I don't have time to blog today - I'm way behind on my reading for my comps in October - so here are a few links to tide you over until I return tomorrow:
+ Ezra Klein on health care here. This is so good I'm saving it for a class lecture later this semester.
+ Brian Beutler does some almost daily Corner bashing here. That Washington Monthly piece on the myth of AQI that I pointed to yesterday? It's got war supporters in a tizzy. But rather than refute the argument with facts, they've gone to Fred Kagan - the man who came up with the idea of a surge - for a defense of the surge itself. Because surely everyone knows that he, like Gen Petraeus, is a neutral unbiased observer.
+ Turns out Petraeus won't actually be delivering a report to Congress. Just testimony. Wonderful.
+ The UNHCR estimates that more than 4.2 million Iraqis have fled their homes. Given that the population was estimated at around 27 million in 2006, that's roughly 15% of the population of the country.
+ And where are they fleeing to? Syria, among other places. Because as Riverbend, one of the most famous Iraqi bloggers explains, at least there they know "armed people in black" won't "break through the door and into our lives." Yes, that Syria.
+ As for the US leaving Iraq, get this: Stephen Biddle, a key advisor to Petraeus, is now saying we will need to keep 100,000 American troops in Iraq for 20 years, and even then it is a "long-shot gamble." To which Yglesias responds: This is supposed to be the argument for staying?
+ And last but not least, although I usually like reading Robert Cringely's tech blog, this post about Steve Jobs makes less than no sense. On the one hand, Cringley is bashing Jobs for treating his most loyal customers poorly. Jobs is apparently an egomanic (no argument from me there) who is mistreating his early adopters just because he can. This is, apparently, bad. On the other hand, all of the actual behavior Cringley describes, both from Jobs and from the early adopters, is positive for Apple. Extremely positive. And even Cringley admits that. So if Jobs is "mistreating" his loyal customers in a way that both raises Apple's profit margin and makes his most loyal customers happy, its not clear what the problem is. So all that said...if you read the post as an example of what's right with Apple rather than what's wrong, it makes for a great read. Now where's my iPhone?
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