GOVERNMENT and markets both have their place in a decent society, President Obama suggested in his Inaugural Address, but can become a force for ill if they are without restraint. Missing from Mr. Obama’s address was only the proper name of the political philosophy, coded into the constitutional DNA of the United States, that proposes this and other balances: liberalism.

the semantics of liberalism - "this worldwide conceptual cacophony,...[maybe] we should abandon the term, or at least dismantle it into component parts with plainer meanings."

Op-Ed Contributor - A Liberal Translation - NYTimes.com

President Barack Obama has lifted a US funding ban for groups providing abortion services abroad, reversing a policy of his predecessor, George Bush.

The policy known as the "global gag rule" had stopped US government money going to groups which perform or provide information about abortion.

good

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Obama lifts ban on abortion funds

If you want to see hell on earth, go to Zimbabwe where the madman Robert Mugabe has brought the country to such a state of ruin that medical care for most of the inhabitants has all but ceased to exist.

Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is now the lowest in the world: 37 years for men and 34 for women. A cholera epidemic is raging. People have become ill with anthrax after eating the decaying flesh of animals that had died from the disease. Power was lost to the morgue in the capital city of Harare, leaving the corpses to rot.

Op-Ed Columnist - Zimbabwe Is Dying - NYTimes.com

Before Barack Obama and his team act on their talk about “labor standards,” I’d like to offer them a tour of the vast garbage dump here in Phnom Penh.
...
I’m glad that many Americans are repulsed by the idea of importing products made by barely paid, barely legal workers in dangerous factories. Yet sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty, not a cause, and banning them closes off one route out of poverty. At a time of tremendous economic distress and protectionist pressures, there’s a special danger that tighter labor standards will be used as an excuse to curb trade.

When I defend sweatshops, people always ask me: But would you want to work in a sweatshop? No, of course not. But I would want even less to pull a rickshaw. In the hierarchy of jobs in poor countries, sweltering at a sewing machine isn’t the bottom.

Op-Ed Columnist - Where Sweatshops Are a Dream - NYTimes.com

While the fighting goes on down south, Israel and the Arab world are engaged in another battle - a cyber one. And right now, we're not doing that well.

a civilised approach to a deluge of hate

Digital World: How to beat anti-Israel hackers at their own game | Internet and Technology | Jerusalem Post

In this new game, both sides seek the destruction of the other, but neither has the power to achieve it. They are engaged in a struggle that has no near-term practical end. The extremists’ goal is to kill as many Jews as possible and wait for God (or Iran) to kill the rest. Israel’s goal is to restrain the brazenness of the extremists until their movement somehow burns itself out or is destroyed from within Arab society. Israel’s realistic immediate goal is not to achieve some permanent resolution, but to merely suppress terrorism week by week and month by month.
...

In one scenario, Israel finishes a quick ground assault with a lightning effort to clean out the tunnels in the Philadelphia Corridor. Then it withdraws from Gaza, at a time of its own choosing, to let the psychological reverberations begin. In another scenario, Israel’s assault drags on. The suffering of the innocents in Gaza magnifies. The meaning changes.

The architects of the first scenario understand the rules of the new game. The architects of the second miss the core concept: psychology matters most.

Op-Ed Columnist - The Confidence War - NYTimes.com

In what would amount to a slap in the face to a sitting Republican president and the party's Senate and House leaders, national GOP officials, including the vice chairman of the Republican National Committee, are sponsoring a resolution opposing the resort to "socialist" means to save capitalism.

"We can't be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms," said Solomon Yue, a cosponsor of a resolution that would put the RNC -- the party's national governing body -- on the record as opposing the U.S. government bailouts of the financial and auto industries.

civil war in the Republican Party

stuff like this always reminds me of the Godfather and the discussion about how every 10 years you need to have a war to clear the air ( and I think in practice it brings forward new leaders and provides a learning curve in the practicalities of politics ) however the article reminds me how the political right has fallen in love with ideology which for so long was the scourge of the left and interminable arguments about angels on pins, ownership of the means of production and other points of dogma and related nonsense. Internecine warfare over "principles" hahhaha. The joys of true religion, they could do with watching the Life of Brian and learn about the history of the Popular Front

Reg Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the
Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.
PFJ Yeah
Judith Splitters.
Francis And the Judean Popular Peoples Front.
PFJ Oh yeah. Splitters.
Loretta And the peoples Front of Judea.
PFJ Splitters.
Reg What?
Loretta The Peoples front of Judea. Splitters.
Reg We're the Peoples front of Judea.
Loretta Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
Reg Peoples Front.
Francis Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
Reg He's over there.

Washington Times - EXCLUSIVE: RNC draft rips Bush's bailouts

A cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has killed at least 484 people since August, according to the UN.

...
Cholera can be treated easily but hospitals lack medicines and staff.

...
The BBC's Peter Biles reports from the South African town of Musina, near the border with Zimbabwe, that cholera patients are being treated at an emergency centre on the lawn in front of the hospital.

One cholera victim from Harare told him that on Zimbabwe's side of the border, toilets had not functioned for one month, and people were "defecating everywhere".
...
Zimbabwe's government has blamed its crisis on Western sanctions it says are aimed at trying to bring down President Robert Mugabe.

But the sanctions imposed after allegations of electoral fraud and political violence are aimed at Mr Mugabe and his close associates and consist of travel bans and a freeze on their foreign assets.

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Zimbabwe cholera deaths near 500

Right now there’s intense debate about how aggressive the United States government should be in its attempts to turn the economy around. Many economists, myself included, are calling for a very large fiscal expansion to keep the economy from going into free fall. Others, however, worry about the burden that large budget deficits will place on future generations.

Op-Ed Columnist - Deficits and the Future - NYTimes.com

Since we suspect they were Muslims, and since we doubt the Pakistanis can be categorical and convincing enough to thwart Indian demands, we suspect that we will be deep into a crisis within the next few days, very shortly after the situation on the ground clarifies itself.

Pakistan is so god-damned frustrating. Supposed/relative 'good guys' in the central government, elements of the intelligence service aiding terrorists, the father of the Islamic bomb driving nuclear proliferation, large swaths of the country independent and hostile and... there's not a damned thing we can do about it, because pressuring the central government to crack down on terrorism tends to hurt their credibility and threatens to destabilize the entire nation, which has nukes.

Its the country that really matters in the 'war on terror', its the place where the focus would be if this war weren't a total sham, and there's not a god damned thing we can do.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

Red Alert: Possible Geopolitical Consequences of the Mumbai Attacks (Open Access) | Stratfor