Our buddies in Beijing at The People’s Daily are somewhat sanguine about Georgie W. Bush’s European “charm offensive” (pass the Freedom French fries, Jacques), concluding that few rifts between U.S. and European positions will be closed by it. Focusing on Middle Eastern issues (notably American attempts to undermine European negotiations with Iran, which seem quite creative, including offers to bribe Iran into giving up its nucular ambitions with WTO membership, and of course, Iraq) the piece conveniently overlooks China’s leading interest in the discussion: Bush’s adamance that the EU arms embargo against China remain in place. At this point, one...

On this, the 273rd natural birthday of our First President in time (though seventh in our hearts), let’s put our hands together for Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leading candidate of the leading coalition of parties (winners of 51% of the vote) to become Iraq’s next prime minister. Given that our old buddy (from the 2003 State of the Union address… how soon we forget) Ahmed Chalabi, decided to withdraw from the running for the position, this leaves Dr. al-Jaafari, the darling of Islamists (from their coalition partner, the Dala party), in the driver’s seat for the Iraqi premiership. This is, of...

That would be apparent controversy surrounding remarks by Harvard University President (and former Secretary of the Treasury) Lawrence Summers, to his university’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, controversial in light of Summers’ recent attributions of “intrinsic differences” as to why there appear to be fewer successful women faculty members in the maths and sciences at the Kremlin on the Charles. It should be obvious to anyone that (1) a Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton and (2) a man who could be elected President of Harvard University, is without doubt… a liberal. And not just in the sense of...

I’ve restrained myself from commenting on the “Jeff Gannon” story, or even the hilarity (and the fully expected hilarity) of the President’s naming Central American Right Wing Death Squad Coordinator and Iraq Governor General John Negroponte to the newly created “National Intelligence Director” (thank YOU 9-11 Families– will you EVER stop giving to this country? PLEASE will you stop, already, GOD DAMN YOU?) and other popular stories of blogdom these days. (Once in a while, we get into sequences I consider too depressing to even comment on. And we’re in such a spate.) But in the midst of finding myself...

This week’s visit to Pravda lays out the rather defiant stand taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin of his intention to press on with nucular cooperation vis a vis Axis of Evil TM member and current first bogeyman Iran. Putin contends that he is certain that Iran intends its nuclear programs for peaceful, energy generation purposes (because, you know, someday that oil will run out), and absolutely not for particularly perfidious purposes. Hence, Russia will go on with such programs as permitting Iran to ship it spent fuel rods back to it, and make its deliveries of fissionable material to...

You know, much as I pride myself on my Bush-bashing, when (for whatever reason), the President does something I consider sensible (and most unusually, a sensible tax increase to pay for programs that would be grossly irresponsible otherwise), I intend to commend him. Hence, I will do so for his brief mention at an airport in New Hampshire that he would not rule out increasing the $90,000 income cap on social security contributions to pay for his proposed social security program changes (“private accounts”). Now, having simply said he will keep raising the percentage rate off the table, but not...

I haven’t commented at all on the assassination-by-bombing of former Lebanese PM and billionaire Rafik Hariri, but I will give you this interesting and sensible editorial from the Star of Lebanon. It suggests, quite simply, that the Lebanese and Syrian governments (which are, of course, Siamese twins, with Syria the elder and far stronger twin, as acknowledged by the hometown newspaper) do something radically different, such as engaging the international community to assist in the investigation to show that this wasn’t a Syrian wet job, and maybe bring themselves more into line with the international community. The less isolated they...

Well, that’s exactly what a certain subcommittee of the House Intelligence Committee is trying not to do, according to this assessment from new news sidebar member Hindustan Times from India. Though the piece is mislabeled in a manner implying that India and Pakistan themselves represent threats to the United States, rather than the potential consequences of a possible nuclear (or other major) military exchange between the two nations, it actually represents an attempt by a Congressional committee to get a sense of actual threats to the United States, particularly as represented by China, the Korean peninsula, India-Pakistan (as noted) and...

Spanning the globe, to bring you the constant variety of snark, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat… I’m pleased to give you this story from one of the new entries on our news side bar, Dawn, a major English news outlet from Pakistan. The story? Pakistan is going to be sold over $1.2 billion in United States military goodies, including some helicopters, missile systems, and the like, though not F-16 fighter planes. How might Pakistan get F-16 fighter planes? By prevailing upon Lockheed-Martin to make good on its threat to close the F-16 factory in Texas if their...

First, our visit with Beijing’s People’s Daily gives us this rather optimistic assessment of the progress made by new Palestinian Premier Mahmoud Abbas with respect to securing cease fire agreements with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and other details associated with negotiations at Sharm Al Sheikh (Sinai) in Egypt. I remain cautiously optimistic that Israel realizes that the opening allowed by the death of Arafat (who singlehandedly blocked the possibility of peace in the region for decades) will not last forever. Israel appears to be working closely with Abbas to nail down Palestinian security, to move forward on the withdrawal from...