Monday, November 2, 2009

Y! Alert: The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Taliban Claims That Canceled Afghan Election Proves Its Success Top
KABUL — Afghanistan's president says he wants people from "all parts of the country" in his government. President Hamid Karzai told reporters Tuesday that he will welcome anyone from the opposition into his government and will institute reforms to stamp out corruption. On Monday, he won a drawn-out election by default following a first-round vote that was marred by fraud. Election officials proclaimed Karzai the winner of the runoff after his only challenger dropped out saying that the election could not be free or fair. Karzai said he wants a "national participation government." His former challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, has said he will not join Karzai, but the two have been negotiating privately about ministry seats or accommodating Abdullah's platform in some way. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. KABUL (AP) – The Taliban say the canceled runoff election in Afghanistan proves that their efforts to derail the vote with threats and attacks were successful. The Islamist militant group issued a statement Tuesday ahead of a speech by President Hamid Karzai on his recently declared victory. A first round was marred by fraud and Karzai won a runoff vote by default after his only challenger dropped out saying that the election could not be free or fair. According to a statement posted on the Taliban Web site, "Our brave mujahidin were able to disrupt the entire process." The Taliban said their recent attack on a guest house filled with U.N. election workers showed that "even they are not safe in Kabul." More on Afghan Election
 
