Conversation With Family Member!

In my last memo writing about my mother in law, I stated she was 94 when in fact she is only 90. My father in law, who recently passed away, was 94 and I must have been thinking of him. Miss him.
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I was speaking with a dear relative, a very accomplished executive, a person with an extraordinary career both in business, politics and world matters. We were discussing the economy and why he was more upbeat and then our conversation turned to Israel, Iran and The United Nation's UNRA Agency.

He told me something I was unaware of, ie. Israel is the only U.N. nation member that has an 'asterisk' by its name and is specifically singled out as to what it cannot become within the organization, ie. never a member of The Security Council etc..

We both were in agreement about UNRA as the agency specifically formed to deal with the Palestinian refugee problem. Since UNRA began, the Palestinian refugee problem, which came as a result of their betting their Arab friends would defeat Israel, has not been resolved. In fact there are more refugees today than when UNRA started and this after billions have been allocated to the refugee problem. Why is this so and why has UNRA morphed into an Agency perpetuating victim hood?

I personally saw where many of its employees live in The French Hill section of Jerusalem. Lovely, comfortable homes with nice white cars sporting U.N. symbols parked outside. Its proponents and employees know a good thing when they see it and benefit from the world's largess. Ending UNRA would be like politicians voting themselves out of a job.

The second reason for UNRA's continued existence is that Palestinian refugees serve a political purpose. By allowing the problem to fester it dictates policy away from the problems facing the Arab Street by reason of their morally bankrupt and dishonest leadership.

Were UNRA a division of a for profit corporation and measured by its accomplishments it would have been out of existence years ago.

UNRA is simply another reason why funding so much of the U.N. is throwing good money after bad and proves my dictum that if you want more of something fund it.

In terms of his economic outlook he sees corporate momentum, spending to remain technologically competitive and bank lending beginning to loosen as ultimately driving the economy forward, albeit at a less than historic pace.

Iran remains the thorniest canker and we agree here as well but I added that one cannot think of Iran without conjuring a N Korean connection.

He too is reading and enjoying GW's book, has serious issues with Obama and Michelle so we are on the same page in that regard.
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I love humor, all kind of humor and the more anti-PC and irreverent the better. I like to start the New Year off with humor so here are a few oldies but still goodies. (See 1 below.)
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Now for an interesting article on what factors will drive the next political
upheaval. (See 2 below.)
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One of Israel's best retires and Iran breathes a sigh of relief. (See 3 below.)
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Netanyahu holds forth. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)Chaim Yankel, Chelm's first doctor, was becoming a knowledgeable medical
practitioner but was still struggling with his bedside manner.
One morning, Chaim Yankel walked into his office where one of his patients
was sitting. Chaim Yankel told the patient, "I have good news, and I have
bad news. Which do you want me to tell you first?"

The patient answered, "Give me the good news first, doctor." So Chaim
Yankel said, "You only have 24 hours to live." The patient screamed,
"That's the good news? What's the bad news?"

Chaim Yankel replied, "I forgot to tell you this yesterday..."

You know you were raised Jewish if...
The only good advice that your Jewish mother gave you was: "Go! You might
meet somebody!"

You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven and you were as tall as your grandfather by age seven and a half.

Sam owned a furniture store and went back to the store late at night only to find his wife and his top salesman making love on a Thomasville Bed.

He was aghast and the next morning told his Rabbi.

The Rabbi said he had to divorce his wife but Sam said after 38 years he could not do so. Then the Rabbi said you have to fire your salesman but Sam said he sells 50% of my furniture, I cannot fire him.

The Rabbi said you must come back in two days with an answer.

Sam returns and tells the Rabbi his problem is solved. He would not have to divorce his wife nor fire the salesman. Why the Rabbis asked. Sam said because the Thomasville bed had been sold.

Subject: IMPORTANT AIRPORT DATA .........

Year to date statistics on Airport screening from the Department of Homeland Security

Terrorist Plots Discovered 0
Transvestites 133
Hernias 1,485
Hemorrhoid Cases 3,172
Enlarged Prostates 8,249
Breast Implants 59,350
Natural Blondes 3
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2)The Coming Political Upheaval
By Monty Pelerin

The late Murray Rothbard, famous Austrian economist and libertarian, published a collection of essays under the title Making Economic Sense. One subsection was entitled "Politics as Economic Violence." That phrase described, in Rothbard's view, politics' contribution to society.


Rothbard's reasoning was simple: Economics is the interaction of people freely making choices while subject to minimal restriction (no theft, coercion, fraud, etc.). Politics is coercion to force outcomes that otherwise would not occur. Thus, politics is violence against economics, or people, because it precludes freedom's running its natural course.


