March 4, 2008

Web Reconnaissance for 03/04/2008

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.


In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Clinton confident for showdown - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's advisers are expressing confidence this morning, but Sen. Barack Obama's team points out she trails the Illinois senator in the delegate count and that isn't likely to change tonight unless she wins both Texas and Ohio in a major blowout. (READ MORE)

Ecuador cuts Colombia ties - Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa broke off relations with Colombia and reportedly sent thousands of troops to their common border yesterday, escalating a crisis that pits South America's two fastest-growing militaries — Venezuela and Colombia — against one another. (READ MORE)

Packers QB Favre retires - After flirting with retirement for years, Brett Favre means it this time. The Green Bay Packers quarterback retired after a 17-season career in which he dazzled fans with his grit, heart and rocket of an arm. (READ MORE)

Rice tries to save peace talks - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today rejected Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's plea to resume peace talks with Israel, insisting that Israel has to suspend its military campaign first. (READ MORE)

Bernanke wants more done for foreclosures - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called today for additional action to prevent more distressed homeowners from falling into foreclosure. (READ MORE)

Obama almost as big with GOP as McCain - Republicans like Sen. Barack Obama nearly as much as they like their own likely presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, according to a new Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll. (READ MORE)

Obama's Border Incident - Barack Obama says he'll revive the art of American diplomacy, which sounds nice. We're not sure how this promise squares, however, with the diplomatic incident his campaign has caused in Canada, of all unlikely places. Last week, Canada's CTV television network reported on a leaked memo from a Canadian diplomat casting doubt on Mr. Obama's sincerity. (READ MORE)

Chávez's 'War' Drums - Colombia's military scored a major antiterror victory this weekend by killing the second in command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and 16 other FARC guerrillas. Venezuelan President and FARC ally Hugo Chávez has reacted by threatening war against Bogotá. But the real news is that the raid produced a laptop computer belonging to the expired comandante that reveals some of Mr. Chávez's secrets. (READ MORE)

Lawyers 'R' Us - Politics may not be child's play, but Congress is back shooting marbles over consumer product safety this week. With consumers shaken up by tainted Chinese imports, toy companies have already been instituting internal safety checks -- but the Senate wants to help the lawyers too. (READ MORE)

Obama, Clinton In Key Face-Off - BEAUMONT, Tex., March 3 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed to press on in her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination after critical primary tests in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, even as advisers to Sen. Barack Obama said the latest round of voting would do little to improve her standing... (READ MORE)

The Ballot Brawl of 1924 - Those TV yappers are in a tizzy about the upcoming Democratic convention. They keep jibber-jabbering about how neither Clinton nor Obama will have enough delegates to win the presidential nomination and they'll need to woo the high-powered superdelegates. (READ MORE)

U.N. Imposes New Sanctions on Iran - The United Nations imposed new sanctions on Iran yesterday, capping a year of difficult diplomacy that may represent the Bush administration's final bid to mobilize international action against Tehran over its controversial nuclear program. (READ MORE)

Israel Pulls Ground Troops Out of Gaza - JERUSALEM, March 3 -- Following five days of combat that left at least 117 Palestinians and three Israelis dead, Israel pulled its ground troops out of the Gaza Strip on Monday and curtailed airstrikes as Hamas continued firing rockets into southern Israel. (READ MORE)



On the Web:
Bret Stephens: An Inordinate Fear of Terrorism? - In 1977, Jimmy Carter told Americans to get over their "inordinate fear of communism." This year, expect to be told to get over your "inordinate fear" of terrorism. Among politicians, the case is still being made sotto voce. When Barack Obama lists the "common threats of the 21st century" as "nuclear weapons and terrorism, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease," the suggestion is that Islamist terrorism is one of many problems, and not, as John McCain insists, the "transcendent issue of our time." (READ MORE)

