Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Century Of Screwing Up Iraq

The Dish

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Scott Anderson traces the origins of the present crisis in Iraq back to World War I:

For nearly 400 years prior to World War I, the lands of Iraq existed as three distinct semi-autonomous provinces, or vilayets, within the Ottoman Empire. In each of these vilayets, one of the three religious or ethnic groups that predominated in the region – Shiite, Sunni and Kurd – held sway, with the veneer of Ottoman rule resting atop a complex network of local clan and tribal alliances. This delicate system was undone by the West, and for an all-too-predictable reason: oil.

In order to raise an Arab revolt against the Ottomans, who had joined with Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I, Great Britain forged a wartime alliance with Emir Hussein of the Hejaz region of Arabia, now the western edge of Saudi Arabia bordered by the Red Sea. The 1915 pact…

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Tea party official charged in photos of US senator’s wife found dead; police suspect suicide

Police in Mississippi say an official in the conservative tea party movement arrested after photos were taken of U.S. Sen Thad Cochran’s ill wife has been found dead. They are treating the case as a suicide.

Police say the body of attorney Mark Mayfield was found Friday morning at his home in a gated community outside Jackson.

Authorities say Mayfield had been shot, and a suicide note was found.

via Tea party official charged in photos of US senator’s wife found dead; police suspect suicide.

June Bugs

Steve A. Wiggins

On my way to work yesterday, I came upon an overturned June bug clawing at the air, trying to regain its feet.  I’m always in a hurry getting to or from work, but I decided to stop, offering the insect a leaf to grip, and turning it back over.  I knew, as I spied birds flying overhead, that its chances weren’t good.  In the course of nature, insects are radically overproduced because so many get eaten.  In my apartment they can even be a source of sudden terror when they find their way inside.  I knew the June bug was probably nearing the end of its short time on the earth, but as I held out that leaf to it, I knew that in the act of struggling we were one.  That sounds terribly Buddhist of me, I know.  Insects and humans share, on the most basic level, the desire…

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How Big A Problem Is Student Debt?

Everyone misses point that typical student who goes to a for-profit business school racks up 30-40 for an associate of arts degree that few employers and 4 year universities think is worth $1.00. Over a trillion dollars is a lot of debt, no matter how you parse it!

The Dish

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Leonhardt believes the problem is overblown:

In fact, the share of income that young adults are devoting to loan repayment has remained fairly steady over the last two decades, according to data the Brookings Institutions is releasing on Tuesday. Only 7 percent of young-adult households with education debt have $50,000 or more of it. By contrast, 58 percent of such households have less than $10,000 in debt, and an additional 18 percent have between $10,000 and $20,000. “We are certainly not arguing that the state of the American economy and the higher education system is just great,” Matthew Chingos, a Brookings fellow and one of the authors of the new analysis, told me. “But we do think that the data undermine the prevailing sky-is-falling-type narrative around student debt.”

Choire Sicha tears into Leonhardt:

All this data comes from the Survey of Consumer Finances, which is conducted by the…

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WHO DON on 113 Previously Unreported KSA MERS Cases, Visualized

Mens et Manus

The WHO released a DON shedding a little bit of light on the 113 previously unreported KSA MERS cases this morning. Though we still don’t have access to case-by-case data, it’s much better than nothing!

One VERY important detail – apparently, only 34 of the 113 previously unreported KSA MERS cases ended in death… But when the 113 cases were first announced a few weeks ago, 92 previously unreported deaths were announced as well. What this means is that there are 58 deaths that remain unaccounted – and that they most likely occurred in cases that were previously reported. Unfortunately, that leaves us with a really significant margin of error when it comes to comparing pre/post-outbreak case-fatality… And throws the simulations I posted a while back out the window. Thankfully, I’m working with David Fisman, Caitlin Rivers, Ashleigh Tuite, & Eric Lofgren on a study right…

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Boehner Pulls A Bachmann

The Dish

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is going to sue Obama over his executive orders:

While Boehner has yet to announce the details of the forthcoming lawsuit, House Republicans have strongly opposed numerous unilateral decisions made by the Obama Administration, including halting deportations of immigrants who were brought to the country as children, postponing provisions of the Affordable Care Act and raising the minimum wage for federal contractors. In a letter to House members Wednesday, Boehner said he intends to bring legislation to the floor in July to “compel” Obama to follow his oath of office.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest didn’t say whether Obama and Boehner had discussed the lawsuit when the Speaker was at the White House Tuesday, and he criticized House Republicans for taking their opposition of the President into “a gear that I didn’t know previously existed.”

Never underestimate the cynicism of today’s GOP…

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The “Simplification” Of The Issues

“What Osma bin Laden wanted, it seems to me, was to bait the West into a direct fight on Muslim soil. That immediately elevated the cause of jihad, internationalized it, galvanized a generation of religious fanatics, and, even better for the radicals, broke a country in the heart of the Middle East so that sectarian violence could be exploited for further radicalization. Obama’s great achievement has been to steer the US, so far as possible, away from taking that poisoned bait. Cheney’s achievement was to fall for it, hook, line and sinker. I say this as someone who also took the bait – with good intentions and in good faith, but blinded by trauma and ignorance. The choice we face is really between those two long-term strategies for surviving the Islamist wave. I favor Obama’s. I favor the future over the past.”

The Dish

Refugees Fleeing ISIS Offensive Pour Into Kurdistan

Every now and then, a blast of cold sanity greets the world. At least that was my reaction reading Tom Ricks respond to the idea that if Obama had somehow been able to leave 10,000 troops in Iraq, all would now be well. Au contraire:

That’s nonsense. If we had the force there, what we’d be doing now is facing this question: Do we retreat ignominiously and get the troops out of the country, or do we use them in a wayor do we find ourselves forced to use themin a way we don’t want to, supporting Maliki without reservation? Or do they just sit there inside their camp gates and everybody mocks the Americans for doing nothing? So I think by not having troops on the ground there it greatly simplified the issues for the United States and actually gave the United States more…

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