La présidentielle française, un espoir pour le pe

May 17th, 2012 - 
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Je me suis réveillée lundi matin, la tête lourde et le coeur gros. Il faut dire que j’étais resté éveillée jusqu’à trois heures du matin pour attendre les résultats des élections en France. Cela fait un mois que mon journal couvre jour après jour la campagne électorale, au point que je me demande encore par quelle chance je n’ai pas été poursuivi par Sarkozy ou Hollande jusque dans mes rêves.

Puis soudain, le téléphone a sonné: “Alors qui a gagné?” Office Project Key, m’a demandé mon interlocuteur de l’aube. “Hollande est arrivé premier… mais rien est encore joué”. Au bout du fil, c’était ma grand-mère de quatre-vingt six ans. Ce n’était pas la première fois qu’elle me surprenait. Je me souviens qu’en 2009, juste avant que la Grèce ne vienne chercher de l’aide auprès du FMI, elle m’avait appelé pour savoir “quelles étaient les tendances du jour sur les taux d’emprunt grecs”.

Vous voyez, un des effets de la crise grecque est que les gens ont commencé à développer toutes sortes d’obsessions. Certaines, comme l’intérêt développé pour l’élection présidentielle française, traduisent le besoin désespéré de trouver encore une raison d’espérer. D’autres, comme l’attention scrupuleuse portée sur les “spread”, relèvent de la pure psychose.

Les Grecs ont en effet perdu toute confiance en leurs politiques, qu’ils perçoivent non seulement comme des menteurs ou des traîtres mais aussi comme des incompétents. Et c’est donc tristement, je dois l’avouer, que la plupart se tournent vers l’étranger pour essayer de trouver des réponses à leurs angoisses.

Or à l’étranger Windows XP Key, un seul nom monopolise l’attention des médias et de l’opinion publique… celui de François Hollande. Et ce n’était qu’une question de temps avant que les attentes suscitées par la candidature du socialiste ne viennent envahir la Grèce. Sans vouloir exagérer, j’ai l’impression parfois que certains Grecs sont plus anxieux de connaître les résultats du second tour le 6 mai que l’issue de leur propre élection qui aura lieu pourtant le même jour.

Pour vous donner une idée, les élections qui se vont se jouer ici semblent se résumer à une ultime opportunité pour notre peuple de punir, de protester, voire même de pleurer sur les urnes apres avoir voté. En revanche Buy windows 7 key, l’élection française… On pourrait presque dire qu’elle ressemble à une veille de Nouvel an. Evidemment, les Grecs ne sont pas encore assommés par la stupidité. Ils ont bien conscience que François Hollande est loin d’être un “messie”. Mais ils ont tellement besoin d’espérer.

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The Court, the Constitution and the 2012 Campaign

May 17th, 2012 - 
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In the final round of hearings in a Supreme Court term that has seemed closely linked to the 2012 election campaign, the Supreme Court turns its attention this week to the emotional subject of immigration controls. At issue is the constitutionality of a 2010 Arizona law so widely known that its very title — S.B. 1070 — seems enough to start a political argument.

The Justices, after examining how the parties may fare in redistricting Congress and state legislatures, and whether Congress exceeded its powers in passing the new health care law, will close out their hearing calendar on Wednesday with a third politically volatile event: an hour-long review of states’ power to regulate the lives of undocumented immigrants.

Although the timing is a coincidence, the hearing would seem to be a judicial echo of the political dispute between likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has described the Arizona law as a model for other states, and President Obama, who has sent his legal team on a mission to scuttle S.B. 1070’s main provisions.

The Justices, of course, will do what they can to put political notions aside as they explore the division of power over immigration between national and state governments. But with a final decision in the Arizona case likely to emerge by late June, the outcome cannot avoid becoming a focus of campaign debate.

Moreover, that decision may well have an impact on other new laws that were passed in the wake of Arizona’s: in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah.

For the Court, this is not a new issue. Thirty years ago, a Supreme Court Justice wrote in a Texas case: Perhaps because of the intractability of the problem, Congress — vested by the Constitution with the responsibility of protecting our borders and legislating with respect to aliens — has not provided effective leadership in dealing with this problem.

Even so, the Court back then was unwilling to let a border state deal with the problem by replica watches, for example, barring the children of undocumented immigrants from attending public schools.