Zalmay Khalilzad: Iran's Nuclear Threat - The United Nations Security Council has passed another resolution concerning Iran because its nuclear program is an unacceptable threat. Iran's violations of Security Council resolutions not only continue, but are deepening. Instead of suspending its proliferation-sensitive activities as the council has required, Iran is dramatically expanding the number of operating centrifuges and developing a new generation of centrifuges, testing one of them with nuclear fuel. (READ MORE)

Nansen G. Saleri: The World Has Plenty of Oil - Many energy analysts view the ongoing waltz of crude prices with the mystical $100 mark -- notwithstanding the dollar's anemia -- as another sign of the beginning of the end for the oil era. "[A]t the furthest out, it will be a crisis in 2008 to 2012," declares Matthew Simmons, the most vocal voice among the "neo-peak-oil" club. Tempering this pessimism only slightly is the viewpoint gaining ground among many industry leaders, who argue that daily production by 2030 of 100 million barrels will be difficult. In fact, we are nowhere close to reaching a peak in global oil supplies. (READ MORE)

Laurence H. Tribe: Sanity and the Second Amendment - The Supreme Court is set to hear oral argument later this month in a politically charged gun-control case from the District of Columbia. The case involves a city resident who contends that the District is violating his rights under the Second Amendment with a citywide ban on handguns. Gun enthusiasts on the right are all but daring justices who protect a woman's right to choose, nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, to trash the "right of the people to keep and bear arms," enshrined in the text of the Second Amendment. (READ MORE)

Alan Dershowitz: Worshippers of Death - Zahra Maladan is an educated woman who edits a women's magazine in Lebanon. She is also a mother, who undoubtedly loves her son. She has ambitions for him, but they are different from those of most mothers in the West. She wants her son to become a suicide bomber. At the recent funeral for the assassinated Hezbollah terrorist Imad Moughnaya -- the mass murderer responsible for killing 241 marines in 1983 and more than 100 women, children and men in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 -- Ms. Maladan was quoted in the New York Times giving the following warning to her son: "if you're not going to follow the steps of the Islamic resistance martyrs, then I don't want you." (READ MORE)

Soccerdad: Missing the process for the peace - Daled Amos quotes from Contentions arguing that Secretary Rice would be better off using her clout to try an protect Lebanon instead of trying to save the “peace process.” Lebanon’s fragile democracy is under assault by Syria (and its master, Iran) and the United States is doing nothing.The NY Times reports: Rice Urges More Mideast Talks, but Won’t Mention a Cease-Fire “But highlighting the predicament in which the Bush administration finds itself as it tries to negotiate a Middle East peace deal, Ms. Rice took pains not to use the phrase ‘cease-fire,’ even though several of America’s Arab allies, and even some Israelis, are pushing for a negotiated cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. ‘I’m saying that we want the violence to stop,’ Ms. Rice said. ‘Call it what you will.’” (READ MORE)

Jay Tea: Democrats Try To Pull An Immelmann Turn - I've been following presidential politics for the large majority of my life. I remember arguing in my classroom in favor of Jimmy Carter in 1976 (I wasn't even ten years old at the time -- what's YOUR excuse?), George Bush in 1980, Reagan in 1984, (resignedly) Bush again in 1988 and 1992, Dole in 1996, Bill Bradley in 2000, and Bush in 2004. And as I've grown older and more astute, certain patterns have emerged in the campaigns. I think the first time the military records (or lack thereof) of the candidates really became significant in recent times was in 19888, when it was war hero George H. W. Bush vs. Michael Dukakis. (READ MORE)

Ed Morrissey: “Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death” - Not long ago, my son and I had a dinner argument over the war against radical Islamist terrorism. He’s a brilliant academic, about to enter graduate school for either math, physics, or both, but he sometimes gets trapped in his rationalism — which, to be honest, isn’t exactly the worst thing a father could wish for his son. He insisted that violence only made the problem worse, and that we had to find a negotiated settlement with Islamist terrorists. Alan Dershowitz had an answer for that in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. In an essay entitled “Worshippers of Death,” Dershowitz argued that the West has to understand that terrorists use our rationalism as perhaps their greatest weapon against us: (READ MORE)

