OPINION

I went to Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Peter's here in Munich last night. And like a good German, I showed up right on time for the service. I was shocked to find standing room only - the place was packed.

It was a reminder that while Europe as a whole may be fairly Godless, there is a European Bible Belt that runs right through Bavaria and other Catholic areas, like Poland. While I wouldn't say that people are as fervent in their beliefs as they are in the American Bible Belt, religion still has a big influence on the culture here.

All over Bavaria crucifixes hang in restaurants, bars and stores. Instead of saying "Guten Tag," folks here say "Grüss Gott," which translates roughly as "greetings from God."

Then, just like in the American Bible Belt, sometimes religion gets twisted, resulting in inane rules and regs. For instance, on Halloween Bavaria has a Tanzverbot, meaning that dancing after midnight (which is when All Saints Day officially begins) is strictly verboten. So all the clubs and bars have to close early.

Sadly, church attendance is on the decline here (it's dropping much faster than in the U.S.). And church life in Bavaria - or anywhere for that matter - can't rival the vibrancy of Dallas' religious community.

However, yesterday's service was a pleasant reminder that not all of Europe's cathedrals are empty.

Big news today: Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana announced he will not be seeking re-election.

Why? Politico explains:

In prepared remarks reported by the Indianapolis Star, Bayh said his desire to serve in Congress "has waned."

"Even in the current challenging environment, I am confident in my prospects for reelection," Bayh said in the remarks. "But running for the sake of winning an election, just to remain in public office, is not good enough."

Interesting. Remember that Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy announced Friday that he is leaving Congress. There seems to be a trend developing here ...

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza explains:

No matter how the two fields shake out, holding the Indiana seat just got much harder for Democrats. Although President Barack Obama won the Hoosier State narrowly in 2008, it is generally regarded by strategists of both parties as swing territory with a slight edge for Republicans. The national playing field's tilt toward Republicans makes the seat all the tougher for Democrats to hold.

Bayh is the fifth Democratic Senator not seeking re-election. He joins Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Ted Kaufman (Del.) and Roland Burris (Ill.) on the sidelines.

Are the rats jumping off the ship? Could be. But Cillizza also notes:

Six Republicans are not running again: Sens. Kit Bond (Mo.), George Lemieux (Fla.), Judd Gregg (N.H.), George Voinovich (Ohio), Sam Brownback (Kans.) and Jim Bunning (Ky.)

What do you think about Bayh bowing out of the race? What does this mean?

Several of y'all have gotten in touch with me to follow up on my column from Sunday about the elections in Ukraine - glad to see so many folks are interested in what's happening here in Europe. In today's Kyiv Post, I wrote a column looking forward from the elections, examining what message they sent to the West:

At the Munich Security Conference recently, Ukrainian foreign minister Petro Poroshenko had a clear message: Ukraine is a part of Europe. He stressed that Ukraine is "a big European country" and insisted that plans to move forward on NATO membership "will be successfully implemented."

By my count, in his opening remarks during a panel discussion about the future of European security, Poroshenko mentioned Europe/European thirteen times, the EU ten times, NATO nine times and Euro-Atlantic four times. I counted only five mentions of Russia.

Ukrainians clearly see their future in Europe. As Newsweek noted, "more than 60 percent of Ukrainians hope one day to join Europe and no longer look to Russia for support and protection."

You can find the full column here.

Australian comedian Caroline Reid has an act in which her alter ego Pam Ann spoofs flight attendants from around the world. She plays with the national stereotypes represented by the various international airlines in her One World Alliance.

There's Helga, the no-nonsense and über-Germanic Lufthansa flight attendant who is obsessed with making sure the plane is spotless and the flight leaves on time. Maria from Alitalia shows up late, speaks no English and rides her Vespa down the aisle. Then representing American Airlines is Valerie from Dallas, who wears an out-dated red cardigan, is 105 years old and talks about when her plane crashed and broke into 4 pieces.

Valerie from American Airlines: "I'm 105 years old and still flyin'!"

As I follow the continuous stream of bad news about America's Airlines, I can't help but see parallels between the state of the airlines and the state of the nation.

Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker recently joined the faculty of Texas A&M as dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service. Before retiring from the Foreign Service, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan and Iraq. And in 2009, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I caught up with the ambassador at the Munich Security Conference, where he was part of the U.S. delegation. You'll find the full Q&A in tomorrow's paper, but as a preview, the ambassador had this video message for folks in Dallas:

Well, the big security shindig here in Munich wrapped up yesterday. This year's conference was fairly tame compared to years past (remember the time when Putin compared Bush to Hitler?), but there are some points to ponder:

Iran is even crazier than we thought. Iran was the talk of the town this weekend. The Iranian foreign minister showed up in Munich, gave a talk (at midnight) that ticked off pretty much everyone in attendance. Iran all but ignored a generous offer from the West for a compromise. Looks like it may be time for sanctions. Even the Germans were talkin' tough - the German foreign minister announced that he had met with German business leaders to tell them to get ready for sanctions on trade with Iran. The United States wasn't happy with Iran either.

Coalition of the Losing: The U.S. delegation was led by Senators John Kerry, John McCain and Joe Lieberman. In a press conference, the U.S. delegation looked very solemn and serious. I thought Lieberman was going to call for a declaration of war on Iran.

Ukrainians go to the polls Sunday to elect a new president as a bitter political battle between Yulia Tymoshenko (the current prime minister, who is a dead ringer for Princess Leia) and Viktor Yanukovich (the guy who tried to steal elections in 2004, launching the Orange Revolution) draws to a close.

I don't blame you if your reaction is: "So what?" With all that's going on in the world, it's easy to forget about Central and Eastern Europe. But in my Sunday Points column, I explore why the region deserves more - not less - of our attention.

Sweating profusely, Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi opened the Munich Security Conference this afternoon with an interesting little speech in which he made a big deal about Chinese relations with EU, but didn't even mention the U.S. until asked about Taiwan during the Q&A.

This could signal a new push by Beijing to court the EU, which is feeling slighted after President Obama announced he would not be attending an EU summit in Madrid. But I doubt China is going to get far flirting with the EU -- Europe has its heart set on the U.S.

Plus, the China on display here in Munich isn't likely to make many friends.

A proud Yang spoke of a China ready to have a say in how the world is run, adding: "Does China feel stronger? Yes." He also blasted the U.S. sale of arms to Taiwan: "The Chinese government and people feel indignant about this."

Now that some of the initial panic/fear about the underwear bomber has died down, I'd like to draw your attention to a great editorial in today's Washington Post about the threat of a biological attack:

THREE THOUSAND people were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. More than 300,000 could be dead within one week after a modest attack with biological weapons.

For most people, the thought of such an attack is an unthinkable horror. For al-Qaeda, it is a lingering dream and one that it is working diligently to achieve. Two recently released reports indicate the United States has been aware of this threat for years yet remains "woefully" unprepared.

It's an important reminder that while attacks on airplanes are dramatic and scary (as someone who spends a lot of time in airplanes, I am especially sensitive to the idea of getting blown out of the sky), there are bigger threats.

While I am all for beefed up security, I have to admit I am in the camp of skeptics who think there may be better ways to spend our money.

What do you think? Do we focus too much on threats against aviation? How do you think we should be spending all the money that's going to new screening technologies?

I tend to get overly excited when I see Dallas show up in the foreign press. Three years ago the German paper Die Welt am Sonntag ran a travel feature on Texas that I kept tacked to my wall until it withered away and had to be pitched.

So, in need of a new addition to my shrine to Texas, I perked up when I noticed a feature in Sunday's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about Big D.

Under a big photo of downtown at dusk, the headline reads: "In the middle of the crises, Dallas is living big and wants to now become an art-metropolis."

The paper writes of Dallas: "Nothing can shake this city ..."

But my excitement quickly withered as I kept reading. The article is full of factual errors and clichés.

Writer Lars Jensen calls Dallas "breathtakingly ugly," and he mocks the city's slogan: "Live Large. Think Big," saying Big D was built on the motto "Think cheap, built fast."

The piece explains to readers that the most direct way from D/FW Airport (which Jensen calls "absurdly" big) to downtown is to take the President George Bush Highway. But, you have to have an electronic computer chip on your car, he writes, or else you get fined $25 per mile that you drive.

While hunting for a place to sit and write my column yesterday, a Ukrainian friend said I could go pretty much anywhere: here in Lviv, the main square and main areas in downtown are all wireless.

Wouldn't it be cool if Dallas had a wireless downtown? It struck me as strange that a medium-sized city in the middle of the former Soviet bloc would have a wireless city center, trams and environmentally-friendly electric buses while Big D doesn't.

It kind of made me feel like Lviv is more with it than Dallas is.

But this is a broader issue than just if you can surf the web downtown. I am growing increasingly convinced that we are falling behind Europe and Asia when it comes to infrastructure.

I began to realize just how serious the problem is last winter, when I took a train from Washington to New York after a snow storm. There was actually about half an inch of standing snow inside the Amtrak car. When I asked the conductor why it was necessary to climb through a snow bank just to get to the dining car, he told me the cars are old and leak.

I'd expect that on the Moscow Express, but not in the U.S.

Greetings from Lviv, Ukraine.

On Friday I sat down with a group of academics and leaders of non-profit organizations to talk about the upcoming national elections.

This country faces immense challenges right now, including rampant corruption. But as we discussed such topics, the only time anyone in the room got upset or seemed truly frustrated was when I brought up the issue of visas.

We make it extremely hard for Ukrainians to come to the U.S., they said.

