With the overturning of California's Proposition 8, the U.S. enters a new era in basic civil rights. As delightful as it has been to see homophobes falling over themselves to find justifications for their political stance that might read as anything other than transparent bigotry, it is even more delightful to see them lose their argument in a court of law. I applaud the ruling as I applaud all individuals courageous enough to seek out love in a world of fear and commit to a lasting relationship in a world of temptation. I've been told I'm a hopeless romantic.

Naturally, the most steadfast of the opponents to same-sex marriage have accused the gay judge who ruled against Prop 8 of being biased. I suppose that is true, to some degree; after all, who is not slightly biased in favor of his own rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Still, the venom spouted toward this man is yet another indication of the level of bigotry at work in the struggle of the extreme right to keep homosexuality closeted, dismissed and subjugated beneath the heel of a heterocentric world view.

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It will be five years since Katrina on August 29. The impact of Katrina is quite painful for regular people in the area. This article looks at what has happened since Katrina not from the perspective of the higher ups looking down from their offices but from the street level view of the people - a view which looks at the impact on the elderly, the renter, people of color, the disabled, the working and non-working poor. So, while one commentator may happily say that the median income in New Orleans has risen since Katrina, a street level perspective recognizes that is because large numbers of the poorest people have not been able to return.

Five years after Katrina, tens of thousands of homes in New Orleans remain vacant or blighted. Tens of thousands of African American children who were in the public schools have not made it back, nor have their parents. New Orleans has lost at least 100,000 people. Thousands of elderly and disabled people have not made it back. Affordable housing is not readily available so tens of thousands pay rents that are out of proportion to their wages. Race and gender remain excellent indicators of who is underpaid, who is a renter, who is in public school and who is low income.

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There are so many vacant stores in my area that the disappearance of another storefront pizza parlor shouldn't have had much of an impact on me. I'm a vegan who never even tasted the pizza at Bella Nonna (though my family liked their food well enough), and there are as many pizzerias within a few miles of my house as there are slices in a large pizza. Yet the recent failure of this local business has been bothering me a lot.

According to a neighboring business owner, the pizzeria's owner was forced to close by the landlord after falling behind in the rent. I have no clue if the proprietor of the shuttered pizzeria tried to negotiate with the landlord. In my real estate law practice, I've assisted some of my commercial clients in receiving rent reductions and talked other landlords into extending lease terms without any increases in payments. Such concessions helped some shopkeepers and service businesses stay open, even if their lines of credit were curtailed or cut off. However, there have been just as many landlords who flatly refused to renegotiate or offer any incentives to keep an occupant from seeking more favorable terms down the turnpike. The end result is that the landlords often only gain more empty stores.

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Really? Among everything else this state is handling, Patterson decides to ban this? NY Governor David Patterson has signed a bill that makes short-term, vacation apartment rentals illegal in New York City, a defeat for those who think it will limit choices for Big Apple budget travelers, according to USA Today.

The new law, which outlaws New York apartment rentals for less than 30 days, "fixes problems caused by illegal hotels and improves quality of life in traditional residential apartment buildings, while also meeting the needs of visitors. By removing a legal gray area and replacing it with a clear definition of permanent occupancy, the law will allow enforcement efforts that help New Yorkers who live in SRO units and other types of affordable housing preserve their homes," said Paterson in a prepared statement. "By making the effective date of this law May 1, 2011, property holders, business owners and not-for-profit corporations will be able to adjust the uses of their properties to the provisions of this law, or to dispose of the properties at issue so that they may find alternate sites for their current uses."

