June 30, 2008
THERE'S ONLY ONE STORY:
WALL-E a winner for Pixar (Reuters, June 30, 2008)
Animation giant Pixar hit the box office jackpot once again yesterday as its robot love story WALL-E snagged the No. 1 spot during its first weekend of release across North America.The movie, bolstered by near-unanimous critical praise, earned an estimated $62.5 million in its first three days, said Pixar's Walt Disney Co parent.
Took the boys this afternoon and Brother Dryfoos--who phoned in his review last week, after taking his son-had this one nailed: while there's much talk of the environmental theme and the saccharine robot love story, the crux of the film is the eternal choice of security or freedom.
Indeed, properly considered, the film is a re-enactment of the Fall and, while you aren't likely to read it in Disney press material, Wall-E is Satan.
(I'll put the rest in the extended entry, just in case the explanation contains spoilers.)
Humankind has been floating around in space for 700 years, but is unbothered by the fact because they are taken care of by machines. They live in lounge chairs, staring into electronic screens, a giant drink in their fists at all time. They have perfect security.
Meanwhile, Wall-E gives Eve, a probe that the human spaceship sends out, the first bit of plant life that he's come across in all those years. When she returns to the ship with this tree of knowledge, the previously indolent and uninterested captain suddenly becomes insatiably curious about Earth and determines to return.
The humans follow through on this exercise in newly rediscovered free will despite the sorry state of Earth when they arrive there. The captain even going so far as to say: "I don't want to survive. I want to live." The film ends with him showing people how they'll farm and raise crops to feed themselves--Cain-like--rather than just accept the bounty that's provided. Thus is Eden forsaken...yet again.
AREN'T THEY SUPPOSED TO BE TWO-FACED?:
French man with two asses surprises Swedish officials (The Local, 30 Jun 08)
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST HINT?:
Labour 'too dependent on trade unions' (James Kirkup, 30/06/2008, Daily Telegraph)
Labour is now unhealthily dependent on the trade unions for money, a former party treasurer has told Gordon Brown.The warning from Baroness Prosser came as trade union leaders prepared to step up the pressure on ministers for more left-wing policies including increased rights to strike and higher taxes on middle earners.
The key to understanding the Blair years was a too little noticed line in an Atlantic profile by Geoffrey Wheatcroft: "You have to remember," says someone who knows him, "that the great passion in his life is his hatred of the Labour Party"
UNFORTUNATELY...:
Obama’s Iraq Problem (George Packer July 7, 2008, The New Yorker)
In February, 2007, when Barack Obama declared that he was running for President, violence in Iraq had reached apocalyptic levels, and he based his candidacy, in part, on a bold promise to begin a rapid withdrawal of American forces upon taking office. At the time, this pledge represented conventional thinking among Democrats and was guaranteed to play well with primary voters. But in the year and a half since then two improbable, though not unforeseeable, events have occurred: Obama has won the Democratic nomination, and Iraq, despite myriad crises, has begun to stabilize. With the general election four months away, Obama’s rhetoric on the topic now seems outdated and out of touch, and the nominee-apparent may have a political problem concerning the very issue that did so much to bring him this far.
...Mr. Packer confuses his own panic over Iraq for an "apocalypse" in fact.
WHICH IS WHERE MAHMOUD GOES AWRY:
Thirty Years of Light & Glory: The Perils of Providential History John Fea, June 2008, Touchstone)
For Christians who believe in divine providence, the study of history certainly presents a conundrum. As believers, we want to know God’s will for our lives. We spend time in prayer and meditation trying to discern what he is calling us to do in the circumstances of our lives. We often look back on our lives and reflect on the way the Lord has led us.So if we try to discern providence in our own spiritual lives, what is wrong with trying to do the same thing with the most important events of the past? This is a tough question indeed.
Writers such as Marshall and Manuel must be willing to reconcile their certainty about God’s plan for America with St. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.” Books like the Light and the Glory often offer a simple and direct providential reading of American history that assumes an understanding of the secret things of God, things that sinful men cannot fathom outside of the Scriptures.
St. Augustine is helpful here. In Book 20 of The City of God Against the Pagans, he reminds us what Christians can and cannot know about God’s work in the world. We can be confident, from what the Scriptures teach us, in the hope of Christ’s return and final judgment. History will end with the glorious triumph of the Son of God.
But as we live with this hope, we must be cautious about trying to pinpoint the specific plan of God in history. We must avoid trying to interpret what is hidden from us or what is incomprehensible because our understanding is so limited. As Augustine writes,
There are good men who suffer evils and evil men who enjoy good things, which seems unjust, and there are bad men who come to a bad end, and good men who arrive at a good one. Thus, the judgments of God are all the more inscrutable, and His ways past finding out. We do not know, therefore, by what judgment God causes or allows these things to pass.
"NERD-VANA":
LAFF Review: Hellboy II: The Golden Army (James Rocchi, Jun 29th 2008, Cinematical)
[H]ellboy II has more than a little heart to it; it's scrappy and self-aware, and never out of touch with what it is. Adapting Mike Mignola's post-superhero retro-styled comic series Hellboy for the second time, writer-director Guillermo del Toro corrects some of the mistakes of the first Hellboy, makes a few mistakes of its own, picks itself up, keeps going. And, on the way, knocks the back of your eyeballs for a loop. [...]Is Hellboy II all sound and fury, signifying nothing, or, worse, nerdiness? Quite possibly, but it's got the heart that the slick Wanted lacks, the brute you can root for that The Incredible Hulk didn't quite give us, and more geeky slapdash fun than the shiny-fast Iron Man and a better mix of effective story and special effects than Speed Racer -- and if Hellboy II signifies nothing, well, at least there's a hell of a lot of it. Like all sequels, Hellboy II's a bit overstuffed, but I can't also say what you would lose; the fat provides a lot of the flavor. And I never felt transported to another world or invested in the characters past their four-color surfaces, even as del Toro's sights and wonders put me in a lookitthat! state of nerd-vana. And the finale sets up places to go for the series, even if it doesn't conclusively make us crave that; as much as del Toro's the only man for that hypothetical job, I'd rather see him making his own films, which is part of why I'm so unenthused by the prospect of his version of The Hobbit. I don't know if I need a Hellboy III, but Hellboy II feels like a summertime comic-book movie that doesn't want, or need, to be a blockbuster movie and instead simply and sincerely succeeds as a great matinee.
