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To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. I wandered over to the Sfist website to see what my friend Brock was up to, and there it was: Sam Wo’s is closing. I could feel my shoulders droop and I reread the sentence just to make sure, Yep, it was that Sam Wo’s.

At this point everyone probably knows about it, evidenced by the mass of people that were outside the door of the restaurant last night around 10 p.m. That in itself was a little surprising, because traditionally Wo’s doesn’t start filling up until close to midnight when other culinary options start to go dark. Well, that is not really true. The reason we all went to the place was because it is one of the most gloriously perfect dive restaurants in the city. And we are a city that used to specialize in those.

Nothing about Wo’s is right. You walk through the kitchen to get to the dining rooms. Half the things you expect in a restaurant are not available. The staff is surly. And oh yeah, the food is great. And by that I mean it is great, bad food. It’s not haute cuisine. It certainly is not good for you. But damn, some great nights ended with a group of us slurping up noodles and doing everything to fight the dawn.

Wait, wait, I know I have those rose-colored glasses around here somewhere… ah… there they are.

Thinking of hitting Wo’s late at night made the memory banks hum to life, and suddenly I am back in the ’70s in San Francisco. It’s funny how we are suddenly on a nostalgia kick around here. You can’t pick up a paper without black and white photos of the earthquake, and articles asking about what it means to be a San Franciscan (which Beth Spotswood gets credit for doing first). This week we were talking beer signs in San Francisco, which sharp-eyed readers will remember was a discussion in this space a while back.

So I have changed my mind; off with the rose-colored glasses, and on with the cool retro sunglasses boys and girls, because we are going to discuss something far more fun: rites of passage. Growing up in the 49-acre woods, we all had a checklist — a set of deliverables we had to accomplish before we could truly consider ourselves adults in this town. And some of it wasn’t pretty, folks.

Let’s start high-brow: Trader Vic’s. Yes, that name makes us natives get all misty-eyed, and I still can’t see Le Colonial without also seeing The Captain’s Cabin. See, when Vic’s was in that location, the main dining room was called the Captain’s Cabin. All the grown-ups ate there without the kids, and it had a mythical connotation since we all got shunted into the small dining room off the entrance known as “Siberia.” One of the great rites of passage was when Mike the captain would sweep up his armful of menus and lead you ceremoniously for the first time into that room. You couldn’t help but smile, feeling your chest swell in your little navy blue blazer from Young Man’s Fancy.

And now we go low-brow. I find all the battles over the Jack in the Box out on Geary rather amusing, because for us growing up it was a destination called “Tokyo Stop,” a sort of fast food meets bento boxes mashup. And it stayed open late. And there is no way to put this other than the way it happened. The game was to exit the bars in the Marina, and make it to Tokyo Stop before it closed at 2 a.m., which meant you had to drive like a lunatic through the Presidio to cut the distance down. Where the military was. More to the point, where the military police were. The legend was that the MPs could only go as far as the gates to the base Server 2003 Key, so the approach was to drive as fast as you could so even if they saw you Windows 7 Serial, you were through the Arguello Gate before they nailed you. I never knew anyone who actually tested this theory, but a certain friend of mine got the time down to single digits. Since we are both fathers now, this memory terrifies me.

And then there was Wo’s, which will always remind me of a certain time in my life. And yes, this will sound all snobby, but Wo’s reminds me of cotillion season, back in my high school days. I know, who cares, but the subject is rites of passage, and that certainly counts. The cotillion season also kicked off scads of parties Windows 7 Product Key, and as we stumbled out into the fog in our rented tuxedos on many a night, the same thought would enter our deranged minds: Noodles! We must have noodles!

And so we would start trudging our way from some fancy downtown hotel towards Chinatown. Often times the person with the fake ID would duck into a store on the way and emerge with Henry Weinhard’s (our marching drink of choice), and then we would confidently march through the kitchen resplendent in our tuxedos and set up shop upstairs. And there we would talk for hours. We were the adolescent Algonguin Roundtable. We were men, gathered around the table late at night, solving the problems of the world. We were in our town, with our friends, playing at being grown ups. And in a way, as we slurped our noodles, that’s how we learned to first think of ourselves as adults.

So goodbye to another time, another place, another city. It’s sad to see Sam Wo’s go, but I hope that somewhere out there tonight, a group of cocky kids will find some other greasy table to gather around and push out their chests a bit too much, talk a bit too confidently, and think that they have finally become adults. And they will invisibly check off another rite of passage before they walk off into the fog.

