lowercase thought.

Look, I'm an Obama guy. Have been pretty much since I became disillusioned with John Edwards at the beginning of the year (and for a few days in Boston back in '04).

But let's be real about something here--Barack still can't take Hillary in a political debate yet. At least not in a sound-bite fest like these debates. In fact, nobody can take her right now. I've watched the last three debates, and while Obama seems to be getting a bit more polished, he still seems to be somewhat unprepared for tougher questions. He doesn't deflect to well-rehearsed sound-bite applause lines when hit with one like, "are soldiers dying in vain" as well as Hillary.

Sure, this is a bit troubling. But it's not the end of the world. Christ, it's only July. If Hillary still owns everyone in November like she owns them now, I'll start chewing my fingernails off. Putting it in perspective, Barack Obama's still in his first 6 months as a bona-fide presidential candidate. And hell, it's not like he had difficult, high-profile debates against Alan Keyes.

Also working for Obama: virtually nobody under the age of 40 watches the debates besides political wonks like me. That's his wheelhouse, and where he's going to get the lion's share of his support. And nobody else has ObamaGirl. Mmmm. ObamaGirl.

Finally though, I was throughly unimpressed with the CNN/YouTube format. It was overly "cutesy" and gimmicky. Here's a suggestion for CNN in the future if they're going to do this again: Keep the questions to 15 seconds or less. I don't need to see some dude feeding his invalid mother to get the picture that Alzheimer's research is important. I don't need to hear a nutjob go on about his "baby" AR15 assault weapon to pose the issue of gun control to the candidates. And for God's sake, no more candidate videos.

When there are 8 candidates vying for a slice of time on a 1-hour debate including commercial breaks, I'd like to hear more of their words and less from a Snowman in Wash state. I suppose I shouldn't expect more from our dumbed-down political process though. What's the next effort to make politics "sexy" to American youth? The Rave Party debate, complete with glow-sticks? No doubt Biden would rule that format with his Bhakti Yoga-inspired "Sleven Shake."

In late 2005 when Ben Bernanke was being offered up as a replacement for outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, he was trumpeted as "the right man to build on the record Alan Greenspan has established"--as though that were such a great thing. In hindsight, Greenspan could have done much more in the way of using his public soapbox to pressure public policymakers into making the tough fiscal choices needed in order to right the ship of our current financial state.

With that in mind, let me make a suggestion to the next President of the United States, whom we can assume will be a Democrat given on-going polling trends, the downward spiral in Iraq, and the uninspiring cast of Republican candidates. In 2010, at the end of Bernanke's first term as Chairman, replace him with Warren Buffett. I realize that Buffett would likely not want the position, given that he'd have to give up his post at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway. But you know, a man can dream.

Here's why: The "Oracle of Omaha" is perhaps the most intuitive mind alive in the United States when it comes to finance. Most investors would give their right testicle (or ovary, to be fair) just to have lunch with the guy in order to pick his brain, and his public comments regularly send large sums of money flowing at the drop of a syllable. Instead of convincing fund managers to get off their asses and make a move, perhaps it would be nice to have members of Congress or the Administration perking up to hear Buffett's sagacity.

Case in point--Buffett has been an outspoken critic among his corporate peers in spotlighting the idiocy of Republican efforts to cut the dividend tax rate, and has once again stated his disbelief in the unfairness of our current tax system.

Buffett said he makes $46 million a year in income and is only taxed at a 17.7 percent rate on his federal income taxes. By contrast, those who work for him, and make considerably less, pay on average about 32.9 percent in taxes - with the highest rate being 39.7 percent.

To emphasize his point, Buffett offered $1 million to the audience member who could show that one of the nation's wealthiest individuals pays a higher tax rate than one of their subordinates.

"I'm willing to bet anyone in this room $1 million that those rates are less than the secretary has to pay," said Buffett.

Buffett has hit the nail on the head. For all the bitching an moaning conservatives do about how overtaxed the rich are, the facts simply don't back it up. Despite this, we're supposed to make sacrifices in Social Security and Medicare, which benefit the poorest among our senior population, in order to balance the books. Just don't touch the Defense budget or record oil profits.