Bill Jempty: They deserve better - That's US legal aliens who have served in our military and then wait lengthy periods of time to get US citizenship. “About 7,200 service members or people who have been recently discharged have citizenship applications pending, but neither the Department of Defense nor Citizenship and Immigration Services keeps track of how long they have been waiting. Immigration lawyers and politicians say they have received a significant number of complaints about delays because of background checks, misplaced paperwork, confusion about deployments and other problems.” (READ MORE)

Don Surber: Congressional ATMs - Contribute $15,000 to the congressman’s campaign. Collect a $4.9 million earmark. Isn’t democracy grand? Where else can an investment of $1 earn $203.08 in just 3 years? The Salt Lake Tribune is busting the chops of Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson of Utah and Republican Congressman Rob Bishop, also of Utah, for landing big government contracts for businesses that donate money to their campaigns. In Matheson’s case, it is Ceramatec, a Salt Lake City company owned by Ashok Joshi. The company is developing “small pump to help deliver pain medication,” the newspaper said. (READ MORE)

Matt Sanchez: In the "Huh?" File - Every time I see a "Marine in trouble" story, I always think of the words of my drill instructor, Sgt. Forde. "If you mess up, the first thing they'll report will be 'Marine messed up'" That was the santized version of Sgt. Forde's saying, but it is the reality nevertheless. Ok, standard procedure for dogs/puppies in Iraq (and there are many dogs) is to shoot them should they get too close to a servicemen. If you get bitten, a series of rabies shots await you in Baghdad. So, I have a hard time believing the puppy was still alive. A Marine just won't let it get that close alive. (READ MORE)

Blackfive: A Paratrooper in Afghanistan Responds to the New York Times - Received this note from a Paratrooper in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. He serves in Battle Company under the command of Captain Kearney and wanted to responed to the New York Times article by Elizabeth Rubin (Deebow's reaction to the article is here). Captain Kearney's father, the General Officer referred to in the article, was the one who brought charges three times against the SF Snipers (Blackfive links here, here, here, here, here and concluding here). In looking into those charges, I heard time and again that the son was a good officer. Some contacts in Afghanistan were confounded by the fact that the son was an outstanding individual while the father seemed to be playing political games with the careers of two good men. Bottom-line: I have yet to hear anything other than very good things about Captain Kearney - personally or professionally. (READ MORE)

DJ Drummond: The Party and the President - I am still not at all happy with the idea that John McCain is likely to win the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States. The man's hypocrisy regarding Free Speech is unacceptable, his fatuous buy-in to the Global Warming lie is disturbing, and his regular habit of attacking Conservatives in his policies and statements is insulting. The problem is, if McCain gets the Republican nomination and I do not vote for him in the fall, then I am effectively supporting the Democrats' nominee, either the criminal Hillary Clinton or the vacuous and completely unqualified Barack Obama. Not at all a good situation. (READ MORE)

Allahpundit: Pace U. Koran-flusher gets 300 hours of community service - Remember him? A blogosphere cause celebre last summer and the occasion for one of Hitchens’s finer moments on television opposite CAIR tool Ibrahim Hooper, who had the elephant stones to assert putting a book in a toilet is an “act of intimidation” in a world where Geert Wilders has to worry constantly about having his throat slit for making a movie. If the sentence sounds excessive to you, keep it in perspective: Kerplunking two Korans into the porcelain goddess of some Pace University restroom is, conceivably, an offense worth two to eight in the state pen. Unless they’re your Korans, of course, in which case kerplunk away. Or rather, don’t — (READ MORE)

Dr Sanity: Maybe in the Future Things Will be Different? - Andrew McCarthy writes on the cognitive dissonance that exists in dealing with terrorism and terrorists: “After nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered in the atrocities of September 11, 2001, President Bush boldly announced that the United States would not distinguish between terror networks and the regimes that support them. They would all be regarded as hostile and dealt with accordingly. What a sad commentary it is that, less than seven years later, we are left to wonder whether our State Department will stand with the American victims of terror or join forces with the other side: a regime with a long, remorseless record of practicing terrorism, preaching terrorism, and murdering Americans.” (READ MORE)

