Who’s next: Iran, or Syria? Christopher Dickey of Newsweek makes the following interesting argument: A COUNTDOWN has started for war between the United States and Iran. It’s quiet but persistent right now, like the ticking of a Swatch. Soon enough though, alarms will start ringing. He builds a reasonably good argument. But all of the […]

Grants v. Loans for Iraq For at least two distinct reasons, this is an interesting development: Defying weeks of intense White House lobbying, a narrowly divided Senate voted last night to convert half of President Bush’s $20.3 billion Iraq rebuilding plan into a loan that would be forgiven if other donor nations write off the […]

Low Point in a Long Distinguished Career Unfortunately, I missed Wednesday’s 60 Minutes II piece featuring former Iraqi WMD expert Greg Thielmann (his last position was as the State Department’s director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs). CBS now has a transcript or perhaps a report compiled from the segment, and it […]

Food For Clark Fans Mark Kleiman’s got a bunch in this post with highlights from Gen. Clark’s recently released military records. Here’s a taste: Everyone knows that the army has carried grade inflation to a point only dreamed of in the university, and that Hollywood has its press agents study efficiency ratings to learn hyperbole. […]

Widespread Fantasy Update II On Monday, I took issue with Michael Kinsley’s silly statement that liberals widely believe that Colin Powell will resign and turn on the administration (Kinsley wants you to see that liberals who place faith in any general(s) are misguided). I also asked for just one person who believed this to stand […]

The Three-Way Currency Contest The Economist’s Buttonwood column (subscription required) poses an interesting dilemma: the managers of each of the three largest currencies in the world – the dollar, yen, and euro – would like their currency to depreciate. Yet it is impossible for all three to simultaneously depreciate against the others. I’ve previously written […]

Secretary Snow Answers My Question #2 CBS Marketwatch was kind enough to try to get an answer to question #2 from the seven in my “California Questions” post that followed Arnie’s coup in CA. They went right to the top (almost), and asked Treasury Secretary John Snow. NEW YORK (CBS.MW) — If Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger […]

CPI Shows Continued Disinflation The BLS released its monthly report on consumer prices this morning. The core rate (excluding food and energy prices) rose .1% in September, bringing the annual rate of core consumer price inflation down to 1.25% over the past year. So the trend of declining inflation, called “disinflation,” continues, as I suggested […]

Widespread Fantasy Update The title of this post is much more exciting than the content. Yesterday, I initiated my search for just one liberal reader of Angry Bear who believes that Colin Powell will resign as Secretary of State and turn against the administration. Michael Kinsley, you may recall, says that belief is “widespread” among […]

Sneaky Lou Dobbs Making a regularly scheduled visit to Eschaton, I see his latest “Torture Lou Dobbs.” Always happy to strike a blow against pseudo-science, I quickly followed the link to Dobbs’ latest poll. Here are the questions: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT QUICKVOTE Whose view of the situation in Iraq do you believe most? Bush administration’s […]