Is distrust between Pakistan and India so deep that nuclear arms limitation talks cannot be envisioned? Or is it that its nuclear weapons are the only reason anyone cares about Pakistan, and they won't give that up?
I remember that market from a visit seven years ago, and have some nice rugs bought there. The thought of it gone with the Citadel damaged too is heartbreaking.
I'm curious to know how American Muslims are disposed towards the 2012 election. There are sizeable numbers of them, and I would guess they participate in elections at fairly high rates, but they seem to be totally overlooked as a voting bloc. Of course, how any Muslim could vote for Romney or any other Republican would be beyond me.
Not to mention that many of the higher income tax units were saved from pounding the pavement thru the government bailouts of 2008-09. Did these people "take responsibility" for their lives; were they not unusually "dependent" on the government?
Romney was addressing an audience of Boca Raton fatcats, many of whom got bailed out by the government in 2008-09. And Romney once went to the FDIC to negotiate a Bain bailout himself. So they are not among the moochers?
1. Romney has used the expression "union stooges" several times this campaign. And he expects to get the endorsement of any unions? This is language beneath the dignity of the offices he is seeking.
We see estimates that Romney needs 61% of the white vote to get a majority. But that is complicated by the fact that half the white vote- women are proving resistant to him, so that he really must win an even bigger percentage of white men. A campaign that is targetted to uneducated white males can't be good for the country.
The chart looks consistent with reports that Obama is being outspent 3 to 1 on TV ads in the swing states. The future of our democracy depends on the outcome; if Romney loses, the billionaires may shy away from even trying again. But its a coin toss.
Romney wants to give the impression that he paid this rate on his gross income. But it really only applies to his taxable income, which could have been drastically reduced from questionable shelters and deductions. Paying 15% on a radically reduced taxable income is the equivalent of paying no taxes.
Burning coal evidently produces about three times as much carbon dioxide per power unit as does natural gas, as well as producing other pollutants. Romney's clamoring for more of it is perverse and even sick.
There is a Sikh gas station owner near me, and I have long feared for his safety. Like most Sikh men, he wears his turban proudly, and he must be a red flag to the yahoos. Fortunately, we are relatively civilized in NJ.
Romney could show some courage and character by calling out Bachmann, et. al. But he is not possessed of either.
I lived thru the Nixon years, and know his record well. Somehow today's Republican villains, Romney, George W., Rove, et. al. seem to me more insidious and dangerous in terms of the threat to American institutions than Nixon.
The driving force behind climate change is the CO2-induced imbalance between incoming solar radiation and energy re-radiated and reflected back into space. Quantifying this effect relies on very old, very well established science.
Denial of this driving force is close to asserting that 2+2 does not equal 4, and these people are realizing how ridiculous that is.
Haaretz may be a left-leaning newspaper, I don't know, but there was this today:
"An Open Letter to Mitt Romney
I hate to burst your bubble, but if you believe that American Jews are going to vote for you in large numbers because they perceive you as more committed to Israel and more respectful of its current prime minister, you’re dead wrong.
Anyone with elementary understanding of the British knows that while they are highly self-critical, criticism by Americans is not on, and brings a sharp reaction.
Also, that amateurishness is not a pejorative term there,
in fact it is part of any enterprise, which should never be too relentlessly serious. Examples of things we have ruined thru overintensity are our politics and our sports.
In any event, I know enough about the British and how they look at Americans to say with certainty that they will not like Romney. They will see thru his cardboard-cutout phoniness, and I would bet there will be some sort of tabloid fun with him before he goes. The British like to "take the Mickey" out of overly serious people, and they will do that with him.
I'd like to think that the US is taking the lead in helping the Iraqi refugees, since we are responsible for their flight into Syria in the first place.
There is no other first world conservative party committed to repeal of universal healthcare. There is no other conservative party denial of man-made climate change and its catastrophic effects.
The Republicans have degenerated to a depraved, low, and vicious state.
The conservative leaders seem to have the emotional maturity of 10 year olds who have lost some game on the playground. Unhinged anger, insistence they really "won", that the winners cheated, threats of retaliation and revenge. It seems that emotional immaturity is an essential components of modern conservatism, like low IQ.
I doubt that foreigners are awed by the majesty of American law in this situation; rather, they are wondering why this belonged in the courts at all. What kind of crazy people would fight tooth and nail to establish healthcare as a privilege and force people into bankruptcy and premature death from circumstances they could not control? There are times like this when I our deranged brethren in the Republican Party make me ashamed to be an American.