A couple of centuries earlier, Thomas Jefferson expressed the same sentiment:


Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Rothbard, as was often his way, came up with an incisive way of categorizing government activity. Little that government does is not violence against economics. Virtually every government program involves coercion to achieve an outcome that free individuals otherwise would not choose. Otherwise, there would be no need for the program or legislation.


After decades of violence against economics, the economy hovers on the brink of destruction. There are too many to list, but some of the political fallacies that brought us to this point are the following:


•Bigger government means more prosperity.
•Everyone is entitled to own a house.
•Non-producers are entitled to live at the expense of producers.
•Deficits are good for the economy.
•Government can spend your money better than you can.
•Printing money can increase real wealth.
•The economy can be managed by a central authority.


As a result of these and other false precepts and decades of applying them, the economy is in shambles:


•Few jobs are being produced.
•Dependency has become a way of life for many citizens.
•Wealth of current and future generations has been squandered.
•Infrastructure has been neglected.
•Government is drowning in debt and other promises that will never be honored.
•Jobs, investment, and talent have been driven overseas.
•Businesses face arbitrary penalties, sanctions, and a weakened rule of law.
•Living standards have been reduced.


The continuing political violence against the economy has rendered the milk cow dry.


The damaged economy can no longer sustain the lifestyles that the American people have experienced for the past couple of decades. Much "prosperity" was phony in the sense that the credit bubble encouraged people to live beyond their means. Now begins the de-leveraging phase, where people must live "below" their means in order to pay down debt.


The corpulent political class cannot be sustained, either. Government tax revenues are insufficient to support spending. Government faces its own de-leveraging problem. Debt obligations and social promises cannot be met. Deficits cannot continue indefinitely, and the eventual rise in interest rates will impose new burdens.


For the first time since 1913, when the federal income tax and the Federal Reserve were instituted, government no longer can count on ever-increasing resources.


If politics can exercise violence on economics, might the reverse be true?


Economic laws, abused for so long, are now back in charge. They, rather than politics, are reshaping our economic and political possibilities.


In the fantasy land that is politics and modern-day media, assertions will be made that economics is now committing political violence. Such statements reflect ignorance and prejudice. The public sector is more important than the private sector, at least to these convoluted minds. Crass concepts such as supply and demand, limited resources, and other constraints should apply only to the hoi polloi, not the political elite.


But economics is not a force. It cannot commit violence or coerce in the sense that politics can. Economics is merely a loose body of "laws," not unlike physics. To say that economics commits something would be equivalent to saying that gravity commits murder when a person jumps off a building.


Politically outrageous promises have hit the wall of limited resources. Reality is here. No amount of bluster or legislation can alter this fact. The laws of economics and mathematics are controlling.


Government greed and mismanagement seriously wounded the golden goose. It is poetic justice that the political excesses that created the financial crisis will be instrumental in terminating the era of political dominance of economies.


It is tragic that so many citizens and their descendants will have to pay such a high price.


Here Come the Casualties


The first governmental casualties will come at the state and municipal level because these have no access to a money printing press. The first sign has already appeared:


Alabama Town Defaults on Pensions, Breaks State Law; Renewed Calls For San Diego Bankruptcy; "Prichard is the Future"

The dubious honor of being the first city in the nation to completely default on pension obligations goes to Prichard, Alabama. The city has sought bankruptcy protection twice and is flat broke. It faces a choice of paying to keep city services like police and garbage running or pay pensions. It selected the former.


There is no other way out. Prichard is merely the leader of a forming parade which will stretch out over several years and include hundreds if not thousands of others. Unfunded pensions will generate defaults, if not outright sovereign bankruptcies.


Precarious conditions in three other locales were recently highlighted by Mish:
•Pensions Eat 70% Decatur, Illinois Budget
•New York's Exploding Pension Costs
•Houston Mayor Wants Pension Benefit Cuts
Shortfalls developed as states and municipalities diverted pension funds to current expenditures. Politicians try to fudge the laws of economics, which sometimes provides a short-term political expediency. Eventually, though, economic laws take on the force of mathematical certainties.


When the money is gone, it is gone. We are very near that point, and that will make for interesting politics.


The Political Upheaval


The world has changed as a result of the economy. More than living standards will be affected. The political calculus of the country has been irreparably altered.


The states in need of the biggest bailouts are the blue states. The 2012 election will be Democrats eating their own as a result of state budgetary problems. As I wrote last year:


States should recognize their coming vulnerability and commence real budgetary reforms. Given the nature of politics, proactive steps are unlikely. Rather, we are likely to experience the bizarre scene of large Democrat states flirting with financial ruin while Obama attempts to avoid personal ruin.


