They got the idea from Brussels.

London Times:

The Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.

The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room.

Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.

Under the Brussels edict, police across the EU have been given the green light to expand the implementation of a rarely used power involving warrantless intrusive surveillance of private property. The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.

A remote search can be granted if a senior officer says he “believes” that it is “proportionate” and necessary to prevent or detect serious crime — defined as any offence attracting a jail sentence of more than three years. ...

Richard Clayton, a researcher at Cambridge University’s computer laboratory, said that remote searches had been possible since 1994, although they were very rare. An amendment to the Computer Misuse Act 1990 made hacking legal if it was authorised and carried out by the state.

He said the authorities could break into a suspect’s home or office and insert a “key-logging” device into an individual’s computer. This would collect and, if necessary, transmit details of all the suspect’s keystrokes. “It’s just like putting a secret camera in someone’s living room,” he said.

Police might also send an e-mail to a suspect’s computer. The message would include an attachment that contained a virus or “malware”. If the attachment was opened, the remote search facility would be covertly activated. Alternatively, police could park outside a suspect’s home and hack into his or her hard drive using the wireless network.

Police say that such methods are necessary to investigate suspects who use cyberspace to carry out crimes. These include paedophiles, internet fraudsters, identity thieves and terrorists.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said such intrusive surveillance was closely regulated under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. A spokesman said police were already carrying out a small number of these operations which were among 194 clandestine searches last year of people’s homes, offices and hotel bedrooms.

“To be a valid authorisation, the officer giving it must believe that when it is given it is necessary to prevent or detect serious crime and [the] action is proportionate to what it seeks to achieve,” Acpo said.

Residents of Britain live under a legal regime that arrests people for carrying pen knives, for hunting with hounds, and for politically incorrect speech, and which watches its own citizens’ daily activities via 4.2 million CCTV cameras (one for every 14 people). The current British idea of what exactly is a “serious crime” is not likely to provide much protection for individual liberty or privacy.

Iain Dale reports that the Metropolitan Police is running the above Google ad. Is there a reward? It’s been a while since I’ve been linked by Michelle Malkin. Maybe I’ll turn her in.

You won’t need to worry about Global Warming if the Yellowstone Caldera decides to erupt.

London Times:

Hundreds of earthquakes have hit Yellowstone National Park, raising fears of a more powerful volcanic eruption.

The earthquake swarm, the biggest in more than 20 years, is being closely monitored by scientists and emergency authorities.

The series of small quakes included three last Friday which measured stronger than magnitude 3.0. The strongest since this latest swarm of quakes began on December 27 was 3.9.

No damage has yet been reported but scientists say this level of activity – there have been more than 500 tremors in the last week – is highly unusual.

“The earthquake sequence is the most intense in this area for some years,” said the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. Some of the larger earthquakes have been felt by park employees and guests, according to the observatory.

The swarm is occurring beneath the northern part of Yellowstone Lake in the park. Yellowstone sits on the caldera of an ancient supervolcano and continuing geothermal activity can be seen in the picturesque geysers and steam holes, such as Old Faithful.

About 1,000 to 2,000 tremors a year have been recorded since 2004. ...

Professor Robert B. Smith, a geophysicist at the University of Utah and one of the leading experts on earthquake and volcanic activity at Yellowstone, said that the swarm was significant.

“It’s not business as usual,” he said. “This is a large earthquake swarm, and we’ve recorded several hundred. We are paying careful attention. This is an important sequence.”

The last full-scale explosion of the Yellowstone Supervolcano, the Lava Creek eruption which happened approximately 640,000 years ago, ejected about 240 cubic miles of rock and dust into the sky.

Geologists have been closely monitoring the rise and fall of the Yellowstone Plateau as an indication of changes in magma chamber pressure.

The Yellowstone caldera floor has risen recently – almost 3in per year for the past three years – a rate more than three times greater than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923.

From mid-summer 2004 through to mid-summer 2008, the land surface within the caldera moved upwards as much as 8in at the White Lake GPS station. The last major earthquake swarm was in 1985 and lasted three months.

USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory site

Map of recent earthquakes

Israeli Intelligence mouthpiece DEBKAfile succeeded in restoring service today after a period of outage.

DEBKAfile’s two sites in English and Hebrew came under a massive cyber attack on our servers at the moment Israeli ground forces crossed into the Gaza Strip Saturday night, Jan. 3. The attackers tried and failed to block and replace our content. We did our utmost to restore service as quickly as possible and return to full operation.

DEBKAfile wasn’t the first site hit.

Computerworld reports earlier activity aimed at Israeli business and web domains:

The conflict raging in Gaza between Israel and Palestine has spilled over to the Internet.