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Turkey has been getting a lot of attention recently. American foreign policymakers, among others, are beginning to realize that the United States cannot count on its ally Turkey in a pinch. But American surprise and dismay at Turkey's increasing petulance on the world stage and among its NATO peers reflects just how naive the U.S. has been in its interpretation of Turkish behavior over many decades. Turkey's unreliability as a NATO ally and its incompatibility with Western democratic values is well understood by those who have long suffered Turkish aggression in the Eastern Mediterranean

Turkey's failure to genuinely uphold the shared values of NATO makes it a weak link in the alliance. By design, NATO originated as a defensive political and military alliance for those countries engaged in the hostilities of WWII. Turkey, the largest NATO member not to have fought in WWII, was enlisted to reinforce defenses against the Soviet Union. Yet, in the summer of 1974, NATO member Turkey invaded and occupied more than one third of the island Republic of Cyprus. Coming at the height of the Cold War, and at a time of delicate relations between Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and the NATO alliance, Turkey's invasion of Cyprus risked war with NATO member Greece and a resultant rupturing of the NATO alliance.

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WASHINGTON -- Public employees around the country have become the nation's scapegoats for the rough economy, with many Republican politicians in recent months criticizing them as privileged, overpaid and underworked -- unlike their private sector counterparts. But in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R) is now in hot water, facing an overwhelming backlash from the state's residents.

Wisconsin is facing a $137 million budget deficit. In order to close it, Walker wants to sharply curtail the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions, effectively preventing them from negotiating benefits, hours and working conditions. (They would, however, still be able to bargain over base wages, and Walker decided to exempt firefighters and police workers from his measure.) Public workers would also have to contribute more money toward pension and health insurance plans.

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The scientific world went into spasms last week when a Nobel laureate announced that he had, in effect, teleported DNA. That was the sound bite, but of course the story was more complicated. A French team headed by Luc Montagnier, previously known for his work on HIV and AIDS, took two test tubes, one of which contained bacterial DNA, the other pure water. After the test tubes were surrounded by an electrical current, analysis showed that an imprint of the DNA was detectable in the water. The outrageousness of this claim echoes a finding from over a decade ago that water has memory.

What delights me about this controversy, which will be won by the skeptics, naturally, is that conventional science is fraying around the edges, and the fraying is being done by scientists themselves. A decade ago, for example, you couldn't find more than a small handful of physicists and biologists who were willing to consider that the study of consciousness was reputable. This year there will be conventions on the subject with hundreds of participants. This isn't because there's been an outbreak of rebelliousness in labs across the globe. Rather, there was nowhere else for the trail to go. You can't discuss memory, either in the human brain or in water, without explaining consciousness.

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An obituary deep in the pages of the New York Times on Thanksgiving Day disclosed the death of Huang Hua, perhaps one of the most discreet, influential negotiators in China's contemporary history. He was unknown to most Americans. In the 1930s, he helped the American journalist Edgar Snow write a series of newspaper articles about China that eventually was turned into a best-selling book about Mao Zedong and his rebel army entitled Red Star Over China. Snow never acknowledged Huang's assistance in any of his reporting.

In 1944, he served as an interpreter, accompanying the U.S. Dixie Mission into the caves of Yenan where, for the first time, American military officers and diplomats got their first glimpse of, and extended meetings with, Mao Zedong and other Communist Party officials. It was a controversial initiative that angered the ruling Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek and eventually led to the firing of John Stewart Service from the U.S. State Department and cost Colonel David Barrett the likelihood of his promotion to Brigadier General.Their treatment was a forerunner of the Cold War madness that led to the dismantling of America's outstanding corps of China diplomats that was to follow.

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How does the modern-day peacock navigate our post-metrosexual age? If the men's collections are any indication, with a full face of makeup. Painted faces turned up at shows including Thom Browne (glitzy gold lips), Yohji Yamamato (Casper-inspired ghostly visages) and Dior Homme (dewy pink pouts). Catwalk theatrics aside, it's clear that men have moved way beyond just borrowing their girlfriend's moisturizer. A recent article in The New York Times reported that men's grooming products had reached sales of $5.6 billion in 2009, up from $3.8 billion in 2004. That's a lot of nasal hair removers.

As a man who works in cosmetics, it should come as little surprise that I have my go-to products. After cleansing and shaving, I use a skin serum, a primer and occasionally a bronzer. I use my Camera Finish powder to stay matte and even a lick of clear mascara on the lashes. A little dab of concealer under the eyes can take years off, so why wouldn't you? The aim is to look healthy, energized and youthful, and, unlike the runway boys, not like you're actually wearing makeup. Little fixes such as these--not to mention tweezing unruly brows--can even give men a professional edge. Here are some more grooming tips.

