I served on the Amtrak Reform Council ten years ago and was frustrated, ultimately, by the failure of the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress to press harder for changes to Amtrak that would have made that entity more transparent in its finances and more collaborative with the private sector. Democrats who were beholden to Amtrak unions resisted changes, and when the Obama Administration came to power it decided to put lots of money into passenger rail, but not to support the kind of structural change needed to create a new, more successful entity.

An article in the the new Atlantic, How To Save The News, looks at the changes coming to journalism in general and to newspapers specifically. Most originally, it looks at how the sometime newspaper slayer Google is working on changing the business of news delivery, thereby possibly saving the newspapers.

It has some interesting insights on the collection and distribution of news and information (something we do a bit of ourselves here at Discovery) -- albeit ones the author and sources probably don't even recognize themselves. Especially the big one: institutional bias. In this case, the bias installed by an institution into mass numbers of individuals who go out and in turn propogate the bias, often unwittingly.

Take this short blurb:

Here is what you are not getting right now, even from that section of the media in America that is still pro-Israel: Israel is as important to the U.S. as the U.S. is to Israel. To the extent we damage our most reliable Middle Eastern ally, we are damaging ourselves.

George Gilder's The Israel Test is the one book out now that tells, extensively, how Israel matters to both the U.S. economy--especially in the cutting edge high tech field--and to America's strategic aims. It treats the cultural and historical reasons for U.S. support of Israel, but others do that, too. What matters, and what is missing from our national discussion, is how vital Israel is to American inventive prowess, manufacturing relevance and national defense. Israelis even have invented a device to let soldiers see through walls to activities that might be going on in a building they are about to inspect!

Buried in the news about the "Peace Flotilla" is the business news of huge new gas reserves off the Israeli coast--enough to power Israel for several generations and leave some for export. This is a major advance for the Israeli economy.

But, Israel, an energy exporter?

White House Officials and the press corps love to indulge Helen Thomas,
"La Passionaria" of the White House press corps, now attached to the Hearst corporation. She says harsh things, but, hey, she's reliably progressive, isn't she? The President even provided her with a birthday party last year.

Okay, well, here she is on Israel and the Jews.

Once the Jews were in Israel. Then the Romans slaughtered many of them and threw the rest out. They wound up in places like Poland and Germany, where sixty five years ago six million were exterminated. There are now six million Jews in Israel. Ms Thomas wants them out of there again, and back where they belong. In Poland and Germany.

Good ol' Helen! What an adornment to the press corps! (Update: How inspiring that she is defended by former Press Secretary Joe Lockhart!)

The new center-right government in Hungary is telling the IMF and the world that the former, socialist government left Hungary in even worse fiscal shape than suspected. They may be exaggerating as a bargaining tool with the IMF, but there is no doubt that the prospect of another bankrupt country is scaring world markets.

In the US most of the "new employment" created in May were temporary positions in the Census Bureau, a further sign on this side of the Atlantic that Obamanomics isn't working.

Dr. Jeffrey Cain heads Philanthropy Daily online and has just published an important article (at Washington Legal Foundation) on efforts by activist groups and government to gain control of what used to be called the "independent sector". It isn't enough that most non-profits are led by people who enthusiastically supported the present Administration and that the over-whelming majority of foundations that take an interest in public policy back "progressive" causes. Now the left wants direct pay-outs. Dr. Cain's paper follows:

Five Threats To Philanthropic Freedom In These Recessionary Times

By Jeffrey Cain, Ph.D.
June 4, 2010 (Vol. 25 No. 22)

The generosity of individual Americans is the envy of the world. No developed country even comes close to the amount of time that Americans volunteer or the amount of money Americans give to charity. Within eight days of Hurricane Katrina, Americans had donated over $580 million to relief efforts; within fifteen days of the earthquake in Haiti, $528 million.1 Collectively, Americans gave over $308 billion to charity in the recessionary year of 2008. We are uniquely, even congenitally, generous. When it comes to philanthropy, something has gone gloriously right in the United States.

