That they felt compelled to openly air such conclusions about a nominally close U.S. ally — for which the administration is proposing billions in new aid dollars — was a measure of the desperation that seems to have infected the Obama administration’s dealings with Pakistan’s weak civilian government and obtuse military leadership. In the months since the administration took office, as in the last months of the Bush administration, private cajoling of President Asif Ali Zardari and Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani to fight the Taliban has done little good. It’s not yet clear whether the public campaign will have more effect — but it is sure to get many in Washington stirred about what Ms. Clinton described as the “mortal threat” a Taliban regime armed with nuclear weapons could pose to the United States.

That threat is certainly real. The government’s decision to tolerate what amounts to Taliban control of the Swat Valley northwest of Islamabad has emboldened the extremists, who now are seeking to infiltrate neighboring districts even closer to the capital. The Pakistani army, untrained in counterinsurgency and rigidly focused on India, is reluctant to take on the militants; when it has tried to fight them in areas near the Afghan border, it has been mostly ineffective. Though the vast majority of Pakistanis oppose the Taliban’s fundamentalism, most also dislike Mr. Zardari’s government and suspect that operations against the insurgents serve U.S. interests more Pakistan’s.

The loud U.S. warnings did provoke the Zardari government and Gen. Kiyani to say that they would fight the Taliban if it continued to advance; the black-turbaned fighters subsequently withdrew from one district on Friday. Pakistani officials say that the public support needed for the military offensive Washington wants won’t be forthcoming unless Pakistanis believe that their government has tried all peaceful options. It is certainly the case that Pakistanis as well as their government must embrace the fight against the Taliban as their own, and not as a proxy war for the United States. It is also true that, apart from mounting missile strikes by remote-controlled aircraft, there is little the United States can do directly to defeat the Pakistani Taliban; the administration must try to work through the government and army.

But the United States has leverage: Without the billons flowing into Pakistan in direct U.S. aid as well as from other donors marshaled by Washington, Pakistan’s economy would collapse. Perhaps the dire U.S. warnings will galvanize the country’s political class into demanding action from the army and government — or replacing the latter. But shouts of ‘”fire” have risks: They can also cause panic, or go unheeded.

HAVANA – Fidel Castro wrote in an essay published yesterday that President Obama had “misinterpreted” his brother Raul’s seeming conciliatory remarks regarding the United States, and he bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on dollars that Cuban Americans send to the island.

His comments put into doubt the true meaning of his brother’s statements and raised questions about Cuba’s position on detente with the United States.

Although he surrendered the presidency to Raul in February 2008, Fidel Castro retains enormous influence and remains head of Cuba’s Communist Party.

Raul Castro touched off speculation last week that the United States and Cuba could be headed toward a thaw after nearly a half-century of chilly relations. He said his government would be willing to sit down with its U.S. counterparts and discuss “everything, everything, everything,” including human rights, freedom of the press and expression, and political prisoners.

Obama responded at the Summit of the Americas by saying Washington was seeking a new beginning with Cuba. But as he prepared to leave the summit Sunday, Obama also called on Cuba to release political prisoners and reduce taxes on remittances from the United States.

That appeared to enrage Fidel Castro, 82, who wrote that Obama “without a doubt misinterpreted Raul’s declarations.”

“When the president of Cuba said he was ready to discuss any topic with the U.S. president, he meant he was not afraid of addressing any issue,” Fidel Castro wrote.

“That shows his courage and confidence in the principles of the revolution,” he wrote.

The former president appeared to be throwing a dose of cold water on growing expectations for improved bilateral relations, suggesting Obama had no right to dare suggest that Cuba make even small concessions.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered a different perspective while discussing Cuba policy yesterday with the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She said that while Fidel Castro had “contradicted” his brother’s statements about Cuba’s willingness to discuss a whole range of issues, that showed “there is beginning to be a debate” in Cuba about how to move forward with U.S. relations.

Raul Castro, 77, has not clarified the confusion and is unlikely to, out of respect for his older brother.

Clinton said the Obama administration needs to be ready to engage with Cuba, even though its government is “very difficult to move.”