So do us all a favor, President Obama. Call Warren Buffett and ask him if he's willing to serve his country in a way that is perhaps even more selfless than the billions he's already given away in charity. Ask him to wield his wisdom as a big stick. Ask him to be the Fed Chairman.

First of all, let me say that John Edwards would make an adequate President. Adequate. And right now, that's a significant upgrade. Let me also restate for the record that I worked for him in 2004 as a staffer for the PA Kerry/Edwards campaign. I was more than impressed with his political ability to connect with the rural, working-class folks I routinely interacted with there. But my admiration for the man stops there.

Today, the New York Times has great piece on the questionable way in which Edwards used an ostensibly anti-poverty not-for-profit organization in order to fund opportunities for political activity and lock up campaign staffers for the '08 cycle. To be honest, I'm not particularly troubled by this. Edwards is not the first political figure to use a supposedly legit public-service campaign as a way to keep alive presidential hopes (I'm looking at you, Al Gore).

But the real issue I have is somewhat buried in the article:

He was hired by the Fortress Investment Group, a New York hedge fund, to “develop investment opportunities,” according to a 2005 Fortress news release. That led to meetings with such people as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; Henry Kravis, founder of KKR, one of Wall Street’s most successful investment funds; and the chief executives of General Electric, Citigroup, Coca-Cola and DaimlerChrysler.

“Fortress became a vehicle for foreign travel,” Mr. Turlington said, “but it was also a way to spend more time with sophisticated financial people.”

Okay, so while John Edwards is peddling his "man of the people" and "son of a mill-worker" image, he's simultaneously rubbing elbows the who's-who of the global corporate clique as a representative of a German hedge fund. Edwards loves to claim that he's never taken corporate PAC money; but when you're personally paid big corporate dollars, is that any better? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think Sens. Clinton & Obama or Gov. Richardson have worked for a private investment firm in the recent past.

Couple that with Edwards' blatant politically-opportune "come to Jesus moments" on Iraq and the PATRIOT Act, and frankly, I'm embarrassed to have been in that picture on the left at his announcement--and not because I was 30 pounds heavier back then (as evidenced by the tightness of the t-shirt).

On Friday, USA Hockey (the official organization of American amateur hockey and our Olympic team) sent coaches an e-mail which detailed some rules clarifications adopted by its annual Congress this month. Most notably, in youth leagues the "immediate off-sides rule"--which whistles off-sides as soon as a puck crosses the offensive blue line while attacking players are in the offensive zone--was kept in place as opposed to the pro-style "tag-up" or "delayed" rules which allow teams to "dump" the puck into the offensive zone while players are still attempting to vacate without a whistle.

Hands down, USA Hockey made the right decision in keeping the immediate off-sides rule in place to discourage what former NHL head coach Mike Sullivan describes in the letter as a "Safe Hockey" trend in youth levels. Essentially, with "tag-up" or "delayed" off-sides, it pays to make the safer play of dumping the puck in while players are off-sides rather than try to keep puck possession and do something creative. If the goal of our youth leagues is to develop better-skilled players, then it follows that rules which encourage this sort of "Safe Hockey" should not be put in place.

Anyone who knows me from the hockey standpoint knows that I'm a believer in "Safe Hockey," the "Jacques Lemaire Neutral Zone Trap," as they've allowed players like me with limited ability (scratch that--little if any ability) to play a competitive game against higher-skilled teams. But winning games for your local club isn't the aim of youth hockey. The real aim is to give kids the experience and tools necessary to compete on higher levels. That goal is stunted by playing a trapping style in Pee Wee and, in some cases, even the Squirt levels.

On a side note, I'd like to see some advanced youth and high-school teams begin to implement the "Swedish Torpedo" system for their top 5-man unit. It's an innovative system which emphasizes the all-around play-making and defensive ability of budding defensemen and centers by making them "halfbacks." It may also be the way to energize the NHL game now that the red line is gone.

At the bottom of a BBC news article today, I found the following:

Speaking after briefing the [Security] council, [U.N. Regional Envoy Terje] Roed-Larsen said increased evidence that fighters and weapons were crossing into Lebanon was "alarming and deeply disturbing".

He also told reporters that the general picture of the situation in the Middle East was "very dark, and apparently getting darker".

