I was in my area of town on the night before Eid, shopping for clothes. The street was bustling and crowded with families, and there actually was a traffic jam, both of which are uncommon scenes in our neighborhood on a typical evening.

The drone of generators scattered on the pavement and loud Lebanese pop music from a nearby CD store filled the air. Youngsters were checking out the girls, and a couple of National Guardsmen were munching pistachios and chatting at a nearby nut stand. The soldier seated behind the machine gun on an army pickup briefly eyed my shopping bag as I was passing by. He frowned as I gave him a quick smirk in response to his suspicious glance.

iraq blogs
the human side of life on a geopolical battlefield
metallica and imams

Day to Day in Iraq - NYT Web Journal

Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress.

An article by Elizabeth Holtzman discussing in plain terms the possibility of impeaching the President for soundly failing to respect the laws of the United States.

The Impeachment of George W. Bush

No one expects very much from Mr. Bush. He's currently breaking the law by spying on Americans in America without getting warrants, but for a lot of people that's just George being George. Forget the complexities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or even the Fourth Amendment's safeguards against unwarranted (pun intended) government intrusion into matters that we have a right to keep private.

...

The U.S. is a very special place in large part because no one, not even the president, is above the law.

The Lawbreaker in the Oval Office - New York Times

China said today that its trade surplus with the rest of the world tripled in 2005 to a record $102 billion, a figure that could reignite global trade frictions and also step up pressure on the country to allow its currency to appreciate further.

the future has arrived

China's Trade Surplus Tripled in 2005 - New York Times

American Marines are a proud, tough bunch. They expect to be sent into the most dangerous battles and expect enemy fighters to come at them with everything they have. But they also expect, and have every right to expect, the Pentagon to provide them with the most effective armor available to maximize their chances of staying alive and in one piece

regardless of your view of the war this should be regarded as a scandal. Rumsfeld and his delusions about how the war and the military should be run have a lot to answer for.

Marines without armor - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

Once again we are confronted with stories about how the Pentagon and its ubiquitous private contractors are undermining free inquiry in Iraq. "Muslim Scholars Were Paid to Aid U.S. Propaganda," reports the New York Times. Journalists, intellectuals or clerics taking money from Uncle Sam or, in this case, a Washington-based public relations company, is seen as morally troubling and counterproductive. Sensible Muslims obviously would not want to listen to the advice of an American-paid consultant; anti-insurgent Sunni clerics can now all be slurred as corrupt stooges.

There is one big problem with this baleful version of events. Historically, it doesn't make much sense. The United States ran enormous covert and not-so-covert operations known as "CA" activities throughout the Cold War. With the CIA usually in the lead, Washington spent hundreds of millions of dollars on book publishing, magazines, newspapers, radios, union organizing, women's and youth groups, scholarships, academic foundations, intellectual salons and societies, and direct cash payments to individuals (usually scholars, public intellectuals and journalists) who believed in ideas that America thought worthy of support.

It's difficult to assess the influence of these covert-action programs. But when an important Third World political leader writes that a well-known liberal Western book had an enormous impact on his intellectual evolution -- a book that, unbeknownst to him was translated and distributed in his country at CIA expense -- then it's clear that the program had value. It shouldn't be that hard for educated Americans to support such activity, even though one often can't gauge its effectiveness.

in the war against terrorism maybe the pen is mightier than the sword?

'Hearts and Minds' in Iraq

What we need is leadership. Mr. Bush would do wonders for his legacy - and, above all, wonders for the poor - if he'd summon the moral vision to launch a high-profile Global War on Poverty. That is one American-backed war that nearly all the world would thunderously applaud.

Waging a War We Could Be Proud Of - New York Times

With the departure of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from the political scene, some things are suddenly becoming a great deal clearer between Israel and the Palestinians.

And it isn't necessarily very comforting to our old habits of thought.

scary stuff from a very eminent journalist

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Mid-East peace realities after Sharon

Escape the rat race.

ashes and snow

They want me to promise that under the Conservatives, the NHS will be transformed beyond recognition into a system based on medical insurance....
Under a Conservative government, the NHS will remain free at the point of need and available to everyone, regardless of how much money they have in the bank."

of interest probably only to people in the Uk but this looks like a major shift in Uk politics
the Conservative Party is returning to the UK political mainstream and reasserting a major building block of the post war (WW2) consensus
the "new Right" have been cast into the wilderness by their UK political home
a realignment on the European issue and then maybe the leopard has changed its spots and we can have a centerist realignment
bad news for Blair
good news for British democracy

BBC NEWS | Politics | Cameron vows to defend 'free' NHS