Arianna Huffington: Obama One Year Later: The Audacity of Winning vs. The Timidity of Governing Top
I had arranged to meet David Plouffe on Saturday afternoon at a Starbucks on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington. The night before, a copy of his new book, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory , was waiting for me when I checked into my hotel at midnight. I flipped it open, read a few lines and was hooked. I spent the rest of the night reading it. Plouffe has written the most important political book of the year (for reasons I'll get to in a moment). It's also completely gripping. It reads like a thriller. Even though you know how it ends, you quickly get caught up in every twist and turn of perhaps the most remarkable campaigns in American history. Along the way, I found myself tearing up when I read about the campaign volunteer who had scrimped and saved ("Grabbed some ramen on the weekends... Didn't take the girl to a movie") so he could donate ten dollars to Obama, and laughed at the funny-in-retrospect tales from the trail (like David Axelrod's BlackBerry crashing at a crucial moment because of glazed donut getting stuck in the trackwheel.) But it's not the insider look at the past that makes the book so important. It's what it shows us about the present -- and the effect it could have on the future. Plouffe's book arrives at a crossroads moment for the administration -- exactly one year after the election, and one year before the 2010 midterms. A lot has happened in that year, as the audacity of winning has given way to the timidity of governing. But in recounting how the campaign team -- and the candidate -- not only had the audacity to win but was able to keep that audacity alive, day in and day out over the long nearly-two-year slog of the campaign, Plouffe has also shown the Obama White House the way forward. The book is a powerful reminder of what the country voted for last year -- and could serve as the trigger for Obama and his team to refocus and remember why the election mattered so much. Most of the attention the book has gotten so far has focused on the so-called "sexy" parts -- the saga of Reverend Wright, the furor over Bittergate, how Obama came to pick Biden over Hillary for VP. All of which is serving to obscure the key takeaway from the book: the fact that everything in the campaign flowed, as Plouffe puts it, from Obama's conviction that "the country needed deep, fundamental change; Washington wasn't thinking long-term... the special interests and lobbyists had too much power, and the American people needed to once again trust and engage in their democracy." Plouffe hits this theme again and again in the book. And it's the first thing we talked about when we met (me looking bleary-eyed from my night of reading and underlining and writing in the margins; Plouffe looking relaxed and refreshed, a far-cry from the profoundly exhausted look he had the last time I saw him, in the midst of the presidential run). The book is "not a victory lap," he tells me. "It's a reminder of how and why we won. We never forgot why we were running. That was our North Star. And we held that North Star in our sights at all times. We made many mistakes along the way, but we always remembered that we were running because, as Barack put it, the dream so many generations had fought for was slipping away." Axelrod -- or "Ax" as Plouffe refers to him throughout the book -- summed up at the beginning of the campaign the core elements of the message that would guide them: "change versus a broken status quo; people versus the special interests; a politics that would lift people and the country up; and a president who would not forget the middle class." Running a different kind of campaign became "shorthand" for the campaign. Whenever they found themselves drifting towards standard political behavior, they'd ask themselves: "If we do this, how is that running a different kind of campaign?" As Plouffe told me: "We made sure that everyone we hired internalized our core message and defaulted to those touch points when making decisions. For our break-the-rules strategy to work, we all had to remain faithful to its principles all the time." Plouffe kept returning to the mistakes they made, but only to highlight the campaign's saving grace -- its ability to course-correct, a vital survival mechanism for any successful campaign. Or successful White House. Early in the book, Plouffe describes a tense meeting with the candidate in April 2007, after it became clear that Obama was having a hard time connecting with voters turning out to see him. Ax, Plouffe, and Peter Rouse were brutally honest with him. And the candidate agreed about the need "to find his authentic voice and reconnect with the fundamental concerns that drew him into the race in the first place. He had run to challenge the bankrupt and conventional politics of Washington, not master it." Then there was the senior staff meeting after their dismal showing in Pennsylvania, where Obama announced: "I want us to get our mojo back. We've got to remember who we are." Plouffe also mentions the difficult decision made right before the Iowa primary to decline John Kerry's offer to endorse Obama -- a move campaign insiders felt was the wrong message to send to voters looking for change. "In the end," writes Plouffe, "the tough decision we made was unquestionably the correct one. Just about every time we took the road less traveled, we benefited." That included the decision, which Plouffe fought hard for, to have the campaign headquartered in Chicago because "D.C. is a swamp of conventional wisdom and insiders that can suck a campaign down, and we needed to think differently." Maybe the answer to the last nine months is to move the White House to Chicago. Indeed, reading the book, I often found myself wondering what Candidate Obama would think of President Obama. Would he look at what the White House is doing and say, "that's what I and my supporters worked so hard for?" How did the candidate who got into the race because he'd decided that "the core leadership had turned rotten" and that "the people were getting hosed" become the president who has decided that the American people can only have as much change as Olympia Snowe will allow? How did the candidate who told a stadium of supporters in Denver that "the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result" become the president who has surrounded himself with the same old players trying the same old politics, expecting a different result? How could a president whose North Star as a candidate was that he "would not forget the middle class" choose as his chief economic advisor a man who recently argued against extending unemployment benefits in the middle of the worse economic times since the Great Depression? I'm referring, of course, to Larry Summers. According to a White House official I spoke with -- later confirmed by sources in the White House and on the Hill -- Summers was against the extension. And it took a lot of Congressional pushing back behind the scenes for the president to overrule him. And, according to another senior White House official, when foreclosures or job numbers come up at the regular White House morning meeting, Summers' response is that nothing can be done. Nothing can be done about skyrocketing foreclosures or lost jobs. Nothing can be done -- pretty much the opposite of "Yes we can," isn't it? According to Plouffe, "reform is in Obama's DNA." Then how do you have in your inner circle a man who has "nothing can be done" in his DNA? Unless, of course, the problem on the table has to do with Wall Street, in which case "everything can be done, has been done, and will be done." Obviously, an administration needs to hire people who weren't part of the campaign. But the danger comes in hiring those who don't even share the goals of the campaign. That's why The Audacity to Win is so desperately needed right now. It reminds us that, not that long ago, the conventional wisdom was that Candidate Obama didn't have a chance and that Hillary Clinton's nomination was inevitable. That's the same conventional wisdom that tells us that President Obama doesn't have a chance at really changing things and that the ultimate victory of the entrenched special interests is inevitable. But the Obama campaign didn't buy into the conventional wisdom then: "We had a mountain named Hillary Clinton in our path that we had to find some way to scale, get around, or blow a hole through," writes Plouffe. And the Obama White House doesn't have to give into the conventional wisdom now. It just has to get its mojo back. One way the White House can do this is to have everyone there read Plouffe's book, filled as it is with page after page after page of reminders of who put Barack Obama in the Oval Office. "We knew who we were," write Plouffe, "a grassroots campaign to the core. We started with our supporters on the ground and they led us to victory." This grassroots effort "was a prime motivator for Obama to run, the belief that the American people needed to reengage in their civic life... Obama felt in his gut that if properly motivated, a committed grassroots army could be a powerful force. Over time, the volunteers became the pillars that held the whole enterprise aloft." I asked Plouffe what happened to the 13 million people on the campaign's email list -- a list he compares to having "our own television network, only better, because we communicated directly with no filter to what would amount to about 20 percent of the total number of votes we would need to win." "Volunteers have made 300,000 calls to Congress to support the president's health care plan, and held thousands of events around the country," he told me. "But it's hard to maintain the intensity of the engagement." Of course it's hard. But, as he puts it in the book, "Obama had ignited something very powerful in young people throughout the country. "If that spark could be preserved, I was convinced we'd be a much stronger country for it." And no amount of rationalizing and sugarcoating can change the fact that the spark has not been preserved. And that we are a less strong country for it. One of the reasons Plouffe gives in the book for the campaign deciding to forgo public funding was that, as he writes, "most painfully, taking the federal funds meant losing control of our secret weapon: we would have to largely outsource our entire grassroots ground campaign to the DNC." Which is exactly where the grassroots list -- rebranded as Organization for America -- is housed now. Painfully. Plouffe talks about how the Obama team knew that in order to win, it would have to "attain the holy grail of politics -- a fundamentally altered electorate. We had to expand the electorate or we were cooked." With the help of their grassroots army, they did just that. Among people who had never voted before -- or who hadn't voted for a long time -- 71 percent voted for Obama. Plouffe feels genuinely connected to the movement he helped unleash. "So many of the people," he told me, "who gave their heart and soul to the campaign were people who had given up on the system because they no longer believed they could trust politicians to deliver or really change anything. It is imperative for our democracy that these people are not disappointed. If they become disillusioned, they won't be coming back for a long while." "I feel such an obligation to them," Obama told Plouffe during the campaign. "They believe in me. In us. In themselves. What keeps me going day after day? Besides a clear sense of why I am running for president, it's them, our volunteers. It is a special thing we've built here and I don't want to let them down." I asked Plouffe if the president had read the book. "He read a couple of sections in it," he replied, "and even discovered a couple of things he didn't know." Well, if the president wants to make sure he doesn't let down the millions who believed he really would change the rotten system, he should read the The Audacity to Win from beginning to end -- and rediscover a whole host of things he knows, but seems to have forgotten. Then he can complete the journey from The Audacity of Hope and The Audacity To Win to The Audacity to Govern. So, one year after the election, what do you think Candidate Obama would think of President Obama? Tweet your response (our Twitter hashtag is #OneYearLater), or post it in the comments section. More on Barack Obama
 
