Excited about immigration

Hopefully, this new immigrant is uncontroversial... except maybe for Chivas USA fans.

I may even make it to an MLS game this upcoming season.

From The Guardian:

For all his considerable skills, his celebrity has long outstripped his talent, and the move signals the end of his career as a footballer of significance. Six months after resigning the England captaincy with a tear in his eye, the most famous footballer of his generation is walking away from the highest level of the game aged just 31.

No, MLS hasn't quite made the big time yet. But you have to admit, it's not a bad celebrity strategy, as long as Beckham doesn't get bored with being a big fish in a little pond. I get the feeling he and Posh will spend more time in the Hollywood social scene than anything.

It's just money... really.

A Dallas-based pizza chain called "Pizza Patron" decided, on a promotional basis so far, to accept Mexican pesos in their stores, which are scattered throughout the southwest, as far north as Denver.

The result (predictable but sad): People with nothing better to do are sending threatening emails.

I used to work for a large Seattle-based coffee chain, at a store in the Seattle area, and we accepted Canadian currency. Now, I probably only saw it 2-3 times in the three years I worked there. I also got zero calls saying that I was on the side of the Canucks and this is not the "United States of Canada." (As much as I may sometimes wish it were).

Dude, it's money. And it's good business. If it isn't, they'll stop doing it. (Conservatives, isn't "good business" supposed to be a good thing? I guess only when conducted in English).

Back to the drawing board for Israeli Labor, again

Labor's leadership election looms in May and current leader Amir Peretz looks extremely vulnerable. When the Kadima-Labor coalition took power, some felt it was a good move on Peretz's part to take the Defense portfolio, since he couldn't get Finance. He can establish himself as a competent minister and not take the heat for tough budget and taxing decisions, it was said. Well, Olmert and the IDF screwed that up for him, looks like...

Now Peretz faces opposition from several fronts--it's only early January, but Peretz has been in trouble since Lebanon. Former Labor leader Ehud Barak is jumping back in as a Labor establishment candidate and is supported by such long-term Labor figures as Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shin Bet, is a candidate, backed by Avishay Braverman. Both are relatively new to electoral politics but have been prominent figures for a longer time. They appear to be pragmatists without the baggage of Barak. Finally, there is Ophir Pines-Paz, the principled ex-cabinet member who left government over the appointment of Yisrael Beitenu's Avigdor Lieberman to a ministry.

At this point, Ayalon and Barak appear the front-runners. Of all of them, Ayalon seems to most represent the perspective of a social-liberal party, which Labor now is; Pines-Paz is too left, and not really a major figure, while Barak seems more to the right, and still very vulnerable to criticism, though not immune to bouncing back, due to the general low standing that all public figures today enjoy. Personally, I saw Ayalon speak while in college, as he was doing a tour on his citizens' initiative with Sari Nusseibeh, and while he certainly held back for what I believe to be public-image concerns as well as very real personal beliefs, I believe he is sincere (not to be making any comparisons with Ehud Barak...).

What does this mean for the peace process? Ehh... essentially nothing. Unlike past times when it's been asserted that "there is no Palestinian partner" except that there really was, Israel now through its destructive policies has managed to self-fulfill this prophecy. Now there really is no partner, at least for now--not because nobody will negotiate, but because the legitimacy of whoever does it will be questioned by a majority. (Given that Israel controls the process overall, this is not an insurmountable obstacle if they really wish to take action; but the problem is that the Palestinians must present a united front to challenge them at the table, or the Israelis simply will not move due to domestic political concerns).

As for Ehud Olmert... check out this great post for how he's doing.

SWEET! THE PROBLEMS IN IRAQ ARE SOLVED!

As much as I try to stay away from Iraq, now I am optimistic. At first, I thought the fact that Bush was going in his own direction might possibly be like before, when he ignored everybody else to pursue an entirely inane strategy. But, according to The New York Times, there is a new foolproof plan as part of the Bush team's new proposal:

Plan Sets Series of Goals for Iraq Leaders

Even better,

Without saying what the specific penalties for failing to achieve the goals would be, American officials insisted that they intended to hold the Iraqis to a realistic timetable for action, but the Americans and Iraqis have agreed on many of the objectives before, only to fall considerably short.

