“Hi, USA? It’s your old buddy, Pakistan! “Osama bin Laden in our country? As if! Hmm, it’s really a mystery where he is … don’t you guys hate Iran? I mean he’s gotta be there, right? The guy’s an icon of religious tolerance; surely he could have overcome the centuries-old Sunni/Shi’a divide. “No, of course […]
Here’s a thoughtful piece that should be obvious but too often isn’t: just why it is that military occupation makes people angry, no matter how well-intentioned it may be. “Why They Hate Us: Lessons from Civil War Reconstruction”, ForeignPolicy.com, Nov. 23, 2009 Although as the first commenter pointed out, the question is when it’s worthwhile […]
Things I don’t like about the G20 in Pittsburgh today: In Pittsburgh fashion, the citizens are mistaking dreadlocked-white-people protesters for a snowstorm and hunkering down with supplies of bread, milk and toilet paper. College-educated anarchists breaking things, garnering tons and tons of sympathy for their cause. And by tons and tons, I mean zero. Things […]
As much as it’s feasible in light of the enormous deficits on the horizon, this is a cool idea: U.S. to Forgive Indonesian Debt in Exchange for Conservation Plan, Wall Street Journal The more forest that’s protected to suck in CO2, the better, and obviously a poor nation’s government benefits when the debt evaporates.
You heard it here first: Neverland is the new Graceland. Man, what a week for news. It’s been a while since we had such a contrast of the important (Iran) and the junk-ridden (Transformers 2 = 2nd highest grossing opening ever). My vote for biggest story: Considering that I live in the U.S., it has […]
Morning, all. I was reading my Morning Coffee links today and clicked on this story at the WSJ: Republicans Press Obama on Iran It details some criticism of the President for not speaking out loudly enough in support of the protests, particularly by Lindsay Graham. Fortunately, for once I agree with George Will, who called […]
Obama Orders Halt to Prosecutions at Guantánamo While I think it’s good to close down this negative symbol of America, I’m still curious what the new administration plans to do with the detainees. Now that we’re back with a lawyer president, much less a law professor, I hope he has a plan.
John Yoo got the bulk of the negative publicity for his torture memo, but I’ve read many times that David Addington has been the real advocate for scrapping the rule of law in the Bush Administration. This Bob Herbert column on Addington makes that point better than I can.
With the immense humanitarian disaster occurring in Burma / Myanmar right now, there’s been a great deal of frustrated commentary from people appalled by the situation and desperate to come up with feasible ways to help. Watching the Burmese junta keep ample international stocks of food from its own people only to incompetently protect itself […]
Barack Obama’s speech today was a good one, but I don’t quite know why it’s being presented as a game-changer. He had some really intelligent things to say, but he said them over half an hour. Now he’s dependent on a soundbite media to convey that message to voters who won’t otherwise seek him out, […]