What I find most galling is that they will have their hands out to the richer Blue states to compensate them for their losses. A la Oklahoma in the 1930's.
I recall a dispute over water between the two nations back in the 80's or 90's in which Turkey simply massed its armies on the border until the Syrians relented. This might put a lot of pressure on the Syrians this time, too.
Will we be seeing a rush of Republican Governors to follow Walker's example and outlaw collective bargaining for public employee unions? Will Chris Christie be following suit? I doubt it.
"Our country is now stuck in a game of Russian roulette, and people like Rubio are the bullet in the chamber."
This game started with George W., and it is hard to argue that we are masters of our fates anymore. Whether we thrive or die will be a matter of contingent events.
I thought it was very fine of Elie Weisel to speak up for the Syrians at the gathering with the President yesterday. But not so fine to suggest that Iran wanted to attack Israel with nuclear weapons.
And their dignity will be further enhanced by his repeal of the law providing them with health insurance that they might no otherwise have had. All this is straight out of Dickens.
Scalia is probably licking his chops over the prospect of once more being able to tell liberals to "get over it".
If certain Justices prefer to toss the whole bill rather than read it, then why should the Administration feel obligated to abide by the decision?
The Republican nomination freak show has damaged the image of the US abroad , and I have to assume this bizarre show of fanatic callousness and cruelty in the healthcare debate is also incomprehensible to the rest of the world.
In no other nation on earth would the question whether the government should make provision for universal healthcare access even be questioned in the courts. A peculiar brand of American insanity, derangement, and resistance to civilization is responsible for the scene at the Supreme Court now.
And we shouldn't forget that carbon dioxide is not the whole story, bad as it is. Methane is more powerful a radiation trapper on a per molecule basis, and it is going to go up as well as rising temperatures release it from trapping hydrates in the tundra, accidental releases from fracking, etc. Dust and soot falling on snow cause the snow to absorb more solar energy and contribute to warming, too.
The Likud has brought Iran to the fore this year because it is a US Presidential election year, and their leverage for extortion and blackmail of Obama is maximized.
One recalls the way he sequestered himself after 9/11 to the point that it became a national joke. The man is a physical coward. And he apparently insists on having Secret Service protection at a time when there aren't enough agents to protect the President adequately.
The Republican numbers make me wonder whether there is indeed something to the recent studies correlating low IQ and social conservatism. This is simply not going to happen under Obama, at least this year.
Israeli pressures have been stepped up this year because of the November election and their realization that they could lose some ability to extort and blackmail Obama after that.
No one is talking about the environmental fallout from an attack on Uranium-enriching facilities. Presumably the partially enriched Uranium is in a state dangerous to human health, and a strike could spread it to nearby population centers.
What is unbelievable to me is that American commanders and high officers did not ram home to their troops the absolute necessity of treating Korans with respect. How much imagination would have been required to donate them to a madrassa? There was a leadership failure here.
A no-fly zone would be easy to enforce, and would make possible airdrops of supplies to besieged areas. Violations would be met with cruise missiles fired at Assad's domicile.
The NYT had an article by Elizabeth Bumiller yesterday questioning whether Israel has the military capacity to do the job by themselves, assuming conventional weapons are used. Presumably the NYT will now be attacked, too.
Netanyahu may conclude that Romney is his best bet, and start insinuating himself into the US elections.
For Netanyahu also there are advantages to the high oil prices he has in part caused; it helps undermine the re-election of a man he despises in favor of nominees who have said they will blindly do Israel's bidding.
Romney evidently is listening to a former George W. national security official who argues that rearming China is a threat to our naval presence in the Pacific. Expect a lot of Yellow Peril from Romney.
11. The sight of Israeli bodies being dragged from Tel Aviv apartment blocks destroyed by Iranian missile attacks will lead to intense pressure to end the conflict once and for all. Having spread nuclear radiation about Iran already, Israel decides to use its own nuclear weapons.
Ronen Bergmann, in his NYT Sunday magazine piece last week, offered the opinion that Israel could absorb anything Iran would throw at it in retaliation. I doubt this; the sight of bodies being pulled out of destroyed apartment buildings from missile attacks would generate enormous pressure to end the war for sure- with nuclear weapons.
Ronen Bergmann, who has access to Israeli leaders, published a piece in the Sunday NYT yesterday which predicted an Israeli attack. I don't know if it just bluff designed to get even tougher sanctions, but it looked to me like official notice of intention to attack.
That this could roil the election is an understatement, and I am sure we will see shameless Netanyahu blackmail employed.