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Your company is pursuing a big deal in a dodgy country - a "challenging market" - and things have started to unravel. You're nearing the culmination of the negotiations and, after months of business dinners and late-night-cognac conversations, Mr. Avaricio, the government official making the final decision, has stopped taking your calls. He communicates through a low-level colleague who was previously very polite, but who now seems somehow to have the upper hand, that your competitor has offered to "include Mr. Avaricio in the deal" with a 10% share to be wired to his off-shore account.

There follow the usual expressions of regret, the strongly stated preference for your company and the desire to continue what has been an "important personal relationship." This would all be possible if Mr. A. could be accommodated. And so you agree to match the competitor's 10% kick-back to the foreign official. You agree to violate US law and the laws of his country to salvage the deal. Suddenly all smiles, the emissary jots down the name of a small company you've never heard of that can be retained quickly ... this afternoon ... as a local "consultant" on the deal for the convenient sum of 10% of the total value. The following morning you return to U.S. headquarters with the signed contract in hand.

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Since the launch of Huffington Post Divorce in November of last year, "The Moment I Knew" has been a critical part of our DNA. The idea turns the traditional concept on its head, asking readers to share, via Twitter, the moment they knew their marriages were over.

When we put out the initial call for responses (hashtag: #themomentiknew), the feedback was overwhelming. In 140 characters or less, readers vented about some of their most profoundly intimate moments, ranging from the blackly comic ("He crumbled baguettes all over the food and serving utensils knowing I have a severe wheat allergy") to the gut-wrenching ("I was having surgery and had to beg my husband to come visit me in the hospital") to the just plain peculiar ("When he said, 'Life isn't just about bacon and Warhammer 40K, you know'"). We compiled their responses into a slideshow, which continues to be one of the most popular--and most frequently referenced--features on our site.

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Filled with self-styled straight shooters who claim to be beholden to no one, the blogosphere has long positioned itself as an antidote to the so-called access journalism racking the mainstream media, most infamously during the run-up to the Iraq War and, more recently, in the run-up to the financial crisis. Because they rely heavily on high-level, establishment sources for their stories, the argument goes, mainstream journos -- think Judith Miller -- must censor their own reporting or risk losing access to the machers in the corridors of power. The blogosphere, with its emphasis on commentary, analysis and citizen journalism, claims to be unfettered by such restraints. After all, people don't visit blogs to read worked-over quotes by a CEO or a government official.

Against that backdrop, it's pretty weird to witness the growing army of bloggers who now flock to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the ne plus ultra of access journalism. Bloggy new-media types like Arianna Huffington and Jeff Jarvis have been schlepping to Switzerland for years, and they have more recently been joined by financial bloggers, including Business Insider's Henry Blodget and Reuters' Felix Salmon. Then there are the big media outlets including The New York Times, Time Inc. and CNBC, which conduct interviews with bigwig attendees from the mountaintop.

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If you worry about the costs of immigration in the United States, stop focusing on our border with Mexico and start paying attention to the 4 train in New York City. That train that begins in Brooklyn, transports passengers to the heart of the financial district in Manhattan, and ends in the Bronx is an ideal symbol for the truly devastating migration that has taken place over the last few decades in our country.

As a young boy, I used to ride that train each Saturday to attend classes at the Trinity School, an elite private school that lent its facilities to Prep for Prep, a non-profit dedicated to providing educational opportunities to poor minorities in New York City. Today, many of my former classmates ride that train only to leave their offices on Madison Avenue to have drinks in the trendy bars of the Lower East Side. We have lived the American Dream, a dream that since the days of Manifest Destiny has urged Americans to go in search of opportunity and leave behind the communities of our birth. Today, many Americans are forced to stay, constrained by an inability to sell their home or find a new job, but others continue the American tradition, flying in search of riches in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street.

