Monday, December 07, 2009

Bits and Pieces - December 7, 2009

This article seems to sum up all that's wrong with combining personal convenience, technological advancement, and an ethos of removing any consideration of societal side-effects. They've been selling cell phones this way since the early 1960s, and now we have to deal with the consequences of texting while driving.

Samuelson gets it right, then undercuts himself in the last two paragraphs.

The wrong-headed policies of the Bush years begin to flower. This is what you get when you declare a crusade against Islam. Sometimes policies take a long time to work out, as did Teddy Roosevelt's with Japan.

I thought about doing something like this in my Christmas letter, having received some right-wing e-mails during the year. Then I chickened out and just wrote about people.

Turkey's Prime Minister, , is in Washington this week. Marc Lynch gives some good background.

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