Dis 'n Dat--Maureen Dowd, China, Barak, Hillary & the like

Maureen Dowd has two op-ed columns a week in 'the New York Times'. No Irish Rose is she for she's prickly than a pear. She has an unhealthy dislike for Hillary Clinton and for Bill Clinton, too. No Republican can match her for the bile she spews on Mrs. Clinton.
China has had a word or two about Spielberg's distancing himself from the summer Beijing olympics owing to Beijing's uncritical support of the Islamic republic of Sudan's war games in Darfur. The English translation calls the American cineaste 'naive', but you can bet a dime to a shrinking dollar that in Chinese the language stoops to the gutter, for Spielberg is the fly in China's olympic ointment. It should come as no surprise that the presence of troops and police will be doubled or tripled this summer to crush any demonstrations against China's Darfur hanky panky. China's rule of thumb in its foreign policy follows the tried and true formula--if it's good for China, screw everything else. Beijing won't recognise the self proclaimed republic of Kosovo, for the simple and plain reason were it to acknowledge its existence it would knock the pegs under its repressive rule in Xiajiang and Tibet. China, nominally a Communist country pays lip service to the Leninist dictum of the right of self determination and violates it in the letter of the law.
Barka Obama has upped the ante in election promises. He's the momentum, and to mate his challenger Hillary Clinton's campaign, he is broadening his appeal. And his oratory is paying off. It is attracting Mrs. Clinton's constituency. Which all goes to show how the 8 years of Herr Bush has pushed the American electorate away from the fantasies of a harsh class rule of the rich and the famous, towards a centre or left of centre desire to return the US to a more balanced class society where the ladders of opportunity that mini mouse Bush & co have kicked away from the wall for the majority of Americans.
Yet Obama has but a 100 delegate votes more than Hillary, his 10 state primary or causus wins nothwithstanding. The Democrats might want to avoid a split so it would and should surprise no one that at the last might John Edwards of South Carolina who suspended his run for the presidency might be drafted as the party's candidate!
The subprime cancer spreads more widely. Credit Suisse has had to write off more than us$3bn this time around. The subprime Ponzi scheme's collapse is forcing the banks to restructure 'sotto voce', but as far as 18Brumaire is able to make out, they're not doing enough. The 1998 Asian collapse should hold a lesson for them. But will they take that to heart? It remains to be seen!