The question now recurs before the Court: with Congress still unwilling (or unable politically) to legislate in a comprehensive way on the fate of perhaps 12 million non-citizens living illegally in the U.S., are the states free to step in to impose significant restrictions on their social and economic opportunities?

The sponsors of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 and similar measures candidly admit that such measures are designed to be sufficiently onerous as to lead millions of those individuals and families to leave altogether, preferably to return to their home countries rather than moving to other states.

And, because of that very objective in the law replica watches, the federal government has challenged it on the theory that Arizona is trying to have its own policy on deportation, and that is something that the Constitution treats as a matter for the federal government, alone or in cooperation that it invites from the states.

As the fight over S.B. 1070 reaches the Justices, it is a test of whether Arizona can begin enforcing four provisions that currently are on hold under lower court orders. Two of the sections create new crimes for undocumented immigrants: for failure to have legal immigration papers while in Arizona, and for applying for or holding a job. The other two require police to check up on legal status, or arrest without a warrant, an individual who is suspected of not having a legal right to be in the U.S.

The federal government has challenged those four sections on the theory that they rely upon a regime of strict law enforcement that conflicts with the way federal officials have set priorities in enforcement of immigration laws.

Thus, the central focus of Wednesday’s hearing appears likely to be on the question of whether the federal approach and Arizona’s approach can co-exist. Lurking in the case, though not centrally at issue at this stage, is whether the Arizona approach amounts to a form of “racial profiling” that will reach not just undocumented immigrants, but Hispanics and other persons of color who actually have a legal right to be in the country — including citizens and legal permanent residents.

The argument this week provides a return engagement between the two leading advocates who faced off last month when the Court reviewed the constitutionality of the new health care law: U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. — the government’s top advocate before the Court — and Washington attorney Paul C. Clement, a former Solicitor General who is now considered one of the most talented private advocates before the Court.

Once Wednesday’s hour is over, the Court will meet in private on Friday to cast its first, preliminary vote on the Arizona law, and begin probably weeks of deliberation.

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s Adviser on Constitutional Literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 54 years replica watches, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

   

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I Loved the Cheap Public Transport, Says British S

May 17th, 2012 - 
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The football enthusiast would instantly shout out Maradona and Messi. The movie lover would point to Evita. The wine specialist would endorse the Mendoza wine. What would you associate Argentina with?

Argentina may not be as popular a destination for UK students studying Spanish as Spain, but it was where British student Selina Yasmin headed to last July. She talks about studying in Buenos Aires for a semester, the night life, the people and travelling around Argentina. But although she was excited to be there, her experience was not all rosy.

Selina, who is completing a French and Spanish degree at Queen Mary, University of London, spent the first part of her compulsory year abroad in Argentina. She enrolled for the second semester at the University of Belgrano in Buenos Aires in July last year. Asked why she chose Argentina, Selina says that “it seemed quite different”. She had previously travelled through South America, but had never been to the birthplace of the tango.

Tuition fees

Selina arranged her semester on her own and it all happened very quickly for her. “By the time I had my UK exam results I was leaving the next month.” The academic year in Argentina runs from March to December. Selina arrived there for the second semester, from July to November. She had to sit exams in November. Selina paid $1,600 (£990) for the whole semester which required her to take four modules. “Everything is done in dollars there, not pesos,” explains Selina.

Student visa

The 27-year-old applied for a tourist visa free of charge, instead of a student one, because she only had a month before boarding the plane for Argentina. The Argentinean Embassy in London would have taken two months to issue her a student visas. Once in Buenos Aires, Selina applied for a student visa, for which you need a criminal check, she explains. “They check if you’ve committed crimes in Argentina, which was funny because you could have committed crimes elsewhere, but they were just interested in Argentina.” The criminal record check cost her 40 Argentine pesos (£6), while her student visa amounted to 300 pesos (£45). “It was a lot cheaper doing it there than doing it in Britain,” which would have cost around £100. Selina describes her student visa as “very basic”. She says: “I was only given an A4 piece of paper and they said, ‘just keep it on you’ – no stamp in the passport like they give international students entering the UK.”

Accommodation

Selina, who is also a make-up artist, lived in Central Buenos Aires, only five minutes’ walk from her university. It was not halls of residence, but a flat run by the University of Belgrano, which placed her with other international students. This was not to Selina’s liking. She thought she would be with Argentineans; instead she was “stuck with Americans” and so did not get the chance to practise her Spanish at home. “You don’t know who you’re going to be living with,” because the Argentinean university does not give any information, says Selina. “I wish I had requested to be with a host Argentinean family.”