We can probably anticipate some sort of collusion between Netanyahu and Romney during the campaign. Netanyahu will probably try to blackmail Obama in behalf of the US taking the lead in attacking Iran.
Iran probably understands that it has Obama over a barrel in this election year. All they have to do is buzz our ships in the Straits to drive up oil prices and the American motorist notices. An actual outbreak of hostilities probably ruins what economic gains we have had.
Prior to 9/11 I didn't know much about Muslims other than as a tourist. It is ironic that that event has lead to me to a general appreciation of them, as in the case of this woman.
One assumes that 25 meters means that all of the fought-over ground on Wall St. will be underwater and abandoned. But being in the 1% means you can always buy higher ground.
It is time someone called the Republican obstruction on climate change for what it is-a threat to our planet.
We have a vast, overfunded Homeland Security apparatus built up to conduct the struggle against Islamic terrorism. Now that Obama has squashed the threat from these terrorists, they are looking for things to do. No surprise that they would have gotten involved.
One of the most shameful things about the global warming argument is the way the integrity of climate scientists has been impugned by the likes of Imhofe and Perry. The stress this puts on these people must be unbelievable, and I think there should be some defamation lawsuits.
This looks like validation of the Obama-Clinton philosophy of "leading from behind" so much criticized in its early days.
Presumably Libyan oil will now be back on the market and giving the world's economy some relief.
One of the most appalling things about our economic decline has been the role the courts have played. In December, 2000, five Republican political operatives took the Presidency away from a man who won the popular vote would have continued the responsible spending and taxing policies of Clinton, in favor of a man who recklessly cut taxes, accelerated spending, and drove the country deeply into debt. And in the 2010 Citizens United a different cast of five political justices gave its ok to the injections of large amounts of political contributions in behalf of corporations and oligarchs.
If you are putting together a list of culprits, put the Republican Supreme Court justices at the top.
As the Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party continues, where are the protesting voices of the senior moderate Republican leaders? What do Papa Bush, Howard Baker, James Baker, et. al. have to say? Nothing, evidently.
What is especially twisted about fomenting hatred of immigrants in a country like Norway is that it is incredibly rich, with a per capita GDP nearly twice that of the US, an unemployment rate less than half that of the US, the highest human development index in the world, and sparsely populated.
There is plenty for everybody; those immigrants don't really compete with anyone for opportunities.
The indictment makes the Congressional Republican challenge to the Libyan effort look a bit misguided, and helps Obama's case. John Boehner, et. al. are giving succor to a war criminal? (Why not, they supported George Bush full stop for 8 years).
At the "Faith and Freedom" Conference in DC, Frank Gaffney and others are demonizing Islam and Muslims in a manner suggestive of clinical derangement. This at a time when the bad guys in the Muslim world are going down (the above and the Al Qaeda leadership), and ordinary Muslims are displaying extraordinary courage in fighting for the same values that we have. More courage than the Gaffneys, or Peter Kings would ever be capable of displaying.
"The Big Oil and Big Coal executives attempting to stop efforts to reduce emissions are thus in effect mass murderers of a future generation."
Were it not for the obstruction of the Republicans, the US would be well on its way to leadership in developing alternative energy sources. The world won't come to terms with the problem without the US.
Thus the Republicans are not just our problem; they represent a tragedy for the planet and humanity.
I'd like to see us leave Afghanistan, but wonder whether it is the proximity of the Pakistani Taliban to Pakistan's nuclear weapons that will keep us in the region. After Abbotabhad and the Karachi base attack it is hardly likely these weapons are secure. Pakistan will keep our anxiety over this ratcheted up to keep our support coming. I doubt that we will ever be able to quit each other.
Ever since 2001, there has been an 800-pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to confront headon- Pakistan's use of jihad groups as proxies against India and Afghanistan. Their succor of bin Laden demonstrates that there are those in the Pakistan government who wish us harm, as well. Evidently they feel their possession of nuclear weapons frees them to act in whatever ways they want.
Yesterday NPR carried news of the indictment in a US court of an ISI agent and other Pakistanis associated with Lashkar y Taiba. I do not understand why Pakistan's behaviour is not taken to the UN and condemned. Unless unrelenting pressure is put on them to give up these practices, there will come a horrible catalclysm there.
Bin Laden purported to be a great Islamic warrior, and exhorted thousands of Muslims on to martrydom. But rather than die a self-respecting death in a martrydom operation, he hid himself, Cheney-like, from danger for ten years. And we learn that a woman was being used as a shield in his defense.