The different tones, if not policy positions, that the Castro brothers have clearly adopted could mean there is a division in Cuba’s collective communist leadership over whether detente is moving too fast. Or the leaders could be trying to create an appearance of friction that keeps Cuba in the news and may become a bargaining chip in any negotiations.

“It’s a game of political strategy,” said Elizardo Sanchez, the island’s leading rights activist and head of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

Fidel Castro, in his essay, defended Cuba’s right to levy a 10 percent fee on every U.S. dollar sent to relatives on the island by Cuban Americans, saying that if the money arriving from abroad “is in dollars, all the more reason we should do it because it is the currency of the country that blockades us.”

All top Cuban leaders routinely call the 47-year-old trade embargo against their country a blockade.

“Not all Cubans have family members overseas that send remittances,” Fidel Castro wrote. He said Cuba used the revenue from fees on exchanging dollars to provide free health care, education and subsidized food to its population.

Fidel Castro has previously expressed admiration for Obama, but he blasted the new U.S. president in the essay for showing signs of “superficiality” and called on him to wait no longer before lifting the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

“We are living in a new era. Changes are unavoidable,” he wrote. “Leaders just pass through; peoples prevail.”

Still, some Cubans were irritated yesterday by his insistence that Obama misinterpreted Raul Castro’s sentiments.

Wilfredo O’Farril, 59, a construction worker, said: “I’m not afraid to say it. We are a people without a future.” Fidel Castro “first says one thing, then says another. We’ve been this way for 50 years.” By: Will Weissert (AP)

She just told him the truth: she thinks it’s wrong!

She said, “I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody there.”

Good for her!

If Perez Hilton don’t like her answer, he  shouldn’t have freaking asked. It ain’t like it was a gay pageant. But now he ans the gay mafia are hating on her because she won’t pretend that she thinks two perverts getting married is the same as a man and woman getting married!

No offence to the homo-humpers but a guy sticking his dick or tongue up another guy’s arse ‘ole ain’t normal and they wasn’t born that way. They choose to be perverts just like some sick freaks choose to be peados, tyrannies and goat molesters. Don’t think a man should be able to marry a donkey either!

In an announcement on state-run television, the country said it was ready to step up efforts to develop nuclear weapons and poised for a military response to any moves against it.

“The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK are always keeping themselves fully ready to go into action any moment to mercilessly punish anyone who encroaches upon the sovereignty and dignity of the DPRK even a bit,” it said.

On Monday the United Nations condemned North Korea — which refers to itself as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK — for launching a rocket.

The United States called the launch a “provocative act” that violated a 2006 Security Council resolution prohibiting Pyongyang from conducting ballistic missile launches.

Pyongyang insists the April 5 launch was a successful mission to place a communications satellite into orbit. The United States says the rocket’s payload did not reach orbit.

The U.N. statement says the rocket launch was “in contravention” to a 2006 Security Council resolution that demanded that North Korea not launch any ballistic missiles.

The 15-member council also voted unanimously for a statement by the council’s president demanding the country make no more launches.

“The Korean People’s Army will consider sanctions to be applied against the DPRK under various names over its satellite launch or any pressure to be put upon it through ‘total participation’ in the PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative) as a declaration of undisguised confrontation and a declaration of a war against the DPRK,” the announcement on state TV said.

“Now that the group officially declared confrontation and war against the DPRK, its revolutionary armed forces will opt for increasing the nation’s defense capability including nuclear deterrent in every way, without being bound to the agreement adopted at the six-party talks,” it continued, apparently referring to the Security Council.

Referring to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, the statement added, “The Lee group of traitors should never forget that Seoul is just 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from the Military Demarcation Line.”

That line was established by the 1953 Armistice Agreement between the two Koreas — which are still technically at war.

A Friday report North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, seemed to blame the “war hysteria” on the United States and South Korea after the two countries carried out a combined air force operation in South Korea.

The “‘South Korea-U.S. military alliance’ oft-repeated by them is, in essence, nothing but a ‘war alliance’ and ‘alliance for aggression’ aimed at invading the DPRK,” the report said.

