Stop us if you've heard this one before... According to Page Six The Magazine, some Manhattan parents are so desperate to give their children a leg-up on their peers, they're sending them to Mandarin classes! (And Hindi! And French! And German!)

Page Six's Jennifer Rose quotes a parent named Brett Hauser, who pays $395 for his 6-month-old son to take 10 sessions at The Language Workshop for Children saying, "Mandarin is the language of our future. With China poised to become the world's leading economy sometime this century, I'm doing the only responsible thing. It's like reading to your kid or making sure he gets all the right foods. I'm helping him prepare for his future. Thirty years from now these kids are going to be translating for all of us."

The magazine calls this phenomenon "NYC's New Baby Talkers."

Talkers, yes; new, no.  read more »

Nuri al-Maliki was once dismissed as a powerless politician with a fleeting grip on his office. Now, though, the Iraqi prime minister is apparently strong enough to change the fundamental terms of the war debate in the U.S. presidential election in a way that dramatically improves Barack Obama’s standing on the issue.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Maliki began hinting publicly that he’d favor some kind of timeline for the departure of American troops in Iraq. Then last weekend he went further – much further – telling Der Spiegel that he wanted the Americans out “as soon as possible” and that Obama’s call for a 16-month phased redeployment of U.  read more »