Commentary on the Obama Osama ad, Airbus side stick design fault, Conrad’s coming home, South African worries, France’s silent economic decline, why the Germans stopped hating Jews, and how to fix the lack of powerful women in Canada.

He said, he said.

New Yorker -- Romney Walks into Obama’s Bin Laden Trap
The Obama campaign chose to release its controversial attack “ad” about the killing of Osama bin Laden last Friday—a day when the news cycle would otherwise have been dominated by negative economic tidings: the Commerce Department’s announcement that G.D.P. growth in the first quarter slowed to close to two per cent.

More than just pilot error.

Telegraph -- Air France Flight 447: 'Damn it, we’re going to crash’
With the report into the tragedy of Air France 447 due next month, Airbus’s 'brilliant’ aircraft design may have contributed to one of the world’s worst aviation disasters and the deaths of all 228 onboard.

How does Conrad’s return stack up to say a Lindsay Lohan hopeful visit? Thanks to Robin of Victoria.

National Post -- Think Conrad Black received special treatment? Lindsay Lohan begs to differ
Two words for anyone who thinks Conrad Black shouldn’t be let back into Canada: Lindsay Lohan.

Things could get nasty in South Africa.

New York Review of Books -- A New Crisis in South Africa
The Freedom Park housing settlement sprawls across a barren, windswept plain on the outskirts of Rustenburg, South Africa, about one hundred miles northwest of Johannesburg.

Nothing said.

Economist -- Electoral silence on France's slow economic decline
France's economy has weathered the global crisis of the last five years deceptively well, shielded by a Leviathan state and the postponement of hard choices.

How to change behavior.

voxeu -- Hatred transformed: How Germans changed their minds about Jews, 1890-2006
The persecution of Jews during WWII is one of the darkest and most puzzling chapters of recent history. This column asks how economics can help our understanding, particularly of how people’s attitudes to Jews have changed over time. It argues that ‘cultural economics’ shows that there is more to understanding how people behave than looking at their incentives.

Making Canada more representative.

Open Canada -- Fixing Canada First
Foreign Minister John Baird has made the protection and advancement of women’s rights “a key pillar of Canada’s foreign policy.”