We do know two things. First, Brown and other Democratic leaders will never concede that their own opposition in the 1970s (when California had about half its present population) to the completion of state and federal water projects, along with their more recent allowance of massive water diversions for fish and river enhancement, left no margin for error in a state now home to 40 million people. Second, the mandated restrictions will bring home another truth as lawns die, pools empty, and boutique gardens shrivel in the coastal corridor from La Jolla to Berkeley: the very idea of a 20-million-person corridor along the narrow, scenic Pacific Ocean and adjoining foothills is just as unnatural as “big” agriculture’s Westside farming. The weather, climate, lifestyle, views, and culture of coastal living may all be spectacular, but the arid Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay-area megalopolises must rely on massive water transfers from the Sierra Nevada, Northern California, or out-of-state sources to support their unnatural ecosystems.

     Now that no more reservoir water remains to divert to the Pacific Ocean, the exasperated Left is damning “corporate” agriculture (“Big Ag”) for “wasting” water on things like hundreds of thousands of acres of almonds and non-wine grapes. But the truth is that corporate giants like “Big Apple,” “Big Google,” and “Big Facebook” assume that their multimillion-person landscapes sit atop an aquifer. They don’t—at least, not one large enough to service their growing populations. Our California ancestors understood this; they saw, after the 1906 earthquake, that the dry hills of San Francisco and the adjoining peninsula could never rebuild without grabbing all the water possible from the distant Hetch Hetchy watershed. I have never met a Bay Area environmentalist or Silicon Valley grandee who didn’t drink or shower with water imported from a far distant water project.

     The Bay Area remains almost completely reliant on ancient Hetch Hetchy water supplies from the distant Sierra Nevada, given the inability of groundwater pumping to service the Bay Area’s huge industrial and consumer demand for water. But after four years of drought, even Hetch Hetchy’s huge Sierra supplies have only about a year left, at best. Again, the California paradox: those who did the most to cancel water projects and divert reservoir water to pursue their reactionary nineteenth-century dreams of a scenic, depopulated, and fish-friendly environment enjoy lifestyles predicated entirely on the fragile early twentieth-century water projects of the sort they now condemn.

     It’s now popular to deride California agriculture in cost-benefit terms, given that its share of state GNP (anywhere from 4 percent to 8 percent, depending on how one counts related industries) supposedly does not justify its huge allotted consumption of state water (anywhere from 65 percent to 80 percent). But note the irony: California supplies a staggering percentage of the nation’s fresh vegetables and fruits; it’s among the most efficient producers in the world of beef, dairy, and staple crops. One can purchase an iPhone 6 or a neat new Apple watch, but he still must eat old-fashioned, pre-tech food. There are no calories in Facebook, and even Google can’t supply protein. On the other hand, I can live without an iPad. Who is to say which industry is essential and which isn’t? Insulin and antibiotic production constitute a micro-percentage of GDP, but is their water usage less important than Twitter’s? Is a biologist who studies bait-fish populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta really more important than a master tractor driver whose skill gives broccoli to thousands?

     We’re suffering the ramifications of the “small is beautiful,” “spaceship earth” ideology of our cocooned elites. Californians have adopted the ancient peasant mentality of a limited good, in which various interests must fight it out for the always scarce scraps. Long ago we jettisoned the can-do visions of our agrarian forebears, who knew California far better than we do and trusted nature far less. Now, like good peasants, we are at one another’s throats for the last drops of a finite supply.

http://www.city-journal.org/2015/cjc0402vdh.html

Sunni-Shiite conflict has become the dominant political and strategic fissure in much of the Middle East.

     (meforum.org) - The assembling of a Sunni coalition to challenge the advance of an Iranian proxy in Yemen, and the subsequent announcement in Sharm al-Sheikh of the formation of a 40,000 strong Arab rapid reaction force are the latest moves in a war which has already been under way in the Middle East for some time.

     This is a war between Sunni and Shia forces over the ruins of the regional order. It is a war which is unlikely to end in the wholesale victory of one or another of the sides. Rather, it will end when the two forces exhaust themselves. What the region will look like when this storm passes is anyone's guess.

     The two sides in this war differ in significant ways. The Saudi and Arab League announcements constitute an attempt by the Sunnis to narrow the gaps in unity and effectiveness between themselves and their Shia opponents.

     The Shia side is a united bloc, gathered around the structures of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Iranians are an overtly anti-western and anti status-quo force, seeking a new Middle East order with themselves at its head. In their propaganda, they characterize themselves as an alliance of authentic Muslim forces, arranged against the west and its hirelings.

