I would call that PR checkmate Chinese Style! If most world leaders decide not to attend the opening ceremony, the Chinese should respond by inviting the Dalai Lama and make sure that he attends!

The Dalai Lama wants peace and talks with China and he has publicly asked people not to use violence. If the Chinese succeeded in having the Dalai Lama at the ceremony while most world leaders were absent, that would be a great PR victory for China, don't you think?

A president can serve for 2 terms only but a vice-president can serve as many terms as he wants, right? Hillary will become the next Secretary of State and continue the tradition that started with Bill Clinton of having a woman to handle US international relations or she can be in charge of reforming health care. Do you like Al-Gore, do you think he can be as good a Vice-President under Obama as he was under Clinton?

Hillary Clinton fell and broke her arm. What is that, good luck or bad luck? To break a leg is good luck but to break an arm whose bad luck will it be? Politicians should learn to break a leg when they fall. To break an arm when there is so much arm-twisting involved in your job is some pretty twisted 'luck'. No more walking and talking at the same time :)

As all Canadians know, we are on the eve of having to show a passport in order to cross the US/Canadian border. In our 200 history as neighbors, this is a disturbing precedent, and yet both Clinton and Bush confessed to having absolutely no knowledge of it when they came to speak together in Toronto. The two former US Presidents came to discuss global and domestic challenges facing the U.S. and Canada and both of them were ignorant about it. That such an important step is implemented without their knowledge is beyond belief. How are we Canadians supposed to feel?

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My impression is that Obama doesn't believe in war and wants to stir the world in that direction. That's not to say he doesn't believe in the use of force to go after terrorists in Pakistan. From his speeches and interviews, however, I rarely get the impression that in the back of his mind he seriously contemplates an attack on Iran or North Korea as the right policy, even if forced into that situation. Excluding another direct attack on America, I have the feeling Obama might be the first President to end his term(s) without presiding over a war.

Following court orders, Google revealed the name of an anonymous blogger who posted rants about model Liskula Cohen. Cohen supposedly "forced" Google to reveal the blogger's identity by suing the company. Google defends revealing the name as compliance with the letter and spirit of the law. Remember Yahoo in China? They had also claimed compliance with local law after revealing the identity of a Chinese blogger exercising freedom of speech which doesn't exist in China. The US, however, is Not China! (read more)

Why don't the moderates in Iran get radicalized the way their religion would expect them to when they are the powerless minority? The media portrays the protests in Iran as a fight of Iranians versus Iranians. When it comes to the street, the Islamic government militia has the upper hand. They are in control and know it. But if a few radicalized moderates blow up a truck in a police station, behead publicly a few government officials and secret police officers, then that's a totally different story, the true beginning of fear on both sides and the spark of civil war in Iran. That's Iranians versus Iranians. Street protests is a one-sided show of power. Fear will make it two-sided and lead to the election of an Iranian Obama eventually

Mirek Topolanek, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and head of the EU presidency described Obama's bailouts and fiscal policies as the "Way to Hell". This is unusually harsh language that European politicians never used even when Bush was president despite the fact that negative/angry feelings were running very high back then and despite the fact that European politicians, on the whole, were completely opposed to Bush's policies in Iraq and his handling of foreign affairs. Why such language now for Obama? (read more)