Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, 9.35 am.
Blogstock
Venezuela’s answer to the YearlyKos convention. One blogger explains why the Internet and Venezuelan politics seem to be a good match:
While the outside World thinks that Venezuela is heading for a “stranger” and “extreme” form of socialism never seen before, many people here don’t take things so seriously. The best virtue of a Venezuelan (also his worst defect) is that the people are happy here. Fewer people on the earth live as contentedly as those born in Simón Bolívar’s homeland. Maybe it’s the petroleum, the incredibly beautiful women (more than statistics), beer or rum, that helps make life incredibly more “relaxed” than in other countries. Even with the dizzying politics that currently has us trapped, we look for ways to continue to live, laugh, enjoy and party. And here as in other places, there are people who are more or less responsible for their actions. This uninhibited country has something that is difficult to copy and even less, explain.
Blog on.
A Portable One-Muslim Mosque
It’s the creation of one Azra Aksamija, who says it’s an art work designed to be humorous rather than funny.
A Majority Supports An Iran Strike
That was Zogby’s finding. It has rendered one blogger "speechless."
Defending Phelps
Sometimes, you have to defend free speech even if it also means defending "an asshole of metaphysically transcendent proportion."
Running Against Hippies
McCain goes back to Woodstock to battle Clinton. He has a small point about pork-barrel spending. But do we really have to re-fight the 1960s every four years?
Different Strokes
Greg Djerejian notices a discrepancy:
"[It was] getting harder and harder to get on that airplane…I want to live in the same city as my husband," – Karen Hughes, explaining her resignation.
"It’s one thing if someone believes in what’s going on over there and volunteers, but it’s another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment…I’m sorry, but basically that’s a potential death sentence, and you know it," – a foreign service officer at the State Dept Town Hall meeting on Baghdad assignments.
The Atmosphere Of Coffee
Starbucks’ real secret of success: it’s not the coffee itself; it’s the coffee-ambience they create.
Cheeky, Cheeky
Bored at work? This guy has the idea:
Leave The Grunts Behind
Intel-Dump comments on that simultaneously depressing and hilarious video of US soldiers trying to train Iraqis to do jumping jacks:
For me, this reinforces why classic Foreign Internal Defense ("FID") missions focus on the elite units in a foreign country’s security forces. It’s just too hard to reform all of the educational, economic, civic and societal systems necessary to raise the lowest common denominator for general purpose forces or conscripts in a 3rd World country. It takes years to make meaningful improvements in these areas, and doing so is far beyond the capabilities of any advisory strategy. At best, maybe you can raise the bar for a few elite units through training, equipping and advising, and only if you field good advisers with the right resources and strategy.
