The All-Important Social Safety Net - Remember, the regulatory state exists to protect you, the citizen. In Kissimmee, Florida, they are especially keen to protect you from unlicensed friends:

Arzoomanian had taken over the home after his mother died in May and had not had time to get homeowners insurance. His 4,000-square-foot shingled roof had taken a beating, and after the numerous Florida contractors he had called said they couldn't help him immediately, Howell offered to take a week off work to help.

So Arzoomanian paid for the $400 plane ticket and picked up his friend of 15 years at the airport on Aug. 16.

They began repairing the roof the next day.

"The roof was completely damaged," Howell said. "It needed to be redone. There was a lot of water damage. We caught it in the nick of time. He could have lost his ceilings and his personal effects, stuff that can't be replaced."

Three days into the job, Howell was approached by two deputies from the Osceola County Sheriff's Office and two investigators from the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation, who gave him a cease-and-desist order.

Under Florida law, only contractors licensed by the state may engage in roof repair. It carries up to a $5,000 fine. Not to mention that the practice of unlicensed contracting becomes a third-degree felony when the governor has declared a state of emergency.

All this was told to Howell and Arzoomanian during the 45 minutes when the two tried to explain to the officials that he was "just a friend helping a friend," Arzoomanian said.

Vicious official dumbasses.

Via Reason Express.

Hey Kids! Comics Blogging! - It's worth noting that Alex Knapp and Paul Muller at the traditionally political blog, Heretical Ideas, have been comics-blogging off and on for several months now. Those of you who read comics blogs or maintain links to comics blogs should keep this in mind. And of course these things feed on themselves - give the duo a cookie or two and they'll probably do more of it. They're probably traffic whores like the rest of us.

Hey Kids! Comics! - Estimable comic book reviewer Johanna Draper Carlson like's Peter David's almost-undiscovered DC series, Fallen Angel, so much that she's running a contest to promote it. You can win free Fallen Angel paperback collections (signed) and single issues. Among the virtues of Fallen Angel is that it deliberately eschews the standard pictorial disrespect corporate superhero comics tend to hand out to female protagonists. More details at Johanna's site.

UPDATE: Fixed link!

Wilderness of Persians - The point gets made every time the Jonathan Pollard case comes up that, once you decide to spy for another country, you can never be too sure who you're spying for. "False flag" operations are standard procedure for the world's intelligence agencies. Thus it doesn't matter whether Israel is an ally, because Jonathan Pollard could have no idea where the secrets he thought he was giving the Israelis were really going.

Here's the thing: a lot of the inconsistencies and confusions about the Larry Franklin case that are troubling some very smart people, seem to fall away if you posit that Franklin fell foul of a false flag operation. Run by whom? By Michael Ledeen's secret masters in Tehran, of course! (Note: There is no proof at this time that Michael Ledeen is an Iranian spy.) Speak of the devil, there's Ledeen himself, taking a break from his main job as a comment-thread maven on Roger Simon's site, telling us, regretfully, that the US doesn't have an Iran policy. And there's the Jerusalem Post noting, not a little smugly, that the purported contents of the document in question are the sorts of things the CIA and Mossad would be routinely sharing anyway. And there's retired Israeli general swearing, hand on heart, that after Jonathan Pollard Israel was very very sorry and promised never to do it again and hasn't, which means, if true, they should all be fired. ("It's far more important," William Casey told Bob Woodward, "to spy on your friends than it is to spy on your enemies.") Newsweek:

Another Israeli official contended that the Israelis had no cause to steal secrets because anything important on Iran is already exchanged between the CIA and the Mossad, Israel's spy agency. In a statement, AIPAC denied that any of its employees received information "they believed was secret or classified," and said it was cooperating.

And as Laura Rozen noted (see one of innumerable links above), it's even surprising that the FBI was monitoring a lunch between an Israeli embassy official and an AIPAC staffer in the first place. Why would they do that? Why would Israel want Franklin to pass them stuff that they probably received legitimately from other channels. Oh sure, there are perfectly sensible answers to these questions - the FBI monitors everyone's intelligence officers in town when it has time between drug cases; and it's standard intelligence practice to hook your fish by getting him to give you something innocuous first. Once he gives you anything at all, you've got powerful leverage over him. First, you're establishing a habit - you give me stuff; I take stuff you give me - second, and less nicely, thereafter you can blackmail him for whatever else you'd like to get your hands on.

But where's the fun in boring, functional theories like that. Here's another. If you were Iranian intelligence, you'd have powerful interests in penetrating the intelligence services and policy bureaucracies of your two most dangerous adversaries, Israel and the United States. What a coup if you could turn a Mossad or Aman officer. You'd like to penetrate AIPAC too, since, like all antisemites and AIPAC testimonial dinner speakers, you profess it to wield major influence on US middle east policy.

But that's nuts, right? What Israeli or AIPAC staffer in his right mind would spy for a mortal enemy like Iran? Hypothetically, I could think of several types: disgruntled employee; the greedy staffer or the one facing a sudden, crushing financial burden; the victim of blackmail; the guy who fell into the honey trap; the veteran who thinks that the Sharon government has gone nuts and that by cooperating with those bastards in Iran he can head off a ruinous war (misguided ideologue). In other words, any of the usual profiles of a traitor.

The point is, the Vast Persian Conspiracy lives!

Anyway, this theory explains why the FBI would be monitoring the meeting, and why Franklin's handlers would be interested in what he had to offer - we may routinely share our Iranian policy deliberations with Israel, but we don't do so with Iran (on purpose). It allows us to take the retired general at his word. It makes the links among Franklin, Rhode and Ledeen's old pal Manuchir Ghorbanifar . . . suggestive. Perhaps the Iranians penetrated the Italian SISME too, and the notorious forgery was timed to fully detonate after their enemies in Iraq had been taken out but in time to undermine the credibility of any case for war against Tehran. It explains how poor mad, stupid, Michael Ledeen got dragged off the porch to chase the Iranian stick again - after the Axis of Evil speech, Iran puts its self-preservation project in high gear. The old ways are the best ways, and soon good old Manuchir is making a few calls. (Isn't it interesting that, as the hawks keep reminding us, the Islamic Republic has a terrible habit of assassinating its political enemies, and yet there is Ghorbanifar with nary a hair out of place?) It explains just about everything except how the hapless FBI could have been on the case so promptly.

That one I can't help you with. As for the rest, yeah, I think it's possible.