MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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michael o. allen

Obama takes on McCain/Bush

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Obama Hits Back: Debate With McCain And Bush Over Foreign Policy Is One “I Will Win” By Greg Sargent, May 16, 2008
In remarks in South Dakota just now, Barack Obama hit back hard at George Bush’s and John McCain’s foreign policy attacks yesterday, stating flatly that a debate with the two Republicans over foreign policy is a debate that “I will win.”

“George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for,” Obama said.

The fight is one that the Obama campaign is eager to have, because it accomplishes two things. First, it forces McCain to stand by Bush, making it easier to tie them together. And second, it puts Obama, sans Hillary, on the same stage as the current Republican president and his would-be successor, making the Dem primary seem a bit like a distant memory.

“If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate I am happy to have any time,” Obama said. “That is a debate that I will win.”

He proceeded to rattle off all the things Bush and McCain have to “answer for.” The unnecessary Iraq War. The phantom WMDs. The strengthening of Iran. The fact that “Hamas now controls Gaza.” And the fact that Osama Bin Laden is “sending out video tapes with impunity.”

Obama also slammed the notion that he’d ever supported any sort of negotiations with terrorists. “They’re trying to fool you, trying to scare you, and they’re not telling you the truth because they can’t win a foreign policy debate on the merits,” he said.

At times, Obama hit what I think is the right tone — ridicule and bemusement, rather than outrage. At one point, for instance, he noted that McCain has now promised an end to the war in 2013, after repeatedly suggesting a much longer open-ended commitment might be necessary.

“I think he noticed that it wasn’t polling well,” Obama joked.

BMW's New Baby: Fast, Not Fresh

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THE DRIVER’S SEAT By JEFF SABATINI, May 16, 2008

BMW 135i coupe
The 1-Series is the German auto maker’s smallest and least expensive model.
In Europe, BMW sells 3- and 5-door hatchback version of the 1-Series and offers four-cylinder gas engines as well as diesel engines.

The convertible 1-Series offers the same engines and is priced slightly higher than the coupe, starting at $33,100.

The 135i is an inch taller than the larger 3-Series coupe, making the 1-Series’ roof look out of proportion with the rest of the car. This effect isn’t helped by a concave crease that runs along the vehicle’s lower sides.

I have become somewhat disaffected about BMW of late, disliking the overriding design theme of this decade’s newest models. From the “flame surfacing” look of asymmetrical and unbalanced curves and lines to the myriad electronics that sully the man-machine interface, I pine for the purity of BMWs past.

So it was with much excitement that I hopped behind the wheel of the 2008 BMW 135i coupe for my weekly test drive. The new 1-Series is being cast as a car for a big group of BMW fans: enthusiast drivers who love the communicative steering, nimble handling and rear-wheel-drive layout of Bimmers, but feel the beloved 3-Series has become too big and heavy, too feature-laden and too expensive.

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Hillary Is Too Boring to Be President

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By JOE QUEENAN, May 16, 2008; Page A13

Journalists like to pretend that it makes no difference to them who gets elected president, but this is a lie. A few years ago, I disclosed in print that I had two handwritten notes from Steve Forbes that would vastly increase in value were he elected to the highest office in the land. Yes, I admired my ex-employer’s pluck and thought he had some wonderful ideas about simplifying the tax code. But the main reason I supported his candidacy was because of those two collectibles I could cash in. I may be venal and morally rudderless, but at least I’m honest.

Journalists, and especially humorists, need to come clean and admit that none of us ever really wanted to see Hillary Clinton in the White House. No, it isn’t her hair or her know-it-all attitude or her inexplicable marriage or her pitiful attempts to portray herself as a tribune of the working class or the fact that she went to Wellesley that puts us off. She’s just no fun, and politicians who are no fun are hard to write about. A barrel of monkeys is fun. A barrel of dead monkeys is no fun. Hillary is less fun that three barrels of dead monkeys. Maybe 300.
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Hypocrisy on Hamas

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McCain Was for Talking Before He Was Against It by James P. Rubin, Friday, May 16, 2008; A19

If the recent exchanges between President Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain on Hamas and terrorism are a preview of the general election, we are in for an ugly six months. Despite his reputation in the media as a charming maverick, McCain has shown that he is also happy to use Nixon-style dirty campaign tactics. By charging recently that Hamas is rooting for an Obama victory, McCain tried to use guilt by association to suggest that Obama is weak on national security and won’t stand up to terrorist organizations, or that, as Richard Nixon might have put it, Obama is soft on Israel.

