Barack Obama is being accused by left and right alike as being flip-flopper.  John McCain is also being accused by left and right alike as being a flip-flopper.  Since flip-flopping is the ultimate evil in partisan politics, and using the standards that fans of either candidate are putting for the other, one thing is becoming obvious: neither candidate is getting elected president this November.

Riiiight.

This can’t possibly be bad news; the ‘Professors’ who took over universities in the 1960s and 70s are now all retiring. This means that the old liberal guard, who has dominated education in the US and in the rest of the Western world for decades, may lose its influence.

That’s good news.

The entire debate about “death with dignity” is one that, in my opinion, should not even exist in a modern, developed country. When a person wants to take his or her own life, the government should not interfere. If that person is chronically ill, and if that person has no chance of recovery whatsoever, it is also logical that he or she asks his / her doctor for help. The doctor can help them die with dignity, indeed, and without much pain, and useless suffering.

Lawrence Kudlow wonders why it is that John McCain isn’t ‘pummeling Barack Obama daily on drill, drill, drill’ oil. This is, he argues, an issue that could very well prove to be the main issue of these elections… if McCain is willing to make it that important that is.

If the ‘elitist feminists’ at the New York Times continue to draw attention to irrelevant, useless, and uncontroversial issues, they’ll quickly make themselves and the entire movement they say they represent irrelevant. In this particular case, the NYT decided that a golf club who separates its members based on gender - both men and women have their own grills with televisions, and so on. The complaint? The men’s grill has a television and  bar, the one for women does not.

The German newspaper the SPIEGEL reports that ‘[t]here is an unexpected air of normalcy prevailing in Baghdad these days, with consumption flourishing and confidence in the government growing.’ The newspaper even points out that ‘[t]he progress is astonishing.’ The question is, of course, whether it can last.

Matthew Rothschild wrote an article about patriotism that is, in my opinion, quite interesting. If he intended to piss off many of his fellow Americans, he clearly succeeded. If you look at the comment section, there are only a few people who agree with him. All the others tell him to go find another country to live in, or simply to shut up. Or both.

We had an interesting discussion about Obama’s support for faith based initiatives here recently, but I’ve got something to add to the debate which I think deserves a post of its own. It seems to me that those who agree with Obama that the government should make it illegal for faith based organizations / charities to hire people based on their religions don’t quite understand the US Constitution.

Well, I guess not so much a shake-up as a change in leadership, but CNN is reporting that McCain has appointed a new manager of day-to-day operations, Steve Schmidt.

Obama gave a speech in Colorado Springs today stressing the theme of national service.

He renewed a call frequent in his campaign; that serving the country is not something to be done by a few but by everyone, and a call for everyone to serve within their capacity. Service would be accomplished through the military, but also through the PeaceCorp and AmeriCorps or other forms of volunteerism.

Below follows the transcript of the speech Senator Barack Obama delivered in Zanesville, Ohio. As usual, I will not comment on the content of the speech. I just want to give you the opportunity to read it, think about it, and to comment on it yourself if you are so inclined.

Although the United States has launched quite an aggressive covert campaign against Iran I get the distinct impression that they’ve got no idea what they’re doing. As David Ignatius explains, the covert actions of the US inside Iran are not coordinated (with each other), and there does not seem to be a grand plan, a grand design. It’s like flies attacking an elephant sporadically.

Former Colombian Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three American military contractors held captive by FARC guerillas since 2003 have been rescued (via CNN):

(CNN) — Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt has been rescued, the country’s defense minister Juan Manuel Santos said Wednesday.

She was kidnapped by FARC in 2002.

When I was still a high school student (Lord, when I think about high school nowadays I’m thinking ‘well, that was a long time ago’; proof that I’m getting old) I always noticed how when a teacher was passionate about the subject he taught, the class was passionate or at least interested (as well). This even when the subject itself was, objectively seen, boring as hell.

It’s a fair question raised by Jennifer Rubin. The answer she gives is ‘yes, definitely.’ My interaction with quite some Jewish-American friends leads me to believe that Rubin could be right, at least to a degree. It may not be as bad as some hope / fear, but there most definitely are quite some Jewish voters who, perhaps even for the first time in their lives, plan to vote for McCain in November, instead of Obama.

It seems clear to the me that so-called Erkenegon case is related to the closure case against the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gül. Whenever there’s a development in the latter case, more journalists are arrested.

Robert D. Kaplan argues that the current food crisis, especially in Africa, has forced many people to have a second look at Thomas Robert Malthus’ theories. Additionally, increasingly more journalists and analysts are starting to respect the man who theorized that there was a limit to the resources of the earth and, therefore, to the population of mankind. Perhaps better said; Malthus argued that conflicts would arise soon, chaos would erupt, crises would plague the world, because the ‘population increases geometrically while food supplies increase only arithmetically.’

Below follows the transcript of the speech Senator John McCain delivered in Indianapolis, Indiana recently. As usual, I will not comment on the content of the speech myself. I just want to give you the opportunity to read it, think about it, and comment on it yourself.

I take this CNN poll as a sign that voters are taking the time to check both candidates out, before they decide who to vote for. November is still some four months away, meaning that voters are now starting to orientate themselves. They’re reading up on both candidates, and they’ll compare both candidates to each other. After that, they’ll make a decision.

Good news for Turkey, and for those who believe that what happened to the Armenians does not or at least may not constitute genocide and that Armenians should open their archives to historians: the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe agrees. The OSCE is the biggest international organization behind the United Nations. As such, this is a big victory for the Turks and, as far as I am concerned, for the truth.