     In reality, they are a gathering of almost exclusively Shia groupings, but a cohesive and united one. It is possible that the traditions of clandestinity and cross-border communication of a long subaltern regional minority assist in the Shia advantage in this regard.

     In the Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Qods Force, the Iranians possess an instrument perfectly designed for the current moment in the region. This force is a gathering of professional revolutionaries whose specific trade is the mobilizing and direction of proxy political-military organizations.

     The context of the current war is one in which states have collapsed and separated into their separate sectarian components.

     In Yemen, Iraq, Syria and in a less kinetic way Lebanon, would be 'successors' to the state organized on a sectarian or ethnic basis are fighting one another.

     In such a context, the existence of a state agency whose specific field of expertise is the creation and maintenance of sectarian political-military organizations is an enormous advantage. The Sunnis have no equivalent of the IRGC and the Qods Force.

     Its existence and its skills are behind the domination of Lebanon by Hizballah, the survival of the Assad regime in Syria, the current Shia militia mobilization against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Ansar Allah (Houthi) offensive in Yemen.

     The Sunni side in this war has been since its inception a far more disparate, confused and cumbersome affair.

     There are a number of reasons for this. There is no Sunni equivalent of Iran, no single powerful state which gathers and directs all other forces under its wing.

     For the last forty years, the most powerful Sunni Arab states formed the key components of the regional alliance headed by the United States. If Iran was the 'guiding' hand behind the Shia challenge to the regional status quo, then the organizing force behind the pro-status quo Sunni states was the US.

     But in the last half decade of emergent sectarian war in the region, the United States has been absent, entirely unaware of the dynamic of events. So the Sunnis have been adrift.

     The US has sought to appease both the Iranians, and the radical, anti-western element among the Sunnis – the Muslim Brotherhood. All this apparently as part of an effort to withdraw from the region and leave the keys with whoever seemed most inclined to grab them.

     What the events of the last week confirm, however, is that the 'status quo' Sunni powers, the once-allies of the United States, are now determined to organize themselves independently, given the absence of a US guiding hand.

     The commitment of nine Sunni-majority countries to the Saudi-organized alliance is the fruit of an ambitious attempt by Riyadh to create a new, regionally-led counter bloc to the Iranians.

     Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Pakistan, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates are on board. The drive to halt the advance of the Iran-supported Houthis movement in Yemen is the first test of this new and unfamiliar gathering.

     Success remains uncertain. Egyptian ships have been dispatched to the area. Air strikes have begun. But the wars of the present time in the Middle East are not primarily high-tech affairs. Air power certainly plays an important role. But in the end, these are grinding militia contests, fought out on the ground.

     In such a war, the Shia Islamist and tribal guerrillas of the Houthis and their IRGC guides are likely to enjoy a certain advantage. The difficult terrain of Yemen is likely to exacerbate this.

This raises a further difficulty for the Sunnis.

     So far, the experience of Iraq and Syria indicates that the only Sunni forces that have gone toe to toe with the Iran-backed element and held their ground are Islamists. Note the recent conquest by a force led by al-Qaeda affiliate (and Qatar client) Jabhat al Nusra of Idleb city in north west Syria.

     Idleb is the second provincial capital to fall to the anti-Assad forces in four years of civil war. The first was Raqqa, further east. It's now controlled by the Islamic State.

     What this means is that the pushback against the Iranians as led by the Sunni Arabs is likely to involve Sunni jihadis, and Muslim Brothers (Hamas last week also declared its support for the Saudi initiative).

     Nor has the Saudi initiative ended divisions among the Sunnis. The split between pro and anti Muslim Brotherhood elements has been only papered over. Earlier this month, Qatar and Turkey, the main MB-supporting Sunni states, signed a separate military accord.

     This mobilization contains nothing in it of regional reform. It is a sectarian gathering par excellence.

     But for all the cautions and caveats, the emergence of the Saudi-organized coalition for Yemen and the announcement of the new Arab force to deploy in the region are developments of high, perhaps historical significance. They represent the Sunni picking up of the gauntlet thrown down a while back by the Iranians.

     This war was a long time coming. It emerged in stages. It has been here for a while. This week, with the announcement of the Saudi-led alliance in Yemen, its full dimensions have become plainly visible. A new chapter is beginning in the region.

http://www.meforum.org/5159/sunni-shiite-war

     (jewishworldreview.com) - It took Bibi Netanyahu nearly a week to apologize properly for his inflammatory comment on Israel's election day warning that Arab voters were "heading to the polls in droves." On Monday, speaking at his Jerusalem residence to a group of Israeli Arab community leaders, the newly reelected prime minister expressed his regret: "I know the things I said a few days ago wounded Israel's Arab citizens. That was not in any way my intention, and I am sorry."

