A sunrise at the Borobudur Temple in Indonesia. From National Geographic.
"According to Le Canard Enchaîné it was US generals who convinced their Tunisian counterparts to turn against Ben Ali. This allegedly is what led to his fleeing the country. The French diplomatic corps and secret service were caught completely off-guard."
I am surprised. I had heard that US authorities were really lagging behind events.
Rule No. 1 for Dictators: Don't Blink (Alan Cowell) from the New York Times
"If they want to survive, dictators don’t blink. If they seem vulnerable, they are lost. In unforgiving times, when international courts seek to bring miscreant leaders to justice, simply walking away is not an option."
The Strange Rebirth of American Leadership (Kenneth Weisbrode) from Project Syndicate
"Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent trip to Washington was seen by many – particularly many Chinese – as the passing of the torch. Pessimists have been saying this for a long time. Optimists, touting GDP and other indicators, will continue to insist that Americans have never had it so good. If there is any continuity worth underscoring, it is the regular cohabitation of boosterism with declinism: America’s glass is always simultaneously half full and half empty."
International Inequality is Alive and Well (Doug Saunders) from the Globe and Mail [of Toronto]
"When the world returned to its normal state of globalization after the angry decades of the 20th century, the result was enormous growth almost everywhere. China, starting in the 1980s, made its people wealthy enough to render starvation-level poverty non-existent. But surprising economic circumstances have caused wealthy countries to grow at an even greater rate, Mr. Milanovic notes. The advantage has stayed with the well-off."
China's Coming Fall (Lawrence Solomon) from the National Post [of Canada]
"Like the Soviet Union before it, much of China’s supposed boom is illusory — and just as likely to come crashing down."
Now … let me say that I think the parallels this author draws are overdrawn. Brezhnev would have beamed if the Soviet Union had had even half the economic life that 21st century China has. Where the author is on to something is this issue of the quality of the data China has been putting out. There is growing skepticism that the basic economic data being released by China is accurate. Such shenanigans will burn China -- and it won't be long-term, say ten years from now. The electronic herd despises this kind of sh#@, and accountability is going to come sooner than that.
Lebanon Typifies Arab Political Poverty (Rami Khouri) from the Daily Star [of Lebanon in English]
"The outcomes of these situations all remain unclear, and their distinct transformational mechanisms are very different. Sudan and Tunisia are the most heartening, reflecting refreshing different means of Arab nationals determining their own future. The situation in Lebanon is the most fascinating and regionally relevant, however, because it captures the best and worst of contemporary Arab politics and governance."
Russia's Own Wikileaks Takes Off from the Moscow Times [in English]
"A new web site striving to become Russia's answer to WikiLeaks became an online hit this week with the publication of the first photographs of a luxury mansion linked to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin."
Well, I wish them luck -- but this sort of story reminds me of stories that came out of repressive states in the mid-1990s when the world was newly awash in American television programs. Secret police in, say, Uzbekistan would be ramming a protester into an SUV to be taken off for interrogation -- and the protester would be demanding to be "read his rights" because his only frame of reference was what he'd seen on reruns of "Law and Order." Such stories may have been apocryphal -- but I suspect that these Rusleaks folks will soon find out that Russia is not the UK.
The Road Ahead for Gabrielle Giffords from The Week
"The Arizona congresswoman is expected to survive the gunshot wound to her head. What do doctors say about her recovery?"
Republican Spending Plan Signals a New Culture War (Dana Milbank) from the Washington Post
"Ostensibly, their cuts were about reducing the deficit, but their list clearly had more to do with settling old scores. Many of the items - including the renewed targeting of Big Bird and the rest of PBS - were holdovers from Newt Gingrich's '95 wish list. But, like Boehner did earlier, Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the RSC, claimed he was doing what the voters "elected us to do." Never mind all that folderol about jobs."
INcredible!
'Loss of Steam' in GOP Health Care Repeal Efforts (Howard Fineman) from the Huffinton Post
"I think there's been some loss of steam in the repeal movement as it runs into reality and it runs into politics," said HuffPost Senior Political Editor Howard Fineman. … "Fineman added that he's skeptical of the GOP actually defunding the bill, and pointed out that Republicans don't want to make the same mistake that Obama did by spending too much time on health care and not enough time focusing on other issues like jobs and the economy."
I think Fineman is underestimating how eager the GOP is to roll back health care. I hope Fineman is right, but I read THIS and I suspect he may be off base.
Senate Dems Plot Aggressive Strategy to Fight Health Care Repeal from TalkingPointsMemo
"A top Democratic aide tells me that leadership staffers are considering ways to make Republicans take tough votes on popular elements of the bill, as Republicans figure out if and how they'll force a vote on full repeal."
I hope so -- they'll need to be hitting back hard -- as will Obama as well.
Romney Keeps Away from Tea Party from the Boston Globe
"Romeny has largely shunned Tea Party activists in key primary states, including the state he must win if he enters the race, New Hampshire."
Interesting. You'd love to be a fly on the wall for his strategy sessions. My first reaction is that, without Tea Party support, he's toast in the GOP primaries. But, who knows? Yesterday, I suggested that the Tea Party MAY have reached their high-water mark with the 2010 election cycle and the Tucson shooting. If so, Romeny would be well-positioned to exploit a calmer, less vitriolic environment -- IF IT HAPPENS. If it it did fall out that way, he and his team certainly would look brilliant. I don't think the 'Tea' will have cooled sufficiently by early next year for it to fall out this way -- but we shall see.
HEALTH CARE HISTORY NUGGET!!
Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798 (Rick Ungar) from Forbes Magazine
"In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed - “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance. Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution."
A FASCINATING little historical nugget!! Who knew?!
FEMINISM BOOK NUGGET!!
Mad Women: A Review of A Strange Stirring: “The Feminine Mystique” and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s by Stephanie Coontz from the New York Times
"Halfway through “A Strange Stirring,” the social historian Stephanie Coontz — parsing the reception of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan’s 1963 examination of middle-class female repression and despair — confesses to feeling some ambivalence over Friedan’s project, and hence her own."
No comments:
Post a Comment