THE WORLD’S DUMBEST DIPLOMATIC RESET
He would restore American prestige in the world, which had been battered by the war in Iraq, Mr. Obama said when he was running for president. In contrast to President George W. Bush, who relied on military force, he would exercise "smart power" to charm America's adversaries -- Russia in particular. The result? "Relations with Russia have fallen off a cliff, making the theatrical ‘reset' of 2009 look, frankly, cringe-worthy," said Frida Ghitis, World Affairs columnist for the Miami Herald. President Obama responded to Russia's latest affront by cancelling a meeting with Mr. Putin scheduled for next month. That, apparently, will be the extent of U.S. retaliation. "In Barack Obama's mind, the ultimate punishment is to deny you the opportunity to meet with Barack Obama," tweeted the humorist Iowahawk.
THE SURVEILLANCE STATE MONSTER AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
There's really no more doubt about it, the US government is a Surveillance State, far beyond any East German autocrat's wildest dreams. And it is far, far more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda. We all come from a background that taught us that the Soviet Union and its totalitarian empire was horrifying (which it was), and that the USA was good, noble and pristine. That makes it hard for us to accept that the US has now become what East Germany once was. We keep looking for reasons to not to believe it. So what now? Your first move is to protect yourself. There's no use in saying much against a surveillance state while they're listening to your every word. There are two ways to protect yourself:
A RADICAL NEW THEORY OF ANGLO-AMERICAN SLAVERY
New evidence coming to light in the British National Archives and the Bodleian Library at Oxford University may soon change our entire view of the Anglo-American slave trade, and the roots of institutional plantation slavery in the Americas. With luck it will help to vindicate the fathers of "classical liberal" government and the free market in the 17th and 18th centuries, falsely accused until now of abetting - or promoting - the great crime of race-based African slavery. For academic orthodoxy holds that John Locke (1632-1704) and the great Whig thinkers of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 helped to design and foster the economic system of hereditary slavery that shaped Atlantic capitalism for a century and a half. From that it is but a step to dismiss the moral claims of classical liberalism as so much humbug, to write off all the talk of justice, natural rights, inviolable contracts and government by consent as the self-interested catechism of oppressors. As Samuel Johnson said acidly: "How is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" Except that this established version of events is not true. It is a near complete inversion of what happened, and this matters in all kinds of ways since the debate over slavery refuses to subside.
THE LAW DOESN’T APPLY TO OUR LAWMAKERS
Members of Congress created a big problem for themselves when they passed Obamacare. Section 1312(d) requires them to get their health insurance through the insurance "exchanges" established by the law. Currently, lawmakers and Congressional staff get health insurance from the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program, which offers a wide variety of plans, and subsidizes up to 75 percent of their cost. This year that averages about $4,900 for individual plans, $11,000 for family plans. They'll no longer be eligible to participate in the FEHBP when Obamacare goes into effect Oct. 1, Section 1312(d) implies. And nothing in it authorizes the government to subsidize insurance obtained through the Obamacare exchanges. That means, in effect, a pay cut of $5,000, or $11,000, for lawmakers and their higher paid aides. "The result was a full wig out on Capitol Hill," said the Wall Street Journal. Here's how they got taxpayers to pay for it.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/09/13
OK - it's the middle of August, and it's time for a Fun HFR. Are you old enough to remember The Coasters? 
Growing up in the Fifties, we knew all their songs by heart, like Searchin', Poison Ivy, and Yakety-Yak. And who could forget Charlie Brown? Every high school had a class clown, and the Coasters' classic was about him. This week, their Golden Oldie became President Zero's theme song. Watch and listen to The Coasters' performing it on Dick Clark's American Bandstand in March of 1959, to understand why... ...All of a sudden, everybody's picking on our dunce of a president. On Monday (8/05), a George Mason University study showed that Zero is now the most popular butt of late-night show jokes, including Letterman, Leno, Fallon, and Kimmel. On Tuesday (8/06), he gave a gaffe-tastic interview with Jay Leno, saying, e.g., Charleston SC and Jacksonville FL were ports on the Gulf of Mexico. Cartoonists are having a field day making fun of Zero's wimping out regarding the "threat" of Al Qaeda's "chatter." And then there's Sama. Sama Elmasry is a voluptuous and extremely popular Egyptian entertainer - and much more so this week with her latest video that's gone over-the-top viral in Egypt and across the Arab world. You gotta prepare yourself for this as it'll blow you away. This is the most extraordinary political video of modern times.