Since Saturday (12/27), thousands of Web pages have been defaced by hacking groups operating out of Morocco, Lebanon, Turkey and Iran, said Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The defacements have primarily affected small businesses and vanity Web pages hosted on Israel’s .il Internet domain space. One such site was that of Israel’s Galoz Electronics Ltd. On Wednesday, the hacked Web site read “RitualistaS GrouP Hacked your System! ! ! The world isn’t insurance! ! ! For a better world.”

Other attackers have placed more incendiary messages condemning the U.S. and Israel and adding graphic photographs of the violence. Warner said he has seen no evidence that any Israeli government site has been hit by these attacks, although they have been targeted.

Hold on for the ride.

From Greg Mankiw via Bird Dog.

Do-gooders Jimmy Carter and Habitat for Humanity some years ago built Fairway Oaks in Jacksonville, Florida, a classic liberal charity project delivering housing to the undeserving poor.

And what did the poor do with their housing? They certainly didn’t maintain it. Obviously, they rode it hard, and put it away wet. And now, 8 years later, they expect Jimmy to come back and fix it all up for them again. Besides, nobody told them them the place had been built atop some former dumps. Call Erin Brokovitch! Those poor people are feeling a trifle queer, breaking out with mysterious skin rashes, you know the drill, and they need to sue. After all, Jimmy Carter has got that presidential pension. There are deep pockets there.

Michelle Malkin is experiencing a bit of Schadenfreude this morning.

This characteristically enthusiastic Japanese nature program demonstrates the defensive behavior of the Southern White-faced Scops Owl (Ptilopsis granti), native to Southern Africa.

Confronted by a nearby Barn Owl (Tyto alba), it fluffs itself up into a very large owl. Seeing a more distant Barn Owl, it turns its less visible grey back toward the enemy and reduces its silhouette. All in all turning in a commendable Strigiperformance.

3:20 video

Hat tip to Labrat via Karen Myers.

Las Vegas, Nevada, December 17, 2008.

This year’s winter really seems to have Global Warming theorists on the run. Harold Ambler, at of-all-places Huffington Post, thoroughly rakes Al Gore over the coals. What’s next? Daily Kos??

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that “the science is in.” Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind. ...

First, the expression “climate change” itself is a redundancy, and contains a lie. Climate has always changed, and always will. There has been no stable period of climate during the Holocene, our own climatic era, which began with the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago. During the Holocene there have been numerous sub-periods with dramatically varied climate, such as the warm Holocene Optimum (7,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C., during which humanity began to flourish, and advance technologically), the warm Roman Optimum (200 B.C. to 400 A.D., a time of abundant crops that promoted the empire), the cold Dark Ages (400 A.D. to 900 A.D., during which the Nile River froze, major cities were abandoned, the Roman Empire fell apart, and pestilence and famine were widespread), the Medieval Warm Period (900 A.D. to 1300 A.D., during which agriculture flourished, wealth increased, and dozens of lavish examples of Gothic architecture were created), the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1850, during much of which plague, crop failures, witch burnings, food riots—and even revolutions, including the French Revolution—were the rule of thumb), followed by our own time of relative warmth (1850 to present, during which population has increased, technology and medical advances have been astonishing, and agriculture has flourished).

So, no one needs to say the words “climate” and “change” in the same breath—it is assumed, by anyone with any level of knowledge, that climate changes. That is the redundancy to which I alluded. The lie is the suggestion that climate has ever been stable. Mr. Gore has used a famously inaccurate graph, known as the “Mann Hockey Stick,” created by the scientist Michael Mann, showing that the modern rise in temperatures is unprecedented, and that the dramatic changes in climate just described did not take place. They did.

New Orleans, Louisiana, December 11, 2008

Army Times:

When asked how they feel about President-elect Barack Obama as commander in chief, six out of 10 active-duty service members say they are uncertain or pessimistic, according to a Military Times survey.

In follow-up interviews, respondents expressed concerns about Obama’s lack of military service and experience leading men and women in uniform.

“Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief,” said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified.

Hat tip to Maggie Gallagher.

Josh Marshall complains that representatives of the MSM in the nation’s Capitol are insufficiently on his side.

Like many others, I’ve been saying this for years. So I’m surprised to be surprised. But the journalistic establishment in Washington, whether it’s the Post or the Politico or much of the rest of the journalistic apparatus in the city, is essentially Republican in character—not necessarily in terms of individual voting habits, though you’d be surprised, but in fundamental outlook about whose opinions matter and how government functions, which is what really counts. And you can see that resurfacing with increasing clarity just in that last week.

Personally, I think the Washington Post would need to be blowing up US troops with IEDs to be more any more anti-Bush Administration than it is. I’d be curious to see Josh Marshall try expanding and justifying this curious claim to victimhood.

1937 Bugatti 57S Atalante, to be auctioned at Bonham’s in Paris February 7th

NY Times:

Dr. Harold Carr, an orthopedic surgeon in England, was a recluse in his later years, according to relatives. He never married or had children. So when the doctor died in 2007 at the age of 89, few knew what to expect inside his dusty garage. The last thing Dr. Carr’s relatives expected to find was one of the rarest cars in the world, a 1937 Bugatti 57S Atalante, which The Associated Press said was one of 17 in existence.