     But even after four and a half years, there has been no apology from Barack nObama for his inflammatory remarks just before the 2010 election, when he exhorted Latinos to generate an "upsurge in voting" in order to "punish our enemies and . . . reward our friends." Nor has the president ever expressed regret for his running mate's racially-tinged warning to a largely black audience in 2012 that the GOP was "going to put y'all back in chains" if Mitt Romney won the White House. In fact, the nObama campaign insisted no apology would be forthcoming.

     Under normal circumstances, there would be no reason to link these episodes. But the White House pointedly reproached Netanyahu for his distasteful words. "This administration is deeply concerned by divisive rhetoric that seeks to marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens," nObama spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters the day after the election. The president himself declared in an interview that Netanyahu's "rhetoric was contrary to what is the best of Israel's traditions," and warned that it "starts to erode the meaning of democracy in the country."

     Fair enough — except for nObama's egregious failure to meet his own standard. The candidate who captivated America with his promise to transcend partisan and racial rancor turned out to be the most consistently polarizing president in modern history. He hasn't scrupled to inject barbed racial comments into the nation's political discourse, but if he has ever candidly apologized for doing so, it must have been on deep background. nObama's contempt for Netanyahu is nothing new, but before he lambastes other political leaders for their "divisive rhetoric," the president really ought to take a good look in the mirror.

     Then there is the ginned-up outrage from the White House over Netanyahu's election-day assurance that Palestinian statehood would not happen on his watch. Netanyahu subsequently stressed that he continues to favor a two-state solution in principle, but that under current circumstances — with Islamist fanatics rampaging through the Middle East, Mahmoud Abbas refusing to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state, and Gaza a Hamas-ruled terrorist base — a Palestinian state isn't feasible.

     Wallace notes three characteristics which indicate the complex nature of what is taking place; that we are fighting against Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and in the process of negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. His first question to General Flynn is to ask him to explain the “president’s” grand strategy for the Middle East.

     Flynn responds by stating two points, where we are and what we should do about it. He describes where we are as “almost a complete breakdown of order in the Middle East, a new Middle East is essentially struggling to be born. The second thing is we have Iran on the March.” He notes that, “We have a takeover of Islam by radical extremists,” noting that it is made up of both Shiites and Sunnis.

     He says, “We also have what I would call a real, sort of a pushback by the Sunni governments and their lack of trust and their lack of respect for the United States. And I think that at the end of the day we have just this incredible policy confusion, never mind what our strategy is to execute that policy.”

     Flynn says, as an intelligence officer, that intelligence has to be part of the calculus of every strategic decision. He describes his sense of where are policy is as “almost a policy of willful ignorance.” He says, “We have some major problems that we are dealing with and here we are talking to Iran about a nuclear deal with this almost complete breakdown of order in the Middle East.”

     He notes Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, cyber capabilities and their state sponsorship of terrorism. Noting that nObama is negotiating a Nuclear Iranian future, he says, “Give me a break.”

     He’s asked how close we are to a sectarian, regional war in the Middle East. Flynn says we aren’t close, we’re there. Flynn also points out that Iran and the radical Islamists plan to eradicate our way of life and that this message is not being relayed to the American people. He repeats his assessment that those planning our foreign policy are seeking the comfort of willful ignorance rather than the unpleasant “reality that we actually have right now.”

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhxKD_bXfkY

http://www.rickwells.us/gen-michael-flynn-america-has-an-incredible-policy-confusion-almost-a-policy-of-willful-ignorance-in-the-middle-east/#prettyPhoto

     Part of the confusion is that being Jewish and supporting Israel have never been wholly synonymous, and regrettably they are getting less synonymous all the time. This is a source of great consternation in many Jewish circles, and a source of profound confusion and frustration in conservative circles. Just as right-leaning non-Jews are embracing Israel, left-leaning Jews are pushing it away.

     That's not a coincidence. The reason American Jews are disproportionately liberal is complex -- because there is no single reason for it. I can rattle off a dozen or so with ease, including: FDR's outreach to Jews, Harry Truman's recognition of Israel, the historic necessity for Jews to seek protection from central authorities, the tendency of urban populations to be liberal, anti-Semitism in the old (and much more liberal) GOP of the 1920s-1960s, the timing of Jewish immigration from central Europe in an era when socialism was in its heyday, and the very secular worldview of most non-orthodox Jews.

