Former Fed Chair Paul Volker says the $10-$20 billion figures being tossed about in MSM and the blogsophere as the price tag for Saddam’s exploitation of the UN oil-for-food fromgram — under the UN’s “watchful” eyes — is an overstatement. (here)

“Without question, (there were) problems in the oil-for-food area,” Volcker said. “But when you look at those US$10 billion figures, or US$20 billion figures, most of those numbers are so-called smuggling, much of which was known and taken note of by the Security Council, but not stopped.”



Volcker refused to speculate on why the council didn’t stop the smuggling, but indicated the issue would likely be addressed in his reports. An initial report is expected in January and a final report in the summer, he said.

Volcker stressed that his inquiry is focused on “what went wrong or right inside the U.N.” in managing the oil-for-food program.



If this is true, it raises two questions: First, why did the UN allow the smuggling to go on, even though the Security Council was aware of it?

And second — much more important for the long term — if Volker knows this now, why isn’t the scope of his study being expanded to include both oil-for-food and smuggling? What good will it do if he focuses on only half, and possibly the smaller half, of the overall scandal?

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77,000 dead, and officials say the death count could double once post-tsunami disease takes its toll. “How does a loving God allow such a tragedy?” I asked yesterday. A number of good, well-thought answers to this question came in overnight.

From Adrian Warnock:

Jesus’ reply to a disaster of his day…….

We must not fall into the age old trap of thinking that the recent disaster was a specific judgement of God on either the victims or the world. Jesus made it very clear his view on that when asked about a disaster of his time. In fact he made us realise that the reality is far worse- we are all under threat of death and “perishing”. That threat is commuted every day. God said that on the day that Adam sinned he would die. In a way God never kept that promise, and the fact he didn’t is grace. Every breath, the fact that we werent swept off a beach somewhere, food, a home, a job, a family, it is all grace. We have no rights. Our first sin took them away. Maybe God allows events like this to shake us from the lie that we are immortal here on earth. The bell will toll for me one day. What will they say at my funeral?



I thank God for second (and third, fourth, fith etc….) chances, and that the gospel really is good news to the hopeless.



There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” ESV Bible Online: Passage: Luke 13

And a hat tip to Anne at Palm Tree Pundit, this from Krista at Theology Mom:



Good God, Cruel World?

I have been deeply saddened by the reports of the devastation from the recent earthquake/tsunami disaster. The death toll is over 59,000 now. That boggles the mind.I was particularly struck by this quote in today’s AP news wire store: “Why did you do this to us, God?” wailed an old woman in a devastated fishing village in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state. “What did we do to upset you? This is worse than death.”It raised the theological question in my mind: Are natural disasters and disease the result of God’s divine judgment? Jesus answers this question quite clearly in the negative on at least two occassions.



Tower of Siloam – Luke 13:1-5 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them — do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Man born blind – John 9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

My boss, Hugh Ross, also makes an interesting observation. A more sadistic God could have created a planet that would have been devastated by such natural disasters of this magnitude, or worse, on a daily basis. In fact, Mars is a great example of this which has hurricanes which never cease. Instead, God graciously fine-tuned the earth to undergo a minimum number of natural disasters. Here are a couple of articles on the topic (sorry, an annoying registration is required to view the articles):

“Hurricanes bring more than destruction,” by Hugh Ross

“Good God, Cruel World?” by Krista Bontrager



None of my comments here should be in any way construed as to diminish the tragic loss of life that our Asian friends are suffering right now. The world, especially Christians, have a responsibility to rally to their aid.



Krista’s right, not just on her theology, but also on her conclusion. Here’s a link to a good place to contribute: World Vision.

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The Washington Times warns us to be wary of news coverage of the Bush Social Security reform plan that excludes words like “voluntary,” “bonds” and “diversified mutual funds.” (here)

The WashTimes is not just speculating about biased coverage that could happen; its crosstown rival provided the perfect example of real, here and now distortion:

The Washington Post ran a story on its front page Wednesday based on a poll conducted Dec. 19 that asked people if they would support or oppose a plan that lets workers put part of their Social Security payroll taxes “in the stock market.”