Yes, but now we have something different, because

Plan Sets Series of Goals for Iraq Leaders

Sounds awesome! I am thinking about what the goals could be right now, perhaps:
(1) When you say you're going to confiscate cell phones, mean it.
(2) Establish a committee to talk about establishing cooperation between ethnic groups, and not have any parties walk out of the meetings, or any member of the committee disappear.
(3) Establish militia quotas so that only 90% of the personnel in any given government ministry can be members of the minister's party's militia. (They can still have 100% of the guns, though).

Before I am berated for sarcasm, has the Iraqi government actually done any of the above? (Maybe #3 in a few instances). Seriously, a government that cannot even carry out an internationally-watched execution with dignity, nor control its own supposedly loyal personnel to the point that they violate the ground rules for the procedure, cannot be trusted to carry out anything.

And perhaps I am a little pessimistic and cynical, but when the president rejects the proposals of a bipartisan study group and the feelings of the voters who demolished his party in the election due to this very issue, I expect better than a "series of benchmarks" and keeping already-tired troops in the country another few months.

Serbian elections upcoming

Serbia will hold its first elections since separating from Montenegro in two weeks, on 21 January. The general backstory to these elections: the country recently approved a new constitution, which made some minor changes and reinforced that Kosovo is a part of Serbia (which will, of course, be detached following the elections). The feeling was that the Government wanted to hold these elections before any decision on Kosovo to prevent the right-wing Radicals, of Hague defendant Vojislav Seselj, from winning an overall majority.

The Serbian parliament is elected by proportional representation. One of the recent rules changes allows minority parties to win representation with 0.4 percent of the vote; other parties or coalitions require 5 percent.

The party lineup is as follows:

• Radical Party of Serbia (SRS), Seselj's party, which essentially took over representing the far right after Milosevic's downfall.
  
• Democratic Party (DS), the party of the assassinated PM Zoran Djindjic, and of current president Boris Tadic. Generally pro-European and left-leaning; currently in opposition; has suffered some splintering in recent years.
• Democratic Party of Serbia--New Serbia (DSS-NS). Originally a breakoff from DS more than a decade ago and more conservative, DSS is the party of current PM Vojislav Kostunica. This time around it is running in coalition with New Serbia, a smaller party that ran with SPO last time.
  
• G17 Plus (G17+). G17 was formed as a group of 17 intellectuals to push for reforms and eventually became a right-liberal political party, still with a very economic focus. It left the Kostunica government over the failure to apprehend fugitive general Ratko Mladic.
• Liberal Democratic Party--Civic Alliance of Serbia--Social Democratic Union--a couple other parties (LDP--GSS--SDU...). This is a union of smaller social-liberalish parties. LDP is a recent splinter from DS; GSS ran on the G17+ list last time around.
• Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO). Led by Vuk Draskovic, who a long, long time ago was the main Western hope to replace Milosevic (back in the mid-'90s). Draskovic, however, is actually a rather regressive rightish and monarchist character who reportedly doesn't get along too well with anyone else. Currently a part of the coalition government, where Draskovic is foreign minister.
  
• Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), Milosevic's old party, which has lost pretty much all its support by this point.
• Last but not least, a bunch of other parties that won't win seats, and the minorities (including parties representing Presevo Albanians, Sanjak Bosniaks, the Vojvodina Hungarians, and the Roma).

It appears from the polls that have been posted on Wikipedia that SRS is, not surprisingly, still running ahead, but will probably make a similar showing to last time (a little under 30 percent). DS, as the main respectable opposition, has surged ahead to around 25 percent, which would represent a major increase from 2003. DSS-NS is a little under 20 percent (about where DSS alone finished last time), and G17+ a little under 10 percent (down a bit). The big losers are SPS and SPO, which both seem unlikely to win seats; the social-liberal coalition led by LDP is on the edge.

The biggest point is, whoever wins will have to form a broad coalition to again exclude SRS in Serbia's version of the cordon sanitaire. It would appear that even should DS make major gains, Kostunica's DSS will be indispensable to any government--which was a big problem last time, since the two parties get along very badly and are indeed quite different in many policy areas, with DS taking a much more pro-EU and pro-Western approach and DSS much more nationalistic and Euro-skeptical. However, the way things are looking, there probably will not be an alternative.