Khaled Mashaal, the political leader of Hamas, has suggested that the Islamic group could create a Palestinian army that would include its militant wing.

"We are ready to unify the weapons of Palestinian factions, with Palestinian consensus, and form an army like any independent state," he said.

This turkey will not fly.

Aljazeera.Net - Hamas leader wants Palestinian army

David Wilkins tried Thursday to play down the controversy over a speech this week in which he warned Ottawa to tone down anti-American rhetoric or risk hurting cross-border relations. The White House is upset at Martin for accusing it of lacking a global conscience on climate change and for slamming the fact punishing U.S. duties on softwood lumber have not been removed.

Martin, however, has been unrepentant, seizing on Wilkins's speech to trumpet that he would "not be dictated to" by the U.S.

Tensions with our friendly neighbor to the north? Is there anyone left to piss off? Have we said anything nasty to Australia lately? I don't think we are being thorough enough in pissing off the entire world. We are still missing countries. The state Department needs to get out there and talk more shit. Be specific, don't forget places like Norway. Even say something nasty about Poland, I know Bush thinks about them. And while we are at it, let's get the number of national security letters up, to say, three million a year... And demand that other countries honor them. We need to keep a list of people like me who criticize using sarcasm. This criticism shit can get out of hand. All this damn evil seditious descent from the children of the North American Empire be damned!

Ambassador plays down Canada-U.S. feud

Tens of thousands of people take part in a pro-democracy march in the streets of Hong Kong. An estimated 250,000 people took to the streets of Hong Kong, demanding the full democracy that was promised when Britain handed its former colony back to China eight years ago.

Here is a good picture that shows the scale of the protests which went on into the night. I know that area well... I wish I could be there when one of these protests is going on.

More Hong Kong Democracy Protests

This blog post contains links to AVI files taken at the North Korean Mass Games. That's one hell of a half-time show. You can really get some amazing results out of people when you torture them if they don't do a good job.

Dan Schorr: Arirang Video

"We would not have invaded a country that didn't attack us," he said, referring to Iraq. "We would not have taken money from the working families and given it to the most wealthy families."

(AP) Former US Vice President Al Gore speaks at an economic forum in Stockholm, Sweden, "We would not be trying to control and intimidate the news media. We would not be routinely torturing people," Gore said. "We would be a different country."

I like Gore, but I don't think it was prudent for him to make these statements when out of the country. Do it here, but don't do it overseas. Come to MTSU and do it. Its too easy for foreign media to twist around. You don't have to blow sunshine up the presidents ass, but don't act like you are campaigning for your political party when out of the country. Its just unwise.

"Of course a woman could get elected president," he said. "I am not going to make any comment on individual candidates. It's quite premature."

Not that this should have been open game, but it shows his thinking was very partisan in nature. When overseas, you are not representing a party, you are representing the country.

My Way News - Gore speaks out on Bush when in Sweden

The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative caucus yesterday called on the public to write to Google to protest its listing of Taiwan as a "province of China" on its Google Maps service.

In addition to sending its own letter of protest to the US search-engine giant, the caucus asked the government to lodge a formal protest and request Google to clearly define Taiwan as "an independent state."

By listing Taiwan as a province of China, Google Maps is clearly succumbing to pressure from China to distort the international community's perception of the cross-strait situation, Huang said.

"The public should condemn Google for belittling the nation's sovereignty. We simply cannot remain idle, because the nation's sovereignty is bound to be eroded inch by inch if we fail to take heed of China's petty political maneuverings in cases like this," Tseng said.

Taipei Times - Taiwan not a province of China, TSU tells Google

Things continue to escalate in regard to the Iranian nuke sitaution. Israel is likely to take the same approach it did with Iraq in 1981 and take the program out in its early stages.

As a last resort, they said, Israel itself would act unilaterally to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms.

Iran will not be deterred "by anything short of a threat of force," said Arieh Eldad, a member of Israel's right-wing National Union Party, part of a delegation of Knesset members visiting Washington this week.

"They won't be stopped unless they are convinced their programs will be destroyed if they continue," he said.

Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said the best hope was for the United States and other major powers to make it clear to Iranian leaders now there was "no chance they will ever see the fruits of a nuclear program."

Not that this article qualifies as crazy... But anytime a MemeStreamer links The Washington Times, a certain element of craziness must always be acknowledged. Let me take it a step farther, add my own flavor of craziness, and invoke my favorite tongue-in-cheek topic, The Conspiracy. I can out-crazy Moon, I assure you. I'm not going to predict the end of the world, I'm gonna bring it to you! I've been practicing! And someday, I'll get it right.. Just you watch.

So what's The Conspiracy doing about this situation? Lets theorize, since that's all you can do in regard to The Conspiracy..

