Soccer Dad

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• Why George Mitchell Will Not Bring Peace To The Middle East
• The "galaxy quest" president
• What has and hasn't been learned
• Council speak 03/22/10

Why George Mitchell Will Not Bring Peace To The Middle East Posted: 22 Mar 2010 01:11 PM PDT This is not to say that peace cannot be imposed on the Middle East--by which of course we mean by extracting more and more concessions from Israel--but can George Mitchell actually bring a real peace to the Middle East?No.Why? Because George Mitchell's track record is based on the Good Friday Agreement that was supposed to bring peace to Northern Ireland.Ed Moloney, author of A Secret History of the IRA, writes about George Mitchell:His wasn't the central role in the Northern Ireland peace dealThe draft of the Good Friday Agreement was composed and written by British and Irish officials and then presented as if came...

The "galaxy quest" president Posted: 22 Mar 2010 04:03 AM PDT Why did the administration escalate a political mistake into a diplomatic crisis? According to Secretary of State Clinton it helped move talks forward. A less kind way of putting it, would be that she boasted of putting PM Netanyahu in his place. But Elder of Ziyon in an op-ed quality post makes a fascinating observation: Obama believes that a president, the leader of the free world, must act strong. But the problem is he cannot act that way when he cannot predict how the other parties will react to his show of strength. As in the movie Galaxy Quest, he...

What has and hasn't been learned Posted: 22 Mar 2010 03:41 AM PDT To the Washington Post's David Ignatius, the crisis between Israel and the United States was a necessary fight, that put Israel in its place. Jerusalem is the hardest issue of all in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation, and for that reason, would-be peacemakers have wanted to save it for last. But this month's crisis makes that strategic waffling impossible. Thanks to the Israeli right, the Jerusalem issue is joined. What's needed now is for Obama to announce that when negotiations begin, the United States will state its views about Jerusalem and other key issues -- sketching the outlines of the deal that...

Council speak 03/22/10 Posted: 22 Mar 2010 03:38 AM PDT The Council has spoken! Winning Council Submissions  First place with 3 points! - Wolf Howling -  AP Goes APE Over Texas School Book Changes  Second place  *t* with 2 points - American Digest -  The Plague of Locusts Presidency Second place *t* with 2 points - The Razor - The United States of Venezuela Winning Non-Council Submissions First Place with 2 1/3 Points - Walter Russell Mead's Blog-The American Interest - Is this Lobby different from all others? Second place with 2 Points - Melanie Phillips - The Obama Intifada Submitted by JoshuaPundit For a complete list of this week's submissions see here....

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Soccer Dad

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Rerun, replay, whatever Posted: 20 Mar 2010 11:23 PM PDT Meryl was the first (whom I saw) to notice history repeating itself. I responded by blogging about an incident from the Clinton administration, from a 1998 Krauthammer column: But even more significant than the absurd arbitrariness of this number is its very existence. Under the Oslo Accords, these interim "further redeployments" are left to Israel's discretion (unlike the "final status" talks, at which Israel and the Palestinians will together negotiate their final borders). Indeed, just 16 months ago the Clinton administration reaffirmed this principle. At 11 p.m. on the night of Jan. 15, 1997, as Netanyahu's cabinet was agonizing over...

They told me that if I voted for mccain ... Posted: 20 Mar 2010 10:18 PM PDT Via memeorandum The told me that if I voted for McCain the government would stifle dissent. And they were right Hey it works for Instapundit, why can't I try it?...

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Soccer Dad - 031910

Soccer Dad

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Bullying the neighborhood bully Posted: 19 Mar 2010 03:25 AM PDT Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him, 'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac. He's the neighborhood bully. Neighborhood Bully - Bob Dylan Scott Wilson writing on the web for the Washington Post posits that Israeli leaders are not likely to win diplomatic battles with the United States. Next, think back to 1992. Picking a fight with the Bush administration cost Shamir his job. Who succeeded...