What also partly marred her experience in Argentina was the fact Selina had to pay for her accommodation before she even got there. It cost her $1,800 (£1,110) for five months. “I was a bit suspicious,” she says, “If I gave my money to a dodgy landlord, I’ve got no protection.” Selina wishes she had more support from her home university in London with getting ready for Argentina.

Academic life

Another disappointment was Selina’s academic experience. She says she did not enjoy Argentina properly, as she had to both study for her exams there and do work for her university back in London. “I could have been doing so much more instead of being bogged down with work.” Selina also did not have the chance to mix with the native students. “My whole class was American, with the exception of two French students.” She never had lessons with Argentineans. What Selina found even more frustrating was that two months in Tattoo Kits Tattoo Kits, the university told her she could have taken classes with Argentineans – but it was too late for that. “I didn’t get a feel for the true Argentina.” That is why she says she would not recommend the University of Belgrano.

However, this situation did not discourage her. Selina was in Argentina to improve her Spanish, so she took the initiative to find other ways to mix with the natives. She had a Spanish lecturer who taught her about Argentinean customs, the gauchos, etc. Selina also joined the local mosque Top Tattoo Machines, the biggest in Latin America, where she celebrated Ramadan. Meeting native Argentineans helped her considerably, she says.

Weather

When Selina arrived in Argentina in July, it did not look like summer at all. She had forgotten about the Southern Hemisphere and that the weather was the other way round. “I thought it would be like our spring.” She soon realised that was not the case. “Some days it’d be thunder storming and pouring down with rain, and at other times it would be bitterly windy and cold.” Spring came towards the end of September, when it started getting warmer, humid and then hot, prompting the mostuiqos to come out.

Life in Buenos Aires

As she set foot in Buenos Aires, Selina had the impression she was in Europe. “The architecture and the style of buildings reminded me so much of Europe, of Madrid and Barcelona,” she says. “I loved the fact that public transport was so cheap compared to London – only 16p for a single tube ticket.” Despite the low travel fares, it inconveniently stops at 10pm, says Selina.

As for the Argentineans, Selina describes them as “really friendly”. But her praise stops there. “The queues are horrendous everywhere,” she says, “the supermarket, the bank, the post office.” Argentineans are known to take their time, Selina adds. She draws this comparison with England: “When it’s lunchtime, you’re in a rush to get your lunch; you’ve got your hour break. Everyone understands that in London and in big towns. But in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, they don’t understand that concept. When you need to go because you have a class, it doesn’t mean anything to them.”

Selina also noticed that Argentina, particularly Buenos Aires, is a very lustful culture. “People aren’t afraid to show public displays of affection. They are very open.” To her amazement Handmade Tattoo Machine, she found out that “if someone finds you attractive, he will come up to you, even if it’s obvious you’re on your way to university”. Selina continues: “You wouldn’t get people saying that to you in England. It was surprising because they are a lot more upfront, compared to English people who are so reserved. We’re also a lot more conservative.”

Night life

This open behaviour did not affect Selina. What she found odd was Argentina’s drinking patterns. “In England we’ve got a very big drinking culture and I was used to that. But in Argentina it was more.” Selina was not used to seeing “people drinking till 5, 6, 7 o’clock in the morning and then going straight to work.” She adds: “It would have been understandable if they were teenagers going through that phase. But these were people in their late 20s and mid-30s.”

Dinner time in Argentina is between 10pm and 1am, says Selina. Most restaurants will be closed between 5pm and 9pm, as they open very late. People start going to bars and clubs at around 2am. “I was used to going out at 8-9pm, coming back at 2am,” exclaims Selina. “It was so hard. I did it a couple of times, and then I thought, ‘No, I can’t do this’.”

Food

Despite the late nights out in Buenos Aires Selina could not get used to, the only thing she missed about Britain was Indian food. Selina, who is of Bengali origin, says in Argentina “spicy food does not exist”. She found it extremely hard to get hold of green chillies in the supermarket. “Luckily, I’d taken over pickles and chillies from home in my suitcase. I had a feeling it might not be to their liking.” What Argentineans are most keen on is meat – steak and chicken – something Selina was forced to live on as it was cheap. “Seafood was very expensive,” she recalls, “A can of tuna cost between £1.50 and £2, whereas I could buy three pieces of meat in Argentina for that amount.

