Pope (largely) Missing in the New York Times

It seems that Pope Francis has drawn massive and rapturous crowds during his trip Brazil. But (so far in any case) you apparently wouldn't know that if you were a reader only of the front page of the New York Times.

• The back pages of today's New York Times do have an article entitled Missteps by Brazil Mar Visit by Pope. I suppose bad or indifferent press attention is better than no press attention at all.

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Labor & the Duchess of Cambridge

Headline: "Duchess of Cambridge Goes Into Labor"
... but not, I gather, "into Labour"
How do the British media write the headline?

• Does Cambridge, Massachusetts, have a Duchess?

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Frank Gehry, Fitting Eisenhower Memorial Architect?

Frank Gehry may have many virtues as an architect. But it's hard to fathom how anyone could think he would be a fine designer of a public memorial to a five-star general and President.

Zongker, Redesigning Eisenhower Memorial Could Cost $17M ABC News (July 12, 2013)


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Christians in Egypt

Hubbard, Christians Targeted for Retribution in Egypt NYTimes (July 11, 2013):

CAIRO — The military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi has unleashed a new wave of violence by extremist Muslims against Christians whom they blame for having supported the calls to overthrow Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s first Islamist elected leader, according to rights activists.

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My Comment on Lotfi Zadeh's Message about Russia and the Collapse of the Russian Empire

Professor Lotfi Zadeh recently posted the following message to his (vast) discussion list, BISC:

Dear members of the BISC Group:

I should like to share with you a concern of mine -- a concern about the evolving economic and political situation in Russia. My feeling is that a serious crisis -- with wide-ranging repercussions -- may be around the corner. But first, a bit about my background.

I was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, at the time when Azerbaijan was a part of the Soviet Union. My parents were Iranian citizens. My first language was Russian. I am still fluent in Russian. When I was ten years old, my parents returned to Iran and placed me in an American (Presbyterian) Missionary School, later renamed as Alborz. My teachers were mostly from the Midwest. For me, they were role models. It was at that point in my life that I fell in love with the United States. After receiving my BSEE degree from the University of Tehran, I came to the United States in 1944 and entered MIT as a graduate student. 

I have always been and continue to be interested in what goes on in Russia. I watch TV news from Moscow every day, and watch a Russian-language news program from New York. I watch Russian TV News Channel 24 because it is serious and objective, with little or no propaganda. It is a 24 hour-a-day news program, with news on the hour. The information which I get includes both what is positive and what is negative about what goes on in Russia. The New York news channel focuses on what is negative. 

For many people, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a cause for celebration. I felt differently because, in my view, the Soviet Union was not prepared for an abrupt transition from authoritarianism to a democracy led by Yeltsin--an incompetent party official who was fond of alcohol. Clearly, there was a need for structural reforms when Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985. He proved to be an inept leader. What did not help was that the price of oil was around $10 a barrel. He made many serious mistakes. His fatal mistake was the abandonment of the one-party rule. In large measure, it is this mistake that led to his own demise and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia was not ready for democracy in 1991, and is not ready for democracy today, twenty-two years later. In the post-collapse years, wholesale privatization transferred national wealth into the pockets of corrupt oligarchs -- oligarchs whose enormous wealth is now hidden abroad. Freedom was abused. While institutes were closing, casinos were opening --at one time 68 in Moscow alone. Eventually, casinos were banished, but right now a top official in prosecutor's office in Moscow is in court charged with accepting multi-million bribes from the operators of underground casinos. 

One of the principal problems in today's Russia is pervasive corruption, from top to bottom. Almost every day there is a disclosure of a major scandal involving high-level officials. Former Mayor of Moscow, Luzhkov, bought a residence in London costing over 100 million dollars. The same pattern of acquisition of choice properties by Russian officials and rich businessmen is observable in France, Spain and many other countries. The government talks loudly about fighting corruption. Incredibly, a recently adopted law grants amnesty to perpetrators of so-called economic crimes--about 15,000 in number. Is granting of amnesty to perpetrators of economic crimes a new way of fighting corruption, or is it a matter of protection of high-level officials? Currently, there are over 80,000 Russian tourists in Egypt and over 30,000 in Thailand, while millions of Russians live in poverty. Infrastructure inherited from the Soviet Union is deteriorating, but there is not enough funding for replacement and upgrading. 