The poll said that a majority of 53 percent agreed and 44 percent opposed the idea. The poll also asked if people would support such a plan if “the stock market went down.” That’s about as loaded a question as you can imagine. In response to this question, the Post reported, “62 percent said they would not participate in such a program if it meant their retirement income would go up or down depending on the performance of their stock picks — which is the essence of Bush’s plan.”



Well, that’s not true. The essence of Mr. Bush’s plan is far broader than this, though the Post chose not to mention it in their story or in their polling. Mr. Bush’s proposal would allow workers, if they choose, to invest a small part of their payroll taxes in stock or bond funds or a combination of the two, through balanced, broad-based, highly diversified mutual funds. These are the same kind of funds that tens of millions of Americans at all income levels invest in now. These are the same kind of funds that federal employees are allowed to invest their pension contributions in now, including many members of Congress in both parties.

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Martin Kettle doesn’t try to answer the religious questions raised by the earthquake and tsunami in his Guardian column (here, hat tip Real Clear Politics), but he certainly poses them.

The earthquake, he points out, was a “mindless natural event, which destroyed Muslim and Hindu alike.” Science can explain mindlessness without a hitch, but how do we reconcile our belief in a compassionate God with such events? Here, Kettle does a good job of posing all the questions:

What God sanctions an earthquake? What God protects against it? Why does the quake strike these places and these peoples and not others? What kind of order is it that decrees that a person who went to sleep by the edge of the ocean on Christmas night should wake up the next morning engulfed by the waves, struggling for life?

From at least the time of Aristotle, intelligent people have struggled to make some sense of earthquakes. Earthquakes do not merely kill and destroy. They challenge human beings to explain the world order in which such apparently indiscriminate acts can occur. Europe in the 18th century had the intellectual curiosity and independence to ask and answer such questions. But can we say the same of 21st-century Europe? Or are we too cowed now to even ask if the God can exist that can do such things?

It’s easy for me to see even the horrific death of an innocent child at the hands of an incompetent surgeon, a drunk driver or an abusive parent as the act of a fallen world. But how do you reconcile something like 42,000 dead from an earthquake with a compassionate God?

I am certain that God is compassionate about the horror He sees unfolding, just as I am certain that this disaster offers ample opportunity for people to see the good works of the good people of God. I also know that every one of the people now dead in Southeast Asia would have died anyway at some point or another, and that their time here on earth is a speck in the timeline of eternity.

But in tragedies of this scope, I would like to see an explanation that provides more comforting answers. If you have one, please share it.

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ItsComeDown2This has a thought-provoking article and poll drawing parallels between the story of Hanukkah and the proposed planting of democracy in the Islamic world.

Think about this point he poses — We can claim that the western world is only bringing the sweet aroma of democracy to the region. However, there are problems with that if a people desire a comingling of government and religion. The reality is that democracy may not be the best way to run a religion and by extension a religious government. Then take the poll.

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The UN has proven its inability to serve as a peacekeeping force, but now it has a chance to prove that it can provide a great service to mankind as a distributor of relief.

The incomprehensibly widespread and tragic consequences of the tsunamis are an opportunity for the UN to be a strong, united international organization with a clear mission. It should be able to solicit, manage and speed food, medicine, clothing and materials to countries along the Indian Ocean.

Of course, the UN got off to a bad start, accusing the US, the largest contributor of aid funding to that organization, of being greedy. See the Washington Times piece, here.

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When I went to meetings at the US Fish & Wildlife Service office in Carlsbad CA on behalf of land developers a few years ago, there was a car in their parking lot with the bumper sticker, “Developers, Go Build in Hell!” After my clients and I protested, the head of the Carlsbad office laid down the law, requiring that Service employees not engage in such public displays of their personal prejudices.

Now a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit is pushing this point further, charging a husband and wife US Forest Service team of conspiring with a local environmental activist to stop a project proposed on land adjacent to their home. They counter that it’s an illegal SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuit.