The same sentiment was echoed by a group of Ukrainians students I spoke with - they all want to come to the U.S. to complete masters programs and possibly to live and work. They are educated, driven and smart. And we have closed the door to them.

Amid rising concern about an increasingly self confident China, I sometimes worry we are ignoring India. As the world's largest democracy and second most populous country, it could be a strong partner in Asia at a time when China is flexing its muscles. So, I had begun to wonder why there wasn't more talk about India.

Right on cue Anne Applebaum went to check things out. She writes of a crowd at a literature festival in Jaipur, India:

This was, in other words, a patriotic audience: Not nationalistic, not imperialist, not aggressive but, rather, self-critical, focused on what is still wrong as well as what has gone right. I don't want to make too much of a single session at a single festival, but it was clear that no one was intimidated by being there, no one was afraid to say anything out loud. It's that sort of patriotism, so hard to find in China and Russia, that gives India its lively novelists, its open public culture, its energetic film industry. That sort of patriotism, if it can be encouraged and maintained, will keep Indian politics diverse and democratic over time -- even if its economy stops growing.

Back in the days of the Bush presidency, secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld (remember him?) ticked off Western Europe when he referred to France and Germany as "old Europe." The Frenchies and their Teutonic neighbors got all upset, probably because Rumsfeld was right. He stuck his finger right into an open wound - the run-up to the Iraq war proved just how little influence the French and Germans had. Meanwhile nations in central and eastern Europe were busy preparing to help out in Iraq.

I keep thinking about Rumseld's line these days. When it comes to Afghanistan and security issues, there is still a split between "old" Europe (France and Germany) and new Europe (Poland, Hungary and the like). As I wrote earlier this month, the EU - which is built on a Franco-German axis -is becoming "the diplomatic equivalent of the fan in the stands waving a foam finger, full of opinions about how the game should be played but irrelevant to what's actually happening on the field." Lots of talk and not a lot of action to back it up.

But central and eastern Europe are eager to be noticed and ready to do their part. They value a close relationship with Washington. For example, this week Romania announced it would send an additional 600 troops to Afghanistan. The Poles made a similar pledge last month. Back in western Europe, the Germans still can't agree whether or not to call the mission in Afghanistan a war.

There's an interesting piece in today's NY Times about the decline of foreign language programs in American schools:

Thousands of public schools stopped teaching foreign languages in the last decade, according to a government-financed survey -- dismal news for a nation that needs more linguists to conduct its global business and diplomacy.

But another contrary trend has educators and policy makers abuzz: a rush by schools in all parts of America to offer instruction in Chinese.

This is disturbing on numerous levels. We should be ramping up, not cutting back, foreign language programs. And we need to remember that yes, China is important, but it isn't the only important country.

The rush to learn Chinese is understandable. But I think we Americans have a tendency to rush to learn about the thing we are currently most scared of. After 9/11, colleges raced to offer Arabic. Now everyone is scared of China, so schools are scrambling to launch Chinese programs. There was a time when Russian was en vogue.

As someone who studied German, French and Italian and who uses those language skills daily, I am not shy about my feelings on foreign language: every student in America should be learning at least one foreign language and should be required to be proficient.

And while we should focus on the critical language du jour, just because China is the newest threat, doesn't mean that languages such as French, Russian or Spanish are now useless. Granted, I don't think students in Dallas need to be taking intensive Icelandic. But schools should offer a variety of languages so that we can churn out Americans able to interact with people from all regions of the world. Learning a language is just as much about culture as it is grammar and vocabulary.

It's often cited, but true: Europeans usually learn at least 2 foreign languages. In today's world, a student from Munich who speaks French, Spanish and Arabic can directly compete with a student from Dallas for jobs and opportunities. When it comes to language learning, the Europeans get it. And they are leaving us in the dust.

"Well, that's easy for them, they're close to other countries. They have more exposure and more of a need to learn the languages," some retort.

Well, Texas is right next to Mexico. And you don't have to try hard to find opportunities to practice Spanish in Dallas. So, at the very least, students in Texas should be bilingual.

I know school budgets are tight, but slashing foreign language programs at the very time globalization is binding the world closer together is not only short-sighted, it's also just plain stupid.

I was just watching the evening news here in Germany, and of course, they lead with news from Haiti. They showed mobs of people near the U.S. embassy, hoping to get a visa. The reporter on the ground also interviewed a Haitian, who had an American flag hanging from the back of his hat. He said that the U.S. should annex Haiti.

Now, I am all about helping the Haitians. And I realize that Haiti isn't necessarily the most functional country out there. But I'm just not sure making Haiti a state is a good solution.

However, I would heartily support allowing the European Union to take over Haiti. The Europeans keep saying they want someone to take them seriously. So it seems like a win-win. Europe gets to show off and Haiti becomes part of the EU.

But alas, the German news didn't show Haitians lining up to get visas to move to Europe. I bet if you offered Haitians a choice between free passage to Dallas or to Frankfurt, they'd probably pick Dallas.

There are a whole bunch of nations - including the Europeans - working together in Haiti. And in the face of such tragedies, international organizations such as the UN often shine. However, it's worth noting that when there's a catastrophe, people still look first to the U.S. for help.

While the ridiculousness of the Haiti annexation idea made me chuckle, it is deeply moving to think of the hell that Haitian man must be living through and that wearing a U.S. flag on his head gives him hope.

Isn't that what we're all about?

I just returned from an interesting panel discussion at the Munich Press Club about data mining and privacy. The Germans are obsessed with privacy rights, the result of their misadventure with a totalitarian dictatorship. So it's always a hot topic here.

And while I often balk at the inconveniences caused by German privacy laws, during the discussion tonight, I began to think about just how open I am with my personal information. Through my gmail account, Google probably understands me better than I understand myself. I pay for everything imaginable online with my credit card - who knows who is keeping track of what I spend where. Like everyone else, I'm on Facebook and Twitter. We do these things without much care about privacy.

I honestly don't really think much about it - in a way privacy seems almost old-fashioned.

But where is the line?

Tonight's panel raised issues such as the privacy of medical records and companies using data mining to gather information on their employees.

And what does Google do with all the info it gleans from online correspondence? I'm embarrassed to say have never read their privacy agreement. Have you?

As always, The Onion , provides an in-depth look at the issue:

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

So, what do you think about privacy in the internet age? Or better yet, do you even think about it?

I had a nice long 8 hour flight from Washington to Germany today, and with the movie selection highly disappointing, I used the time to catch up on reading that had piled up over the week. For those of you looking for some weekend reading/something to distract while you wait for the clock to strike five, I recommend three pieces from The Washington Post about terrorism.

Writing in the Outlook section, Bruce Hoffman breaks down Al-Qaeda's new strategy, which he says has shifted to a "death by a thousand cuts" approach. Hoffman contends that President Obama needs to figure out a new way to fight Al-Qaeda:

But while al-Qaeda is finding new ways to exploit our weaknesses, we are stuck in a pattern of belated responses, rather than anticipating its moves and developing preemptive strategies. The "systemic failure" of intelligence analysis and airport security that Obama recently described was not just the product of a compartmentalized bureaucracy or analytical inattention, but a failure to recognize al-Qaeda's new strategy.

Check out the entire piece, here.

Meanwhile, King of Snark Dana Milbank doesn't seem as concerned about al-Qaeda, writing of the Detroit plot:

... the nature of the attack shows just how lame al-Qaeda really is. Eight years ago, most experts were convinced that the terrorists would have hit us with a dirty bomb by now. Dirty underpants just aren't as menacing.

While I am a Milbank fan, on this one, I have to disagree. I find the idea of a plane blowing up pretty menacing. Sure, it may not be the same as a suitcase nuke taking out Manhattan, but it still has me just as scared. When I had to wait several minutes for a lavatory prior to landing this morning, my mind raced: "Someone could be in there building a bomb!" Turns out it was a father with a toddler whose diaper was in need of changing.

That example of a panicky overreaction to a non-situation, brings me to the third piece. Fareed Zakaria writes that we have overreacted and panicked in response to the Christmas Day bombing attempt. And that is exactly what al-Qaeda wanted:

In responding to the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day, Sen. Dianne Feinstein voiced the feelings of many when she said that to prevent such situations, "I'd rather overreact than underreact." This appears to be the consensus view in Washington, but it is quite wrong. The purpose of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction. Its real aim is not to kill the hundreds of people directly targeted but to sow fear in the rest of the population. Terrorism is an unusual military tactic in that it depends on the response of the onlookers. If we are not terrorized, then the attack didn't work. Alas, this one worked very well.

He's right. Not only does it make al-Qaeda happy to see us in panic mode, but overreacting can send potential allies the wrong message.

Zakaria concludes:

"As for the calls to treat the would-be Christmas bomber as an enemy combatant, torture him, and toss him into Guantánamo, God knows he deserves it. But keep in mind, the crucial intelligence we received was from the boy's father. If that father had believed that the United States was a rogue superpower that would torture and abuse his child without any sense of decency, would he have turned him in? To keep this country safe we need many more fathers and uncles and friends and colleagues to have enough trust in America that they too would turn in the terrorist next door."

I'd be lying if I said that Zakaria's column makes me feel safer flying. However, he does have the right outlook. The next plot is not likely to be foiled by a TSA screener. We are going to need help from people like the would-be Detroit bomber's father. Such folks need to know that the U.S. will take the information and act upon it wisely.

What do you think? What is the proper response to exploding underwear?

I've been back in the States for the past couple of weeks soaking in as much Americana as possible. I have used my time home to eat loads of Mexican food and to catch up on all the new American TV shows, books, gadgets, etc.

