HALF-FULL REPORT 12/02/11

Do you hear him?  It’s Al Jolson laughing about political events this week, and warning us that we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  We’re living in Volatility City now, the presidential campaign is just beginning, and it is very silly to claim this candidate is toast or that candidate has it in the bag.  The only outcome you can be confident of is that most Intraders betting their money on their favorite Pub nominee will lose it.

Yes, the campaign already seems interminable, but it’s all prologue.  The Fat Lady hasn’t even cleared her throat.  This is so not over. Just to give you an idea, here’s how it is possible – albeit not probable – for Sarah Palin to be the nominee, and without even running in the primaries.

That’s because it is mathematically impossible for the 2012 GOP nomination to be won quickly.  By the new RNC rules, the primaries of all 30 states that hold them before April are proportional.  A candidate who wins a majority or plurality of votes in these primaries only gets his proportion of the delegates – it’s not winner-take-all. 55% of the votes, say, gets you 55% of the delegates, no more.

Further, because they are in violation of RNC rules for insisting on ridiculously early primaries, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and Michigan will be penalized with a loss of half of their delegates.  (Iowa is a non-binding caucus so it’s just a PR show.  Iowa delegates are not chosen for the national convention until the state convention on June 16.)

Half the delegates will be chosen proportionally prior to April, half winner-take-all after (primary season ends June 26 with Utah).  No candidate will have more than a fraction of the delegates before April, which makes it harder for him to sweep enough victories to get to over 50% by closing time.  It is entirely possible that no candidate will do so.  This means a "brokered convention."

A primary victory only obligates a delegate to vote for his candidate on the first convention ballot.  After that it’s deuces wild and they can choose anybody.  Like Sarah Palin.  Or Jeb Bush or Chris Christie or your mother’s hairdresser.  This is unlikely and improbable.  At the least, though, it shows that we are only a few steps down a long, long road.  This is a marathon, not a sprint.  The guy with the best slow-twitch muscles wins.

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The volatility signals are up on YouTube this week for all to see.  First is Ron Paul’s devastating attack on Newt "I’m going to be the nominee" Gingrich.  For a history prof, Newtie sure knows nothing about the lessons of hubris:

 
This just guts Newt.  You can be sure the blows will keep coming, that he is headed for the canvas.  We can be thankful to Dr. Paul for this.

Second is the delightfully disarming 30-seconds of Rick Perry making fun of his now-legendary debate gaffe.  After the monumental arrogance we’ve been subjected to by the current occupant of the White House, it is liberatingly refreshing to think his replacement could be so humorously self-effacing.  Iowans and many others are going to be charmed:

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The week’s best news is that the most criminally dangerous and personally obnoxious Dem in Congress is quitting – Bawney Fwank, or, as Dick Armey called him in one of the most classic Freudian slips in political history, "Barney Fag."

Yes, goodbye and good riddance, but the take home value here is that you don’t quit Congress if you’re the ranking member of one of its most powerful committees and think you’ll be its Chairman next term. Barney is quitting because he’s convinced the Dems have little or no chance of recapturing the House majority for some time to come.

And if that’s the way Barney’s thinking, plenty of his colleagues are as well.  Can Henry Waxman or John Conyers be far behind?

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The week’s best quote, of course, is Chris Christie’s indignant question to Zero:  "What the hell are we paying you for?"  The question is rhetorical, for what Zero does is play golf, campaigns, and acts like an African Big Man.  Governing is beneath him.  For Christie, this makes Zero a contemptible "bystander in the Oval Office."  Too bad the best Christie can come up with as Zero’s replacement is Mitt Romney.

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OK, time for fun!  That means we go to Durban, South Africa to see all the Warmists writhing in anguish over the failure of their Climate Change Conference to extort $100 billion (a year!) from "rich" countries. 

Their wrath is particularly directed at the US, denouncing Hillary Clinton for "refusing to negotiate carbon emission cuts," and thus "derailing" their entire conference.  Her State Dept rep Jonathan Pershing had informed them that unless China and India sign up for such cuts (which both have said no way), then deal America out.  Then Japan, Russia, and Canada said the same thing.

Meanwhile back in EuroweenieLand, the mandarins in Brussels are preoccupied with trying to prevent the collapse of their Esperanto currency, and haven’t got time for climate change foolishness, compliance with which will further bankrupt them.

All of this has resulted in what the Wall Street Journal called Tuesday (11/29) The Great Global Warming Fizzle.  It’s the most enjoyable "must read" of the week.

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We find this in the What Were They Thinking? Department.  The 2012 GOP Convention is August 27-30 in Tampa, Florida.  The Dems thought they would one-up the Pubs by having theirs a week later (September 3-6) also in the South, in Charlotte, North Carolina hosted by Dem governor Bev Perdue.

