A seven-month-old male lion at the Godfrey Nairobi animal orphanage. From the Huffington Post.
What Does it Take to Become a Great Power? (Ibrahim Kalin) from Today's Zamen [of Turkey in English]
"...emerging markets are likely to increase their share of the global economic pie. But this is not enough to become a great power.We’re confusing emerging markets with great powers because most of our analyses are based on pure economic considerations. But it takes more than economic growth to be a great power. What made the US a great/super power was more than good fiscal policies."
The National Security 'Regressives' (Brian Katulis) from RealClearWorld
"The ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia marked a defeat for an influential faction among America's right that can best be described as national security regressives. These are "conservative" voices who oppose strengthening and utilizing the full range of traditional tools of American statecraft, including assertive diplomacy, smart and balanced national security spending, and precise and targeted measures to combat terrorist groups. They may have lost on New START, but they are not likely to go away anytime soon."
One reason for this condition is because there is no genuine 'progressive' core within the foreign policy establishment in the US. From Foggy Bottom to the most well-funded think tanks to the most influential publications (Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy Magazine, etc.) there are virtually NO progressive voices -- while right-wing hawks such as John Bolton, Bill Kristol, and Norman Podhoretz have ready entre' to the highest decision-making circles, prestige publications and the mainstream media. In my view, presidents and law-makers have become severely constrained by the straight-jacketed group think that, since the days of Reagan, seems impervious to criticism or self-correction. They WILL find WMDs in Iraq someday -- and if they don't, what does it matter? So what if it ends up costing the US between two and four TRILLION dollars? Where are all the progressive commentators from 2002 (see Phil Donahue's show on MSNBC-- oh, crap, it got canceled, didn't it) who said the Iraq conflict was a mistake? They are no more welcomed into the 'establishment' now than they were eight years ago.
Why 2011 Will Be a Happier New Year (Fareed Zakaria) from Time Magazine
"2010 was a tough year, not just for Barack Obama, not just for America, but for the West. Whether one looked at the U.S. or Greece or Ireland, the images were of unemployment lines, political protests and general despair. ... Many problems persist, and crises will come again, but let me tell you why I think the year ahead will prove to be a lot better than 2010. Call it my glass-half-full column."
Iran Spat Pits President Against Supreme Leader (Mike Shuster) from NPR's Morning Edition
"Political turmoil seems to be the norm in Iran: Last year it was the reformist opposition taking to the streets challenging what they saw as the fraudulent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now another political fissure has emerged within the conservative camp, threatening possible open conflict between Iran's president and its supreme leader."
China Makes Skype Illegal from the Telegraph [of the UK]
"China on Thursday announced that it had made illegal the use of Skype, the popular internet telephony service, as the country continues to shut itself off from the rest of the world."
The question is: Can China's economy become one based on genuine innovation so long as the pull this kind of nonsense? I HOPE not -- but I think the answer is not at all clear.
South Korea, Out of Options, Revives Nuke Diplomacy With North (Joseph Schuman) from AOL News
"South Korea's president says his country has no choice but to give denuclearization talks with Pyongyang another try."
Obama's Second Act? (Michael Tomasky) from the New York Review of Books
"Lately, Barack Obama doesn’t look like such a bad poker player. … Republicans had invested much time and energy in blocking all of them, and very few Democrats in Washington would have been willing to predict two weeks ago that any of these measures would pass."
Obama Is Suffering Because of His Achievements, Not Despite Them (Todd S. Purdum) from Vanity Fair
"With each victory, Obama’s opponents grow more frustrated, filling the airwaves and what passes for political discourse with fulminations about some supposed sin or another. … For his part, Obama resists the pugilistic impulse. To him, the merit of all these programs has been self-evident, and he has been the first to acknowledge that he has not always done all he could to explain them, sensibly and simply, to the American public. But Obama is nowhere near so politically maladroit as his frustrated liberal supporters—or implacable right-wing opponents—like to claim."
I very much agree with Purdum here. Obama came into office with REAL political capital -- and he chose to use a lot of it to accomplish substantive things. One of the many differences between Obama and, say, Jimmy Carter is that Obama burned a lot of his capital to get real things done while Carter burned his capital and get very little done.
Why WikiLeaks Is Unlike the Pentagon Papers (Floyd Abrams) from the Wall Street Journal
Everyone knows that Daniel Ellsberg leaked top-secret government documents about the Vietnam War. How many remember the ones he kept secret, or why?
