Sounds about right to LITD

The UK orders Iran to close its embassy and all Iranian diplomatic personnel to get the hell out of the country within 48 hours.

A great refutation of Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome

I was greatly heartened to see Thomas Sowell's resolute smackdown of Michael Medved's recent Townhall column in which Medved said that that Pubs must nominate a centrist candidate to defeat the Most Equal Comrade next year. Sowell looks at a number of past races in which principle clearly trumped mushy stand-for-not-much-of-anything-ness.
Medved is irritating at least as often as he is insightful, and it's gratifying when he's called on it. Especially by a towering intellect like Dr. Sowell.

"Whole lotta not perfect here"

Ladd Ehelinger, blogger, filmmaker, and talk show host, who is a principled conservative, has had substantial fact time with Herman Cain and believed in him long after many another rightie pundit had soured on the Hermanator phenomenon, is now officially through with him. The lawyer's statement on the latest claim (the 13-year affair) seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

How about me? As painful as it is to admit it, I think it looks like a case of a guy's libido being far stronger than his principles. Might be able to keep a radio-host career from sinking under such weight, but a presidential run at a time when uncompromised seriousness is a requisite? Uh-uh.

At war with the West since 1979

Iranian "students" storm the British embassy in Tehran.

"The worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history"

The MEC finally sinks lower than Jimmuh.

The political twilight of Mr. Pay-for-Play

The editors at NRO say that Barney Frank will be remembered for three things. Read what they are here.

Green-ism: going the way of all dead religions

Great Bret Stephens piece in the WSJ about how radical environmentalism, like Zoroastrianim and Greek Zeus-worship before it, is croaking from its own implausibility.

Oh, sheesh - today's edition

Now the IMF is looking at bailing out Spain and Italy with loans at well below their actual cost of borrowing.

Keep in the forefront of your mind the fact that the US contributes 45 percent of the IMF's money. Also the US government's 15 trillion dollar debt.

The money has to come from somewhere.

No doubt about it; the guy has perfected the art of chillin'

No state of the world too crisis-intensive to keep the MEC from taking in games, playing games, and pounding the hot dogs.

Euro deathwatch - today's edition

British Foreign Office drawing up plans to come to the aid of expats when the euro collapses, which it pretty much now sees as inevitable.

I can tell you what it is

What's behind the Black Friday mayhem this year? The same breakdown in public order we've seen in the flash mob robberies, Occupy Wall Street occurences, state-capital stormings by public-sector union thugs, and the general filth that passes for entertainment these days. We're clearly a less civilized society than we were 50 years ago.

What it would really take

A new Mark Steyn column that really only covers new territory in the sense that it's written at the end of a week in which the West's economic prospects grew palpably dimmer.

I haven't seen any comments on comment threads - or columns by lefty or just plain jaded pundits - saying "Isn't Steyn aware that his doom schtick is wearing a bit thin?", but I'll bet they're out there. I have seen some - both comments on threads and reason-to-be-optimistic pieces by well-credentialed rightie pundits - countering his outlook with one that focuses on celebrating that time-tested can-do American spirit. Victor Davis Hanson and John Podhoretz come to mind in this regard.

The glaringly undeniable truth, however, is that Steyn has the numbers on his side. The US government is spending at twice the rate it's taking in money, and even the best proposals put forth so far are, as he says in a sinking-ship metaphor, arguments about whether to use a thimble or an egg cup to address the situation.

If there is anything truly fresh in his latest column, it's this uncomfortable truth: that even if we elect the coolest, most Reaganesque Republican president this nation could come up with next November, he or she would not be able to enact the kinds of policies necessary to stave off a descent into Somalia-level chaos because the American people no longer have the maturity to say to themselves that such policies are necessary.

And the options only get more stark as we put this off another hour.

Euro death watch - today's edition

Italy's cost of borrowing at a record 6.5 percent.

It's just not so

Great American Thinker piece by Randall Hoven that puts the lie to the notion that our current debt / deficit crisis is due to "Bush's wars" or any kind of Pub spending spree in the last 50 years.

Euro on "death watch"

Weaker than expected - by a whole lot - demand for German debt at Wednesday's bond auction.

It's an ideological cause and not a scientific inquiry to these people - today's edition

Climategate 2.0 - a new flurry of e-mails among Michael Mann, Phil Jones and the other leading climate-change hucksters - is upon us.