Let us pray that this quickly leads to the rollup of Al Zawahir, an exit from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and an end to this pathetic, warped episode in our history.
Nicholas Pelham in the NYRB makes the worthwhile point that victory against Qaddafi might form the basis for beginnings of long-term rappochement between the US and the Muslim world, given the large number of AfPak/Iraq jihadis Libya has provided.
I wonder why people who have facilitated the infiltration of the US government by militant, fundamentalist Christians can possibly raise such objections to the participation of an alleged militant, fundamentalist group of Muslims in Egypt.
Lieberman was the ultimate opportunist who would do anything to ingratiate himself with those in power. Using fake, Orthodox piety to insinuate himself onto Gore's ticket at a time when Gore felt tainted by Clinton's depravity was stomach-churning.
His advocacy of an unnecessary, illegal, misbegotten war that resulted in the premature deaths of 100,000's of innocent Iraqis is the biggest offense, in my view.
This whole thing is sick, but what is even sicker is that it will afford Sarah Palin new opportunities to bask in the limelight of public attention and opprobrium, bolster her ratings and speaking fees, and allow Rupert Murdoch to rake more cash into his coffers.
"Rupert Murdoch’s stable of demagogues use code to whip up racial hatred and violence".
All of whom are $millions to do so. The saddest part of this whole episode is that there is such good money in pandering to Americans' hates and resentments; Mrs. Giffords had her brains blown out because of Murdoch's product differentiation/business model.
The Republican Party has given succor to the Tea Party haters as a means of regaining political power, of course. But what is really sad is how much of the incendiary, inflammatory rhetoric is put out there as part of a business model to improve ratings by pandering to the basest instincts. To Fox and its hosts, racism and hatred are just key components of their business strategy.
These people were maimed and killed so someone could make a buck.
I'm pretty sure that hinterland Republicans really don't care anymore about the responders or 9/11 victims' families and wish they would just shut up and go away. Except when you can exploit them to buttress some fearmongering campaign.
I often wonder what the effect of the very public American right wing lunacy is on countries like Iran. I would imagine that you consider the possibility of confronting President Sarah Palin, you look at the Koran book burning and Ground Zero mosque hysteria and much else, and decide to accelerate nuclear weapons development as an insurance policy.
That Iran would want such weapons to fend off what could be an increasingly hostile and irrational superpower with 10,000 of them seems quite understandable.
Mayor Bloomberg knows that this sort of thing endangers his city, which will always be a target of interest for terrorists. The more this gets out of hand, the greater the likelihood that residents of NYC will pay the price.
"These are ravenous beasts, and giving them red meat will only send them into a greater frenzy, not satiate them. "
What these beasts will do is feed an Islamophobia that makes us all less safe, maybe even raising the likelihood that whatever is built at Ground Zero will become a prime target again.
And the East Coast of the US has moved beyond the zone of habitation. Heat waves that have made this Summer practically unendurable are predicted by Stanford climate change investigators to be the new norm for the next 30 years.
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From the vulgarity and tackiness exhibited, we can reasonably presume that all involved are Republicans?
And we have a serious threat to win the Presidency in the form of a man who says cars can't run on wind power.
Americans tend to ruin things thru over- intensity. Another example is our industrialized sports.
Is distrust between Pakistan and India so deep that nuclear arms limitation talks cannot be envisioned? Or is it that its nuclear weapons are the only reason anyone cares about Pakistan, and they won't give that up?
Not to minimize the tragedy of the deaths of those fine people, but Libya-Benghazi is the Quemoy & Matsu of this election.
No. 1, reentry into Iraq, ought to .be politically explosive.
I remember that market from a visit seven years ago, and have some nice rugs bought there. The thought of it gone with the Citadel damaged too is heartbreaking.
I'm curious to know how American Muslims are disposed towards the 2012 election. There are sizeable numbers of them, and I would guess they participate in elections at fairly high rates, but they seem to be totally overlooked as a voting bloc. Of course, how any Muslim could vote for Romney or any other Republican would be beyond me.
Not to mention that many of the higher income tax units were saved from pounding the pavement thru the government bailouts of 2008-09. Did these people "take responsibility" for their lives; were they not unusually "dependent" on the government?
Romney was addressing an audience of Boca Raton fatcats, many of whom got bailed out by the government in 2008-09. And Romney once went to the FDIC to negotiate a Bain bailout himself. So they are not among the moochers?
1. Romney has used the expression "union stooges" several times this campaign. And he expects to get the endorsement of any unions? This is language beneath the dignity of the offices he is seeking.