Recently, Russia was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO), after knocking on the door for over 18 years. In my view, this is a serious blunder. WTO is an invention of exporting countries. In large measure, Russia is an importing country, except for oil, gas and minerals. Entry into WTO is likely to result in a decline in domestic production. The Space Program is in trouble. On July 2, a Proton rocket carrying three Granat satellites exploded shortly after launch. This was the seventh failure in two-and-a-half years. The latestfailure calls into question the sustainability of Russia's Space Program. Right now, an incredible event took place. On July 3, the government introduced a bill calling for a drastic reorganization of the Russian Academy of Sciences -- a vast enterprise and a sacred institution in the Soviet era-- with the expectation of approval by July 5. After a storm of protest, the final approval was deferred till autumn.

The stock market is steadily declining. Capital is fleeing the country at the rate of about 70 billion dollars a year. There is a shortage of skilled labor. Many of the best graduates are moving abroad. The rate of growth is declining, while the deficit, though very small, is increasing. A new wave of privatizations is taking place, depriving the government of major assets and enriching corrupt officials. In coming years, the income from oil and gas is expected to decline. Inflation stands at close to 7%. The mounting economic problems which lie ahead may stir unrest. Fears of unrest may well play an important role in strategic decisions by the leadership of Russia, both internally and externally. A gradual return to authoritarianism may well be viewed as a necessity for survival. What is the prognosis? A great deal depends on the price of oil and gas in coming years. If the prices stay high, as they are today, Russia may gradually overcome its problems by tightening the screws and moving away from democratic reforms. If not, the dark clouds may be a harbinger of unrest and discord. Note. I am a pessimist by nature. Comments are welcome.

Regards,

   Lotfi

-- Lotfi A. Zadeh

Professor Emeritus 

Director, Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing (BISC) 

 Address: 729 Soda Hall #1776

Computer Science Division Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-1776 

zadeh@eecs.berkeley.edu Tel.(office): (510) 642-4959 Fax (office): (510) 642-1712 Tel.(home): (510) 526-2569 Fax (home): (510) 526-2433 URL: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~zadeh/ 

BISC Homepage URLs URL: http://zadeh.cs.berkeley.edu/

I submitted the following comment about Professor Zadeh's post:

I was born in Riga, Latvia. As my mother grew up, she leaned, first, Polish; second, Russian; and, third, Latvian. Her favorite poet was Pushkin (in Russian, of course). Though I did not speak Russian or know much about Russian literature, I had warm feelings toward Russian culture. (I particularly admired Russian chess and Russian prowess in many sciences.) But I did not have warm feelings toward the Soviet Union or Russian imperialism. (The New Soviet Man spoke principally Russian). This was and is understandable: Stalinists deported my maternal grandparents in June 1941 to Siberia in cattle cars for the crime of being bourgeois (I do not exaggerate; I have copies of the NKVD arrest warrants) and in 1944 my mother fled Latvia with her two children to escape arrest for the crime of having bourgeois parents. So to the extent that the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the independence of the Baltic Republics, I do not regret the collapse of the Soviet Empire. However, I do agree with Lotfi that there were grand elements in the old Soviet Union. For example, it is true that chess, theoretical physics, and mathematics flourished in the Soviet Union as almost nowhere else. It is also true, the perversions of Stalinism notwithstanding, that there was something noble about the Soviet Union's aspirations toward universality, toward the general brotherhood of the common man, or the proletariat. But the mass killings and deportations and so on of the Soviet era were so vast and horrendous that it is understandable that Latvians could not easily forgive and forget, and that post-Soviet Russia had to pay the price of its past by granting the Baltic Republics (and other nations) their independence.

I arrived in the U.S. when I was six years old. I became almost completely (but not completely) Americanized. Although America has faults - in the post-2001 era it has some very serious faults - America has been good to me; and, despite the hardships my family experienced in the U.S. when I was young, I am glad I grew up here .