Travel

Although her workload did not give her much free time, Selina was able to explore some parts of Argentina. She gives away her passion for the country when she starts talking excitedly about going to Mendoza (Argentina’s primary wine producing region), where she did wine tasting, visiting San Ignacio and delighting in the Iguazu Falls in Brazil. The Iguazu Falls, which is one of the natural wonders of the world and sits between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, was the highlight of Selina’s three-day trip, which cost her $300 (£186). “Travelling is expensive in South America,” says Selina. But she was so impressed with Argentina she wants to go back in a couple of years and travel. She wants to visit El Calafate, one of the world’s southernmost towns.

Selina, who is currently doing a semester in Granada, Spain, wholeheartedly recommends going to Argentina. But anyone who is thinking of studying there should carefully prepare well in advance to avoid disappointments similar to Selina’s. The University of Buenos Aires is the highest placed university in Argentina.

Photos by Selina Yasmin

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Mitt Romney on Offense on ‘War on Women’, Packs

May 17th, 2012 - 
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HARTFORD, Conn. – The Mitt Romney campaign is going on the offense addressing a perceived gender gap Tattoo Ink Colors, filing in groups of women at his events, repeating again and again their argument that more than 92 percent of jobs lost under the Obama administration were held by women and now sending a barrage of statements from female politicians disparaging the President’s economic policies.

“I was disappointed in listening to the president as he’s saying, ‘Oh Republicans are waging a war on women,’” Romney said today, speaking at Alpha Graphics in downtown Hartford Tattoo Kits Cheap, a female-run business. “The real war on women is being waged by the president’s failed economic policies.”

Romney, who yesterday also spoke at a female-run construction firm in Delaware and also met with female business leaders privately before both events, then took one of the signs that his staff had handed out before his event began that features a graphic of jobs lost under the Obama administration – from the hands of a businesswoman – and spoke about the numbers.

“This is an amazing statistic – the percentage of jobs lost by women in the president’s 3 – 3/12 years – 92.3 percent of all the jobs lost during the Obama years have been lost by women,” said Romney. “92.3 percent! Now the president says, ‘Oh I didn’t cause this recession,’ that’s true. He just made it worst and made it last longer and because it lasted longer, more and more women lost jobs. Such that in his 3 ½ years, 92.3 percent of the people who have lost jobs have been women.”

“His failures have hurt women,” Romney said of Obama.

The Romney campaign has backed up their claim by providing employment statistics between January 2009, when Obama first took office, and March 2012, but Democrats and the Obama administration have pounced, saying that the numbers the campaign is using, while not inaccurate, do not reflect the full context of the situation when Obama took office.

But both the Obama campaign and the nonpartisan fact-check site Politifact have taken issue with Romney’s figures. Politifact also rated the Romney campaign’s claim and the 92 percent figure as “mostly false.” Read Politifact’s argument here. The site suggested job losses were split between both the Bush and Obama presidencies. Men suffered more job losses at the outset of the recession when President Bush was in office.

“Given the growing gender gap and how women voters are increasingly turning their backs on Mitt Romney’s extreme agenda, it’s not surprising that Mitt Romney would resort to misleading attacks on the President’s record,” said Lis Smith, an Obama campaign spokeswoman. “He may try to pretend that the economic crisis never happened to justify why he supports the policies that created it in the first place, but it won’t change the fact that the economy was hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month when President Obama took office.”

“Because of the President’s policies we’ve since seen 25 straight months of job growth and 4 million jobs- including over 1 million for women- created in the private sector,” said Smith. “The President has worked every day to help restore women’s economic security: from signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which makes it easier for women to receive equal pay for equal work, to ensuring women don’t pay more than men for their health care and supporting women-owned small businesses through new access to federal contracting programs.”

Romney’s economic advisor, Lanhee Chen, said on a conference call that the percentage is an “undisputed fact.”

“It is an undisputed fact that women account for 92.3 percent of the jobs lost since President Obama took office,” said Chen. “I know there has been some confirmation about this, folks have discussed the reality of how harsh this economy has been on women, but no amount of spin by the Obama campaign can hide the enormous damage this president has done to American women.”

“So the president should stop spinning and stop making excuses for his failure and instead focus on what it’s going to take to get American women and the American people back to work,” said Chen.