Yet one would hardly know this from the litany of grievances and regulatory proposals now emanating from activists, politicians, and philanthropic bureaucrats. Recent years have yielded bumper crops of reports, legislative efforts, and pleas calling for greater oversight, transparency, and governance of America's independent charitable sector. In different times, these complaints might be brushed aside as the perennial chatter of self-proclaimed and self-serving advocacy groups. However, as the effects of the recession linger -- widespread unemployment, soaring deficits, budget shortfalls, and popular dissatisfaction with elite institutions -- long-held grievances against private philanthropy may find a more receptive ear, especially given Washington's reform-minded political ethos.

We should have seen it coming. Turkey under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to throw in with the despots of Iran and the terrorists of Hamas long before the phony "Peace Flotilla" tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza this week. Even in April Erdogan was describing Israel as the "main threat to Middle Eastern peace."

Today, Erdogan is quite plain. Israeli, he says, is guilty of "inhuman state terror", while Hamas is "fighting for their own lands."

Media should hold scientists, and especially official science boards, responsible for dire predictions that fail to materialize. The good example of this past year's non-appearing flu epidemic is dissected by Michael Fumento of the Independent Journalism Project.

Accountability for false predictions is desirable in order to prevent fear-mongering and its exploitation for notoriety and public and foundation fund-seeking. Modest claims probably don't get the financial backing that sensational claims do. Who knows the costs of bogus science?

There is an unending parade of uncritical headlines that include the phrase "Scientists Say." That's all it takes, and you can assert almost anything after it. Except that contemporary science, for all its achievements, isn't as sound and sure as these hyped stories make out. If you want the public to become cynical, however, then this is just the way to go.

Claire Berlinski, an American writer in Turkey, makes me feel better about my confusion on the Peace Flotilla matter. I am not confused about the Israeli actions, but the reasons for the strange official reaction of Turkey. What is Prime Minister Erdogan up to and what are the implications?

In an article for City Journal, Claire at least makes one's uncertainty better-informed.

Dr. Jeffrey Cain, cited several days ago here for his important paper on government threats to the independence of the philanthropic center, officially begins Philanthropy Daily online today.

Cain and his associates have strong backgrounds in the fields of philanthropy and fund-raising for non-profits. Most valuable, in addition, is their perspective of respect for the tradition of charity and their suspicion of government offers to "help" the sector.

John Herbert of the New York Times reminded us recently that "President Obama's top adviser on energy policy, Carol Browner, unintentionally underscored the monumental futility of the (Administration) response in a comment she made on NBC's 'Meet the Press...

"This is obviously a difficult situation," said Ms. Browner, "but it's important for people to understand that from the beginning, the government has been in charge."

Well, at this point, all we can say is, "You're doin' a heck of a job, Browny!"

Things are falling apart for the Obama Administration and the White House folks are not interested in taking responsibility. It's getting a bit late in the term to blame George Bush, though that continues. And while there also are efforts to blame recalcitrant Republicans in the Senate and House, it's obvious to anyone that Democrats control Congress overwhelmingly.

So who you gonna blame?

Big business. In a number of fora progressives (nee, "liberals") have decided to try left wing populism and put the fault for the nation's ills on big business.

There are a couple of problems with that. First, many of the failures of the Administration--in foreign policy, for example--have little to do with business, big or small.

Second, for the past two elections rich people have donated more to Democrats than to Republicans. President Obama carried all 20 of the zip codes with the highest percentages of rich people. And big businesses have been prominently won over to support of such legislative aims as Cap and Trade and Obamacare. Big Pharma alone spent $150 million in soft money TV ads boosting leading Democrats who supported the President's health bill. Seduced or coerced, either way they paid. As for Wall Street, their strong Democratic proclivities in 2008 definitely were the product of easy seduction.