SET ASIDE FOR A MOMENT THE HILARITY OF INDIVISIBLE FRANCE AND GERMANY...:
Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran. (Seymour M. Hersh, July 7, 2008, The New Yorker)
In recent months, according to the Iranian media, there has been a surge in violence in Iran; it is impossible at this early stage, however, to credit JSOC or C.I.A. activities, or to assess their impact on the Iranian leadership. The Iranian press reports are being carefully monitored by retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, who has taught strategy at the National War College and now conducts war games centered on Iran for the federal government, think tanks, and universities. The Iranian press “is very open in describing the killings going on inside the country,” Gardiner said. It is, he said, “a controlled press, which makes it more important that it publishes these things. We begin to see inside the government.” He added, “Hardly a day goes by now we don’t see a clash somewhere. There were three or four incidents over a recent weekend, and the Iranians are even naming the Revolutionary Guard officers who have been killed.”Earlier this year, a militant Ahwazi group claimed to have assassinated a Revolutionary Guard colonel, and the Iranian government acknowledged that an explosion in a cultural center in Shiraz, in the southern part of the country, which killed at least twelve people and injured more than two hundred, had been a terrorist act and not, as it earlier insisted, an accident. It could not be learned whether there has been American involvement in any specific incident in Iran, but, according to Gardiner, the Iranians have begun publicly blaming the U.S., Great Britain, and, more recently, the C.I.A. for some incidents. The agency was involved in a coup in Iran in 1953, and its support for the unpopular regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi—who was overthrown in 1979—was condemned for years by the ruling mullahs in Tehran, to great effect. “This is the ultimate for the Iranians—to blame the C.I.A.,” Gardiner said. “This is new, and it’s an escalation—a ratcheting up of tensions. It rallies support for the regime and shows the people that there is a continuing threat from the ‘Great Satan.’ ” In Gardiner’s view, the violence, rather than weakening Iran’s religious government, may generate support for it.
Many of the activities may be being carried out by dissidents in Iran, and not by Americans in the field. One problem with “passing money” (to use the term of the person familiar with the Finding) in a covert setting is that it is hard to control where the money goes and whom it benefits. Nonetheless, the former senior intelligence official said, “We’ve got exposure, because of the transfer of our weapons and our communications gear. The Iranians will be able to make the argument that the opposition was inspired by the Americans. How many times have we tried this without asking the right questions? Is the risk worth it?” One possible consequence of these operations would be a violent Iranian crackdown on one of the dissident groups, which could give the Bush Administration a reason to intervene.
A strategy of using ethnic minorities to undermine Iran is flawed, according to Vali Nasr, who teaches international politics at Tufts University and is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Just because Lebanon, Iraq, and Pakistan have ethnic problems, it does not mean that Iran is suffering from the same issue,” Nasr told me. “Iran is an old country—like France and Germany—and its citizens are just as nationalistic. The U.S. is overestimating ethnic tension in Iran.” The minority groups that the U.S. is reaching out to are either well integrated or small and marginal, without much influence on the government or much ability to present a political challenge, Nasr said. “You can always find some activist groups that will go and kill a policeman, but working with the minorities will backfire, and alienate the majority of the population.”
The Administration may have been willing to rely on dissident organizations in Iran even when there was reason to believe that the groups had operated against American interests in the past. The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists.
One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.” The Jundallah took responsibility for the bombing of a busload of Revolutionary Guard soldiers in February, 2007. At least eleven Guard members were killed. According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefitting from U.S. support.
The C.I.A. and Special Operations communities also have long-standing ties to two other dissident groups in Iran: the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, known in the West as the M.E.K., and a Kurdish separatist group, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK.
The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. “The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.” He added, “The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”
The Kurdish party, PJAK, which has also been reported to be covertly supported by the United States, has been operating against Iran from bases in northern Iraq for at least three years. (Iran, like Iraq and Turkey, has a Kurdish minority, and PJAK and other groups have sought self-rule in territory that is now part of each of those countries.) In recent weeks, according to Sam Gardiner, the military strategist, there has been a marked increase in the number of PJAK armed engagements with Iranians and terrorist attacks on Iranian targets. In early June, the news agency Fars reported that a dozen PJAK members and four Iranian border guards were killed in a clash near the Iraq border; a similar attack in May killed three Revolutionary Guards and nine PJAK fighters. PJAK has also subjected Turkey, a member of NATO, to repeated terrorist attacks, and reports of American support for the group have been a source of friction between the two governments.
Gardiner also mentioned a trip that the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, made to Tehran in June. After his return, Maliki announced that his government would ban any contact between foreigners and the M.E.K.—a slap at the U.S.’s dealings with the group. Maliki declared that Iraq was not willing to be a staging ground for covert operations against other countries. This was a sign, Gardiner said, of “Maliki’s increasingly choosing the interests of Iraq over the interests of the United States.” In terms of U.S. allegations of Iranian involvement in the killing of American soldiers, he said, “Maliki was unwilling to play the blame-Iran game.” Gardiner added that Pakistan had just agreed to turn over a Jundallah leader to the Iranian government. America’s covert operations, he said, “seem to be harming relations with the governments of both Iraq and Pakistan and could well be strengthening the connection between Tehran and Baghdad.”
...and the point that we're alienating our natural allies to side with the enemy is valid.