While picking up a prescription at Walgreen's the other day, I discovered the Snuggie, "the blanket with sleeves" that is apparently all the rage right now. In anticipation of the big game today, I purchased a burnt orange one covered in UT Longhorns.

The packaging boasts that the Snuggie won't fall off like normal blankets and "allows full freedom of motion" during such activities as "sleeping" or "reaching for the remote."

Don't you just hate it when you reach for the remote and the blanket shifts, exposing you to room temperature?

The Snuggie was even featured on Nightline last night.

Yea, I know, the Snuggie is a bit of a joke, yet another example of America's love of convenience taken to the extreme. But it is also an apt symbol for American ingenuity and creativeness. Nowhere else in the world would someone think to make a blanket with sleeves. In Europe, if a blanket keeps falling off, you'd just keep pulling it back up. Europeans wouldn't redesign the blanket.

But somewhere out there, an American grew tired of their blanket sliding off, so they sewed sleeves in it. And the Snuggie was born.

Now, just think of the potential if we could just apply that same kind of creativity to challenges such as climate change and building high-speed rail in Texas.

You better believe I will be taking my Texas Longhorn Snuggie back to Germany. And while my Euro buds will poke fun at me for being a lazy American, I know that deep down, they'll really be jealous.

Did you hear the news?! The DART trains are running until 2 a.m. tonight!

I hate to break it to the friendly folks over at DART, but 2 a.m. ain't that late. Take a look at the public transit systems in places with world-famous nightlife, like Berlin, where trains and trams runs through the night. In Munich trains run until about 3 or 4 in the morning. That's standard in European cities. It's the key to a vibrant nightlife. You can go out, eat, drink, make merry and then take the train home.

So, whose brilliant idea was it to have the DART trains shut down at the exact same time the bars close on New Years Eve, the night on which even the boring people go crazy? DART should at least keep trains running until 3, so that partyers can catch the train after last call. That'd keep a whole lots of drunks off the road.

Dallas is rightly excited about how quickly DART is expanding. But we still have a long way to go before DART works like a big boy transit system.

As a frequent flyer, I pay particularly close attention to terror plots aimed at aviation. I guess I just have this thing about getting blown up.

Of course, the Obama administration is reviewing lots of options for how to improve security. Politico breaks down the pros and cons for each one, here. And The Washington Post has this helpful chart exploring screening methods.

However, as we review security measures, I tend to think that if someone wants to get a bomb on a plane, they'll find a way. Proactive intelligence work is probably the best way to prevent some whacko from blowing up a plane. That's easier said than done. Especially in a democracy. We tend to resist the kind of profiling that would be helpful.

Back in November, Rod Dreher wrote a great column asking, "Will we ever wake up to Islamic radical threat?"

When it comes to investigating and exposing radical Islam in America, the media see their job as managing the story, not telling it. Six years ago, the then-head of the Islamic Society of North America came in for an editorial board meeting. He talked about peace, friendship and tolerance. But when I calmly asked him how he reconciled that rhetoric with the record of support for radical causes among ISNA board members, he shook his fist at me and called me a Nazi.

That routine is, alas, not alien to American Muslim leaders with whom I've clashed since. They obfuscate what they really believe and try to intimidate critics into silence with accusations of bigotry. They cannily understand that's kryptonite to many journalists, who find Baptists scarier than Wahhabists.

The underwear bomber was president of the Islamic society at the University College of London, not the Methodist Missionary Book Club. Does that mean everyone who reads the Koran is a terrorist? No. But should law enforcement and intelligence agencies focus their attention on Muslim groups? Yes.

Realizing that that doesn't make you a racist or a bigot or even anti-Islam. This doesn't have much to do with actual religion - clearly terrorists twist and misconstrue the teachings of Islam. Kinda like how the KKK used to meet in churches.

You gotta love cable news. They work so hard to bring you the news NOW!

While watching CNN's coverage of the false alarm terror scare in Detroit yesterday, I chuckled during an exchange between the news anchor and the chief terrorism correspondent, who was weighing-in via telephone.

The conversation went something like this:

Anchor: What can you tell us? What are you learning? What are people telling you?

Correspondent: Well, I am not sure. I can't really talk to anyone right now - I am on the phone with you.

I understand the immense pressure to be the first to break news. But isn't it still a good idea to let reporters report before you expect them to tell you what is happening?

It reminded me of this clip from The Onion:

In the midst of tough times, Americans are feeling down. Polls show the majority of us think the country is suffering a long-term economic decline. As a nation, we are pessimistic about the future.

Some of the malaise is for good reason - China's powerful role in Copenhagen last week was the latest proof that we don't call all the shots anymore.

But Roger Cohen has a great column out today explaining his belief, one I share, that the unique nature of the American spirit continues to be the source of our strength:

...I still believe the American genius, for all its original sins (and slavery was a great sin), lies in a combination of an essential optimism and an essential pessimism about human nature so articulated by the nation's founders as to make self-correcting renewal the nation's core identity.

It might be a truth self-evident that all men are created equal and have a right to pursue happiness, but not so evident as to dispense with a system of checks and balances designed to spur the correction over time of the kinds of prejudice that flout professed equality of opportunity.

That's America's founding bargain. It still works.

Cohen took some flak for a column he wrote earlier this month, in which he praised the American dream. In his column today, Cohen responds to criticism that he was too glib. As an American who lives in Europe, this passage really resonated with me:

I was trying, as a naturalized American, to give expression to the unshackling feeling experienced by many Europeans in the United States, the sense of getting freed up from quiet constraint, the release from the tethered comforts of the old Continent into a bracing directness, the liberating understanding of how a nation of laws differs from the blood-laden (and bloodied) European experience of nationhood, the sliding away of the debilitating unsaid.

A European friend once told me: "In Europe, your story is pre-written for you. In the U.S., you get to write your own story."

That the-sky-is-the-limit mentality, the ability to take charge of your own life and the flexibility of American society still make us unique.

Cohen quotes President Obama:

There has been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty, self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.

Say what you want about China, but it doesn't have that kind of legacy.

The U.S. remains a shining beacon on the hill, but with the nation feeling a bit down, the challenge now is to make sure we keep that light shining.

Texas Congressman Joe Barton has been hanging out here in Copenhagen to represent climate change skeptics. In a press conference with other House Republicans today, Barton told reporters:

The fact that there is not an agreement coming out of this, apparently, is not a bad outcome, we need to reassess in my opinion the science, the models and at least determine at the political level what the goal should be. And if that happens then this has been a very successful conference.

In his remarks, Barton said he respected the President, but bashed the Copenhagen process:

It's not his fault that he couldn't work his personal magic, and the reason he couldn't is because the goals, if they are not irreconcilable, they are almost that. This whole process is based on the premise that mankind through emissions of CO2 is causing the planet to warm at an unexpected rate. That methodology, that theory, has never been independently analyzed or tested by any scientific group.

Except for NASA and just about every credible scientific organization out there. I pressed Barton, saying that State of Texas' climatologist, John Nielsen-Gammon, recognizes that there is a connection between human activity and climate change.

Barton gave me this gem of a response:

I respect the Texas climatologist. But it's hot in Texas in the summer and its cold in Texas in the winter, and I can't tell that that's going change much one way or the other. We don't have an ice cap in Texas. But we do have ice storms, so before we make a policy decision, I think it's a fair question to try and built a theory that appears to be more based on the facts.

OK ...

The past couple of hours have been pretty quiet here in Copenhagen as heads of state have struggled to reach a deal.

En route to grab a cup of coffee, I ran into Libby Rosenthal of the NY Times, who said she'd heard Obama was about to give a press conference. Even though it wasn't announced, we decided to run to the main press conference room anyways. Just in case.

As word spread, a stampede of info-hungry journalists raced to take their seats. With a bit of prodding and after running over a couple of slow-poke European journalists, I was able to get a seat in the second row and am poised, ready to snap blog photos should Obama appear.

There is much excitement here as journalists type frantically into their Blackberries hoping to get a tip - does Obama have a big announcement to make?

Stay tuned!

UPDATE: They announced there are no plans for an Obama presser. So most journalists left. But security remains tight here and rumors are still flying around the U.S. press corps.

I'm hanging out with the friendly folks from Bloomberg for the time being, as we try and figure out what is going on.

My assumption is that if Obama wanted to brief, he'd brief the White House press pool. But who knows ...

I'll keep y'all posted.

UPDATE 2: White House press secretary Robert Gibbs just walked by the briefing room and now journalists are flooding back in.

Nobody has any clue what is going on.

UPDATE 3: There was no Obama presser. But apparently a deal has been reached.

With the fate of the climate talks hanging in the balance, President Obama just delivered a stern address to world leaders in which he said "time for talk is over."

All week long the Bella Center has been buzzing with activity. But as soon as Obama began speaking, the place went silent.

In the press room, a hush fell across the room as soon as Obama opened his speech. I came running in after leaving a press conference with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where the room was pretty much empty.

It wasn't planned that Obama's speech would overlap with Ahmadinejad's presser. But it's still an interesting contrast: world leaders and the global press were hanging on Obama's every word and they pretty much ignored Ahmadinejad's huffing and puffing.

Politico's Glenn Thrush - who rocks an old-school fedora hat as he roams the halls here - called Obama "angry." It was clear that Obama means business - he doesn't want to go home empty handed.

This morning the president had an unscheduled meeting with leaders from 18 other countries in an attempt to push talks forward. Instead of Premier Wen Jiabao, China sent vice foreign minister He Yafei. The New York Times is reporting that European leaders and Obama were "seething."