The debates will not be pretty. Probably the challenge will be to decide just how much humiliation to inflict on Mitt and Marathon Man.
13. The stock market, the constituent of most IRA's and 401k's, has soared over this period.
Those Republicans dismissing Joe Biden's intellect are going to be in for a shock at the VP debates, when Marathon Man has his head handed to him.
We see estimates that Romney needs 61% of the white vote to get a majority. But that is complicated by the fact that half the white vote- women are proving resistant to him, so that he really must win an even bigger percentage of white men. A campaign that is targetted to uneducated white males can't be good for the country.
Let us know how your lawsuit against the government is going sometime.
The chart looks consistent with reports that Obama is being outspent 3 to 1 on TV ads in the swing states. The future of our democracy depends on the outcome; if Romney loses, the billionaires may shy away from even trying again. But its a coin toss.
"..would cost ordinary recipients over $6000 a year extra."
Remember that the average over 65 income is around $29,000, so an extra $6000 might well bring the reappearance of dog and cat food on their tables.
Romney wants to give the impression that he paid this rate on his gross income. But it really only applies to his taxable income, which could have been drastically reduced from questionable shelters and deductions. Paying 15% on a radically reduced taxable income is the equivalent of paying no taxes.
Burning coal evidently produces about three times as much carbon dioxide per power unit as does natural gas, as well as producing other pollutants. Romney's clamoring for more of it is perverse and even sick.
And do you have any doubt that they told Romney it would be Ryan or no hundreds of millions in further contributions?
It would be interesting to know whether this guy was on the FBI radar, or whether they are preoccupied with threats from Muslims.
You wonder whether Republicans take part in the pride because this accomplishment contradicts the dogma that the government can't do anything right.
There is a Sikh gas station owner near me, and I have long feared for his safety. Like most Sikh men, he wears his turban proudly, and he must be a red flag to the yahoos. Fortunately, we are relatively civilized in NJ.
Romney could show some courage and character by calling out Bachmann, et. al. But he is not possessed of either.
And you cannot argue that Great Britain's low homicide is due to cultural and racial homogeneity. It is at least as diverse as we are.
I lived thru the Nixon years, and know his record well. Somehow today's Republican villains, Romney, George W., Rove, et. al. seem to me more insidious and dangerous in terms of the threat to American institutions than Nixon.
The driving force behind climate change is the CO2-induced imbalance between incoming solar radiation and energy re-radiated and reflected back into space. Quantifying this effect relies on very old, very well established science.
Denial of this driving force is close to asserting that 2+2 does not equal 4, and these people are realizing how ridiculous that is.
Haaretz may be a left-leaning newspaper, I don't know, but there was this today:
"An Open Letter to Mitt Romney
I hate to burst your bubble, but if you believe that American Jews are going to vote for you in large numbers because they perceive you as more committed to Israel and more respectful of its current prime minister, you’re dead wrong.
Dov Waxman "
Presumably Romney would say that this is an example of a superior "culture".
Anyone with elementary understanding of the British knows that while they are highly self-critical, criticism by Americans is not on, and brings a sharp reaction.
Also, that amateurishness is not a pejorative term there,
in fact it is part of any enterprise, which should never be too relentlessly serious. Examples of things we have ruined thru overintensity are our politics and our sports.
The Anglo-Saxon bit is going to hurt Romney further with Hispanics, as well. It just confirms their suspicions.
In any event, I know enough about the British and how they look at Americans to say with certainty that they will not like Romney. They will see thru his cardboard-cutout phoniness, and I would bet there will be some sort of tabloid fun with him before he goes. The British like to "take the Mickey" out of overly serious people, and they will do that with him.
It sets Romney up with an opportunity to condemn her and show strength of character and courage. Don't hold your breath.
I'd like to think that the US is taking the lead in helping the Iraqi refugees, since we are responsible for their flight into Syria in the first place.
There is no other first world conservative party committed to repeal of universal healthcare. There is no other conservative party denial of man-made climate change and its catastrophic effects.
The Republicans have degenerated to a depraved, low, and vicious state.
The conservative leaders seem to have the emotional maturity of 10 year olds who have lost some game on the playground. Unhinged anger, insistence they really "won", that the winners cheated, threats of retaliation and revenge. It seems that emotional immaturity is an essential components of modern conservatism, like low IQ.