IT'S ALL FIST...:
Anger Over Rape-Murder Case Sparks Riot in China (Jill Drew, 6/29/08, Washington Post)
Thousands of people thronged a police station in southwestern China to protest the alleged coverup of a teenage girl's rape and murder, witnesses and officials reported Sunday. The crowd set fire to a government complex and several police vehicles.The violence, which began Saturday, was brought under control by authorities at about 2 a.m. Sunday. There were conflicting reports about the number of injuries and arrests as news of the riot spread over the Internet. Pictures and video from the incident were posted on Chinese online discussion forums and Web sites but quickly became inaccessible, apparently as government censors stepped in.
Spasms of public anger against perceived injustices or government corruption occur periodically in China, but this weekend's riot, in the seat of Weng'an County in Guizhou province, was larger and more destructive than usual. The government has been anxious to contain such incidents, especially as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in August, pledging to show the world its prosperous, "harmonious" society, as the ruling Communist Party calls it.
Children as young as 12 began blocking the entrance to the police station sometime after 4:30 p.m. Saturday, said a middle school teacher who witnessed the incident.
...no righteous nor harmonious.
June 29, 2008
THE POOR DEMOCRATS...:
Clark blasts McCain's military service (JOSH KRAUSHAAR, 6/29/08, Politico)
Gen. Wesley Clark, acting as a surrogate for Barack Obama’s campaign, invoked John McCain’s military service against him in one of the more personal attacks on the Republican presidential nominee this election cycle. [...]“I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”
...still think John Kerry lost because his service to his country was attacked, rather than his disservice.
ONCE YOU CONCEDE...:
Principles give way to politics as Obama courts mid-America (Michael Crowley, 6/29/08, The Observer)
During the Democratic primary season, all those eons ago, Barack Obama deployed no more powerful line against Hillary Clinton than his insistence that 'we can't just tell people what they want to hear. We need to tell them what they need to hear'. More than just a catchy couplet, the phrase was a deadly arrow into the heart of Clintonism.Few things crippled Hillary's campaign like the belief that she would say or do anything to get elected, from supporting the Iraq War to claiming she'd dodged sniper fire at Tuzla. In Obama, Democrats seemed to have found something refreshing: a brave truth-teller unmoored to pollsters such as Mark Penn, someone who had spoken out against Iraq the war and could at last restore integrity and honesty to Washington politics.
But since Obama dispatched Clinton, he has seemed rather more attuned to what the people want to hear or perhaps he has simply traded the wants of a liberal audience for those of a more moderate one.
...that, in America, populist means conservative, the rest of the political calculus is pretty straightforward.
ESTRELLA DAMM'S ALL AROUND:
Spain revels in new spirit of unity as football team heals divisions: Since Franco's death in 1975 Spain has seen the growth of powerful nationalist movements. But, as they take on Germany in the Euro 2008 final, the old divisions are giving way to a new unity (Graham Keeley in Barcelona and Jason Burke, 6/29/08, The Observer)
This evening, from Corunna to Cartagena, from the Pyrenees to the Sierra Nevada, millions will be glued to the television, willing the 11 men wearing red and yellow to victory in the final of the 2008 European championships.For citizens of most of the nations in this competition, the question of allegiance to the national side is relatively straightforward. The only people doubting the loyalty of France's immigrant population to Les Bleus were the racist right-wing. The Azzurri have had every Italian behind them. The Russians surfed a wave of pent-up patriotic fervour that led to their government organising a flow of tens of millions of pounds to the sport. Spain's opponents, the Germans, have become a much-needed symbol of the benefits of reunification and of a new, proud guilt-free sense of nation. But in Spain - and in the regions of Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia, which each have their own culture, language and fierce claims to autonomy - not everyone sees the match the same way.
When Spain beat Russia 3-0 in the semi-final last week, car horns blared, bars emptied, fireworks exploded. Nothing out of the usual in the Plaza Cibeles in downtown Madrid, but extraordinary in Barcelona, capital of the proud northeast region with its seven million inhabitants.
They won 1-0 and, in related news, you can sit on that bench now...the paint's dry.
MORE:
Spain Takes European Soccer Title From Germany (BARRY WILNER, 6/29/08, Associated Press)
Big-game flops no more, Spain won the European Championship 1-0 over Germany today for its first major title in 44 years.Fernando Torres scored in the 33rd minute and the Spaniards never backed down against such a formidable opponent. Their last significant title came in the 1964 Euros at home.
In beating a team that makes a habit of appearing in championship finals, the Spaniards put to rest a reputation for underachieving. Always loaded with talented players, Spain has spent four decades falling short of expectations.
That all changed at these Euros, where the Spaniards swept their first-round games, eliminated World Cup champion Italy in a penalty-kicks shootout in the quarterfinals, then routed Russia 3-0 in the semifinals.
OBAMASTAN, WHERE AMERICA'S FUTURE IS CANADA'S PAST:
Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies In Ruins, Its Architect Admits (DAVID GRATZER, June 25, 2008, Investor's Business Daily)
As this presidential campaign continues, the candidates' comments about health care will continue to include stories of their own experiences and anecdotes of people across the country: the uninsured woman in Ohio, the diabetic in Detroit, the overworked doctor in Orlando, to name a few.But no one will mention Claude Castonguay — perhaps not surprising because this statesman isn't an American and hasn't held office in over three decades.
Castonguay's evolving view of Canadian health care, however, should weigh heavily on how the candidates think about the issue in this country.
Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay's work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.
Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."
"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."
LIBERTY, NOT FREEDOM:
When Ambassadors Had Rhythm (FRED KAPLAN, 6/29/08, NY Times)
HALF a century ago, when America was having problems with its image during the cold war, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the United States representative from Harlem, had an idea. Stop sending symphony orchestras and ballet companies on international tours, he told the State Department. Let the world experience what he called “real Americana”: send out jazz bands instead.A photography exhibition of those concert tours, titled “Jam Session: America’s Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World,” is on display at the Meridian International Center in Washington through July 13 and then moves to the Community Council for the Arts in Kinston, N.C. There are nearly 100 photos in the show, many excavated from obscure files in dozens of libraries, then digitally retouched and enlarged by James Hershorn, an archivist at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. There’s Dizzy Gillespie in 1956, charming a snake with his trumpet in Karachi, Pakistan. Louis Armstrong in ’61, surrounded by laughing children outside a hospital in Cairo. Benny Goodman in ’62, blowing his clarinet in Red Square. Duke Ellington in ’63, smoking a hookah at Ctesiphon in Iraq.