As for oil, BP contributed $1 million to the Obama campaign and more to Democrats than to Republicans in Congressional races.

So, blaming big business makes something of a circle of blame that winds up back in the White House.

by George Gilder

The preeminent UK science writer Matt Ridley, formerly an editor of The Economist and author of the best-selling Genome and other books, has long upheld the politically correct canons of his trade. But in his new book, The Rational Optimist, he has finally exhausted his patience with the environmental movement and the rest of the economic left. The cause of his sudden and violent disillusionment is the collapse of global warming science, which he and the Economist have long gullibly accepted but which Ridley has now discovered to be so deeply flawed as to rise to the level of fraud.

This is the most complete and far-reaching and even profound critique of environmentalism and socialism that has come from Britain since Hayek's Road to Serfdom. Ridley shows that the green movement poses a devastating threat to the environment, which throughout history has always benefited most from the very economic growth and progress, fueled by fossil energy, that the Greens are dedicated to ending. The only comparable books are Peter Huber's Hard Green and the Bottomless Well, but Ridley takes the argument further and brings it up to date. This is a major breakthrough for conservatives and a must read.

My only objection is his credulous reliance on materialist economic models based on Darwinian biology. But compared to his huge achievement the flaws are best left to cavil at another time.

A relatively new development in American politics and foreign policy is the increase in the number of liberal American Jews who have become pronounced critics of Israel.

The Obama Administration feels free to pressure Israel today because of the change in sentiment among this segment of opinion. And liberal American Jews undoubtedly have become critical of Israel, or at least ambivalent, because many are first and foremost liberals, and, hence, devoted supporters of President Obama.

These are some of the observations made in the June issue of Commentary. Within the magazine's symposium on "Obama, Israel & American Jews" is this excellent essay by Michael Medved, cultural critic, talk-show host and Fellow of Discovery Institute:

"At his core, Barack Obama is a leveler-an eraser of distinctions. Most Americans savor his unique ability to blur divisions based on race, or to demolish barriers between the impoverished and the privileged. In other areas, the president's leveling instinct creates far more controversy, particularly when it morphs into a stubbornly nonjudgmental form of moral relativism.

Behind the scenes, even before the 2010 mid-term Congressional elections, Republicans are beginning to think about who can run for President in 2012. A great deal of attention has been paid this past week to Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana. He is featured on the cover of the Weekly Standard, accompanied by a first rate article by Andrew Ferguson. Philip Klein of The American Spectator online covered a press conference at the Heritage Foundation that Daniels held in Washington, DC Tuesday. And if the press conference was any indication, there will be much more speculation about a possible Daniels candidacy in the days ahead.

Governor Daniels is well-qualified for the presidency. As he says, the Republicans are going to want a winning candidate, but they also are going to want someone who is experienced. With Daniels himself they would have someone who has been a senior staffer on Capitol Hill (Sen. Lugar) and the White House (President Reagan), a public policy think tank head (Hudson Institute), a successful businessman (Eli Lilly Company), a Cabinet secretary (Director of OMB under G.W. Bush) and a popular governor with a record of accomplishments that are highly relevant to the needs of the country as a whole.

Peter Hitchens of The Mail in London says America doesn't like England, and he is whining about it. (Or, as he would put it, whinging.)

He's wrong; someone please hand him a tissue and pat his hand. President Obama and some old pals like Bill Ayers may dislike England, or rather, condescend to her. They have imbibed a lot of radical rot in universities. But the striking thing about American opinion is something else. It's this: Most Americans probably like the British more than you all like us.

In 2004 the taxpayers of California approved a bond issue of $3 billion to set up a state program for embryonic stem cell research. Medical miracles were virtually promised. We are now six years later and there are no miracles. They are always just around the corner.

But what has arrived, meanwhile, is public indebtedness in California that is requiring cuts in public services and public employment--and tax increases. I wonder if anyone in California would like to have their 2004 money back.