     Political scientist Kenneth Wald largely disagrees with these and other explanations, save for the last point. In a new article, "The Choosing People: Interpreting the Puzzling Politics of American Jewry," Wald argues that American Jewish liberalism is derived chiefly from the fact that American Jews want a strict separation of religion and politics. He argues that Jewish support for Democrats intensified in large part because of the GOP's embrace of Protestant evangelicals, even though Protestant evangelicals are wildly pro-Israel and philo-Semitic (i.e., the opposite of anti-Semitic). I think that's empirically true, even if it gives short shrift to the deeper roots of Jewish liberalism.

     One reason Jews are still liberal is that ideological and partisan affiliations die hard. They tend to be passed, like religion itself, from parent to child, generation after generation. But such loyalties aren't static either. And while Steve King could have phrased it better, he was absolutely right that at some point -- now or in the future -- support for the left and support for Israel must conflict. And King is right to lament it when Jews choose the former over the latter.

     The Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism, co-chaired by four Republicans and four Democrats, was created to help Congress fight global anti-Semitism around the world and to promote tolerance and remembrance of the Holocaust. The task force will educate congressional members on the “distinct form of intolerance” that is anti-Semitism and will work with foreign leaders, civil society groups and the executive branch to share ways to reduce acts of hate and anti-Semitism worldwide.

     “We look forward to working with our colleagues in Congress to find innovative solutions that match the 21st century face of this age-old bigotry,” U.S. Representatives Chris Smith, Nita Lowey, Eliot Engel, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Kay Granger, Steve Israel, Peter Roskam and Ted Deutch said in a joint statement.

     Testifying in front of Congress on Tuesday, Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, noted a “strange confluence of hatred” across Europe that includes radical Muslims, far-right and neo-Nazi political groups like Jobbik in Hungary and Golden Dawn in Greece, and an elite, educated class of people “with a pathological hatred of Israel,” all of which, along with years of economic downturn, has caused a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe.

     “For the first few decades following World War II, we mistakenly believed that anti-Semitism—the age-old hatred of Jews—had finally disappeared from Europe and everywhere else,” said Lauder. “I now tell you with the greatest sadness that, 70 years later, the age-old virus of anti-Semitism has returned in all its evil and ugliness. Anti-Semitism has returned to streets of Paris and Toulouse, to the streets of Brussels and Copenhagen. It has even returned to Berlin.”

     France, which with 500,000 Jews has the world’s third largest Jewish population, behind Israel and the U.S., has seen a particularly sharp rise in anti-Semitic attacks over the past year and has increased security at Jewish schools following the Charlie Hebdo attack. A February report for Le Parisien newspaper and the French TV program CQFD found 68 percent of French people believe anti-Semitism is on the rise. Seventy-seven percent believed Islamophobia is increasing.

     Jews in Denmark also faced threats and attacks last year. According to Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, president of the Danish Jewish Community, who testified before Congress on Tuesday, fewer Danish Jews are wearing yarmulkes, and “they wouldn’t dare” for fear of being physically attacked in certain areas of Copenhagen, he said.

     On February 15, Dan Uzan, a volunteer security guard, was shot dead outside the main Copenhagen synagogue, hours after a shooting at a debate on freedom of speech and Islam at a cultural center in the city.

     “The terror attack against the Jewish community in Denmark did not occur in a vacuum. It did not happen in Copenhagen just by chance. It was the culmination of years of growing anti-Semitism,” said Asmussen. “It happened in a country where it has become widely acceptable to criticize and question both Israel and Jews with a carelessness that we did not expect or imagine just a few years ago."

     Representative Curt Clawson, R-Florida, who noted his own Danish ancestry, asked what the world could do next, especially if the solution to global anti-Semitism cannot be found within the Muslim community.

     Lauder, Asmussen and Roger Cukierman, president of the Council of Jewish Institutions of France, who also testified, all agreed that not every country takes the anti-Semitism threat seriously, and that the U.S. needs to do more to step up the pressure and fight it.

     Both Lauder and Cukierman said the Internet can be a tool and a platform to disseminate hatred and ill-feeling toward Jews. “On the Internet, ways were found to ban child pornography. Likewise, anti-Semitism must be banned,” said Cukierman. “The providers of Internet must understand that they bear a responsibility when murders are committed by youngsters who became jihadists through the Internet.” 

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0315/congressional_task_force_worldwide_anti-Semitism.php3