What Caught My Eye Today

2008 Presidential Race - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama clashed over trade, health care and the war in Iraq last night in a final debate before a pivotal group of primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. The tone was polite yet pointed, increasingly so as the 90-minute session wore on, a reflection of the stakes in a race in which Obama has won 11 straight primaries and caucuses and Clinton is in desperate need of a comeback. Here is my favorite sound bite of the evening. In one curious moment, Clinton said, "In the last several debates I seem to get the first question all the time. I don't mind. I'll be happy to field it. I just find it curious if anybody saw "Saturday Night Live," maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow." In its episode last Saturday, the comedy show ran a feature portraying the news media as going easy on Obama, and a questioner asking at one point if he was comfortable and needed another pillow. Those dudes at SNL must be revelling in all the free publicity they got from this sketch. I actually saw it on Saturday, and have to say it was rather amusing and certainly brought into stark contrast the media's perception of both candidates. Incidentally, most analysts believe that the debate was basically a draw, which for Clinton probably equates to a loss seeing as she's trailing Obama in several polls leading up to next week's primaries.

Russia - Russia toughened its stance towards Iran on Wednesday, threatening to back further United Nations sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program unless it halted uranium enrichment in the next few days. You heard me. The Russians are planning to side WITH the United Nations against Iran. I wonder if the Iranians missed a payment on all the nuclear stuff that Russia is either building or providing to Iran. The United Nations Security Council has demanded Iran halt uranium enrichment, the part of its nuclear program that most worries the West because the process can potentially be used to make material for bombs. Iran has refused to halt the work. It says it is seeking to master nuclear technology so it can make fuel for a planned network of nuclear power plants and save its huge oil and gas reserves for export. Russia, which has strong ties to Iran's energy industry, has previously been reluctant to impose more U.N. sanctions on Iran. Though it agreed on the outline of the sanctions resolution last month in Berlin, some Western diplomats had expressed concern Russia might try to weaken the resolution out of pique over the West's recognition of Kosovo. Now, now. Would the Russians really resort to something that petty? Don't answer that. It's just a rhetorical question.

Kosovo - Serbs in Kosovo called for the return of Russian peacekeepers to the country after the ethnic Albanian majority's declaration of independence from Serbia this month. Russian peacekeepers? Sounds kind of like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Right up there with 'military intelligence.' Russia withdrew its troops from the NATO-led Kosovo Force, KFOR, in mid-2003, four years after being deployed with 45,000 others after an 11-week NATO air war to save Kosovo Albanians from ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces fighting guerrillas. Kosovo's 120,000 remaining Serbs, almost half of whom live in a thin slice of land in the north adjacent to Serbia, have rejected the February 17 secession, which was backed by the West but condemned by Serbia and Russia. So this is interesting. Let's say that the Russian's honor the request. Sure the West will raise holy hell, but will that make much of a difference? Russia could claim that it is merely reassuming the role it had in 2003, a move warranted by the recent violence in Kosovo. How will the West respond to that?

Turkey - Turkey said it had "no timetable" to withdraw troops fighting Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, resisting pressure from the United States and other allies to end the offensive quickly. Gee, where have we heard that before? Thousands of Turkish troops crossed the border last week to root out PKK fighters. The PKK has used remote mountainous northern Iraq as a base in their armed campaign for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey. The United States and the European Union have expressed concern. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Turkey must limit its operations to days rather than months. Look whose talking. Hello, kettle...It's the pot calling...you're black.

China - These poor slobs cannot cut a break. It's not bad enough that several national teams are concerned about food quality and air pollution for their athletes, but now they have to be wondering if there will be any running water. When 16,000 athletes and officials show up this summer for the Olympics, they will be able to turn the taps and get drinkable water — something few Beijing residents ever have enjoyed. But to keep those taps flowing for the Olympics, the city is draining surrounding regions, depriving poor farmers of water. Never let it be said that the Chinese government doesn't have its priorities straight. You may disagree with what those priorities are, but that's a different discussion altogether. Though the Chinese capital's filthy air makes headlines, water may be its most desperate environmental challenge. Explosive growth combined with a persistent drought mean the city of 17 million people is fast running out of water. Sitting on the northeast edge of the arid north China plain, near no major river and 90 miles from the sea, Beijing has had water problems for more than a millennium. In an attempt to ease the water woes, workers are digging up the countryside south of Beijing for a canal that will bring water from China's longest river, the Yangtze, and its tributaries to the arid north by 2010. The first part of the project is being accelerated to meet anticipated demand from Olympic visitors. By April, the canal is to begin bringing 80 billion gallons a year — an amount equal to the annual water use of Tucson, Arizona. This so totally should be on an upcoming episode of 'Extreme Engineering' on the Discovery Channel.

Australia - If you have a queasy stomach, you may want to skip this story. Two horrified children watched as a 16-foot scrub python devoured their silky terrier-Chihuahua crossbreed at their home near Kuranda in Queensland state. In fairness to the snake, Chihuahuas are rather small and could easily be mistaken for rats. Scrub pythons typically eat wild animals such as wallabies, a smaller relative of the kangaroo, but sometimes turn to pets in urban areas. Keep reading. This gets more grotesque. Snake experts say that pythons squeeze their prey to death before swallowing it whole. The dog would have been suffocated within minutes. Removing the half-swallowed dog could have harmed or even killed the python because dogs have sharp teeth and claws that could do the snake internal damage if it were wrenched out. The snake was still digesting the dog at the zoo a day later. It will soon be relocated to the bush. Oh sure, why not turn this thing loose again. What are the chances that this sort of thing will happen again?