Soccer Dad - 031810

Soccer Dad

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With friends like these ... Posted: 18 Mar 2010 04:01 AM PDT Robert Kagan argues that Israel shouldn't feel like it's been singled out. Israelis shouldn't feel that they have been singled out. In Britain, people are talking about the end of the "special relationship" with America and worrying that Obama has no great regard for the British, despite their ongoing sacrifices in Afghanistan. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy has openly criticized Obama for months (and is finally being rewarded with a private dinner, presumably to mend fences). In Eastern and Central Europe, there has been fear since the administration canceled long-planned missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic that...

Putting out fires with a gas bag Posted: 18 Mar 2010 04:01 AM PDT Barack Obama in his "Rev. Wright" speech (two years ago exactly!): This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy -- particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own. I love the display of false humility with the adjective "imperfect," given that the rest of the speech is less a repudiation of Rev....

Soccer Dad - 031710

Soccer Dad

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• Little tommy's big plans
• The clinton replay
• Submitted 03/17/2010

Little tommy's big plans Posted: 17 Mar 2010 03:55 AM PDT Thomas Friedman in 1996 Arafat, belatedly, came to understand that Israel could never keep up the momentum of peace without Palestinians making a 100 percent effort to guarantee Israeli security, and Mr. Peres came to understand that Mr. Arafat could never guarantee security unless the peace process continued its momentum. Because they agreed on the big issues, and had forged a strategic partnership, the little issues never led to massive blowups. The violence that did occur was the Israeli and Palestinian extremes against the Israeli and Palestinian mainstreams. Thomas Friedman today: Fayyad is the most interesting new force on the...

The clinton replay Posted: 17 Mar 2010 03:30 AM PDT Meryl writes: Here's why I think the Obama administration is ratcheting up the pressure over 1,600 new housing units in a Jewish neighborhood of northeastern Jerusalem that will almost certainly remain Israeli in any future agreement with the Palestinians: The Obama administration is trying to topple the Netanyahu government. The Clinton administration did its level best to prevent Bibi from being elected in 1996, and worked very hard to get him thrown out as soon as possible thereafter. The Obama administration has found a stick, and they're using it to beat the Netanyahu administration in the eyes of the world....

Submitted 03/17/2010 Posted: 17 Mar 2010 03:30 AM PDT This Week's Watcher's Council submissions are up. To also see the non-council submissions check out the Watcher. Council Submissions Wolf Howling - AP Goes APE Over Texas School Book Changes Mere Rhetoric - Confirmed: Anti-Israel Jewish Groups Scapegoat Israel For Obama's Manufactured Crisis The Razor - The United States of Venezuela Rhymes With Right - Why Is This Not A Major National Story? The Colossus of Rhodey - On the Texas textbook controversy The Provocateur - The Untold Story of Non Profit Hospitals Right Truth - Violence Against Israel, Blame It On Obama, Biden, and Clinton Bookworm Room - God...

Freshly fallen silent shroud of snow

The large amount of snow that fell led to overhangs where the snow took on textures of layes of cloth.

The one below came out especially well.

These next two were a close up and a regular shot of the same overhang.

It's also interesting how the snow piled onto tree branches.

A snow turtle?

I was just trying for a patch of untouched snow; I had't even thought about the sun when I took this.

Musical monday #125

Every week Elie and I switch off hosing Musical Monday. If you still want to try Musical Monday #124 here, feel free. Enjoy!

1) My voice too rough with cigarettes.
2) And I howled at my ma in the driving rain,
3) Then the piper will lead us to reason
4) I can no longer shop happily
5) Got fire, in your veins, burnin' hot, but you don't feel the pain
6) Don't want to be a richer man
7) But I was lost like a slave that no man could free
8) Can anybody love anyone so much that they will never fear, never worry never be sad
9) You worry me to death
10) He sure is aquired a cool and inspired sorta jazz when he walk
11) He's got a TV in every room
12) In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
13) Walked in the joint, they were lined up back to back
14) She still preyed upon his mind

15) Belly-up at the bottom of a bottle
16) Cause my heart aint ready for the Rolling Stones
17) With a couple of kids running in the yard,
18) It's just a photograph of someone that I knew.
19) Six-thirty and no one knows she'll be there
20) She dances while his father plays guitar
21) I need someone to set a pick for me
22) Hits River Junction at seventeen to