GOP Health Care Bill WON'T Prevent Insurance Companies From Denying Sick People Top
Republicans are preparing to unveil their own health bill in the next few days. Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) said Monday that the plan wouldn't seek to prevent health-insurance companies from denying sick people insurance -- a key plank of the Democrats' legislation. More on Health Care
 
Javier Corrales: Nicaragua: Déjà coup all over again? Top
This week, the United States helped bring an end to a serious political crisis in Honduras. A similar crisis is now brewing in Nicaragua. This time, the United States won't be as lucky. In both cases, the root cause of the crisis was the same: elected presidents seeking to prolong their stay in office in violation of constitutional procedures. In Honduras, president Manuel Zelaya insisted on conducting an electoral consultation on whether to have a referendum to end term limits. The attorney general, the Congress, and the Supreme Court deemed this process unconstitutional and ordered the military to remove Zelaya. This coup produced the condemnation of most nations, including the United States, plunging the hemisphere into a serious crisis because the de facto government enjoyed widespread support at home. After many mistakes, the United States finally helped broker an agreement between the de facto government and Zelaya, paving the way for Zelaya's return to the presidency with far more limited powers than Zelaya ever had. In Honduras, the administration deserves some credit. It stayed true to a widely praised promise made in the April Summit of the Americas: to adhere to international law. The relevant law was the 2001 Democratic Charter of the Organization of the American States, which calls on members to condemn any interruption of constitutional democracy. But in Honduras, the United States also got lucky. The "condemned government" was ultimately a friend of the United States, respectful of democracy, embarrassed about the possibility of needing to repress, interested in preserving economic ties with the United States, and more important, uninterested in staying in office beyond the scheduled November elections. All of this boosted U.S. leverage. In Nicaragua, the wrongdoer displays none of these attributes. U.S. leverage there will be close to nil. The wrongdoer in Nicaragua is president Daniel Ortega. The very same person who tried to establish a dictatorship in Nicaragua in the 1980s, and then tried every possible trick to get himself re-elected until he finally succeeded in 2007, has just convinced a constitutional panel of the Supreme Court, populated by Danielistas, to rule that Article 147 of the Constitution, establishing term limits, is "inapplicable." This ruling has unleashed a new crisis. There are at least three serious problems with this ruling. First, the ruling itself has few antecedents in the history of judicial review. Essentially, the court declared that an article in the Constitution is unconstitutional. This logic-defying argument has convinced no one in Nicaragua except die-hard Danielistas. Second, Ortega is replicating Zelaya's tactics of using undemocratic tricks. In this case, the trick consisted of convincing no more than six judges, all Danielistas, to side with the president. This was done behind closed doors and in a matter of days, violating Article 194 stating that only the legislature can change the constitution. Third, it's not just the procedure but also the actual change that is problematic. To understand the seriousness of both Zelaya's and Ortega's move, it helps to review the history of presidential term limits in Latin America. Presidential term limits are a Latin American invention--an antidote against dictators. They appear for the first time in the 1853 Argentine constitution, written in response to the dictatorship of Juan Manuel de Rosas (1829-1831, 1835-1852). Argentine democratic legal scholars back then were trying to come up with solution to the now well understood problem of incumbent's advantage, the idea that time is always on the side of the incumbent. As time progresses, presidents can co-opt more actors, by appointing more loyalists to the courts, electoral supervisory boards, and the military, and by assigning more state contracts to friends, family and favored groups. In democracies with weak institutions of checks and balances, this advantage is even starker. Some mechanism needed to be invented to stop the clock on presidents, hence presidential term limits. Most presidential democracies, including the United States, followed suit and implemented some form of presidential term limit in the 20th century. The right of citizens to choose was compromised for the sake of another democratic ideal--safeguarding a level-playing between the incumbent and the opposition. It is ironic that this criollo democratic doctrine is now under assault in precisely the region where it was born. Many countries in Latin America have relaxed term limits in the past two decades, invariably leading to political tensions. In countries where non-transparent tricks have been used, such as in Honduras and now Nicaragua, the crises have been more explosive. In Spanish, there is a term for Zelaya's and Ortega's tricks--a golpe desde el estado, in contrast to a golpe de estado, a coup from the state rather than against the state. These golpes desde el estado, whereby the president uses questionable means to erode checks and balances, has become the most recurrent threat to democracy in the region. The Honduras crisis ended because the United States succeeded in convincing all parties that both types of coups--the golpes de estado and the golpes desde el estado--are inadmissible. But in Nicaragua, this won't happen. Ortega is interested in a confrontation with the United States, not a rapprochement. He is deeply interested in staying in power forever and is not afraid of polarization (after all, he provoked a civil war in the 1980s). Furthermore, unlike Honduras, Nicaragua hardly trades with the United States, so U.S. sanctions will matter little. In short, the success that the United States had in Honduras won't be repeated in Nicaragua. U.S. diplomats should not conclude that the crisis in Central America is over. More on Nicaragua
 
