Morning Report: 2008-09-29

A nuclear deal with India, Iranians turn out in London, and more.

House backs nuclear deal with India. BBC: 'The US House of Representatives has voted in favour of a landmark nuclear deal between India and the US. The agreement now goes to the Senate for final approval, before President George W Bush signs it into law. India PM Manmohan Singh, who was in New York for the UN General Assembly, has said India is close to securing a "new status" in the world nuclear order. ...'

Anti-IRI protest in London. Azarmehr: 'It was a much bigger turn out this year with many more English groups and individuals who had joined our ranks to oppose the march by the supporters of the Islamic Republic in the streets of London. The core Iranian groups consisted of the Alliance of Iranian Students, the Confederation of Iranian Students and other secular pro-democracy Iranian individuals, as well as some supporters of the jailed dissident cleric, Ayatollah Boroujerdi. We wanted to highlight the human rights abuses by the Islamic Republic in the last 28 years, we wanted to show the poverty, the destitute and the misery brought upon the people of Iran by the religious dictatorship ruling Iran. We wanted to tell the Palestinian people and the Lebanese people not to be fooled by this Islamic Republic propaganda stunt, for the mullahs have brought no peace and prosperity for our people and they will bring no peace and prosperity for any other people. ...'

Russian crew member dies aboard hijacked Ukrainian ship. Information Dissemination has the details.

Roundup. Daily Briefing from ThreatsWatch:

1. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has agreed to provide weapons and nuclear technology to Hugo Chavez and Venezuela as well as embark on a joint oil development venture between the two as ties deepen.

2. China’s Sinopec Oil has bought Syria’s Tanganyika Oil for $2 billion and should begin developing fields in Syria soon. Meanwhile, Venezuela has agreed to boost oil exports to China by 25%.

3. While the Pakistani investigation into the Marriott bombing continues, the United Nations may soon pull its people out of Pakistan.

4. Two suspected Somali terrorists were arrested by German police after boarding a flight to Amsterdam. In their apartment were found notes indicating the pair wanted to die for the “jihad.”

Go to the link for details and more.

Post-postmodern. The Belmont Club looks at the decline of leftist vocabulary in academic journals, in a study tracing the incidence of such shibboleths as "postmodern" and "social construction" and "hegemony". The Belmont Club notes:

The graphs suggest that while Marxist ideas in academia built up a tremendous head of steam in the decades after 1970 they began to rapidly decline at the turn of the 21st century. If this is true then perhaps Barack Obama is riding on a huge, enormously powerful, but declining political wave. Perhaps Michael Ledeen is only slightly premature in asserting that Obama represents the “fossilized remnants of a civilization that no longer exists”. The towers of the Left still climb to dizzying heights, but their foundations may be crumbling. Winston Churchill described the fate of men and movements that momentarily stand upon the crest of a wave that is about to topple over. “He was a cut flower in a vase, fair to see, yet bound to die, and to die very soon if the water was not constantly renewed.”

Even more startling is one theory Fernandez proposes for the cause of the decline: that it is precisely the rise of non-Western cultures like China and India that has consigned the vocabulary of the Western elites to irrelevance.

The new look in kippot. Seraphic Secret has the photos.

Commentary. Here's The Spirit of Man on Obama and Iran:

I have been away for the past few days so I had a brief chance to watch the presidential debate and saw what empty suit Obama had to say about negotiating with the Iranian Mullahs. Clearly, he and his team of 300 experts have no clue about the nature of the criminal entity that is running Iran. Obama thinks his empty suit and rhetoric will scare the mullahs and make them behave better. Well, he has been wrong on every single issue, from Iraq, Russia to Iran and beyond. Sen. Hussein Obama doesn't understand that his willingness to sit down with the crazy clerics will be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

Follow the link to Michael Oren and Seth Robinson in the Wall Street Journal for a review of Iran's recent history in international negotiations.

Comments

[Mark Eichenlaub]

Nice roundup asher. How did I not find this website before?