It’s not often (well, ever) that a Friday Link Wrap-up would have breaking news, but as I type this, Hosni Mubarak has stepped down as President and put the military in charge, not his recently-named VP. This is a historic day for Egypt, as it now has its first living ex-President. Barry Rubin runs down the "now what?" scenarios.

Some town in the US, including one suburb of Atlanta, have a law requiring each household to own a gun. These towns have much lower crime rates than their neighbors. But with the cases going through the courts on the constitutionality of the ObamaCare individual mandate to buy health insurance, and with South Dakota considering a bill requiring gun ownership, Glenn Reynolds goes over the major differences between the two.

Reaganomics vs Obamanomics and getting us out of a recession.

In his first speech as Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron argued that a shared national identity prevents extremism more so than multiculturalism, and indeed, the latter may encourage it. If you have no connection to your country, you have no problem burning it.

In more Civil Discourse Watch, here’s folks on the Left calling for riots, or at least pointing to rioting as a good example.

The failure of the repeal of ObamaCare can be laid at Democrats feet. We’ll see how well that works for them in 2012. (Didn’t work so well in 2010.)

In which country in the Middle East do Arabs have the greatest civil liberties? Click here to find out.

We keep hearing this refrain.

Shortly after taking office, President Obama traveled to Cairo to declare a new day in U.S. relations with the Muslim world – saying there was "no straight line" to building democratic societies in the Middle East.

The June 2009 address was in part intended to show a clean break from a George W. Bush-era "freedom agenda" of promoting electoral democracies across the region. Yet Obama now finds himself forced to move much closer to that world view as he escalates pressure on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to make immediate changes.

Regarding national defense and now foreign policy, Dubya had it right. Slowly, but too slowly, Obama is realizing this.

Law enforcement could have stopped the Fort Hood shooting by Major Hasan if political correctness hadn’t prevented them.

And finally, some bad investments. Click for a larger version.

Leave it to Newsweek to call family films "shameful" for not fulfilling their PC feminist quotas.  With so much that is actually shameful coming out of Hollywood, you’d think they’d have more to deal with than "Finding Nemo".

Robert Robb of The Arizona Republic asks:

What will it take for economic policymakers to understand that the chief problem today is uncertainty? And that until they quit moving significant pieces of fiscal, monetary and regulatory policy around, the uncertainty won’t abate?

Quite a lot, apparently.  If jobs start getting created after big Republican wins in November, it’ll likely be because the "Party of No" will be there to curb this uncertainty.

If 91% of white voters had voted against Obama, some would have called it partially due to racism.  If 91% of black support him, can that be partially attributed to racism?  Jerome Hudson considers this.

The New York Times trumpets how well the civilian court system is for dealing with terrorism it when a terrorist pleads guilty and is sentenced.  Um, that’s not a real test of the system, guys.  A trial is the way to test it, and a terrorist trial going on in the civilian system was dealt a huge blow.  Do we want to chance, perhaps, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed getting off on a technicality?

Glasses that give perfect vision for any type of eyesight, even if you need bifocals?  Looks possible!

And finally, the longest stretch of 9.5+ percent unemployment since the 1930s has not been mitigated one bit by the two highest deficits since 1945.  Given liberal claims, we ought to have been sailing out of this by now.  Can we finally put that "government spending fixes the economy" meme to bed?

Turns out that the prisoners in Gitmo would rather stay in Gitmo than go home.

The Obama administration would quickly send home six Algerians held at the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but for one problem: The men don’t want to go. Given the choice between repatriation and incarceration, the men choose Gitmo, according to their lawyers.

He’s got what seems to be a good reason why.

The detainee had asserted that if he is returned, the Algerian government will torture him or he will be targeted by terrorist groups who will kill him if he refuses to join.

But i spite of the recent history of torture of prisoners in Algeria, the administration disagrees.

Administration officials point out that despite this history, the United States, under the Bush and Obama administrations, has already sent 10 Algerian detainees home from Guantanamo Bay, and that none has been persecuted.

"We take some care in evaluating countries for repatriation. In the case of Algeria, there is an established track record and we have given that a lot of weight," said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the active litigation. "The Algerians have handled this pretty well: You don’t have recidivism and you don’t have torture."

You know, if we really were torturing prisoners in Gitmo, this sort of request wouldn’t be such an issue.  Algeria doesn’t torture released Gitmo detainees, and they want to stay?  Understand, we’re not talking about some guys who just showed up.

The administration has been preparing to repatriate one of the six Algerians. But lawyers for Aziz Abdul Naji, 35, who has been held at Guantanamo for more than eight years, said he is "adamantly opposed to going back."

Adamant about staying at Gitmo.  Just let that sink in.

(Hat tip: Power Line)

Apparently, this story has legs like I never would have imagined.  Even after video comes out showing that the "peace" activists were armed with, among other things, knives, you’d think that folks would see through this little charade. 

Anyway, here are some relevant links from the past few days.

