Monday Newsbreak: 11-24

--Lionel Beehner and Vikram J. Singh, in an article written for the Los Angeles Times, pointed out that the current Bush administration has weighed too heavily on personal relationships and feelings between the president and other world leaders to guide his foreign policy. Once Bush had bonded with a leader, that person could then do no wrong. Cited as examples are Putin, Musharraf, Karzai, and Saakashvili. Conversely, if a foreign leader, like Chavez or Ahmadinejad, was hard for Bush to get along with, then our relations with there countries suffered disproportionately. That’s no way to conduct a foreign policy. Beehner and Singh are urging incoming president Obama to depersonalize foreign policy and make it a matter of our national interests, not personalities. I agree.

--President-elect Obama is moving quickly to establish his Cabinet. Hillary Clinton, I feel, will be a great secretary of state. She just needs a little training on how to lie more effectively, that’s all. Bill Richardson and Tom Daschle in the Cabinet? All right!

--In one year, my Alachua County public schools have nearly halved their drop-out rate from 6.6 % to 3.6 %. This is indicative of a general trend I see around here of the public schools taking a keener interest in the welfare of its students. Bravo!

--Snus, a type of smokeless tobacco developed in Sweden which the user can swallow instead of spitting out, has hit the markets in America. Camel is marketing this product. The Associated Press reports that Snus has been banned in every European country except for Sweden because it contains carcinogens. It’s obviously an attempt by Camel to keep nicotine addiction alive and well here in the United States by making its usage more convenient and socially acceptable (no outdoor smoking breaks, no smoke, and no messy spitting-out).

--It looks as if the college football national championship picture has narrowed itself down to only two conferences that “matter”: the Southeastern, with Alabama and Florida, and the Big Twelve, with Texas and Oklahoma. I keep hearing that the SEC winner will play the Big Twelve winner in the title game. But the polls indicate another possibly that everyone seems to be ignoring: An unimpressive Florida victory over Alabama in the SEC title game may pit Oklahoma against Texas in a rematch for the national championship game. Those two schools are already ranked ahead of Florida in the BCS poll.