One little problem:  North Carolina is an anti-union right-to-work state. On Tuesday (11/29), the state legislature formally requested the DNC to change its union-only rules and hire local non-unionized firms for convention contracts.  Over a dozen AFL-CIO unions have announced they are boycotting the Dem convention due to NC’s "regressive" anti-union policies.

Don’t count on the Charlotte convention to be a wild success.  And don’t count on Zero carrying the state as he did in 2008, nor increasingly unpopular Gov. Perdue besting her opponent, former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, either.

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In the Suspicions Confirmed Department this week (11/28), CNN reports that most elite colleges and universities give 310 extra points to Blacks and 130 points to Hispanics on their SAT scores "in order to achieve a measure of diversity."  So now we know how Zero got into Harvard, and Mrs. Zero into Princeton.

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A former FLOTUS, Mrs. Clinton, found herself in Burma this week.  Today (12/02) she met with Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been on the persecuted receiving end of one of the world’s most repressive and backward tyrannies for over 20 years.  It was the first visit to Burma by a US Secretary of State in more than half a century, and it was at Ms. Suu Kyi’s request, who is asking America to improve relations with her government tormentors.

Now why would the champion of freedom for Burma do this?  Because of China.  Notice the vast Burma-China border:

As Burma retreated from the world, Beijing slowly and patiently colonized the former British colony.  Chinese businessmen stealthily took over the Burmese economy, as the PLA (China’s Red Army) took control of the Burmese military.

The Chinese have plundered northern Burma, especially of timber causing massive deforestation.  Migrant workers have flooded Burma.  Cities like Myitkyina, Bhamo, and Mandalay are over 40% Chinese now.  Chinese exports to Burma cost $2.5 billion to the impoverished country, while Burmese exports to China (excluding what the Chinese ripoff and smuggle) total only $650 million.

Burmese unhappiness, specifically that of the ruling military clique, has been growing for years now, culminating in the "election" of a military bureaucrat, Thein Sein, to the presidency this last March, tasked with breaking free from Beijing.  His first act was to suspend development of the Myitsone Dam hydroelectric project, into which Chinese investors had poured $3.6 billion as 90% of the electricity was to go to China for free.

Mrs. Clinton also met with him today.  He said he wants better relations with the US and the West. She said fine; the more you allow human rights and democracy, the better our relations will be.  He told her his government was freeing 6,000 political prisoners, relaxing press and internet censorship, allowing public protests, and had approved Suu Kyi’s formerly outlawed National League for Democracy party to register and contest elections.

She replied that this was a good start, and would be happy for America to "walk with Burma down the road to democratization."

Interestingly positive things are happening in Burma, as they are in other places in Southeast Asia like Vietnam.  The cause is:  the Ugly American is history.  He has been replaced by the Ugly Chinese.  Actually, the Ugly Chicom, as Taiwan Chinese do not suffer the same obloquy.

The opportunity for America is there in the world.  We just need a new president who wants to maximize it.

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The current president certainly isn’t maximizing it in Iran. Which is why it’s really going to surprise you who is behind the series of unfortunate events that have been mysteriously taking place there for a while now.

We got the first glimpse of this back in June 2010 when the press reported that an incredibly sophisticated computer virus called Stuxnet had infected the controllers of the uranium enrichment centrifuges at Natanz.  Since then, a number of Iranian nuclear weapons scientists have been assassinated, and a number of critical targets – oil facilities, gas pipelines, train trestles, bridges – have been blown up or damaged.

On November 12, a sequence of gigantic explosions blew up the primary Iranian missile base at Bidganeh near Tehran, responsible for building the mullah regime’s long range missiles.  The Jerusalem Post has satellite pictures of the devastation.  Major General Hassan Moghaddam, the director of the missile program, plus dozens of his confederates were killed, and some 180 Shahab-3 missiles were destroyed.

On Monday (11/28), an explosion seriously damaged another key Iranian nuclear facility near Isfahan.

Who’s doing this?  The obvious suspect is Mossad, but they are not acting alone.  They have a partner:  the Saudis.  Israel’s Mossad (HaMossad leModi’in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim, the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations) has teamed up with the Saudis’Al Mukhabarat Al A’amah, the General Intelligence Presidency or GIP, to coordinate a program of sabotage aimed at eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat which they both face. 

Together, they have developed a network of Iranian operatives who belong to the Green Movement and other opposition forces.  They all feel that the covert route is the way to take care of the problem, and eventually get rid of the mullah regime in Tehran, rather than air strikes and war, with the Straits of Hormuz blocked, oil going to $200 a barrel, and blame pinned on Israel for everything as usual.

Truth really is stranger than fiction.  Let’s wish these folks luck.

That’s it for this week, folks.  It’s good to be home from Africa.