In preparation for sailing, a few harmless Jihad chants and hopes for martyrdom.  Then, after cheerfully ignoring warnings about the blockade, preparing for violent confrontation.  (The very first link also has a video of the attacks on the soldiers.)  The reason that the IDF soldiers were taken advantage of initially, I believe, is that they didn’t think "peace" activists would try to stab them to death. 

There are some photos, taken by the activists terrorists themselves showing downed IDF soldiers.  Reuters, in two different cases, decided that they should crop out the part of the picture that shows knives in the hands of those peaceful protestors.  Ruins the narrative.

Is the blockade against Gaza legal?  Why yes, yes it is.  And if you have more questions about the blockade in general or the flotilla in particular, this is a great resource.

If it was simply about getting aid to the folks in Gaza, first of all there are plenty of ways to do that, and Gaza has been getting it.  About 15,000 tons of aid per week enter Gaza through means that assure there are no weapons in it.  (By the way, the flotillas total cargo was 10,000 tons, less than a week’s worth.)

And secondly, if it was all about the aid, this wouldn’t be happening.

Israel has attempted to deliver humanitarian aid from an international flotilla to Gaza, but Hamas — which controls the territory — has refused to accept the cargo, the Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday.

Palestinian sources confirmed that trucks that arrived from Israel at the Rafah terminal at the Israel-Gaza border were barred from delivering the aid.

Ra’ed Fatooh, in charge of the crossings, and Jamal Khudari, head of a committee against the Gaza blockade, said Israel must release all flotilla detainees and that it will be accepted in the territory only by the Free Gaza Movement people who organized the flotilla.

So Hamas is holding up aid to its own people for a PR move.  This is not about the aid.  It’s about opening up a means of transporting more and larger weapons, via ships, than via the means that are currently available to Hamas.  And these "peace" activists are, at least, simply the "useful idiots" being duped or, at worst, complicit in the charade.

I was on Spring Break vacation with the family last week, so other than my post-dated blog posts, I didn’t write much … well, anything.  But I did surf the web and kept track of some articles I wanted to highlight when I came back.  Here they are, in mostly chronological order of when I found them.

Amnesty International decided that jihad was not antithetical to human rights so long as it’s "defensive". 

The bump in polling numbers after passing health care "reform" was supposed to go to Democrats.  Instead, while it’s just a measure of emotion at this point in time, you’d think that all the promises of the bill would give Democrats a few higher point.  Instead, they’re at an 18-year low.  It’s quite possible that people are only now understanding what they supported all along, because the "free" stuff isn’t materializing right now.

What was the point of the resurrection on Easter?  Don Sensing has (had) some thoughts.

The Tea Party’s ideas are much more mainstream than the MSM would like you to believe.  And Tea Partiers are much more diverse that the MSM realized.  Turns out, they did some actual journalism and found out the real story.  Imagine that.  Has the liberal slant of the press become a problem of corruption, especially with, first, the willful ignoring of the Tea Party story, and second, the willful misreporting of it?

Toyota cars have killed 52 people, and got a recall for it.  Gardasil, a cervical cancer vaccine, has had 49 "unexplained deaths" reported by the CDC and it’s still required in some states.

Changing the names to protect the guilty, the words "Islam" and "jihad" are now banned from the national security strategy document.  When the next terror attack Islamic jihadists happens, it’ll be interesting to find out how they describe it.

Cows have been exonerated of helping to cause global warming.  No, really.

Rep. Bart Stupak’s reversal of his principles is having the proper effect; he’s decided not to seek re-election.  Likely, he couldn’t get re-elected anyway, after betraying his constituents, but let this be a lesson about trusting "conservative" Democrats too much.

And finally, media scrutiny of church vs. state (click for a larger picture):

Oh, that liberal media.

That was then:

During George Bush’s term in office, every renewal the Patriot Act became grand theater, with newspapers inveighing against the overreach of Bush and the danger to American liberty in the bill, which wasn’t an entirely vacuous argument.  Protesters would fill streets, and reporters would demand positions from various members of Congress.

This is now:

The House of Representatives reauthorized the Patriot Act for one year Thursday.

The vote was 315-97 .

Many liberals in the House opposed the controversial act, saying it tramps Constitutional protections and civil liberties.

It’s not so much that the Congressional Democrats didn’t want another major battle in the middle of trying to get other massive legislation passed that I noticed as much as the lack of outrage from the grassroots Left prior to this.  Massive protests did not seem to appear on the MSM radar, or perhaps they ignored them.  But there’s certainly been a lot less harping on civil liberty issues from that side of the aisle ever since their guy sat down in the Oval Office.

But apparently, this was a battle that Democrats just didn’t seem to think mattered enough to fight.  Now that’s change hypocrisy we can believe in.

…while the world sits on its collective hands and this continues unabated.

Confidential intelligence documents obtained by The Times show that Iran is working on testing a key final component of a nuclear bomb.

The notes, from Iran’s most sensitive military nuclear project, describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion. Foreign intelligence agencies date them to early 2007, four years after Iran was thought to have suspended its weapons programme.