London Times:

The Bugatti, a black two-seater, was delivered to Earl Howe, the first president of the British Racing Drivers’ Club and a winner of the 24 Hour Le Mans race, soon after it was completed on May 5, 1937. He kept the car for eight years, adding personal touches including a luggage rack, after which it changed hands a couple of times before Dr Carr bought it from Lord Ridley, a member of the Northumberland gentry, in 1955.

He drove the car for a few years but by the early 1960s it was parked in his garage, where it remained until after his death. It has exceptional originality, retaining original chassis, engine and drivetrain. Even the odometer reading gives a mileage of only 26,284, despite the vehicle being almost 72 years old.

Dr Carr’s nephew said: “It was one of the original supercars. When it was built it could reach 130mph when most cars could only do 50.”

Wikipedia:

The Type 57S/SC is one of the best-known Bugatti cars. The “S” stood for “surbaissé” (“lowered”), though most felt it stood for “sport”. It included a v-shaped dip at the bottom of the radiator and mesh grilles on either side of the engine compartment.

Lowering the car was a major undertaking. The rear axle now passed through the rear frame rather than riding under it, and a dry-sump lubrication system was required to fit the engine under the new low hood. The 57S had a nearly-independent suspension in front, though Ettore despised that notion.

Just 40 “surbaissé” cars were built.

The Atalante was a two door coupe body style similar to and built after the Atlantic, built on both the Type 57 and 57S, but with a single piece windscreen and no fin. Only 17 Atalante cars were made, four of which reside in the Cité de l’Automobile Museum in Mulhouse, France (formerly known as the Musee Nationale de L’Automobile de Mulhouse). The name Atalante was derived from a heroine of Greek mythology, Atalanta.

It is expected to bring 3 million pounds ($4.3 million).

Bonham’s description

The Nation’s Katrina Vanden Huevel climbs onto the lap of the American taxpayer and pleads for an increase in Leviathan’s allowance.

Poverty is on the rise, record numbers of people are relying on food stamps and we’ve seen no relief for the foreclosure crisis. There are increasing rates of child abuse and domestic violence linked to this recession. State governments don’t have financial resources to cope at the exact moment when those resources are most needed. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have lowered Medicaid payments or eliminated people from eligibility. The senior economist of the International Monetary Fund recently warned of another Great Depression

We don’t need a stimulus, we need a recovery. And that means investing $1 trillion over the next two years.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) has proposed a plan to do just that—a detailed $1 trillion recovery plan to kick start the economy, invest in sustainable, long term growth and target individuals and communities that are most desperate for resources.

We’ve seen “progressive” economic plans work so often, after all.

Markets are basically emotionally hysterical mobs and herds. They typically run furiously in one direction, until the mood changes, then they run just as furiously in the opposite direction.

Suddenly, in 2008, a nation-wide real estate slump led to a natural enough increase in mortgage defaults, generally on the part of no-down payment, or low down payment, buyers with no equity stake worth preserving. Single-digit mortgage default increases were reported in screaming headlines as clear evidence of catastrophe, and before you knew it, the credit markets were in a panic, and great and famous financial institutions suddenly found themselves in serious trouble as securitized mortgage debt almost overnight became non-negotiable.

Market confidence, or the lack thereof, had a great deal to do with the tone and volume of negative reporting, which was, to say the least, extreme. There is a natural conflict between the media, which needs the most exciting, easiest-to-sell story it can produce, and the interests of truth and the investing public. This Fall, there was an even greater conflict of interest between accurate and sensible reporting and the desire of the overwhelmingly liberal journalist community to amplify economic bad news during a presidential election.

Breitbart reports an Opinion Research poll indicating the overwhelming majority of the public recognizes what the media has been doing very well.

Seventy-seven percent of Americans believe that the U.S. media is making the economic situation worse by projecting fear into people’s minds.

The majority of those surveyed feel that the financial press, by focusing on and embellishing negative news, is damaging consumer confidence and damping investment, making a difficult situation much worse. The poll was conducted via telephone, December 4 – 7.

In a New Year’s tour d’horizon of warfare and violence across the globe, Jim Dunnigan’s Strategy Page concludes that, apart from the quality of media reporting, things have been getting better.

Worldwide, violence continues to decline, as it has for the last few years. ...

All this continues a trend that began when the Cold War ended, and the Soviet Union no longer subsidized terrorist and rebel groups everywhere. The current wars are basically uprisings against police states or feudal societies, which are seen as out-of-step with the modern world. Many are led by radicals preaching failed dogmas (Islamic conservatism, Maoism), that still resonate among people who don’t know about the dismal track records. Iran has not picked much of the lost Soviet terrorist support effort. Hezbollah and Hamas, the Madhi Army and a few smaller groups, and that’s it. Terrorists in general miss the Soviets, who really knew how to treat bad boys right.

