But some boring centrist isn't necessarily the cleverest move for a Machiavelli-like Obama to make. Lee Epstein, a law professor and expert on judges, told Emily Bazelon of the New York Times Magazine, that one good strategy for Obama might be to focus less on middle-of-the-road picks and instead find someone exciting that Democrats can "really whip up support for".
Islamic State relies less on middle-men and more on direct communication through social media.
The shale-gas bonanza would make America less dependent on Middle Eastern oil and, in turn, bound less tightly to its oil-rich allies in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Gulf.
President Bush and the Democrats who control the Senate say one of their top priorities, given the threat of terrorism, is to make the nation less reliant on Middle Eastern oil.
Tupper Hall, a spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, said in a telephone interview that the debate in Santa Barbara was emblematic of a national mood swing prompted in part by a desire to be less dependent on Middle Eastern oil.
They say ethanol has made America less reliant on Middle Eastern oil, saved consumers up to $1 a gallon at the pump and spared the air from vast clouds of harmful carbon emissions.
As America becomes less reliant on Middle Eastern oil, thanks to its shale revolution, will China help to protect the sea lanes across the Indian and Pacific oceans for everyone's benefit Next in our special report on the Pacific Age: North American energy: Oil and water (6/9).
Some talk-show commentators and op-ed page writers may be connecting the dots between oil and terrorism, but few people in this area seem to have heard the idea -- and fewer still believe -- that individual Americans, by buying more fuel-efficient vehicles, can make the United States less dependent on Middle Eastern countries and others that so many of them now rage against.
Prospect cottage sits more or less on the middle.
The assumptions that those on less than middle incomes just don't care, can't be bothered, aren't interested in better food anymore, or the health of farm animals, or our environment, are hideously patronising and fundamentally flawed.
The erosion was quite location sensitive and less on the upper middle surface of a tile on outer target of upper divertor (OT1) than on other tiles.