“When a nuclear war will break out due to the war chariot of the ‘South Korea-U.S. military alliance’ is a matter of time,” it said. “The U.S. and South Korean warmongers would be well advised to stop acting rashly, properly understanding who their rival is.”

Right now, we are spending future generations into the poorhouse, and we really don’t care as long as we have the cash to keep the cable on, pay for text messages, or purchase $600 shower curtains.

President Obama said something yesterday about us no longer being able to spend, spend, spend in government, but I guess that does not include the healthcare reform Obama wants, the stimulus package we “need” or else the Earth will start hurling into the sun, or for the US to either bail out or purchase the US automakers.

I look at things in simple terms, and here is how I see things:

Some people made some really foolish moves when purchasing homes – people who could not really afford homes purchased them on really shaky grounds because they figured that the housing market would go up 10% per year. Then when it looked like this was not going to happen, people started defaulting on loans, banks foreclosed on houses they did not really want to own, and property values fell in many areas of the country.

The government got involved because elected officials need to appear to be helpful. What I never understood was that some Federal oversight failed, regulators were sleeping at the wheel, so as rational beings we wanted the same people who made the mistakes to fix the problem. We did that because they have the expertise. I am still scratching my head on this one.

We passed a bunch of spending bills, and some of them did very little to help the economy. So our legislators decided to spend money in other ways. It reminds me of seeing someone on the side of the road, head bend, hood popped open, wondering why the car has stalled. He (face it, it would be a “he”; a “she” would call AAA) takes a monkey wrench (or other item in the toolbox) and whacks part of the car. If it doesn’t fix the problem, he whacks another part of the engine. We are kinda doing the same thing right now, but our monkey wrench is 1 Trillion Dollar spending bills.

Here is what people are not talking about: (1) Unemployment is on the rise, but people are still making mortgage payments. What happens in several months when people start blowing through their emergency funds. (2) Most ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) have not ratcheted up, yet. The first wave will hit in a year or so. What happens when this occurs.

Both of these events are what I like to call “Holy Cow” events. They are big, may affect housing prices and the economy, and will probably need our legislative bodies writing hundreds of billions of dollars in spending (because that’s what legislatures do).

Part of me wants to dress like a native American and attend one of these tea party events – though I think dressing like Pocahontas is not really PC unless you are on a Disney property.

Me, I am looking at the stock market gain more than 1,000 points over the last month or two, and I still think about the bad news on the horizon. But stock brokers are smart, right? I mean, they are a bit smarter than mortgage brokers and bank regulators, right?

I have started thinking about this tea party tax protest some more. Why could it not have been some wine tasting tax protest instead? I mean, that would have more appeal to me, and after thinking about this, I could use a drink.

That’s the Washington mystery du jour.

The identity of the first puppy — the one that the Washington press corps has been yelping about for months, the one President Obama has seemed to delight in dropping hints about — leaked out yesterday. This despite White House efforts to delay the news until the big debut planned for Tuesday afternoon.

The little guy is a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog given to the Obama girls as a gift by that Portuguese water dog-lovin’ senator himself, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. The girls named it Bo — and let it be noted that you learned that here first. Malia and Sasha chose the name, because their cousins have a cat named Bo and because first lady Michelle Obama’s father was nicknamed Diddley, a source said. (Get it? Bo . . . Diddley?)

Bo’s a handsome little guy. Well suited for formal occasions at the White House, he’s got tuxedo-black fur, with a white chest, white paws and a rakish white goatee.

A really big story
Clearly, the identity of the dog was information too big to contain. A mysterious Web site called http://firstdogcharlie.com published a picture of a Portie yesterday morning, complete with a Q and A with the dog, which it said was originally named Charlie. The celebrity gossip Web site http://TMZ.comlinked to the picture. So much for the big White House unveiling.

For an Obama team that ran a famously tight-knit press operation during last year’s presidential election campaign, it was a sign of how tough it can be to keep a leash on information in Washington.

It’s not for lack of trying, though. Bo’s story starts sometime around the Ides of March. Word on the street was that the White House was going to plant a vegetable garden. Health gurus had been pushing the Obamas to plant seedlings for months, hoping it would set a good example for children everywhere.