The idea behind the State Department tours was to counter Soviet propaganda portraying the United States as culturally barbaric. Powell’s insight was that competing with the Bolshoi would be futile and in any case unimaginative. Better to show off a homegrown art form that the Soviets couldn’t match — and that was livelier besides. Many jazz bands were also racially mixed, a potent symbol in the mid to late ’50s, when segregation in the South was tarnishing the American image.
Jazz was the country’s “Secret Sonic Weapon” (as a 1955 headline in The New York Times put it) in another sense as well. The novelist Ralph Ellison called jazz an artistic counterpart to the American political system. The soloist can play anything he wants as long as he stays within the tempo and the chord changes — just as, in a democracy, the individual can say or do whatever he wants as long as he obeys the law.
As our jazz correspondent, Brother Dryfoos, pointed out the other day, most free form jazz is crap because it's an exercise in freedom without any structure, rendering it meaningless.
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE MAOIST EMPIRE:
Christianity is flourishing in China: The religion, long repressed and often outlawed in the communist nation, appeals to citizens seeking a moral framework amid the chaotic rise of capitalism. (The Chicago Tribune, June 28, 2008)
[I]n a sign of Christianity's growing prominence, in scores of interviews for a joint project of the Tribune and PBS' "Frontline/World," clerical leaders and worshipers from coastal boomtowns to inland villages publicly detailed their religious lives for the first time.They voiced the belief that the time has come to proclaim their place in Chinese society as the world focuses on China and its hosting of the 2008 Olympics in August. [...]
This rise, driven by evangelical Protestants, reflects a wider spiritual awakening in China. As communism fades into today's free-market reality, many Chinese describe a "crisis of faith" and seek solace from mystical Taoist sects, Bahai temples and Christian megachurches.
Today, the government counts 21 million Catholics and Protestants -- a 50% increase in less than 10 years -- though the underground population is far larger. The World Christian Database's estimate of 70 million Christians amounts to 5% of the population, second only to Buddhists.
At a time when Christianity in Western Europe is dwindling, China's believers are redrawing the world's religious map with a growing community that already exceeds all the Christians in Italy.
And increasing Christian clout in China has the potential to alter relations with the United States and other nations.
But much about the future of faith in China is uncertain, shaped most vividly in bold new evangelical churches such as Zion, where a soft-spoken preacher and his fervent flock do not yet know just how far the Communist Party is prepared to let them grow.
"We think that Christianity is good for Beijing, good for China," Jin said. "But it may take some time before our intention is understood, trusted, even respected by the authorities. We even have to consider the price we may have to pay."
YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE "SIMON SAYS, TAKE PESHAWAR":
Pakistan claims control of warlord's former stronghold: Paramilitary forces take positions they had fled months ago in a district that had been used as a staging ground for raids into Peshawar. (Laura King, 6/29/08, Los Angeles Times)
The government moved on Saturday against Bagh and another insurgent leader after armed, bearded militants began staging brazen patrols in Peshawar, a city of more than 3 million people. The insurgents also menaced people in outlying districts of the city, seeking to impose a Taliban-style social code and carrying out a series of abductions.Bagh's men had also taken control of roads providing access to the famed Khyber Pass, one of the main supply routes for NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan, and had been attacking military convoys. Authorities said Sunday those routes had been re-secured.
The military operation marked an apparent policy change on the part of the Pakistani government, which until now has sought to reach truces with local Taliban commanders. But the government left open the door for the resumption of such talks, even as it warned Bagh's men and other insurgents to stay away.
From our perspective, it's better that they take cities--makes it easier to find and kill them.
THERE'S A REASON YOU LEARN BY ROTE:
Your brain lies to you (Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, June 29, 2008, NY Times)
The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer's hard drive does. Facts are stored first in the hippocampus, a structure deep in the brain about the size and shape of a fat man's curled pinkie finger. But the information does not rest there. Every time we recall it, our brain writes it down again, and during this re-storage, it is also reprocessed. In time, the fact is gradually transferred to the cerebral cortex and is separated from the context in which it was originally learned. For example, you know that the capital of California is Sacramento, but you probably don't remember how you learned it.This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true.
With time, this misremembering gets worse. A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength. This could explain why, during the 2004 presidential campaign, it took weeks for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Senator John Kerry to have an effect on his standing in the polls.
Or maybe it just takes more than one ad to get the truth out?
CORE CONFUSION:
Israel Approves Prisoner Swap (Reuters, 6/29/08)
The government decision cleared the way for the German-mediated exchange with Hezbollah, possibly within days. Under the deal, Israel would free five Lebanese guerrillas and repatriate the remains of around 10 slain border infiltrators.
To call the prisoners Lebanese, after cutting the deal with Hezbollah, is to engage in a counterproductive fiction.
THE SENIOR CITIZEN CIRCUIT:
As the AL lords over the NL, even the lowly Royals are flush (John Shea, June 29, 2008, SF Gate)
The Royals are 13-4 against NL teams and lead the majors in interleague wins, which is why they're not buried in last place in the AL Central. They're 24-40 against the AL.If the Royals hadn't blown a four-run lead to the Giants on June 20, they would have had an 11-game win streak before Saturday's loss to the Cardinals - of course, all 11 games came in interleague play.
Thursday, AL teams were 8-1 against NL teams, and it would have been a sweep if Kevin Millwood (seven runs yielded in his first two innings) hadn't forgotten his Rangers were supposed to beat the Astros. Plus, the NL caught a break with a rainout in Pittsburgh; the Yankees were leading 3-1.
The AL is 45 games above .500 (141-96 ) in games against the NL, and let's not omit the Twins, who zoomed into contention by beating up on the other league.
