Foreign Affairs

These could either be great names for coffee, or great band names, I haven’t decided which. From the BBC explainer on oil markets. Saudi Arabia’s Arab Light The United Arab Emirates’s Dubai Nigeria’s Bonny Light Algeria’s Saharan Blend Indonesia’s Minas Venezuela’s Tia Juana Light and Mexico’s Isthmus.

Via Brad DeLong, via Think Progress, via Associated Press : George W. Bush, 10/29/04: Unfortunately Ð unfortunately, my opponent, tonight, continued to say things he knows are not true Ð accusing our military of passing up a chance to get Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora. As the Commander in charge of that operation, Tommy Franks had said, itÕs simply not the case. ItÕs the worst kind of Monday morning quarterbacking. It is especially shameful in the light of a…

LA Times Commentary: It’s part of a global problem: About 400 million people speak English as their first language, an additional 700 million or so use it as a second language and a billion people more are struggling to learn how to speak it. Meanwhile, other languages are disappearing at the rate of two per month. There are about 6,800 languages in the world, but the expert consensus is that 400 of them will soon be extinct. Why care? “When…

NYT: Indeed, on the square it was possible to find veiled Sunni Muslim women from Tripoli, Shiites from scattered points around the country, Druse and Maronite Christians. There was a distinctly different dress code among the demonstrators as well, with some women sporting bare midriffs and pierced belly buttons. A few of the banners cemented the theme of unity by displaying both a cross and a crescent. Some of the banners displayed a bit of wit: “Long Live the Syrians…

Best story on Iraqi elections I’ve seen so far. LA Times: Since U.S. polling places in five states were announced this month, these fervent fans of democracy have become Seattle’s hometown heroes. More than 100 already have driven to Irvine once to register for Iraq’s out-of-country voting. By the time they return to Seattle, they will have logged nearly 4,800 miles in the pursuit of democracy. The co-founder of Seattle’s Iraqi Community Center, Qatrani spent days trying to persuade election…

I’m usually the first to have zero fashion sense and one who favors comfort over style and I generally don’t care about what I, or other people wear. But I will say, that this piece in the WashPost says a lot about our attitude towards the world. The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower. Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing…

Via MeFi: Springdale, Arkansas is now home to the largest population of Marshallese outside of the Marshall Islands. …They all spoke so highly of Springdale and how great it is to work the overnight shift in a chicken factory in the Ozarks. What a strange irony that everyone I knew in Arkansas considered paradise to be on South Pacific islands, with no schedule and great fishing.

Go watch this interesting interview with Salam Pax. And I’m proud that Sen. Boxer is one of my senators: Well, Mr. Chairman, again I thank you. I am — Dr. Rice, I was glad you mentioned Martin Luther King — it was very appropriate, given everything. And he also said, Martin Luther King, quote, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.” And one of the things that matters most to my people…

WashPost: The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley. In interviews, officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas. Four months after Charles A.…

So I was on the plane from OAK to DFW (Dallas/Ft. Worth), en route to LGA (LaGuardia) and one of the flight attendants (female) was talking with these two women sitting across the aisle from me, and they were all fawning over this mid 20-something guy who was in the Army, and was headed back to Afghanistan after 15 days of R&R. They seemed to treat him like he was some sort of celebrity or something — I mean, sure,…