Month: February 2008

World-View- From Singapore

International Security – Emerging Threats – Analysis – UPI.com
Singapore is the model emulated by much of the developing world. People chose Prosperity and Security over Freedom and Rights. Read this insight, from the man, who was the brains behind their remarkable Economic rise. In an exclusive interview with United Press International, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, long known as the Kissinger of the orient, took the Europeans to task for balking at casualties in Afghanistan. He blamed “short memories” that have forgotten that “America came to rescue them in two world wars,” which has rekindled the “appeasement” of the 1930s.

Now known as the “minister mentor” of Singapore, who turned a malarial island into a city of skyscrapers that thinks like a great power and is more important to the global economy than most big countries, Lee fears failure in Afghanistan will alter the world balance of power in favor of China and Russia. These two powers “would be faced with a much weakened West in the ongoing global contest.” Continue reading “World-View- From Singapore”

Will the Real Obama Please Stand Up

Here we have the Left-wing citing a litany of links to prove that Obama is a right-winger.
Make Them Accountable / He ain’t a saint: A citizen’s guide to Barack Obama

And then we have the leading Right-wing magazine saying that “Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal‘s 27th annual vote ratings.”

As long as Obama can continue to succeed by just delivering his formidable inspirational message, he can be the “Big Tent”, which will continue to be filled with our hopes. As he said in his 2004 keynote speech at the Democratic Convention: “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.”

Just like the business cycle, there is the political cycle. There was the Kennedy-era swing to the left and the Reagan counter-swing to the Right. Now with both houses and the presidency held by the Republicans the swing is going back the other way again. With the same party leading the House, Senate & Presidency, the Democrtas will over-reach, just like the Republicans just did, and there will be another counter-reformation. That is the rythmn of life, of change. You can make the analogy back to the counter-reformation against Martin Luther’s revolt from the Catholic Church (the dominant political party of the Middle ages). So if its the Democrats turn, I would gamble on Obama, an unknown, over Hillary, a known.

A school-mate, from a prominent Republican family who is working for Obama, says he is a quick-study and may surprise us. If the Democrats blow it, then the pendulum will swing back again to undo the damage.In the meantime it would really mess with the rest-of-the-world’s head and their preconceptions about the US to elect Obama, especially the Jihadists.

If Obama Doesn’t Win

Next Up for the Democrats: Civil War – New York Times
Frank Rich doesn’t think that the Clintons will go quietly. He says: Last month, two eminent African-American historians who have served in government, Mary Frances Berry (in the Carter and Clinton years) and Roger Wilkins (in the Johnson administration), wrote Howard Dean, the Democrats’ chairman, to warn him of the perils of that credentials fight. Last week, Mr. Dean became sufficiently alarmed to propose brokering an “arrangement” if a clear-cut victory by one candidate hasn’t rendered the issue moot by the spring. But does anyone seriously believe that Howard Dean can deter a Clinton combine so ruthless that it risked shredding three decades of mutual affection with black America to win a primary?

back_on_the_plantation.jpgA race-tinged brawl at the convention, some nine weeks before Election Day, will not be a Hallmark moment. As Mr. Wilkins reiterated to me last week, it will be a flashback to the Democratic civil war of 1968, a suicide for the party no matter which victor ends up holding the rancid spoils.

Education Divides Democrats

Questions for Dr. Retail – New York Times
The essential competition in many consumer sectors is between commodity providers and experience providers, the companies that just deliver product and the companies that deliver a sensation, too. There’s Safeway, and then there is Whole Foods. There’s the PC, and then there’s the Mac. There are Holiday Inns, and there are W Hotels. There’s Walgreens, and there’s The Body Shop. And as the post below points out there are Latte Liberals a nd Dunkin’ Donuts Democrats. If Obama loses the Nomination, the resulting backlash could put another Republican in the White House.

Hillary Clinton is a classic commodity provider. She caters to the less-educated, less-pretentious consumer. As Ron Brownstein of The National Journal pointed out on Wednesday, she won the non-college-educated voters by 22 points in California, 32 points in Massachusetts and 54 points in Arkansas. She offers voters no frills, just commodities: tax credits, federal subsidies and scholarships. She’s got good programs at good prices.

Barack Obama is an experience provider. He attracts the educated consumer. Continue reading “Education Divides Democrats”

The Power Of Unreasonable People

The Age of Ambition – New York Times
In the ’60s, perhaps the most remarkable Americans were the civil rights workers and antiwar protesters who started movements that transformed the country. In the 1980s, the most fascinating people were entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who started companies and ended up revolutionizing the way we use technology.

Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways. Bill Drayton, the chief executive of an organization called Ashoka that supports social entrepreneurs, likes to say that such people neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry. If that sounds insanely ambitious, it is. John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan title their new book on social entrepreneurs “The Power of Unreasonable People.”

Renowned playwright George Bernard Shaw once said “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” By this definition, some of today’s entrepreneurs are decidedly unreasonable–and have even been dubbed crazy.

Latte liberals v Dunkin Donut democrats

Latte liberals v Dunkin Donut democrats | Gerard Baker – Times Online
Among voters whose voting choice is not based on identity politics, Mr Obama’s supporters are the latte liberals. These are the people for whom Starbucks, with its $5 cups of coffee and fancy bakeries, is not just a consumer choice but a lifestyle. They not only have the money. They share the values.

They live by all those little quotes on the side of Starbucks cups about community service and global warming. They embrace the Obama candidacy because to them he transcends traditional class and economic divides. He is a transformative political figure – potentially the first black man to be president – and is seen as the one to revive America’s faith in itself and restore America’s status in the world. For these voters the defining emotion is hope.

Mrs Clinton is the candidate of what might be called Dunkin’ Donut Democrats. They do not have money to waste on multiple-hyphenated coffee drinks – double-top, no-foam, non-fat lattes and the like. Not for them the bran muffins or the biscotti. They are the 75-cent coffee and doughnut crowd. For them caffeine choice doesn’t correlate with their values but simply represents a means of keeping them going through their challenging day. Continue reading “Latte liberals v Dunkin Donut democrats”

Movie Starlet Morph Mashup

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Taming The Toddler

Toddler Behavior – Parenting – Communication – Kids – Tara Parker-Pope – New York Times
Dr. Karp notes that in terms of brain development, a toddler is primitive, an emotion-driven, instinctive creature that has yet to develop the thinking skills that define modern humans. Logic and persuasion, common tools of modern parenting, “are meaningless to a Neanderthal,” Dr. Karp says.

The challenge for parents is learning how to communicate with the caveman in the crib. “All of us get more primitive when we get upset, that’s why they call it ‘going ape,’ ” Dr. Karp says. “But toddlers start out primitive, so when they get upset, they go Jurassic on you.” Continue reading “Taming The Toddler”