‘It has become fashionable to dismiss The Selling of the President 1968 as a shallow and cynical book written in the breezy New Journalism of its moment. In the November 2006 issue of Smithsonian magazine, Jonathan Yardley took just this tack, arguing that the book’s pivotal role in stoking American political cynicism “helps explain why the book remains in print today, for the truth is that otherwise it doesn’t hold up very well,’ writes Richard Byrne. (more…)

‘Capitalism has improved the lives of billions of people — something that’s easy to forget at a time of great economic uncertainty. But it has left out billions more. They have great needs, but they can’t express those needs in ways that matter to markets. So they are stuck in poverty, suffer from preventable diseases and never have a chance to make the most of their lives. Governments and nonprofit groups have an irreplaceable role in helping them, but it will take too long if they try to do it alone.| MORE ›

In what can be considered yet another column about the ‘how to improve America’s image’ subject, John Shattuck does not propose anything new… yet it is important to read his op-ed and to think and talk about it nonetheless. (more…)

Michael Barone calls the 2008 presidential campaign, in his latest column for Real Clear Politics, ‘unstable.’ According to the experts, this election is Barack Obama’s to lose. According to the experts, Clinton should have won the Democratic nomination. According to the experts, McCain’s campaign was dead last year. According to the experts, McCain’s national campaign was doomed from the start, simply because he’s a Republican.| MORE ›

Shiite terrorist organization Hizbollah is stronger than it was two years ago when it kidnapped Israeli soldiers which resulted in a war between Hizbollah and Israel – which caused Israeli PM Olmert to lose a lot of respect and authority – and the group is ‘ready to respond with force to any provocation,’ a senior commander told the British newspaper the Telegraph. (more…)

According to the Telegraph, researchers from the University of New Mexico have come to the conclusion that the development of religion may have been a way to stem the spread of disease.  Their recently released study shows that areas of the world where religious diversity is highest, diseases do not spread as far.

(more…)

John McCain is finally talking about religion, though perhaps not as many expected he would.

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I’m getting sick of these character attacks…from both candidates.

(h/t Patrick Appel @ Daily Dish)

Not long after Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that the AK Parti should not be closed down, despite its anti-secular agenda, I published a post arguing that Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his fellow AKP leaders should be careful in the coming months and years; the AKP will be closed down, I wrote, if they make more ‘mistakes’ / act too often in breach with the constitution.

Thus, I thought, the AKP would be wise to follow a different course.| MORE ›

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced that he will step down in September of this year. That is prematurely, but not too soon; he is, among other things, accused of corruption and he is perceived as one of the weakest Israeli leaders in history. As a result, support for him has dropped significantly; so much even so, that he will be replaced as the leader of his party Kadima (probably by today’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni).  (more…)

‘In their haste to do anything the financial guys seem to want, Congress and the lame-duck President are, I fear, sowing far more profound troubles for the country. First, while throwing our money at Wall Street, government is neglecting the grave risk of a deeper catastrophe for the real economy of producers and consumers.’ (more…)