I doubt that foreigners are awed by the majesty of American law in this situation; rather, they are wondering why this belonged in the courts at all. What kind of crazy people would fight tooth and nail to establish healthcare as a privilege and force people into bankruptcy and premature death from circumstances they could not control? There are times like this when I our deranged brethren in the Republican Party make me ashamed to be an American.
What I find most galling is that they will have their hands out to the richer Blue states to compensate them for their losses. A la Oklahoma in the 1930's.
I recall a dispute over water between the two nations back in the 80's or 90's in which Turkey simply massed its armies on the border until the Syrians relented. This might put a lot of pressure on the Syrians this time, too.
7. This is a man whose wife is battling MS and cancer with the best healthcare the country has to offer.
Will we be seeing a rush of Republican Governors to follow Walker's example and outlaw collective bargaining for public employee unions? Will Chris Christie be following suit? I doubt it.
The Newshour had a report last night that 98% of Lebanese Muslims, presumably including the Hezbollah Shiites, disapproved of Al Qaeda.
"Our country is now stuck in a game of Russian roulette, and people like Rubio are the bullet in the chamber."
This game started with George W., and it is hard to argue that we are masters of our fates anymore. Whether we thrive or die will be a matter of contingent events.
I thought it was very fine of Elie Weisel to speak up for the Syrians at the gathering with the President yesterday. But not so fine to suggest that Iran wanted to attack Israel with nuclear weapons.
Without the Republican Party, the US would be forging ahead with CO2 reduction, leading the world. The Republicans are a tragedy for the planet.
And their dignity will be further enhanced by his repeal of the law providing them with health insurance that they might no otherwise have had. All this is straight out of Dickens.
Scalia is probably licking his chops over the prospect of once more being able to tell liberals to "get over it".
If certain Justices prefer to toss the whole bill rather than read it, then why should the Administration feel obligated to abide by the decision?
The Republican nomination freak show has damaged the image of the US abroad , and I have to assume this bizarre show of fanatic callousness and cruelty in the healthcare debate is also incomprehensible to the rest of the world.
In no other nation on earth would the question whether the government should make provision for universal healthcare access even be questioned in the courts. A peculiar brand of American insanity, derangement, and resistance to civilization is responsible for the scene at the Supreme Court now.
And we shouldn't forget that carbon dioxide is not the whole story, bad as it is. Methane is more powerful a radiation trapper on a per molecule basis, and it is going to go up as well as rising temperatures release it from trapping hydrates in the tundra, accidental releases from fracking, etc. Dust and soot falling on snow cause the snow to absorb more solar energy and contribute to warming, too.
The Likud has brought Iran to the fore this year because it is a US Presidential election year, and their leverage for extortion and blackmail of Obama is maximized.
One recalls the way he sequestered himself after 9/11 to the point that it became a national joke. The man is a physical coward. And he apparently insists on having Secret Service protection at a time when there aren't enough agents to protect the President adequately.
The Republican numbers make me wonder whether there is indeed something to the recent studies correlating low IQ and social conservatism. This is simply not going to happen under Obama, at least this year.
Israeli pressures have been stepped up this year because of the November election and their realization that they could lose some ability to extort and blackmail Obama after that.
No one is talking about the environmental fallout from an attack on Uranium-enriching facilities. Presumably the partially enriched Uranium is in a state dangerous to human health, and a strike could spread it to nearby population centers.
What is unbelievable to me is that American commanders and high officers did not ram home to their troops the absolute necessity of treating Korans with respect. How much imagination would have been required to donate them to a madrassa? There was a leadership failure here.
A no-fly zone would be easy to enforce, and would make possible airdrops of supplies to besieged areas. Violations would be met with cruise missiles fired at Assad's domicile.
"All seem reckless and willing to risk war with Iran."
And thus will probably tempt Netanyahu to insinuate himself into the Presidential campaign in some way.
The NYT had an article by Elizabeth Bumiller yesterday questioning whether Israel has the military capacity to do the job by themselves, assuming conventional weapons are used. Presumably the NYT will now be attacked, too.
Netanyahu may conclude that Romney is his best bet, and start insinuating himself into the US elections.
For Netanyahu also there are advantages to the high oil prices he has in part caused; it helps undermine the re-election of a man he despises in favor of nominees who have said they will blindly do Israel's bidding.
I know that India and Israel cooperate closely on defense projects, so this could easily have been a Pakistani-based group, as well.
One assumes China gets a lot of its oil from Arab states, so I don't see why there isn't great leverage on them to change this vote.
Romney evidently is listening to a former George W. national security official who argues that rearming China is a threat to our naval presence in the Pacific. Expect a lot of Yellow Peril from Romney.
