Asked what carrots the Europeans had offered as incentives, a European negotiator replied, "There were no carrots."

No Carrots ?!?

Perhaps Mr. Charlier would have better luck gaining access to nuclear facilities if he offered the officials a Flaming Carrot or two.

Freeze Extended Despite Blatant Lack of Carrots

FRONTLINE/World and BBC reporter Paul Kenyon travels deep into Iran to investigate charges that Iran is secretly developing a nuclear bomb. With exclusive access to a U.N. inspection team, Kenyon visits Iran's most sensitive nuclear sites and reports on the escalating diplomatic tensions surrounding the discovery of the facilities.

Frontline shows what great reporting can be. If only there were more of it on television (and in the media, generally) today. Unfortunately, the commercial networks suffer from different motivations.

Iran, Going Nuclear | PBS Frontline/World

This is a moment to feel deeply bad, for the dead and for those of us who have no explanation.

It's Not About You

dmv wrote:
] I thought that, in today's column, I would heal the
] nation.
]
] The nation suffered a wound during the recent
] presidential election as a result of the rift between the
] red states -- defined as "states where 'foreign cuisine'
] pretty much means Pizza Hut" -- and the blue states,
] defined as "states that believe they are smarter than
] the red states, despite the fact that it takes the
] average blue-state resident 15 minutes to order a single
] cup of coffee."

I know Dave is trying to be funny, but those characterizations are just dead wrong.

Here's an excerpt from a New York Times article published on September 22, 2004.

There are now close to 36,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States, according to Chinese Restaurant News, a trade publication, more than the number of McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King franchises combined. What began in this country as exotic has become thoroughly American. A study by the Center for Culinary Development, a food product development company, found that 39 percent of children between the ages of 10 and 13 who were surveyed said Chinese was their favorite type of food, compared with only 9 percent who chose American.

"It has become part of our consciousness."

"It is quintessentially American."

Menus document history of Chinese eateries in US

Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.

10x10

If we lived in a primitive age, the ground at Langley would be laid waste and salted, and there would be heads on spikes. As it is, the answer to the CIA insubordination is not just to move a few boxes on the office flow chart.

David Brooks is clearly taking the President's side, and while I disagree with him on some of the larger issues here, I do share his complaints about this strategy.

What David doesn't say is that this solution is applied everywhere, and not just to deal with "insubordination," but with anything and everything. It's become a general-purpose tool.

In modern business and government, there are only two essential tools to achieving problem solving success:

1. If people aren't getting along, try rearranging the organizational chart.
2. If people aren't doing good work, try a new process.

These are the NOR and the NAND of American corporate circuitry.

The answer is to define carefully what the president expects from the intelligence community: information.

To paraphrase what Jules once said to Vincent, "if your answers disagree with mine, then I will cease asking for your opinion."

The CIA Versus Bush

Via Drudge Report. An impressive collection of battle shots.

Raw Video Captures of The Battle of Fallujah

The Marines know they are being hunted. Boxed from the east and the west in a treacherous kill zone by an enemy they can feel -- but can't see. Their superior firepower is checked by the insurgents' knowledge of the city -- their cunning in using blind alleyways and the crooks and crannies of buildings to pick off the Marines.

Kevin Sites Blog: Fallujah Street by Street

Decius wrote:
] Seeing as the number of people who voted this year was so much
] higher than last, if the percentage is the same, then they did
] mobilize a large number of people.

That argument doesn't make any sense to me. It suggests the Democrats were out there trying to get out the vote among those who say they don't go to church regularly.

I think more is being made of this issue than is valid. These comparisons seem to neglect the most obvious factor: the passage of time. I offer a few simple data points:

In 2000, approximately 105 million total votes were cast.
In 2004, approximately 116 million total votes were cast.

That's an increase of 11 million votes, or 8.6 percent.

According to the US Census Bureau, the US population has grown by more than 12 million people between 2000 and November 2004. The voting-age population increased by 8 million between July 2000 and July 2003, and the overall population has grown by nearly 4 million since July 2003. In 2003, the voting-age population was 80 percent of the total population.

By those numbers, population growth may account for 87% of the increase in voter turnout for 2004.

While this population growth does not account for all of the increase in votes, it is a significant contributing factor.

] California is a blue state.

Los Angeles and San Francisco are blue cities. California has a Republican governor. It's more complicated than that.

In California, Bush won 36 counties. Kerry won only 20, and his margin of victory was less than 10 percent in 5 of those 20.

San Bernardino county voters chose Bush (56%) over Kerry (43%). Yet they also voted in favor of Proposition 71 (52%). In San Diego, 52% voted for Bush and 58% supported Prop 71.

You'll find the same trend for Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Butte, Inyo, Tuolumne, and Nevada counties.

RE: The Values-Vote Myth

"If you have a plan on how you're going to approach the opposition, and you execute consistently, then you're going to have success."

There it is ... that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

Get Your War On