Shortly thereafter, the president posed a direct challenge to China, which is rapidly becoming the Grinch of Copenhagen. In his address, Obama insisted on accountability measures: "They must, however, ensure that an accord is credible, and that we are living up to our obligations. For without such accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page."

This is turning into a showdown between the U.S. and China. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. But the fact that over a hundred heads of state are in one building trying to reach an agreement is making the whole process fascinating to observe.

UDPATE: The Guardian just posted a review of Obama's speech, calling it a disappointment because the president neither called on the Senate to pass climate legislation, nor did he ramp up America's commitments.

The problems is that Obama's hands are tied - he can't offer up more than the Senate will pass. So it begs the question: is the Senate preventing the U.S. from being able to take an even stronger leadership role?

The full text of Obama's remarks, after the break.

Good morning from snowy Copenhagen. Thanks to readers who have written to make sure I haven't frozen to death.

Winter wonderland or just pain the kneck?

Heads of state are in the plenary room, where Obama will be delivering remarks. Journalists are hunkered down in the press area groaning about reports that the conference may stretch into Sunday. I think there is also jealousy that Greenpeace was able to get into the fancy schmancy dinner hosted by the Danish Queen last night.

Salahi-style party crashing has made its way to Europe. These yahoos were able to get into the state dinner simply by looking the part.

The pressure is on for heads of state to produce some kind of something today. But the mood inside the Bella Center is actually fairly calm. That might be because most non-governmental organizations have largely been banned from entering. That means no protestors.

But there is also a downside -- many journalists rely on NGOs for information and to provide context to what the official delegations have to say.

Things to watch today:

- It's interesting to see how many countries are working feverishly to spare Obama embarrassment.
- China is the wild card. All bets are off as to what they will do today. They are the biggest roadblock to an agreement.
-The poor and developing nations. They were happy with the U.S. announcement of $100 billion a year in aid and that brought the back to the table. However, they could block a deal.
-The Brazilian prime minister is speaking right now and is railing against the developed/rich world. He is ticked off! Will that angry translate into him not supporting an agreement?

After a bad day yesterday (headlines about "Constipagan" accurately reflected the mood inside the Bella Center), today was a bit better.

• Full court press The U.S. took center stage today as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi arrived with a Congressional delegation in tow. Hillary Clinton also showed up and made news this morning when she announced at a press conference that the U.S would help raise $100 billion a year to help developing countries. This breathed new life into negotiations.

Clinton: If you'd elected me president, I totally would have stopped global warming by now.

Majority leader Steny Hoyer (who father was Danish) and Pelosi (who has Italian ancestry) had a sharp disagreement over who first discovered America: Amerigo Vespucci or Leif Eriksson. No word yet on how that will effect the U.S. negotiating position.

No texting during class, Ed Henry! You'd think CNN would have taught him better ...

• Global whaaaa?
Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe came into the press room this morning. Luckily he was able to set the record straight: the Copenhagen talks are useless.

And we don't have to worry about the climate, because this whole global warming thing is a huge "hoax" made up by "Hollywood elites." Yea, he actually said that.

Apparently Inhofe flew all the way to Copenhagen just to be sure everyone knew the Senate isn't going to pass climate change legislation. Democrats say otherwise.

• And from the great state of Texas ...
Congressman Joe Barton of Arlington is also in town. As I write in my column tomorrow, he's also in the skeptic camp.Barton told me:

I feel an obligation to be here, first to observe, but secondly to show the international community, and to some etenxt the envromental community, that there is still some doubt, some fairly strong doubt that is fairly universal in the United States about the science that is behind man-made climate change and certainly about the stretgegy to bring out these dracionian reductions in C02.

Really? "Fairly universal" doubt among scientists about man-made climate change?

Yesterday the Texas state climatologist told me otherwise. As did several other leading scientists who all said plain and simple: human activity is contributing to climate change.

However, after a blizzard blew through town last night, I am becoming staunchly pro-global warming.

• Damned if you do ...
Even if - and that is a BIG if - an agreement is reached tomorrow, it may not be able to stave off "catastrophic global warming." Read more, here.

• Tomorrow is another day!
Obama shows up tomorrow. And there's some hope he can convince the Chinese to agree to a deal. However, China is being difficult. Right now the Chinese are resisting monitoring as a means of enforcing any potential agreement.

Hej from inside the Bella Center, where 193 countries are arguing about how to stop global warming while a snow storm rages outside. Things are not going so well. Words liked "stalled" and "slow" keep getting tossed around.

The U.S. and China don't see eye-to-eye, Europe is fighting to stay relevant, oil-producing states are understandably trying to protect their energy industries, the poor countries think they aren't getting enough money and the island nations think nobody is taking it seriously that they are all about to drown. It makes for slow, painful negotiations.

But I've got good news for y'all: the U.S. is no longer the bad guy! Hillary Clinton says so today in an op-ed.

U.S. special envoy for climate change Todd Stern also sought to polish America's image in a press conference today, contending that the U.S. is just as aggressive as the EU in cutting emissions. He also said the U.S. was reaching out to China.

Now that the U.S. is working to be part of the solution instead of throwing up roadblocks as we have in the past, China is the new bad guy:

China, which last month for the first time publicly announced a target for reducing the rate of growth of its greenhouse gas emissions, is refusing to accept any kind of international monitoring of its emissions levels, according to negotiators and observers here.

As I blog from Copenhagen this week, you may notice some Swedish names among the commenters. Last Friday, I spoke to social studies classes at Apelryd, a Swedish high school in Båstad, which is a small town on the coast in southeastern Sweden. The students had very interesting comments and questions about climate change. And they were very interested to know more about what Americans think.

So, I invited them to follow the blog and to comment. Hopefully they can give those of y'all in Dallas a look at how people in Europe see the issue. Likewise, students (and other Europeans out there who are blog fans), I hope you can learn something more about the way Americans think.

Let's show the Swedes a warm Texas welcome. I look forward to some interesting discussions in the comments!

Greetings from Scandinavia, where the second week of the Copenhagen talks are underway. My plan was to begin blogging from inside the conference today. But as I got off the subway at the Bella Center, I ran into this:

The UN in all its wisdom devised a highly sophisticated crowd management system: everyone stands in one loonnnng line. So I stood in line with journalists, representatives from non-governmental organizations, business execs, lobbyists, snake oil salesmen and this lady:

I just watched Obama's Nobel acceptance speech live. And I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The president delivered one heck of a speech. I especially liked the humble beginning, when he flat-out said other Nobel laureates were "far more deserving of this honor than I."

My reaction to the speech was very much framed by the context in which I watched it. I'm currently in Sweden, and this afternoon I visited the grandparents of the family I lived with when I was an exchange student here a decade ago.

As soon as I walked in the door, the grandmother smiled and excitedly said, "Obama is in Oslo!" proudly adding, "I heard it on the radio!"

She then switched on the TV and we watched the live feed of the Nobel ceremony. While I'm not a fan of all of President Obama's policies, watching this old Swedish woman perched on the edge of her seat, hanging on Obama's every word, helped me put everything into perspective.

Regardless of what you think of Obama, we should all be proud that the President of the United States not only won the Nobel Peace Prize, but also that people care. When the American president speaks, the world listens. Folks, it's easy to take that for granted, but that's huge. I doubt that this Swedish granny would have been all that excited to listen to the President of China.

Obama struck a nice balance by reaching out to the international community while still projecting an image of a robust and powerful America ready and willing to lead. He sent Europe a message it desperately needed to hear about using military force as a tool for peace:

... in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter the cause. At times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower.

Yet the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions - not just treaties and declarations - that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest - because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

Obama concluded by saying:

Let us reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.

Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees he's outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school -- because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child's dreams.

(At about this point in the speech, the cameras cut away to the Norwegian crown princess, who had tears in her eyes.)

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

At the end of Obama's speech, the Swedish grandma turned to me and said, "You must be very proud."

Yes. Very proud indeed.

The latest news out of Copenhagen today is plain and simple:

One after the other, the British Met Office and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) went public with their latest measurements, showing that 2009 is shaping up to be the fifth hottest year on record and - more importantly - that the 'noughties' are set to be much the warmest decade ever.

In other words: global warming is real.

Still not convinced?

"We are in a warming trend. There is no doubt about it," insisted Michael Jarraud, the Secretary General of the WMO.

Despite the whole Climategate ordeal, scientists are more certain than ever that global temperatures are rising. The WMO didn't just lick it's finger and hold it up to the wind to gauge the climate. The right-leaning Daily Telegraph explains:

[The] organisation, a UN body, draws its analysis on world temperatures from three separate sets of data. One is processed by the Met Office; until 2002 it ran it with the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University, of the hacked e-mail controversy, but now does the job itself. The others come from the US Government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

All have come to the same conclusion. Depending on what happens in the last three weeks of the year, it could end up as the fourth, fifth or sixth hottest on record, but it will certainly be much warmer than 2008, which was anomalously low thanks to a cooling La Nina in the Pacific. And the jump between average temperatures in the 1990s and the current decade is one of the greatest ever.

So, now that we all agree that the earth is heating up, let's debate what to do about it.

UPDATE: Thanks to all of y'all who left comments. We've got a good debate going here.

Here are a few more sources talking about warming:

The save-the-planet shindig got fired up today in Copenhagen. And the Danes are using the conference to show off just how green they are. Apparently, the mayor is even encouraging sustainable sex.

As Spiegel International reports, the mayor of Copenhagen sent postcards to hotels encouraging guests to "be sustainable - don't buy sex."