The Romney campaign, further seeking to drive their point home about the Obama economy’s damage to women, sent out three press releases in defense of their argument from female Romney backers, including Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack Cheap Tattoo Machines, Former Massachusetts Lt. Gov, Kerry Healey and Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

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Kevin Durant Impersonates Russell Westbrook for Sp

May 16th, 2012 - 
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This post originally appeared on Freakonomics.com

If you have been watching the NBA recently — and with the playoffs going on, you should be — you may have seen the following ad for Sprint:

Often people don’t pay attention to what people say in ads. But this one — starring Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder — has a very interesting opening line: “Man I was double-teamed. With no one to pass it to, so I pulled up and hit the shot for the win…”

Let’s think about this for the moment. Durant says he has two defenders on him (i.e. he is double-teamed). That means — if the other team is playing the standard five players Cheap DKNY Clothing, there are three more defenders on the court. And if Durant has four teammates on the court (and that would be standard), there must be someone open. But Durant says that there is no one to pass it to.

Hmmmm…

Players get paid more when they take the shot.

If you watch closely, Durant isn’t really double-teamed. But the words still seem quite revealing of something we noted in Stumbling On Wins (and The Wages of Wins, and in academic articles, and… okay, I said this a few times before). NBA players are primarily paid to score. So although Durant had to have someone open, he really doesn’t have much incentive to find that player. Players get paid more when they take the shot. Having their teammate take a shot — even if it is an open shot — may help the team win the game, but it doesn’t always help an individual player get paid.

Now in Durant’s case, it is often true that he is one of the best options on the Thunder (although probably not if he was really double-teamed). And Durant is actually above average — for a small forward — with respect to assists (so he does pass the ball).

There is another Thunder player, though, who Durant appears to be impersonating.

During the regular season, Russell Westbrook finished fifth in the NBA in points scored per game (Durant finished first). Although this scoring mark might seem impressive, when one delves a bit deeper we see that of the six players to log 1,000 minutes for the Thunder this year, Westbrook was sixth in effective field goal percentage (field goal percentage from the field that adjusts for the impact of three-point shooting). And he was only fifth in true shooting percentage (this percentage adjusts from both three-point and free throw shooting). Furthermore, relative to an average point guard, Westbrook was… well Replica Herve Leger gown, about average with respect to shooting efficiency (he was also below average — for a point guard — with respect to assists).

In contrast, Durant — relative to an average small forward — was well above average with respect to shooting efficiency. And James Harden — relative to an average shooting guard — was just amazing. Whereas the average two-guard has an effective field goal percentage of 48.2 percent, Harden posted a mark of 58.2 percent (or 10 points higher). Per game, though, Westbrook took nine more shots from the field than Harden.

Now who would make such a decision? Who would think it is a good idea to have Westbrook — with an effective field goal percentage of 48. percent% — take nine more shots per game than Harden? Well, Westbrook is the Thunder’s point guard. So many possessions begin with Westbrook having the ball. And just like the Sprint commercial, often Westbrook — given the incentives he faces — probably can’t see anyone who is open. So therefore, he simply has to take the shot. The means that Westbrook scores more points than Harden. And it also means that Westbrook makes more money than Harden.

In fact, Westbrook signed a contract extension in January that reportedly will pay him the maximum salary allowed by the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. One suspects that if Westbrook didn’t score so much — and he wouldn’t if he passed more to players like Harden — the Thunder would be even more impressive on the floor. But Westbrook’s contract would be less impressive. And so, it pays to believe in the NBA that “no one is open.” Even if the mathematics of the game tell us that this probably isn’t true.

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VIDEOCarrera GT, MC12, SLR in Italy – what’s not t

May 15th, 2012 - 
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We’ll keep this simple: three of the world’s finest supercars in one of the world’s best supercar playgrounds. The hardcore action doesn’t go much beyond each car getting a solo peelout. However, each machine does get plenty of individual Tattoo Supplies, loving, lifestyle-themed attention. And the sights and sounds — ah Tattoo Supplies, sehr gut and che bella. Enjoy the video after the jump.

[Source: You Tube]

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Political Brinksmanship

May 14th, 2012 - 
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Mitch McConnell

The Senate seems on its way to ratifying the New START on nuclear arms, an achievement that looked unlikely to say the least just a few weeks ago.

If a Republican were president, the accord would have excited no controversy and at most a handful of diehard nays. As even most of its critics conceded, the treaty’s text contains nothing objectionable in substance.

