A plan to build an Islamic center on downtown New York City has brought out the worst in some of our elected officials here in the United States. TPM gives a good rundown of the patently bigoted and racist statements made by public officials in the United States, from Sarah Palin's admonition that Muslims "refudiate" the mosque to Newt Gingrich's ultimatum that, "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in S
A very refreshing hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Haiti just concluded. Paul Farmer who is Bill Clinton’s Deputy UN Special Representative on Haiti, RAND’s Jim Dobbins (a UN Dispatch favorite), and Rony Francois, the incoming director of public health for the state of Georgia testified on what is needed for Haiti's long term recovery.