The War on Terror has morphed into the War Against Islamic Radicalism. This religious radicalism has always been around, for Islam was born as an aggressive movement, that used violence and terror to expand. Past periods of conquest are regarded fondly by Moslems. The current enthusiasm for violence in the name of God has been building for over half a century. Historically, periods of Islamic radicalism have flared up periodically in response to corrupt governments, as a vain attempt to impose a religious solution on some social or political problem. The current violence is international because of the availability of planet wide mass media (which needs a constant supply of headlines), and the fact that the Islamic world is awash in tyranny and economic backwardness. Islamic radicalism itself is incapable of mustering much military power, and the movement largely relies on terrorism to gain attention. Most of the victims are fellow Moslems, which is why the radicals eventually become so unpopular among their own people that they run out of new recruits and fade away. This is what is happening now. The American invasion of Iraq was a clever exploitation of this, forcing the Islamic radicals to fight in Iraq, where they killed many Moslems, especially women and children, thus causing the Islamic radicals to lose their popularity among Moslems.

California “Global Warming Score” Sticker

Starting this year, thanks to the Solons of Sacramento, residents of America’s open-air asylum will find all new cars bearing prominently displayed, in the manner of Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne, a visible badge of their alleged sinfulness.

Marc Sheppard, at American Thinker, explains:

These so-called “Global Warming Scores” range from 1 to 10, with 1 representing a vehicle selfishly emitting an excess of 520 “CO2 - equivalent Grams per mile” and 10 given to those altruistically checking in at under 200.

Okay, so CO2 grams emitted per mile would appear a tangible, albeit excruciatingly inconsequentially silly, measure. But just what is a “CO2 – equivalent?”

Well, so as not to burden its citizenry with potentially enlightening science, the Governator’s State has conveniently lumped all “Greenhouse gases (ghg) emitted from vehicles includ[ing] carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (NO2), and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) from air conditioner refrigerant” together into one “CO2 equivalent Value.” Pretty slick move—while CO2 is the least significant of all so-called “Greenhouse Gases,” its unique status as chief byproduct of industrial progress makes it by far the most valuable to regulation-hungry eco-maniacs.

But given all its artifice, “CO2 Equivalent Score” lacks the magical connection sought by the legislation’s makers. So, having successfully misrepresented an amalgam of gases as one, the next challenge was to label arbitrary output ranges of that arbitrary blend as a vehicle’s “Global Warming Score.” ...

Section 1 of the new Bill explains the convoluted reasoning behind this mind-boggling leap, opening with these deceiving declarations of scientific certitude:

(a) The use of fossil fuels in motor vehicles is one of the primary human sources of global warming gases that trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, leading to a warming effect on the planet.

(b) Increasing concentrations of global warming gases in the atmosphere are likely to accelerate the rate of climate change in California. (c) Scientific research indicates that the impact of global warming on our environment will be profound. Global warming will significantly impact the state’s air quality, water resources, forests, agricultural regions, coastal regions, and the health of the state’s residents.

Considering that all three points are at the very least unproven and recently all but disproved alarmist propaganda, this new mandated metric is neither any less comical nor any more relevant than would be a Dragon Repellant Score.

Yuma Sun:

The State Bar of Arizona is weighing whether to require new lawyers to swear they won’t let their views on someone’s sexual orientation affect their duty, a move foes said could force attorneys to represent clients whose view they find personally offensive.

Existing rules require an oath saying lawyers “will not permit considerations of gender, race, age, nationality, disability or social standing to influence my duty of care.” The plan being weighed by the bar’s board adds sexual orientation to that list.

Not signing the new oath, if it is adopted, is not an option: Attorneys cannot practice law in Arizona without being admitted to the bar.

The move has provoked severe objections from 31 attorneys who sent a letter to state bar President Ed Novak.

Tim Casey, one of those who is unhappy with the proposal, said it raises all sorts of issues. At the very least, he said, the wording “is so very vague it’s scary.” ...

Federal law and federal courts have spelled out that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, age and similar factors. The oath, Casey said, simply mirrors those laws, much in the in the same way that lawyers swear to uphold the state and federal constitutions.

Casey said any move to make sexual orientation one of these “protected classes” should be decided by lawmakers or courts, not by the board of the state bar. ...

Casey said he sees a broader agenda at work.

“There are people trying to make it difficult for professionals to exercise their religious convictions, their moral objections or their ethical objections in cases.”

So if a gay activist in Phoenix decides, for example, to sue the Catholic Church to force it to perform gay marriages, any individual attorney, regardless of his political, social, and religious views, could be forced to represent the complaintant under pain of penalties from the state bar.

Bloomberg reports that, while other businesses find sales plummeting, cybersecurity is booming.

Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., the world’s biggest defense companies, are deploying forces and resources to a new battlefield: cyberspace.

The military contractors, eager to capture a share of a market that may reach $11 billion in 2013, have formed new business units to tap increased spending to protect U.S. government computers from attack.

Chicago-based Boeing set up its Cyber Solutions division in August “because of a realization by the company that it’s a very serious threat,” Barbara Fast, vice president of the unit, said in an interview. “It’s not a question of if we’ll be attacked but when and so how will we be prepared.” Lockheed launched its cyber-defense operation in October.

President George W. Bush announced a national cybersecurity plan in January to be supervised by the Department of Homeland Security, after an increasing number of attacks on U.S. government and private sector networks by groups linked to foreign governments, organized crime gangs and hackers. In a Dec. 8 report, a panel of experts said President-elect Barack Obama should create a White House office to oversee the effort.

“The whole area of cyber is probably one of the faster-growing areas” of the U.S. budget, Linda Gooden, executive vice president of Lockheed’s Information Systems & Global Services unit, said in an interview. “It’s something that we’re very focused on. I expect there will be a significant focus” under Obama.

The number of security breaches of U.S. and private-computer networks reported to the Computer Emergency Readiness Team of the Homeland Security Department almost doubled to 72,000 in the fiscal year ended in October from about 37,000 the previous year, agency spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said in an interview.

U.S. government spending to secure military, intelligence and other agency computer networks is forecast to rise 44 percent to $10.7 billion in 2013 from $7.4 billion this year, according to a report by market forecaster Input.

Security-system spending will grow 7 percent to 8 percent annually, “significantly faster” than information-technology, which has increased about 4 percent a year in the past five years, said John Slye, an analyst at the Reston, Virginia, company.

Chosen by Wired.

Example:

How do you run a profitable interstate trucking company without all the hassle of driving trucks? Step one: Visit the online “load boards” where brokers advertise cargo in need of transport and negotiate a deal to, for example, haul a load from California to Maryland for $3,500. Step two: hack into the Department of Transportation website that maintains the master list of licensed trucking companies, and change the contact information for a legitimate firm to an address and phone number you control.

Step three: Profit! Posing as the company whose identity you just stole, outsource your job to another trucking firm for whatever price it wants; when the load is delivered, collect your $3,500, leaving the company that actually drove the truck trying in vain to invoice the company you hijacked. Step four: Get a lawyer. In October, federal prosecutors charged Russian immigrants Nicholas Lakes and Viachelav Berkovich with computer fraud for allegedly pulling this scam over-and-over again, to the tune of $500,000.

Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, writing December 24, 2008 at Palestinian Media Watch (article no longer on-line) quoted at Free Republic:

Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza have approved a new bill “to implement Koranic punishments,” including hand amputation, crucifixion, corporal punishment and execution. Drinking, owning or producing wine is punished by 40 lashes, while drinking in public adds three months’ imprisonment. Several laws are directed against Hamas’s Palestinian rivals, including a law intended to inhibit non-Hamas negotiators by sentencing to death anyone who was “appointed to negotiate with a foreign government on a Palestinian issue and negotiated against Palestinians’ interest.”

The following is the description as it appears… on the Al Arabiya website:

Headline: Hamas approves law of punishment by lashes, amputating hands, crucifying, and execution—in order to implement the Islamic Sharia law.

Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council approved in its meeting in Gaza a new bill proposed by the Hamas who have a majority in the Legislative Council, whose purpose is “to implement Koranic punishments.” The newspaper Al Hayat of London reported on Dec. 24, 2008, that this step is seen as unprecedented, and has brought criticism and concern from human rights organizations in the Gaza Strip, especially as this law includes punishments by lashes, cutting off of hands, crucifixion, and execution…

The language of the law proposes “primary and secondary” laws. Primary laws include: “Koranic laws, blood revenge, lashes, crucifixion, and execution …”

The text stresses: “These punishments will not be canceled or pardoned … except if pardoned by the victim himself…

Section 59 of the law establishes that “punishment of death will be enacted on any Palestinian who intentionally does one of the following: Raised a weapon against Palestine on behalf of the enemy during war, was appointed to negotiate with a foreign government on a Palestinian issue and negotiated against Palestinians’ interest, performed a hostile action against a foreign country in a way that endangers Palestine in war or in harming political relations, served a foreign army in time of war, advised or helped soldiers to enlist in this army, weakened the spirit or the force of resistance of the people, or spied against Palestine especially during war.”

The punishment of lashes appears in many sections of the law. Section 84 states that: “Whoever drinks wine, owns or produces wine will be punished with 40 lashes if he is Muslim, and anyone who drinks wine, or angers another person [with wine], or causes him distress when drinking wine in a public place, or goes to a public place while drunk, will be punished with no less than 40 lashes and imprisonment for the minimum of three months.”

Quite an incentive for Palestinian diplomats. Negotiate a treaty or a cease fire with Israel that somebody doesn’t like, and he can get out the old hammer and the nails and come looking for you.