See http://tillers.net/personalhistory/history.html (visual personal history)

Peter Tillers

http://tillers.net

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Inta Ruka, Latvian Photographer

On aljazeera.com:

Inta Ruka is one of Europe's most noteworthy photographers. For 30 years she has taken hauntingly beautiful portraits of the faces of Latvia.

In this documentary, filmmaker Maud Nycander portrays her friend and colleague who, despite her renown, still works as a cleaner at the Swedish embassy in Riga.

The story of Inta Ruka also documents the radical transformation of Latvia over the past 20 years. We meet her mother and teenage son - two people not only from different generations, but from different worlds, from Siberian labour camps to designer clothes and computer games. And in between them stands Ruka herself - who does not want to let go of the security of her cleaner's job despite her brilliant career as a photographer.

The Photographer from Riga can be seen from be seen from Wednesday, July 3, at the following GMT: Wednesday: 2200; Thursday: 1200; Friday: 0100; Saturday: 0600; Sunday: 2000; Monday: 1200;Tuesday: 0100

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Nice work, if you can get it

"In one of the most notable revelations, the disclosure filing of the [New York State] Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, showed that he earned $350,000 to $450,000 last year in his part-time job at a Manhattan personal injury law firm,Weitz & Luxenberg." Kaplan & Hakim, Legislators Reap Benefits of Part-Time Jobs at Law Firms, Filings Show, NYTimes (July 3, 2013).

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Turnover Down Under?

Emma Griffiths, Kevin Rudd to face off against Julia Gillard in Labor leadership spill, loser to quit Parliament Australian Broadcasting Corporation (June 26, 2013).

The consensus Down Under is that Gillard is out.

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Booze-Free Flight to Havana, Courtesy of the FSB

Barry & Herzenhorn, Empty Seat Deepens a Mystery in Moscow NYTimes (June 24, 2013):

MOSCOW — Seat 17A was empty on Monday afternoon as Aeroflot Flight 150 took off from a Moscow airport. But most seats around it were filled.

Dozens of journalists had scrambled to book seats at the last minute, certain they were a half step from the most sought-after interview in the world: Edward J. Snowden, who was widely reported by Russian news agencies to have booked Seat 17A. But as the plane taxied from the gate, a reporter from The Associated Press published a photograph of the empty seat, and the situation became abundantly clear.It seemed that a stream of reports from unnamed Russian officials, disseminated over Russian news agencies, had been an exuberant deception, throwing up a cloud of dust while Mr. Snowden quietly evaded the United States government. At nightfall, it was impossible to say with certainty where Mr. Snowden was.

By contrast, everyone knew where half of the Moscow press corps was: halfway to Havana, on one of the few regular Russian flights that does not serve alcohol. It was the kind of plan that the F.S.B., and the K.G.B. before it, would describe as a “special operation.” And somewhere in Moscow, it was clear, someone was laughing.

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Edward Snowden

I would not have done what Edward Snowden did. But I find it odd that almost all of our political leaders – Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer, Lindsey Graham, etc., etc. – condemn Edward Snowden without even considering the question of whether the government surveillance he revealed is legal or illegal. I wonder: Would they condemn him if they believed the government surveillance he revealed violates the Fourth Amendment?

Another point: Why do so many apparently intelligent people take the position that if the Executive Branch and Congress (or some part of Congress) "approve" of government surveillance (often by inaction, it is supposed), that such approval legitimates otherwise unconstitutional surveillance? Have they forgotten that it is black-letter law that ordinarily neither executive nor congressional approval transforms unconstitutional government action - state action that violates a Bill of Rights guarantee - into constitutional government action? The default rule is that neither the Executive Branch, nor Congress, nor the Executive Branch and Congress acting together, have the authority to approve government action that violates the Fourth Amendment.

Expedient legal thinking rules in the halls of our government. Postscript: it is hard to say – it is impossible to say – whether there has been judicial review of the constitutionality of this or that type of covert surveillance by the NSA. That's because the opinions of the FISA court are secret! &&& The dynamic evidence page

American Wars

This is a perceptive essay about why America should have a less active (a/k/a less belligerent) foreign military policy, but it is odd that Haass makes no mention of the moral considerations for reduced resort to wars and foreign military operations:

Richard N. Haass, America Can Take a Breather. And It Should. (Op-Ed.) NYTimes (June 22, 2013)


A snippet:

The United States is currently enjoying an unprecedented respite in the foreign policy arena — a temporary relief from the normal rigors of history that allows us to take stock at home and abroad.

