An International Portrait Gallery?

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(photo credit: Marc Pachter) There is something intriguing to me that the long-time, now former director of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, Marc Pachter, took this picture of Ronald McDonald in Bangkok.

The View on My Walk: Savin’ To Fight Terrorism

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I normally don’t buy chachkis, but I couldn’t resist this one. It will be a priceless relic someday of this era’s destructive hyperventilation and fear-mongering. I landed in New York this morning and stopped in one of the greatest stores I’ve ever been to — the Pearl River Mart on Broadway. I paid $7.

Leo Hindery’s “Effective Unemployment” Update

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The Washington Note is posting this monthly update from business executive Leo Hindery, who has been focused like a laser over the last year on the fact that the administration has been underperforming on job creation and has been engineering a GDP recovery rather than a recovery plan focused on deep infrastructure investments and jobs….

Buffered From Afghanistan’s Stark Costs

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The clip above is one of several excellent news clips done by Al Jazeera English‘s Clayton Swisher. As i was watching this, I realized that Americans hardly see images form the field and front lines in Afghanistan. Americans don’t feel directly the financial costs of the war.

Al Qaeda Not a Top Risk for 2010?

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Business Week recently published Eurasia Group’s “Top Global Risks of 2010.” I am always impressed with Eurasia Group President and Foreign Policy blogger Ian Bremmer, who provided a tour de force of global events at the New America Foundation last year.

Moving Away From ‘Privileged Partnership’?

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It is ironic that foreign affairs analysts (and international investors) seem to be more sanguine about Turkey’s political and economic outlook heading into 2010 than they have been in years, but at the same time Turkey’s prospects of joining the European Union remain mired in a steady decline.

Kurdistan in Limbo

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Graeme Wood has a fascinating piece in the current edition of Foreign Policy about his travels in the “limbo world” of unofficial or unrecognized states.