In order to thoroughly explore the concept of “becoming fearless,” you’ve got to be willing to evaluate the many ways you’re a chickenshit.

Fears can run the gamut from the mundane to the profound, each amplified by varying degrees of anxiety. And accessing them requires an intense degree of flexibility and agility, for you must be willing to bend way over, gather your strength, pluck your head out of your ass, and take the time to reflect upon the darkness you saw up there. It’s not often pretty!

I wondered how many fearful thoughts I truly had in a day, a week, an hour. Would I score major on the chickenshit scale? Did I have enough fear to be regarded by the general public or anyone official, like a shrink, as a fearful person? Did the average person have the same ratio of fearful thoughts per hour as I? I was becoming afraid of how afraid I was.

To try and wrap my mind around what I was afraid of, I wrote down a list of fear-based thoughts that scrolled across my mind, like a Twitter feed, over the span of an hour and a half:

Whether or not I’ll have enough paid work this summer to justify the arm and leg I’ve given to my kids’ camp.
Whether or not my kids will have a great day at school.
Whether or not I look dumpy in baggy jeans that don’t quite qualify as baggy around the ass.
Whether or not the dark chocolate and cherry half-scone I’d devoured would adhere immediately to said ass.
Whether or not my brother would survive the changes he’s going through.
Whether or not my mother would leave the house today.
Whether or not I’ll hurt my back driving to and from Boston this weekend.
Whether or not the pain will force me into another corrective spinal surgery.
Whether or not I’ll be able to find the shoes I wanted to wear in Boston.
Whether or not it will ever stop fucking raining in New York. Whether or not people who run states like North Carolina will ever get past their fear of equality.
Whether or not I’ll be able to kiss our president for endorsing equality.

So replica watches, there they were. Sure, there were a few in there that were based on actual pain and suffering, but for the most part, I couldn’t believe the weird and random assortment of passing thoughts I’d qualified as “fear.” It was a menacing title they didn’t really deserve. Seriously replica watches, who could be afraid of the ramifications of a scone?

Evaluating my fears this way felt like trying to catch crabs with molasses, and I don’t mean the fun way. There’s no real, clear view of what scares you because fears, like bottom feeders, feed on other fears, leaving many sharp, potentially painful remnants to clean up.

But we learn to coexist with our fears — fleeting or committed — as we would a bad roommate. We watch helplessly as the bitch eats all the Girl Scout cookies without replacing them, or leaving a fiver. She prances around butt naked replica watches, completely unaware of her innate ugliness, before our significant others. She climbs into bed with us and snores so loudly our heads reverberate right off the pillow. She awaits our deepest slumber and taunts us awake, until we plead for release from her relentless grip.

In reviewing my random assembly of fears, I realized how idiotic some of them were and how much energy they took to deal with — just like any bad roommate. I realized there’s not enough rent they could pay to share the space they take in my head. So, going forward, I think I’m going to give them the attention they crave, but just for a second. If I’m feeling particularly self-indulgent, I might even buy them a drink. Then I’m going to kick them to the curb.

How many fearful thoughts scroll across your mental Twitter feed each day?

For more by Vivian Manning-Schaffel, click here.

For more on becoming fearless, click here.

A team of scientists from UCLA and Duke have published the first study that identifies certain genes as involved in heightening the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder. Writing in the Journal of Affective Disorders, the researchers found that two genes were significantly associated with increased self-reporting of PTSD symptoms among 200 adults who experienced the Spitak Replica Karen Millen Dresses, Armenia earthquake in 1988.

The statistical association was small and, as the authors point out, there are inherent flaws in self-reports, but the notion that people with a higher risk of PTSD can be identified through genetic testing raises yet another fascinating question for the new era of genomics. As more and more samples are sequenced with increasingly reliable personal histories through ever faster gene analyzers and more sophisticated algorithms, many believe these data will only become more reliable.

What are the implications for society if a serious mental illness can be avoided by deliberately excluding some people from certain sorts of situations? Should our screening mechanisms become so heavy-handed, if the technology allows it?

We might well decide that such uses of genetics should in general not be allowed. For example Replica Herve Leger gown, the invasion of privacy could seem intolerable, especially if confidentiality cannot be guaranteed. At a more philosophical level, some will argue that it is unwise to isolate people from the inherent risks of life, that confronting sad and even painful events is part of what it is to live a full human life.

