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From Wired:
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton dominates the airwaves, the Sunday political talk shows and the polls. And it turns out she’s also dominating one of the hottest new media platforms in politics — but not in a way she would like.
The largest pro- or anti-candidate group on the popular social-networking site Facebook is [...]

So, what to make of the UN Secretary-General’s high level event on climate change in New York earlier this week? First, a few quick observations in no particular order:

Heavyweight proposal of the day: Angela Merkel stepped up her call for future climate policy to be based on the principle of national emissions entitlements converging towards [...]

Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, the head of Mozambique’s Catholic Church, talking to the BBC:
“Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose,” he alleged, refusing to name the countries.
“They want to finish with the African people. This is the programme. They [...]

Fancy taking control of a highly desirable online property? Well, get moving because there’s only just over a day left to run in the auction for iraq.com. The highest bidder has offered 600,000 euros, but the (undisclosed) reserve is yet to be met…

The BBC on Burma’s cyber-dissidents…

On National Review, Jay Richards continues his push back against Evangelical Christians who support action on climate change. His advice? Stop being gulled by left-wing strategists:
No one expects throngs of Evangelicals to start voting for pro-choice Democrats. But much of the media agrees with the Washington Post’s infamous description of Evangelicals as “poor, undereducated, [...]

Blackwater doesn’t only provide protection for US State Dept staff in Iraq and elsewhere: they also run numerous training programs in VIP protection and other such esoteric skills. Here’s a helpful summary of how many rounds of ammunition you should bring with you if you’re fortunate enough to be attending one of their courses.

Active Threat [...]

In the past few days, a vicious spat has broken out in the US counter-insurgency community.
On one side, the architect of a new lexicon, inspired by Koranic teaching, that aims to “remove the self-sanctifying ‘holy guy’ legitimacy from AQ-style and al Sadr-style terrorism.”
On the other, those who detect the sinister hand of the Muslim Brotherhood [...]

Make sure you read this article by Marc Lynch (who runs the excellent blog, Abu Aardvark). A teaser:
Much of the conventional wisdom about the Sunni areas now seems to come from the impressions formed by politicians and journalists on stage-managed visits to Iraq, or by carefully crafted press interviews with “former insurgents” hand-picked by American [...]

The Washington Post has more on the mysterious Israeli raid on Syria that may or may not have been aimed at a nuclear installation that may or may not have been built with North Korean co-operation…
Pre-emptive strike against WMDs or neo-con misinformation? You decide.
Update: The Nelson Report believes a consignment of conventional missiles was blown [...]

Writing in Salon, Steve Clemons recalls a round table he organised 18 months ago on the prospects for war with Iran. Then an unnamed former official in the Bush administration had this to say:
The President is going to receive a memo — some time in the next 6 to 12 months — that presents [...]

The leader of the Western world, yesterday:
Asked what traits people should look for in choosing a President, George Bush responded immediately: “Be comfortable with your family. Work hard to make sure there is love in the White House.”
He went on to talk about how a president needs to have “rock solid” principles and warned that [...]

So let’s catch up with things on Iran since our last couple of posts (mine, David’s). In Europe on Sunday night, French foreign minister (and founder of Medecins sans Frontieres) Bernard Kouchner commented that:
“We have to prepare for the worst … the worst is war.”
That remark elicited a furious response from International Atomic Energy [...]

Research into voting patterns in Ghana:
This article explores voting behavior in one of Africa’s new democracies. Recognizing that much of the literature assumes African political behavior to be subsumed in ethnic ties and clientelism, we ask if individual voting behavior in Africa is driven by evaluative rationales based on retrospective or prospective judgments of the [...]

Eric Alterman on the role of narrative in election campaigns:
For the people who cover them for a living, elections are not about issues or evidence or even truth; they are about the narrative. Campaigns struggle to define it long before voters are paying attention–because once the narrative is determined, it’s virtually impervious to revision…
Each [...]

The filming of Kite Runner is causing trouble in Afghanistan…
Ahmad Jaan [father of an actor whose character is raped in the film] says his fears are two-fold - that the film will worsen relations between Hazaras and the dominant Pashtuns (both the boy rapist and the principal character Amir are Pashtun); and that his [...]

Over at Foreign Policy, there’s an interesting debate about Pakistan’s army. Sameer Lalwani, a policy analyst at the New America Foundation (and a democracy promotion sceptic) kicks it off with a love letter to President Musharraf and the military:
Despite all the talk of elections and civilian rule, meaningful democracy will not emerge in Pakistan anytime [...]

It’s hard to underestimate how buoyed Republicans have been by Petraeus’s testimony last week. They’re pleased by his reports of progress in Iraq, of course, but mainly they’re happy to see domestic political opponents on the back foot.
Allow three pieces from the Weekly Standard to illustrate the point.
Fred Barnes is giddy at the ‘air of [...]

It’s one thing for an ex-newspaper editor to engage in panic-for-publicity (see Alex’s post below), another for the ex-head of the US Federal Reserve to do the same.
But Alan Greenspan has done just that. Greenspan has mounted a major media offensive with three main messages.
First, you’re all screwed. Second, it didn’t happen on my watch. [...]

For a couple of years now, one of the big questions in Pakistan has been whether Musharraf will doff his uniform before seeking re-election as President. It now looks like the uniform will indeed be doffed…

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