"Tatoo," Van Halen

Are you a brown sound hound? David Lee Roth's first song with the Pasadena boys since 1984.

Are Rightwingers Just Being Coy?

Ed Kilgore says most GOP conservatives have already resigned themselves to Mitt Romney, in part because of their misgivings about the other candidates:

“[T]rue conservatives” have doubts and divisions about the ideological reliability of Mitt’s surviving rivals. Santorum is regarded by some as an Washington insider and Big Government Conservative. Newt’s heresies were amply aired by those attack ads in Iowa. And Perry, the closest thing to a consensus “true conservative” candidate, greatly upset believers with his position on immigration.

And so, conservative leaders may well be asking themselves: Is the dubious value of nominating Santorum or Gingrich or even Perry instead of Romney worth the risk of creating the foundation for an Obama campaign assault on the eventual winner as a flip-flopping opportunist with the character of a feral cat?

An 1896 View Of Ottoman Jerusalem

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for this gem (St. John's pilgrims will recognize some of the streetscapes from their visits over a century later) as well as for the commentary of a Palestinian high school student, Jalal Abukhater, who lives in Jerusalem:

It is becoming a trend among influential GOP candidates to call out the Palestinian people as “invented” or even “non-existent." First we had Republican candidate Newt Gingrich calling the Palestinians an “invented people." Another rising star, Republican candidate Rick Santorum, has also said “There is no Palestine." But I won’t really bother to give any of them dimwits any more attention than they deserve. Their case is a hopeless miserable case after all.

On this occasion I’d like to share with you this, video footage taken in Palestine back in the year 1896. We see Palestinians; we see Jews, Christians, and Muslims living in peace. We see a Jewish man praying at the Western Wall without having to show IDs to any authority, unlike what we see in Jerusalem today. We see neighbors, friends, families, and a society just like that in Cairo or Damascus, as the commentator says. If we look today, we don’t see much of the same thing. Not so much freedom of religion, not so much freedom of life.

Will Egypt Be The First Moderate Islamist State?

Thomas Friedman:

Islamist movements have long dominated Iran and Saudi Arabia. Both the ayatollahs in Iran and the Wahhabi Salafists in Saudi Arabia, though, were able to have their ideology and the fruits of modernity, too, because they had vast oil wealth to buy off any contradictions. Saudi Arabia could underutilize its women and impose strict religious mores on its society, banks and schools. Iran’s clerics could snub the world, pursue nuclearization and impose heavy political and religious restrictions. And both could still offer their people improved living standards, because they had oil.

Egypt’s Islamist parties will not have that luxury. They will have to open up to the world, and they seem to be realizing that. Egypt is a net importer of oil. It also imports 40 percent of its food. And tourism constitutes one-tenth of its gross domestic product. With unemployment rampant and the Egyptian pound eroding, Egypt will probably need assistance from the International Monetary Fund, a major injection of foreign investment and a big upgrade in modern education to provide jobs for all those youths who organized last year’s rebellion. Egypt needs to be integrated with the world.

It Does Help If The Writer's Ernest

A federal judge ruled last week that a Montana blogger isn't entitled to the legal protection her state extends to journalists just because she claims she's one, too. But Atlantic editor Rebecca Rosen argues that citizen journalism is in the ascendant, as it was when the framers wrote the First Amendment and no one had much of an idea about professional journalism. Rosen says those publishing on-line should be judged not by whom they work for, if anyone, but the accuracy and quality of their work.

Officer? Non-Islamic Blow-Dry On Chair Three!

Journalist Carina Kamel compares this Christmas in Cairo to last year's and worries about what may be in store for Egypt's women and non-Muslims:

Perhaps one of the biggest changes this Christmas was that the perceived threat of Islamism shared by liberals and Christians is now all the more real as the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood are poised to control parliament.

This makes secular parties, liberal groups, activists and Christians very nervous. They are concerned about religious intrusion in private life and restrictions on civil liberties. Already, there have been local media reports of a self-appointed "religious police" barging into places like ladies' hairdressers and ordering patrons to cease what they describe as un-Islamic practices like getting a blow dry. That incident didn't go down well with Egypt's well groomed women, who, according to reports, beat up the extremists and kicked them out of the beauty parlor.

We Think We Have Church Vs. State Problems

The complexities of the Middle East's only democracy: The ultra-orthodox haredim, who don't think Israel's secular government is legitimate (but who are paid to pray at the Western Wall under an agreement that dates from Israel's founding), battle back against the government's effort to keep them from further oppressing their women.

"Long Time Gone"

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young with Tom Jones in 1969. The young Welshman can rock. Comments left on YouTube reveal that David Crosby, who wrote the song, didn't sing lead this time because he was grieving over the death of a friend. Hat tip to No Depression.

Nixon Invented The Internet AND Birtherism?

Were Nixonistas the first birthers? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says so:

Mitt's father -- Governor George Romney of Michigan -- was driven to distraction by his own "birther" movement when he ran in the Republican presidential primaries of 1968. Supporters of his opponent, Richard Nixon, argued that George Romney's presidency would be unconstitutional because Romney had been born in Mexico where his grandfather and five wives had fled to evade America's polygamy laws.

Might As Well Limp

I feel young again! Van Halen, with David Lee Roth, will greet the new year with an album and tour. They'll be in Orange County on June 12. But is that Eddie with an acoustic guitar? Weird.