The owner of the property in question, Irving Okovita, bought 12.5 acres near the town of Fawnskin on the shore of Big Bear Lake, a popular resort destination in Southern California. He hopes to build condos and a marina there. The Forest Service employees, Robin (a biologist) and Scott (a botanist) Eliason live near the property and are members of the anti-Okovita group Friends of Fawnskin.

Okavita alleges the Eliasons and their supervisor, Gene Zimmerman, worked with Friends of Fawnskin activist Sandy Steers to stop the project, and provided government information to Steers for that purpose.

Usually, developers can strike a compromise with regulators, sustaining a palatable economic loss (a smaller development) in return for permission to build. In this case, Okavita faced Forest Service employees who were, in fact, activists with a vested economic interest in the outcome of the planning process.

Federal employees should be prohibited across the board from joining groups engaged in areas they are responsible for regulating, be that group the Building Industry Association or Friends of Fawnskin. It’s required of judges, it’s even required of journalists.

I’m hoping that soon it will be required of the Eliasons and others like them, no matter what the merits of Okavita’s case. I’ll be following this case.

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Hugh reports that his new book, Blog, is breaking through the 200′s on Amazon, even though it’s still nearly three weeks before it hits the streets.

Now that he’s talking about it (here), I’ll share with you what he said about the book a couple weeks back when he spoke to the Orange County chapter of the Public Relations Society of America on the subject of blogging and laid down a plug or two for Blog.

Given the audience, he spoke a lot about the applicability of blogs to PR, and when you think of it, that’s all we’ve been doing for the last year — using blogs to communicate, to influence opinion, to inform. You can count on the book to detail the history of the emergence of the blogsophere with detailed analysis of the Trent Lott, Swiftboats and Rathergate stories — and since his talk was no doubt a much abbreviated version of the book, the detail will be magnificent.

Hugh spoke at length about how bloggers become believable (by earning it on an individual basis) and countered this with how MSM have become believable (by riding a wave that’s been rolling for 100 years or more). He relayed the self-correcting mechanisms of blogs and contrasted them to the late, grudging and often nonexistent correcting mechanisms of MSM.

The book will be, in short, a true believer’s apologetic about the blogsophere.

What will be interesting and different to most of us political wonk bloggers will be the amount of thought Hugh has put into positing the potential of blogs for sales and marketing. For example, if it were your job to make Pampers continue to outsell Huggies, wouldn’t you create “momblog” as a communications tool? Of course. It’s not altogether too different from starting a blog called … say, Kerryspot … to influence an election.

In the Q&A, we enjoyed a discussion about blogs as a replacement for daily media, complete with reporting, opinion and advertising. An example is LBReport, a one-man show that serves as a daily paper in Long Beach CA. While still a web site, not a blog, it looks and acts more like a reported blog every day. Around the audience, people knew of several other “small city dailies” of the blogosphere. The cost of entry into the media just dropped considerably, since printing presses and newsprint are no longer mandatory.

Hmmm … I’ve always wanted my own newspaper….

Hugh’s book will inspire thinking like that, so place your order now, or plan to keep the doors of your (blogging) perception closed.

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A dramatic photo essay by Rick Loomis in today’s LA Times answers a question posed in the cover article: Are suicide attacks “A scourge upon innocents or a brutal equalizer in an unequal war?”

Those who don’t buy into moral equivalency arguments will answer the former, and the photos make a compelling case for that, with powerful images of the aftermath of homicide bomber attacks. The repression and disruption of Palestinian life caused by Israeli security efforts may be significant, but the targets largely earned what hit them; that is clearly not the case with the bombings that initiate the security concerns. They target innocents. There is no moral equivalence.

Still, with journalistic objectivity, the photos show the resulting impact of Israeli force in surrounding Palestinian towns, and it’s not pleasant. But the other photos, of the bombings are much more than simply “not pleasant.” Several more essays in the series will follow; let’s hope the LA Times can maintain objectivity.

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Yushchenko heads for win in Ukraine

Three exit polls yesterday showed pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko ahead by double digits in a replay of an earlier election in which his Moscow-backed opponent prevailed through massive vote fraud.

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