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There were two kinds of opponents in this debate. The first had concerns that President Barack Obama would use the treaty as an excuse to ease up on missile defense and the programs to maintain the nuclear arsenal. In recent weeks Karen Millen Dresses sale, Obama and his team did as much to allay these concerns as any hawk could have hoped—and more than many doves preferred.

So that left the second kind of opponent: those who simply wanted to deny Obama any kind of victory. The latter motive was clearly dominant in this debate.

The task of Obama and the Democratic floor managers, Sens. Harry Reid and John Kerry, was to convince enough Republicans to view the issue not as political gamesmanship but as an urgent matter of national security. Hence their rallying of every retired general Replica DKNY Clothes, former defense secretary, and other security specialist—Republican and Democrat—that anyone had ever heard of. (At one point, Sen. Susan Collins Discount Emilio Pucci Dresses, R-Maine, said she might vote for the treaty if former President George H.W. Bush endorsed it. A few days later, Bush released a statement doing just that.)

The amazing thing is, Obama and the Democrats pulled it off. Perhaps it was too obvious that the treaty’s opponents were able to muster no outside officers or experts to their side, except John Bolton, who has never met a disarmament treaty he liked and who, faced with this treaty, had to dissemble even more blatantly than usual to make his case.

And so the Republican leadership made this a purely political battle and—fresh off what had seemed a triumphant election season—suffered an astonishingly egregious defeat.

It is extremely doubtful, for instance, that the Obama administration will ever again bargain over national-security issues with Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the minority whip.

For reasons that nobody can quite explain, Kyl had managed in the past few years to cut a profile as the “go-to” Republican on all matters nuclear. The conventional wisdom was that if Kyl endorsed the treaty, it would pass; if he didn’t, it wouldn’t.

And so, the White House and the Pentagon sent high-level emissaries to Kyl’s lair during the Senate’s recess to negotiate a deal, offering, among other enticements, an extra $4 billion, on top of the $80 billion already committed over the next decade, to “modernize” the nuclear-weapons infrastructure.

Kyl took the goodies but came out against the treaty anyway. So Obama and his aides did something no legislative powerhouse should ever let happen—they went around him, treating him as just another senator Karen Millen Dresses sale, and they won.

Kyl limps away from this face-off gravely wounded—a leader unable to deliver either on his promises or on his threats.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, shot himself in the foot, too Cheap Emilio Pucci Dresses, coming out against the treaty only in the last couple days—thus making the Republican yea votes seem like a rebellion within a rank-and-file that, until now, has been remarkably disciplined.

An astonishing 11 Republicans broke ranks to vote for cloture and thus end the debate—a measure approved by 67 senators (enough to ratify the treaty when that vote takes place Buy Missoni Dresses, probably Wednesday) and rejected by only 28.

It would go too far to interpret this vote as a pivot in the political contests to come. Just because Obama was able to split off nearly a dozen Republicans (instead of the usual one or two, at most) on a truly major political issue doesn’t mean he’ll be able to do the same on future votes about taxes, stimulus packages, energy programs, or even disarmament treaties.

Still, in the game of political perceptions, it’s the Republicans who appear to be “reeling” now.

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Obama’s Muslim Problem

May 14th, 2012 - 
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When it comes to any issue that involves Islam, President Obama starts with an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that he’s seen as sympathetic to Muslims. The disadvantage is also that he’s seen as sympathetic to Muslims.

With a Muslim name Buy Herve Leger gown, African Muslim ancestry on his father’s side Buy Missoni Dresses, and the experience of growing up in Indonesia for part of his childhood, Obama understands Islam better than any previous American president. This gives him an opportunity, which he has seized Discount DKNY Clothing, to try to defuse Muslim hostility and pursue a less acrimonious relationship with Muslim nations. But 11 percent of the public continues to believe that the president is himself a Muslim. Though this is untrue and raises the question Colin Powell asked—so what if he were?—the president’s heritage feeds a broader suspicion that he is too casual about the threat from America’s Islamist enemies.

Obama’s challenge has always been to get the benefit of his special relationship with Islam while containing the political hazards it brings. With Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s murdering rampage at Fort Hood, that balancing act just got a lot harder. Before Fort Hood, the president had mainly called for conciliation. In his first official interview as president, with the Arabic news network Al Arabiya, Obama said: “My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.” He subsequently developed that theme in several speeches, including his June address at Cairo University, when he asked for “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.”

