The weekend is over. Back to work.

1. Would you rather ask questions or answer them? Yes, this is an all-in-one psychological profile. No need here for a Myers-Briggs. (I’m an INFJ, by the way.)
2. Do you believe that the European Union’s “rejection of Turkey, a hugely bad move, has been a key factor prompting Turkey to move closer to Iran and the Arab world” as Thomas Friedman said, or do you think events demonstrate that the E.U is fortunate to have done so?
3. Can you articulate a coherent political philosophy that does not fear the powers given the presidency by the Patriot Act, or state-administered torture, but claims that the $20 billion fund that President Obama persuaded BP to set aside for Gulf spill claims is a threat to our political system?
4. Do you agree with “Sir Brian Burridge, former British Air Chief Marshal in Iraq” that Predator drones produce “‘a virtueless war,’ requiring neither courage nor heroism”? Do you think we should stop using them and commit the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers in order to retain such virtue? (Yes, two questions grouped in the same number count as one. My rules.)
5. Is it so that

Things are always terrible

for some people. The question

is the ratio of the palpable hurt

to the general session

of life in an era (?)

Do you know the ratio?

6. Did you know that yesterday Israeli President Shimon Peres said,

We did not understand then, nor do we understand now, why after evacuating Gaza, the rulers of Gaza started to fire thousands of missiles against civilian life in Israel. For what reason? For what purpose? The question remains unanswered today. Would Gaza agree to peace, to negotiations instead? Would Gaza leaders denounce terror, stop the building of tunnels and shooting missiles, stop attempting to kidnap Israeli soldiers and release Gilad Shalit who was abducted on Israeli territory, there would be no need for any sort of closure or blockade (?)

7. Did you know that yesterday Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar said,

the PA’s security apparatus should free our hands. In order to liberate Jerusalem and the West Bank, rockets must be fired from the West Bank. Why should this fire come only from the Strip?

8. Do you think the answer of Faisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam seeking to build a commemorative Islamic center near Ground Zero, when asked if he agreed with the State Department’s assessment of Hamas as a terrorist organization,

Look, I’m not a politician. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question

is an acceptable answer?

9. Which Republican lawmaker or Tea Partier do you think said the following:

We believe that for any people eternal vigilance is the price of liberty far more as against the insidious encroachment of internal tyranny than against the danger of subjugation from the outside or from the prospect of any sharp and decisive revolution. In a republic we must constantly seek to elect and to keep in power a government we can trust, manned by people we can trust, maintaining a currency we can trust, and working for purposes we can trust (none of which we have today). We think it is even more important for the government to obey the laws than for the people to do so. But for 30 years we have had a steady stream of governments which increasingly have regarded our laws and even our Constitution as mere pieces of paper, which should not be allowed to stand in the way of what they, in their omniscient benevolence, considered to be “for the greatest good of the greatest number.” (Or in their power-seeking plans pretended so to believe.) We want a restoration of a “government of laws, and not of men” in this country; and if a few impeachments are necessary to bring that about, then we are all for the impeachments (?)

10. Do you believe “it’s all good,” or that everything we know about love is true except for when it’s not? (Two questions joined by a disjunctive conjunction count as one. Reason: my rules.)

AJA

Related articles by Zemanta

• Erdogan Rebuffs U.S., Insists Turkey Isn’t Iran Ally (Update2) (businessweek.com)