Well, the Sex Workers Interest Group (only in Europe would prostitutes be unionized) wasn't going to take that lying down:

Now, Copenhagen prostitutes are up in arms, saying that the council has no business meddling in their affairs. They have now offered free sex to anyone who can produce one of the offending postcards and their COP15 [the official name of the conference] identity card, according to the Web site avisen.dk.

Shortly after Spiegel posted this story, the COP15 press office sent an email to journalists saying that the conference center had reached capacity and no new accreditations would be granted. Surely just a coincidence.

Some of y'all have written in response to my column yesterday, saying you'd like to learn more about David Cameron, the leader of the British Conservative Party who champions a modern, pragmatic brand of conservatism.

Aww! How could you NOT vote for this guy?! He loves puppies! Sure, Cameron's dogsledding adventure in Norway to look at melting glaciers was a gimmick. But it worked - he's made the Conservatives more environmentally friendly.

Well, for those of y'all who are interested, I highly recommend you read Benedict Brogan's work. He is a columnist and editor at the right-leaning Daily Telegraph and is the go-to-go guy for all things Conservative.

As Brogan pointed out in a column, Cameron is very good at getting his message out in the age of cable news and YouTube. But he's not just a new face for the Conservatives - he has led a wide-reaching modernization effort that turned the Party around since it was thumped by the opposing Labour Party in 1997.

I quoted Andrew Cooper, a leading Conservative pollster, explaining how the Conservative Party went from being "the nasty party" to now being the most popular party in Britain. In his soon-to-be-released book, Tim Bale recounts advice Cooper gave to the Conservatives in order to help them start winning elections. Here are some of the highlights:

As Nicole already pointed out, you should definitely check out this piece by Robert Draper in the NY Times Magazine about the Rick vs. Kay showdown. It's a great primer on the race and what it means for the GOP at both the state and national level.

But these two paragraphs really caught my attention:

1961, a New Yorker writer named John Bainbridge, who had left his home in Bronxville, N.Y., for a nine-month stay in Texas, channeled Alexis de Tocqueville in "The Super-Americans." Today a largely overlooked classic, the book argued that the Lone Star State was like America except more so: more optimistic, more preoccupied with bigness, more obsessed with self-invention. For those of us raised in the shadows of the Astrodome, Bainbridge's references to newly enriched oilmen trading in their Cadillacs once the ashtrays require emptying are blush-inducing but hardly unfamiliar. And in any event, "The Super-Americans," like Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" 126 years before it, ultimately acquits its subject, proclaiming Texas to be "the land of the second chance, the last outpost of individuality, the stage upon which the American Drama, in all its wild extremes, is being performed with eloquence and panache, as if for the first time."

Today's Super-America looks a bit different. Its Hispanic population is both the state's fastest-growing and its most impoverished. Texas' high-school graduation rate is among the nation's lowest, and its percentage of residents who lack health insurance is the highest. And as The Austin American-Statesman recently reported, "More government money has been spent on the cause of sexual abstinence in Texas than any other state, but it still has the third-highest teen birth rate in the country and the highest percentage of teen mothers giving birth more than once."

We talk a lot about "America's decline." Just this week Newsweek features an interesting piece by Niall Ferguson that warns that America could be the next empire to fall. The omninous cover reads: "Steep debt, slow growth, and high spending kill empires - and America could be next."

That all may be true. However, something we talk less about is Texas. It's so easy - and fun - to get caught up in the whole "we're Texas and you're not" swagger. But as the governor's race heats up, I think we need to be honest with ourselves and reflect the contrast Draper points out.

Is Texas on the decline?

The Sun put out this ad to roll out their new high-tech version for the paper's 40th anniversary:

I've got good news and bad news. Let's start with the good news: the president has made up his mind about Afghanistan.

Now, for the bad news: it took him a long time to do so. And here in London, there's growing concern that Obama's handling of his Afghanistan decision is a sign the president is ignoring the transatlantic partnership.

Even though Britain is an eager ally and is more than ready to pull its weight, Obama doesn't really seem to take much notice. The Times ran a wonderful editorial last week calling for Obama to get with the program:

It is becoming sadly apparent that Britain has been left drifting by the delays in Washington, and that the Obama Administration is largely unaware of the embarrassment this is causing the Government. More worryingly, this does not seem to be a source of concern within the Administration. Downing Street, diplomatically, turns aside any suggestion that it is frustrated by the nonchalance with which it is being treated. But the insistent questions on Afghanistan, the anger caused by the steady stream of returning war dead and the rapid crumbling of public support for the war cannot be answered effectively until Mr Brown is taken into American confidence and seen as a full partner in the Nato campaign.

In preparation for an upcoming column about the British Conservative Party, I've been corresponding with various Brits over the past couple of days. And I'm increasingly beginning to think I'll need a translator when I head to London tomorrow.

One source apologetically emailed that their "diary was full."

Huh?

Diary = calendar. Thank you, Google.

And I kept running into politicians who had a "surgeries" tab on their website. Wow, I thought. This is a new kind of openness - politicians posting information about their own personal health.

Well, it turns out surgeries are one-on-one meetings between constituents and their representatives in Parliament. In Britain, politicians regularly give voters a chance to sit down with them and chat.

Having seen how nutty our health care town halls were this summer, I can understand why British politicians would refer to such meetings as surgery.

I do plan to swing by the Texas Embassy. Hopefully I can find someone there who speaks Texan.

There's a great column up on our Opinions home page by Anne Applebaum about America's role as a lonely superpower.

The basic point of the columns is:

America no longer wants to be the sole superpower. The American president no longer wants to be the leader of a sole superpower. Nobody else wants America to be the sole superpower and in fact America cannot even afford to be the sole superpower. Yet America has no obvious partner with which to share its superpowerdom, and if America were to cease being a superpower, nothing and no one would take its place.

Tonight I heard the American Ambassador to Germany, Philip D. Murphy, speak at a Thanksgiving dinner party here in Berlin. And as I read Applebaum's column, I couldn't help but reflect on the Ambassador's remarks.

He traced the strong historic ties between the U.S. and Germany, but noted: "The German-American history up until 1989 was very specific Germany and America, almost obsessed with each other: the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons, American military and family members in Germany since the end of WWII ... "

That's changed. As we celebrated earlier this month, it's been 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell. The Ambassador recognized the obvious, saying, "The immediacy of the relationship has changed."

"The arch of history has changed from Germany and America's specific obsession with each other to global stuff."

The Ambassador elaborated: "The stuff we deal with has gotten global and it's gotten kinda of abstract."

He warned that strong ties developed after the Cold War aren't enough to sustain the partnership into this century.

"Almost nothing we deal with today is related to only Germany and America," he said.

And that's where the problem is.

A quick scan of my inbox everyday tells me y'all love to talk about Sarah Palin and the media. So, to celebrate Friday, I have a special treat for you: Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz's column about the media's addiction to Sarah Palin.

The media are going rogue.

They just can't help themselves. Journalists are addicted to Sarah Palin. Some love to hate her, some love to love her, all love to dissect or defend her.

Hmm...interesting. What do you think?

Guten Tag, Dallas!

Suffering from a bad case of the Mondays? Here's some food for thought to help distract you from work:

Goin' it alone: While the U.S. celebrated Veteran's Day last week, the Germans just observed Volkstrauertag (people's grieving day), a day on which Germans remember soldiers, civilians and all victims of war. Now, while a national day set aside for being sad and gloomy might sound appropriately Germanic to you, it represents a problem: Germans to be staunchly anti-war and German soliders serving in Afghanistan have little to no support back home, writes Nick Kulish, Berlin bureau chief of the New York Times:

The German men and women in Afghanistan set off for war without the support of the populace, and they know that when they return there won't be crowds cheering in the streets, ready to make heroes of them. Germany has turned its back on hero worship. The soldiers fight alone.

Nick - who also covered the war in Iraq and wrote a great novel based on his experiences - offers up a remainder for Americans:

"Support the troops" can start to sound like a hollow mantra until you live in a country that just doesn't do it. In the United States, the little flags in store windows, the bumper stickers, the yellow ribbons around tree trunks and hanging on doors -- not to mention the sense of national mourning that President Obama addressed last week after the mass shooting of soldiers at Fort Hood -- weave together to form a kind of psychological safety net for soldiers.

To this American, the talk show hosts' and football announcers' greetings to the soldiers had begun to sound a bit obligatory until I returned from Afghanistan and started really paying attention to German television, hoping to catch just one similar gesture. So far I haven't.

How about a civilian ROTC? While it may be en vogue right now to bash the government and anyone who has the slightest connection to Washington, E.J. Dionne bucks the trend and says we need more public servants. He thinks we need a civilian ROTC:

If you like political cartoons, check out this blog by The Houston Chronicle's editorial cartoonist, Nick Anderson. He's great.

Here's the cartoon Anderson posted Friday (Rick Perry fans, avert your eyes):

Governor Perry is making headlines in the national press again, this time for warning that President Obama is "hell-bent" on socialism. The Politico reports:

Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of "punishing" Texas and being "hell-bent" on turning the United States into a socialist country.

Speaking at a luncheon for a Midland County Republican Women's group, Perry said that "this is an administration hell-bent toward taking American towards a socialist country. And we all don't need to be afraid to say that because that's what it is."

Find more videos like this on Mywesttexas Chatter

This backs up Bill McKenzie's point that: "Love him or hate him - and trust me, there are plenty of Texans in each camp - you can't ignore Rick Perry."

