Excellent column by Fareed Zakaria on how the situation in Iraq might be salvaged. Especially interesting is the parallel he creates between the existing militias in Afghanistan and the ones in Iraq. He makes a compelling case that it’s a poor policy.
We can only pray that the persistent stubbornness of the officials in charge of this debacle will be broken, before it’s too late.
Self-serving Gasoline Complaints
Good column on the current debate over what to do about the high price of gasoline in the US. Not only does he talk about the failure of both major parties to do anything about raising miles-per-gallon standards, he skewers the argument that drilling in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Some news and commentary on the topic these days points to refinery capacity or the switch to “summer blend” fuel as one cause of price increases. Easterbrook doesn’t touch on that, or the patchwork or state laws governing what additives can be put into gasoline. But the miles-per-gallon issue is the most important.
April Fools’ Day column by Gregg Easterbrook.
Excellent column on the unintended consequences of armed intervention, even with the best intentions. There is much irony in the author’s ability to use France under Napoleon as a historical example of the successes and failures of invasion to promote “universal” ideals.
O’Reilly, O’Franken, oh no! | csmonitor.com
A thoughtful piece that talks about the downsides of “opinion journalism”.
Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind
This story from MSNBC indicates that the White House passed up three opportunities to kill the man they’re currently blaming for a lot of the bombings happening in Iraq. I haven’t seen this story anywhere else. If it’s true, that’s very disturbing.
Article by Clay Shirky on possible outcomes in the voice-over IP market. He includes a service I’d been completely unaware of named Skype that is offering free peer-to-peer voice communication.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I’m not a Howard Stern fan. But if he didn’t break the law or violate his contract, I’m not sure how they can get away with this. Beyond all that, it seems hypocritical to me for Howard Stern to be suspended for a particular remark. Part of his act is skirting the thin line between taste and trash. The Clear Channel stations that carry him have high ratings (and probably a lot of ad revenue) as a result. But I guess there’s a lot more hypocrisy going around after the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl.
This can’t be good news. Even with the expanded powers they’ve received due to the Patriot Act, the government isn’t playing by its own rules. Also troubling is the “investigate and smear all our critics” tactic being employed against a federal employee. I wonder if this is just the tip of a very large iceberg.
Financial Times scoop on a secret report indicating fears of Iraq dividing into multiple regions (most likely a Kurdish north, Shia south, and Sunni center). So in addition to not finding nukes, biological weapons, or chemical weapons, and creating a convenient target for anti-American sentiment with the troop presence, the occupation could spark a civil war. I don’t think we need any other information to say conclusively that going into Iraq was a really bad idea.