Dymphna: “Pistol Packin’ Mama” - United Press International has their amusing version of the culture clash between Texas folkways and a Danish reporter, Terkel Svensson. Along with many other journalists, Mr. Svensson was in Texas to cover the meeting between President Bush and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As UPI noted, “don’t mess with Texas” - but I’ll bet the journalists from Denmark weren’t briefed on the cultural oddities of The Lone Star State before they left home. That was careless. The Copenhagen Post has the story featured, too, so I thought we should go with the impressions of the reporter’s home country: (READ MORE)

The Monkey Tennis Centre: Rezko: This guy really IS bad news – Barack Obama endured his first truly hostile press conference yesterday, and he didn't care for it much. MSNBC's First Read reports: Questions centered on why his campaign had denied that a meeting occurred between his chief economic advisor and Canadian officials as well as questions on his relationship with Tony Rezko, a Chicago land developer and fast food magnate, now on trial for corruption charges. This is interesting stuff. Not before time, Obama is beginning to face serious scrutiny about… Whoaaa! Back up there! Tony Rezko is a fast food magnate? That's a new one on me. And it's probably a new one on many of his supporters. (READ MORE)

Dale Franks: The Crest of the Obama Wave - Barack Obama, for most of this election cycle, has gotten a pass from the press corps, when it comes to hard questions. So much so that even the Saturday Night Live crew started to ridicule the press in their now-famous sketch from last week, which had membersof the media asking him such tough questions as, "Are you comfortable?" and "Can I get you anything?" and "Are you mad at me?" There’ve been two reasons for this, I think, both of which are understandable. First, after winning in Ohio, the campaign for the Democratic nomination began to look like a horse race. And reporters love a horse race. It makes for better TV, it’s a story that’s easy for viewers to understand, and it’s easier to report on, and a lot more fun to report on, compared to the drudgery of combimg through the proceedings of the Illinois legislature, back issues of the Chicago Tribune and the like. (READ MORE)

Neptunus Lex: Experience, and all that - About the best you can say about the US method of choosing candidates for national elections is that the primaries are grueling endurance contest for the country’s most important job. You have to sell your message to people willing to pay for the air time, organize and run a coherent campaign, keep various and sundry gremlins in their associated boxes and ward off the drearily predictably personal blows of those who do not gracefully acknowledge your rectitude. And, oh yeah, get people to vote for you. It ain’t perfect, but as a testing ground for the strains and stresses of occupying the Oval Office, the system does have its merits. (READ MORE)

ShrinkWrapped: 'Muslim' Is Not a Smear: A Response - As long time readers of this blog know I have written a number of posts about "Moderate Muslims." I have maintained that for all the problems we have had in Iraq, and however misguided and poorly executed our venture there has proven to be, the invasion of Iraq was the last best chance for avoiding the devolution of international affairs into a state of civilizational clash, where the Muslim world became implacably opposed to the West and modernity. The jury is still out on he long term success of the mission but the portents are inauspicious. Societies under pressure tend to regress. Regressed societies tend to identify externalized enemies and enter into a dynamic spiral whereby the external embodiment of threat is treated as the enemy, which evokes/provokes demonization from the other side, and before long both camps have devolved into an "US against Them" structure from which it is extraordinarily hard to emerge without significant violence. (READ MORE)

Phyllis Chesler: My Column for Hillary - This column might offend or at least suprise many people, including myself. It is the column in which I urge those who live in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont to vote for Hillary Clinton in the upcoming primaries. Thinking as an individual and on an issue by issue basis, as opposed to thinking as an ideologue or party member, ususally offends everyone. Changing one's mind as a function of the historical moment also confuses people and leads to charges of "flip-flopping" or opportunism. No, I am talking about myself, not about Hillary Clinton. But the observation applies to her as well. We are at war and voting to defend ourselves is a prudent and responsible move; it is not a treacherous or "dumb macho" move. Hillary Clinton voted "for the war" and she was wise to do so at the time. (READ MORE)

