Category Archives: newstalk

Settled: Obama Is Good for the Jews

That’s it, Obama’s got the Jewish vote:

But seriously folks, I hear that Obama received a grand reception at AIPAC, where, according to a source, he has “100%” of their support. In other words, he didn’t stray from script of standard American support for Israel as it’s been practiced for the last 30 years, [...]

This is one of the best things ever

Barack Obama meets Bollywood.  Note the dancing in the street and the punching bag.

Money quote from a YouTube commenter: “I think i’m going to watch this video every day for the rest of my life. “
Tags: BarackObama, Bollywood, election

While I wait for my flight

Yesterday I had the chance to see John McCain at a MTV and MySpace co-sponsored event in Manchester, NH (liveblogging and coverage here and here).  These events are pretty much updates of the old townhall “boxers or briefs”  TV forums MTV put on in the ’90s, with a really innovative use of the web. 
Anyway, [...]

“You cannot introduce democracy to a country by using tanks.”

This is probably the best argument for allowing Ahmadenijad to speak at Columbia today:

A rally where each speaker denounces Ahmadinejad’s reactionary policies and just a few call explicitly for military action will still be perceived, on campus and around the U.S., as pro-war. The right-wing media, from Fox News to the New York tabloids, [...]

Wikipedia is the Medium

Ron Paul and Mike Gravel are the dark horses of their respective parties. They raise a ruckus during debates and forums, they hold radical positions at odds with their parties’ leadership, and they poll very low (Paul polls between one and three percent in all national polls; Gravel polls even lower). Not surprisingly, [...]

Somalia? Really?

Are we really bombing targets in Somalia? What’s next, a increase in troops in Iraq? Oh, wait a minute…

David Weinberger points to a couple of illuminating articles from Ethan Zuckerman to explain that the Somalia strikes aren’t isolated incidents, but the opening shots in a struggle to control the horn of Africa, which [...]

Calderón is president

Most of us saw this coming, but it’s still disappointing: today Felipe Calderón was officially named president of Mexico by the highest court in the land. I guess they’re following our lead: instead of being a clearly undemocratic country, they are — like us — assuming a democratic pose while prohibiting thousands upon thousands [...]

Israel, Lebanon, and a talk over the hookah

My downstairs neighbors are a family of Arabs, the father and mother originally from Jerusalem.  While we rarely say more than “how’s it going” to each other, last weekend they were smoking the hookah on the front steps and enjoying the nice night.  Nicole and I were stepping out for a bit and suddenly became [...]