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The White House and Democrats have been sending mixed signals (at best) on whether they're willing to fight against extending tax cuts for the rich and, except for some House Democrats and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appear to be blandly accepting the draconian principles of Obama's deficit commission: lowered taxes for the rich, more pain for the middle-class.

So it's been up to labor to take a leadership role in fighting back. Everyone talks about Democrats caving in to the GOP and right-wing talking points, but not many advocacy groups are effectively and visibly pushing back against the right-wing assault. Some exceptions: Adam Green's Progressive Change Campaign Committee that's gathered over 100,000 online petitions asking President Obama to fight, not cave, on tax cuts for the rich -- and key labor groups. 

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This weekend's releases offer up some tantalizing choices: Do you want to go witty and urbane with a sharply observed dinner comedy from France? Or would you rather indulge in a gritty, adrenaline-fueled historical action film? Why not see both? (Oh, that's MMP for you -- always willing to take the bold stand.)

In Change of Plans a group of friends get together for a lovely, summer dinner party. But since the festivities are being presided over by director Danièle Thompson -- who previously gave us such sly inquests into human behavior as Cousin Cousine and Avenue Montaigne and here uses an unusual, fractured timeline to give us frequent glimpses into the attendee's futures -- the social niceties will not be all they seem and the relationships, sexual and otherwise, are going to be more elaborate than anyone could imagine. With some cleverly crafted plot complications and a good cast -- including Dany Boon, Emmanuelle Seigner, Thompson's son Christopher, and the very fetching Blanca Li as an outsider dancing instructor -- this is a sly, subtle, and ultimately sweet observation of human frailty and resilience.

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Bad Brains needs no introduction to anyone who has sat in a high school classroom the past 30 years. Inevitably some young man or woman with tight black jeans and patches on their black denim jacket wandered in with a Bad Brains lightning bolt either scribbled across a notebook or held onto a bicycle bag with two rusty safety pins. For those who discovered them early on, their career it must have been equally as fascinating to see the rise of gangsta rap and other forms of hip hop grow in popularity.

Save for Living Color and other notable African American punk bands -- Detroit's recently rediscovered Death, for example -- punk has for the most part has primarily remained a 'white' thing. It's interesting then that the band not only grew in popularity as the decades progressed -- even being forced to record under the moniker 'Soul Brains' for most of the nineties due to a legal entanglement, but are arguably the godfathers of what is referred to as "Hardcore." And yet, this is one of many styles and directions they explored during their long and continuing career. No matter what others (ahem, journalists) have piled on top of the altar of meaning that is Bad Brains, they maintain they are a spiritual band above all else.

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Left, or right, one thing that every politician -- at least rhetorically -- can agree upon is that we should improve our schools. America used to have the best primary school system in the world; unfortunately, this is no longer the case. While both sides of the aisle can agree that we should strive to re-capture our status as number one in the world, there is broad disagreement over how to accomplish this large and incredibly important task.

Much of the debate has focused on issues such as charter schools, school vouchers, teacher performance pay, and standardized tests, but I feel that missing from the debate is the central issue that divides good schools from bad. There are schools in this state where students are not only expected to go to college, but also are expected to graduate from high school with extra-curricular activities and numerous AP credits, and there are schools in this state where students aren't even expected to graduate. Why do we have such disparities? Why do we have so many schools and school systems failing to live up to the promise of free, equitable schooling for the good of our nation? At the crux of it, the answer is money (and I'm not talking about in the schools, but, rather, in the homes).

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Two decades ago, I remember Jesse Jackson noting that when dealing with controversial issues that created deep divisions, one should be careful "not to excite one side, while only inciting the other". Although these cautionary words apply perfectly to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they have too frequently been ignored. The U.S. has always, of course, been attentive to its own domestic politics and has long recognized the importance of Israeli opinion. Arab opinion, on the other hand, has too often been given short shrift. We have coddled Israeli leaders whom we have felt we could not pressure too much because of the adverse reaction of their public. At the same time we have demonstrated no such compunction about pressuring Arab leaders to take steps that were manifestly unpopular, paying no heed to the impact this might have on their legitimacy or on their public's reactions.

