There were thousands of Iranian students in the U.S. then. I remember them staging anti-government protests on campus before the Shah was deposed. Interesting turn of events. I'm hoping that we are seeing the beginning of an Iranian "velvet revolution." I'm not too hopeful, however.

I've always thought it was a shame that too many Muslim majority countries can't seem to find a happy medium between cultural modernity and religion.

Why does it even matter whether he was born in the US? He was born to a US citizen. That makes him a US citizen, too. -- le_chat_rose

As a matter of fact, Obama's opponent, John Even-though-I-was-tortured-we-can-do-it-to-our-enemies McCain, was not born in the U.S., but at a military facility in Panama.

According to U.S. law, it is not where you were born but that at least one of your parents is an American citizen.

End of discussion.

Where one is born only matters if BOTH parents are NOT American citizens. -- Alkaline

This at is the bleeding heart of our current immigration woes. Until we change the law that says children born in this country are automatically U.S. citizens, regardless of their parents' citizenship, we will never solve our immigration problems. I know of no other country that allows this.

. . . sound of their debut CD, Beth Ditto might be a bit less "interesting" if she hadn't decided to include a striptease during a performance in the U.K.

I find her voice weirdly appealing - it sounds like a punk Dolly Parton.

Have they learned nothing over the last twenty years?

. . . indicator of economic activity.

During the run-up to the fall, millions of houses and condominiums were built on spec. Even in a better economy, these developers would have speculated incorrectly.

In a short drive to work in the suburbs of Seattle, I pass three subdivisions where all the "dirt work" had been completed months ago, two more subdivision where half the houses remain unsold, and pass signs advertising two more subdivisions a block or two off the arterial. The situation is much the same but more extreme throughout the SW and SE.

The U.S. population is growing but not at a pace that necessitates all the building that took place between 2006 and 2008. This surplus housing stock will probably not be absorbed for two to three.

Just ask WaMu. They know all about lousy appraisals as that was what a good chunk of its SFR mortgage lending was based on 2006-2008.

. . . ethanol is crap and biodiesel is nothing but a stopgap (even if it's made from waste oil, etc.)!

Of course, both are backed by powerful or at least vocal constituencies. But the U.S. government (AKA the tax payers) shouldn't be spending a penny to bring either to market.

. . . may return to "business as usual" by the mid-term elections, in the general public's mind Wall Street and banking are, deservedly, at an all-time low since the Great Depression. The problem, of course, is that the public has next to no control over the financial industry and the Obama administration's proposed curbs on the industry's tendency to excess, unlike those enacted by the Roosevelt administration, really fix nothing. So, Wall Street will continue to take it's "Fuck 'em" attitude and the vast majority of people in the U.S., Japan and much of Europe will continue to think of banks and investment firms as untrustworthy at best.

The more things change . . .

. . . but they are part of the canine family.

I second the posters recommending Pom Poko. It is one of our family favorites. And, even though the children don't speak Japanese all that well, the environmental message comes through loud and clear.

In any case, these prints, because you can't really tell what they are, are pretty tame compared to shunji.

Who cares?

. . . much more politically astute than most Americans, still erroneously conflate communism (Marxist-Leninism or whatever label you want to give it) with totalitarianism. The Soviet Union was never a communist country. China came a bit closer but only in the sense that everyone seemed to dress "collectively." But none of the countries that professed to be following the writings of Marx were communist. They were merely repressive states with nonsensical economies.

Why does everyone keep talking about it like it doesn't exist anymore? China is still communist, Vietnam is still communist, half of Korea is still communist, Russia still leans in that direction, and parts of South America have all the ear marks of communist dictatorships. All these people hate us and yet we keep doing business with them, making them rich, while our own country has lost all its own manufactoring abilities. -- reformed druid

No. None of these countries, particularly not China or Russia, is communist in the least. With the exception of N. Korea, they all have mostly capitalist economies though Russia's borders on a kleptocracy.

The only thing these countries share socially and politically to some degree is repression. You, as do most Americans, still fall into the trap of conflating communism with a repressive political system.