Democratic convention to be no-fry zone

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DENVER — Warning to Southern delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver this August: it will be a no-fry zone.

As part of the effort to make the August 25-28 convention the greenest ever, the Democrats' guidelines for food catering include one that strikes at the heart of Southern cuisine: no fried food.

No fried chicken. No fried catfish. No fried green tomatoes. No fried okra. No fried anything.

In promoting healthy eating habits, the Democratic guidelines say every meal should be nutritious and include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, purple/blue and white."

(Video) A Pair of Campaign Ads

MoveOn.org attacks McCain:


Response:

The Rational Insurgent

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Bush administration officials (and fellow travelers) aren’t the only ones who believe that when Americans talk about withdrawing from Iraq, it “emboldens the enemy.” Two Harvard researchers recently found that in periods following intensified criticism of the Iraq War by the American public and in the U.S. media, insurgent violence in Iraq increased by 5 to 10 percent. Using data on rates of insurgent attacks, Iraqi access to international news, frequency of antiwar statements in the American media, and U.S. public opinion polls—and controlling for other factors—the authors found that insurgents do not just randomly wreak havoc, but react strategically to developments in American politics. Specifically, when insurgents perceive a drop in American resolve, they unleash more destruction, thereby increasing the cost of fighting for the U.S. military and, they hope, tipping the scales toward a withdrawal. The authors conclude that a “systematic response” in the form of “emboldenment” is evident among insurgents.

Danes with Balls

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Last Thursday the High Court for western Denmark rejected a suit against Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first published cartoons of Islam's prophet, leading to deadly protests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The court said the editors had not meant to depict Muslims as criminals or terrorists, the cartoons had not broken the law, and there was a relationship between acts of violence and Islam - comments that provoked outcry among Muslim groups in Denmark.

"It is a known fact that acts of terror have been carried out in the name of Islam and it is not illegal to make satire out of this relationship," the court said.

Iraqi forces to take control of security in Anbar Province

This story did not get a lot of attention for some reason.

The U.S. military will transfer control of security in Anbar Province to Iraqi forces this week, the governor of the region said Monday, a remarkable turnaround given that the region was considered lost to insurgents less than two years ago.

Anbar will be the 10th of 18 provinces in Iraq to return security matters to Iraqi control since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, but it will be the first Sunni Arab region to do so.

Mamun Sami Rasheed, governor of Anbar Province, said the handover ceremony would take place Saturday. "We have been dreaming of this event since 2003," he said.

The commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq, Major General John Kelly of the marines, said the change in security responsibilities showed that Iraqi forces were increasingly ready to defend Iraq against threats like those posed by Al Qaeda.

Anbar Province is "an important milestone," Kelly said. "It changes the nature of our security relationship here."

But the change does not mean that Al Qaeda has been defeated in the region. "What it represents is the improving capability of Iraqi security forces to deal with the threat," Kelly said.

Anbar was once the heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency against U.S. forces and successive Shiite-led administrations that took over in Baghdad following the downfall of Saddam Hussein, who was from the minority Sunni Arab community.

Iraq's foreign minister has a chat with Barack Obama.

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SEN. BARACK OBAMA told Iraq's foreign minister this week that he plans to visit the country between now and the presidential election. We think that's a good thing, not because Sen. John McCain has been prodding the candidate to do it but because it will give Mr. Obama an opportunity to refresh his badly outdated plan for Iraq. To do that, the Democrat needs to listen more to dedicated Iraqi leaders like Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister -- who, it seems, didn't hold back during their telephone conversation.

Mr. Obama laid out his current strategy for Iraq in November 2006, shortly before announcing his candidacy for president. At the time, Iraq appeared to be on the verge of a sectarian civilian war, and Mr. Obama was trying to distinguish himself in the Democratic primary race by offering a timetable for withdrawal. Nineteen months later, the situation in Iraq has changed dramatically, with violence down 75 percent from its peak and the Iraqi government and army in control of most of the country. But Mr. Obama has not altered his position: He still proposes withdrawing most U.S. troops according to a fixed timetable, set to the most rapid pace at which commanders have said American forces could be pulled out.

Mr. Zebari, who has served as foreign minister in every Iraqi government since 2003, finds Mr. Obama's proposal worrying. In a meeting with Post editors and reporters Tuesday, he said that after all the pain and sacrifices of the past five years, "we are just turning the corner in Iraq." A precipitous withdrawal, he said, "would create a huge vacuum and undo all the gains and achievements. And the others" -- enemies of the United States -- "would celebrate."

Poll: most Britons doubt cause of climate change

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The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

The results have shocked campaigners who hoped that doubts would have been silenced by a report last year by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found a 90 per cent chance that humans were the main cause of climate change and warned that drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The findings come just before the release of the government's long-awaited renewable energy strategy, which aims to cut the UK's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next 12 years.

The poll, by Ipsos MORI, found widespread contradictions, with some people saying politicians were not doing enough to tackle the problem, even though they were cynical about government attempts to impose regulations or raise taxes. In a sign of the enormous task ahead for those pushing for drastic cuts to carbon emissions, many people said they did not want to restrict their lifestyles and only a small minority believe they need to make 'significant and radical' changes such as driving and flying less.