An image from a photographer swimming with wild elephants in the Ngamo Game Reserve in Zimbabwe. From the Daily Mail of the UK."Abbas Milani reports that the coup is coming to Syria. Assad will go. Iran’s clerics are about to go with him."
I will believe it when I see it. The Iranian regime has proven to be remarkably resilient.
Is Israel Over? (Benny Morris) from the Daily Beast
"No longer the liberal, democratic, egalitarian society it once was, Israel is fighting the Arabs—and itself."
Europe's Banks are Staring into the Abyss (Jeremy Warner) from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"The eurozone sovereign debt crisis is meanwhile exacting a devastating toll on the European banking system as a whole, the UK included. With their high exposure to eurozone debt, the problem is particularly acute for the French banking goliaths, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale."
Britain Must be Braced for a Perfect Storm from the Editorial Board of the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"The eurozone debt crisis is careening towards a catastrophic denouement."
Poll: Obama is Still Popular Abroad from Politico
"A full 75 percent of those surveyed in 12 European countries approved of Obama’s handling of “international policies,” according to the poll from Transatlantic Trends, a group that studies public opinion in the United States and the European Union."
O Lucky Man! Why Obama's Still a Shoo-in for Reelection (Timothy Noah) from the New Republic
"President Barack Obama may have an unfavorable rating of 50 percent, but he still leads every major Republican candidate in the field, according to a new survey by Public Policy Polling. That's remarkable given the dismal state of the economy."
I HOPE so! But there are WAY to many graveyards around to be whistling this tune. It is going to take an enormous amount of effort to get Obama across the finish line next year and Democrats need to be preparing for that.
Why Team Obama Is Smiling Again: Obama’s 2012 Reelection Stimulus (Sam Youngman) from The Hill
"Sometimes it really doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Team Obama is banking on it. ... the dirty secret inside the White House is that while the jobs plan is what Obama really wants, he can live happily with the alternative — a fall battle that ends with Republicans voting against tax cuts for the middle class."
Bigger Economic Role for Washington from the New York Times
"Just weeks ago, economists and financial analysts were dismissing Washington as irrelevant to the economy’s course in coming months, but no longer."
A Guide to Cutting Through Special-Election Spin (Nate Silver) from the New York Times
Special elections "should more or less be ignored in terms of their national implications," a more nuanced approach shows that they "can provide us with some insight if we look at their results very carefully."
Is It Weird Enough Yet? (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
Sometimes, Friedman gets to the heart of the matter very quickly.
"I’m always reminded of one of my favorite movie lines that Jack Nicholson delivers to his needy neighbor who knocks on his door in the film “As Good As It Gets.” “Where do they teach you to talk like this?” asks Nicholson. “Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up here.” Thanks Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann, but we really are all stocked up on crazy right now."
The GOP Field Goes AWOL from Afghanistan from the Editorial Board of the Washington Post
"IS THE UNITED STATES at war? You would hardly know it from the Republican campaign for president. As best as we could find, the words “Afghanistan” and “Iraq” do not appear on the issue pages of the campaign Web sites of candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. The apparent lack of concern for this topic of vital national interest is matched only by the incoherence in positions displayed when the candidates have been questioned on the subject."
A similar sentiment here:
The Shining Salad Bowl on a Fenced-off Hill: Foreign-Policy Highlights of the Tea Party Debate (Joshua Keating) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"Last night's CNN-Tea Party Republican debate did little to disabuse anyone of the notion that the Tea Party movement is not overly concerned with anything happening outside U.S. borders -- other than building a great big fence on those borders."
Leading the Pack Brings New Perils, Perry Discovers from the Editorial Board of the New York Times
"Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who was a top adviser to Senator John McCain and is not aligned with a candidate in this presidential campaign, expressed his skepticism as the debate unfolded. “Listening to Perry try to a put a complicated policy sentence together,” Mr. Murphy wrote on Twitter, “is like watching a chimp play with a locked suitcase.”"
Indecent: The Moment From Last Night that Keeps Haunting Me (Andrew Sullivan) from the Daily Beast
"Maybe a tragedy like the death of a feckless twentysomething is inevitable if we are to restrain healthcare costs. But it is still a tragedy. It is not something a decent person cheers. Similarly the execution of hundreds, while perhaps defensible politically and even morally (although I differ), is nonetheless a brutal, awful business. You don't delight in it. ... The fish rotted from the head down. Last night, we got a whiff of the smell."
COMPUTER SOFTWARE NUGGET!!
Windows 8: See What's Different In Microsoft New Operating System (PICTURES) from the Huffington Post
"Windows 8, which was fully unveiled at the Windows Build Conference in Anaheim, California, is here, and it looks much, much different from Windows 7. Sure, it has the start-bar-and-icon "Desktop" look that Windows users are familiar with, but it also has a new, touchscreen-optimized interface called 'Metro,' which looks more like the Windows Phone operating system and which looks like the future of Microsoft Windows from here on out."
JACKIE O NUGGET!!
Memoirs of a Geisha (Maureen Dowd) from the New York Times
"Not since Saki’s cat Tobermory suddenly began speaking, dismissively skewering a British house party of snobs, has a long silence been so blazingly shattered. The most mysterious, fascinating — and feline — woman in American political history has at long last spoken up. And Jackie Kennedy has plenty to say in that inimitably breathy little voice."
OUTER SPACE NUGGET!!
Space Discovery: 36 Light-Years Away, the Most Earthlike World Yet? from Time Magazine
"...the target planets would have to be earthlike too. That meant they'd have to be about the same size as our home world, orbiting their parent star at about the right distance for water to exist in liquid, life-nurturing form. The eureka moment hasn't come yet, but an announcement yesterday makes it clear that it's getting awfully close."
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