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With the toll of Americans killed in Iraq dropping and the domestic fear of terrorism in decline, such sentiments played reasonably well at home. But the context of Obama’s Islamic rapprochement was shifting even before Fort Hood. American casualties in Afghanistan have more than doubled over the past year. In the past several months, officials have also interrupted a rash of domestic terror plots. These include four men accused of planning to attack synagogues and shoot down military aircraft in Newburgh, N.Y.; an Afghan man charged with making bombs in Colorado; an alleged attempt by a Jordanian teenager to blow up a 60-story skyscraper in Dallas; and a Boston-area man’s alleged plot to attack a shopping mall. Obama’s olive-branch strategy may make America safer over the long term. In the short term Cheap Chloe Dresses, there’s no empirical evidence that it has done so.

With the massacre in Texas, Obama now confronts something that Bush did not face in the years after Sept. 11—not just a major act of domestic terrorism but one struck from inside our security apparatus. Fort Hood does much more serious damage to Obama’s premise that greater friendliness toward Islam is a viable strategy for countering the Islamist threat. If the warning signs flashing from Nidal Hasan were ignored, the desire to avoid appearing prejudiced or unfair to Muslims may have been partly to blame. And this points to Obama’s Muslim disadvantage. Almost immediately after the shooting, he began facing renewed accusations that he didn’t take the radical Islamist threat to American security—at home or in Afghanistan—seriously enough.

In his artful eulogy at the Nov. 10 memorial service at Fort Hood, Obama managed to balance the pressure to show toughness with his conciliatory approach. Without using the words Islam or Muslim Cheap DKNY Dresses, the president made clear what kind of fanaticism he was talking about. After stating that “no faith justifies” murder, he distinguished between America’s tradition of religious tolerance and the religious extremism implicated in the killings. “We’re a nation that guarantees the freedom to worship as one chooses Herve Leger sale,” he said. “And instead of claiming God for our side, we remember Lincoln’s words, and always pray to be on the side of God.”

Obama is right to continue emphasizing the all-important distinction between religious views compatible with democratic pluralism and those that aren’t. As he deals with the fallout of the attack, he must continue to separate Islamic extremism from Islam as a whole. But his words at Fort Hood, while comforting, do not really come to grips with the problem. America does not face a threat from the perversion of faith in general. We face a threat from the perversion of one faith in particular. The president needs to dip into his reservoir of good will to remind mainstream Muslims of their special responsibility. If militant Islamism is a distortion of their moderate beliefs, only their beliefs can defeat it.

A version of this article also appears in this week’s issue of Newsweek.

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LA 2007Porsche Cayman S Porsche Design Edition 1 i

May 14th, 2012 - 
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click above image to view more pics of the Porsche Cayman S Porsche Design Edition

Porsche displayed one extra cool looking Cayman S at the LA Auto Show Cheap Chanel Dresses, with a heckuva mouthful of a name. This black on black Cayman S was sporting 997 Turbo wheels and a unique stripe and lettering set Karen Millen Dresses sale, plus a moniker that would cost more than the car if sold by the syllable. Officially known as the Porsche Cayman S Porsche Design Edition 1, it impressed us with its surprisingly attractive stripes and its handsome Turbo rims. Very sharp. As we told you back in August Cheap Herve leger strapless, this special Cayman S was built to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Ferdinand Alexander Porsche’s original Porsche Design project Emilio Pucci Dresses sale, their first chronograph. Porsche Design is perhaps best known for its consumer goods, but this 777-car limited edition Cayman shows that they can dress up cars, as well.

Porsche has worked hard to incorporate the Porsche Design look into a Cayman S. The gauge cluster takes on the appearance of a Porsche Design chrono Discount Herve Leger gown, and the entire car is finished in black inside and out. The body is lowered 10mm and the exterior is further set off by the 19-inch 911 Turbo wheels and matte black accent striping on the doors Replica Herve Leger gown, hood, roof, and rear deck. Black Alcantara and a special plaque on the instrument panel help trim out the passenger cabin. Each car also comes with a briefcase packed with Porsche Design goodies including a chronograph, pen, sunglasses, knife and keyring. Like the car, these personal items are finished in all black. Porsche Design Edition 1 sales kick off this month in Germany, with US sales following in January of 2008. The price? €58,600 in Germany (€69,942 with the 19% VAT factored in). We presume US pricing will be announced closer to its arrival Stateside and don’t harbor any doubts that Porsche will easily sell out the 777-car run.