After his remarkable speech in Cairo, I believed that this President understood the need to address the price paid by decades of neglecting Arab opinion. I had hopes that he would continue to seek balance in his approach in order to neither "excite" nor "incite". Listening to President Obama's press conference following his White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, gave me pause and a bad case of whiplash.

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Observations of combat-related stress disorders appear as early as the writings of Homer in descriptions of returning Trojan war veterans. During the Civil War, PTSD was characterized as soldier's heart, in World War I it was shell shock, in World War II it was battle fatigue and during the Vietnam War it was Vietnam Syndrome. With the 1980 inclusion of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the "American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual," PTSD has been officially designated as one of the anxiety disorders. Key features of PTSD include re-experiencing painful memories, numbing of positive feelings, avoiding reminders and being alert and on guard, even in safe situations.

The lifetime risk for PTSD in the general American population has been estimated to be 7.8 percent (1). The best estimate of the rates of PTSD in combat has been derived from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS) (2,3). The NVVRS found that 20 percent of those who served in the Vietnam War developed deployment-related PTSD, with those suffering from PTSD having increased rates of depression, alcohol and drug abuse, family adjustment problems and interpersonal violence. Children of Vietnam veterans with PTSD had higher levels of behavioral and emotional problems. Greater combat exposure, including multiple tours of duty and greater exposure to personal life threat and killing predicted greater risk of combat related PTSD.

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An A. Quincy Jones home has hit the Bel-Air housing market with a listing price of $29 Million. Originally built in 1965, this wood and steel framed house boasts 8,500 square feet on over three acres of land. A. Quincy Jones (FAIA) studied under Paul Williams (FAIA) and assisted in many of his Palm Springs properties. Jones is also known for his work with the University of Southern California as he not only designed many of the campus buildings, but he also served as Professor and eventually Dean to the School of Architecture.

A. Quincy Jones was known for his innovations in greenbelt architecture, preserving the natural elements of the land that surrounded the homes he built. This allows the home to frame 300 degree views from almost all of the windows in the residence. The home features four bedrooms, six and half bathrooms, high ceilings, a projection room, service pantry, wine cellar, pool, a carport, and wait for it ⎯ a private vineyard.

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Laurie Metcalf, perhaps best known for her part in the television series Rosanne, is, in New York theater circles, actor's actor supreme. That accolade was well-deserved Monday night at the world premiere of the MCC production of The Other Place at the Lucille Lortel theater. There, in that venerable West Village venue, paired with Dennis Boutsikaris, her co-star from the short lived production of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, she plays Juliana Smithton, a well-dressed scientist addressing a meeting of doctors in St. Thomas on the subject of pharmaceuticals who loses composure distracted by a girl in a yellow string bikini, a possible vision caused by a brain tumor.

Harrowing as the prospect of cancer is, a question arises as to whether or not she really has that dreaded disease -- or something else. In short order we see that this professional is coping with a personal matter, the disappearance of her 15-year-old from the family's second home on Cape Cod. Having created a mental picture of the daughter's life after this cataclysmic event, the inconsolable Juliana suffers delusions, breaking into her former vacation home where the new resident (Aya Cash, fine in a variety of roles) feeds her Chinese food until she is picked up. John Schiappa rounds out the cast.

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Pink recently showed up at the premiere of "The Lincoln Lawyer" with a new hairstyle.  She hated it. She tweeted "The woman that did my hair butchered it." To Pink's credit, she did not mention her by name, which would not have been the best moment of the hairdresser's career. Unfortunately, Pink was photographed by the press looking less than her usual glam rock self. Luckily, she wears her hair short and it will not take long for her to go back to looking like her spectacular self. This woman has the fashion savvy to make her transition fun and fabulous. Who knows? She might even start a few new trends as her hair grows back.

