Unqualified Offerings

Thanks to Jim for inviting me back! There was an interesting opinion piece in the latest Physics Today (no subscription required) by Helen Quinn, a theoretical particle physicist at Stanford and leader in the American Physical Society. She argues that a big part of the reason why the public doesn’t understand scientific thinking [...]

As the US adds a brigade here and a brigade there, the Brits will be subtracting a couple. Should the US actually pursue the Mahdi Army(ies) in earnest, the combination of troop movements means Shiite militias will now get to participate in the Whack-a-Mole school of insurgent warfare.
UPDATE: In comments downblog, Fester has already suggested [...]

Jennifer:
Criticizing Bush for the fact that our Iraq adventure is going badly is like criticizing a bad job building a highway to the moon.
She adds, “When I criticize the way things are going I’m not saying that I could do a better job building the Los Angeles/Sea of Tranquility expressway; it’s just that I know [...]

Michael Young has a much better post-dribble-speech column than I’d have expected. He even makes the crucial point:
The absence of an answer points to a recurring flaw of U.S. policy in Iraq: American plans are chiefly designed to influence the mood on the home front, with relatively little allusion to Iraqi priorities–even if it has [...]