Stay true to the dreams of thy youth

I apologize for the lack of news updates recently. I've been traveling in California and Chicago and got back last night. Off to Dubai in three days...

• Israeli settlers evict Palestinian family from their home of 70 years - Guardian

  "Israeli settlers took over a Palestinian home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City today, evicting about 45 members of an extended family which has occupied the building for more than 70 years. The settlers claimed to have documentation to prove they had purchased the building from the owners. The Palestinian tenants, who have been fighting attempts to evict them for many years, were challenging the takeover in court. A police spokesman said the Israelis had entered the home "based on documents claiming that they owned the property"."

• Human rights in Tunisia: No to opposition - The Economist

  "Mr Ben Ali, nearly 74, often boasts of running a stable, modestly prosperous, well-educated country, with the Arab world’s most liberal legislation for women’s rights. But democracy is another matter. After his election to a fifth term in October, with 90% of the vote, his fist got tighter than usual. Amnesty International says that dissidents are held in dire conditions; those still free are constantly harassed. According to the human-rights body, security agents infiltrate opposition groups to take control of them, stifling open politics. Moreover, according to a book published last year in France but banned in Tunisia, Mr Ben Ali’s family and influential wife, Leila Trabelsi, own a number of lucrative monopolies that hamper the free market."

• A barely tolerated minority - Haaretz

  "And it is not just Hamas that is outlawed in Jerusalem: All Palestinian political activity more radical than a Cub Scout meeting is illegal in East Jerusalem. Palestinians in East Jerusalem are not being paranoid if they fear that the expulsion of Abu Tir portends a new trend, where any "proscribed" political activity may result in permanent exile. Israeli non-recognition of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem as an indigenous community with rights is evident in every policy that governs that part of the city. Israel has expropriated one-third of the privately owned Palestinian land there to build 50,000 residential units for Israelis; none for Palestinians. The expropriations are always made for "public purposes," but the "public" involved is, invariably, Israelis only."

• Immigration Debate: Border Cities See Less Violent Crime - Time

  "According to the FBI, the four large U.S. cities (with populations of at least 500,000) with the lowest violent crime rates — San Diego, Phoenix and the Texas cities of El Paso and Austin — are all in border states. "The border is safer now than it's ever been," U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling told the Associated Press last month. Even Larry Dever, the sheriff of Arizona's Cochise County, where the murder last March of a local rancher, believed to have been committed by an illegal immigrant, sparked calls for the law, conceded to the Arizona Republic recently that "we're not seeing the [violent crime] that's going on on the other side." "

• The new division of labor: Adding profits, subtracting workers - Wash Post

  "The only surprise is that anyone is surprised by the lack of private-sector hiring. It is only in the world of Chamber of Commerce propaganda that businesses exist to create jobs. In the real world, businesses exist to create profits for shareholders, not jobs for workers. That's why they call it capitalism, not job-ism. There's no reason to beat up on business owners and executives simply because they're doing what the system encourages them to do. By the same token, however, it is more than a bit hypocritical for business leaders to pin the blame on the Obama administration for their own failure to create private-sector jobs, as they have been doing lately. "

• New START: Too modest to merit partisan bickering- Wash Post

  "But on this issue, Republicans can and should take the high ground and set a better standard. The treaty has its problems -- in verification, where the Russians seem never to be entirely trustworthy, as well as in counting mechanisms -- and so did the treaties negotiated by the two Bush administrations. But New START is not so badly flawed as to warrant rejection. "

• Boot - Impact of past defense cuts should warn of risks - Wash Post

  ** I disagree with his connections between cutting the military and the wars we could have allegedly prevented, but the premise is interesting. I'm all for cutting military spending personally** "If there were ever evidence that it's impossible to learn from history -- or at least that it's difficult for politicians to do so -- this is it. Before they rush to cut defense spending, lawmakers should consider the consequences of previous attempts to cash in on a "peace dividend." "

I'm in California enjoying the warm beach and the company of good friends, so my reading list is a bit light for the previous days.

• Guard troops to head to border states Aug. 1 - AP

  "National Guard troops will head to the U.S.-Mexico border Aug. 1 for a yearlong deployment to keep a lookout for illegal border crossers and smugglers and help in criminal investigations, federal officials said Monday. The troops will be armed, but can use their weapons only to protect themselves, Gen. Craig McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau said at a Pentagon news conference. The troops will undergo initial training and be fully deployed along the nearly 2,000-mile southern border by September."

• A special report on Egypt: The long wait - The Economist

• Man convicted of rape for consensual sex with woman but told her he was Jewish (English) - Ali Abunimah

  "Jail time for Arab who impersonated a Jew and raped through fraud A court sentenced a resident of East Jerusalem who lied to a young woman and told her that he was Jewish in order to have sexual relations with her to a year in a half of prison time. “Protect the public from such criminals.”"

• China Becomes World's Biggest Energy Consumer - WSJ

  "China is now the world's biggest energy consumer, knocking the U.S. off a perch it held for more than a century, according to new data from the International Energy Agency. The Paris-based agency, whose forecasts are generally regarded as bellwether indicators for the energy industry, said China devoured 2,252 million tons of oil equivalent last year, or about 4% more than the U.S., which burned through 2,170 million tons of oil equivalent. The oil-equivalent metric represents all forms of energy consumed, including crude oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydropower."

• Netanyahu: 'America is a thing you can move very easily' - Checkpoint Washington

  ""I know what America is," Netanyahu told a group of terror victims, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded. "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in their way." Netanyahu also bragged how he undercut the peace process when he was prime minister during the Clinton administration. "They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords]," he said. "I said I would, but ... I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders."

