Queen Elizabeth II has started a trend in YouTube holiday greetings from world leaders. Now Prime Minister of Japan Yasuo Fukuda has offered his (click image above).

Nicholas Schmidle, who is sort of like the Pakistan/Afghanistan equivalent of a blond-haired, roving Lawrence of Arabia, has written a fascinating, detailed account of some of the emerging conflicts between various Taliban leaders and Pakistan’s Islamic fundamentalist leaders.

Michael Schiffer is guest-blogging for The Washington Note this week from Iowa. While he is attending many different political events in the state and offering commentary, he is transparent about the fact that he is campaigning on the side for Senator Barack Obama.

Increasingly the Iowa race, on the Democratic side is about the competition between Barack Obama and John Edwards.

I just got a note in my inbox with a full press release from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos. Chairman Lantos is apparently battling cancer of the esophagus and will retire at the end of his term.

. . .and we haven’t even launched another war.

I have yet to see a public comment from either Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or President Bush about the murder of U.S. AID official John Granville in Sudan. US Agency for International Development Henrietta Fore did release this statement — but Granville’s death deserves more extensive attention from our leaders.

I keep bumping into friends from Washington and elsewhere out here in Nevada and Lake Tahoe, California — most recently Stephen Rose who thinks that the middle class in America is not as bad off as many argue. I’ll be back in DC tonight.

Most know that Zbigniew Brzezinski is endorsing Barack Obama for the presidency. The Washington Note was one of the first to report his announcement.

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