11. The sight of Israeli bodies being dragged from Tel Aviv apartment blocks destroyed by Iranian missile attacks will lead to intense pressure to end the conflict once and for all. Having spread nuclear radiation about Iran already, Israel decides to use its own nuclear weapons.
Ronen Bergmann, in his NYT Sunday magazine piece last week, offered the opinion that Israel could absorb anything Iran would throw at it in retaliation. I doubt this; the sight of bodies being pulled out of destroyed apartment buildings from missile attacks would generate enormous pressure to end the war for sure- with nuclear weapons.
Ronen Bergmann, who has access to Israeli leaders, published a piece in the Sunday NYT yesterday which predicted an Israeli attack. I don't know if it just bluff designed to get even tougher sanctions, but it looked to me like official notice of intention to attack.
That this could roil the election is an understatement, and I am sure we will see shameless Netanyahu blackmail employed.
We can probably anticipate some sort of collusion between Netanyahu and Romney during the campaign. Netanyahu will probably try to blackmail Obama in behalf of the US taking the lead in attacking Iran.
Iran probably understands that it has Obama over a barrel in this election year. All they have to do is buzz our ships in the Straits to drive up oil prices and the American motorist notices. An actual outbreak of hostilities probably ruins what economic gains we have had.
Prior to 9/11 I didn't know much about Muslims other than as a tourist. It is ironic that that event has lead to me to a general appreciation of them, as in the case of this woman.
One assumes that 25 meters means that all of the fought-over ground on Wall St. will be underwater and abandoned. But being in the 1% means you can always buy higher ground.
It is time someone called the Republican obstruction on climate change for what it is-a threat to our planet.
I recall a dispute over water rights which Turkey resolved by massing its army on the Syrian border. Perhaps that might focus minds in Syria now?
We have a vast, overfunded Homeland Security apparatus built up to conduct the struggle against Islamic terrorism. Now that Obama has squashed the threat from these terrorists, they are looking for things to do. No surprise that they would have gotten involved.
One of the most shameful things about the global warming argument is the way the integrity of climate scientists has been impugned by the likes of Imhofe and Perry. The stress this puts on these people must be unbelievable, and I think there should be some defamation lawsuits.
This looks like validation of the Obama-Clinton philosophy of "leading from behind" so much criticized in its early days.
Presumably Libyan oil will now be back on the market and giving the world's economy some relief.
One of the most appalling things about our economic decline has been the role the courts have played. In December, 2000, five Republican political operatives took the Presidency away from a man who won the popular vote would have continued the responsible spending and taxing policies of Clinton, in favor of a man who recklessly cut taxes, accelerated spending, and drove the country deeply into debt. And in the 2010 Citizens United a different cast of five political justices gave its ok to the injections of large amounts of political contributions in behalf of corporations and oligarchs.
If you are putting together a list of culprits, put the Republican Supreme Court justices at the top.
As the Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party continues, where are the protesting voices of the senior moderate Republican leaders? What do Papa Bush, Howard Baker, James Baker, et. al. have to say? Nothing, evidently.
Wasn't Beck just invited to speak at the Knesset?
What is especially twisted about fomenting hatred of immigrants in a country like Norway is that it is incredibly rich, with a per capita GDP nearly twice that of the US, an unemployment rate less than half that of the US, the highest human development index in the world, and sparsely populated.
There is plenty for everybody; those immigrants don't really compete with anyone for opportunities.
Best of luck. Frankly, I would seek monetary damages for the denying of a position at Yale for you.
$4 trillion is about $200 billion per 9/11 hijacker. That is real bang for the buck.
The indictment makes the Congressional Republican challenge to the Libyan effort look a bit misguided, and helps Obama's case. John Boehner, et. al. are giving succor to a war criminal? (Why not, they supported George Bush full stop for 8 years).
One wonders if it was not the Bushes who queered the deal with Yale University.
At the "Faith and Freedom" Conference in DC, Frank Gaffney and others are demonizing Islam and Muslims in a manner suggestive of clinical derangement. This at a time when the bad guys in the Muslim world are going down (the above and the Al Qaeda leadership), and ordinary Muslims are displaying extraordinary courage in fighting for the same values that we have. More courage than the Gaffneys, or Peter Kings would ever be capable of displaying.
"The Big Oil and Big Coal executives attempting to stop efforts to reduce emissions are thus in effect mass murderers of a future generation."
Were it not for the obstruction of the Republicans, the US would be well on its way to leadership in developing alternative energy sources. The world won't come to terms with the problem without the US.