He said the emergence of new and interlinked issues - such as Iraq, Iran and Syria-Lebanon - was complicating efforts to promote peace.

"The new phenomenon seems to be that all these conflicts are now completely intertwined so that it is very difficult, maybe impossible, to find a solution to one of them without finding a solution to all of them."

This reminded me of an international political theory known as "complex interdependence" which was developed by Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane which describes more accurately the rising power of international organizations and movements as opposed to the declining power of the nation-state. Through this lens (a viewpoint I regularly take), it seems only natural that Roed-Larsen's concern is increasingly becoming reality as the borders between the state actors in the Middle East are less of a deterrant to the real threats in the region--armed religious and ethnic groups.

Take for instance the on-going--and escalating--conflict between the Kurds and various other actors. Groups such as the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party/Kongra-Gel) and most recently the TAK (Kurdistan Freedom Falcons) have been stepping up military and terrorist operations against both Turkey and Iran for years now, taking advantage of the relative safe haven provided by the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. As noted by Juan Cole today, "Sawt al-Iraq says that Kurdish villages along the border with Turkey have been subjected to 90 artillery barrages in recent months. The Turks charge that the villages have given safe haven to PKK extremists that have blown up things inside Turkey."

The Turks are right: there doesn't seem to be much stomach, or better yet ability, among Iraqi leadership (or American leadership for that matter) to really reign-in the PKK and other groups by security crack-down. As such, Kurdish militants have been able to plan and coordinate terrorist activities across the border with relative ease. Multiply this situation by a factor of 30 or more, and you now see the difficulty on keeping a lid on the boiling pot known as the Middle East.

If there was one thing the Bushie neo-cons had right all along, it's that America's involvement in Iraq would have far-ranging consequences throughout the Middle-East. Of course, they were completely wrong not only about what those consequences would be, but how those consequences would be spread. Instead of being spread by the shining example of a democratic Iraq, the current trend of destabilizing armed conflict is instead being transported by interstate ethnic and/or faith-based actors.

It's a strange form of "complex interdependence," and one which Keohane and Nye, and certainly America's neo-con leadership, perhaps did not focus enough on.

Apparently, some Brits are pissed off at Prince Harry for having a night on the town in Calgary (is that possible in Calgary?) during his current training deployment in Alberta. Why you ask? Because it was on the same night that Britain lost its 150th soldier in Iraq.

That's right, it's considered a national disgrace to some in Britain for the son of their next Head of State to have a few too many with a buxom girl on the same day the nation lost it's 150th service member in Iraq. This outrage is in stark comparison to the activites of our own "Princesses" Jenna and Barbara Bush last November, who were essentially asked to leave Argentina by the State Department because of their wild behavior back on the same weekend the United States lost 7 service members to bring the total death toll to 3133.

I think that puts our current "casualty fatigue" in perspective. In the UK, the loss of 150 in Iraq is greeted with widespread coverage, and a renewed look at withdrawal. Here, we lost our 3500th soldier just days ago to what I consider little notice (Anderson Cooper barely mentioned it on 360).

Oh, and let's not forget that Harry was blowing off steam during an overseas military training deployment while Jenna and Babs were just taking a little birthday jaunt. Yet, Harry gets no slack from the British press. I can't recall a single American pundit or journalist ask of the Bush twins, "how could they act so flippant while our sons and daughters are dying for their father's failed war?"

I suppose at this point I shouldn't be surprised at the lackadaisical treatment our current leadership have shown those who have sacrificed most for their transgressions. Especially not while Paris Hilton is in jail.

Labels: American media, beer drinking, Bush twins, Calgary, coverage, Prince Harry

...is Alberto Gonzalez a consultant to Iraqi police as well?

Sure seems like his views on torture are shared by the Iraqis in charge of their prison system, according to today's article in the Times of London.

Now, let's think about this for a second. It's been quite sometime since we've heard anyone from the Bush Administration utter the phrase, "win the hearts and minds". The reason? It's not working. But then again, how could it? After the images of Abu Ghraib and the continued torture of Iraqis under the current American-backed regime (much like the former American-backed regime), it's likely that Sunni Iraqis have decided that this form of government is no better than the previous form--except that now the electricity and water don't work for more than 8 hours per day.

The answer from Bush? Stay the course, stay the course...