Many of us have experienced a bad haircut. It can be a  heartbreaking experience that leaves you feeling hopeless. It is incredibly frustrating to go to a professional in order to look and feel better after your haircut and walk out wishing you had never sat in your hairdresser's chair. Now is not the time to have an emotional collapse. It is the time to figure out the best way to style your hair in the most flattering way possible until it grows out. Don't panic! Make the best of a difficult situation. Here are some solutions to disguise a less-than-attractive cut.

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Historically, nothing has terrified conservatives so much as efficient, effective, activist government. "A thoroughly first-rate man in public service is corrosive," the former president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce argued in an interview published in the journal Nation's Business in 1928. "He eats holes in our liberties. The better he is and the longer he stays the greater the danger. If he is an enthusiast -- a bright-eyed madman who is frantic to make this the finest government in the world -- the black plague is a housepet by comparison."

One reason: Governing well in the interests of the broad majority brings compounding political benefits for the party of government. Consider the famous December 2, 1993 memo by William Kristol entitled "Defeating President Clinton's Health Care Proposal." The notion of government-guaranteed health care had to be defeated, he said, rather than compromised with, or else: "It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government." Kristol wrote on behalf of an organization called the Project for a Republican Future. The mortal fear is that if government delivers the goods, the Republicans have no future.

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It has been a really bad week for progressives. The bad news piling up on the road was like the wreckage after a Mac truck topples over in a crash on the interstate, with one car after another slamming into the mess. There were bits of good news peaking through here and there, like the deficit commission falling 3 votes short on its plan to make the middle class pay for a deficit created by tax cuts for the rich and Wall Street causing an economic collapse, but it was an ugly week overall:

• The co-chairs of the deficit commission got 11 votes for their plan to raise the retirement age, cut Social Security benefits, take away homeowners' mortgage deduction, take away workers' health care plans' tax advantage, and give corporations and the wealthy lower taxes. Even though the plan fell short of the 14 required by its executive order to be forwarded to Congress, the campaign manager for the commission's plan, the Washington Post, has proclaimed breathlessly that this is a great victory for goodness and truth -- and that is in its "news" section. And President Obama decided on a cross between no response and a positive one: not commenting on any of the specifics while praising the work of the commission way too much.
  
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Via RealEstalker: We wrote about this Malibu mansion in May when owner Richard Weintraub put it up for rent at $250,000 a month. It's now on the market for a whopping $75,000,000 for the entire estate, or $34,500,000 for a smaller parcel. The thirteen-bedroom, fourteen-bathroom property has 20,000 square feet of living space and sits atop over six acres of landscaped grounds. The grounds are filled with secret gardens, rose gardens, a kitchen garden, and a desert garden. Other structures besides the main home include the pool pavilion, guest house/office, green house, guest suite, and staff quarters.

The home has most recently been featured in the films I Love You Man and Funny People. Its luxurious digs draws many comparisons to William Randolph Hearst's mansions. Realestalker notes that the Weintraubs seem to have built "their own version of Hearst Castle on the bluffs of the Bu," complete with a pool house similar in opulence to the Hearst Castle's natatorium: "a palatial Greek Revival style natatorium/pool house with marble pilasters, walls encrusted with more than 500,000 seashells, six glittery crystal chandeliers, and a glass ceiling."

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The New York Times reports this morning ("TARP Bailout to Cost Less Than Once Anticipated") that the true cost of TARP will be less than $50 billion. I find this type of reporting to be incredibly misleading and deceitful. Focusing solely on TARP and ignoring the other more costly portions of the government bailout of our biggest banks and corporations ignores the true cost of the government's (both the Bush and Obama administrations, the Fed and Congress) inept response to this crisis. One of the reasons that TARP did not cost more was because of the government's other more costly bailout policies, and to ignore them is to dramatically understate the true cost of the bailout.

By claiming a narrow TARP success, the Times attempts to invalidate citizen anger at the bailout by making it appear that the electorate is somehow misinformed about its costs or is just plain stupid. Nothing could be further from the truth. Claiming that TARP was successful, but ignoring the much larger and more relevant costs of other areas of the government bailout is like claiming the voyage of the Titanic was successful because many of the lifeboats were recovered. It is important to remember that the ship sunk.