THE OBAMA WHO CRIED WOLF
I trust you are as sick, tired, and cynical as I am about the Obama shepherd boy crying "Wolf!", claiming there are terrorist monsters under his White House bed at night, and trying to scare all the little boys and girls on Capitol Hill with horror stories about the Al Qaeda Boogeyman. The Obama Boy is now so happy he got the Kiddies on the Hill shivering with fright: Congressional Leaders Agree on Drastic Response to Al Qaeda Threat. No way in the world now will they even whisper a hint at cutting the funding for the great patriotic heroes of the NSA who exposed the threat. Their relentless creation of an Orwellian Surveillance State can safely continue. And just what might that threat be? "Chatter." The NSA patriots listened to the boogeymen talking to each other about doing bad things. The brave patriots all deserve the Congressional Medal of Honor for this, as it so obviously justified a global security freak-out and protected all living Americans from... from... boogeyman jabber. Besides, as revealed by ace national security reporter Bill Gertz, all this AQ chatter is months old, it's old news. So why now? That's a rhetorical question. Every federalie agency in Washington knows the time-honored response to any threat to their funding is to create a crisis that justifies its existence. Rarely, however, is the existence of a such an agency a grave threat itself to the country's national security. Yet that is what we have today - the world of Orwell's 1984 made real, where "perpetual war must be waged to achieve perpetual peace."
IS IT TOO LATE FOR CHINA TO AVOID AN AGEING CRISIS?
China's new leaders are close to abandoning the country's one-child policy, belatedly moving to avert an ageing crunch as the work force goes into sharp decline. Jun Ma from Deutsche Bank said the new policies should shore up the pension system and inject stimulus as China's growth sputters. "As tens of millions of sibling-less people in China are now entering their child-bearing age, we expect this policy shift would induce a baby boom," he said. The one-child policy dates back to 1971 in its original form and has led to 336 million abortions and 222 million sterilizations, often badly executed in poor regions. Recent abuses have caused uproar, with photos circulating on the Chinese internet of a young mother lying beside a fully formed baby after she had been seized by police for failing to pay the "social compensation fee" for an illegal child. She was forced to undergo an abortion just before her natural birth. Premier Li Keqiang clearly views the policy an anachronism at a time when China is running out of workers, and faces a demographic time-bomb. There are currently five workers for every pensioner. This ratio will fall to two by 2035. So any baby boom over the next few years may come too late.
HOW TO APOLOGIZE
We all make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes let other people down, or hurt them. What's the best way to deal with the people we've disappointed or hurt? It matters how you apologize, and Heidi Grant Halverson, author of Focus, has some great advice about this. It's personally useful, but can also help us understand a dynamic that affects political differences with friends and neighbors. The most important thing to remember is that when you have let somebody down, or done them harm, they don't care very much about how this affected you. When you start by explaining why you did or didn't do the act that you're apologizing for, you're telling them about yourself, and not addressing the effect you've had on them. The best way to apologize is to start with the other person in mind, based on realizing that person will have different expectations depending on your relationship with them. Here's how.
TERRORISTS THREATEN, OBAMA CRINGES
U.S. diplomatic missions throughout the Middle East were closed Sunday (8/4) in response to the threat of terrorist attack from al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which may involve bombs surgically implanted in suicide bombers. Nothing bad happened Sunday. But closing 21 diplomatic missions sends the wrong signal, worries Rep. Ted Poe, R-Tex, who chairs a House subcommittee on Terrorism and Non-Proliferation. "Terrorism works -- because we're closing all of our embassies and consulates on one day," he said. "We'd rather be safe than have somebody hurt but the long term answer is every time someone gets information, we can't shut them all down all over the world." "I find this pre-emptive cringing unworthy of a great country, even humiliating," said Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum. "Why do we allow a bunch of extremist thugs to close us down, rather than the reverse?"
ENDLESS EXCUSES FOR MORE RUINOUS REGULATION
Terrorists, money launderers, drug dealers and tax evaders use automobiles, airplanes, telephones, computers, banks and countless other goods and services that we all use. Yet all too many government policymakers think that if we make these things very difficult to use, the bad guys will go away -- forgetting, of course, that all the rest of us suffer from mindless regulation and control. Banks and other financial service firms have become the targets of choice for the unthinking government class and its allies -- because in popular culture, bankers are often cast as the evil villains, despite the fact that the world economy could not function without them. Thirty years ago, the excuse for more financial services' regulation was that "drug dealers" used banks. That argument morphed into "banks facilitate money laundering," which was made a crime in the United States in 1986. Then after Sept. 11, 2001, that excuse evolved into "terrorists use banks." More recently, the justification for more rules has become "banks around the world enable businesses and individuals to avoid taxes." There are always new excuses for more regulation -- but the demands remain the same: