As it's nearly 5.30am and the lovely Kula hasn't yet posted Morning Reaction, I'm going to guess that she's taking a day off, probably packing for her pending return to the U.S. But so we in the Kula Krew have somewhere to gather, I'll post the Kossaku as a Morning Feature.
More below the fold....
First, the Kossaku. For those who haven't played Kossaku before, the rules are explained below:
CORRECTION: Though I've changed the image three times, somehow the image keeps presenting the following error: "3. The SECOND FIRST letters of the codes in the shaded center column spell out the answer to today's Kossaku." The answer is in the FIRST letters this week, not the second.
You'll need capture and print the puzzle image. Experienced Kossakists say its easier to solve if you magnify the image for printing, so you have room for notes in the blocks. The main part of the puzzle works exactly like Sudoku, except it uses two-letter codes (all but one of today's codes are state postal abbreviations) rather than the digits 1-9. Each two-letter code corresponds to one of the rhyming clues in the upper right. Once you've solved the main part of the puzzle, the first letters of the codes in the shaded center column spell out the answer to the main clue below.
As always, please don't respond with the solution or hints, in fairness to those who may come along later and want to solve it themselves. I'll post the solved puzzle in tomorrow's Morning Reaction or, if Kula doesn't post that, another Morning Feature.
Did you watch Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearings yesterday? I did, and I must say I was impressed. I love the Obama Administrations foreign policy slogan: Smart Power. It avoids the wishy-washy connotations the right wing usually paint on the term "soft power," the international relations term-of-art for diplomatic, economic, and other non-military instruments of statecraft.
While the media focused mostly on David Vitter's ironic ethics challenge of Clinton's conflict of interest - owing to her husband's charitable foundation - to me the most telling exchange came from another Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, ranking member Richard Lugar. After a passing mention of the foundation issue, Lugar turned to the issue of weapons proliferation. With a hint of disgust in his voice, Lugar summed up the Bush policy as "Arms proliferation treaties are useless. Good countries don't need them, and bad countries won't keep them." He then asked if the Obama Administration would "get serious" about proliferation treaties. She of course answered that they would.
Lugar's description of the Bush policy on proliferation treaties pretty much sums up the Bush approach to the rule of law: "Why bother having laws? Good people don't need them and bad people won't keep them." If you're convinced you're one of the "good people," then anything you do is a priori lawful.
It was, as I said, the highlight for me. What was yours?