But there is one kind of human activity that is, by its very nature, both exceptionally subject to stress and largely non-voluntary in the risks it assumes: the person at the “tip of the spear” in human conflict, the warfighter. At no time in our history have we become so aware of the psychological perils associated with combat, especially in protracted duty in asymmetric conflicts amid unfamiliar cultural cues. Military planners have good reason to want to avoid inflicting personal devastation on heroic young men and women who put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of the rest of us. And privacy considerations do not have the same weight in the military that they do in civilian life. Already biological samples are collected from everyone who serves in the armed forces. Along with thorough medical histories and service records they are potentially a potent source of information about the way that genes and experience interact.

Nor is psychological screening of soldiers a new idea. Early IQ tests were applied to inductees in the armed forces during World War I, and World War II saw the use of personality inventories like the Thematic Apperception Test. Put in terms of modern genetics, these psychometric measurements tell us about a person’s phenotype, their genotypic behavior under certain conditions; it isn’t that big a step to inquiring about the genome itself.

It’s important to emphasize that the science is a long, long way from being at the point where it could reliably be applied. Many earthquake victims who don’t have those genes also experienced severe and persistent stress. And those in the career military could have their prospects for important assignments and promotion severely curtailed if gene screens like this one were ever introduced. Even now a record of psychological consultation is feared in the military as a black mark on one’s career prospects, which may itself be one reason that help is not sought by those most at risk.

Yet there’s good reason to believe that we are on the road to more active development of behavioral genetics with at least modest predictive power. And, like so many other new technologies, those who fight our wars are among the most likely to be exposed and the least likely to have a choice.

Bloggers talk about the state of emergency in Pakistan and admire the spectacle of writers on strike.

Pervez’s power play: PakistaniPresident Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency Saturday. He also suspended the country’s constitution, fired its Supreme Court chief justice, and dispatched police officers throughout the nation.

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Jamash at Metroblogging Karachi describes the scene in his city: “Life in the city is (somewhat) normal. ‘Somewhat’ because there is little traffic on the roads, yesterday too the streets were considerably deserted. Last night after midnight at around 1:30 AM there was a pin drop silence, I went up my roof and there was no sound of traffic on the roads Tattoo Supplies, not horns, not even a bark of the dog. It was very unusual, almost disturbing. and today too the traffic in the city is a bit less than normal and a Fewer people are on the streets. …Karachi is … quite and engulfed in fear and uncertainty.”

Blake Hounsell, blogging at Foreign Policy’s Passport, runs through  the country’s problems: “Before he declared martial law, Musharraf’s approval rating had cratered at 21 percent. So, let’s see here… We’ve got rising militancy and a war in neighboring Afghanistan, a hugely unpopular president, multiple insurgencies, and a nuclear state with a history of nuclear proliferation. Some old Iran hands are saying the present situation in Pakistan even reminds them of the last days of the Shah. This could get much, much worse before it gets better.”

Dr. Awab Alvi, a Pakistani dentist practicing in Karachi, is critical of Musharraf at Teeth Maestro:  ”Those he has arrested are progressive, secular minded people while the terrorists are offered negotiations and ceasefires. …It is not time for the international community to insist on preventive measures, otherwise cleaning up the mess may take decades. …We believe that Musharaf has to be taken out of the equation and a government of national reconciliation put in place. It must be backed by the military. Short of this there are no realistic solutions, although there are no guarantees that this may work.”

Brian Ulrich, a Ph.D. student who writes often on foreign policy at American Footprints, considers the reasoning in Musharraf’s comparing his movements to Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of the Constitution during the Civil War: “What Musharraf fears is not a Bush administration pro-democracy agenda, but rather popular pressure that could make it uncomfortable for the administration to continue to work with Musharraf, as they seem inclined to do. Musharraf’s role model is not Lincoln, but Turkey’s President Kemal Ataturk.  Musharraf has certainly not tried to secularize Pakistan as forcefully as Ataturk did Turkey, but then Turkey in the 1920’s was a very different place from modern Pakistan.”

At his blog All Things Pakistan Tattoo Supplies, Adil Najam isn’t really that shocked: “[T]he emergency declared by Gen. Musharraf is deeply disturbing, but not really surprising. The horrendous political situation that Gen. Musharraf described in his ‘Emergency’ speech is, in fact, true. Extremism and violence has gone out of hand. Society is deeply divided. Religion has been high-jacked and is now routinely used to incite violence. …However, none of this is a justification for a suspension of the Constitution and for the declaration of emergency. In fact, all this is damning evidence of government failure. A suspension of the constitution will not and cannot resolve any of these issues. It is more likely to – and has already – made each of these situations even worse.”