Hummingbird Cake, a Southern favorite (KIM PIERCE, 6/24/08, The Dallas Morning News )
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs, beaten
1 ½ cups vegetable oil
1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained
2 cups chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts or hazelnuts, divided use)
2 cups chopped bananas
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Icing (recipe follows)Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 3 (9-inch) round cake pans with butter; dust the bottom and sides with flour. Set aside.
Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl and stir until well blended. Add the eggs and oil, and stir until the dry ingredients are moistened, taking care not to beat them. Stir in the pineapple and juice, 1 cup of the nuts, the bananas and vanilla.
Divide the batter evenly among the prepared pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean, about 25 to 30 minutes. Let the cakes cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, then turn them out onto racks to cool completely.
Spread the icing between the layers, stacking them on a cake plate. Ice the top and sides of cake, and sprinkle remaining nuts over the top. Makes 10 to 12 servings.
Icing: Combine 2 (8-ounce) packages of cream cheese with 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, both at room temperature. Add 2 (16-ounce) boxes of powdered sugar, sifted; beat until light and fluffy. Add 2 teaspoons vanilla extract.
BLT Dip (Donna Pierce, 6/24/08, Chicago Tribune)
4 slices bacon3 green onions, thinly sliced
¼ cup each: mayonnaise, low-fat Greek yogurt
¼ cup arugula, chopped
¼ teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 pint grape tomatoes, quartered
1. Place the bacon in a medium skillet over medium heat; cook, turning, until crisp, about 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate lined with a paper towel.
2. Combine the onions, mayonnaise, yogurt, arugula, salt and pepper to taste in a food processor; pulse until chunky, about 5 times. Transfer to a medium bowl.
3. Crumble the bacon into the bowl; stir into the mayonnaise mixture. Stir in the tomatoes.
WHILE BOTH WOULD PASS AMNESTY...:
A Win by McCain Could Push a Split Court to Right (Robert Barnes, 6/29/08, Washington Post)
For much of its term, the Supreme Court muted last year's noisy dissents, warmed to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s vision of narrow, incremental decisions and continued a slow but hardly steady move to the right.But as justices finished their work last week, two overarching truths about the court remained unchanged: It is sharply divided ideologically on some of the most fundamental constitutional questions, and the coming presidential election will determine its future path.
A victory by the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, would probably mean preserving the uneasy but roughly balanced status quo, since the justices who are considered most likely to retire are liberal. A win for his Republican counterpart, John McCain, could mean a fundamental shift to a consistently conservative majority ready to take on past court rulings on abortion rights, affirmative action and other issues important to the right.
...only one would shift the legal system back towards protecting life instead of sanctioning death.
HEADLINES AT THE END OF HISTORY:
Mongolia votes in key elections (BBC, 6/29/08)
GIVEN HOW LITTLE EITHER GRASPS ECONOMICS...:
Immigration policy reform has Obama, McCain in agreement (Richard Simon, 6/29/08, Los Angeles Times)
Courting the increasingly influential Latino vote, the rival presidential candidates each pledged Saturday to make overhauling the nation's immigration policies a top priority. [...]McCain noted that he represents Arizona, "where Spanish was spoken before English," and remembered a fellow Vietnam prisoner of war, Everett Alvarez, "a brave American of Mexican descent."
McCain said that he pushed for overhauling immigration laws when "it wasn't very popular with some in my party."
...Amnesty is actually the main stimulus that will come from this election. Legalizing the millions here already and admitting tens of millions more could drive the Volcker/Reagan expansion for a few more decades.
THEY JUST KEEP SERVING UP THESE UNTESTED SENATORS....:
Descent of St. Barack (Paul Greenberg, June 28, 2008, Washington Times)
For all its smooth, Internetted aspects, the Obama campaign begins to develop overtones of George McGovern's crack-up in the summer of 1972. Sen. McGovern was the beneficiary that year of the Democrats' newly rigged nominating system, which remains much the same. This year it allowed Barack Obama to cinch his party's nomination even as his rival was sweeping the popular vote in the big states.George McGovern required only a few torrid weeks back in '72 to go from shining hope to utter incompetent. And now Barack Obama, the Different Kind of Presidential Candidate, has begun his metamorphosis into the same old kind of presidential candidate by backing away from his earlier promise to accept public financing.
Naturally, he claims it wasn't a promise at all but just a possibility, depending on whether John McCain would agree to accept public financing, too, which Mr. McCain did, and on various other escape clauses. We all know the drill by now: When caught in an obvious contradiction, obfuscate.
...who get eviscerated by the process.
HMMMM, TOTALLY NEW IDEAS TO HELP MAKE THE WORKING CLASSES INDEPENDENT...:
The Sam's Club agenda of the GOP (David Brooks, June 28, 2008, NY Times)
Ross Douthat and my former assistant, Reihan Salam] open the book with a working-class view of recent American history. Douthat and Salam write admiringly about the New Deal. They mention Roosevelt's economic policies, but they also emphasize the New Deal's intense social conservatism. Self-conscious maternalists such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins ensured that New Deal programs were biased in favor of traditional two-parent families.Liberals write about economic inequality and conservatives about social disruption, but Douthat and Salam write about the interplay between values and economics, and the way virtue and economic security can reinforce each other.
In the 1950s, divorce rates were low and jobs were plentiful, but over the next few decades that broke down. The social revolutions of the 1960s and the economic revolution of the information age have emancipated the well-educated but left the Sam's Club voters feeling insecure.
Gaps are opening between the educated and less educated. Working-class divorce rates remain high, while the mostly upper-middle-class parents of Ivy Leaguers have divorce rates of only 10 percent. Working-class kids are unlikely to complete college, affluent kids usually do.
Liberals have a way to address these inequalities – the creation of a Denmark-style welfare state. Conservatives have offered almost nothing. The GOP has lost contact with its own working-class base. This is the intellectual vacuum that “Grand New Party” seeks to fill.
The heart of the book is the last third, where Douthat and Salam lay out a series of policy ideas to help working-class families cope with economic, health care, neighborhood and family insecurity.
