First impressions from a Georgian (the country)

First impressions — The Williams Record: Back to my initial question: Am I here with all of my heart? I cannot imagine being somewhere else – I want to be here. I want to be part of this marvelous community that impresses me more every day. I believe I am here with all my heart and with an accompanying inner voice that each day says louder and louder: I am Williams!

The Onion Is The Country’s Best Op-Ed Page. Seriously. | New Republic

The Onion Is The Country’s Best Op-Ed Page. Seriously. | New Republic: y."

The Onion isn’t Democratic or Republican. It’s clearly got a left-leaning outlook, but the editorial position is more properly characterized as against bullshit. This can include everything from the highhanded way Barack Obama deals with the press (“Dear The Onion,” reads a letter to the editor “from” him, “Just a polite reminder that you have to print whatever I send you”) or the appalling things campaigns make politicians do ("Romney Murdered JonBenet Ramsey, New Obama Campaign Ad Alleges”) or CNN’s unseemly pageview-trolling (“Let Me Explain Why Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance Was Our Top Story This Morning.”) Bullshit also includes the way people go through the motions of “dialogue” (as in this faux opinion column titled “America Needs To Have a Superficial Conversation on Race”) or fake-apologize (“The Onion isn’t sure exactly what it did wrong but it’ll apologize if that’s what you need to hear to move on”). Bullshit is even the way people deal with veterans, and what war does to people. (“Town Nervously Welcomes Veteran Back Home.”)

I don't get the meta going on here - it was an adult speech that had no news value to a high-volume news consumer

White House tweets to blunt speech critics - Dylan Byers - POLITICO.com: President Barack Obama’s Syria address was widely panned by leading foreign policy journalists on Tuesday night, leading to an intense pushback effort by top White House spokespeople on Twitter.

In messages directed at journalists from The New York Times, Bloomberg and other outlets, the White House communications team sought to wrest control of the narrative going forward even as the speech was being criticized as among the most ineffective in the history of the American presidency.

The Speech - Peggy Noonan's Blog - WSJ

The Speech - Peggy Noonan's Blog - WSJ: They ought to go back to giving major addresses in the Oval Office, because it has a mystique and stature that it lends to those who sit at the big desk. The president’s staffers apparently think the Oval is tired, or insufficiently groovy, or something. They have him stand at a podium and talk into an empty room under Bela Lugosi lighting. The groovelocity of this choice is lost on me.

Making Sense of Syria - Peggy Noonan's Blog - WSJ

Making Sense of Syria - Peggy Noonan's Blog - WSJ: This is what I think we’re seeing:

The president has backed away from a military strike in Syria. But he can’t acknowledge this or act as if it is true. He is acting and talking as if he’s coolly, analytically, even warily contemplating the Russian proposal and the Syrian response. The proposal, he must know, is absurd. Bashar Assad isn’t going to give up all his hidden weapons in wartime, in the middle of a conflict so bitter and severe that his forces this morning reportedly bombed parts of Damascus, the city in which he lives. In such conditions his weapons could not be fully accounted for, packed up, transported or relinquished, even if he wanted to.

Russia urges Syria to give up chemical weapons. Game changer or a shrewd bluff?

Russia urges Syria to give up chemical weapons. Game changer or a shrewd bluff?: Syria isn’t a Russian client state, exactly, but President Bashar al-Assad is existentially reliant on Russian support. In many ways, Russia’s willingness to negotiate matters even more than Syria’s – the road to peace almost surely runs through Moscow. So when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Monday that Syria should surrender its massive stockpile of chemical weapons to the international community, apparently endorsing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s call for the same, it was a big deal, and not just because Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem quickly announced that he “welcomed” the plan.

This certainly looks like a potential game-changer for the Syria crisis. But whether for the better or the worse depends on whether Russia really wants Assad to give up his weapons or is just bluffing. Either way, the announcement is a telling moment in the international stand-off over possible U.S. strikes on Syria – and a sign that the threat of strikes might actually be working better than we think.