José Guardia, quoting the Economist on Spain’s housing bust, demonstrates that some countries have it a lot worse.

The market is dropping fast. Property fairs tout discounts of as much as 60% on new-built homes, or even “buy one, get one free” offers. ...

Loan-to-value ratios tend to be safely below 80%. And Spanish mortgages cannot be cancelled by dropping the house keys at the bank: security is provided by all of a borrower’s assets—and sometimes those of relatives as well. It is no surprise that most Spaniards do their utmost not to default.

Ouch! I’m not inclined to think myself that two-for-one deals will really get many houses sold. “Shall we sleep in 514 West Queen Isabella Boulevard or in 516 tonight, Dear?”

Robert Burns, author of Auld Lang Syne

From Robert Chambers, A Book of Days, 1869:

NEW YEAR’S EVE, OR HOGMANAY

As a general statement, it may be asserted that neither the last evening of the old year nor the first day of the new one is much, observed in England as an occasion of festivity. In some parts of the country, indeed, and more especially in the northern counties, various social merry-makings take place; but for the most part, the great annual holiday-time is already past. Christmas Eve, Christmas-day, and St. Stephen’s or Boxing Day have absorbed almost entirely the tendencies and opportunities of the community at large in the direction of joviality and relaxation. Business and the ordinary routine of daily life have again been resumed; or, to apply to English habits the words of an old Scottish rhyme still current, but evidently belonging to the old times, anterior to the Reformation, when Christmas was the great popular festival:

Yule’s come and Yule ’s gane,
And we hae feasted weel;
Sae Jock maun to his flail again,
And Jenny to her wheel.’

Whilst thus the inhabitants of South Britain are settling down again quietly to work after the festivities of the Christmas season, their fellow-subjects in the northern division of the island are only commencing their annual saturnalia, which, till recently, bore, in the license and boisterous merriment which used to prevail, a most unmistakable resemblance to its ancient pagan namesake. The epithet of the Daft [mad] Days, applied to the season of the New Year in Scotland, indicates very expressively the uproarious joviality which characterized the period in question. This exuberance of joyousness—which, it must be admitted, sometimes led to great excesses—has now much declined, but New-year’s Eve and New-year’s Day constitute still the great national holiday in Scotland. Under the 1st of January, we have already detailed the various revelries by which the New Year used to be ushered in, in Scotland. It now becomes our province to notice those ceremonies and customs which are appropriate to the last day of the year, or, as it is styled in Scotland, Hogmanay.

This last term has puzzled antiquaries even more than the word Yule, already adverted to; and what is of still greater consequence, has never yet received a perfectly satisfactory explanation. Some suppose it to be derived from two Greek words, άιαμηνη (the holy moon or month), and in reference to this theory it may be observed, that, in the north of England, the term used is Hagmenu, which does not seem, however, to be confined to the 31st of December, but denotes generally the period immediately preceding the New Year. Another hypothesis combines the word with another sung along with it in chorus, and asserts ‘Hogmanay, trollolay!’ to be a corruption of ‘Homma est né—Trois Rois lá’’ (‘A Man is born—Three Kings are there’), an allusion to the birth of our Saviour, and the visit to Bethlehem of the Wise Men, who were known in medieval times as the ‘Three Kings.’

But two additional conjectures seem much more plausible, and the reader may select for himself what he considers the most probable. One of these is, that the term under notice is derived from Hoggu-nott, Hogenat, or Hogg-night, the ancient Scandinavian name for the night preceding the feast of Yule, and so called in reference to the animals slaughtered on the occasion for sacrificial and festal purpose word hogg signifying to kill. The other derivation of Hogmanay is from ‘Au gui menez’ (‘To the mistletoe go’), or ‘’Au gui ľan neuf’ ’ (‘To the mistletoe this New Year ‘), an allusion to the ancient Druidical ceremony of gathering that plant. In the patois of Touraine, in France, the word used is Aguilanneu; in Lower Normandy, and in Guernsey, poor persons and children used to solicit a contribution under the title of Hoguinanno or 0guinano; whilst in Spain the term, Aguinaldo, is employed to denote the presents made at the season of Christmas.

In country places in Scotland, and also in the more retired and primitive towns, it is still customary on the morning of the last day of the year, or Hogmanay, for the children of the poorer class of people to get themselves swaddled in a great sheet, doubled up in front, so as to form a vast pocket, and then to go along the streets in little bands, calling at the doors of the wealthier classes for an expected dole of oaten-bread. Each child gets one quadrant section of oat-cake (some-times, in the case of particular favourites, improved by an addition of cheese), and this is called their hogmanay. In expectation of the large demands thus made upon them, the housewives busy themselves for several days beforehand in preparing a suitable quantity of cakes. The children on coming to the door cry, ‘Hogmanay!’ which is in itself a sufficient announcement of their demands; but there are other exclamations which either are or might be used for the same purpose. One of these is:

‘Hogmanay, Trollolay, Give us of your white bread, and none of your gray.’

