Fouad Ajami: The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama – WSJ.com.
‘He talks too much,” a Saudi academic in Jeddah, who had once been smitten with Barack Obama, recently observed to me of America’s 44th president. He has wearied of Mr. Obama and now does not bother with the Obama oratory.
He is hardly alone, this academic. In the endless chatter of this region, and in the commentaries offered by the press, the theme is one of disappointment. In the Arab-Islamic world, Barack Obama has come down to earth.
He has not made the world anew, history did not bend to his will, the Indians and Pakistanis have been told that the matter of Kashmir is theirs to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the same intractable clash of two irreconcilable nationalisms, and the theocrats in Iran have not “unclenched their fist,” nor have they abandoned their nuclear quest
Okay, I am now seriously coughing over that one.
POLITICO has the document.
As if a name change is going to wash away the muck.
Editorial – Diplomacy 101 – NYTimes.com.
Peacemaking takes strategic skill. But we see no sign that President Obama and Mr. Mitchell were thinking more than one move down the board. The president went public with his demand for a full freeze on settlements before securing Israel’s commitment. And he and his aides apparently had no plan for what they would do if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no.
Most important, they allowed the controversy to obscure the real goal: nudging Israel and the Palestinians into peace talks. (We don’t know exactly what happened but we are told that Mr. Obama relied more on the judgment of his political advisers — specifically his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel — than of his Mideast specialists.)
The idea made sense: have each side do something tangible to prove it was serious about peace and then start negotiations. But when Mr. Netanyahu refused the total freeze, President Obama backed down.
Mr. Netanyahu has since offered a compromise 10-month freeze that exempts Jerusalem, schools and synagogues and permits Israel to complete 3,000 housing units already under construction. The irony is that while this offer goes beyond what past Israeli governments accepted, Mr. Obama had called for more. And the Palestinians promptly rejected the compromise.
So, what was the NYT doing while the rest of us knew that Bam was a sham?
Someone else asked whether he would be offered a cabinet position. Don’t laugh.
A federal tax lien for nearly $80,000 filed against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is related to “a minor paperwork tracking discrepancy,” and is expected to be cleared up quickly with no penalty assessed on the governor, spokesman Aaron McLear said this afternoon.
Public records show the lien was filed May 11 at the Los Angeles County recorder’s office for $79,064, according to a record in an electronic database that includes lien filings. The record lists the debtor as Arnold Schwarzenegger and the address as the governor’s home address in Brentwood.
The lien was reported Friday by TMZ.com, which posted a copy of a lien document that says it is from the county recorder’s office. That document shows that Schwarzenegger owes $39,047.20 from 2004 and $40,016.80 from 2005.
via Schwarzenegger spokesman says tax lien related to ‘minor paperwork’ discrepancy | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times.
Data-leak lessons learned from the ‘Climategate’ hack.
Hacking is not my cup of tea, but there are certainly things to be garnered by this security breech. Someone had the cajones to out the lies about global warming.
Lesson 1: Don’t let users put passwords in their signatures. One of the scientists included both on his e-mail signature — which means that anyone receiving an e-mail from this guy had access to his files
Lesson 2: Don’t evade Freedom of Information requests. As noted in the Science Magazine link above, many of the e-mails discuss how to destroy documents in anticipation of Freedom of Information requests.
Lesson 3: Lock down sensitive servers. Another theory behind the supposed “hack” is that the files were compiled in response to a FOIA request — then stored on an unlocked server.
Lesson 4: Advise your users that all e-mails (and indeed, voice, message and video communications) may be the subject of public disclosure. You may work in an industry that’s not subject to FOIA — but anyone can get sued. And the process of “e-discovery” may make plenty of data public.
H/T GR
Oh yeah, and you should NOT throw out your raw data.