Harry Reid Reassures Democrats That Joe Lieberman Is On Board With Health Care Bill Top
Sen. Joe Lieberman has reached a private understanding with Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will not block a final vote on healthcare reform, according to two sources briefed on the matter. More on Health Care
 
Michelle Obama's 14 Most Memorable First Lady Outfits (PHOTOS, POLL) Top
Since the night Michelle Obama stepped on the stage of Chicago's Grant Park in a splashy Narciso Rodriguez sheath, her first lady fashions have been followed obsessively (and not just by us ). Now, one year after her husband was elected president, here's a look back at Mrs. Obama's most memorable style moments. Vote for your favorites and let us know what we left out. Who Is The Ultimate Game Changer In Style? VOTE NOW! And follow HuffPost Style on Twitter and become a fan of HuffPost Style on Facebook while you're at it. More on Michelle Obama Style
 
Ted Matlak, Deposed North Side Alderman, Running For Cook County Board Top
The race to succeed Democratic Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool, a self-styled reformer from the city's North Side, could be the highest-profile contest among the 17 board seats.
 
Chase Utley Ties Reggie Jackson's World Series Home Run Record Top
(AP) PHILADELPHIA -- Chase Utley hit two home runs to raise his World Series total to a record-tying five, Cliff Lee won again and the Philadelphia Phillies staved off elimination with an 8-6 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 5 on Monday night. The Phillies hung on to close their deficit to 3-2. The Yankees scored three times in the eighth inning and put two runners on in the ninth before Derek Jeter grounded into a double play. Utley hit a go-ahead, three-run homer in the first off A.J. Burnett and added a solo shot in the seventh. Utley joined Reggie Jackson as the only players to hit five home runs in a single World Series. Game 6 is Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium, with Andy Pettitte pitching for New York against Pedro Martinez. More on Sports
 
Teen Abortion Law In Limbo After New Delay Top
The fate of a law that would require physicians in Illinois to notify a parent or guardian when a girl 17 or younger seeks an abortion remained in limbo this afternoon.
 
FTC Takes On Ads From Credit Monitoring Service Freecreditreport.com Top
The Federal Trade Commission is not amused. It has long believed that the company that owns freecreditreport.com is deliberately diverting people from a government-mandated site where consumers can get free credit reports by law, and using the reports as a lure for a $14.95 monthly service that alerts subscribers to important changes in their credit status.
 
Jaroslaw Czapla, Cubs Fan, Pleads Guilty To Beating Sox Fan At Kid's Birthday Party Top
A Huntley man is facing up to three years in prison after admitting guilt Monday to his role in a brawl at a child's birthday party that cost one man an eye.
 
Al Gore Explains How Call For Climate Change Action Is Similar To Civil Rights Movement (Video) Top
The push for government action on climate change is like the US civil rights movement, according to former Vice President Al Gore. Both causes depended on and depend on a grassroots call to change. Gore talked about those similarities during webcast interview with Katie Couric about his new book Our Choice , his follow-up to the film about global warming An Inconvenient Truth . Couric referred to Gore as the "Godfather of Green" before beginning the 32-minute interview. Gore touched on the the moral issues surrounding inaction on climate change as well as cap and trade legislation specifics. Watch the interview: Watch CBS News Videos Online More on Gas & Oil
 
