SHARIA LAW

Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman gives a excellent explanation of Sharia Law and its differences with mainstream Islam in an interview with Soledad O'Brien on CNN. More importantly, he dismisses the claims of the right-wing fringe in the US that Sharia Law has the potential to usurp the US constitution.

A LESS WEALTHY ENEMY TO THE US

Are there no limits to China's burgeoning influence around the globe? As Fareed Zakaria reports in the latest segment of Global Public Square, MGM Studios decided that it could not handle the risk of potentially offending Chinese consumers hence it decided to digitally alter all Chinese logos and flags in the already-completed film Red Dawn to those of North Korea.

As Zakaria shrewdly notes, "There are no real worries about North Korean investment funds withdrawing money."

WALGREENS AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD

On the back of the last fortnight's fight on Capital Hill on the Federal Budget - a fight that as the days went by was less about dollars and cents but more about social issues like abortion - the great Stephen Colbert takes some time to ridicule the claim of Fox & Friends anchors that Walgreens serves as a viable alternative to Planned Parenthood in providing vital health services to hundreds of thousands of American women.

OBAMA CALLS FOR .... NOTHING

In a speech to be delivered this week, President Obama will once again extend the hand of bi-partisanship to Republicans to join him in developing a comprehensive long-term plan to tackle the growing and undoubtedly unsustainable federal budget. At minimal, this effort will be an improvement on his previous endeavors during the budget discussions of the last 2 weeks where he studiously avoided getting himself involved in the Reid-Boehner discussions until the last few days, for the obvious political (and very hollow) reason of not wanting to soil his "I-am-above-the-fray-of-partisan-politics" image.

However, as the New York Times reports, this upcoming speech will simply list budget-cutting goals and omit any specificities on how to achieve those goals. I am sorry, but as President, he needs to tell the public something far more substantive than a few numbers that anyone can easily obtain through a search on Google. To simply avoid listing specific details for fear that opponents might attack you for those ideas is a textbook example of political cowardice. How in the world did he go from "Yes we can" to "Hmmm ... maybe we should not talk about this"? It is yet another example of his vapid style of leadership that prioritizes poll numbers over quality results.

Democrats will respond by saying that Republican budget plans like the one Paul Ryan recently shared are nothing more than blueprints to impose their ideological predilections on American society and those plans are based on economic predictions that can be described as sheer fantasy. For example, Ryan's plan estimates that by cutting taxes, unemployment can be brought down to as little as 2.8%, a number last seen during the Korean war. However, as much as I disagree with the Ryan plan, I can at least give him some credit for the courage to propose something with a good amount of details.

As Paul Krugman writes in his most recent article in the New York Times, Obama is "clearly still clinging to his vision of himself as a figure who can transcend American partisan differences.... if you ask me, I'd say the nation wants - and more important, the nation needs - a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that's not what we're seeing."

I could not agree more.

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME

Belgium has recently surpassed Iraq to claim what can only be described as a thankless title, that of the country that has gone the longest without a functioning government.

A recent Reuters report detailed how well the country continues to function despite the existence of any political leadership. To be sure, Belgium's unique political system - a very de-centralized power structure where unions and controlling agencies wield significant power and the scope of the central government in Brussels is limited to a set of core issues like military affairs, foreign policy and public finances.

However, the thrust of the Reuters report is the question, are there benefits to political stalemates like the one Belgium is currently experiencing? As the report states, there are certainly certain benefits to not having a central government with costs being the obvious one. And I am sure at least some Americans would agree that if all 535 members of Congress were to stay away from their jobs for an extended period of time, they would not miss the endless stream of gormless comments from the likes of Michele Bachmann.

The article ends with a "Do Not Try This At Home" warning and justifiably so. It is almost impossible for major issues to be tackled successfully without a functioning central government. Belgium's current public debt is about 100% of GDP, a pretty similar figure to that of Ireland. Given the continued uncertainty of Euro-zone nations like Greece and Ireland to fully repay their bondholders, Belgium runs the risk of running into a major financial crisis that would further deteriorate due to the lack of a central government, leading to its citizens paying usurious interest rates to bondholders. And that is just on the financial front. God forbid if the country ever faces a September 11th-type scenario. It is high time for pettiness to be put aside and for Belgian politicians to unite for the greater cause.