[Source: Porsche]

Related GalleryPorsche Cayman S “Porsche Design Edition 1″

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Prisoners of Bush

May 13th, 2012 - 
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U.S. President George W. Bush announces his tax cut plan in the White House February 5, 2001 in Washington, DC.

Photograph by Pool Photo/Newsmakers.

The death of the supercommittee was announced, in classic Washington fashion, by two lung-emptying interviews on Meet the Press. Sen. Jon Kyl, the debacle’s senior Republican Piaget Replica Watches, bemoaned Democrats for being “unable to cut even $1 in spending without saying it has to be accompanied by tax increases.” Meanwhile, the thwarted Republican heroes of the committee had proposed a plan under which “the wealthiest Americans would pay more taxes than they do now.”

It was left to Sen. John Kerry, the committee Democrat who’d staked the most on a deal, to put Kyl’s words through the shredder. By saying people would pay more taxes than they do now, Kyl was only affirming that Republicans wanted to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, then start tinkering. The tax cut deal of 2010 only extended the Bush rates to January 2013. Republicans wanted to rewrite the deal, extend the rates forever, and add an estimated $2 trillion to the debt in exchange for a smaller number of revenue-raisers and loophole-busters.

The “most significant block to our doing something right now, tomorrow,” said Kerry, “is their insistence, insistence, insistence on the Grover Norquist pledge and extending the Bush tax cuts. Now, we are not a tax-cutting committee. We’re a deficit-reduction committee.”

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By failing, the supercommittee will still have reduced the deficit. (It leaves the current tax code, including the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, in place, and it will result in automatic spending cuts unless Congress decides it won’t.) But it could have done more. The Bush tax cuts cut the top marginal tax rate by 4.6 percentage points and the other rates by 3 points. They were passed 10 years ago, were all set to expire 11 months ago, were extended by a glum President Obama Fake Porsche Design Watches, and—this is probably the important part—made it impossible to shrink the deficit or fix the tax code. By extension Replica Vacheron Constantin Watches, they prevented Democrats from giving in and reforming entitlements.

That’s not the pathetic part. The pathetic part is that all of this was predictable when the tax cuts were passed 10 years ago. There were plans that would have prevented us from getting locked in to tax rates too low to fund a country heading into an entitlement crunch. The plans were rejected. They were sold as a stimulus, as a solution to a unique problem—high surpluses—that soon evaporated. Ten years later, the supercommittee was trapped by a tax policy that stopped making sense within a year of being passed.

This story begins in January 2001, at the beginning of George W. Bush’s presidency. He’d promised to enact a $1.3 trillion tax cut. (The number had increased during the campaign.) He took office with wan Republican majorities in favor of tax cuts—with conditions. His treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, and his inherited Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, had conditions Fake Glashutte Watches, too. On Jan. 5, 2001, the two men met and agreed on a way to cut taxes without risking huge deficits. They would back them, but suggest “triggers” that canceled them out if the surpluses melted way. “A good enough idea Where find Replica Tudor Watches,” said O’Neill, “if it can be sold.”

It wasn’t sold. For starters, the Bush administration didn’t want the triggers. Republicans running the House and Senate budget committees didn’t want them, either. The coup de grace was Greenspan’s Jan. 25 testimony on the tax plan. When Greenspan gave the remarks to Sen. Kent Conrad, the ranking member of the committee, the Democrat warned him that he’d “unleash the deficit dogs,” and “all those who want more tax cuts will see this as confirmation that they’re right.” Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin gave him the same advice.

Greenspan gave his testimony. The “trigger” stuff made it in there, albeit in murky Greenspanese. He floated a “phased in” tax plan that “would limit surplus-reducing actions if specified targets for the budget surplus and federal debt were not satisfied.” He had to: “What if, for example, the forces driving the surge in tax revenues in recent years begin to dissipate or reverse in ways that we do not now foresee?”

Almost nobody noticed. The headline was the Maestro of the Markets backing tax cuts, not any of the nuance. “It turned out that Conrad and Rubin were right,” Greenspan wrote in his memoirs. “The tax-cut testimony proved to be politically explosive.” When I brought up this comedy of errors to Conrad Fake Calvin Klein Watches, he remembered—without much joy—that Greenspan told him he “wished he’d followed my advice.”

“I supported a trigger, because it was better than the tax cuts with no trigger,” said Conrad. “It was rejected by those who insisted on the whole enchilada.”

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