Do WL docs show at least that State is aware of China as an aggressor? Yes: a cable from an African mission called China an aggressive economic predator in Africa.

Wednesday 1050P Eastern (750P Pacific Time):  Hugo Restall, WSJ Asia, in re: Cables discuss vast hacking

by a China that fears the Web - China has engaged in attacks aimed at American military and political data, and its leaders have been obsessed with Google's role in China, cables say.  Also,  backstory to the Confucius Peace Prize, which is supposed to be awarded in a few hours:  Lien Chan (a failed Taiwanese pol, Pan Blue, formet head of KMT, richest political party on Earth, and favoring selling "the Little Island" directly to the unelected leaders of Beijing), the winner, will not accept it, according to sources in Taiwan.  One suspects Beijing will lean on him, however.   The Confucius prize is not being publicized in domestic or Taiwanese media for fear of angering Liu Xiao-bo's many supporters - so the whole Confucius prize thing is aimed only at foreign audiences.  http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/12/08/chi na.confucius.prize/index.html?eref=edition 

Wednesday 1105P  Eastern (805P Pacific Time):  James Taranto, WSJ, in re: Obama decision and hostage video

Wednesday 1120P Eastern (820P Pacific Time): Bret Stephens, WSJ, North Korea China and WikiLeaks  

Wednesday 1135P Eastern  (835P Pacific Time):  Charles Pellegrino, author, and Roy Cullimore, Canadian microbiologist, in re: arsenic in Lake Mono; arsenic in DNA in place of phosphorus?

Wednesday 1150P Eastern  (850P Pacific Time):   Mary O'Grady, WSJ, in re: Haiti's troubled election

Wednesday/Thurs 1205A  Eastern (905 Pacific Time): Brian Stelter, NYT, in re: Parker Spitzer troubles at CNN

Wednesday/Thurs  1220A Eastern (920 Pacific Time):  Mark Schroeder, Stratfor.com, in re: election struggles in Cote d'Ivoire

 Alassane Dramane Ouattara vs. Laurent Gbagbo

Wednesday/Thurs  1235A  Eastern (935P Pacific Time):  Aaron Klein, WABC radio, in re: Pres Obama and West Bank settlements; Wiki and Syria

Wednesday/Thurs  1250A  Eastern (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.

Bank leverage - see 10:05 PM EST, Anat Admati

"Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I will move the world." --Archimedes

____________________________________________________

Co-host: Larry Kudlow, of Kudlow & Co on CNBC, and WABC radio

Tuesday 905P Eastern Time:   Paul Dales, Capital Economics, in re: 

Tuesday 920P Eastern Time:  Lara Brown, Villanova, in re: 

Tuesday 935P Eastern Time:  Victor Davis Hanson, classicist; California State University, Fresno, and National Review Online; and Lara Brown, in re: President departs scripts.  European social model is ossified.  "Obama and his EU counterparts are learning that high-minded adolescence makes for bad governance. But it's an expensive lesson . . . "; "Now, one can argue that the seeds of the present Democratic desire for an imposed equality of result, embraced by a Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi, is but the logical evolution from the old Democratic square deal. But there is a difference . . . "

Tuesday 950P Eastern Time:  David Drucker, Roll Call, in re:  Speaker Pelosi sets herself on fire. "The prospects of the Senate considering the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty during the lame-duck session are growing increasingly dim, Majority Whip Dick Durbin(D-Ill.) said Monday. President Barack Obama signed the treaty with Russia earlier this year and has made Senate ratification of the document his top foreign policy priority before the sun sets on the 111th Congress. But Durbin conceded that Republican resistance could push the ratification debate to next year, despite Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) insisting that it remains on the Democrats' list of items to address before Christmas "

Tuesday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Anat Admati, Professor of Finance and Economics, Stanford, in re: "What Jamie Dimon Won't Tell You: His Big Bank Would Be Dangerously Leveraged": "The business of banking does mean that banks cannot be funded completely with equity as Apple or Gap, because demand deposits and even money market funds and certificates of deposit are part of their business of financial intermediation. Thus, a certain amount of debt is built into banks' balance sheet. But this does not imply that banks' leverage must be as high as it is or as they would like it to be or even as high as Basel III would allow." Dynamism in leverage: equity holders sometimes don't want to come in ("debt overhang problem") - every time the company pays out, icl dividend, that lowers equity and the bank is more highly leveraged. Dodd-Frank bill doesn't help at all; does not go to the heart of the problem. System gives banks perverse incentives. Bankers; "We cant stop ourselves. Someone will have to come inhere and do that for us."  The only two ways for excessive debt to be leveraged are: regulation, or failure.

Tuesday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):   John Fund, WSJ, in re:  All presidents concern themselves to some extent with being re-elected, but this one more than others, who's in effect saying to the House and Senate, "You're on your own, I'm saving my own skin."

Russian oil and gas pipelines

Rossiskaya Fyederatsiya.  East to Tomsk, Angarsk, north above Lake Baikal, then past Khabarovsk and south to Vladivostok.

