I have been largely absent from the blogosphere over the last week or so, and will remain so for the next week or so, as my energy is split evenly between moving hassles and getting lost on campus at my new institutional home … but I couldn’t resist this one.

I was just reading the Google News headlines to feel like I still had a pulse while I haul boxes and yell at builders, and I found this gem … “Obama Optimistic About Mideast Peace”.

This is about the least intelligent article I’ve read in a long time (which might just mean that I don’t read enough news). Among the highlights is that Obama acknowledges that the Middle East Peace Process is in a “rut” (one that’s lasted sixty years, huh?) and if the US could get the “two parties” to “sit together” then it could help (in some undefined way).

News articles like this kind of make me wonder why we do all the work we do analyzing intractable conflicts, dealing with intricate dimensions of complicated international issues, etc. Then I lift another moving box and yearn to be reabsorbed in the futility of my research.