Huff TV: Arianna Discusses Limbaugh, Obama And The Elections On Tuesday On Joy Behar Show (VIDEO) Top
Arianna joined Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation , on The Joy Behar Show tonight to discuss Rush Limbaugh slamming President Obama for 30 minutes on Fox News Sunday ; conservatives forcing Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava to drop out of her New York congressional race for not being orthodox enough; and the close race for governor in New Jersey, which will be decided tomorrow. WATCH: More on Video
 
Kristin Maschka: This is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood to Get the Lives We Want Today Top
Before our daughter was born, I had a pretty full life. If I think of my identity as a pie, the pan was completely full. I had healthy slices of Wife, Employee, and Me—my personal interests, my relationships, and my health. I figured the same would be true when I became a mother. Once our little girl arrived though, every aspect of my life changed. How and where I spent my days changed—from doing workshops in an Internet company to doing dishes at home. Who I interacted with every day changed—from well-dressed adults to babies and the occasional mother or nanny in the park. How much I got to be with my husband changed from hours a day to minutes or none at all. How frequently I could exercise or read or go out with friends changed from nearly every day to once in a blue moon. How people referred to me changed - from my own name, Kristin, to "Kate's mom." The things I lost as a result of those changes—my name, my career, my paycheck, my colleagues, my time with my husband, my own interests—were all things that were deeply important to me and felt like major losses. Unexpectedly, I found myself puzzled, "Who am I now?"  Many mothers I talk to share that same sense of loss. Did you know that women take on a larger Mother identity much faster than men take on their Father identity? And that women with six-month-old babies who have a larger investment in the Mother identity actually have lower self-esteem? ( Cowan and Cowan ) Yet, few mothers want to admit that the children we adore often also bring on this profound loss of self. The appearance of the Mother piece of pie presents us with a psychological pie dilemma we have to solve to find ourselves again: How do I integrate this huge new piece of who I am into my Identity Pie without making a big old mess? How do we find an answer to the question, "Who am I now?" To help with that dilemma, here are four remodeling tools from my book, This is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood to Get the Lives We Want Today . Check yourself for invisible assumptions holding you back. Have you ever felt bad about doing something for yourself when it meant time away from your children? Have you ever felt guilty about being employed?  Have you ever felt ashamed that - shhhh -  you sometimes feel like caring for your children or your home is, well, boring? I've had all those feelings, sometimes all at once! Those feelings are signs that - like most everyone else - you harbor subconscious assumptions, or mental maps, that mothers are completely fulfilled by caring for family and mothers who are employed or pursue personal fulfillment are selfish. Together, these assumptions mean mothers are likely to put themselves at the bottom of our own to-do lists. Be on the watch for when these subconscious assumptions keep you from taking care of yourself.  Download my Identity Pie worksheet . The Identity Pie worksheet is my adaptation of a research tool used by Carolyn Pape Cowan and Philip A Cowan . The worksheet asks you to use a circle and divide it into four sections based on how large these pieces feel in your identity now. Mother Wife/Partners Employee/Career My More (Friendships, Health, Personal Interests, Ambitions, Leisure) Then it asks you to draw another circle and divide it to reflect your ideal Identity Pie. Reflecting on the differences can help you identify what you could do to close the gap between your current reality and your ideal.  Pick one experiment -  and do it! Is there an aspect of your identity in which you feel like you experiences a big loss? What's one thing you could do to experiment with bringing it back? Just one thing. For example, I took an online writing class when our daughter was a baby, another mother I know decided she would let herself read books after the kids were asleep rather than trying to do more housework, and yet another mother resolved that lunch with friends during her work day once in a while was important, even if it meant getting home a bit later. Now go to a website like www.Hallmark.com , write yourself a card with your promise to yourself to do that one thing and schedule it to be mailed to you in two to three weeks as a reminder. Ask other mothers, "What's your More?" We all spend so much time talking about our children. Next time you see your mother friends or meet someone new, instead ask them, "What's your More?" Get them talking about their personal interests, their personal or professional dreams, or how they would spend an entire day to themselves. You'll both get some remodeling motherhood work done as you reinforce for each other that it's important for a mother to hang on to the "other than mother" pieces of her Identity Pie.
 
Movember: Sport A 'Stache To Support Men's Health Top
What is it about prostate cancer that makes men want to grow moustache for the entire month of November? Oh yeah, the international men's heath campaign, Movember . That's "Mo" for Moustache, and the Movember Foundation wants men to sport their best handlebar, soul patch or aspiring scruff to "change the face of men's health" by raising funds and awareness for men's cancers-- specifically prostate and testicular cancer. Money raised this month will go straight to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and The Lance Armstrong Foundation . If you're a man ready to show your support by bringing back the facial hair beloved by Frenchmen and porn stars alike, you can shave clean and register right now (it's okay that you're a couple days late, we won't tell.) 'Stache loving ladies, don't feel left out-- there's a spot for you too. Women can sign up to spread awareness and collect donations from the hairy men in their lives. Check out the Movember site to learn more about getting involved in the month-long movement and to find an end-of-month Movember gala to flaunt your new facial hair.
 