Ron Winter: Nice to See You, How Was Your Vacation? Hit The Bricks? KSFO in San Francisco Axes Melanie Morgan - Melanie Morgan came back from vacation this morning to do her morning show on KSFO radio in San Francisco, and before the day was over, her 14-year career at the station was too. That will make some people happy, notably communists, socialists, anarchists, terrorists, leftist politicians, phony rightist politicians, anyone associated with Code Pinkos, the Berkeley California City Council, and a few perpetually unhappy cranks who never have a good thing to say about anyone. But for those of us who appreciated her willingness to stand tall and do for this generation of veterans what the women (and men) of the Vietnam generation never did, it is not a good day. (READ MORE)

The Midnight Sun: Chavez linked to FARC - Remember a week or so ago, the left-wing terrorists FARC released some hostages in a deal brokered by Hugo Chavez. Gee, what a lovely fellow he is eh. Well, think again, apparently Chavez has been caught with links to FARC. Perhaps he’s not such a humanitarian do-gooder after all, a raving leftist linked to violent terrorists, what a shock! "el Universal - Colombia Monday unveiled documents seized from guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes, who was killed last Saturday by the Colombian Army, which show an alliance, old contacts and even financial aid between the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez." (READ MORE)

David Bernstein: Adding Insult to Injury - In October 2004, I reported that Columbia University was planning to start a new Israel Studies Department, in a rather transparent attempt to deflect criticism of its extremely anti-Israel Middle East Studies Department [home of the infamous Joseph Massad, for example], an attitude that had allegedly caused some of the faculty to behave unpleasantly to Israeli and Jewish students. I objected that if the criticisms of one-sidedness and discrimination were valid, this was not likely the best way to deal with it. Moreover, if this was an appropriate response, Columbia should have spent its own money on the new program, rather than ask the Jewish community to foot the seven-figure bill. (READ MORE)

Paul Cassell: More Prisons, Less Crime? - As Orin points out in a recent post, one out of every hundred adults in now behind bars in country. The source for this factoid is the Pew Center on the States, which released its report "One in 100" to much fanfare. The Pew Center claims that we are not really getting anything in return for the moneys spent on prisons. But curiously, despite the claim that this expenditure is "failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," the study never attempts to assess the impact on overall crime. As a quick way of assessing the return is interesting to compare the moneys spent on prisons over the last twenty years(collected in the Pew report) and crime rates over the same period of time. This chart plots one against the other: (READ MORE)

Cassandra: The Morning Stupidity Report - Dear sweet Christ, this shouldn't even require saying, but since it apparently does for some people, here goes: One YouTube video of a Marine moron who, for some reason I feel absolutely no desire to discuss (much less understand) felt compelled to beclown himself and the United States of America by tossing what appears to be a small puppy over a cliff; however wrong/bad, horrifying and inhumane it may seem, is never going to amount to an act significant enough to encompass the entire war on terror. A still, small voice inside my head tells me the events of the past seven years just *might* a bit more complicated than that. (READ MORE)

The Torch: From NATO's viewpoint... - ...the security situation in Afghanistan isn't nearly as dire as some might suggest. Now, don't get me wrong: Graeme Smith has spent more time on the ground in Kandahar than just about any other Canadian journalist, and I respect his opinion. But those of us who haven't been to Afghanistan and seen it with our own eyes must rely on second-hand information, so I figure it's best that we see as much as we can. This is what NATO has to say: “Our Ops staff did a thorough statistical analysis over a two-year period of hostile activity in all the regions of Afghanistan. The map – declassified for us to use on this blog – shows the real problem areas in red.” (READ MORE)