Read more about Pakistan’s state of emergency. For more on Musharraf, read Josh Hammer’s profile of the Pakistani leader in the Atlantic. Watch Musharraf defend his actions on Al-Jazeera.

Picket fences: After three months of negotiations with the major studios, the Writers Guild of America went on strike Monday.  It’s the first writers strike since 1988.

It’s bad news for fans of late-night television, as Alex Pareene notes at Gawker: “The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are both going to repeats—though Jon Stewart has offered to pay two weeks of writer’s salaries himself—and poor Amy Winehouse, the real victim in all this, will probably not be making her SNL debut this week, and no one seems clear on what Letterman will be doing, least of all Dave Letterman.”

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Christine O’Donnell DKNY Clothes sale

Each week until the election, I’m posting some of the questions I’m trying to answer based on news of the week or something that’s come up in my reporting. Feel free to weigh in with answers—or with more political questions—at slatepolitics@gmail.com or in the comments section below. Here are this week’s questions:

Will Christine O’Donnell cost Republicans two Senate seats? Ever since she won Delaware’s Republican nomination for senator in September, the conventional wisdom has been that Christine O’Donnell turned a sure win for Republicans (if Rep. Mike Castle were the nominee) into a sure win for Democrats. In this case, the conventional wisdom is not wrong. But now I’ve been hearing a pitch from several Democrats involved in the Pennsylvania and Delaware races that O’Donnell could affect the Senate race in Pennsylvania, too. She’s so toxic Buy Christian Audigier Clothing, they say, and so visible in the Philadelphia media market, that she’s convincing voters Republicans are too extreme. It’s a contributing factor in the tightening that appears to be happening in both the Senate and gubernatorial races.

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This theory has a lot of potential adherents. Democrats hope to sell it in order to keep pushing the “Republicans are extreme” message. Establishment Republicans irritated with O’Donnell—and Sarah Palin—want to argue that the reckless campaign might cost them more than simply the seat in Delaware. And TV producers and Web site editors like this theory because it is about Christine O’Donnell. Though she’s 20 points behind in Delaware, and there are a dozen more interesting Senate races Replica DKNY Clothes, she’s good for ratings and readership. But this theory is also like those watches they sell on the street corner: shiny and thin. No one has any proof at all.

How soon will the 2012 campaign start? Marc Ambinder reports that Sharron Angle’s campaign is pitching this ad as the first one of the 2012 presidential campaign. It uses President Obama’s words against him and ties the president to Harry Reid. As proof of the double-edged problem of an Obama visit, an image in the ad of the two men hugging (often a liability in campaigns) also appears on fliers the Reid campaign has used to turn out its vote.

Reid has many problems of his own making, but one of the big ones is that for months he’s been the subject of attack ads from outside groups. Will that happen to Obama in 2011? Will conservative groups with anonymous donors spend money to continue pummeling the president even after Nov. 2 and into 2011, when he can’t really respond as a candidate? In 1995 Bill Clinton started putting together ads in the early summer to define his Republican opponents. Will Obama have to start putting his ads together even earlier?

Are Democrats alive in Ohio? Democrats in this bellwether state may have the best get-out-the-vote effort in the country—and there are signs that it is performing well. Usually participation falls off in non-presidential years, but according to Ohio Democrats, in Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold, more than 210,000 ballots have been requested to date, compared with 224 Cheap Chloe Dresses,640 ballots requested in 2008. Statewide, Democrats account for 40 percent of the ballot requests. Republicans have asked for just 30 percent. Democrats appear to be mailing them in. According to numbers first reported in Politico, out of nearly 400,000 votes cast statewide through Thursday Replica Missoni Dresses, 44 percent were from registered Democrats, 34 percent from Republicans.

More Democratic ballots means more Democratic votes. But what we don’t know is how the 30 percent of unaffiliated voters who asked for early ballots will vote. We also don’t know whether the Republican turnout will be greater on Election Day itself.

In the Senate race in Ohio, Democrats don’t look like they have much of a chance. Their candidate, Lee Fisher, is behind by almost 20 points in the polls. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland is in a tight race Discount Emilio Pucci Dresses, though. Turnout will be key. These numbers also matter to President Obama. The organization doing all of this work grew out of the one he created for the 2008 campaign. Ohio will be crucial to his 2012 chances. That’s why, even after traveling there last week, the president will make yet another Ohio stop before the election.