Bill Maher: Is This as Good as It Gets From Obama? Top
Yeah, I'm disappointed, too. I thought we were sweeping into power; I thought change meant Change. I believed all that talk about another First 100 Days, a la Roosevelt. Well, that didn't happen. The question is, is this as good as it gets from Obama, or is he pacing himself? He may have a four and eight-year plan and they included a first year of just gettin' to know you and not gonna rock the boat too much. Well, Mission Accomplished on that. It's still to early to lose hope in a guy as smart and talented as Barack Obama. But I would counsel him to remember: If you're going undercover to infiltrate how Washington works, so you become one of them for a while, to gain their confidence, well, it can be just like all those movies where a cop goes deep, deep, DEEP undercover with drug people and -- fuck, he's a drug addict, too! Logic tells me that really smart guys like Obama and Rahm Emanuel know better what they're doing than I do. They certainly know things I don't know. I think we have the same general goals and beliefs. And this is what they do for a living -- I wouldn't even try it. But I will never stop having this doubt: that maybe if they had really charged in there riding the forceful energy of the historic election, and acted like it was an emergency moment -- which it was -- they could have gotten some big victories right up front, and there really could have been an historic "first hundred days" for this administration and the country. Instead of what happened, which is the Obamas got a dog. It could have worked -- the country had given its endorsement to "...and now for something completely different." There might have been a way to knock the Republicans back on their heels right away, with the argument that "The American people demanded we make these changes, and you are unpatriotic to stand in their way." We'll never know. Because that moment passed, and now it could follow the pattern of World War I and devolve into boring, static trench warfare where nothing really gamechanging happens while both sides slowly bleed to death. That said, I do not forget that if the election had gone the other way, we'd right now have a barter economy and be at war with Honduras. More on Bill Maher
 
Nancy Snow: Hey Germany, Ronald Reagan Deserves a Thank You Too Top
In August 1984 I was a Fulbright scholar to the Federal Republic of Germany.  Ronald Reagan was about to be elected to his second term as president and I was no fan of the Hollywood actor-turned-politician.    The first week I arrived in Germany, Reagan made his infamous joke during a microphone check.  He quipped, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you that I’ve just signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever.  We begin bombing in five minutes.”  The irreverent German magazine Der Spiegel ran a picture of Reagan with a clown nose and headline, “Der Spinnt.” (He’s Crazy) I had protested Reagan’s aggressive foreign policy agenda as a political science student at Clemson University.  I joined the Clemson Peace Club and we met in protest of Reagan administration policies, including missile build-up in Europe and U.S. policy toward Central America. I was appalled at Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative or Star Wars, and shared the sentiment of many of my European friends that Reagan was more than a bit mad. I even hated holding the same given name as Reagan’s wife.   Reagan’s Evil Empire March 1983 speech to the National Association of Evangelicals about U.S. and Soviet motives made me reel: In your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil. It was all so black and white, no Technicolor, like a voiceover from Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series.  I worried that the world would see all Americans as harboring the same us versus them mentality that Reagan represented. My brother Steve disagreed with me.  He loved the fact that Reagan made America feel strong and proud again after four years of malaise under Jimmy Carter.  He wrote me during my stay in Germany and said that I should feel proud to be an American.  I’m sure he hoped that I would defend the American president.  I did not.   So why my change of heart today?  Well, I’m older now, maybe even a little wiser.  I do see Reagan in a different light.  After twenty years of studying persuasion and public diplomacy, I have to credit Reagan with his disciplined approach to challenging his Cold War nemesis, the Soviet Union.   A recent column by Malte Lehming in Der Tagesspiegel made me take notice.  Lehming notes that as the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall is about to be celebrated, it is former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who is credited the most with uniting the two Germanys, not Reagan.  “Gorbymania” is out of control, according to Lehming.  Reagan is derided.   How can the German people not acknowledge that Reagan’s arm race helped to bankrupt the Soviet Union?  And we shouldn’t forget that it took the Communist-hating president to sit down and negotiate with Gorbachev.   Gorby and Reagan needed each other for the USSR and USA to meet as two competitors willing to pull each other back from the brink of MADness (Mutually Assured Destruction).   I can understand that Reagan will never have the Rock Star status in Germany of Mikhail Gorbachev.  Reagan is just too square for the Europeans.  His American awe-shucks humor and sentimental devotion to wife Nancy doesn’t compute.   Nevertheless, he understood the power of American persuasion in the world.  Reagan wrote that his administration was “determined to stop losing the propaganda war.”  As Nicholas Cull points out in his eloquent historical book, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency (Cambridge University Press), the CIA estimated that at the time of Reagan’s ascent to office, the Soviet Union was on foreign propaganda overdrive, spending $2.2 billion to America’s $480 million.   Reagan was as ideologically confident about America’s role in the world, according to Cull, as was Kennedy.  Like Kennedy, Reagan shared a devotion to counter-offensives that merged propaganda with disinformation.  We may not always like these tactics, but they do get results.   In his second term, Ronald Reagan said, “I believe that our public diplomacy represents a powerful force, perhaps the most powerful force at our disposal, for shaping the history of the world.”  With that confidence, Reagan would sit down across the table from Gorbachev and later challenge him at the Brandenburg Gate: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”  By 1988, Reagan was seen by the Russian public as sincere, even likable.   Twenty years later Reagan deserves credit, along with his ideological sparring partner Gorbachev, for getting the Soviet Union to loosen its iron grip on Europe and allow the reunification of East and West Germany.    Dr. Nancy Snow teaches courses on war, media and propaganda and advanced public diplomacy at the Newhouse School, Syracuse University, New York.  Reach her at www.nancysnow.com 
 