“What all these ideas, from the sober to the speculative, have in common is a vision of working-class independence – from bosses, from bureaucracy, from entrenched interests of all kinds,” Douthat and Salam write. This is not compassionate conservatism (which flattered the mind of the compassionate donor), it's hard-work conservatism, which uses government to increase the odds that self-discipline and effort will pay off.
...we can call it the Ownership Society!
THAT IS ONE AMERICAN BROAD:
Queen owns a McDonald's (Daily Telegraph, 28/06/2008)
The Queen owns a drive-through McDonald's burger restaurant, the Royal accounts have revealed.Among Her Majesty's most recent acquisitions was a retail park in Slough - which encompasses a drive-through McDonalds.
MORE:
The Queen’s Tears (Mark Steyn, September 17, 2001, National Review)
The foreign leader who said it best last week was the Queen, though she didn't really say a word. I have met Her Majesty from time to time (I am one of her Canadian subjects), and to put it at its mildest, for those with a taste for American vernacular politics, she can be a little stiff: The Queen stands on ceremony and she has a lot of ceremony to stand on. But on Thursday, for the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, she ordered the Coldstream Guards to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" — the first time a foreign anthem had been played at the ceremony. The following day something even more unprecedented happened: At Britain's memorial service for the war dead of last Tuesday, the first chords of "The Star-Spangled Banner" rumbled up from the great organ at St Paul's Cathedral, and the Queen did something she's never done before — she sang a foreign national anthem, all the words. She doesn't sing her own obviously ("God Save Me"), but she's never sung "La Marseillaise" or anything else, either; her lips never move.And at that same service she also sang "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic," for the second time in her life — the first was at the funeral of her first prime minister, Winston Churchill. On Friday, she fought back tears. When she ascended the throne, Harry Truman was in the White House. The first president she got to know was Eisenhower, back in the war, when he'd come to the palace to brief her father. She is the head of state of most of the rest of the English-speaking world — Queen of Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas, Belize, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, etc. But she understands something that few other leaders of the West seem to — that today the ultimate guarantor of the peace and liberty of her realms is the United States. If America falls, or is diminished, or retreats in on itself, there is no "free world." That's the meaning of the Queen's "Ich bin ein Amerikaaner" moment.
Don't ask me who else you can count on.
PAGING ENDER WIGGIN:
In a Virtual Galaxy, Assembly Is Required (SETH SCHIESEL, 6/28/08, NY Times)
Eve Online is more like a sandbox, where the players have been thrown in with a bunch of tools, like shovels and buckets, and are left to their own devices to create what they will. In Eve’s futuristic setting, miners extract ore from asteroids and refine it into minerals. Industrialists run huge factories to turn the minerals into spaceships, weapons and modules. Financiers provide investment capital, and traders take products to market. Finally, pilots buy the ships and fly them in combat, carving out player-controlled empires among the thousands of solar systems in the Eve galaxy.Players can enjoy Eve in any of those roles, a diversity of experiences unmatched in any other game. But the most glamorous aspect of the game is participating in the epic wars for territory that can go on for months or years, involving tens of thousands of players. (Unlike those of most games, all of Eve’s more than 200,000 players are in one shared game universe, rather than split up among different copies of the virtual world; on weekends there can be 35,000 players or more online at once.)
For at least two years, the dominant conflict in the game has been between two alliances known as Band of Brothers and Goonswarm. Band of Brothers, known as BOB, is a wealthy, elite (some would say elitist) group that many players simultaneously admire, fear and despise. Goonswarm is a proudly profane group that conducts highly effective psychological warfare alongside its military campaigns. Like the members of BOB, Goons are also simultaneously admired, feared and despised by many Eve players.
BUT WHENEVER I WATCH MY 50 INCH TV OR PLAY ON MY NEW COMPUTER....:
A Skeptical Take on the Economy: Best-selling author Keith McFarland argues against getting overly concerned about the bad economy (Keith McFarland, 6/27/08, Business Week)
It would seem that there really are two Americas, at least two American economies—the real economy and the perceived one. At first glance, the discrepancy can be explained by decreasing home prices and increasing energy costs. Home prices inform the fundamental wealth identity of most Americans, and fuel prices provide a weekly reminder that a fundamental change has taken place.But there is an even greater discrepancy than the one between the real economy and the perceived, and it cannot be explained solely by the volatility in housing and energy. What really accounts for it is the way most Americans view their own situation and their impression of the economy as a whole.
In November 2007, only 19% of respondents to an Investor's Business Daily/TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy & Politics poll answering the question: "Do you consider yourself to be a part of America's haves or part of America's have-nots?" described themselves as "have-nots." An astounding 75% of the overall sample described themselves as "haves." In a 1988 Gallup survey with similar demographics, only 59% considered themselves "haves."
Even more striking is a Harris Poll that asked: "If you compare your present situation with five years ago, would you say it has improved, stayed about the same, or gotten worse?" A full 82% reported that their situation had improved or held steady. In response to the question: "In the course of the next five years, do you expect your personal situation to improve, stay the same, or get worse?" most people anticipated a bright future. Sixty-two percent expected improvement, with only 7% expecting their situation to get worse.
The truth is our impressions of our own economic well-being are based on actual experience, while our impressions of the national economy are shaped by the Chicken-Little loop of the media. The bad news is: The prognosis is not encouraging. With the increasingly competitive demands of the 24/7 news cycles, the doomsday drumbeat will only intensify. It seems that by today's media standards the traditional tempest in a teacup is unsatisfactory and is yielding to the perpetual quest for the Category 5 hurricane in a thimble.
...they tell me how bad off everyone else is...
June 28, 2008
WHAT IRONY?:
Ladies first for Obama (The Economist: Democracy in America, 6/27/08)
This could be an emerging historical irony in this campaign: because the first serious female candidate lost, and Mr Obama needs to gather her female supporters in a seductive yet respectful embrace, women's issues are going to get more play in 2008 than they would have if Mrs Clinton was the nominee.
It's the female party.
