Tuesday Updates, A Little This, A Little Of That

Flynt Leverett
Roger Cohen
Haggai Alon
Ahmed Rashid

“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a black hole that swallows up goodwill ambassadors through the ages.” - Yossi Sarid

“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” - General Stanley McChrystal

The graphic above is from a Powerpoint presentation and an article on the good and evil that such presentations embody. General McChrystal has to endure two or three Powerpoint presentations per day... Roger Cohen's opinion piece is on George Mitchell's recent visit to Israel, and why he is optimistic, as related in this quote from an interview with Mr Mitchell: “You asked if I think Netanyahu is serious. They ask the same question. You are an expert on Palestinian and Israeli politics. They are the same. But no one in the world knows American politics better than me, and this I will say. There has never been in the White House a president that is so committed on this issue, including Clinton who is a personal friend, and there will never be, at least not in the lifetime of anyone in this room.” Haggai Alon's piece is on the problems that Gaza presents to the peace process. Ahmed Radhid's piece is on dealing with the Taliban, a thorny problem that is as elusive as a winner to the Iraqi election. I admit to coming away from reading the articles more upbeat. I had made myself depressed and a bit obsessed over the Israeli - Palestinian problem. It must be 100 times more intense living there...

The Army took exception to the article on the Warrior Transition Unit in the NY Times, but didn't deny any of the criticisms of the program. The head of the national program is now on his way to Fort Carson to straighten things out. Yeah, that'll really work, although I have to admit that when the top brass in the Air Force came and looked at the Air Force Academy, they did a credible job in changing the culture there that stopped a lot of date rape and Christian evangelicalism... Every time my town makes the news, its always about something embarrassing. Oh well, it could be worse, I could have moved to Arizona...

Today is the Goldman Sachs inquiry in Congress, with our favorite Congresspeople trying to get them to admit to some degree of guilt or sin, and the executives showing more solidarity than the RNC, ready to join hands and drink the Kool Aid in front of the cameras... Goldman Sachs has been the largest money maker on Wall Street, so there is a lot of ambivalence towards its role in the current financial situation. They have recently been making money hand over fist, but doing it making the same high risk deals that tipped us over into meltdown the first time. Unfortunately, later this week a government report will come out saying that we are still in a job loss market, with over 25,000 jobs lost last quarter.

"Should Goldman Sachs be trying to sell a shitty deal?"  - Carl Levin

european terrorism...
It's good to know that with all of the war and strife, there can be sillyness, too. Turkey was the place you would go to provision yourself before trekking into Kurdistan, which has billed itself for tourism as "The Other Iraq." It only took a couple of Americans to slip over the border and land in an Iranian jail cell to dry up that revenue stream.

Now, Turkey has opened a nudist hotel: "Nudist tourists will be able to work on their full-body tan on the sun-kissed Turkish coast from next week, when the mainly Muslim country opens its first naturist hotel, a report said Sunday. Open exclusively to foreigners, the beachfront nudist-only hotel opens on May 1 near the major southwestern resort of Marmaris, a small revolution in Turkey's conservative society, Milliyet newspaper reported." This small news item has already caused much controversy, as you might imagine. Naturism is pretty popular in Europe and is seen as a sign of freedom and personal liberty in the ex-Russian satellite states, so it may prove to be a good move from an economical standpoint. Turkey is a very mixed and diverse culture, maybe this will be the thing that will get them accepted into the European Union... or, the sudden onslaught of all of that pink flesh could trigger another jihad...


This Fall George Bush is publishing his memoirs, just after the next election. Also, the collected writings of Marilyn Monroe will come out at the same time... Coincidence? I don't think so...


I guess we finally got tired of feeding and clothing Manuel Noriega. We extradited him to France, where they found him guilty of money laundering from when he was ruler of Panama. Poor guy, he keeps asking when he can go home again... little does he know that the next place he will be shipped to is Arizona!!!


I had collected a few pictures for Earth Day, and forgot to post them. Call it what you will, our planet is going through some climate changes and there is nothing we can do about it now. The pessimistic part of me fears that I will live to see many people die as a result of fighting over dwindling resources, and I fear even more for the kind of world the grandchildren will inherit. We are killing this planet, and she is screaming...