| Turkey Seeks French Help With EU Bid Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğu urged France—a leading opponent of Turkey's EU membership—to help Ankara move its faltering bid forward. online.wsj.com |
Chinese Property Prices Rebound Property prices in China rebounded in September, underscoring the government's continuing struggle to stabilize a soaring real-estate market. online.wsj.com |
A question for our conservative friends | Michael Tomasky Here's a question for our conservatives (and for all of you, by all means). Back during the healthcare debate, many of you were fond of pointing out, and indeed still point out now and again, that Obama and the Democrats ignored the will of the people and passed a law the people didn't want, and for that they will be punished, and rightly so, because democratic leaders are supposed to listen to le peuple. I wax French above for a reason, which is this. What are Nicholas Sarkozy and his political allies doing right now in France? Given the scope of the unrest over the retirement age proposals, I think it's not going too far out on a limb to say that Sarkozy is most definitely ignoring the will of the French people. So if Obama should have backed off, shouldn't he?I've been thinking, by the way, about the riposte many of you offer whenever I post on the hypocrisy of the Republicans accepting and pleading for and bragging about getting stimulus money. For those unfamiliar, you say: These are the rules of the game, and they'd be silly not to play by them, and on that logic, Tomasky, shouldn't the Democrats have refused their Bush tax cuts?This old dog can still learn a new trick here and there. Having pondered the matter, I say yes, Democrats who vote against tax cuts should indeed forego their share of them, or calculate the amount and donate it to charity, since working out the foregoing of tax dollars with the IRS sounds like an impossible thing to do. When the polity is confronted with this question again someday, you have my word that I'll write from whatever forum I then have exactly this.Still, I don't think they're quite the same. The tax cuts for 200-odd legislators, even if a good chunk of them are millionaires, amount to a sou compared to the billions that stimulus-hating GOPers are trying to grab from the treasury. Also, most Democrats in 2001 didn't go around saying the tax cuts were tyranny and socialism and fascism, just that they were bad policy.But as to the main question here: what about it? If Obama was arrogant, isn't Sarkozy? Don't say "but France's pension system is in crisis." America's healthcare system is, too, in the macro sense, very much so. Let's see what you got.United StatesFranceMichael Tomaskyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Newlyweds Brand, Perry leave India for Maldives By PRAKASH BHANDARI 2010-10-25T14:26:39ZJAIPUR, India (AP) -- Comedian Russell Brand and pop singer Katy Perry flew to the Maldives on Monday after their wedding at a tiger reserve in India, while authorities investigated whether the wedding party broke noise laws.... hosted.ap.org |
Duncan Steele: The Man With Checks Appeal - Video Think Checks Are Old Hat? Think Again! 75% of Consumers Insist They Should Have Freedom to Pay However They Choose . . . With Cash, Credit/Debit Cards or -- Yes -- Checks feedproxy.google.com |