RIGHT AROUND NOW...:
Rights organization dismisses complaint against Maclean's (Joseph Brean, 6/27/08, National Post)
Brought by Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, the complaint was the centrepiece of a three-pronged offense against what he sees as Islamophobia in the national newsweekly, with columnists Mark Steyn and Barbara Amiel the main offenders.An identical complaint, brought with the help of three Muslim law students who became the public faces of the complaint, was rejected in Ontario on jurisdictional grounds. The third was heard this month by a British Columbia tribunal, which is now deliberating.
Announcing the decision (the CHRC does not publicize dismissals of complaints), Maclean's said in a statement that it "is in keeping with our long-standing position that the article in question, "The Future Belongs to Islam," an excerpt from Mark Steyn's best-selling book America Alone, was a worthy piece of commentary on important geopolitical issues, entirely within the bounds of normal journalistic practice."
"Though gratified by the decision, Maclean's continues to assert that no human rights commission, whether at the federal or provincial level, has the mandate or the expertise to monitor, inquire into, or assess the editorial decisions of the nation's media. And we continue to have grave concerns about a system of complaint and adjudication that allows a media outlet to be pursued in multiple jurisdictions on the same complaint, brought by the same complainants, subjecting it to costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to say nothing of the inconvenience. We enthusiastically support those parliamentarians who are calling for legislative review of the commissions with regard to speech issues."
...downtown Hanover is like LA after the OJ verdict was announced.
ANTI-TERRORISM VIA GILBERT & SULLIVAN:
America's fury as Hamza smuggles hate messages to Bin Laden's No 2... From UK jail cell (Jason Lewis, 28th June 2008, Daily Mail)
American counter-terrorism chiefs are demanding a full explanation from Britain of how radical cleric Abu Hamza was able to smuggle murderous messages from his UK prison cell to Al Qaeda's deputy leader.The major diplomatic row comes in the wake of a long-running battle by US prosecutors to extradite the former imam of London's Finsbury Park mosque to stand trial in America.
WELCOME TO THE HELLFIRE CLUB:
Taliban chief who killed Cpl Sarah is taken out by laser-guided missiles (Christopher Leake, 28th June 2008, Daily Mail)
The fanatical Taliban mastermind behind recent attacks in which six British soldiers died in Afghanistan has been killed in a missile attack by an Army Apache helicopter.In what military chiefs described as a 'deliberate and surgical strike', the 35-year-old rebel leader - known as Sadiqullah - died alongside nine fellow Taliban fighters after the Apache fired two laser-guided Hellfire missiles at their red pick-up truck and destroyed it.
WHAT CHOICE DID THEY HAVE BUT TO SHIFT?:
Pakistani city under threat of militant takeover: Security increases around Peshawar as Islamic extremists mass at outskirts of strategic provincial capital close to Afghan border (SAEED SHAH, June 28, 2008, The Globe and Mail)
Security around Peshawar, the provincial capital in northwest Pakistan, has been dramatically stepped up amid fears that the city could fall to heavily armed Islamic militants who have now massed around its outskirts.From three sides, Peshawar, which borders Pakistan's wild tribal belt, is menaced by Taliban groups and other warlords.
If Peshawar is taken over by extremists, the rest of the North West Frontier Province is also threatened, raising the possibility that religious fundamentalists may gain control of a state on Afghanistan's border. The drama in Peshawar reinforces existing doubts about the new Pakistani government's policy of pulling back the army and seeking peace deals with militants.
Pakistan launches offensive against Taliban (The Associated Press, June 28, 2008)
Pakistani forces blew up a militant leader's headquarters and pounded other suspected Taliban bases with mortar fire Saturday, as authorities launched a major offensive against gunmen operating in the volatile region along the Afghan border.The offensive in the Khyber tribal region appeared a shift in strategy by Pakistan's new government, backing its calls for peace deals in the tribal areas with the threat of forceful action against militants who get out of line.
WHEN A BABY RIDES A TIGER:
Religious and Political Shiism in Syria (Manal Lutfi, 6/28/08, Asharq Al-Awsat)
Strategic relations between Iran and Syria are crucial for both states. However, these relations have been consolidated in Syria, rather than Iran. Today, most inter-political, -economic, -cultural and -religious projects are established in Damascus, which has become a hub for Iranian religious tourism.Iranian tourists to Syrian religious sites number between 500,000 and one million, and dozens of Shia theological centers, or hawzas, as well as Iranian cultural and educational centers have been established across Syria. However, bilateral relations have also generated tension, especially in Syria.
Iranian activity in Syria, particularly restoring and building Shia shrines, has Syria worried about the spread of Shiism in the country. The Ahlul Bayt Society, headed by former Iranian ambassador to Syria Mohammad Hassan Akhtari, is active in Syria. The Society, which is affiliated to the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei and plans and finances Shia centers around the world, expanded a theological center in Damascus, making it the third largest hawza in the world, after the Hawza al Ilmiyah in Qum, Iran and Najaf, Iraq.
Syria hosts 500 hawzas and Husseiniyat, which edify thousands of Iranian clerics. The Ahlul Bayt Society will soon inaugurate an Islamic bank, a television channel and an Islamic financial institution to promote multilateral relations among Islamic countries.
Regarding the activities of the Ahlul Bayt Society, Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali Sadreddin Al-Bayanouni said to Asharq Al-Awsat: "The real problem is not that a number of people have become Shia, but that Shiism has been disseminated and caused problems within Syrian society. When people convert from being Sunni to Shia, it provokes Sunni scholars and individuals and creates problems within the fabric of the Syrian society. I know that significant divisions have occurred in some villages due to the dissemination of Shiism. Many reports have declared unlimited Iranian support to Shiism in Syria. There is an attempt to establish cultural centers for disseminating Shiism in Syria in different governorates and cities that have never known this before."
