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Daily Reads

Thirty Years After Khmer Rouge Falls, Trials Begin

News
February 17, 2009 – 6:13 am

Anyone familiar with UN operations will know the outline of this story: It took ten years, the obligatory rounds of graft and corruption, and deciding not to put genocidal maniacs to death before UN atrocity trials could start. Total alleged monsters in the dock: Four. Number dying in their sleep or otherwise not present: Unknown.

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A Glimpse Behind the Curtain on “TARP II”

Market
February 17, 2009 – 6:12 am

Pity Tim Geithner. Hobbled by a lack of personnel (is it an emergency if you won’t nominate people to handle it?) and political restraints that kept him from working with the prior Administration and the banks he’s looking to save, his volte-face last week was as predictable as the market crash after it was announced.

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With New Capital, Twitter Tries to Figure Out How to Make Money

Tech
February 17, 2009 – 6:11 am

Love them or loathe them, Tweets are ubiquitous and backed with millions in new capital. In a moment reminiscent of 1999, Twitter tries to figure out how to make money out of a service given away for free. Presumably, talks for a sale to Google are already underway.

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The Beginning of the End in Darfur?

News
February 17, 2009 – 6:11 am

Probably not, but it’s something, as the leading rebel group reaches an agreement to agree with the government after a fierce offensive concluding last week. The Janjaweed remains on the loose (and denied by Khartoum), and other rebel groups are still mobilized. Nevertheless, it’s the first breakthrough in years.

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Commentary Mag Must Be Doing Something Right

Politics
February 17, 2009 – 6:10 am

Properly deployed, mockery can be a deadly rhetorical tool. When it gives your fixations away — neocons took the Cold War too seriously, Sarah Palin sucks — you tell a reader more about yourself than your target. Siegel’s analysis of the new Commentary suffers from a reviewer’s great sin: judging something for what it’s not.

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Clinton Announces U.S. Wants Japan To Do Heavy Lifting in Asia

News
February 16, 2009 – 11:05 pm

Couched as a subtle renunciation of Bush foreign policy, Ms. Clinton tells the Japanese, struggling with a deepening recession, an aging population, and political turmoil at home, to carry more of the load in Asia, especially on North Korea. No word on how SecState intends to sell an increasingly protectionist America to the export-dependent Japanese.

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The View From Chicago: Too Many Promises for POTUS to Keep

Politics
February 16, 2009 – 7:56 am

Author and essayist Joseph Epstein on the nature of politicians and promise making, and how President Obama fully intended to deliver upon his, but has already joined the lengthy list of politicians to run into great difficulty, to “find the world obdurate, unwilling to go along with their fine intentions.”

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Victory for Hugo Chavez: No Term Limits To Hold Him Down

News
February 16, 2009 – 7:46 am

54% of Venezuela votes to eliminate term limit barrier for Hugo, allowing him to stand for re-election in three years. “Revolution saved” makes for a good headline – simpler than highest inflation in South America, overwhelming violent crime, and little hope of change til 2018.

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End of an Era: Sam Donaldson Retires

News
February 16, 2009 – 7:29 am

Retiring from television is a lot like being a professor emeritus – you still spend time wandering around campus – but for many, Donaldson was a model, the first of a line of more brash, outspoken journos covering the White House. “I guess it’ll be on my tombstone: ‘He yelled at Ronald Reagan.’”

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Japan Takes the Next Hit: GDP Down 12%

Market
February 16, 2009 – 7:22 am

Japan’s economy contracts 3.3% in last quarter, the worst performance in 35 years (OPEC oil crisis of 1974), three times as bad as the US in the same quarter. SecState Hillary lands there today. The ripple effect for the global economic downturn rolls onward.

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Cantor’s Rise in Resistance Movement Resembles Gingrich’s

Politics
February 16, 2009 – 7:12 am

The NYT profiles GOP Whip Eric Cantor. In typical conservatives in the mist fashion, Cantor is a “new face” despite receiving a serious look as a potential VP in 08. But in a more insightful moment, they note the parallels of Newt Gingrich’s emergence in the resistance of the early 90s with the VA Republican’s.

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Archbishop of Canterbury: Inevitability of Sharia Now a Fact of Life

News
February 16, 2009 – 7:03 am

A year ago, Archbishop Rowan Williams faced calls to resign when he claimed that it was “inevitable” that sharia law would become part of the legal authority in the UK, enforcing their own brand of harsh Islamic punishment. Williams now claims that his opinion is shared by the nation’s elite.

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- March 18, 2010 -

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