An Asian intelligence source last week confirmed to The Times that his country also believed that weapons work was being carried out as recently as 2007 — specifically, work on a neutron initiator.

The technical document describes the use of a neutron source, uranium deuteride, which independent experts confirm has no possible civilian or military use other than in a nuclear weapon. Uranium deuteride is the material used in Pakistan’s bomb, from where Iran obtained its blueprint.

Can we really afford to have a government so clearly desiring to destroy another country (i.e. Israel) to have a nuclear bomb?  Even if they never use it, they’d be untouchable since the threat would always be there. 

Not to mention the inevitable Middle East arms race it would spawn.

But OK, perhaps the world isn’t really sitting on its hands.  The United Nations has written letters and gotten perturbed over all this.  So there’s that.

But not much else.

Shire Network News #175 has been released. The feature interview is with British foreign policy specialist and non-insane person (the two tend to be mutually exclusive these days) Robin Shepherd about a new TV documentary in which the UK’s foreign policy is portrayed as completely in thrall to sinister, shadowy "Zionist" businessmen, who manipulate politicians and journalists from the shadows. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News asking you to "Consider This!"

US President Barack Obama has been in office for 10 months now.  While that’s not very long — heck, it’s barely long enough to win a Nobel Peace Prize — I think it’s worth taking stock of where he is on some of his campaign promises and Presidential goals. 

Let’s start with the closing of the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  He said he’d close it in a year, but two months away from that date even he doesn’t think that’s going to happen.  But he did make a big splash when he moved Kalid Sheik Muhammed, the 9/11 mastermind, to the target of his mastermindedness, New York City, to try him in federal court, right alongside guys who commit mail fraud.  Yes, the guy who planned the largest terror attack on the US is going down the same path as Nigerian scammers who send you letters promising you large sums of money.  That seems adequate, no?

How about that lynchpin of his presidency, health care reform?  Well, looks like the tough sell just keeps getting tougher.  With only 38% of Americans favoring the plan proposed by Obama and the Democrats, this is looking like those mothers of yesteryear who gave you castor oil for what ails you.  The worse it is, the better it must be for you. 

Well then, how about the economy?  Sounding very fiscally conservative, he told Fox News (yes, that Fox News), "It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession."  What he failed to note is that he is the one adding to the debt.  In a scene reminiscent of Mel Brooks’ "Blazing Saddles", he’s holding a gun to his head and threatening to pull the trigger if he doesn’t start behaving.  In Washington these days, it’s not so much that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.  It’s more like the left hand doesn’t even know there is a right hand. 

Then there’s the idea that the world loves us now, all because Obama is the anti-Bush.  A new day would dawn in foreign relations.  Except that it’s not.  In his recent trip to Asia, this self-proclaimed "first Pacific President" not only didn’t get any concessions from China, he participated in a press conference where questions were forbidden.  Way to stand up to those Communists, Obama.  Not even the eeevil Bush ever bowed, er, stooped that low.  Later, he lost the participation of Japan in refueling US warships destined for Afghanistan.  On the upside, he did get some pretty cool pictures of the Great Wall of China.  I’m told that, from up in space, Barack Obama’s ego is visible to the naked eye.

Oh, there was almost a foreign policy win with Iran, to get it to ship its uranium to Russia to keep it from building bombs.  Except that last week, shock of shocks, Iran reneged. 

Well, never mind what the rest of the world thinks!  They say they love us, but their actions say something else entirely.  Let’s look at the domestic polls to see how his own people love him.  There was such enthusiasm a year ago, when people flocked to elect the first African-American as President of the US.  Well, since then, the bloom has fallen off the rose.  His poll numbers dipped below 50% in November, 10 months after taking office with one of the higher initial ratings in recent history.  Now, pretty much all Presidents get into this territory sooner or later; even Reagan hit it in 10 months.  But that means that Barack Obama, the post-racial, feel-good, history-making, hope and change man of the hour is tied for the 3rd worst drop in ratings in the past half-century.  The eeevil Bush took 37 months to make it there.  Heck, Nixon took 25!  Nixon!

So it appears, then, that The One(tm) has fallen short of wildly exaggerated expectations.  Who’s to blame?  I’d say the guy who set those expectations.  A former Obama supporter has come out with a T-shirt of the iconic Obama poster with the word "Hope" on the bottom, but it’s smeared, as though painted in watercolors and then rained on.  Below the word "Hope" is the phrase "is fading fast". 

Something tells me that Obama is no different than he was just 10 short months and one Nobel Peace Prize ago.  It’s just that people have now actually taken the time to see who he really is.  I kinda’ wish, though, that they’d done this prior to the election.  A new face in the Oval Office doesn’t make enemies lose their self-interest.  Heck, it doesn’t even do that for allies!  It doesn’t magically turn the economy around, nor make budget-busting proposals palatable (especially when you complain about budget-busting as though someone else is doing it).  I’ll tell you one thing it does, though; it gets a populace to finally consider this.