Become a fan of Slate  and  John Dickerson  on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Mr. Gingrich, not Speaker Gingrich

Photograoh by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images.

Newt Gingrich can be called many things: garrulous, grandiose, philandering. But one thing he should not be called is “Mr. Speaker.” Gingrich ceased to be entitled to that title when he left the House on Jan. 3, 1999. But you would never know it from the obsequious way journalists have addressed him during the campaign, where “Mr. Speaker” and “Speaker Gingrich” have become standard. It’s as if he is Downton Abbey’s Earl of Grantham, his honorific adhering to him for life.

Gingrich is not the only figure in American politics who’s attached to a job title he no longer has. Every ex-Cabinet official seems to think he or she is a permanent secretary. John Nance Garner, who served as a vice president of Franklin Roosevelt, famously declared that the office “wasn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.” But oh, how former vice presidents hold onto that piss pitcher now. When Al Gore or Dick Cheney shows up to be interviewed, it’s all “Mr. Vice President.” And Discount Bandage dresses, of course, we have a gaggle of former presidents running around who are loath to abandon being called “Mr. President.” As the indispensible Judith Martin slyly notes of the recent president-for-life trend Cheap Chanel Dresses, “Miss Manners would have thought that having reached that position would surely have cured anyone of status anxiety.”

Such title inflation is not only pretentious and incorrect, it’s un-American. Our forefathers so disliked the notion of an aristocracy that they forbade it in the Constitution. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 begins: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States.” It’s a little noticed proscription these days, but at the time it represented a profound break with the ways of the old world. As Alexander Hamilton wrote, “Nothing need be said to illustrate the importance of the prohibition of titles of nobility. This may truly be denominated the corner stone of republican government; for so long as they are excluded White Herve leger sale, there can never be serious danger that the government will be any other than that of the people.”

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Jay Wexler, professor at Boston University School of Law and author of The Odd Clauses Buy DKNY Clothing, about the lesser-known provisions of the Constitution, says the increasing practice of title-keeping—while not strictly unconstitutional—is unseemly: “It does by analogy speak to the issue of creating a small but nonetheless permanent class of citizen who get titles forever and can be distinguished from everyone else. So it’s inconsistent with the spirit of the clause.”

But is there really any harm in humoring the pompous ex-official who enjoys that toasty feeling that being called “speaker” or “secretary” or “president” brings? I think so. Those who hold the highest offices in the land deserve a bit of deference. The problem arises when the people who hold those offices start to take the deference personally. To ease the shock of losing power Replica White Herve leger, the former official, like a kindergartener taking a teddy bear to school, may prefer to cling to an old honorific. But our country was founded on the notion that certain people don’t get to lord it over the rest of us just because of the title they carry.

It is rare to see politicians correct someone for over-inflating their title. Admonishing people who don’t give them their due is another matter. A good example of the latter came when Sen. Barbara Boxer verbally boxed the ears of a brigadier general testifying before her who, in proper military fashion when speaking to a high-ranking woman Missoni Dresses sale, called her “ma’am.” Boxer’s response: “You know, do me a favor. Could you say ‘senator’ instead of ‘ma’am’? It’s just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title, so I’d appreciate it,” In her last re-election campaign that moment was used against her as an illustration of her arrogance.

But former officials who don’t set straight those who incorrectly call them by their old titles should come in for criticism as well. Even if Gingrich doesn’t twist journalists’ arms until they call him “Mr. Speaker,” he clearly basks in the undeserved esteem the title brings. (If you believe that, in declining to point out that he should be called “Mr. Gingrich,” the candidate’s real goal is to save others awkwardness and embarrassment, then you don’t know Newt Gingrich.) The websites of the presidential libraries are also lousy with references to President Carter and President Clinton. And if they didn’t want to be called “secretary” in their joint appearance at the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Ft. Worth, surely James Baker or Condoleezza Rice would have made that clear before they were introduced.

And what of the reporters who slather on the titles? Journalists could argue they use appellations as sign of respect, but I think it’s a feint—a touch of obsequiousness before sticking in the shiv. So, as CNN’s John King’s did, you preface your question to Gingrich about whether he suggested to his second wife that they have an open marriage by calling him Mr. Speaker. But the press should get things right, and not implicitly misinstruct the public.

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Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, was assassinated Thursday at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi. Bhutto, who returned from exile in October, was reportedly shot just before a suicide bomber detonated, killing 20 other people and wounding dozens more. Pakistani bloggers offer firsthand accounts of the reaction in their cities, while others speculate about the killing’s effect on the U.S. presidential campaign.

