On October 13, New York Times correspondents David Sanger and Mark Mazzetti co-authored one of the most intriguing whodunit stories in recent memory. Really, it was a whydunit story and focused on the September air attack by Israel of a Syrian military site.
On Tuesday, November 13, I’m going to be on a plane to Beijing, so I can’t attend the American Enterprise Institute book event featuring the recess-appointed former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton speaking on his new memoir, Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations.
A lot of folks sent their good wishes after the oral surgery I had a week ago. Many thanks to all of you. The pain proved to be pretty tough to shake — and thus I really couldn’t blog much the last few days. My apologies.
Ali Larijani has essentially been fired by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is not letting Larijani leave the negotiating scene yet. Despite Larijani’s blurry status, Iran has announced the “joint will” of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei that Iran’s top nuclear negotiator attend talks on Tuesday in Rome with Javier Solana.
(Andrew Rice, left, is running for Senate against Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma) Matt Stoller posted this gem last night and Taylor Marsh knocked one out of the park this morning.
About 20 people, a long table, a backyard under a fall night sky, carved pumpkins and gourds, candles flickering everywhere, pomegranate margaritas, a magnificent meal (some of which also arrived in personal pumpkins) — and the equally uber-connected and delightful Margaret Carlson and Judith Czelusniak as co-hostesses.
Tomorrow, two interesting books will be hitting the newsstands. I know both authors but have not read their books. My hunch though is that they fill in key pieces of the Iraq and Iran stories that readers will want to know about.
I’m not kidding. Vatican Monsignor says he was “pretending to be gay” to help wayward youth. From AP: “It’s all false; it was a trap. I was a victim of my own attempts to contribute to cleaning up the church with my psychoanalyst work,” La Repubblica quoted Stenico as saying.
Annie and Oakley the Amazing Weimaraners send their best. I know, it’s blurry. I’m going to have some oral surgery this morning — please be nice while I’m away and nice knowing all of you if it doesn’t go well.
While I think that post-Fidel Cuba is going to look a lot like Fidel’s Cuba unless the US opens the spigots to travel and trade, Jimmy Carter‘s perspective on US-Cuba relations is useful to read. He thinks that we have undermined any chance of organic democratic movements taking hold inside Cuba.