A Los Angeles Times opinion piece acknowledges that little has happened with the billion dollars spent so far. But what no one seems to be asking is, why was this a state initiative anyhow? If the case for embryonic stem cell research was so terrific, why didn't the federal government handle it?

One public policy analyst who did see the problem clearly at the time was bioethicist and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith.

Find a registered adult who doesn't work for Congress or a think tank that covers the economy. Ask him or her two questions: 1) What do you think the highest income tax rate for individuals should be? After they tell you, ask, 2) What do you think the top rate is right now?

It must have seemed like a way the President should show he was in command: "inform" BP that they would be setting up an escrow account to fund payments for damages in the Gulf oil spill. BP has now agreed. The amount is $20 billion and the fund is to be administered by federal officials.

"I would like government to do all it can to mitigate; then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."
--Warren G. Harding, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1921

"(W)hat has defined us as a nation since our founding is our capacity to shape our destiny - our determination to fight for the America we want for our children. Even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don't yet know precisely how to get there. We know we'll get there."
--Barack H. Obama, First Address from the Oval Office, June 15, 2010

The world is not yet paying much attention, but ships apparently departed Khorramshahr, Iran on June 12, bound for Gaza. Iran is threatening to retaliate if Americans, or, presumably, Israelis, attempt to stop them on international waters. That is likely to spark a new crisis at sea.

Lebanese ships, possibly linked to the Iran-sponsored terrorists, Hezbollah, also appear to be headed to Gaza.

Israel has announced that it is relaxing the flow of goods into Gaza, but not, of course, to the satisfaction of Hamas. That is because the real purpose of the efforts to break the blockade has nothing to do with humanitarian aid--which can get into Gaza after Israeli inspection--but to set the stage for arms shipments into Gaza and escalation of violence by Hamas against Israel. That's what this is all about.

Strange to tell, the reality of the blockade's purpose, and the purpose of the would-be blockade busters, has not gained much attention in the international press. The imminent arrival of the Iranian ships is still not in the news at all.

Michael Medved treated visitors to his homepage to a preview of the trailer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that will be released at Christmas time. It is sure to be a blockbuster, the latest in Walden films' Chronicle of Narnia series, based on the works of C. S. Lewis.

No.
No.
and No.

There will be rationing. There will be doctors shortages. Private insurance will disappear as a realistic option for millions.

But don't tell the media, who are reporting that the American public is now fine with the health care bill--very little of which has taken effect yet.

Forbes magazine once again scores imaginatively with an interactive map of the nation's counties, showing which ones are gaining and which ones losing population. It is stunning. Black lines show exits, red lines show entrances, and from where.

Chicago, for example, appears to be bleeding people all over the country, but especially to the Northwest, Southeast and Texas. Seattle (King County) gains (as usual, the intake is strong from Alaska and the Mountain West, but also the Northeast). Spokane has people coming and going--the interesting red lines are from California. Los Angeles is losing, while San Francisco continues (it appears) to gain. The no-longer Golden State as a whole is sliding for the first time, thanks to the poor economy and oppressive taxes. Texas is picking up a lot of others' losses. Might it have something to do with lower taxes and stronger growth?

Find your county.

What do BP and Barack Obama have in common?

You would think from the White House puffery that President Obama harbors long standing resentments toward BP. But the truth is that BP is a corporation that some time ago decided to throw in with political "progressives" and "green" policies. In the U.S. it has tended to support liberals in election campaigns--including Barack Obama.

The real story apparently is well known in Britain, where former Thatcher strategist Norman Tebbit remains bristly, humorous and apt as a commentator. He has a regular blog for the London Telegraph, making the point today that BP ran off some of its cautious, old-time engineers and other experts in recent years, the kind of people who might have prevented the egregious Gulf spill.