It may seem outlandish to claim that we’re in the midst of a lull, given that America faces a civil war in Syria, an Iran that seems to be seeking nuclear weapons, an irresponsible North Korea that already possesses them, continuing threats from terrorists, a rising China and rapid climate change.

Yet the United States enjoys a respite all the same. For the three and a half centuries of the modern international era, great powers have almost always confronted rivals determined to defeat them and replace the global order they worked to bring about. In the last century, this process unfolded three times. The results were violent, costly and dangerous, and included two world wars and a cold war.

Today, there are threats, but they tend to be regional, years away or limited in scale. None rises to the level of being global, immediate and existential. The United States faces no great-power rival. And this is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

The biggest strategic question facing America is how to extend this respite rather than squander it. This will require restraining foreign involvement and restoring domestic strength. We can no longer seek to remake countries in the Middle East and South Asia, as was tried at great cost and with little success in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, we must revive the American economy, something that will not only improve the living standards of our citizens but also generate the resources to discourage would-be competitors from choosing the path of confrontation and to deal with them if they opt for confrontation all the same.

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For the good of the little people ...

Perhaps Mr. Obama now muses: Why do those little people care about religion or the use the federal government makes of the telephony metadata it collects from and about them? We (people in the government) don't want to listen to their (little people's) telephone calls. We just want to know who they call, who calls them, when the calls are made, and where the calls are made and received. What harmful use could the government possibly make or want to make of such information? In any event, don't they - the little people, that is -- realize that the government is only acting for their own good? How could anyone possibly think that the government might use such information to harm little people? (Joe Stalin, you say? Stasi, you say? The military juntas in various times and places, you say? Well, they weren't American, were they? Res ipsa loquitor, wouldn't you say?) 

Rick Lempert coined (or adopted) an apt phrase that describes the problem we face: the creation of the infrastructure of tyranny.

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Christians in the Middle East

Oppression of people because of their religious beliefs is deeply offensive and wrong. In government and media circles there is, fortunately, a fair amount of concern for  religious groups such as (depending on the country or region) Shiites and Buddhists. But, with rare exceptions, there is little discussion by prominent U.S. government spokesmen for the fate of Christians in countries such as Iraq, Egypt, and Syria.
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Obama and Civil Liberties

You know you're in trouble when the Wall Street Journal questions your commitment to civil liberties:

Nicholas & Bravin, Obama's Civil-Liberties Record Questioned Wall Street Journal (June 6, 2013)

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The "need to have all schools connected to the internet"

"Speaking at a fund-raiser in Silicon Valley Thursday night, Mr. Obama did not mention the surveillance programs or the leaks of secret documents. In comments to tech executives at the home of Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, the president focused on the need to have all schools connected to the Internet." (Wyatt, Baker & Shear, Spy Chief Calls Leaks on U.S. Surveillance ‘Reprehensible’ NYTimes, June 7, 2013) Presumably that's because NSA also needs to monitor students at our elementary and secondary schools.

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America, the Surveillance State

Dan Roberts & Spencer Ackerman, America's surveillance state: anger swells after data revelations The Guardian (online) (June 6, 2013).

Snippets:

"The scale of America's surveillance state was laid bare on Wednesday as senior politicians revealed that the US counter-terrorism effort had swept up swaths of personal data from the phone calls of millions of citizens for years.

"After the revelation by the Guardian of a sweeping secret court order that authorised the FBI to seize all call records from a subsidiary of Verizon, the Obama administration sought to defuse mounting anger over what critics described as the broadest surveillance ruling ever issued.

...

"Intelligence committee member Mark Udall, who has previously warned in broad terms about the scale of government snooping, said: "This sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking." Former vice-president Al Gore described the "secret blanket surveillance" as "obscenely outrageous".