I don't always agree with Governor Perry, but he is indeed entertaining. And he knows how to give a speech. I once covered the governor's speech to an investment conference in France, and I was amazed at how, well, entertaining he was. He bounded up on the stage wearing his boots and captured the audience's attention as he praised Texas barbecue, beer and business. It's no easy task to get snooty French businessmen to gush about Texas. But Gov. Perry did just that.

Sure, sometimes he may go off the deep end. Like when he told a tea party, "I'm just not real sure you're a bunch of right-wing extremists. But if you are, we're with you." Or when he suggested Texas might leave the Union.

But Bill is right: "And, still, neither can we ignore Rick Perry. Certainly not this year, agree or disagree. His fingerprints have been all over Texas."

Update: Some of y'all have left comments about a possible Perry run for the White House. Check out what Texas Monthly's Paul Burka has to say about that, here. It's an interesting read. What do you think? Does Burka have a point? Does Perry want to run in 2012?

If you haven't read Carl Leubsdorf's column this morning, take a moment to do so. Carl explores two signs that the U.S. is shifting its focus to Asia.

The chattering classes on this side of the pond are growing increasingly concerned that the U.S. is slowly but surely forgetting about Europe. One former German diplomat I spoke to bemoaned Washington's shift toward Asia but then admitted that Asia is increasingly more important and more influential than Europe.

Part of it is just the economic reality that Asian nations are financing our debt. Der Spiegel has a great piece (written in English) about America's growing dependence on China and Europe's declining importance in the eyes of many Americas:

Meanwhile, the Americans see Europe moving from the passenger's seat to the back seat in terms of the US's international partners. It was former President George W. Bush who upgraded the Chinese by launching a G-20 summit process to combat the financial crisis, rather than leaving it up to the G-8 member states, as the German Chancellery would have liked him to do.

The growing importance of Asia is true on a local level, too. Only 2 of the D-FW area's top ten trading partner's are European countries - aside from Israel, the rest are Asian, with China at the top of the list. The Dallas area's annual trade with China is worth over $16.7 billion and accounts for nearly 30% of D-FW's international trade.

U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt

The more I learn about the health care bill the House of Representatives passed on Sunday, the less I like about it.

Of course now that the law-making gets passed on to the Senate the health care legislation, is going to change. If you're curious about what happens now, check out this video from The New York Times.

I do believe strongly that we have to reform our health care system. Other countries spend less and get better care than we do, so to me there's no question of whether or not we need to fix the system. Instead of all this nonsense about death panels that keeps coming up, let's stay focused on creating a more efficient system that delivers higher quality of care at lower costs.

Benedicte Callan a professor at the LBJ School for Public Affairs at the University of Texas has spent a good chunk of her career in Europe, and just recently move to Texas. I asked her what she finds most surprising about the health care debate. Her answer was enlightening:

As a new Texan what has surprised me is not whether universal is good or bad, but how little attention is paid to how to reduce costs in health care. The focus is on extending insurance but that alone will not reduce costs of a system that is incredibly complex, bureaucratic, opaque (what DOES any procedure cost in the US?) and not in the slightest driven by evidence or outcomes.

I'm not convinced the House legislation passed Saturday addresses those concerns. Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt had a great column yesterday in which he breaks down the House bill:

Berlin pulled out all the stops tonight to throw a blowout Festival of Freedom to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The festivities began when German Chancellor Angela Merkel - who grew up in East Germany - and visiting world leaders walked across the first border crossing to open on the night of Nov. 9, 1989.

But the real party started later at the Brandenburg Gate.

The Berlin State Opera Orchestra kicked off the evening with Hillary Clinton, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and diplomats from across Europe listening on.

Of all the dignitaries, Hillary wins the prize for most animated - she clapped along and danced in her seat while the orchestra played. The encore was a surprise appearance by Placido Domingo singing Berliner Luft an old-school Berliner favorite. I spotted Angela Merkel singing along with a huge smile on her face. That's a big deal, she rarely smiles or emotes in public.

I know the new perfoming arts venues in the Arts District are so last month's news. But if you'll allow me, I'd like to point your attention to this article in The Economist. It hits on an important point: the City of Dallas didn't pay for these buildings, private citizens put up the cash.

How can Dallas afford all this, and in straitened times to boot? The answer is that most of the dollars did not come from the city. The performing-arts part of the district cost $354m, and only $18m of that came from public funds. Some 130 people gave gifts larger than $1m. The Winspears gave $42m to the opera house.

I worry that we sometimes take that kind of civic engagement for granted - it simply doesn't exist in Europe. The State Opera in Berlin has been in desperate need of renovation for years, but Berlin is broke, so the opera sits there crumbling, waiting for funding.

If you're looking for some entertainment this morning, check out Patrick Gavin's interview with Kinky Friedman at politico.com. I just rolled my eyes when I saw the headline: Once more into the election rodeo.

Gavin introduces Kinky, writing: "One year from today, he might be the newly elected governor of Texas -- or an also-ran."

I'm guessing it will be the latter.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed Congress today, and I have to be honest, I half expected it to be a snoozer. Merkel isn't usually a dynamic public speaker, and German politicians have a flair for the boring.

But I was impressed - Merkel hit it out the park today.

As I said in my column this morning, Merkel's visit to Washington is a reminder that we have a good friend in Germany and in Europe.

Merkel began her speech with her memory of growing up behind the Iron Curtain in former East Germany. She then described her fascination with the American dream and the freedom our country represents.

I actually got choked up when she thanked the United States for bringing freedom to Germany. She thanked the United States for the Berlin Airlift in 1948 that saved West Berlin during the Soviet's brutal blockade. She praised President Reagan for his famous call to "tear down this wall." And she thanked President George H.W. Bush who pushed forward the process of German reunification. Merkel also took a moment to honor the over 13 million American troops who have been stationed in Germany, and who have helped defend freedom here.

She summed it all up:

Ladies and gentlemen, to put it in just one sentence: I know, we Germans know how much we owe to you, our American friends. And we shall never -- I personally, shall never, ever forget this.

By this point in her speech I was feeling so proud of the U.S. of A., that I wanted to stand on my balcony and belt out God Bless America. That was a smart move by Merkel. She knew that by talking freedom, she could win over the audience by appealing to America's patriotic spirit. It worked.

My inbox is overflowing with feedback in response to my post yesterday asking if people actually want unbiased news.

Reader "Milo" brought up a good point, suggesting we "flesh out what is meant by unbiased news."

Commenter "Chip" wrote that he thinks most folks define biased as anything that disagrees with their point of view.

I wonder if it would be better to use the term ideological instead of bias. Because let's face it - journalists are human, and people have biases. The question is whether or not news organizations try to guard against ideology driving news decisions.

This reminds me of an exchange I had with Len Downie, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, just after he had retired. During a meeting with several other young journalists, I asked him why he didn't vote. He went into a long and careful explanation about how he worried that by voting he would be endorsing one presidential candidate over the other. He didn't feel it was appropriate for him to do. He also added that he never read the Post's editorial page to make sure he wasn't influenced by the editorial board's opinions.

While I think that might be a bit over-the-top, it shows the level of thought that goes into preventing ideology from seeping into news coverage.

On that note, the non-partisan Pew Research Center has released a study claiming that of all the news networks, FOX is viewed as being the most ideological.

The report says:

Do people actually want unbiased news? They may say they do, but I'm not sure they mean it. I think most people want news that they agree with, which to them seems unbiased.

The new ratings for the cable news channels are out and they show that CNN - which has tried to position itself in the middle - has lost ground to right-leaning Fox and left-leaning MSNBC.

Michael Calderone has a great piece this week in Politico about this in which he quotes Eric Alterman of The Nation:

Nonpartisan news, and news aimed at a broad audience, doesn't have the cachet, and therefore the consumer base, it once had.

Alterman also said:

Politics without a slant, without a point of view, is interesting to very few people.

That's why blowhards like Keith Olbermann (a sportscaster-turned-"newsman") and Glenn Beck (who Rod correctly called "a crazy-pants conspiracy theorist") get more viewers than Gwen Ifill.

During an interview the other day I got asked an interesting question by a German: "Is Texas a law and order place?"

I was a bit surprised by the question, and I fumbled for an answer. What did she mean, "law and order?"

"Well, you still have the death penalty," the source said.

I tried to explain that we don't send everyone who gets arrested to Death Row. Sometimes in Europe there is a perception that if you caught speeding in Texas, you'll end up in Huntsville.

I added that I do think there is a strong sense of right and wrong in Texas. That could fuel the perception that Texas is all about old school law and order. And yes, compared to Europeans, we hand out harsher punishment for criminals - in many European countries, murderers, rapists, etc. get 10-20 years in prison, max.

But I'm not really sure if that is a uniquely Texan attitude. Is it just a cliché, often reinforced by Hollywood?

I once interviewed a German student for a piece about Texas' image abroad. He said: "From the western films, you can tell that Texas is such a big place, with a wide landscape that fits the rugged cowboy image well. I also think of Texans as being maybe a bit aggressive."

He then added that he had never been to Texas and I was the first Texan he'd ever met.

My take is that while we unfortunately have the death penalty, Texas is no more of a "law and order place" than Colorado or New York. We just look worse because of the death penalty, especially we when execute someone who might have been innocent.

What do you think? To the legal folks out there, I ask: is Texas a law and order kind of place? Are we really that much tougher than other states?

I should have known better. I went out with some journo buds in Berlin this afternoon, and I saw "nachos bombasta" listed on the menu. It's been way too long since I've had anything resembling Mexican food, so I ordered them.

My heart sank when the waitress brought me my plate.