And another favourite rhyme is:

Get up, goodwife, and shake your feathers,
And dinna think that we are beggars;
For we are bairns come out to play,
Get up and gie’s our hogmanay!’

The following is of a moralising character, though a good deal of a truism:

Get up, goodwife, and binna sweir,
And deal your bread to them that ’s here;
For the time will come when ye’ll be dead,
And then ye’ll neither need ale nor bread.’

The most favourite of all, however, is more to the point than any of the foregoing :

My feet’s cauld, my shoon’s thin;
Gie’s my cakes, and let me rin!’

It is no unpleasing scene, during the forenoon, to see the children going laden home, each with his large apron bellying out before him, stuffed full of cakes, and perhaps scarcely able to waddle under the load. Such a mass of oaten alms is no inconsiderable addition to the comfort of the poor man’s household, and enables him to enjoy the New-year season as much as his richer neighbours.

In the primitive parish of Deerness, in Orkney, it was customary, in the beginning of the present century, for old and young of the common class of people to assemble in a great band upon the evening of the last day of the year, and commence a round of visits throughout the district. At every house they knocked at the door, and on being admitted, commenced singing, to a tune of its own, a song appropriate to the occasion. The following is what may be termed a restored version of this chant, the imagination having been called on to make up in several of the lines what was deficient in memory. The ‘Queen Mary’ alluded to is evidently the Virgin:

‘This night it is grid New’r E’en’s night,
We’re a’ here Queen Mary’s men;
And we ‘re come here to crave our right,

Our shoon’s made o’ mare’s skin,
Come open the door, and let’s in.’

The inner-door being opened, a tremendous rush was made ben the house. The inmates furnished a long table with all sorts of homely fare, and a hearty feast took place, followed by copious libations of ale, charged with all sorts of good-wishes. The party would then proceed to the next house, where a similar scene would be enacted. How they contrived to take so many suppers in one evening, heaven knows ! No slight could be more keenly felt by a Deerness farmer than to have his house passed over unvisited by the New-year singers.

The doings of the guisers or guizards (that is, masquers or mummers) form a conspicuous feature in the New-year proceedings throughout Scotland. The favourite night for this exhibition is Hogmanay, though the evenings of Christmas, New-year’s Day, and Handsel Monday, enjoy like-wise a privilege in this respect. Such of the boys as can lay any claim to the possession of a voice have, for weeks before, been poring over the collection of ‘excellent new songs,’ which lies like a bunch of rags in the window-sill; and being now able to screech up ‘Barbara Allan,’ or the ‘Wee cot-house and the wee kail-yardie,’ they determine upon enacting the part of guisers. For this purpose they don old shirts belonging to their fathers, and mount mitre-shaped casques of brown paper, possibly borrowed from the Abbot of Unreason; attached to this is a sheet of the same paper, which, falling down in front, covers and conceals the whole face, except where holes are made to let through the point of the nose, and afford sight to the eyes and breath to the mouth. Each vocal guiser is, like a knight of old, attended by a sort of humble squire, who assumes the habiliments of a girl, ‘with an old-woman’s cap and a broomstick, and is styled ‘Bessie: Bessie is equal in no respect, except that she shares fairly in the proceeds of the enterprise. She goes before her principal, opens all the doors at which he pleases to exert his singing powers; and busies herself, during the time of the song, in sweeping the floor with her broomstick, or in playing any other antics that she thinks may amuse the indwellers. The common reward of this entertainment is a halfpenny, but many churlish persons fall upon the unfortunate guisers, and beat them out of the house. Let such persons, however, keep a good watch upon their cabbage-gardens next Halloween!

The more important doings of the guisers are of a theatrical character. There is one rude and grotesque drama which they are accustomed to perform on each of the four above-mentioned nights; and which, in various fragments or versions, exists in every part of Lowland Scotland. The performers, who are never less than three, but sometimes as many as six, having dressed themselves, proceed in a band from house to house, generally contenting themselves with the kitchen for an arena; whither, in mansions presided over by the spirit of good-humour, the whole family will resort to witness the spectacle. Sir Walter Scott, who delighted to keep up old customs, and could condescend to simple things without losing genuine dignity, invariably had a set of guisers to perform this play before his family both at Ashestiel and Abbotsford. The drama in question bears a close resemblance, with sundry modifications, to that performed by the mummers in various parts of England, and of which we have already given a specimen.

Such are the leading features of the Hogmanay festivities in Scotland. A similar custom to that above detailed of children going about from house to house, singing the Hagmena chorus, and obtaining a dole of bread or cakes, prevails in Yorkshire and the north of England; but, as we have already mentioned, the last day of the year is not in the latter country, for the most part, invested with much peculiar distinction.