By the 2012 election, the federal government will be struggling to avoid its own default, even with Ben Bernanke running his presses. Some municipalities and states will have reneged on various obligations. Survival of government at all levels will be an issue.


The 2012 election will be a pivotal event for the Democratic Party. President Obama will be unable to bail out one of his last remaining support bases: the public service unions. The disparate interests that represented the party will be under great strain. Failure to uphold public pensions and wage levels may be the catalyst that ends the modern Democratic Party.


Undoubtedly, it may seem foolish to some that such definitive comments have been made with respect to political outcomes. After all, two weeks is a lifetime in politics. Yet there is an inevitability to this financial crisis that is destined to run over the excesses of both government and private behavior.


Republicans will not help Obama or his union supporters in this matter. Even if it were not good politics, it would be irresponsible to do so. Governments must live within their means. Given where we are, that requires draconian budget cuts everywhere.


The social welfare state, a dystopian vision from the beginning, has had its fifteen minutes of history. It now begins its slow descent into the dust bin, alongside so many other tragic experiments.
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3)C-in-C of Israel's covert war on Iran retires at its high point

The Israeli cabinet quietly took leave Sunday, Jan. 2, of Meir Dagan, marking the end of his eight remarkable years as head of the Mossad, Israel's external intelligence, espionage and covert warfare service. His retirement - after several extensions - also won a backhanded mention in Tehran.

Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards aerial arm, told the Fars news agency: "Many spy planes and ultra-modern aircraft of our enemies have been shot down. We have also shot down two Western reconnaissance drones in the Persian Gulf." He did not say when this happened, only: "It is the first time we are announcing it."

The Iranian official, according to intelligence sources, was aiming a dig at Meir Dagan by hinting at Tehran too may have had successes against "our enemies." That was the best – or worst - Tehran could do after the French Le Canard Enchaine's glowing account of Israel's secret war against Iran's nuclear program. Thursday, Dec. 30, the journal, known for its good connections with French intelligence, reported Israel had won the help of the American CIA and British MI6 for its covert operations after promising to hold back from a direct military attack on Iran's nuclear installations.

The publication describes Mossad as responsible for the liquidation of five senior Iranian nuclear scientists and planting the Stuxnet cyber worm in the program's computer systems. Also attributed to Israeli intelligence is the explosion in Iran's most important Shihab-3 ballistic missile arsenal at the Imam Ali mountain base near Khorramabad on Oct. 12 last year. Le Canard reported that 18 Iranian nuclear technicians died in that attack and many of the missiles were destroyed.
Judging from the French intelligence description, Meir Dagan led this successful secret war on Iran not just for Israel but for the West at large.

Even if Le Canard embellished those feats somewhat, they are still pretty impressive. The measure of their success was conveyed in a laconic comment by Moshe Yaalon, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Strategic Affairs in a radio interview on Dec. 29. He said: "Iran does not currently have the ability to make a nuclear bomb on its own" – throwing out all previous forecasts of Iran's close approach to this capability as no longer valid.

Was this delay due to Stuxnet? Yaalon did not say. But he referred to Western pressure (sanctions) when he predicted that this pressure would force a decision in Tehran between stopping the nuclear program or stopping to exist.

"I don’t know whether this will happen in 2011 or 2012," he said, "but we are talking in terms of the next three years" – i.e. 2014 will be the critical year," said the minister. By then, either Iran will have a bomb or the Revolutionary Islamic regime will be gone.

Yaalon's timeline, the clearest heard thus far from any Israeli official, means that Meir Dagan is ending his tour of duty at the high point of the undercover war he managed, having successfully tipped the scales against Iran's nuclear progress.

The minister said cautiously in the same interview: "We cannot talk about a point of no return" – meaning that the greater part of the contest still lies ahead - until the moment comes for the Iranian regime to abandon its drive for a nuclear bomb if it wants to survive.

While the Western media by and large has high praise for Dagan's accomplishments, the consciousness of the inevitable failures on his record colored his parting address to the Israeli cabinet Sunday. He used it to pay tribute to Mossad and its agents: "Our people," he said, "have only two weapons: their cover stories and their sharp wits. Otherwise, they are on their own with no chance of rescue."

So where was the Israeli Defense Forces in the fateful secret war with Iran? The answer is nowhere.