Susan Katz Keating: Steinem, McCain, and Operation Mockingbird - When I learned that Gloria Steinem had dissed John McCain on Friday - that she actually made light of his time as a war prisoner - my first reaction was to think: "Finally! The CIA is working to unite the Republican Party!" Here's my imagined scenario. The CIA, realizing that Republican in-squabbling about McCain is just no good for this country, devised an operation to tap into the "wagon-circling" instincts of Republicans when one of their number is bashed by a liberal. The folks at Langley re-activated a longtime agent from Operation Mockingbird, the old media-manipulation squad that came to light during the 1970's-era Church Committee Investigations. The agent would say something so outrageous that the media would report the comments as a hit on McCain, and thereby would spark the desired reaction. That reactivated agent would be Steinem, who frequently has been named as having worked for Mockingbird. (READ MORE)

ROFASix: Obama's Foreign Policy - Even the BBC interviewer is incredulous with what he is hearing from Samantha Power, Barack Obama's foreign policy adviser. If Obama is elected you can expect that Ms. Power will be named as either National Security Adviser or Secretary of State. You might be incredulous with what you hear too. But don't dismiss Samantha Power outright as a typical Harvard professor leftist. She is hardly a typical pedantic ivory tower type, having spent time in a couple of war zones as a journalist. She had more depth and experience than one usually finds with the lefty's at Harvard. This was evident when she addressed a graduating law class in 2006. (READ MORE)

Right Wing Nut House: "C'mon Guys. I Answered Like 8 Questions." - The Prophet of Change: “Toward the end of the press conference, the question of Goolsbee’s meeting was raised again. Obama answered curtly and then walked out after a staffer called last question. The press erupted with shouts, but Obama continued to walk out. He paused only to say, ‘Come on guys; I answered like eight questions. We’re running late.’ On the flight from San Antonio to Dallas, Obama, unsurprisingly, did not wander back to make small talk with the traveling press corps.” Yesterday, I idly wondered when Obama would start addressing the numerous questions about his relationship with indicted Chicago fixer Tony Rezko. The candidate’s press availability was starting to become an issue and I surmised that with the Rezko trial beginning yesterday, sooner or later Obama would have to bite the bullet and face some tough questions. (READ MORE)

Right Truth: Ambulances for Allah - "Egypt re-opened Gaza's Rafah crossing for the first time since Hamas blew up the border wall on Jan. 23 for ambulances to collect some 150 wounded Palestinians, ... DEBKAfile's military sources disclose that 27 ambulances also brought in 15-20 Hamas commando fighters, ... Israel military sources are watching to see if the incoming ambulances are also carrying shoulder-borne anti-air missiles for shooting down Israeli helicopters and drones, which Hamas has been pressing Egypt to allow them to bring in." (DEBKAfile) hat tip Michael "Shortly after Israel's withdrawal, Monday, March 3, the Palestinians stepped up their cross-border attacks. (READ MORE)

John Hawkins: Blogging While Female: 5 Conservative Women Bloggers Talk About Gender Issues And The Blogosphere - Every so often in the blogosphere, on the Left and the Right, hostile debates over gender seem to rise up to the surface like a leviathan from the depths. Some male bloggers tend to think women get more links because they're women, some female bloggers think there's some sort of a "good ol’ boys" club that keeps them from getting big, and more than a few people seem to get huffy about the whole debate. However, the fact is that the issue is much more complex than it appears on the surface. The blogging experience ISN'T THE SAME for men and women. There are different advantages, disadvantages, and challenges that both men and women have to face. (READ MORE)

Dan Riehl: Hillary, The Netroots, Florida And Michigan - Just a quick note on the Democrat's situation as regards Florida and Michigan not having any delegates at the Democrat Convention. Beneath the headlines of the Democrat primary is how the Netroots movement continues to be a huge embarrassment for the Democrat Party. I realize Hillary is taking heat from some for on going stories suggesting she may try to seat delegations from those two states. It would be more wise to place blame for that debacle where it belongs - on the Howard Dean led DNC. The penalty imposed upon those two states for moving up their primaries has to be one of the dumbest moves in modern day politics. (READ MORE)

