I'm not enthused in any way about the fall election and for many, many, many reasons. The ham and jelly vs. peanut butter and cheese sandwich choices (from my POV anyway) when all I want is a damned "ham and cheese sandwich" leave me opting to skip lunch...so to speak. But, I guess all I can do is favor ham or cheese and tolerate the rest.

So, whether you want to label foreign policy "ham" or "cheese" is kind of irrelevant in the analogy but whichever it is is the one that matters more right now.

Never on the face of the earth have a more cowardly, racist and self-pitying bunch of bullies and strong-arm robbers been assembled as we now see gathered in the Kremlin. Russia lapses into its natural state, a modus vivendi characterized by insularity and self-aggrandizement. Georgia again plays with fire, nationalist sentiments arise, only to be beaten down, as in centuries past. It has all been seen before

If there was any doubt about Russia's intentions to take over a sovereign nation, this should help dispel them:

Top CIA official confesses order to forge Iraq-9/11 letter came on White House stationery

Normally I'd want verification before posting a link like that, then I saw this:

From the American Conservative:

0730 EST. The Olympics rumble to life, we are witness to the overture of a new superpower. The Chinese are desperate to exhibit their hospitality. Push a microphone in from of any Chinese child, and you’ll hear him proudly root for his country. In English. I give you, however imperfectly seen from the outside, a view of the Chinese as they see themelves.

A Ming dynasty painting hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of New York City: Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden (complete image here). No martial statues on horseback, brandishing swords for these leaders of China. They sit under blooming trees in Beijing, admiring antiques, gazing at a particularly beautiful rock, doing calligraphy, in the company of lovely women, playing board games in the morning of April 6, 1437. They are in harmony with their world. Each guest composes a poem, attached to the scroll.

As I’ve mentioned on a thread or two, I’m boycotting the “Genocide Olympics.” I will not watch one second of Olympic games hosted – and thus granting a prestige boost to – a regime that supports and defends atrocious regimes in Sudan and Burma, that is still oppressing the people of Tibet (albeit with material advances), and that deprives its own people of democracy and of basic human rights.

I mentioned our local intelligence gathering agencies in my last diary. Mostly, their work doesn't get published in our local press. Recently after the spate of serial bombings and the bumbling of our terrorism watchers they have pointed me to articles, in the NYT, of all places - where more worthwhile stuff seems to get published than anywhere else. I'm not sure if all the gentlemen in the forvm here agree with that.

Living just next to a porous border, I get to meet up with some of our local intelligencewallahs from time to time who are trying to plug a long border to assorted militants extending across four countries.

John McCain recently said that Maliki does not "really" want to see a substantial draw down of US combat troops in Iraq. Back on July 21st, a McCain spokesman used these words:

Of note: This strikes me as being at the core of Brooks & B's conundrum over Obama's allegedly ambiguous Iraq policy, however I do not wish that kerfluffle to be the centerpiece of this diary. Rather, I wish to focus on Maliki's actual position concernng the withdrawal of US combat troops.