"The Verizon order was made under the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) as amended by the Patriot Act of 2001, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. But one of the authors of the Patriot Act, Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, said he was troubled by the Guardian revelations. He said that he had written to the attorney general, Eric Holder, questioning whether 'US constitutional rights were secure'.

"He said: 'I do not believe the broadly drafted Fisa order is consistent with the requirements of the Patriot Act. Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.'...

"[White House spokesman Josh Earnest said] the [FISA] order only relates to the so-called metadata surrounding phone calls rather than the content of the calls themselves. 'The order reprinted overnight does not allow the government to listen in on anyone's telephone calls,' Earnest said.

"'The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to call details, such as a telephone number or the length of a telephone call.'

"But such metadata can provide authorities with vast knowledge about a caller's identity. Particularly when cross-checked against other public records, the metadata can reveal someone's name, address, driver's licence, credit history, social security number and more. Government analysts would be able to work out whether the relationship between two people was ongoing, occasional or a one-off."

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Fine Dining in Jersey City

Believe it or not, Jersey City and environs have some pretty nifty restaurants. See Helen Stapinski, Only the Food Is Exotic, The Ethnic Buffet of Hudson County, N.J. NYTimes (May 28, 2013).

Laico's is an Italian restaurant hidden on a residential street in Jersey City. (NYTimes)

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Letting Go (of Books etc.)

Stanley Fish, Moving On, NYTimes (May 27, 2013):

Snippets:

"I have sold my books. Not all of them, but most of them. I held on to the books I might need while putting the finishing touches on a manuscript that is now with my publisher. I also kept the books I will likely need when I begin my next project in the fall. But the books that sustained my professional life for 50 years ... are gone.

 ...

"The ostensible reason for this de-acquisition is a move from a fair-sized house to a much smaller apartment. It is true, as Anthony Powell said in a title, that books do furnish a room, but in this case, too many books, too little room. But the deeper reason is that it was time. What I saw on the shelves was work to which I would never return....

"... I had always thought that I could return to my annotated copies of familiar texts and pick up where I left off. That fantasy, I now see, was part and parcel of the core fantasy that I would just go on forever, defending old positions, formulating new ones, attending annual conferences, contributing to essay collections, speaking at various universities, teaching the same old courses, confidently answering the same old questions.

"I’m not going to go on forever. ...

"... Behind these musings is a word I can barely utter — 'retirement.' ..."

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I recently retired from full-time teaching - but not from writing. So I threw away some of my books, but not most of them. In any event, quite a few of my books are for purely personal pleasure and are still unread. So I can't throw those away, can I?

• Addendum: Some of my "academic" interests survive my retirement; some of the questions I ask myself genuinely interest (and preoccupy) me.
  

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What Is a "Crisis"?

“If investments in the banks fail, ‘Oh, it’s a tragedy,’ ” [Pope Francis] said, speaking extemporaneously for more than 40 minutes at a Pentecost vigil last weekend, after a private audience with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the architect of Europe’s austerity policies. “But if people die of hunger or don’t have food or health, nothing happens. This is our crisis today.”

Rachel Donadio, Francis’ Humility and Emphasis on the Poor Strike a New Tone at the Vatican NYTimes (May 25, 2013)

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Guns in the Sky; Good Guys with Guns

Nicholas Davidoff, More Guns in the Sky NYTimes (May 25, 2013). A snippet:

"Confidential. For N.R.A. internal. Now that the Senate has voted down new gun control laws and we have the president on the defensive — never thought I’d say it, but God bless the I.R.S.! — we have a real opportunity to guide Congress along a common-sense path that will further ensure the freedoms of peaceful, law-abiding citizens. Herewith, talking points on the next crucial phase of our work. Please distribute to all concerned elected officials who share our love of liberty and public safety.

"Objective:

"We aim to pass laws that will allow passengers to carry guns on commercial airplanes; this will make business class the safest place in America.

"Talking Points:

"Experts say, 'This is the most progressive means of preventing hijacking in aeronautic history.'

"Air Marshals are good people, but on a modern aircraft anyone can nod off. Our plan mitigates snoozing risks. And consider the budget savings when every flyer becomes a Citizen Air Marshal (CAM).