They had taken Cool Ranch Doritos, sprinkled some mozzarella cheese on top and then served it with tomato sauce masquerading as salsa and a guacamole wanna-be substance the restaurant called "avocado cream."

I've lived in Europe long enough to know that the European version of Mexican food always disappoints. It's a common complaint among Texan expats.

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed a 25-year-old Dallas-native who lives in Geneva, Switzerland. She is currently battling an aggressive form of cancer, and since she has no health insurance in the U.S., she's stuck in Switzerland for her treatments. Her family is in Texas while she is fighting for her life in Europe.

Despite all she is going through, when I asked what she was most homesick for, she said, "Mexican food!" without skipping a beat.

So, all you folks in Texas, please go out and have a frozen margarita and fajitas on behalf of all us expats.

Rod asked a great question yesterday about what training journalists will need in the future.

Right on cue, Maureen Dowd also weighed in on the future of journalism in her column today . Apparently some folks think newspapers just need to loosen up and get into boozing, matchmaking and gambling:

The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal have wine clubs. Condé Nast has started an online dating Web site for a fee of $30 a month called TrulyMadlyDating.com to "unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys to create matches made in style heaven."

Self-described print press "fanatic" Mortimer Zuckerman, who owns The Daily News and U.S. News & World Report, proposed to Forbes that the federal government could save newspapers by allowing sports betting on newspaper Web sites.

It would actually be a return to the way journalism used to be, writes Dowd:

Arthur Gelb, The Times's famed former culture impresario and managing editor, begins his wonderful memoir, "City Room," by describing the racier Times newsroom of the 1940s. He says it was a time of clandestine sex in closets, a movie-star mistress of the publisher sashaying about and two tough bookies from Hell's Kitchen at a corner desk taking bets as "wads of bills peeked from their pockets."

In his memoir, "Gaily, Gaily," Ben Hecht describes his years as a cub reporter at The Chicago Daily Journal starting in 1910. It was a time when reporters were still "exotic adults," he writes, and journalism was considered by many as "a catch basin for hooligans, bar flies and minor swindlers."

I'd been banking on education, language skills and experience to prepare me for a career in journalism. And I'm gearing up to do a masters in history. However, Dowd's column got me thinking that a trip to Vegas might also be helpful - she quotes writer Nick Pileggi as suggesting that newspapers put slot machines in their offices.

Even if newspapers do open up casinos (Does anyone else think a Belo casino in the DMN lobby would be fun?), I believe journalists will need to tell people not so much what happened, but why it matters. To be able to do that, journalists have to know economics, history and languages.

I suspect that folks are increasingly unwilling to pay for news, but they will pay for analysis, insight and a unique perspective they can't get anywhere else. And as Condé Nast seems to believe, they're also willing to pay journalists for dating advice.

Guten Morgen, Dallas.

Some food for thought as you start you day:

America now hearts public option?:Wasn't it just a few months ago that folks were showing up with guns to presidential town halls screaming that they didn't want the government to take over their health care?

My how things change.

The Washington Post reports this morning that a majority of Americans now support a public option. Politico tells us that members of Congress from both political parties are now working to include some kind of public option in health care legislation.

Is this a good or bad? Depends on what kind of a public option we get. Europe spends less on health care than we do and every country here has some kind of public health care. So, I'm open to the idea. What about you?

Held by the Taliban: I highly recommend the series running in the New York Times by reporter David Rohde, who was captured by the Taliban while on assignment outside of Kabul. The piece gives great insight into how the Taliban thinks. And it drives home just how complicated the situation in Afganistan is.

Psh, you thought we had problems? If you are getting fed up with American politics, take a look at Italy, and you'll start to feel much better about our politicians.

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, a former cruise ship singer-turned-media mogul-turned-politician, is always involved in some scandal, as Anne Applebaum explains:

Silvio Berlusconi has been accused of bribery, tax evasion, corruption and subversion of the press. His wife has left him on the grounds that he consorts with prostitutes and holds orgies at his villa in Sardinia. He makes embarrassing jokes (and then repeats them, as he did with the one about President Obama's "suntan") and periodically disappears to undergo more plastic surgery. He is at war with the Italian legal establishment, with almost all of the journalists who don't work for him, and with the Catholic Church. Last week the Italian constitutional court lifted his immunity from prosecution, which means Italians can look forward to a whole new series of lawsuits and scandals.

Even Congressman-turned-dancing star Tom DeLay isn't that entertaining.

It really is exciting to see the transformation of the Arts District with the new opera house and new performing arts center. But sooner or later, the newness will wear off. When it does, I'm worried that we'll be left with knock-your-socks-off Arts District that is detached from the rest of downtown. Which is why we have to get busy and support efforts to get streetcars up and running in downtown Dallas.

In my column yesterday, I explored Zurich's tram system. The streetcars there are the backbone for life in the city center.

At lunchtime I watched in amazement as a guy rolled a piano out to one of the Zurich tram stations and began playing. Within no time a crowd had formed. It was a great example of the spontaneous street life that can flourish when you have a well-connected downtown where people can ditch their cars and move around on foot and rail.

It was fun. And it made me wish Dallas has the same type of vibrancy in its streets.

The news Arts District buildings will offer Big D the opportunity to hear world-class concerts. As a city, we needed that. Now we need to shift our focus to making downtown a practical and easy place to live, work and play.

While a street musician isn't quite on the same level as a Wagner opera, I think a city needs that type of performance art just as much as it needs a great opera house.

What do you think? Would you take streetcars downtown? Do spend much time in downtown Dallas? Why or why not?

I headed up to the Arctic Circle for the weekend - it was beautiful, but makes west Texas seem densely populated. En route back to civilization, I stopped in a bus station in the middle-of-nowhere and was shocked to find The Audacity of Hope (translated into Swedish: Att våga hoppas) by Barack Obama prominently on display right next to the front door.

Whether or not you agree with Obama's politics, isn't it cool that Swedish folks who live in reindeer country would be interested in reading about the president of the United States?

Stockholm's airport is connected to downtown via a special high-speed train, the Arlanda Express. It travels at 125 mph and goes non-stop from the airport to the city center in exactly 20 minutes. It makes flying in and out of this city a breeze.

I know Dart is extending light rail to D/FW Airport. Which is going to be great. Still, I can't help but wish Dallas would be on the cutting edge of something like this. Why aren't we building a high-speed airport train?

We've talked about state-wide high-speed rail, but what about local high-speed train? How cool would it be to have a bullet train that goes from downtown Dallas to downtown Ft. Worth at over 125 mph?

I'd take it.

I'm in Stockholm reporting on a column for tomorrow. And as I navigate the Swedish capital, surrounded by people speaking Swedish, I have to say that I feel like a complete dufus for not being able to speak Svenska like everyone else.

It makes me reflect on the piece Jessica Meyers wrote in yesterday's Metro section about German dieing out in American high schools:

The battle of the tongues is tight. Foreign languages remain a low priority among American students, who start later and study fewer years than counterparts in many other countries. Teachers blame this language loss on budget constraints and a heavier focus on core subjects such as science and math.

But they also point to a societal crutch: Students know they can always rely on English. This leaves German teachers trying to prove that languages have value and that German is still worth it.

The "oh, they speak English anyways" argument sounds great, until you actually step foot in a foreign country.

The Swedes speak amazing English. Heck, I'm from Texas, most Swedes probably speak better English than I do. However, I still wish I knew Swedish. I had to have a friend call to make reservations for me with a small Swedish airline - their website was only in Swedish.

But language isn't just about words - it's cultural, too. I can't tell you how many doors have been opened to me because I speak German. Even though most Germans speak English, they are so happy to meet an American fluent in German, they are quick to roll out the cultural welcome mat.

Europeans typically learn two, three, sometimes four foreign languages. With the U.S. increasingly tied to other countries both culturally and economically, foreign language skills are becoming more and more important.

The world is too interconnected these days for American students not to learn a foreign language. We should consider requiring high school graduates to have foreign language ability.

As I wrote Monday, Europe is looking for Obama to show leadership. This is exactly the kind of approach they'd support.

Obama To Enter Diplomatic Talks With Raging Wildfire

Amid all the hubbub over the Nobel, it was almost easy to overlook one of the other big stories of the weekend: Obama and the gays.

Saturday night the president spoke to the Human Rights Campaign amid rising frustration in the gay community that he isn't doing enough for gay rights. Among other things, Obama repeated his pledge to repeal "don't ask, don't tell."

It's an emotionally-charged issue for folks on both sides of the argument.

The Washington Post ran a moving essay on Sunday entitled, "I didn't tell. It didn't matter," in which Joseph Rocha tells of the harassment and abuse he endured while serving in the navy. Rocha is gay, but never violated the "don't Ask, don't tell" policy.

Once I joined the Navy, I was tormented by my chief and fellow sailors, physically and emotionally, for being gay. The irony of "don't ask, don't tell" is that it protects bigots and punishes gays who comply.

Rocha says he was also tied up in a dog kennel.

But Obama didn't stop with his pledge to open the door for gays to serve openly in the military. As the DMN's Majorie Korn reported:

Obama said he also remains committed to expanding employment nondiscrimination policies and recognizing same-sex marriages. He applauded the House for widening hate crimes legislation to include violence based on sexual orientation.

Following on the heels of the president's speech, tens of thousands headed to the National Mall to call for equal rights for gays and lesbians.

Breaking news out of Oslo (that's not something you hear everyday) - President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised the president's efforts to improve diplomatic ties between nations and his repeated calls for a world without nuclear weapons:

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

This a reminder of just how popular the president remains overseas, despite a rise in criticism in Europe .