Tuesday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):   John Loftus, Esq., author of America's Nazi Secrets, in re: Julian Assange has found yet another way to draw attention to himself: has got himself arrested south of London.  The WikiLeaks report: British court denies bail to Assange in sex inquiry. List of facilities "vital to US security" leaked: Ningbo port in south-eastern China is one of the facilities on the US list.  Roadmap of site for al Qaeda to take out. All underwater cables that come together at the British shore.  A bare naked threat against anyone who threatens any damage to Assange; extortion. Also an oil and gas juncture in Russia that could be taken out with one stick of dynamite and so paralyze Asia.  Meanwhile, Israelis are grinning ear to ear as these show that all Arab states are demanding that Israel bomb Iran.  Docs on WMD show that there really was a huge WMD transfer across the border from Iraq to Syria, with rich quotation from one of Saddam's generals.  Trail of poisoning by nukes from DPRK to Pakistan to Iran.  US State Dept gave a wink and a nod to Pakistan to accept nukes. These docs complain eight years later that there's no way to interrupt the flow of funds form Saudis to terrorist.

_________________________________________ 

Main WikiLeaks so far:

Fears that terrorists may acquire Pakistani nuclear material 

Several Arab leaders urged attack on Iran over nuclear issue 

US instructs spying on key UN officials 

China's changing ties with North Korea 

Yemen approved US strikes on militants 

Personal and embarrassing comments on world leaders 

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai freed dangerous detainees 

Russia is a "virtual mafia state" with widespread corruption and bribery 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is "paranoid and weak" 

The extent of corruption in Afghanistan 

Chinese leadership "hacked Google"

A list of key global facilities the US says are vital to its national security 

_________________________________________ 

Tuesday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):   Mary O'Grady, WSJ, in re: WikiLeaks and Argentine money-laundering. WL No. 1237: Is Argentina a laundromat for drug money? Much corruption, no transparency; cable of Dec 2009 shows that US embassy is aware of serious infractions of norma international rules on international financial transactions.  The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force went to Argentina for two weeks  (its director spent a year there) for a "peer review," which didn't see any will on part of Kirchner government to pursue drug money.

Clinton worried about Argentine leader -WikiLeaks  2010-11-30 The Star LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton questioned the mental health of Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez, asking U.S. diplomats to investigate whether she was under medication, leaked cables showed on Tuesday. Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (L) shakes hands with....

_________________________________________ 

 

Tuesday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):   Bill Roggio, FDD, and Arif Rafiq, Pakistan Policy blog, in re: question: which is more fragile, Pakistan or Afghanistan?  See Baluchistan, assassination attempt vs the Chief Minister, a rare attempt by religious organization to attack an official. Ethnic Baloch population resent the Pakistan overlordship, but today's was from the Pashtun insurgency.  This group: most minimal respect for human life, real lust for blood.  Suleman turned himself in as having held a gun to a woman's head while his sons cut off her nose; then he proudly showed her nose around the village. This is the fertile ground from which the Taliban draws. Heroine in Pakistan, our US ambassador there, Ann Paterson. Her reporting to Washington wrote in a blunt and analytical manner, calling it as it was. Also a good troubleshooter, managed Pakistan through six or seven major crises.

Tuesday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  Tom Keene, Bloomberg, in re: Bush tax cuts, quantitative easing, the US recovery.  $1.5 trillion in quantitative easing + tax breaks. Gold at $1429 today. Implied inflation, most overt in China.  Economists worry about inflation, including wage declines.

Tuesday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):   Bob Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re:  the sad fate of the first 747 ever built.  The Japanese probe Akatsuka's attempt to get into Venus orbit.  Falcon 9 postponed to Thursday because of (get this!) cracks in its nozzles. The annual Geminid meteor shower peaks this year on Dec. 13th and 14th. Researchers don't fully understand the Geminids, and new measurements, they say, make it more mysterious than ever. Also: Did climate change drive prehistoric culture change? Early Americans may have dramatically altered their lifestyles in response to new weather patterns.

Tuesday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):   Timothy Egan, NYT, in re: What's the narrative of the Obama administration?

 

Tuesday/Wed 1205A (905 Pacific Time):   Bill McGurn, WSJ, in re: Obama and meeting with dissidents

Tuesday/Wed  1220A (920 Pacific Time):   Steven Erlanger, NYT, in re: Iranian nuclear talks in Geneva

Tuesday/Wed  1235A (935P Pacific Time):   Matt Richtel, NYT, in re: identity theft and the military

Tuesday/Wed  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt: Inspector Bliss on the Ronnie Chasen murder.