Thus the Republicans are not just our problem; they represent a tragedy for the planet and humanity.
I'd like to see us leave Afghanistan, but wonder whether it is the proximity of the Pakistani Taliban to Pakistan's nuclear weapons that will keep us in the region. After Abbotabhad and the Karachi base attack it is hardly likely these weapons are secure. Pakistan will keep our anxiety over this ratcheted up to keep our support coming. I doubt that we will ever be able to quit each other.
Ever since 2001, there has been an 800-pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to confront headon- Pakistan's use of jihad groups as proxies against India and Afghanistan. Their succor of bin Laden demonstrates that there are those in the Pakistan government who wish us harm, as well. Evidently they feel their possession of nuclear weapons frees them to act in whatever ways they want.
Yesterday NPR carried news of the indictment in a US court of an ISI agent and other Pakistanis associated with Lashkar y Taiba. I do not understand why Pakistan's behaviour is not taken to the UN and condemned. Unless unrelenting pressure is put on them to give up these practices, there will come a horrible catalclysm there.
Bin Laden purported to be a great Islamic warrior, and exhorted thousands of Muslims on to martrydom. But rather than die a self-respecting death in a martrydom operation, he hid himself, Cheney-like, from danger for ten years. And we learn that a woman was being used as a shield in his defense.
Let us pray that this quickly leads to the rollup of Al Zawahir, an exit from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and an end to this pathetic, warped episode in our history.
Nicholas Pelham in the NYRB makes the worthwhile point that victory against Qaddafi might form the basis for beginnings of long-term rappochement between the US and the Muslim world, given the large number of AfPak/Iraq jihadis Libya has provided.
These events, however they turn out, demonstrate that Muslims are worthy of respect, and thus corrode the Faux News drive to demonize them.
I wonder why people who have facilitated the infiltration of the US government by militant, fundamentalist Christians can possibly raise such objections to the participation of an alleged militant, fundamentalist group of Muslims in Egypt.
Lieberman was the ultimate opportunist who would do anything to ingratiate himself with those in power. Using fake, Orthodox piety to insinuate himself onto Gore's ticket at a time when Gore felt tainted by Clinton's depravity was stomach-churning.
His advocacy of an unnecessary, illegal, misbegotten war that resulted in the premature deaths of 100,000's of innocent Iraqis is the biggest offense, in my view.
This whole thing is sick, but what is even sicker is that it will afford Sarah Palin new opportunities to bask in the limelight of public attention and opprobrium, bolster her ratings and speaking fees, and allow Rupert Murdoch to rake more cash into his coffers.
"Rupert Murdoch’s stable of demagogues use code to whip up racial hatred and violence".
All of whom are $millions to do so. The saddest part of this whole episode is that there is such good money in pandering to Americans' hates and resentments; Mrs. Giffords had her brains blown out because of Murdoch's product differentiation/business model.
The Republican Party has given succor to the Tea Party haters as a means of regaining political power, of course. But what is really sad is how much of the incendiary, inflammatory rhetoric is put out there as part of a business model to improve ratings by pandering to the basest instincts. To Fox and its hosts, racism and hatred are just key components of their business strategy.
These people were maimed and killed so someone could make a buck.
I'm pretty sure that hinterland Republicans really don't care anymore about the responders or 9/11 victims' families and wish they would just shut up and go away. Except when you can exploit them to buttress some fearmongering campaign.
The ready availability of assault weapons in the US would seem to make such an attack inevitable here.
I often wonder what the effect of the very public American right wing lunacy is on countries like Iran. I would imagine that you consider the possibility of confronting President Sarah Palin, you look at the Koran book burning and Ground Zero mosque hysteria and much else, and decide to accelerate nuclear weapons development as an insurance policy.
That Iran would want such weapons to fend off what could be an increasingly hostile and irrational superpower with 10,000 of them seems quite understandable.
Mayor Bloomberg knows that this sort of thing endangers his city, which will always be a target of interest for terrorists. The more this gets out of hand, the greater the likelihood that residents of NYC will pay the price.
"These are ravenous beasts, and giving them red meat will only send them into a greater frenzy, not satiate them. "
What these beasts will do is feed an Islamophobia that makes us all less safe, maybe even raising the likelihood that whatever is built at Ground Zero will become a prime target again.
And the East Coast of the US has moved beyond the zone of habitation. Heat waves that have made this Summer practically unendurable are predicted by Stanford climate change investigators to be the new norm for the next 30 years.