• Headless bodies and other immigration tall tales in Arizona

  "The Arizona governor, seemingly determined to repel every last tourist dollar from her pariah state, has sounded a new alarm about border violence. "Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded," she announced on local television. Ay, caramba! Those dark-skinned foreigners are now severing the heads of fair-haired Americans? Maybe they're also scalping them or shrinking them or putting them on a spike. But those in fear of losing parts north of the neckline can relax. There's not a follicle of evidence to support Brewer's claim."

• Schoolgirls Controlled by Loverboys: Math Class in the Morning, Turning Tricks at Lunchtime - Spiegel

  "They are still children, only 12 or 13 years old. They fall in love for the first time, at the school gates or on Facebook, and wind up with a pimp. Parents and police are struggling against the hold so-called loverboys have over young girls, but often it's already too late."

• Russian Spy Games - The Daily Beast

  The next day, he received a call from a friendly woman who said her father had found Sam’s briefcase and would Sam mind picking it up? With chocolates and flowers in hand, Sam met the man, and got his briefcase back, but his iPod and recorder were missing. He thought nothing of it, until he had dinner later with an American diplomat who was not surprised by his story. “Oh, yeah,” the diplomat said, in Sam’s recounting, “It’s your turn. That’s the FSB”—the security service that succeeded the KGB. “They do that to new diplomats and new journalists when they first get to Moscow. They just want to let you know they’re around.” And that’s when Sam realized that something had been a bit weird: The man had called Sam’s landline, which was not listed on any document in the briefcase."

• Illegal Workers Swept From Jobs in ‘Silent Raids’ - NYT

  **I'm for providing a full path to citizenship for these hard-working immigrants. Without them, the food industry would collapse, our country would be a lot less interesting and we would be betraying the very fabric of our country - acceptance of immigrants from around the world** "Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted audits of employee files at more than 2,900 companies. The agency has levied a record $3 million in civil fines so far this year on businesses that hired unauthorized immigrants, according to official figures. Thousands of those workers have been fired, immigrant groups estimate. "

Sarah Palin's Playground
If only all political issues were debated in the language of childhood.
By Hart Seely

Sarah Palin scored points Wednesday at a Minnesota fundraiser for Rep. Michele Bachmann when she framed her view of President Obama's nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia in "common sense" terms: "You know, that's kind of like getting out there on the playground, a bunch of kids ready to fight, and one of the kids saying, 'Go ahead, punch me in the face, and I'm not going to retaliate. Go ahead, and do what you want to with me!' No, it is unacceptable." In this era of unintelligible, lawyerly doubletalk, Palin's refreshing use of childhood imagery could launch a breakthrough in political discourse. Imagine how it might work with other issues.

On the war in Iraq
"You're wrestling Molly behind the bus garage, and you finally got her into a headlock so you can wail on her, but somebody ran off and told the principal, and now, old man Biden is coming to break it up. You'll both get put on detention, and it won't be over with Molly, because you'll have to fight her on the walk home tonight, so you're thinking, 'If I can put some good gouges onto Molly's pretty little face, she won't want to tangle with me again! Don't bind my hands, Biden! Molly needs to learn her lesson!' "

On immigration
"You're holding a birthday party, and Maria Rodriguez is not invited—but not because she's Spanish or anything. Anyway, you're trying to keep it hush-hush, so Maria doesn't find out. Unfortunately, the teacher's pet, Barack Obama, gets up in class and says, 'Who-all is going to Sarah's party? Let's carpool so our mommies can save on gas!' So now, everybody knows, and Maria not only will come, but she'll bring her relatives, and there won't be enough cake, and your birthday will be ruined."

On protecting wilderness areas
"You're wearing your favorite jacket, when the richest kid in school, Kennedy, comes up and says, 'That coat is so nice, everybody should enjoy it. Give it to me, so I can hang it on the flag pole, so we all can see it.' And you go, 'No way, it's my jacket, and I want to wear it.' And he goes, 'It's too nice for just you. Besides, the Earth is heating up, so you don't need a jacket anyway!' Then, he takes your jacket and doesn't even put it on the flag pole, but he and his coat-hugger pals run around the school, wearing it."

On the banking bailout
"In the lunch line, the fattest kid in school asks for your ice cream cup. Now, you're willing to give him your green beans or mashed potatoes, but not the ice cream. So he says, 'If I can't have your ice cream, I'll fake a heart attack, they'll close the cafeteria, and nobody will get their ice cream cups.' So you give him your ice cream cup. Later, when Principal Summers finds out, he says, 'You should be ashamed of yourself, giving Fatty your ice cream! Because of you, he's fat.' As punishment, nobody gets ice cream, except Fatty, because he moved to another school, where he's pulling the same deal."

On unemployment
"You and Molly have nothing to do and want to go to mall. So you go to your mom, who's sitting around feeling sorry for herself, watching TV, because she doesn't have a job, and you go, 'Hey, Mom, we need a ride to the mall!' But she can't leave the house, because she's waiting for a phone call from Barack Obama, who is supposed to call any minute, offering her a job. But the phone never rings, because Barack Obama is talking about health care, so nobody goes to the mall, and it closes."

On universal health care
"You've got a tough math test coming up, so you tell your mom your head hurts and you need to stay home. But you don't get to skip classes and hook up with your boyfriend after hockey practice, because the school nurse comes to your house and spends the whole day taking your temperature and asking you trick questions. You end up having to lie in bed and study math, it costs the school so much money that they cut hockey, and then you find out you're pregnant!"

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Hart Seely is the author of Mrs. Goose Goes to Washington: Nursery Rhymes for the Political Barnyard.