Economic Crisis Compels Economists To Reach For New Paradigm Top
The pain of the financial crisis has economists striving to understand precisely why it happened and how to prevent a repeat. For that task, John Geanakoplos of Yale University takes inspiration from Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice." More on Economy
 
Diane Dimond: A Reality Check On Reality TV Top
I got the opportunity recently to spend time with two of America's most talked about Dads: Jon Gosselin, of the "Jon and Kate plus Eight" television show and Richard Heene, the man behind the recent so-called Balloon Boy Hoax. Let me just say: Long gone are the TV Dads like Fred MacMurray in "My Three Sons" or Hugh Beaumont from "Leave it to Beaver." I went to court with the Gosselins in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania - twice - as they tried to hash out how to divide their quite substantial matrimonial estate. Both Gosselins professed to want privacy during their on-going divorce - odd, given that they've exposed themselves and their children (eight year old twins and five year old sextuplets) to TV cameras for the last five years. - but there they were in open court to publicly haggle over cash they'd both withdrawn from joint accounts. After court Kate refused to talk but Jon told me he was eager to settle so they could get on with the mutual business of raising their children. He spoke about the therapy sessions he was attending to learn how to build a life outside the spotlight and, more importantly, how to explain what was happening to his kids. Half way across the country, in Ft. Collins, Colorado I came face to face with a very different TV Dad. Actor Richard Heene and his actress wife, Mayumi, had been featured on the program "Wife Swap." In interviews with several acquaintances it was clear the Heene's goal in life was to make it on TV in ever bigger and more visible roles. Two men, in two completely different parts of the country, both bitten by a celebrity bug that made them lose all perspective. Caught in the middle are their children. In Jon Gosselin's case it's clear he's trying to get out from under feeling trapped by a domineering wife and a public life that, while very lucrative, began to suffocate him; he's searching for his own identity. In Heene's case the quest for fame and fortune seems motivated by something kookier and almost sinister. He's pitched several television shows such as "Storm Chasers" which feature him and his three young boys, ages 10 to 6, dangerously racing off into the path of violent storms. He fancies himself a scientist and has a fascination with UFO's, weather balloons and cardboard boxes like the one said to have been strapped to the silvery helium filled balloon that recently took off into the Colorado skies. Countless Americans were riveted to the TV coverage of that balloon, ominously floating toward certain disaster because they were led to believe tiny 6 year old, Falcon Heene, was either trapped inside the balloon or had been in an attached box which had mysteriously fallen off somewhere along the line. His older brother was quoted saying he saw Falcon get aboard. Of course we now know the boy wasn't really part of the balloon flight. It was all a hoax which began to unravel when Falcon admitted on national TV that it was done "for the show." Then, on a round of live television interviews with his family Falcon vomited, twice, during separate appearances. Apparently, the lying became too much for him to handle. When I retrieved the original 911 call from Ft. Collins authorities and heard this mother/father acting duo, sounding panicked and crying about the fate of their son who was supposedly trapped in a life and death struggle in a balloon, I realized the lengths to which some will go for publicity and fame. And realize 911 was not Richard Heene's first call, he'd already phoned at least one local TV station and the FAA. There are unconfirmed reports that an unnamed television production company offered the Heene's money if they generated a substantial amount of publicity for themselves. Even in this cash strapped economy who can condone forcing your children to lie to authorities? The country may view both these families in the same light but here's how they're different. The Gosselins made a conscious decision to allow controlled filming of their life with eight children as a way to pay the freight for such a large family. While their road to divorce has hit some bumps they seem to be mature enough to ultimately find a way to move forward. The Heene's, on the other hand, are on a much different path, one that could very well lead to a criminal prosecution on conspiracy, fraud and other charges. This couple was willing to offer up the safety and emotional well being of their minor children in exchange for getting their mugs on television. Shame on them. And shame on any TV outlet that rewards them with their own reality show. Diane Dimond can be reached through her web site: www.DianeDimond.net More on Jon & Kate Plus 8
 