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ABC-TV has kicked its Sarah Palin damage control into high gear. It released raw footage of the Dancing with the Stars segment that purportedly proves that Palin was not booed when she was introduced to the crowd. The audience's boos supposedly were for a disputed score to another pair of dance contestants. But wait; respondents to the ABC Palin repair job, hotly dispute the network. They make a pretty convincing case that she was indeed booed when she came out on stage and that if indeed the boos were solely over the unpopular score than the boos would have continued during the whole judges ratings. There was a four second delay before the booing occurred in relation to when the judges were finished enough time for Palin to walk on stage.

The capper to this was the audience members that booed. When asked, they were adamant that their boos were directed at Palin. So why then the rush by ABC to clean up yet another in the telephone book thick list of Palin's dismal acts. Three reasons, She's hot media copy, and network execs are biting their nails at their see saw, up and down, mostly down, ratings They will do anything not to slay a cash cow. And Palin is definitely seen as money in the bank.

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If Menachem Begin had worn swim trunks, he would never have completely withdrawn from Sinai and kept Gaza. Actually everything was pretty clear when Begin -- with Ariel Sharon's help and approval -- basically unilaterally withdrew from Sinai, bulldozed Yamit, and kept Gaza. This was in response to "the mouse that roared" Jimmy Carter, who won a Nobel Peace with him and Sadat because of it, but would soon be thrown out of office by the Americans themselves -- Obama already has one, so probably the same thing won't happen in precisely the same way again with him.

So who said, "the Jews were so smart" or not stupid or, to put the proposition as an American might: "A fool and his money are soon parted". In any event, for Israel anyhow, it has been a slow, downhill slide politically-speaking -- and sometimes not so slow -- ever since. It was in response to this slide that I began characterizing this episode from the Eighties onwards, "If Begin wore swim trunks, he would have never withdrawn from Sinai (and kept Gaza)". Rather, he would have drawn a line halfway down the middle or, as the old adage would have it, "You keep half and we'll keep half" (can you picture Menachem Begin in swim trunks -- I can't?).

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The Palestinian families which live along Route 60 in the South Hebron Hills in the occupied West Bank have no recourse when settlers attack. The area is under full Israeli civil and military control, leaving the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority relatively helpless in dealing with problems caused by Israeli settlers. Israel practices its most profound acts of subjugation of Palestinian rights against these residents through a bureaucratic maze of laws making access to water, electricity and construction virtually impossible.

Since last week's fatal shooting of four settlers from the settlement of Beit Haggai just outside of Kiryat Arba, Palestinians in the area have been subjected to what the settlers call "price tag" reprisal attacks and repeated Israeli army incursions. Settlers have been burning fields, destroying property, stoning Palestinian houses and erecting new settlement outposts in response to the shooting. As usual, the stated position of the Israeli army that it acts as a force that will quell tension between Palestinians and settlers, has not taken place. In fact, the army is fully aware of settler attacks and yet they have taken over Palestinian houses in order to "calm the situation."

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As the dreaded hurricane season starts to ramp up, many wonder what kind of impact a perfect storm might have upon the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The first hurricane of the Atlantic season, "Alex", just recently pushed oil onto Gulf coast beaches. To the dismay of local residents, some tar balls were as large as apples. Though Alex has now cooled off, ridiculously warm oceans and still-air mean that storms like "Bonnie", "Colin" and "Danielle" could continue to plague the Gulf.

While future storms might mix up and disperse water and oil, which would in turn make it easier for bacteria to break down and consume larger clumps, hurricanes could also push the BP spill westward into marshlands. Indeed, by their very nature hurricanes move counter-clockwise and as a result will tend to move oil from east to west (up to now, the BP spill has generally been moving from west to east). What's more, hurricanes could complicate any relief effort since they give rise to storm surges, elevated water levels and big storm waves. Those waves spell danger since they reach farther inland as they crash onto beaches. As a result, oil could be spread over a much wider area.

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