Here we go again, answering to the mindless, one-issue mentality of America’s Main Street.  That Main Street that supposedly represents the consensus of what most Americans think.  Or, some might argue, what the media persist the issue to be in the minds of many, if not most, Americans.  And since that Republican fellow (Scott Brown) was elected to represent Massachusetts in the US Senate… to dare sit on that chair occupied for almost half a century by Ted Kennedy, the issue has become jobs, jobs and nothing but jobs.  The lack of them, that is!

In the sixth grade, the Boys' Vice-Principal threatened to suspend me from school unless I stopped carrying around The Catcher in the Rye I think because it had the word "fuck" in it. Since the Boys' Vice-Principal hadn't read the book - and I don't think he'd ever read any book - he couldn't tell me why.

A consistent stance toward issues with Muslim societies is gradually emerging from the Obama Administration – emerging out of the optimistic fog of early rhetoric. The stance is simple: the U.S. has one big hammer, and that is what will be used to pound on all issues with the Islamic world.

It’s way past time for the U.S. to get out of Okinawa—and, for that matter, to take its Tokyo good buddies with it. Before Japanese warlords annexed the Ryuku islands in 1879, Okinawans enjoyed more freedom than they do today. Every liberty-loving American ought to be shouting: “Okinawa for the Okinawans!”

A Canadian man who was deported by US officials to Syria, where he was imprisoned and allegedly tortured, has appealed a court ruling preventing him from suing the US.

Haiti's prime minister has said it is clear to him that a US church group which tried to take a busload of undocumented Haitian children out of the country knew "what they were doing was wrong".

US plans to return astronauts to the moon have been scrapped under a revised budget presented to the US congress.

The United Nations has welcomed the "clear goal" set by some of the world's biggest polluters to combat climate change, but says it is "not good enough" to forestall the expected disastrous effects of global warming.

China has warned Barack Obama, the US president, not to meet the Dalai Lama, saying any meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader could further harm already-strained relations between the two countries.

Missiles fired by suspected US drones have killed at least 17 people and wounded 15 others in Pakistan, residents and security officials say.

A former UK minister has told a public inquiry into the war in Iraq that the British cabinet was "misled" over the legality of the invasion in 2003.

The Palestinian prime minister is meeting the Israeli defence minister in a public discussion at a conference in the Israeli town of Herzliya.

Iran has criticised a US move to expand its missile defence systems in the Gulf, calling it a "political ploy" that will increase Washington's military presence in the region.

Iran will "soon execute" another nine people arrested over anti-government protests last year, a senior judiciary official has been quoted as saying.