Blogger Tee Emm from Karachi, Bhutto’s hometown, reports the city’s initial reaction at the frequently updated Metroblogging Karachi: “Karachi appears to be in a grip of unprecedented panic right now. There is obvious panic and everyone is shocked. As the offices get closed down, people are rushing to their homes in anticipation of protests.” At the same blog, Teeth Maestro is coordinating online condolences: “She was a hero to many, and rival to others, but the bottom line is that she was a brave leader of our nation and her struggles for democracy will not go unremembered.”

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The Pakistani Spectator offers sympathy: “Her murder is the murder of Pakistani nation. … It’s not about People’s Party or Muslim League or whoever else. It’s about the humanity. It’s about the courage of the lady, who came back to the country from the posh palaces of London and Spain … and she was well received. Though she was accused of deals and dheels Buy Emilio Pucci Dresses, she nonetheless ruled the hearts of millions of people in the country.” On Slate’s XX Factor,Dahlia Lithwick recalls Bhutto’s complexity: “Bhutto was a complicated woman—underneath the traditional veils she was a graduate of Oxford and Harvard, who spoke flawless English. But then under all that she was also a political creature who had mastered the sort of shape-shifting needed to cast herself as a historic figure in the mold of Indira Ghandi or Joan of Arc.”

Many bloggers expect Pakistan to erupt in violence. At Foreign Policy’s Passport, Blake Hounshell gives a bleak outlook: “Angry riots and a reimposition of martial law are probably a foregone conclusion. And for the United States Discount Herve Leger gown, it probably means that U.S. policymakers now see President Pervez Musharraf as their only option.”

Steve Clemonsatthe Washington Note avoids overstating Bhutto’s political power but predicts the likely devastating effects on Pakistan’s tense political situation: “While it is doubtful that she could have easily calmed Pakistan’s increasing turmoil if she had ascended to officialdom while in some power-sharing arrangement with President Musharraf Cheap Missoni Dresses, her death today makes everything much more fragile. …[W]hile Pakistan’s future would always have been messy, that mess will be less managed and scripted and will now be far more uncontrolled, unstable, and dangerous.” Conservative Confederate Yankee writes that Musharraf now faces his “greatest crisis”: “The January 8 elections now seem in doubt, and missteps by Musharraf could plunge the nuclear-armed country into a possible civil war. … If Musharraf is able to keep the situation from deteriorating to that point, and Islamists are found to be responsible for Bhutto’s assassination, he may finally be forced to face the Taliban and al Qaeda-aligned militants in the border regions that terrorists have used as a staging area and base camp since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, forces he has largely tried to appease or ignore in the past.”

More than a few are pointing fingers at al-Qaida and the Taliban. At conservative Wizbang, D.J. Drummond counts the motives: “Not only was she the first woman leader of a Muslim nation, but she was also moderate, pro-democracy, and pro-US. She wasn’t afraid to publicly announce that Herve leger strapless sale, if she won the election, that she would seek out and destroy the radical Islamists that have caused all the turmoil in Pakistan.” Cliff May, at National Review’s Corner, peers into the Islamist mind: “This is not some extraordinary event. This is not the work of some lone madman. This is how militant Islamists contest elections—not just in Pakistan but also in Lebanon and Gaza and wherever they get a foothold. Why bother with op-eds, TV commercials, high-priced campaign strategists, spin doctors and pollsters when with one suicide bomber you can eliminate your opponent entirely?”

The tragedy was still fresh when the presidential campaigns started tripping over one another to be the first to offer response. At Slate’s Map the Correspondent, John Dickerson writes: “Moments after … Bhutto’s death was announced, I was getting e-mails from campaign aides, political obsessives, and the campaigns themselves. The candidates are quick to express their sadness, of course, but everyone is moving so fast because they’re trying to muscle into the news cycle more than ever. There’s only a week to go before the Iowa caucuses, and this murder lands right in the middle of a key issue in both parties. The ability to react to unpredictable news in a crazy world is at the heart of both primary debates.” Liberal pundit Steve Benen of the Carpetbagger Report predicts what various candidates’ supporters will say and concludes: “My hunch is no one has the foggiest idea which candidate Bhutto’s death helps, if any, but that won’t deter the breathless speculation.”

