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Edward Jay Epstein on Iran
From time to time, Edward Jay Epstein, the expert on security expertise, sends me his assessments of various intelligence orthodoxies that he finds not very intelligent. I trust him, and not by instinct but by experience. Here , he asks the very important query: Will Iran Go Nuclear Under The Next President? His answer, in a word: yes.

Posted July 23, 2008 | 7:28 PM to The Spine | 3 Comments | Share this post
Al Jazeera: Not a Contribution to the Good of Mankind
I have been on Al-Jazeera television myself, and so have many of my friends, both Israelis and Americans. It is easy to be euchred into participating with a network that, at bottom, allows independent voices to be heard, at least some independent voices. Al-Jazeera is owned by the royal family of Qatar which has blazed an idiosyncratic trail in the...

Posted July 23, 2008 | 7:06 PM to The Spine | 1 Comments | Share this post
To the Mandlebaum Gate
It is now 43 years since Muriel Spark wrote The Mandelbaum Gate , a novel of love and intrigue suffused with politics. I wonder how many people can now locate the gate in situ. Actually, it is today a little museum commemorating the the squalid place where designated people crossed from one side of divided Jerusalem to the other, between Israel and...

Posted July 23, 2008 | 3:04 PM to The Spine | 19 Comments | Share this post
Obama's Jump Shot for the Ages
Now we know why Barack Obama spent so much time in the gym those last days in Chicago before taking off for Afghanistan. He was practicing jump shots, preparing for the sensational 25 footer he sank in the Kabul gym in front of cheering US troops. All practitioners prepare. Professionals are defined as much by preparation as practice. Great professionals...

Posted July 23, 2008 | 1:55 PM to Open University | 1 Comments | Share this post
About Those Evil Speculators...
So the Senate held a test vote yesterday on a bill to regulate "speculation" in the oil futures market, and it passed 95-0 . Now, it seems unlikely this bill's going anywhere, seeing as how Republicans want to tack on a slew of drilling amendments that will no doubt bog the whole thing down—in fact, I'd give even odds that Congress...

Posted July 23, 2008 | 1:31 PM to Environment and Energy | 7 Comments | Share this post