Scrappleface reports that, while waiting for the inauguration, Barack Obama is working on another memoir. This one will chronicle his days in the Senate.

According to a news release from the publisher, the memoir entitled 143 Days That Shaped a Nation: The Senate Career of Barack Obama, “is third in a series of biennial Obama memoirs and promises a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the senate from an outsider’s perspective, along with personal anecdotes about senate colleagues whom Sen. Obama occasionally met, or heard about.”

“When you have served as long as I have,” said Mr. Obama, “I think you have an obligation to pass on some of that wisdom that comes from your experience for the benefit of the people of the world.”

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich must now choose a replacement who has experience comparable with Sen. Obama’s — a daunting task, the governor said, “when you realize that whomever I pick as junior senator might be just one great speech away from the Democrat presidential nomination.”

The Chicago Tribune’s John Kass advises. Playing the race card was a brilliant stroke which instantly put the national democrat party on the defensive.

Since he was federally charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been wrongly caricatured as some kind of hapless jester prancing on the edge of madness.

Jesters hold rattles with a likeness of their heads on the end of a stick, and they hop off into a corner, prattling to themselves. That’s what jesters do.

Jesters don’t pick up the race card in a nationally televised news conference and slam it into the face of every Democrat in the U.S. Senate, a palm heel strike to the tip of the nose, leaving all of them watery-eyed, their lips stinging.

Yet that’s what Blagojevich—aided by former Black Panther-turned-Daley-machine-functionary Bobby Rush—did at that stupendous news conference in Chicago on Tuesday. That’s when the governor appointed Democratic empty suit Roland Burris, an African-American, to fill the Senate seat vacated by Obama.

“Please don’t allow the allegations against me to taint this good and honest man,” said Blagojevich.

It was a brazen move, and a smart one, and though the race card was ugly, there was no passion in it. There was no lunacy involved.

“This is not about Roland, this is about Rod,” said savvy political consultant Thom Serafin when I called him while watching the circus of the politically bizarre. Serafin correctly predicted weeks ago that it would be Burris, shortly after Blagojevich was arrested and most other Senate hopefuls pulled out lest they be infected by the governor’s dilemma.

“This is Rod telling the political class that he’s still active, that he’s still around, that he’s still the governor,” Serafin said. “And how do they deny Roland Burris? They can’t.”

Read the whole thing.

Victor Davis Hanson predicts that, six months into the new administration, it will be apparent that it was not actually the policies which changed. It will be how they are being reported and described.

All the campaign talk of the Great Depression, a Vietnam-like war, and our shredded Constitution will now thankfully subside as the Obama administration assumes office and solves problems with conciliation, dialogue, and multilateral wisdom, rather than shrillness, unilateralism, preemption, and my-way-or-the-highway dogmatism. We will hear that, by historical levels, unemployment is still not that bad, that GDP growth is not historically all that low, and that deficits, inflation, interest rates, and housing starts are all within manageable parameters. “Depression” will transmogrify into “recession” which in turn by July will be a “downturn” and by year next an “upswing” on its way to boom times.

Indeed, almost supernaturally crises will be solved with the departure of the hated Bush: no more flooding streets from cracked water mains that were a result of a President’s neglect of infrastructure, and no more spontaneous crashes of Mississippi River bridges due to diversions of critical federal aid from cash-strapped states to Iraq. And when the temperatures rise or drop, the wind howls, the clouds burst forth or go away, the snow melts or piles up, it will be, well, nature that caused the havoc, not the current occupant of the White House who failed to sign Kyoto.

As we watch the innocent die from natural mayhem, it will be due to the breakdown of local responders who now suddenly kill people, not federal inaction—except perhaps for an occasional few Bush federal holdovers that have not yet been rooted out. Human nature, of course, now will be seen more culpable, more selfish, as in needlessly resisting wise and caring federal interventions, rather than being inherently noble but shunned by an uncaring Washington. Yes, when dikes collapse and planes collide on crowed runways, it will be due to a cruel and unpredictable nature, or intrinsic design flaws, or improper local use and maintenance, or the past President’s nefarious legacy, not current government policies. (But if you still must bash the government, it will be wise to do it in 1950s style of inattentive state and local officials, prone to regional and tribal prejudices, blocking the infinite wisdom of a caring federal government.)

Some military action abroad could be necessary—and necessarily reported on as measured and reluctant, rather than cowboyish and gratuitous. European whining will be a result of miscommunications or the Euros’ unfair caricatures of Americans, not Bush’s alienation of allies. If radical Islam strikes, it will be, well, radical again and sometimes even dangerous, not a figment of neocon pipe dreams. If an administration official quits, goes on 60 Minutes, and writes a nasty tell-all book about Obama’s insensitivity and his government’s directionless ennui, he will be a heretic, a whiner, a turncoat, not a truth teller or brave maverick who blew the whistle in need of a bestseller hype