Category: News

Foreign Affairs. A pillar of globalization is the ability of the US to export security. This relies on US legitimacy. Without legitimacy, US troops will find stiff opposition everywhere they go. Tucker and Hendrickson make the case that the US has lost the legitimacy necessary to function as the protector of globalization. [John Robb's Weblog]

Juan Cole translates some news from the Ash-Sharq al-Awsat on how insurgents are targeting political figures. The most interesting item concerns a potential global guerrilla start-up focused on the assassination of political figures: Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports the kidnapping of a female member of the governing council of Salahuddin and assassination attempts on two members of… Continue reading Juan Cole

Health Care Technology Is a Promise Unfinanced. While the Bush administration's words of support for a high-technology future for health care have been plentiful, the dollars, it seems, are scarce. By STEVE LOHR. [NYT > Technology]

Job Growth Is Well Below Wall Street Forecasts. The economy added 112,000 payroll jobs in November, the Labor Dept. reported today, far fewer than the month before. By EDMUND L. ANDREWS. [NYT > Home Page]

How a Struggling Colony Became an Economic Colossus. John Steele Gordon presents the essential ideas and innovations that have propelled the American economy since its earliest days. By WILLIAM GRIMES. [NYT > Books]

Sensible Security from New Zealand. I like the way this guy thinks about security as a trade-off: In the week United States-led forces invaded Iraq, the service was receiving a hoax bomb call every two or three hours, but not one aircraft was delayed. Security experts decided the cost of halting flights far outweighed the… Continue reading Sensible Security from New Zealand

I think Andrew…. I think Andrew Sullivan is just right in his run-down of what is now emerging about the system of secrecy, torture and extra-constitutional power the Bush administration has set up at Gitmo and other far-flung undisclosed locations around the world. Like Andrew (at least I suspect this is so, though he can… Continue reading I think Andrew…

Heat wave risk rising with emissions. For the first time, a study ties human-influenced global warming to the likelihood of extreme summers. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

North American birds on the decline. Nearly a third of native bird species – even common ones – are seeing striking losses, says survey. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

Voting errors tallied nationwide. More than 4,000 votes vanished without a trace into a computer's overloaded memory in one North Carolina county, and about a hundred paper ballots were thrown out by mistake in another. In Texas, a county needed help from a laboratory in Canada to unlock the memory of a touch-screen machine and… Continue reading Voting errors tallied nationwide