Now I know why John Podesta is so unique — and how and why skillful princes use him. . .

Toles (c) 2009 The Washington Post. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. I think it’s our responsibility as American citizens to critique and applaud government’s moves as we see fit.

This month, the Japan Society of New York, one of America’s leading platforms for Japan-related cultural, political, and economic programming announced that its next president would not be an American citizen — which has always been the case — but would rather be a Japanese citizen, and no ordinary Japanese citizen at that.

This is a guest post for The Washington Note by Tal Schneider, Washington DC Correspondent for the Israel daily newspaper Maariv.

This video above was sent to me this morning in a note from the Washington Post‘s Tom Ricks who said “I particularly like the video they did on one captain’s counterinsurgency campaign.

Peter Berkowitz‘s essay in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard provides good insight into what I think is the strategic irresponsibility of those in Israel’s leadership who think that they can hold steady on a course that justifies failure on an a Palestine-Israel deal using Hamas and Iran as excuses.

I have not yet dabbled with Kindle and reading books, papers, and blogs through a Kindle reader — but a friend is and just found that The Washington Note is available through Kindle. Who knew? I didn’t.

This is one of the more clever posts on economic theory I have seen in a while. Read the entire list of 21 economic models as told through “cows”. . . But here are some I particularly enjoyed: SOCIALISM You have 2 cows. You give one to your neighbour. COMMUNISM You have 2 cows.

Live Streaming by Ustream.

My colleague Michael Lind will be hosting a live panel discussion at 12:30 pm EST with Princeton University/Woodrow Wilson Institute Professor G.