The Norwegian Nobel Committee - made up of six jurors chosen by the Norwegian parliament - wrote:

Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

In general, you'd think that winning the Nobel Prize would be a good thing. But there may be a backlash. In a column posted today on the left-leaning Süddeutsche Zeitung's website, foreign editor Stefan Kornelius writes:

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama is a barely comprehensible aberration from six jurors, who have lost every sense of realism and judgement.

Kornelius blasted the committee, saying that they apparently now award Nobel Prizes for yet-to-be-fufilled prophesies.

If a columnist for a left-leaning German paper is ticked off, I can only image what Glenn Beck and crew will do with this.

The Times of London just posted a commentary claiming this makes a "mockery" of the prize.

I can understand the sense of surprise and shock - I almost spit out my coffee when I read the news. The guy just took office and doesn't have many concrete diplomatic accomplishments. It seems a bit premature to award him a Nobel.

But I think we should try and think big picture here: the president of the United States has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On the whole, that's a good thing for the country. It shows that our image abroad has improved, which is good.

To argue about whether or not he deserved it is a waste of time - the decision has already been made. My question is how will the president use this. This could both help and hurt him.

If he's quick on his feet and able to stave of criticism, this can serve as a springboard to make concrete progress on issues ranging from disarmament to Israel to Afghanistan. This helps make up for Obama's loss in Copenhagen and makes him look like a winner at a time when he desperately needed some good news.

Warranted or not, Obama has been handed a golden opportunity here. Let's hope he's able to make the best of it.

Good morning, Big D.

Some reading to start off your day:

Presidential Diva? George Will takes a look at the Obama's speeches in Copenhagen and contends that the Obama's are in love with themselves.

In the 41 sentences of her remarks, Michelle Obama used some form of the personal pronouns "I" or "me" 44 times. Her husband was, comparatively, a shrinking violet, using those pronouns only 26 times in 48 sentences. Still, 70 times in 89 sentences conveyed the message that somehow their fascinating selves were what made, or should have made, Chicago's case compelling.

Will goes on to warn that the president is looking "vain."

I think this is only an issue if Obama isn't able to deliver and effectively govern. When things are going well, nobody cares if the president is full of himself. He's the leader of the free world - he's allowed to think he's all that.

But if Obama isn't able to reverse his losing streak, then the whole vain thing starts to be more troubling.

What do you think? Is the president starting to see the limits of his charm?

Obama the Bold Politico's Roger Simon breaks ranks with the punditry class and says that Obama's trip to Copenhagen was a smart move and he hopes to see more bold action from Obama.

While I agree that it's time for the president to be bolder, I still think Copenhagen was a mistake. It made the president look ineffective at a time when he desperately needs to look like the guy in charge. He's not necessarily on top of his game right now and flying off to Copenhagen only for Chicago to lose just didn't help.

Gail Collins hit the nail on the head last Saturday:

What if Obama goes to Denmark and Chicago loses anyway? Let's hope the White House has been guaranteed that the fix is in. If you're going to waste the administrative momentum on a big gamble, it really ought to be to slow global warming or to reform Wall Street, not to make sure the 2016 triathlon champion wins his medal in Illinois.

Europe, finally getting it together? The genius Anne Appelbaum breaks down what the Irish "yes" vote on the Lisbon Treaty means. Among many things, the treaty would create a president of the European Union and open the door for a common EU foreign policy. The question is who will emerge as the leaders to shape such a policy:

Here, then, is how to evaluate the Lisbon Treaty: If there really is a coalition of the willing in favor of a common European policy, then it will support the selection of forceful and opinionated leaders. Europe will then have, in Henry Kissinger's immortal phrasing, a phone number to call when America (or Russia, or China) wants to talk. And if there is no such coalition? Then you won't hear much about the president or the foreign minister of Europe again, so it doesn't really matter.

My experience with the European Union is that anytime they look like they are on the brink of a major achievement, everything usually falls apart and nothing gets done.

Maybe this time will be different. But I wouldn't bet the farm.

Rod made a great point last week about downtown - many of the people who want to live there can't afford to.

Certainly luxury condos make a great addition to downtown. But we also need to attract young folks and creative artsy types. For an urban area to take off, it's got to have a bohemian element. You can't force cool. Nor can you engineer it. But we keep on trying.

Reminds me of columnist Molly Ivins, who once complained of our city, "There's Dallas trying too hard too hard."

Well, if we want the quality of urban life in Big D to improve, we need to take a chill pill.

Several readers have written curious about health care in Europe, especially Switzerland.

Well, The International Herald Tribune has a great piece out today explaining the Swiss health care model.

I perked up when I read this quote:

"Switzerland's health care system is different from virtually every other country in the world," said Regina Herzlinger, a Harvard Business School professor who has studied the Swiss approach extensively.

"What I like about it is that it's got universal coverage, it's customer driven, and there are no intermediaries shopping on people's behalf," she added. "And there's no waiting lists or rationing."

Sounds good to me. Maybe the Swiss are on to something.

Throughout this whole heath care debate folks have been hootin' and hollerin' that they don't want European-style socialized medicine. But how many of those critics actually understand the health care systems here?

Of course, European nations face their own health care challenges - Germany's rapidly aging population could cause the German system to go bust.

But it never hurts to look around and see what others are doing. We don't have to copy the Swiss system or any other European system. Let's just see what we can learn from them.

Did you hear about al-Qaeda's new bombing technique? CBS News has a frightening report about a suicide bomber in Saudi Arabia who had an explosive inserted into his rectum. The so-called "trojan bomber" targeted a Saudi prince and made it past several layers of tight security.

Abdullah Asieri, one of Saudi Arabia's most wanted men, avoided detection by two sets of airport security including metal detectors and palace security. He spent 30 hours in the close company of the prince's own secret service agents - all without anyone suspecting a thing.

Scary stuff.

Aviation safety experts are especially worried. Apparently there is no way to detect an explosive hidden inside a person.

Having lived in Washington for several years, I'd gotten used to keeping calm in the face of terror threats. Bomb threats, tight security, annoying road blocks, etc are just a part of daily life in DC.

But as I watch Germany go into lockdown mode after repeated terror threats, it's hard to ignore the danger - the talk of the town here in Munich is about all the new security at "fortress Oktoberfest."

While extra security may look good, with this new al-Qaeda technique, it appears that terrorists are able to slip past nearly all security measures we can put in place.

I have to admit that as I planned an upcoming trip to Frankfurt via high-speed rail, I was a bit uneasy - the al-Qaeda videos have singled out both Frankfurt and the rail network as targets. But in the end, I went ahead and booked the trip.

For people who live and work in downtown Dallas, how do you feel after the attempt to blow up Fountain Place? Have you changed your daily routine?

My guess is no.

Because no matter how real or scary the threat may be, there's not really much you can do.

As one Oktoberfest visitor told the Munich Abendzeitung, "There can be an attack anywhere. To go crazy over it won't help."

I'm slow to jump on criticize-the-president bandwagons. Especially new presidents. I like to watch them and see what they bring to the game before I start screaming at them.

But I'm starting to get a little restless in the stands as I wait for Obama to step up to the plate.

Full disclosure: I voted for Obama. (For the record, I also voted for Bush.)

And I was cautiously optimistic about what he would do as president. However, I'm still waiting to see what he's going to be like as commander in chief. The guy seems stuck in campaign mode.

He already got my vote. Now, I'd like him to lead.

Yikes! Things are getting a bit scary.

Last week we learned about the terror plot to blow up Fountain Place. And then there are continuous al-Qaeda threats targeting Germany directly. German police arrested two terror suspects here in Munich today.

I'm starting to think the terrorists may be targeting me specifically. First they plot try to take down a building I go by all the time when in Dallas. And now they threaten Oktoberfest, which is a stone's throw from where I live.

The recent plots and thwarted attacks have made me face that Afghanistan - former home to the Taliban and al-Qaeda - really is a topic that has a direct impact on our daily lives.

Good morning, Dallas!

As you sit at the office waiting for the clock to hit 5 (Ok, let's be honest. It's Friday, you hope to be gone by 4, at the latest.), here's some reading to keep you entertained:

Obama, Media Critic-in-Chief? - Politico's Jonathan Martin looks at Obama's apparent frustration with cable news. The President continues to throw barbs at cable outlets. And not just Fox it seems.

Obama recently told Brian Williams that cable news reminded him of WWF wrestling. On that point, I agree.

But George Washington University Professor and former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank Sesno says tough luck:

Are you all fired up for the big vote this Sunday? Who are you pulling for?

Of course I'm talking about Germany's up-coming elections.

Wait, what?! You didn't even know Germany was headed to the polls?!

Well, actually don't feel too bad. The Germans don't care either. As Roger Cohen points out in today's International Herald Tribune, Germany is yawning as it heads into the final stretch of the election.

I experienced this firsthand yesterday, when I went to a political rally here in Munich. Out of a sense of journalistic duty, I tried my best to stay for the entire thing. But after 45 minutes, I had to leave out of fear I might die of boredom.

This week's New York magazine asks, "Why do people say such ugly things about Obama?"

It's a good question. One I'm still not sure I know the answer to.

Some folks say it's racism. Maureen Dowd threw out one of the first such accusations when she blasted now-famous Joe Wilson for being a racist.

Maureen went after Wilson, writing:

The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina's state Capitol and denounced as a "smear" the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the '48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.

She then throws a final punch:

Some people just can't believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

But David Brooks sees it differently.