Reverse Spin: Beware of billionaires bearing loans - Aaron Watson at Free Will believes I’m wrong, that Barack Obama’s biggest vulnerability is his link through Tony Rezko to Nadhmi Auchi, the British billionaire and former Iraqi. “As I’ve said before, the ‘coincidental’ associations between Rezko and Obama have a history of occurring at an incredibly convenient pace. If Barack Obama’s campaign has been taking money from an avowed Ba’athist sympathizer, especially one who seems to have been heavily involved in buying off the French government, it casts his protestations that he is ‘the only candidate who opposed the war from the start’ in an entirely different light.” (READ MORE)

Return of the Conservatives: Hillary Clinton: A Question of Character - Her muse while a ninth grader was Reverend Don Jones, a Marxist who was later kicked out of Park Ridge United Methodist Church for advocating socialist views. He introduced her to a magazine called motive, which was published by the Division of Higher Education of the United Methodist Church. This was a magazine she would later be quoted in the 31 October 1994 issue of Newsweek as saying "I still have every issue they sent me." She told the author of the piece in Newsweek that she treasured an article from a 1966 motive by Carl Oglesby called "Change or Containment". Oglesby, who has been described as a Marxist, was so admired by Clinton in an article that not only defended Ho Chi Minh and Castro, but Maoist tactics of violence. (READ MORE)

McQ: Well here’s a surprise ... - Or not. Russia and China not backing a US sponsored UN resolution? “Russia and China on Tuesday scuttled a Western attempt to introduce a resolution on Iran’s nuclear defiance at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, diplomats said.” The question now becomes - why? Just the usual intransigence the wannabe superpowers display in order to be taken more seriously? Or is there an actual reason for their refusal to sign on to the sanction resolution? Well, it appears, at least according to this article, that they felt shut out of the process of drafting the resolution: (READ MORE)

Amy Proctor: (VIDEO) Odierno: Ahmadinejad Felt Safe Because He Funds Baghdad Militias - LT GEN Odierno, second in command in Iraq until last month, sat down with Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s the Situation Room today and discussed Iranian President’s visit to Baghdad, Iraq, where Ahmadinejad said he was safer in Baghdad than U.S. diplomats and that no one in Iraq liked the U.S. Odierno suggested Mahmoud feels safe walking the streets in Iraq’s capital city because of the Shia militias he’s funding in Baghdad. Think of them as Mahmoud’s bodyguards. Although Ahmadinejad taunted the U.S. and praised his reception, the Iraqi people took to the streets in protest. Iraqi politicians protested the visit, too. Democracy at work. (READ MORE)

Lawhawk: Resurrecting a Dead Process - So, suicidal tendencies by Palestinian terrorists will not stop Sec. State Rice from trying to resurrect a totally dead and hopeless peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. How many times do you have to hit your head against the same problem to realize the futility of trying to force a terrorist group and its minions to stop its ideological and theological war against Israel's very existence to try and make peace with Israel? It can't be done. In fact, it's delusional to think that a deal can be done in 2008. (READ MORE)

Iraq War Today: There Are Not Enough Drugs in the World... - ...to make me buy into the Global Good Neighbor Initiative. And not enough sedatives to make me stop laughing at this video, either. Who knew that the only reason we have any concerns in the world was G.W.B. and his Meanie Machine? The IRC Global Good Neighbor initiative, that's who!I'm not really sure what the rest of the video is getting at, but I'm thinking it has something to do with their getaway plan for the when some terrorist - or Ahmedinejad - nukes us after we've become complete wusses under the Good Neighbor plan (which is looking like it'll be sometime around next January or so). Hooray! We'll just fly away on clouds of hope...You can download their talking points - and nominate a Good or Bad Neighbor, or at least you could, if their site wasn't rife with dead links. (READ MORE)

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