A Washington Post food reporter was making calls, probing, pushing. But the White House was mum. Word filtered out that the exclusive had been promised to the New York Times. But the White House offered The Post, the newspaper that cracked Watergate, a mollifier: A puppy exclusive.

These kinds of arrangements get made all the time in Washington. For a while, the puppy deal seemed to be holding up. Sure, reporters here and there nipped at the story. There were hints that the puppy was a gift. There were reports that the Kennedys were involved — but the senator’s press people professed no knowledge.

Photograph surfaces
But then came yesterday morning. The FirstDogCharlie site included a photograph of a Portuguese water dog that looked exactly like the dog in a White House photograph — right down to the multicolored lei. (FirstDogCharlie was registered anonymously on Friday on the Web site http://godaddy.com. Will its creators surface to take credit?)

The White House dismissed the Web site picture as “bogus.” Both photos are reproduced here; you decide.  By: Manuel Roig-Franzia

The United Kingdom, we are told, is “slightly smaller than Oregon”. As for the the British climate, it is “generally mild and temperate” and “subject to frequent changes but few extremes of temperature”. A “group of islands close to continental Europe”, Britain has been “subject to many invasions and migrations”.

We’re taken through the Roman invasion (“brought more active contacts with the rest of Europe”), the Norman invasion (led to “active involvement in European affairs…for several hundred years”) and various travails with the Welsh, Scots and Irish before the British empire reached its zenith in Victorian times.

Then it all started to go wrong. “The losses and destruction of World War I, the depression of the 1930s, and decades of relatively slow growth eroded the United Kingdom’s preeminent international position of the previous century”.

Those fretting about the demise of the term “special relationship” might not be reassured by this briefing book. There’s talk of a “strong bilateral relationship”, of the UK being “one of the United States’ closest allies” and of “close coordination” and “bilateral cooperation” between two countries who “continually consult on foreign policy”. Everything except “special”.

After the country sections, we’re introduced the personalities, with information mainly culled from their websites. Queen Elizabeth “enrolled as a girl Guide when she was eleven, and later became a Sea Ranger”, we are informed. During the war she “put on pantomimes with the children of members of staff for the enjoyment of her family and employees of the Royal Household”.

Gordon Brown’s entry reads a little like one of those awful Christmas round robins. Young Gordon, we are told repeatedly, was very, very clever. He “did well a school from an early age” and then “excelled at sport and joined in every aspect of school life, quickly becoming popular”.

He “took his exams a year ahead of his contemporaries” and “went on to University at the age of 15″, where he edited the student newspaper “in a prize-winning year” and won “a First Class Honours degree and a number of prizes for his studies”.

David Cameron seems to be auditioning for the role of British Barack in advance of his big meeting with the President tomorrow (in the Yellow Room at Winfield House), stating he was elected Conservative leader with a “mandate to change the party and change the country” and “believes there is urgent need for change”.

Since her presidential bid, Hillary Clinton, now Secretary of State, has scaled down her claims of being “instrumental” in bringing peace to Northern Ireland. All we get on the Emerald Isle is a modest: “With Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Secretary Clinton worked to launch the government’s Vital Voices Democracy Initiative.”

The former New York senator skips quickly over her defeat in the battle for the Democratic nomination. “In 2006, Senator Clinton won reelection to the Senate, and in 2007 she began her historic campaign for president,” her biography reads. “In 2008, she campaigned for the election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.”

For those who might bristle at the “slightly smaller than Oregon” description of Britain (which seems to originate from the CIA World Factbook), US geographical comparisons are also included in the other country profiles prepared by the State Department’s  Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.

Germany – a “reliable US ally” since 9/11 – is “about the size of Montana” while the Czech Republic “about the size of Virginia”.

We are informed that France is “America’s oldest ally” and was “instrumental in helping Britain’s American colonies establish independence” and more recently has been “a close partner with the US in the war on terror”.

It is the largest country in Europe. But only “about four-fifths the size of Texas”.

Oregon, by the way, has a population of 3.7 million while the population of the UK is more than 60 million. By: Toby Harnden