5 Good Things Going On In Afghanistan (And How You Can Get Involved) Top
Let's face it, the news from Afghanistan can be a real downer. So let's focus on the good news. Little by little, individuals and organizations are creating glimmers of hope across the country that someday Afghanistan will once again flourish. Here are five things happening in Afghanistan that are helping its citizens get back on their feet, and what you can do to support those efforts: A Nation Of Skater Boys (And Girls) A co-ed skate park in Afghanistan? It's for real. Australian-founded and Norway/Germany/Canada-funded Skateistan has built a skate park in Kabul that is working to teach children good values, physical fitness, and sportsmanship. Read all about it on Cameron Sinclair's latest blog post . You can contribute to Skateistan by making a donation, buying a t-shirt, or even volunteering (if you're in Kabul, that is). New Farmers And Sustainable Crops Afghanistan's countryside has been hard-hit by the war, which means that the country's historically self-reliant farmers are struggling to survive. The Global Partnership for Afghanistan gets farmers back on their feet by providing planting supplies, tools and training so that they can build sustainable livelihoods and restore the environment. You can help them plant three poplar trees for just $60 or "re-green" an entire village with the help of a few friends. Women Speaking Their Minds Novelist Masha Hamilton started the Afghan Women's Writing Project after a visit to Afghanistan in 2008. She saw that Afghan women were quickly losing their independence so she set up a Web site where teachers and writers in the U.S. could mentor female Afghan writers online and post portions of their firsthand experiences of life under the Taliban. Read more about the courageous women involved on the Project's blog or donate to the project so these women can get internet access to post their essays. Afghanistan For Tourists Okay, maybe not the first thing that comes to mind, but the UN is touting Afghanistan as a (very) off-the-beaten path ecotourism destination with tattered Buddhist relics, breathtaking mountain vistas and a national park. If you consider yourself an intrepid traveler and want to learn more, watch the short film the UN has produced to entice visitors. Lots Of Schools In The Middle Of Nowhere After descending from a climb on K2 in 1993, Greg Mortenson met a group of children in a small village at the foot of the mountain and promised to return to build a school for them. He kept his rash promise, and as of 2009, Mortenson has helped build 131 schools in rural Afghanistan, which provide education to over 58,000 children, most of whom are girls. His efforts have been documented in the New York Times #1 bestseller Three Cups Of Tea . You can volunteer or fundraise for the Central Asia Institute . Or, join Mortenson's domestic fundraising and cultural education campaign, Pennies for Peace .
 
Frans de Waal: Fellating Female Fruit Bats Top
The discovery of fellatio in the shortnosed fruit bat ( Cynopterus sphinx ) by Chinese investigators has become a bit of a web sensation, because who would have thought that animals actually enjoy sex and do their darnedest to stretch out the pleasure? For every second of penis licking by the female, a bat pair gains 6 seconds of copulation time, perhaps increasing their fertilization chances. Now, don't think that bats know about fertilization. Not even humans are good at taking this into account, which is why we have the morning-after-pill. Animals are not worried about reproduction. Pleasure, however, is something they understand. I am not sure that all animals have pleasure during sex, but in bonobos (which are our closest primate relatives together with chimpanzees) oral sex is common as is masturbation. For anyone doubting that animals feel anything during sex, this is always my question: "Why masturbate in the absence of pleasure?" Masturbation is done in equal measure by bonobo females and males. If you have ever seen the wide grins on the faces of females engaged in this activity, there can be little doubt that they experience something akin to orgasm. Bonobos are also great kissers. In fact, I know a caretaker at a zoo who used to work with chimps, which are rather platonic kissers. When he had to take care of the bonobos one day, and accepted a kiss from one of them, the man was taken aback feeling a whole tongue in his mouth. What are they doing? Two juvenile male bonobos. Lots of jokes and comments usually follow any discussion of animal sex lives, but in my mind this merely serves to mask human discomfort. When we downplay or laugh away animal sexuality, we're applying our own moral standards to them. And scientists are not immune. Talking about bonobos, for example, they sometimes call them "very affectionate," whereas what they mean is that they engage in genital contacts at the drop of a hat. In another example, a prominent American anthropologist once claimed that sex was not all that common in bonobos, until it was found that he had counted only heterosexual sex between adults. In bonobos, this is only a small portion of sexual encounters, which often involve same-sex partners and juveniles. There are remarkable few studies of animal sex unconfounded by Puritanism. The fellatio story on bats is a bright spot in an otherwise miserable record that denies animals the pleasure principle, homosexuality, and other forms of non-reproductive sex. Now that we finally have a science of human sexuality -- and remember what a struggle this has been for sexology pioneers, such as Alfred Kinsey and Masters & Johnson -- we need a similar science for the rest of the animal kingdom. More on Sex
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)