 

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Friday 905P Eastern Time:   Joseph Brusuelas,  Senior economic analyst, Bloomberg, in re:  9.8% unemployment is a sort of political construction; the real unemployment rate is 10+.  As people stay unemployed for weeks and months, their work skills deteriorate. The underlying data in the report don't comport with an improved economy. In a few months, the numbers will be revised upward and look good. If you add 15K jobs/mo, that's enough to stabilize; need 200K job/mo to make a dent in unemployment. A 4, 5 or 6 % increase in GDP, familiar in the Twentieth Century, is not in the cards for 2011.  EU: smart guys think there's enough money tobail out Spain and Portugal. See also Austria: spreads (between Austrian bonds and German bonds) and Credit Default Swaps (which function as insurance) have increased sharply in recent weeks - hedgies at play - to force the Germans to decide if they'll bail out the ECB or not. Eastern European banks: exposed in Germany, France, 

Switzerland, the UK. The house of cards that'll tumble that no one will speak about.

Friday 920P Eastern Time:  Therese Polleti, Marketwatch, in re: Steve Jobs called Bill Hewlett when he was twelve years old, the beginning of the HP-Apple relationship in Cupertino CA. 

Friday 935P Eastern Time: Mary O'Grady, WSJ, in re: Haitian elections; cholera, corruption, indifference

Friday 950P Eastern Time:  Caroline VanHesselt, DowJones, WSJ, in re: Canada lacks a leader's voice

(left) Toussaint Barbot, Haiti

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Friday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Sebastian Gorka, FDD, in re:  Gülenists -- for fifty years, we hoped that Turkey was the model for a secularist Muslim country; now we see this mysterious bachelor, Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, based in the US undermining the entire construct. His penetration in Turkey, alone, of the national media, or the military - even Jane's sees his organization as a state within a state. A new model of how skillfully over years to undermine the constitutional  operation of an entire state.  Similarly, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: use the democratic mechanism to take power, then never relinquish it.  In the  Gülen movement, however: "You must move in the arteries of the system without notice until you control the entire system."

Muhammed Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish preacher, author, and educator living in self-imposed exile in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania (USA).

The Gülen movement is a transnational civic society movement inspired by the teachings of Turkish Islamic theologian Muhammed Fethullah Gülen [in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania]. His teachings about hizmet (altruistic service to the "common good") have attracted a large number of supporters in Turkey and Central Asia and increasingly in other parts of the world. The exact number of supporters of the Gülen movement is not known, as there is no membership system, but estimates vary from hundreds of thousands to 4 million. The movement consists primarily of students, teachers, businessman, journalists and other educated professionals, arranged in a flexible organizational network. It has founded schools, universities, an employers' association, as well as charities, real estate trusts, lobby groups, student bodies, radio and television stations, and newspapers. The schools and businesses organize locally, and link into networks on an informal rather than legal basis

Friday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  continued. Are they operating here? Undeniably yes. A fellow who's mapping the Gülenist structure in the US reports that it has an extremely impressive network of private schools: spotless, very high-tech, luxurious, more than almost any other in the US. Have neutral names like Harmony, or Peace. They never mention Gülen anywhere. You have to check into the Boards for Turkish names. This is a worldwide organization. A unique hybrid to win back the geostrategic power of the Ottoman Empire; it recognizes that in this age you do it in the garb of Western, modern dress. At Muhammed Fethullah Gülen's estate in Western PA, men have to wear Western dress; men may not marry till they're fifty, and wives must wear headscarves but no other identifying clothes.  "Educate people, penetrate into the system, and don't move till you have control."

Gulen's grandiose vision is the restoration of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of a universal caliphate.  In his public statements, Gulen espouses a liberal version of Sunni/Hanafi Islam and promotes the Muslim notion of hizmet - - altruistic service to the common good.  In private, Gulen has stated that "in order to reach the ideal Muslim society 'every method and path is acceptable, [including] lying to people.'"  With assets in excess of $30 billion, Gulen has wielded political allegiances in Washington that have resulted in the placement of Turkish Muslims in the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other national security organizations.  He has created well-heeled lobbies to promote the cause of Islam and to develop Islamic candidates for political office.  He has formed close friendships with Bill and Hillary Clinton, former Secretaries of State James Baker and Madeleine Albright, and George W. Bush.

See also: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/fethullah-gulen-infiltrating-the-us-through-our-charter-schools-the-fgc-charter-schools-in-a/question-310317/

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Friday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Rufus Phillips, author of Why Vietnam Matters;   Bill Roggio, FDD; Arif Rafiq, Pakistan Policy blog, in re: WikiLeaks? The outrageous, larcenous government in Kabul is shown to be what everyone knows it is. [guffaw] Petraeus set up a corruption task force . . .  Kiyani is a stand-up guy but he's surrounded by vipers. . . . Laskar-i-Jangi: nasty street thugs, muscle for hire; hate the Shia and other religious minorities, whom they attack with bombs

Friday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):   continued

 

Friday 1105P (805P Pacific Time): Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re: Assange, WikiLeaks. American exceptionalism held that we would reform the human race and cast out devils; uplift God and redeem humanity.  As the devils change, the mission perforce changes, which is what we're facing now: our exceptionalism must consist in our defending ourselves from devils. Assange, the 39-year-old genius, doesn't like the notion that America is exceptional.  [Radio clip of Col Marion C Cooper, Chennault's chief of staff and just returned from China Air Task Force; he also produced King Kong.]