Al-Bayanouni also discussed the causes of the spread of Shiism in Syria: "There is a religious doctrinal reason and a political one. The wave of Iranian progress in Syria hasn’t been limited to Shiism. There is cultural, charitable and even military Iranian activity. Iranian influence in Syria is not only doctrinal, but also political, social and military. Husseiniyats are being built for the Shia minority in Aleppo, Idlib and the new Shia villages in Jaser Ashour and others. On the radio in Damascus, the call to prayer is broadcast at times from the shrine of Sayyeda Zainab or Sayyeda Ruqayah according to the Shia method; that is, they add 'come to the good deed' after saying 'come to prayer and come to success.' This wasn’t the case before in Syria."
No wonder Assad is grovelling to the West.
WHEN THE FACTS ON THE GROUND ARE PRESENTED...:
No Babies? (RUSSELL SHORTO, 6/29/08, NY Times Magazine)
IT WAS A SPECTACULAR LATE-MAY AFTERNOON IN SOUTHERN ITALY,but the streets of Laviano — a gloriously situated hamlet ranged across a few folds in the mountains of the Campania region — were deserted. There were no day-trippers from Naples, no tourists to take in the views up the steep slopes, the olive trees on terraces, the ruins of the 11th-century fortress with wild poppies spotting its grassy flanks like flecks of blood. And there were no locals in sight either. The town has housing enough to support a population of 3,000, but fewer than 1,600 live here, and every year the number drops. Rocco Falivena, Laviano’s 56-year-old mayor, strolled down the middle of the street, outlining for me the town’s demographics and explaining why, although the place is more than a thousand years old, its buildings all look so new. In 1980 an earthquake struck, taking out nearly every structure and killing 300 people, including Falivena’s own parents. Then from tragedy arose the scent of possibility, of a future. Money came from the national government in Rome, and from former residents who had emigrated to the U.S. and elsewhere. The locals found jobs rebuilding their town. But when the construction ended, so did the work, and the exodus of residents continued as before.When Falivena took office in 2002 for his second stint as mayor, two numbers caught his attention. Four: that was how many babies were born in the town the year before. And five: the number of children enrolled in first grade at the school, never mind that the school served two additional communities as well. [...]
DEMOGRAPHICALLY SPEAKING, Laviano is not unique in Italy, or in Europe. In fact, it may be a harbinger. In the 1990s, European demographers began noticing a downward trend in population across the Continent and behind it a sharply falling birthrate. Non-number-crunchers largely ignored the information until a 2002 study by Italian, German and Spanish social scientists focused the data and gave policy makers across the European Union something to ponder. The figure of 2.1 is widely considered to be the “replacement rate” — the average number of births per woman that will maintain a country’s current population level. At various times in modern history — during war or famine — birthrates have fallen below the replacement rate, to “low” or “very low” levels. But Hans-Peter Kohler, José Antonio Ortega and Francesco Billari — the authors of the 2002 report — saw something new in the data. For the first time on record, birthrates in southern and Eastern Europe had dropped below 1.3. For the demographers, this number had a special mathematical portent. At that rate, a country’s population would be cut in half in 45 years, creating a falling-off-a-cliff effect from which it would be nearly impossible to recover. Kohler and his colleagues invented an ominous new term for the phenomenon: “lowest-low fertility.”
To the uninitiated, “lowest low” seems a strange thing to worry about. A few decades ago we were getting “the population explosion” drilled into us.
...the "natalists" don't seem so hysterical, huh? And those who remain Antlanticist seem even more delusional--Europe can never matter again.
A CRACK IN THE UNITY FACADE:
Bill Clinton says Barack Obama must 'kiss my ass' for his support (Tim Shipman in Washington and Philip Sherwell in New York, 28/06/2008, Daily Telegraph)
Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama's victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support.
He used to command an awful lot more than a peck on the cheek.
THE SAD THING IS...:
'WE COULD DO IT TODAY': Israel Prepared to Use Force Against Iran (Der Spiegel, 9/28/08)
Israel is capable of mounting a successful military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, a former Israeli air force general told SPIEGEL. Isaac Ben-Israel, now a member of the ruling Kadima party, said: "If necessary we will use force," adding: "We could do it today."Ben-Israel, who as an air force general took part in the planning of the 1981 air raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, admitted it might be "more difficult" to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
He told SPIEGEL that the dispute over Iran's nuclear activities could be solved "by other means" and advocated much tougher sanctions against Iran. "Only once the critical point has been reached will we choose the final option."
...you can imagine a President Obama leaving the heavy lifting to our junior partner.
JEWS FOR BA'ATHISM!:
A Surprise Negotiation (David Ignatius, June 25, 2008, Washington Post)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad favored an opening to Israel to counter attempts by the United States, France and Saudi Arabia to isolate his country. Syrian confidence in the Turkish negotiating channel increased after Israel indicated informally that it was prepared to accept terms for return of the Golan Heights (and related issues, such as water rights) that had been reached in direct Syrian-Israeli negotiations during the 1990s.
It's not only the most foolish sort of short-term thinking to help prop up a brutal dictatorship in a neighboring country, it's also, not to put too fine a point on it, an evil act.
WHAT COULD BE LESS SURPRISING...:
Conservatives warm to McCain on the law (BEN ADLER, 6/28/08, Politico)
Conservatives may not be enamored of John McCain, but on subjects that are near and dear to their hearts — legal philosophy and judicial appointments — they are finding a lot to like about the Arizona senator.Between his campaign trail rhetoric and a stable of legal advisers who are well-regarded in conservative circles, McCain is winning over converts who at one time harbored deep suspicions about his commitment to appointing reliably conservative judges.
.
It’s a surprising turn of events for a candidate who was once booed at the Conservative Political Action Conference and especially for one who played a key role in brokering the “Gang of 14” compromise in 2005, a deal that some conservatives contend undermined the Republicans’ opportunity to ban filibusters against judicial nominees.
...than it taking the Stupid Party this long to figure something this basic out? They still don't even realize what the Gang won them.
One of Maverick's big advantages is that he can stand still and the "alienated base" will come to him. Meanwhile, Senator Obama has to scramble Right, alienating his base in fact and appearing craven to the rest of us.