The newest critique against the Federal Government limiting executive salaries in companies that it has essentially saved from liquidation or in which it holds a major ownership interest, is that it will cause a brain drain of the best people to other companies. I have one response to such a meritless argument: Bullshit. Some of our private sector oligarchs are so narcissistic, greedy and arrogant that they...

It would appear from this angry article in Iran’s rigidly state-controlled Kayhan newspaper, that when it suits its own interests, the leadership in Tehran condones listening to the music of the Rolling Stones. With allusions to the all-seeing-eye of the Freemasons and a section on how Americans abuse women, this is the regime’s latest verbal assault on the United States. The author, Kian Mokhtari,...

If I hadn’t just used this formulation for another post, I would have titled this one, “Dude, Where’s My Oil Contract?”

Here. The human race, generally, tends not to want to act in its long-term best interests, reacting to emergencies rather than proactively avoiding or planning for them. So, it’s anybody’s guess as to whether OxFam will be heeded. But the fact is that drought need not lead to famine, as tragically, it so often has in Ethiopia and elsewhere. [This is being crossposted at my personal blog.]

The production of a Hollywood film on the romance between Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and Lady Edwina Mountbatten, wife of the last British viceroy of India, has been temporarily halted. The Indian government wants an assurance that the movie, Indian Summer, starring Cate Blanchett and Hugh Grant, would not contain physically intimate scenes. (Nehru’s name was also romantically...

Cross-posted to The Debate Link In a PJ Media questionnaire that exemplifies the worst in fusing baseless speculation with raging demagoguery, Lenny Ben-David wanted to ask, among others, the following questions about J Street to its leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami: You were recently asked in an interview about funds J Street received from Palestinians, Arab-Americans, and Iranian-Americans, to which you answered: “J...

Middle East: Things Look Catastrophic but It Will Work Out, Why I’m Optimistic By Barry Rubin Every day dreadful things happen in the Middle East and in the echoes of that region—diplomacy, news coverage—in the West. Yet things are by no means as bad as they seem. Precisely because a lot of what happens simply doesn’t reflect reality, ultimately the material effect is minimized. “All that is...

Mural to the dead: Revolutionary Guard members look at pictures of commanders and colleagues killed in Sunday’s suicide bombing. Who is responsible for Monday’s devastating attack on members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard? According to Iran and others, the U.S. and Britain are responsible, since they back the Sunni group that has claimed responsibility and is fighting for an independent...

Consolation prize?: Vice President Joe Biden and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw, Oct. 21. Has America agreed to station U.S. forces in Poland to ease the pain of canceling the construction of elements of an anti-missile shield in that country? In addition to discussing the new version of the U.S. anti-missile shield with its East European allies, according to this article by Andrzej Talaga of...

This evening (Wed) at 6:30pm, I’ll be part of a panel discussion on the topic of “Afghanistan: Should We Stay Or Should We Go?” Details here. I assure you, if you live in Washington, there is nothing more intellectually enriching you can do tomorrow night other than listen to me. (Assuming you have a DVR and don’t have to miss a brand new episode of So You Think You Can Dance.) So,...

Paresh Nath, The Khaleej Times, UAE This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

More troubling news from the anti-terrorism. front. How serious is the situation now in Pakistan? So serious that the government has temporarily closed schools due to bombings: Pakistan closed schools nationwide for five days after suicide bombers struck a university in the capital, a step that may further erode public tolerance for the country’s Islamic militant movement. “Educational institutions under...

Could it be that the United States is somehow behind or involved with the suicide attack on a meeting that included senior members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard? According to this editorial from Pakistan’s Frontier Post, which is published right along the Afghan-Pakistan border, there is every reason to believe that the attack, claimed by the Sunni group Jundallah which is fighting for an independent...

In regard to Afghanistan, should Russians indulge in a little schadenfreude - a German word meaning taking pleasure in the pain of others – or should it help the United States out of its predicament. For Russia’s Kommersant newspaper, columnist Sergey Markedonov asks his readers: “Should we be happy over the misfortune of our ’sworn friend’ the U.S. – particularly against...

Continuing with our look at Obama’s Nobel Prize through a global prism, this article from Syria’s state-controlled Thawra Al Wada shares the rest of the world’s surprise with the award – but with a distinctly anti-Israel Syrian twist. For Thawra Al Wada, Khalaf Ali Al Moftah argues that Obama has time to earn the award, as long as he does a few things no American chief executive is ever...

Yes, you heard me right. Here’s what Kerry had to say on CBS about relying on counterterrorism instead of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan: SENATOR JOHN KERRY: That’s correct. I– I– I do not believe that a counterterrorism strategy all by itself without a sufficient level of counterinsurgency will work because if you don’t have a presence on the ground that’s effective, it–...

I highly recommend that you not read Bono’s op-ed in Saturday’s Times on Obama and “Rebranding America.” Actually, no, it’s not that bad. It’s hard to stomach Bono, I know, but his activism is admirable, particularly with respect to poverty, and he shows a welcome modesty here (false or not, I leave it to you to judge). So go check it out, if you haven’t already. Here...

Last week we ran this post giving excerpts from Caroline Glick’s an intriguing article on RealClearWorld asking whether Turkey has left the West to join up with the Iranian axis. Now Steven Taylor, aka, Poliblogger has his own response. Here is a small part of it: Until Turkey quits NATO, rescinds its request to join the EU, and makes a public statement about joining Iran, any talk about the Turkey being...

Are new tensions about to swirl around Afghanistan? At a time when President Barack Obama and his advisers are huddled in comprehensive reviews of the war and what do do next, recent elections and the next phase of U.S. involvement, the New York Times reports that an audit of election results submitted today “appeared likely to show that President Hamid Karzai had won about 48 percent.” Attributing...

Some of Iran’s top military commanders were killed in a terrorist attack on Sunday, and according to this article from Iran’s state-controlled Kayhan newspaper, the regime holds the U.S. and Britain responsible. The Kayhan news item says in part: “A terrorist blew himself up at a meeting of tribal elders in southeastern Iran Sunday, martyring at least 31 people, including top commanders. The...

For critics claiming we cannot afford health care reform for our own people in which 45,000 uninsured die annually — a report I admit may be high — consider these apples. It costs about $400 a gallon to deliver fuel to our troops in Afghanistan. The Pentagon reports it costs about $1 billion for ever 1,000 troops in that land-locked nation which has an infrastructure worse than the poorest barrio...

It came as no surprise to me when I read a recent article “Saudi jailed for ‘bragging’ about sex”. You see, like an average man (or MCP) I, too, never lose an opportunity to brag…well, about everything!!! So, when I landed in Jeddah in the late-1970s to take up my journalistic assignment, my friends warned me to be very, very careful about two subjects — drinks and women...

Glenn Greenwald tells us about an important turn of events in a lawsuit filed by Binyam Mohamed, a former Guantanamo detainee (emphasis is in original):

Here is Sharon Otterman’s report in yesterday’s New York Times on the United Nations Human Rights Council’s decision and what it means going forward:

Has Turkey been lost to the West? Caroline Glick thinks so: Once the apotheosis of a pro-Western, dependable Muslim democracy, this week Turkey officially left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis. It isn’t that Ankara’s behavior changed fundamentally in recent days. There is nothing new in its massive hostility toward Israel and its effusive solicitousness toward the...