- The view from my window -- well, it was last weekend while staying in NYC as part of the long way around trip to take the kid back to New Jersey for college. I paid for the upgrade in rooms and in this instance it was well worth it. As was going over to the U.S. Open and getting a chance to see Rafael Nadal -- newly crowned as the champion after a Monday evening final -- play in person. What an amazing talent and competitor. Got to see the Williams sisters play doubles as well, which was a treat. Anyone who likes the game of tennis should try to do an early weekend pilgrimage to the Open, when there are multiple matches going on throughout the huge facility and you can leave the cavernous Ashe Stadium and find some of the world's best operating on side courts with just a few hundred people watching.
- Syria intervention watch: So it is a little difficult for me to get a handle on the Obama Administration's strategy here. It seems to me if the President was truly committed to a military strike he probably should have proceeded immediately without consulting Congress -- as they say, it is easier to apologize then ask permission. But having committed -- seemingly -- to a congressional vote, what does the President do if he cannot prevail or if he loses in the House? How does one really justify seeking congressional approval and then ignoring it? I do not think historical precedent suggests that Obama needed congressional autorization for taking action, but a big part of me feels like it would be a positive development for the President to lose such a vote, even if the Republicans who will oppose him are acting from their own bad faith motives. Especially when I read this kind of bullshit argument in favor of intervention. (These WWII analogies to the Syria situation really should be against the law -- and Bill Keller is just a dim bulb.) I think that the DC elite simply view these issues in a fashion completely differently from a war weary and skeptical (suitably) public. Who knows, maybe Putin will save the Administration from embarrassment with his most recent diplomatic gambit.
- This article in the Sunday Times Magazine on Rwandan ruler Paul Kagame, a man at once deeply troubling and in ways admirable, is a fascinating read.
- And Erik Loomis has an interesting post on the 1919 Boston Police strike and the breaking of the police union by then-Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge.
What's going on with all of you?