Via comments at Our Word, Rob makes this excellent point. It’s always struck me as a serious tactical mistake for those on the left to argue against laissez-faire on the grounds that it deprives people of economic security, because this hands a powerful rhetoric of liberty to the right, who basically only care about it…
Read More The freedom to get crushed by a crane jibFailed states and warzones, like Iraq, create a plume of violence downwind of them, like burning oilwells. Iraqslogger: Sulaimaniyah, Feb 17, (VOI)- Iraq’s Kurdistan region border guards arrested on Saturday two persons while trying to smuggle arms to Iran, an official at Sulaimaniyah border guards department said. “The border guards arrested today two persons trying…
Read More Wrong Way – Go BackBBC News: UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the operation to hand over frontline security in Basra to Iraqi troops had been “completed” and been “successful”. Asked about reports he would announce within weeks an effective halving of UK troop numbers in Iraq, he told the BBC’s Sunday AM: “Let’s wait and see.” He…
Read More Posted without commentSimulated Laughter reads an al-Qa’ida document and asks if the terrorist disorganisation is moving to a new phase of “lone wolf” individualised terrorism. They argue that this would be a very bad thing. I disagree. I suspect the core of the disagreement is probably a cognitive framework issue. Laughter argues that the worst acts of…
Read More A man alone ain’t..Remember this post? It looks to me like they cut back their activities over Christmas, whilst it was on the table. But now, with this explicitly rejected, and the talk of “the 80 per cent solution” and such..well, all that keeps it from being a betrayal is that there was no explicit offer, at least…
Read More Surging insurgents