In the four years since the 2006 war with Hizballah, the IDF's role has been progressively sidelined in most proactive efforts to safeguard Israel's national security and enhance its strategic standing. History may one day determine whether this decline was the outcome was dictated by circumstances or a function of the personalities of the last two chiefs of staff, Dan Halutz and Gaby Ashkenazi who too is about to retire.

Both began building their political careers and platforms before taking off their uniforms. During their watch, not only did the IDF not face up to the Iranian threat, but it avoided grappling with Iran's junior allies, Hizballah and Hamas, taking no action to prevent them tightening a noose strung with missiles and rockets around Israel's borders. In more ways than one, Meir Dagan stood in for the chief of staff - and the Mossad for the IDF – in bearing the brunt of cutting down Israel's foremost enemies.
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4)PM: I agreed to freeze, US didn't
By Roni Sofer

Benjamin Netanyahu discusses US role in removal of construction freeze from negotiating table, possibility of peace with Syria and efforts to restore relations with Turkey. As for talks with PA he says unlike Israel, Palestinians haven't moved an inch to promote peace

After opposing an extension of the settlement construction freeze, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a surprising statement Monday and said Israel was willing to extend the freeze "but ultimately the US rightfully decided not go in that direction and instead decided to go ahead with an outline for gap bridging talks in order to discuss core issues."

Speaking at the weekly Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense committee meeting Netanyahu said:

Peace Negotiations


State Department spokesman says attempts to persuade Israel to stop settlement construction dropped because issue 'became an end in itself rather than means to an end,' adding that administration will 'try to begin to make progress on core issues themselves'


"We did everything, including implement a nine month freeze and when the Palestinians got into gear towards the end of the freeze, the first issue they raised was a three month extension of the freeze.


"The truth is that Israel was prepared to extend the freeze, in spite of reports to the contrary," Netanyahu said.


The prime minister noted the discussions he held with the US ahead of the expected freeze extension: "I told Obama that I can take the issue to the cabinet and get the cabinet to pass a freeze extension and then I got a message from the Americans to forget the issue."


Netanyahu claims that "the US said that it wouldn't lead to a positive situation, rather it would lead to an endless path of freeze following freeze. And yet, I agreed to that."

He admitted that contacts with Palestinians were floundering.

Netanyahu also noted that US envoys are expected to arrive in Israel by mid-January, perhaps as early as next week "in order to close gaps and examine progress on core issues".

'I endorsed Palestinian state in 1995'
The prime minister blamed the Palestinians for the political deadlock: "No coalition agreement will stop the peace process. From the day I established the government I appealed to Abbas but received no response. I upheld the Bar-Ilan speech and we took many steps to promote the process while the Palestinians haven't moved an inch.


"I had many talks with Abbas but there has been no change and no progress in the Palestinian stance," he said.

Asked about his political plan, Netanyahu noted that he talked about a Palestinian state as early as the 1995 Likud convention.

This prompted an angry response by Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni. "It’s amazing listening to you describe an alternative reality and citing it as the truth. In 2002 you announced at the Likud Central Committee that 'a yes to a Jewish state means no to the Palestinian state and that no should be the answer.' I dare you to change the Likud's official position."

Livni added, "No one believes you because you say different things in different forums and are tested according to outcomes and not your statements."

She blamed Netanyahu of causing damage to Israel's security interests and noted that his integrity is shaky on the international arena.

'Syria wants everything in advance'
Netanyahu also addressed the Syrian issue stating that "we are ready and willing for negotiations with Syria, the problem today is that Syria wants everything in advance. The Syrians demand the entire territory before they even begin negotiations. We are very interested in moving forward on that issue. There is no shortage of envoys; the problem is that they want everything before negotiations."


As for the situation in Lebanon, ahead of the publication of the report on the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister expressed hope that the situation would become clearer: "We aren't involved in the issue and certainly have no wish to ignite the border."

The prime minister is also considering the construction of a border fence along the Jordanian border in order to battle illegal infiltration. "We might have to extend the border fence we are constructing along the Egyptian border," he said. "We're checking it out, in order to avoid infiltration from other countries. The plan is to build the fence in the Arava region along the Jordanian border."

He noted that Spain too had constructed a fence in order to prevent infiltration from North African countries. As for Egypt's efforts to prevent smuggling and infiltration, Netanyahu said: "Egypt is working to prevent smuggling – but it continues."


During the meeting, the prime minister addressed additional issues including relations with Turkey: "Efforts continue. The deterioration began a long time ago, at Peres' meeting with Erdogan in Davos. At the moment they are turning towards the Muslim world at Israel's expense. During the Carmel fire I saw a window of opportunity – with a goal of preventing IDF soldiers from being put on trial."
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