Conservative Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters opens fire on Gov. Bill Richardson’s statement Cheap DKNY Dresses, which called for the U.S. to force Musharraf out of office: “The stupidity of this statement cascades through several levels. First and foremost, how would the U.S. ‘force’ Musharraf to step down? Should we invade Pakistan to fight on the side of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, who have pursued that same goal for the past six years, thanks to Musharraf’s alliance with the US? Or does Richardson expect us to conduct an assassination? Better yet, why should we dictate who runs Pakistan? Isn’t that a rather bald assertion of so-called American imperialism?”

Read  more about the Bhutto assassination. Pajamas Media offers a news-and-blog roundup. In Slate, read Christopher Hitchens on Bhutto’s courage and Nicholas Schmidle on what this means for the Pakistani elections. From the Slate archives, read Bhutto’s weeklong “Diary Buy Christian Audigier Clothes,” where she shouts down a hostile parliament, deals with the government shutting off her electricity, and indulges her children (and eventually herself) with pizza and chocolate cake.

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We spy with our little eye Buy Cheap Replica Chopard Watches, a camouflaged 2012 Buick Regal GS taking a group of General Motors employees out to lunch. Rather than opting for the drive-thru Wholesale Replica Paul Picot Watches, this group decided to stay out of the office a bit longer and left the vehicle alone in a parking lot Replica Blancpain Watches, and our CarPix spy photographers were ready to pounce in order to give us this good look at the sportiest Buick we’ve seen for eons.

And sporty it shall be judging by the hardware the cameras caught. A set of heavily-bolstered Recaro seats look identical to the super grippy chairs used in the model’s Opel Insignia OPC twin, and there’s a six-speed manual transmission sprouting between the bolsters, further suggesting that this is no mere people hauler. The Regal is expected to borrow heavily from the OPC partsbin Fake Baume & Mercier Watches for sale, and that’s great thing. The OPC is motivated by a 320 horsepower, twin-turbo V6 that pushes the all-wheel drive car to 60 miles per hour from a standstill in just six seconds. In our brief experience with the Euro market car, it has an altogether more hardcore and snarlier character that should appeal to diehard enthusiasts Where buy best Replica Romain Jerome Watches, and it’s sure to bring some performance luster back to the TriShield brand. We can hardly wait.

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2011 Dodge Charger Red Line – Click above for high-res image gallery
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Chrysler has big plans for this year’s SEMA show. The company has worked up a muscle-bound pack of special edition models and concepts slated to be unveiled in Las Vegas. In a live webchat this morning, Ralph Guiles and Pietro Gorlier announced that Dodge and Mopar will be pulling the sheets off of the new Challenger 392 Replica Parmigiani Fleurier Watches, complete with a 6.4-liter V8 with 470 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque. In addition, quarter-mile fans can get excited about the new Challenger Drag Pak V10. The car will come with all the goodies you’ll need to dominate the strip Replica Bell & Ross Watches, including a V10 borrowed from the mighty Dodge Viper, a two-speed transmission, roll cage Replica IWC Watches, fuel cell and unique gauge cluster. Even better Fake Seiko Watches, both Challengers are production models.

Of course, what would SEMA be without a few wild concepts thrown into the mix? In that vein, Chrysler will roll out the 2011 Red Line Dodge Charger shown above. The car will feature massive 22-inch wheels and a number of unique body treatments geared toward giving the redesigned sedan even more attitude. The company will also show off a different take on the new Durango called the Black and Tan. The truck features a custom interior and wheel package designed to be the most luxurious Durango out there.

Finally, Fiat is getting a taste of Mopar love with a new 500 concept. The pint-sized Italian will wear flared fenders Wholesale Replica Ulysse Nardin Watches, 18-inch wheels and special interior treatments designed with a sporty flare.

Chrysler says that it will have a total of 35 vehicles on hand for this year’s SEMA show. Hit the jump to take a look at a quick video detailing some of the stars of the company’s show fleet as well as a full press blast.

Related GalleryChrysler at SEMA 2010
[Source: Chrysler]

The big three: Edwards Imitation Jaeger LeCoultre Watches, Clinton, and Obama

One of the old tests for presidential candidates used to be whether voters could imagine watching them on the television in their livings rooms for four or eight years. At the CNN/YouTube debate, where voters videotaped questions at home, the living room came to the candidates. And so did the bathroom, and the breakfast nook Replica Technomarine Watches, and the little room off the hall where the luggage with the broken zipper is kept. One young woman taped her video sitting on a bed, and when it appeared on the big screen, it looked for a moment like we were going to have an entirely different kind of evening altogether.