One of the biggest problems regarding The West in the Middle-East is that the interests of The West are inseparable from the interests of Israel in the eyes of the mystical Arab Street. We see the situation in Iraq (and Afghanistan) and the situation in Palestine as separate problems. The Arab Street sees them as the same issue. The inability to separate these issues is a major problem that kills any reasonable effort to empathize by either side. When tackled directly, all discourse breaks down into a screaming match. The only answer may be to put some ground between the US and Israel in the form of a very open dispute.

I see a way some world theatre can be played, to a positive effect. Hence, I invoke The Conspiracy. Yes, I know this means I can no longer be taken seriously.. Let's play the speculation game, and go on a journey of what-if's..

Goal #1: Separate US and Israeli interests and conflicts in the eyes of the Arab Street.
Goal #2: Take out Iran's nuke program, specifically the ability to generate fuel.
Goal #3: Put the US in a better position to play broker in the Israel/Palistine conflict.
Goal #4: Weaken fundamentalist ideology.
Goal #5: Create a situation for the global news media to chomp on that can be used to re-frame the issues.

How ironic would this be?

The... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

Israelis urge U.S. to stop Iran's nuke goals - The Washington Times

Guangdong, long viewed as the mainland's most prosperous province, is facing a series of crises, provincial Communist Party secretary Zhang Dejiang admitted to Chief Executive Donald Tsang and Hong Kong legislators during a private meeting last Sunday.

"Guangdong has been the nation's pioneer for economic reform in China and a miracle in the eyes of the world ... but, in fact, Guangdong is now in crisis management," Zhang said.

"There are various hidden worries and risks. If we took a wrong step, we might be overtaken by Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang and Shanghai.

"The Pearl River Delta has prospered as the most affluent place in the country, but northern Guangdong is suffering the most severe poverty and underdevelopment.

"Guangdong faces [serious] problems arising from our rapid economic growth. The land area is getting smaller. Water and air pollution is serious and getting worse. We are worried about the safety of what we eat and drink."

Zhang said the province's target of becoming a middle-class society may be an impossible dream, and "in the long run, we may not achieve this."

Adding to the economic and environmental woes, Zhang said: "There is also a security problem in the province. Our open economic reform has attracted nationwide talent to the province, but Guangdong has also become a magnet for pickpockets from all parts of the country. So our social order is another serious problem.

The Standard - Guangdong in crisis

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch has accused authorities in Beijing of being paranoid after admitting plans to develop his empire in China have "hit a brick wall", the Financial Times reported.

Murdoch has spent years courting Chinese officials after angering them in 1993 by saying satellite TV posed an "unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere."

I'd like to see Murdoch "hit a brick wall" or two, but this is not one of them.

Murdoch hits 'brick wall' in China, calls Beijing 'paranoid' - Yahoo! News

Singapore is a country that takes the Internet seriously. Last week its Ministry of Defense granted a deferment for the country's compulsory National Service to a Singaporean teenager so he could finish competing in the finals of the World Cyber Games - the Olympics of online war games.

If you want to follow a little analogy, www.sg is a portal where www.us is domain registration.. Its something that may mirror the differences between the two places.

Being a tiny city-state of four million, Singapore is obsessed with nurturing every ounce of talent of every single citizen. That is why, although its fourth and eighth graders already score at the top of the Timss international math and science tests, Singapore has been introducing more innovations into schools. Its government understands that in a flattening world, where more and more jobs can go anywhere, it's not enough to just stay ahead of its neighbors. It has to stay ahead of everyone - including us.

... without much room to expand out, only up. I'm not sure what the teen suicide rate is compared to say, Japan. As Friedman points out in this article, Singapore has rote learning down pat. Its the creativity part they need to flesh out. Creativity happens within a space where its allowed and supported, correct?

Toward that end, some Singapore schools have adopted a math teaching program called HeyMath, which was started four years ago in Chennai, India, by two young Indian bankers, Nirmala Sankaran and Harsh Rajan, in partnership with the Millennium Mathematics Project at Cambridge University.

With a team of Indian, British and Chinese math and education specialists, the HeyMath group basically said to itself: If you were a parent anywhere in the world and you noticed that Singapore kids, or Indian kids or Chinese kids, were doing really well in math, wouldn't you like to see the best textbooks, teaching and assessment tools, or the lesson plans that they were using to teach fractions to fourth graders or quadratic equations to 10th graders? And wouldn't it be nice if one company then put all these best practices together with animation tools, and delivered them through the Internet so any teacher in the world could adopt or adapt them to his or her classroom? That's HeyMath.

I'd love to check out HeyMath, but its not something you can just sign up to use. It certainly sounds like an amazing tool for learning. I'm not sure how easy it would be to get access to use this in American schools. They are clearly following a very "all rights reserved" model, according to their site. Don't expect to see a Wikipedia like spirit present in this tool.

"No matter what kind of school their kids go to, parents all ... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Still Eating Our Lunch - Thomas Friedman