Israeli road map, States' Rights, Compromising Clean Air, Venerating a tree

Israeli tail keeps wagging dog
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration sought a new strategy for salvaging the U.S.-led Middle East peace talks Friday, less than a week after dropping an effort to persuade Israel to impose a temporary freeze on some settlement activity.
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Unintended consequences of new States’ Rights movement
High-speed rail never used to be a partisan issue, but its inclusion in Obama's controversial stimulus package has made it a kind of proxy issue; Democrats call it a "wise investment," while Republicans call it "big spending," and talk about rescinding unspent money. Wisconsin's outgoing Democratic governor, Jim Doyle, was always enthusiastic about the program as a source of employment as well as mobility; the Spanish firm Taigo manufactures trains in Wisconsin. But Walker insisted that his administration would not spend a dime to maintain the train, even though the federal government was shouldering the costs of building it.
"I am sure that you share my disappointment that Wisconsin will not benefit from federal high-speed rail dollars at this time," Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo wrote in his termination letter to Doyle. "But I hope that as a staunch supporter of high-speed rail you will appreciate that the funds will be redirected to other states eager to develop high-speed rail corridors and put people back to work in good-paying jobs."
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A remarkable negotiator—don’t waste a good crisis
Obama is also compromising on tougher EPA regulations. New regulations on smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers that were supposd to take effect this month were postponed until at least next summer.
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So much for security
NEW YORK – The Federal Aviation Administration is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the U.S. — a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.
The records are in such disarray that the FAA says it is worried that criminals could buy planes without the government's knowledge, or use the registration numbers of other aircraft to evade new computer systems designed to track suspicious flights. It has ordered all aircraft owners to re-register their planes in an effort to clean up its files.
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Venerating a tree
LONDON – British police were searching Friday for vandals who chopped down a thorn tree venerated for centuries by Christians.
The Glastonbury Holy Thorn Tree, said to have links to the earliest days of Christianity in England, has been reduced to a six-foot stump by vandals who sawed off its limbs.
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Army Zealots—the execution of a prisoner
AP service story 12/7/10-- Lawrence is charged with premeditated murder in the Oct. 17 death of the prisoner, who prosecutors say was asleep in a jail cell when he was shot. If convicted, Lawrence could face execution or life in prison.
At the Fort Carson hearing, prosecutors described Lawrence as a zealot bent on killing the enemy. They said his words and actions indicated he deliberately arranged to be the only guard on duty at the prisoner's cell.
Prosecutors said Lawrence didn't tell Army officials until after the shooting that he was hearing voices, and that after his arrest he spoke of "playing the crazy card."
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Noam Chomsky
Israeli and U.S. high-tech civilian industries are closely integrated. It is small wonder that the most fervent support for Israeli actions comes from the business press and the Republican Party, the more extreme of the two business-oriented political parties. The pretext for the huge arms sales to Saudi Arabia is defense against the “Iranian threat.”
However, the Iranian threat is not military, as the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence have emphasized. Were Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capacity, the purpose would be deterrent – presumably to ward off a U.S.-Israeli attack.
The real threat, in Washington’s view, is that Iran is seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries “stabilized” by U.S. invasion and occupation.
The official line is that the Arab states are pleading for U.S. military aid to defend themselves against Iran. True or false, the claim provides interesting insight into the reigning concept of democracy. Whatever the ruling dictatorships may prefer, Arabs in a recent Brookings poll rank the major threats to the region as Israel (88 percent), the United States (77 percent) and Iran (10 percent).
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