Unqualified Offerings

Logan and Preble journey to the belly of the beast to make the case that the best way to deal with Iran is to – deal with Iran:
Although the Bush administration believes the Iranians are not negotiating in good faith, there is a straightforward way to find out: offer them a grand bargain that gives [...]

Too late, Leon Hadar tries to get in on the metablogging phenomenon.

AC Kleinheider talks about the lifestyle changes expensive gasoline could compel. From a liberal perspective, relatively cheap gas means increased labor mobility. This should be good for worker earnings, though I suppose the other side of high labor mobility is that more workers can compete for a given opening, which should tend to suppress rather [...]

In the course of an otherwise reasonable post, James Joyner writes that “[Al Qaeda and other asymmetric warriors] can’t beat a superior foe militarily but they can break their hostile will.” It’s important to recognize where this popular nostrum goes wrong.
First, the focus on will ignores an essential symmetry often present in asymmetric warfare: The [...]

Jaw-droppingly mendacious e-mail from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committeee hit my in-box this morning. Eager to accrue electoral advantage from high gas prices, the DSCC is slamming the Republicans for being soft on price-gouging.
Broadly speaking, we’ve “enjoyed” ever-higher gas prices under the Bush Administration for a combination of reasons:
1. World demand is rising.
2. Immediate supply [...]

Clark Stooksbury links to the dumbest blog item of all time, from a Republican-leaning blog calling itself Power Line. What we have is a translated memo, purportedly from the Iraqi intelligence archives, recounting the work of “chemists” connected with the military.
1. Prepare an armored brief case to protect the VIPs 180 days.
2. Study on the [...]

The Zimbabwean government wants to lease back the land it it took from you in the first place. Going by the application figures in the article, the triumph of hope over experience stands at 5%. (200 farmers out of 4000 have applied.)
There’s no question that the ownership of those farms itself stemmed from a violent, [...]

Tim Cavanaugh writes about Intoonfada-related self-censorship.
. . . I’ll move on and say that this admission just makes you guilty of something else: assuming, without evidence, that American Muslims would react with violence to seeing the cartoons published in a stateside publication. A handful of papers did show the cartoons, and there wasn’t a [...]

Comes from Tim Cavanaugh:
Is podcast-quality local TV news going to be much worse than local TV news has always been?
It seems unlikely that it could. When it comes to cheerleading for the Nanny Statery I still despise, nothing beats the alarmism of local TV news. If civilization does crumble, it’ll be on their lacquered, cavernous [...]

May I just say that this is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve read in, well, days, but I read a lot of stupid fucking things. I cover American foreign policy after all. See also.