President Bush picked up this theme yesterday. Without naming Obama during his speech last night to Israel’s Knesset, Bush suggested that Democrats want to “negotiate with terrorists” while Republicans want to fight terrorists.

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California Ruling Reignites Same-Sex Marriage Debate

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By NATHAN KOPPEL and T.W. FARNAM , May 16, 2008; Page A1

The California Supreme Court opened the door to same-sex marriages in the nation’s largest state, reigniting a hot-button social issue amid a presidential election campaign so far dominated by economic issues and the war in Iraq.

The ruling makes California the second state, after Massachusetts, to give gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. But lawyers said the state’s national influence and size — representing 12% of the country’s population and one-fifth of the electoral vote need to win the White House — make the decision the most important legal victory to date for proponents of same-sex marriage. The decision, coming six months before the presidential election, also could galvanize voters on a topic that in this campaign cycle has largely been on the sidelines.

“The California Supreme Court is a famous and respected court, and [same-sex couples] have lost more legal challenges than they have won, so this is big news,” said attorney Jeffrey Trachtman, who lost a 2006 case that attempted to overturn New York’s ban on same-sex marriages.

A handful of states, including California, Vermont and New Jersey, allow same-sex couples to enter civil unions or domestic partnerships that afford many of the rights of marriage. But the California court, which was considering whether state law prohibiting gay marriage violates California’s constitution, voted 4-3 that such protections didn’t go far enough.

“[R]etaining the designation of marriage exclusively for opposite-sex couples and providing only a separate and distinct designation for same-sex couples may well have the effect of perpetuating a more general premise — now emphatically rejected by this state — that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects ‘second-class citizens,'” wrote the court.

'Appeasement' remark by Bush sets off political fray

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The president, speaking to Israeli lawmakers, takes apparent aim at Obama in saying that negotiating with some dictatorships amounts to ‘appeasement.’ Obama calls it a ‘false political attack.’ By Johanna Neuman,Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, May 15, 2008

WASHINGTON — Addressing the Israeli parliament, President Bush set off a political firestorm today with an apparent criticism of Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential hopeful, over his position on negotiating with some dictatorships.

Obama, who has pledged to talk to regimes in Iran, Cuba and North Korea, promptly accused the Bush White House of launching “a false political attack” for suggesting such outreach amounts to appeasing dictators.

In a speech to Israel’s Knesset marking the 60th anniversary of that country’s independence, Bush said, “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.”

“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said. “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

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Barr on gay marriage: California decision is how it’s supposed to work

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Friday, May 16, 2008

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr says that when it comes to gay marriage, what happens in California is California’s own business. He’s a states’ rights man.

Here’s the statement Barr’s issued, which — one week before the Libertarian national convention in Denver — is likely to generate some talk:

barrgay.jpg

“Regardless of whether one supports or opposes same sex marriage, the decision to recognize such unions or not ought to be a power each state exercises on its own, rather than imposition of a one-size-fits-all mandate by the federal government (as would be required by a Federal Marriage Amendment which has been previously proposed and considered by the Congress).

The decision today by the Supreme Court of California properly reflects this fundamental principle of federalism on which our nation was founded.

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What's a monk to do?

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I think I know the reason why the story of Michael Roach and Christie McNally bugged me so.

There’s enough hypocrisy in this world. We are choking on it. The hypocrisy of religion is even more of a danger because it’s almost always cloaked in piety.

Roach proclaimed himself a monk. He practiced it, lived it, then met a girl and fell in love. That’s fine. It happens. Why not thank your lucky stars, or the big Buddha in heaven and be done with it. You could still practice your Buddhism, be a leader in the movement. Just don’t make certain claims.

But, no, that’s not enough for Roach and McNally. They want to eat their cakes and have them too.

I recognize this is bigotry on my part but I think I know why they both do it:

For McNally, seeing Roach for who he really is means having to cope with the real world, instead of searching for some cult to run to.

