I have the privilege of chatting with many political, economic and foreign policy journalists from around the world. I generally like almost all of them and appreciate their interest, but some stand out above the others on occasion — and Hoda Husseini of Asharq Al-Awsat was one of these.
Each month, I receive from Leo Hindery an update on “America’s effective unemployment rate” which includes not only the official unemployment figures but other data points showing off-the-books unemployed or underemployed people. The numbers are staggering and are aggregates of official data.
Center for a New American Security Co-Founder and CEO Kurt Campbell has finally been sworn in today as Barack Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs, the position most recently held by the newly appointed US Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill.
Former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman has just given short, but gracious, concession remarks issuing greetings to Minnesota’s next US Senator, Al Franken. Congratulations Al! This is a nice bit of news to get before flying off to Rome.
A good friend and neighbor in Colorado just sent this in to me. I happen to own the hill and ridge pictured — and plan someday to have a house there, just about where the rainbow hits land.
For a few days, I have been doing some exploratory work on a book and needed to take a few days break from TWN to clear my mind. I am off to Rome, Italy today.
(This picture from November 2004 depicts then UK Ambassador to Iran Sir Richard Dalton and Iran’s then top nuclear negotiator Hasan Howhani) During my recent trip to London where I spoke at a forum organized by intellectual wunderkind G.
I know this is not a political or foreign policy matter — but news has just broken that Michael Jackson has died of heart attack (according to current reports) at the age of 50. No matter the controversies, I grew up on many of his songs.
A couple of things to bring to the attentions of friends of TWN. At 4:30 pm EST today, I’ll be talking about Iran on the Michelangelo Signorile Show. Yesterday, I had an interesting and substantive short discussion with To the Point‘s Warren Olney.
(Washington Note publisher Steve Clemons, Obama political guru David Axelrod, and Al Jazeera’s Mysa Khalaf) Yesterday evening, I chaired a dinner featuring Austan Goolsbee, the charismatic economic guru of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and a key adviser to the President in the White House.