Wikileaks Rest in Peace from Cryptome.org
"The original Wikileaks initiative is dead, replaced by a bloated apparatus promising 260,000 cables at slower than a snail's pace. At the rate of 20 cables a day it will take 13,000 days to finish -- some 35 years. The original merits of Wikileaks have been lost in its transformation into a publicity and fund-raising vehicle for Julian Assange as indicated in the redesign website which billboards him. Its once invaluable, steady stream of documents, packaged in its own, no-frills format, is now a tiny dribble of documents apparently regulated by a compact with a few main stream media which amplify the material well beyond its significance."
Dead on target with these observations! Some analysis of this article is HERE from Raw Story.
America’s Revival Begins in its Cities (Edward Glaeser) from the Boston Globe"For decades, the American dream has meant white picket fences and endless suburbs. But the ideas created in dense metropolitan areas power American productivity. We should reduce the pro-homeownership bias of housing policies, such as the home mortgage interest deduction, which subsidize suburban sprawl and penalize cities. We should rethink infrastructure policies that encourage Americans to move to lower-density environments. Most importantly, we should invest and innovate more in education, because human capital is the ultimate source of both urban and national strength."
‘Doubling Up’ in Recession-Strained Quarters from the New York Times
"Of the myriad ways the Great Recession has altered the country’s social fabric, the surge in households like the Maggis’, where relatives and friends have moved in together as a last resort, is one of the most concrete, yet underexplored, demographic shifts."
Some Va. History Texts Filled with Errors, Review Finds from the Washington Post
"The review began after The Washington Post reported in October that "Our Virginia" included a sentence saying that thousands of black soldiers fought for the South. The claim is one often made by Confederate heritage groups but rejected by most mainstream historians. The book's author, Joy Masoff, said at the time that she found references to it during research on the Internet. Five Ponds Press later apologized."
Filibuster Could Be Dead in a Week from the Democratic Strategist
"On January 5th, it appears that a majority of the Senate will vote to change its rules, barring unforseen GOP shenanigans, followed by another vote in which a majority of senators vote to reform the filibuster. The reason it seems like a done deal one week out is that all 53 returning Democratic senators have signed on a letter urging Majority Leader Reid to take up filibuster reform on that day, and they are not likely to settle for anything that preserves the status quo."
I will believe it when I see it. Prognostications about the imminent demise of the filibuster have been staples of progressive media for YEARS!
For G.O.P., End of the Preordained Candidate (Matt Bai) from the New York Times
"A year ago, Republicans here were shut out of governing but could console themselves with having retained their hold on the party apparatus. This week, they will celebrate the new year having come roaring back to regain the House, and yet they have no semblance of control over the direction of their party and the conservative activists who seem to be steering it."
The Road to 2012: The New New Hampshire from the Boston Phoenix
"Mitt Romney and the rest of the GOP field are about to find a whole new set of players standing between them and first-in-the-nation primary victory. … The result, according to political observers in the state, is a power vacuum in the state's Republican circles, right on the eve of the presidential nomination battle. Or, from the perspective of a Republican presidential wannabe, a slew of total unknowns whose opinion could make or break you."
ENVIRONMENT NUGGET!!
Paris to Test Banning Gas-Guzzlers (Yes, SUVs!) in City Core from GreenCarReports.com
"Why are many European carmakers now planning to build electric vehicles? Because many European cities are widely expected to ban high-emissions vehicles from their city cores over the next decade--perhaps even vehicles with any emissions at all."
That doesn't mean American car makers should make electric cars!! Why SHOULD they build cars for a global audience when there are still just enough peckerwoods (both male and female I've discovered) in the US that they can foist their gas hogs onto!?
WORLD WAR II NUGGET!!
The Importance of Being Winston (John Lukacs) from the National Interest
"Churchill, by and large, trusted his ability to impress other important men. In such instances he was more often right than wrong. That is why his “summits” during the Second World War were important, sometimes dramatic and almost always consequential."
RELIGION BOOK NUGGET!!
Faith and Modernity: A Review of Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways by Olivier Roy from the New York Times
"Olivier Roy agrees with Marx and Weber that religion declines as society advances, and argues that the rise of fundamentalism is only a symptom of secularization."
RECIPES NUGGET!!
Find. Eat. Drink.'s New Year's Eve Food & Drink Recipes from the Huffington Post
"Whether you're throwing a large soiree, a small dinner party or just spending a casual evening at home, these recipes, courtesy of chefs and mixologists, will spice up your night and take you into 2011 in style. "
The Garlic Chili Crab Dip looks great!
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