For Roach, obviously, it’s fear. McNally would certainly see him for who he really is if he gives up monk-hood and gets a job and an apartment in some suburb somewhere: the same jerk she’s been running away from all her life. Except, in Roach, he’s much older, uglier and creepy, to boot.

Hence, the pretense.

But, by claiming to live by the strictest rules of their order, they get to have fame, publish books, travel the world while claiming to lead modest lives of privation.

Hello, Dalai

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Oh, enough already!

So, I am this really horny 44-year-old guy (I have not had sex since I was 22 years old) and standing before me is a blond bombshell the same age I was when I foolishly became a monk. I mean, gorgeous. And she digs me; I just know it. I can really tell. As a monk, I know I can’t touch her. (David Sanders for The New York Times) Michael Roach and Christie McNally vowed to be both celibate and never apart by more than 15 feet or so.

What if . . . alright . . . I don’t know. This is really driving me crazy. Could I even get her to agree to such a thing? She’ll think I’m a creep. But, then, maybe not. She’s standing here before me with that dreamy look in her eyes, isn’t she?

I mean, I am this creepy looking guy , right? wearing these funny clothes and she, looking like she just walked out of a dream, an angel, is standing there with that moon-y look on her face. And she’s looking at me! That look is for me. Me!

Yeah, she’ll go for it!

We’ll just tell people there’s no sex going on. Intense, spiritual, petting, er, touching, yes, but definitely, no sex. No sex. Yeah, no sex. I mean, no sex. If you know what I mean. No sex. Whatsoever.

But, what will people think? Will they buy it? What about the other monks? The Dalai?

Oh, the hell with them. I mean, why didn’t I think of this earlier?

Living Together: Making Their Own Limits in a Spiritual Partnership by LESLIE KAUFMAN, May 15, 2008

Bowie, Ariz.–TEN years ago, Michael Roach and Christie McNally, Buddhist teachers with a growing following in the United States and abroad, took vows never to separate, night or day.

By “never part,” they did not mean only their hearts or spirits. They meant their bodies as well. And they gave themselves a range of about 15 feet.

If they cannot be seated near each other on a plane, they do not get on. When she uses an airport restroom, he stands outside the door. And when they are here at home in their yurt in the Arizona desert, which has neither running water nor electricity, and he is inspired by an idea in the middle of the night, she rises from their bed and follows him to their office 100 yards down the road, so he can work.

Their partnership, they say, is celibate. It is, as they describe it, a high level of Buddhist practice that involves confronting their own imperfections and thereby learning to better serve the world.

“It forces you to deal with your own emotions so you can’t say, ‘I’ll take a break,’ ” said Mr. Roach, 55, who trained in the same Tibetan Buddhist tradition as the Dalai Lama. After becoming a monk in 1983, he trained on-and-off in a Buddhist monastery for 20 years, and is one of a handful of Westerners who has earned the title of geshe, the rough equivalent of a religious doctorate. “You are in each other’s faces 24 hours a day,” he said. “You must deal with your anger or your jealousy.”

Ms. McNally said, “From a Buddhist perspective, it purifies your own mind.” Ms. McNally is 35 and uses the title of Lama, or teacher, an honor not traditionally bestowed on women by the Tibetan orders.

Their exacting commitment to this ideal of spiritual partnership has been an inspiration to many. In China and Israel, and in the United States, where they are often surrounded by devotees, their lectures on how lay people can build spiritual partnerships are often packed with people seeking mates or ways to deepen their marriages. They hope their recently published book, “The Eastern Path to Heaven,” will appeal to Christians and broaden their American audience.

But their practice — which even they admit is radical by the standards of the religious community whose ideas they aim to further — has sent shock waves through the Tibetan Buddhist community as far as the Dalai Lama himself, whose office indicated its disapproval of the living arrangement by rebuffing Mr. Roach’s attempt to teach at Dharamsala, India, in 2006. (In a letter, the office said his “unconventional behavior does not accord with His Holiness’s teachings and practices.”)

“There is a tremendous amount of opprobrium by the Tibetan monks; they think they have gone wacky,” said Robert Thurman, a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism at Columbia University.

There’s more to Roach’s bullshit (sorry for the language) story . . .