ndmckinney|net

I love that Sarah Palin not only cannot backup her foreign policy experience with Russia. It shows a level of evasiveness we haven’t seen in politics in a long, long time. Commentators have tried to call her out on this, late-night humorists have mocked her. Now, she has gained a new enemy: Russia.

Turns out, the Russians aren’t buying this claim, either. They are attacking not only this claim, but her entire qualifications to serve in office. One outlet has even dubbed her “Mrs. Nobody Know-it-All”.

If she thinks the NY Times hates her, wait until she feels the wrath of media outlets who could care less about winning her approval. She’s losing credibility at home; abroad, it seems, it’s already gone.

[From SAIS Next Europe: PostGlobal on washingtonpost.com]

PBS’s FRONTLINE program, which always achieves an incredible level of journalism, recently ran a program on healthcare systems around the world. The premise of the program is whether the U.S. could learn anything from other modern, post-industrial, capitalist societies. The answer, of course, is “yes, the U.S. has a lot to learn.”

[From FRONTLINE:sick around the world | PBS]

The Economist has a very poignant obituary for Lazare Ponticelli, the last French veteran of the first world war.

[From Lazare Ponticelli | Economist.com ]

Microsoft has been fined (again) by the European Union. This time, the Commission brought down the hammer, fining Microsoft € 899 million ($1.35 billion) for failing to comply with a previous decision on patent licensing fees.

While the fine may only be a fraction of the company’s revenue, the fine represents about 10% of the company’s 2007 revenues, putting it towards the maximum end of the fine allowed. Under EC competition rules, a company may only be fined a maximum of 10% of its previous year’s turnover.

[From European Commission Competition Authority ]

The BBC is reporting that UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw is suggesting that Britain join the 21st 18th Century by creating a formal, written constitution. Such a quaint idea has been a long time coming.

While the Brits have had a collection of rights for centuries, there is no single document a barrister or judge can point to that spells out exactly what an individual’s rights are.

Britain is also a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, although it does not have the force of “primary legislation” in the UK. Human Rights Act 1998, Sec. 3.

Codification of a constitution is perhaps the most essential legal base that can exist in the modern world. In the 19th Century, the United States began the process of codifying her laws, mirroring — albeit quite poorly — the continental model.

According to M. Straw, such a process “could take 20 years or more.”

[From BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Straw's written constitution hint]