"The facts are clear enough," writes Lord Tebbit. "Under the leadership of Lord Browne, BP not only contracted out the management of those nasty dirty jobs like drilling for oil and refining it, it progressively got rid of anyone who knew any thing about such old-fashioned activities. The New, Modern, Green, Progressive, BP made excellent profits, but failed to heed the failures in parts of its business for which it was still responsible but had discarded the skills to manage."

We need some American media to take us inside the real BP.

Last week it was reported that "aid" ships already had left Iran to test the Israeli blockade of Gaza. It seems from reports today that the ships were delayed. Now they supposedly are ready, as is a ship from Lebanon. It still seems odd that this has attracted so little attention in the MSM. One wonders if the Iranians and Lebanese will be treated as true humanitarians or as the advance guard they are for breaking the blockade so more weapons can get in.

Meanwhile, US warships have passed through the Suez Canal on their way to the Red Sea. There is speculation that they may intercept the Iranian ships.

The role of Egypt becomes delicate. It does not like Iran and it let the US warships through the canal. Presumably, it would be prepared to let the Iranian ships through, going the other way. But the paperwork for approval might take a long time!

Human Events is offering new subscribers a free copy of Ben Wiker's exciting new book, 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read (the book itself would be the 11th, by the way). For a two year subscription you get that book and Wiker's previous one, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World.

Regnery, Inc., publishers of 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read, also is promoting the work extensively.

The Wiker books are useful for those with holes in their life-time reading accomplishments. Truth is, however, that's most of us. What Wiker does is give you an idea whether to read the books themselves--and which ones first. And for the rest, well, you can throw the names around at cocktail parties anyhow!

The G-8 conference on the international economy is about to take place in small town Muskoka, Ontario, followed by a G-20 meeting this weekend in Toronto. Together they offer at least as big an opportunity for the world's traveling tribe of protestors to show off as they do for economically prosperous Canada.

The trouble is, whenever some city or country decides these days to boast a bit, the leftist furies assemble to undercut the effect. Remember the WTO in Seattle? As happened in Seattle, much of Toronto will be closed down.

Expenses for the international meetings in Ontario already are estimated at $1 billion. There will be a sightseeing and cell phone and airspace limits imposed for part of the time. To protect VIPS from agitators a $5.5 million fence has been erected--sure to be likened to that along the US southern border or the line between Israel and Gaza. Today a man was arrested for attempting to plant a bomb at the conference site.

Meanwhile, the conferences themselves are likely to be relatively boring. That is because international leaders don't agree yet whether a recovery is underway and sustainable, and are uncertain therefore whether to goose spending or reverse it. Our President wants to spend. But you knew that. The other G-8 leaders think deficits have to be reduced.

The 19th century travel saying about Italy was, "See Naples and die." That is, when you've escaped the cold rain of England, say, and savored the Mediterranean sun, you will feel you've experienced all of the joy available in this life.

Now, it's "See Oregon and Die." The meaning is changed. These days you can hire a company to help you dispatch yourself, or help a "loved one" to do so. It's legal, it's probably a profit-center for someone, and they are even holding fashionable lunches at El Gaucho to advertise the exiting service.

El Gaucho is famous for great food. You might want to change your mind after dining there.

The great hope of political liberals is that ordinary Americans can be made to dislike and resent "the rich". Most don't, fortunately.

Some very rich people--the folks with millions or billions in banks, securities, tax-free municipal bonds, Treasuries, gold, trusts, various shelters--are calling for increases in income taxes. Easy for them. The income tax primary hits salaries, and the rich don't have much of their real income in salaries.

People who want to become rich do. They are the ones about to get socked by rising income taxes and surcharges (Obamacare). Today "rich" starts at $200,000.

Now we learn that that may not be enough. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says so. In comments two days ago he says the middle class may have to bear more income taxes, too.

I meet all kinds of people, including frustrated liberals who think that many of our problems today would disappear if only the "rich" and "the corporations" paid more in taxes. Government obviously needs more money, or else budgets wouldn't keep going up, right? So we need to take a bit more from people who have more than they need and redistribute it.