"CAMs eliminate the need for uniformed personnel patrolling our nation’s terminals. Now trained personnel can be deployed to the domestic and international hot spots, including war zones and schools.

"Duty-free ammo sold on international flights is good for the American economy."

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Obama on Guantanamo: A True Profile in Courage

Barack Obama: a genuine profile in courage. I have had reservations about some of Obama's policies. But he has now won me over 100%. That's because President Obama has just proclaimed again his determination to close Guantanamo and reduce injustice to those people who are needlessly detained there - and his explanation of the importance of doing this is just magnificent. See the C-Span video of his speech.
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Hitting the Wall

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Naked Mayoral Power in Jersey City

Charles Hack, Jersey City Mayor Healy tells Star-Ledger 'three Hispanic girls' lured him out of house for naked pix nj.com (May 5, 2013):

"So you think you've heard all Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy had to say about the naked pictures of himself, slumped on the stoop of his Ferry Street home, that surfaced shortly before the November 2004 special election? Well, think again.

"Star-Ledger columnist Tom Moran reports today that Healy has offered new details about the photos that comes, in Moran's words, 'with a bizarre sexual twist.'

"According to the version offered to Moran, Healy said three young women woke him up by banging trash cans outside his house, so he rose from bed, wrapped a towel around himself, and went to investigate.

“'Three Hispanic girls, young kids,' Healy is quoted as saying. 'So I go out on the porch and they pulled the towel off me. Now I start laughing, and then they started doing other stuff. I said, "I’m old enough to be your grandfather."'

“'It was filthy,' he says. 'I chased them away, and I just sat down.'"

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Warfare Over Empire

Charles Bagli, 102 Floors, 10 Million Bricks and One Tangled History NYTimes (May 4, 2013):

"The Empire State Building stands as an enduring symbol of New York City — and of the mayhem and legal conflict to which New York City real estate titans are prone."

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Should we call such magnates "titans"?

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There was also much legal and other "mayhem" over the reconstruction of the One World Trade Center. See, e.g., Larry A. Silverstein.


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No rush to judgment?

I hope that our sage political leaders will not rush to judgment on the question of the Assad government's use vel non of chemical weapons or Sarin. I also hope our leaders will not push to get the U.S. into another war. (These wishes are not directed at Sen. John McCain, who seems to lack all prudence and judgment.)
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Human Computer

Haresh Pandya, Shakuntala Devi, ‘Human Computer’ Who Bested the Machines, Dies at 83 (April 23, 2013):

Shakuntala Devi, an Indian mathematical wizard known as “the human computer” for her ability to make incredibly swift calculations, died on Sunday in Bangalore, India. She was 83.

Ms. Devi demonstrated her mathematical gifts around the world, at colleges, in theaters and on radio and television. In 1977, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, she extracted the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds, beating a Univac computer, which took 62 seconds.

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Then there are the people who can solve the puzzles created by Will Short...

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The Ideological and Intellectual Detritus of a Tragedy: premature judgments in investigations

There were two bomb explosions in Boston yesterday. Little if anything is known about the possible culprit or culprits. Nonetheless...

a commentator on a left-leaning public radio station in Boston said (s)he thought the most likely culprits were right-wing Minutemen
a commentator on a right-leaning radio station in New York City said (s)he thought the most likely culprits were radical Islamists
Both commentators are feckless idiots.
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New Web Site about Worldwide Persecution of Religion

Perhaps the following web site will help convince the U.S. State Department to at least mention the extensive persecution of Christians in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt: http://persecutionreport.org/

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What's My Line?

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Yoo and Addington Are Outlaws (in Russia)

I see that the Russian government retaliated against the U.S. government by barring (among others) the following two people from setting foot in Russia: "John Yoo, a former U.S. Justice Department official who wrote legal memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques; [and] David Addington, the chief of staff for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney." Russia Bans 18 Americans After Similar US Move NYTimes (AP) (April 13, 2013). I suppose some wag will wonder whether the U.S. government might be induced to bar these two people from American soil as well. (Of course, I do not for a moment entertain such a thought. Expelling Addington and Yoo would be quite unAmerican. Isn't that right?)

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