The highly hyped experiment in user-generated content worked. In the privacy of their homes, people were at ease, and their videos reflected that. They sounded human. Had the same people been standing in the auditorium at the Citadel in Charleston, S.C., asking questions, they would have frozen up or tried to sound too polished.

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Sure, some of the videos were so washed-out, it made you want to dial 911 to report a hostage-taking. The whimsical videos were also not good: A talking snowman Replica Bvlgari Watches, two rednecks, and a heavy-metal ditty about No Child Left Behind were awful in that special embarrassing way usually reserved for parents who try too hard to show their children they’re hip. But what the majority of the nearly 40 YouTube videos provided was authenticity, which is usually as hard to find in presidential debates as humility. It’s one thing to ask in the abstract about gay marriage. It’s another thing to have two women asking why they can’t marry each other. In one powerful question, a woman being treated for breast cancer removed her wig. In another, a man asking about ending the Iraq war noted the three folded flags over his shoulder, which had been on the caskets of father, grandfather, and oldest son.

The informality seemed to bring out a little more emotion in the candidate responses, or perhaps the authenticity of the videos put their answers in a more valuable and human context. Here’s how the individual candidates came across:

Hillary Clinton: She’s like a machine. (I mean that in a good way.) In four debates, Hillary Clinton has been commanding and made only small mistakes. She had her facts lined up on the big issues—like the speed of redeploying troops from Iraq—but she was also able to handle the smaller, unpredictable questions like whether she considers herself a liberal (she prefers progressive) to whether she could really offer change when her election would mean two families had been in the White House for up to 28 consecutive years. For the latter, she offered not only a crowd-pleasing anti-Bush joke but a pro-Gore follow-up before pivoting to make the case for her own merits.

Clinton’s advisers like to say you can’t cram for the presidency—a dig at Obama—and that’s what comes across in the debates: She’s prepared and never rattled. Her performances are not risky, but they match her larger narrative that she’ll be ready on Day 1 of her presidency. (Memo to Clinton’s image-makers: Like Gov. Richardson, Hillary looks angry when she’s thinking. More than just miffed, she looks like she’s plotting retributions.)

One of the strong moments of the night came when Clinton differed from Barack Obama on how to handle presidential-level negotiations with Cuba, Iran, and other rogue regimes. Obama said he would negotiate and gave a seemingly powerful, full-throated endorsement of diplomacy. Hillary was more cautious and noted she wouldn’t want any negotiations to be used merely as propaganda. It was a judicious answer. Would the two of them have any operational difference in the way they handled those countries? Probably not. Obama wasn’t advocating getting on the plane to Tehran tomorrow, but Clinton’s answer was more measured and thoughtful. It’s one thing to talk about experience, but Clinton demonstrated it. The answer was substantively correct and theatrically successful. Even if voters don’t reward her for this, it was a sign of how on her game she is at these debates.

Barack Obama: This was perhaps Obama’s best night of the four debates so far. He gave solid answers and seemed more decisive and declarative, something that has been missing in previous forums. He was funny and knew how to pivot in his answers How to buy Replica Sarcar Watches, which is one way candidates convey a sense of command to voters. In three different instances, he took personal questions—about whether he is black enough, whether he’d work for the minimum wage, and whether he sends his daughters to public school—and turned them effortlessly into responses to larger issues.

If Clinton is not going to make mistakes, Obama has to take her on. That’s a high-risk strategy for a candidate who talks so much about changing politics, but in the only instance where he tried Where buy best Replica Dewitt Watches, he did it effectively. During a discussion about the Iraq war, he noted that Clinton’s recent efforts to pressure the Pentagon amounted to too little, too late. “The time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in Wholesale Replica Maurice Lacroix Watches,” he said, referring to her vote to authorize the Iraq war.

Perhaps more important for Obama’s long-term political growth is that he also showed that he could be disciplined in the quirky debate format. One of his advisers told me this week that when his aides have tried to get Obama to be more precise in his answers and to deliver set-piece lines, he has bristled. He thinks it’s phony. The problem is, if he doesn’t, his answers can look meandering and fuzzy. Tonight he hit his marks. He’d not used the expression “special interests” in previous debates. In Charleston he said it four times, repeatedly showing voters how he will translate the new kind of politics he talks about so much into something that works for them and not the lobbyists. The special interests line also links back to his career as a state senator, which highlights his experience, an area his opponents point to as a weakness.

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