Who will be Larry Summer's next victim?

That is the label for this awesome photo/graphic of the day (ht):

The original photo without the "x" is a part of an older New Yorker essay that described Summers and his economics team.

What was Helen Thomas thinking? :(

It sounded way too unreal to listen to the news report on NPR ... but then to watch her say those things on YouTube makes it surreal ... I mean, coming from Helen Thomas????

Jack Shafer noted in this piece from 2003, which Slate has "recycled" for the occasion, that when she questioned President Bush about the Iraq War, for instance:

As the child of Lebanese immigrants, Thomas knows exactly which religious button she's pushing when she repeatedly condemns Bush's plans for war on Iraq as a "crusade."

It will bizarre for anybody to say what Thomas said.  Even more for a seasoned White House corresponded to say that.  And it gets infinitely complicated against her own Lebanese background ...

Obama meets with the Dalai Lama .... finally!

Back in September 2009, I wrote about the White House canceling the scheduled meeting with the Dalai Lama.  Well, better late than never--Obama finally did meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader.

It was not a sari that the White House gate-crasher wore

So, it was quite a breach of security, eh, at the White House!
I heard a couple of reporters describe that the female of the duo was attired in a sari.

Well, technically that is not a sari.  She is wearing what is referred to as a "lengha" or a "ghagra choli."
(Editor: do you really know what you are talking about? Hey, when has that ever stopped me?)

As this detailed explanation of the lengha points out, it seems to capture the fashion spotlight quite a bit.
More photos/models here.

So, what is the big deal, you ask?  The answers are in this book; actually in the title!

A sense of humor at the White House

This is a change I can definitely live with.  Cool. (ht)

India news all the time? Slow down, please ....

Way too much about India .... First, here is a groaner (at least according to my students!): Looks like Obama has advanced the Thanksgiving dinner, but wait, he has invited the wrong Indian to a state dinner at the White House ... ha ha ha

What do you expect here; this is not a comedy show!

So, Manmohan Singh is visiting the US and is dining with the Prez.  I don't know if this was the only date open in Obama's calendar, or whether this was a calculation to get Singh's input as well into the Afghanistan decisionmaking.  If these two were reasons, great.

If not, it is really lousy timing.  Why?

For one, the release of the report after what seemed like a gazillion years of investigation into the destruction of the Babri Masjid by Hindu fanatics.  Even Time has a rather lengthy report on it:

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Washington Monday to represent an India emerging as a cosmopolitan economic powerhouse, his parliament sent an ugly reminder that the world's largest democracy has a dark side: Both chambers of India's parliament have had to be adjourned repeatedly over the past two days amid a furor over leaked findings of a judicial inquiry into the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992. The mosque was destroyed by Hindu extremists in order to rebuild a Hindu temple that had stood on the same site hundreds of years earlier, and it triggered a wave of Hindu-Muslim violence that left more than 2,000 people dead.

Hmm.... and the prime minister is out of the country.

Ok, understandable if Obama's calendar or the Afghan situation warranted it.

I am not sure when Singh returns to India, because November 26th is a day that I think he ought to be in the country.  The photo on the left is eerie, even after all these months.
When I went to India a few months ago, during the couple of days I was in Bombay (yes, I way prefer this to Mumbai!) I swung by two of the sites of that horrible terrorist acts--the Taj hotel, and the railway station

Remembrance of things past--the White House

In 1994, we could go up close and personal and hang on to the fence and take photos.  I am not sure what Bill Clinton was up to in the Oval Office when I clicked this photo .... muahahahaha

I have not been to DC since 9/11; will be there next year for the AAG annual meeting.  I bet the city will look very different from how I remember it from 15 years ago.
Why the hell did bin Laden have to screw up things for practically the overwhelming majority on this planet :-(
Oh well, "there is no there there" ..... I wish it were otherwise ....

More on Team Obama v. Faux News

John Batchelor has these wonderful words to say, even while chiding the Obama people for going after Faux News:

The decision by the golden-hearted crank Bill O’Reilly to attack the warm-hearted crank Glenn Beck over the latter’s swine flu denial spiel is at once first-rate showbiz and slapstick teamwork. Not since Abbott and Costello have two guys in suits, one tall and impatient, the other chubby-cheeked and childlike, had more fun debating “I Don’t Know’s on Third.”
None of what goes on in the evening has anything to do with government. The president and the Congress are discussed as omnipresent villains in a fairytale that begins with a happy kingdom of worthies, introduces an ogre, a witch, and a curse, and then interviews champions to come forward to rescue the frightened children and save the USA. All the while, Ming the Merciless, aka Rupert Murdoch, rakes up the ratings and the bucks.