Cowardice and Conscience | The American Conservative

Cowardice and Conscience | The American Conservative: If Congress votes “yes,” and does so for the reasons Douthat articulates (fear of crippling the Presidency), then “authorization” by Congress will have been reduced to a literal formality. How is that better than having a future President try to avoid facing Congress (and possibly face rebuke for doing so)? How, in particular, does it make it more likely that future Congresses will have the courage to stand up to Presidents who ignore or try to railroad them?

Moreover, a future President would have to consider not only the risk of going to Congress and losing, but would understand that this risk reflected real concern on the part of Congress of the political risk of voting yes to war. Such a President would necessarily be more cautious about committing America militarily in ambiguous situations, if only for fear of taking all that political risk on him- or herself.

Patience, Mr President. Patience. � The Dish

Patience, Mr President. Patience. � The Dish: And by using the G-20 Summit to insist that this breach of core human morality and decency not be ignored, Obama has already done a lot of what a military strike would do to protect this norm, without any of the bad consequences of intervening in the Syrian civil war. The world is intently watching – and Putin and Iran would be increasingly embarrassed if their client were to use these weapons again.
Another major incident and Russia would be using up a lot of capital to protect the murderous Alawite. Ditto Iran, whose more moderate elements are clearly sending a message that here is perhaps some smidgen of a basis to talk to the Americans again.

Issue 82: The Secret Life of Nuns :: Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good Writing

Issue 82: The Secret Life of Nuns :: Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good Writing: “We all went to the convent. Because in those days you went to college, we used to laugh, for an MRS: that’s where girls went to get smart men. There was no Peace Corps; there were no professional women; there was none of the women’s movement at that time.” Women could work as nurses, teachers, or secretaries, she said, “and that was only until you got married.” And while Carol describes her family as a happy one, married life seemed limiting. “At home my mom was a great cook, but she didn’t like it,” she says. “She read all the classics—I always remember her reading—but it didn’t look like she was excited about being a housewife.”

Her young teachers at St. Agnes were another story. “The nuns, they were happy. Great teachers, and interested in things.” Besides, she admits, “because I was much taller than the other girls, I thought, ‘Hmm, I wonder if I’ll ever get married.’” Carol graduated from high school in 1956 and that same year, along with nineteen other eighteen-year-olds—Sister Adrian included—entered the convent. She entered to be able to do more; not for a moment did she consider the cloister.

The 30 Happiest Facts Of All Time

The 30 Happiest Facts Of All Time: 23. Squirrels forgetting where they put their acorns results in thousands of new trees each year.

Obama on Syria

Remarks by President Obama in press conference at G-20 - Press Release - POLITICO.com:

     Over 1,400 people were gassed.  Over 400 of them were children.  This is not something we’ve fabricated.  This is not something that we are using as an excuse for military action.  As I said last night, I was elected to end wars, not start them.  I've spent the last four and a half years doing everything I can to reduce our reliance on military power as a means of meeting our international obligations and protecting the American people.  But what I also know is, is that there are times where we have to make hard choices if we’re going to stand up for the things that we care about.  And I believe that this is one of those times.

And if we end up using the U.N. Security Council not as a means of enforcing international norms and international law, but rather as a barrier to acting on behalf of international norms and international law, then I think people, rightly, are going to be pretty skeptical about the system and whether it can work to protect those children that we saw in those videos.

     And sometimes the further we get from the horrors of that, the easier it is to rationalize not making tough choices.  And I understand that.  This is not convenient.  This is not something that I think a lot of folks around the world find an appetizing set of choices.  But the question is, do these norms mean something?  And if we’re not acting, what does that say?

If we’re just issuing another statement of condemnation, or passing resolutions saying “wasn't that terrible,” if people who decry international inaction in Rwanda and say how terrible it is that there are these human rights violations that take place around the world and why aren’t we doing something about it — and they always look to the United States — why isn’t the United States doing something about this, the most powerful nation on Earth?  Why are you allowing these terrible things to happen?  And then, if the international community turns around when we’re saying it’s time to take some responsibility and says, well, hold on a second, we’re not sure — that erodes our ability to maintain the kind of norms that we're looking at.

