Roman Catholic blogger Ysais Martinez hits the nail on the head re Obama and the Middle East, in this letter to Asia Times Online: The problem with the Barack Obama administration is not its policy of containment, its biggest problem is its weakness. The Middle East is a place where you have to make deals …
Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize: A Suitcase Will Hold Many 500 Euro Notes
And I thought we had seen everything: The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself. Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian …
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Rolling Stones: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
This week's video relating to music alluded to in the novel The Ten Weeks is the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."Â In this case, the performance comes from their 1997-8 "Bridges to Babylon" tour, so they had come a long way from their heyday and the era of the novel. But …
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Bob Corker: When Your Constituents are on the Line, You Think Differently
My crosstown senator Bob Corker is well advised to use caution here, re the decision whether to expand our troop commitment to Afghanistan: In Congress, members from both parties are expressing hesitation. Republicans are mostly playing it safe. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee told NEWSWEEK he's reserving judgment until he hears how troop levels fit …
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Barack Obama in School in Indonesia: Setting a Few Things Straight
While I seem to be on a roll on this subject of Barack Obama, let me take up something I received in one of those circulated emails recently: the whole business about his education in Indonesia, and his school registration record. I'll reproduce this below and then make some comments He's listed as "Barry Sotero," …
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Bill Ayers, the True Author of Obama’s (Supposedly) Dreams From My Father
The cat's out of the bag: Then, unprompted he (Ayers) said--I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said--Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He's about my height, short. He went on to say--and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties. …
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Now the Arabs Move to Replace the Dollar, and the Pakistanis Move to Replace the Taliban
It just keeps coming: In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified …
Stimulus Spending for Transportation at a Snail’s Pace
From here: Stimulus spending on transportation projects is expected to account for more than half the 3.5 million jobs the Obama administration says the stimulus will create or save. So far, only 7 percent of transportation stimulus funds have been paid out. (Snail image from Jürgen Schoner/Wikipedia Commons) Stimulus money for transportation projects is being …
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The Country of a Second Chance
I've griped at length on this site—and elsewhere—on how the graduates (at all degree levels) of a few elite schools dominate our corridors of power, be they the White House, the Supreme Court, or in our financial centres. A recent Facebook post by Fox News Radio's Todd Starnes has finally galvanised me to lay out …
Grand Funk Railroad: Closer to Home
This week's video relating to music alluded to in the novel The Ten Weeks is Grand Funk Railroad's "Closer to Home." It's their performance of this classic in Shea Stadium, New York, on 9 July 1971. On the album with the same name, the song ends with a very effective fade out. Unfortunately, that couldn't …
Positive Infinity 