Linksaical

Photo: Andrew Holbrooke/Corbis

Soot. It's a more damaging problem than previously thought.

On Norway's pledge to become "carbon neutral" by 2030.

"Chemical geography." On unmonitored radioactive and chemical waste off the coast of northern California.

The New Hydrological Temples of Modern India.

Another sign of growing inequality in the US: the gap in life expectancy rates grows.

Liberals doing their own bigotry thing.

NY Times chief correspondent in France says goodbye after 5 years, leaving behind an astounding trail of clichés about "the French." (...ah, life in the 16th arrondissement!). SuperFrenchie sums it up.

East German escape tales.

Phronesisaical friend, Abbas Raza of 3QD, "defends" Pakistani dictatorship at n+1.

Obama's other brilliant speech last week; the one on foreign policy.

Al Giordano's "five givens" as we approach the Democratic Convention in Denver.

Sadrist "civil disobedience" campaign in Iraq.

Iran trying to help in Basra... by supplying electricity.

Successful! Michael Schwartz on Baghdad:

Over the course of five years, Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq, has been transformed from a metropolis into an urban desert of half-destroyed buildings and next to no public services, dotted by partially deserted, mutually hostile mini-ghettos that used to be neighborhoods, surrounded by cement barriers reminiscent of medieval fortifications. The most prominent of these ghettos is the heavily fortified city-inside-a-city dubbed the Green Zone, where Iraq's most fearsome militia, the United States military, is headquartered.