So I try this experiment. I ask people, "How high do you think the top federal income tax rate should be?" I get a lot of blank stares, then they often say something like, "Twenty percent."

Then I ask, "What do you think the top income tax rate actually is right now?" This is a test, obviously, and it makes some people uncomfortable. But many finally answer something like, "Fifteen percent?" Maybe, "Twenty percent?"

I then explain that the top federal marginal rate of income tax today is 35 percent. Obviously, by their own valuation, that is too high.

In a couple of cases, people say, well, maybe that's just fine.

Then I ask if they are aware it is about to go up--January 1, 2011--to 39.5 percent. At that point, they start to perceive the truth: taxes are already too high. We are at the point where we start to discourage entrepreneurship and strangle growth--when what we desperately need is strong economic activity.

Then I point out that the new Obama Health Care Act will add a further "surcharge" of three percent to payroll taxes of the "rich"....Meanwhile, the Estate Tax (the "Death Tax") goes up to 55 percent next year on estates worth at least $1.2 million....Capital gains taxes are slated to rise from 15 to 20 percent.

And all of this comes before state and local income taxes in most states.

The truly rich can manage it. Their money is mostly not in salaries. The people who get soaked are those folks aspiring to get rich by building businesses and creating new jobs--the people on salaries or commissions. High income taxes thwart their ability to save and invest.

I have had some success with this socratic approach. Deep down, even many liberals don't believe in the policies of their leaders.

The Tea Parties, whatever you think of their key themes of the danger of runaway federal spending and coming high taxes, also also tend to a background theme of patriotism that is worth thinking about as Independence Day approaches.

A recent Internet sensation was caused when retired Marine Lewis Shaeffer, attending a Georgia Tea Party, extemporaneously reminded the crowd of the usually neglected last verse of The Star Spangled Banner-- by singing it.

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause. it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

It reminds me: when you are told at some civic event that a prayer would be unconstitutional, you can suggest that we all just sing the full National Anthem instead! Who can call that unconstitutional?

And as the event concludes, we can sing America the Beautiful, including the magnificent lines of Katherine Lee Bates in the second stanza, "America! America! God mend thine every flaw. Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law."

For this troubled generation--tempted to solipsism and secularism--those are words to live by, and prosper from.

Our Senior Fellow John R. Miller makes good sense in The American Spectator with his critique of the Obama Administration's interest in public opinion overseas. It is mostly an abstraction and often misleading.

We all are addicted to polls and "public opinion", I'm afraid. It goes back a hundred years, when the craze began. Theodore Roosevelt once quipped, when asked what he thought of the new concept of public opinion, "I agree. I think the public is entitled to know all my opinions."

Stories continue to pour forth about the Russian spy scandal. Everyone seems a bit embarrassed. The Russians pretend to be indignant, but they don't deny that the eleven folks caught with lots of spy equipment, fake identification and other espionage giveaways, were, in fact,....well,....spies.

What really should embarrass the Kremlin is the apparently farcical quality of the spy craft. References have been made to John LeCarre and James Bond. A much more appropriate comparison is to the cartoon characters of Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale in the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV show that was popular from the 60s to the 80s. See, for example, an excerpt from "Boris and Natasha Take Washington."

Some think that all the Kremlin really wanted was what they got, impressions of life in the USA and what people close to government think. If so, it is another example of wasteful government spending. The Russian public need something comparable to the Tea Parties to demand better value for their tax monies. This pitiful excuse for spying is what about we would expect of the American government under Obama. It is the exact sort of soft power intelligence the Left here seems to think is important. Only it is hidden.

The Kremlin would be better off following the Internet, including our own Russia Blog! Given what they appear to be after, the Russian government should sponsor more conferences and exchanges right out in the open where people of different views and experiences from the US and Russia can learn from one another.

That would prove more productive, cost less and lead to fewer arrests.