Among Syria's Islamist Fighters : The New Yorker

Among Syria's Islamist Fighters : The New Yorker: “We call the Muslim Brotherhood ‘whatever the audience wants,’ ” said Mohammad, the Syrian Islamist fighter. He wore green military camouflage pants and a black T-shirt bearing the Islamic shahada in white script. “If the people say they want Sharia, they say they want it. If the people say they want democracy, they say they want it. They just want power.”

The very concept of moderate Islam was false, Omar claimed. “There’s no such thing—it is a modern expression,” he said. “A moderate Islamist means an Islamist who walks with them, who agrees with them, with the Americans, the Europeans, and Iran.”

Pure silliness

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The news down in Raleigh - POLITICO.com

The news down in Raleigh - POLITICO.com: Without question one of the smartest things we've read on the web today. (h/t @abeaujon)

The Syria Vote and “Iraq Syndrome” | The American Conservative

The Syria Vote and “Iraq Syndrome” | The American Conservative: It could be true that Obama’s presidency would be permanently damaged by a defeat of a Syria resolution, but it is doubtful that the U.S. would lose anything important because of this. Kerry made any number of “guarantees” to the Foreign Relations Committee about things that he couldn’t possibly know or guarantee with certainty, but one of the more preposterous claims that Kerry made yesterday was that the U.S. would lose allies by not attacking Syria. It is possible that relations with some client states in the Gulf would be strained, but it is silly to think that there are any allies of the United States that would cease to be allies because they found the U.S. response insufficient. Interventionists typically overstate the costs of inaction and underestimate the costs of the action they demand, and Galston’s column is no different.

The “no’s” keep piling up on Syria resolution in the House

The “no’s” keep piling up on Syria resolution in the House: What’s clear from these numbers is that it’s much more popular right now to express reservations about or opposition to military action in Syria. And maybe that’s not surprising, given the polls show military action is well short of popular.

The question is whether that’s a sign of things to come — and members will continue to come out against military action en masse — or whether the opponents are simply the first ones to speak up and/or the loudest.

Sullivan on Syria

The Dish:
But in every crisis there is an opportunity.
Lose the vote, don’t go to war, but go to the UN repeatedly and insistently. Gather more and more evidence. Get Ambassador Power to pummel the Russians and Chinese with their grotesque refusal to do anything about this ghastly mass murder. Expose Putin for the brutal thug that he is. And focus on the huge challenges at home: a still-weak economy, a huge overhaul of healthcare, a golden opportunity for immigration reform. That’s why he was elected. And his domestic legacy is at a pivotal point.
I know opposing this president is painful for so many who want him to succeed. It’s painful – agonizing – for me. I understand his genuine and justified revulsion at this use of chemical arms and the wanton, hideous brutality of the Assad regime. I deeply respect his moral stand. He is right that the international community should not stand by. But America cannot be the sucker who is responsible for countering all evil in the world and then blamed for every success and failure. We must not become the sole actor against evil in the world, and not only because, at this point, after GTMO and Abu Ghraib and pre-emptive war, we have no standing to do so. We simply do not have the ability or the resources to do it. We’re as fiscally bankrupt as we are militarily incapable of fighting other people’s wars for them. And asking the military to do another impossible job in another Middle East hell-hole is grotesquely irresponsible.

We are so divided

The Racial Dot Map: One Dot Per Person for the Entire U.S.

Malcolm Gladwell: Do Genetic Advantages Make Sports Unfair? : The New Yorker

Malcolm Gladwell: Do Genetic Advantages Make Sports Unfair? : The New Yorker: What we are watching when we watch �lite sports, then, is a contest among wildly disparate groups of people, who approach the starting line with an uneven set of genetic endowments and natural advantages. There will be Donald Thomases who barely have to train, and there will be Eero M�ntyrantas, who carry around in their blood, by dumb genetic luck, the ability to finish forty seconds ahead of their competitors. �lite sports supply, as Epstein puts it, a “splendid stage for the fantastic menagerie that is human biological diversity.” The menagerie is what makes sports fascinating. But it has also burdened high-level competition with a contradiction. We want sports to be fair and we take elaborate measures to make sure that no one competitor has an advantage over any other. But how can a fantastic menagerie ever be a contest among equals?

Candidate Obama =/= President Obama

Boston.com - Special reports - News: 2. In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites -- a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.