The leader of a group of local Sunni tribes cooperating with American and Iraqi forces in fighting extremist Sunni militants in Anbar Province was killed by a bomb today, Iraqi police officials said, in a blow to an effort President Bush has held up as a model of progress.

this could swing either way
either obviously destroy the allance of tribes opposed to AQ
OR
entrench and deepen opposition to AQ

Bomb Kills Sunni Sheik Working With U.S. in Iraq - New York Times

Fair use exceptions to U.S. copyright laws account for more than $4.5 trillion in annual revenue for the United States, according to a report issued on Wednesday by the Computer and Communications Industry Association.

"Much of the unprecedented economic growth of the past ten years can actually be credited to the doctrine of fair use, as the Internet itself depends on the ability to use content in a limited and nonlicensed manner," CCIA President and CEO Ed Black said in a statement. "To stay on the edge of innovation and productivity, we must keep fair use as one of the cornerstones for creativity, innovation and, as today's study indicates, an engine for growth for our country."
...
"Copyright was created as a functional tool to promote creativity, innovation, and economic activity," said Black. "It should be measured by that standard, not by some moral rights or abstract measure of property rights."

Fair Use Worth More to Economy Than Copyright, CCIA Says -- Copyright -- InformationWeek

As members of Congress mull what to do next in Iraq, they might glance at a League of Nations report of July 16, 1925, on the new Middle Eastern state then being carved by the British from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire.

The report said that despite “the good intentions of the statesmen of Iraq, whose political experience is necessarily small, it is to be feared that serious difficulties may arise out of the differences which in some cases exist in regard to political ideas between the Shiites of the South and the Sunnites of the North, the racial differences between Arabs and Kurds, and the necessity of keeping the turbulent tribes under control.”

The Ottoman Swede - New York Times

It took political Washington a good six months to catch up to the fact that something significant was happening in Iraq's Anbar province, where the former-insurgent Sunni tribes switched sides and joined the fight against al-Qaeda. Not surprisingly, Washington has not yet caught up to the next reality: Iraq is being partitioned -- and, like everything else in Iraq today, it is happening from the ground up.

ahh so right-wing thinking now is that US forces shepherd in partition which may be the best solution I agree but thus Balkcanization with Baghdad playing the role of Sarajevo and so further one wonders who destiny has its eye on to revisit the role of Archduke Ferdinand and spark the next conflagration (let's look towards decaying empires and autocrats -- the Saudis would seem to be the prime candidates)

Charles Krauthammer - The Partitioning of Iraq - washingtonpost.com

n February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressing the UN Security Council, ... many people in the political and media establishments swooned: They admired Powell, and because he said it, they believed it.

Powell's masters got the war they wanted, and it soon became apparent that none of his assertions had been true.
...
The administration, this time relying on General David Petraeus to play the Colin Powell role, has had remarkable success creating the perception that the "surge" is succeeding, even though there's not a shred of verifiable evidence to suggest that it is.
...
But, say the usual suspects, Petraeus is a fine, upstanding officer who wouldn't participate in a campaign of deception - apparently forgetting that they said the same thing about Powell.

First of all, Petraeus is now identified with the surge; if it fails, he fails. He has every incentive to find a way to keep it going, in the hope that somehow he can pull off something he can call success.

Snow job in the desert - International Herald Tribune

A Polk County judge on Thursday struck down Iowa's law banning gay marriage.

The ruling by Judge Robert Hanson concluded that the state's prohibition on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and he ordered the Polk County recorder to issue marriage licenses to six gay couples.

That's ain't them damn liberals in Massachewsetts doin' this. It's pig raisin' country!

Update Having now read the opinion, the following line really stands out.

"So far as this court can tell, (symbol thingy I don't have a key for)595.2(1) operates only to harm same-sex couples and their children."

(underline in the original p.55)

That sounds pretty damning to me...

Gay Marriage in Iowa? Yep! - DesMoinesRegister.com

In Paulson's world, and Bush's, excess and its ruinous consequences are the natural result of market activity, which is itself sacrosanct. So it will fall to Congress and the presidential candidates to put the truly pressing issues on the agenda. The United States badly needs progressive, pro-market leaders who will advance a legal and regulatory framework to reduce excesses in lending and derivatives and to monitor opaque market actors, like hedge funds and private equity firms. The goal must be to avert or at least mitigate crises that otherwise do damage far beyond the immediate investors.

And to succeed, the country must first stop digging the hole it is in. That will require federal budget discipline, especially health care reform and higher taxes.

It will also require higher private savings. And all of that will require leaders who will level with Americans about the depth of the country's economic problems, including its vulnerability to global turbulence, and the sacrifices it will take to address them.

i think that since hedge funds are such a huge part of the global economy then we need regulation to give us much more clarity and less secrecy
apart from anything else it is global security question -- i don't believe there will be a global economic crash but the prospect has loomed and we know from the 1930s that a global economic depression causes wars thus the argument that hedge funds are private instituations and privacy applies is outweighed

the bold in the quotation is mine

Market turmoil and threats to the broader economy - International Herald Tribune

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, yesterday announced Russia had resumed long-range flights of strategic bombers capable of striking targets deep inside the United States with nuclear weapons.

calling Dr Strangelove -- Attention Dr Strangelove

Putin revives long-range bomber patrols | Russia | Guardian Unlimited

Welcome to the paradoxical world of counterinsurgency warfare -- the kind of war you win by not shooting.

The objective in fighting insurgents isn't to kill every enemy fighter -- you simply can't -- but to persuade the population to abandon the insurgents' cause. The laws of these campaigns seem topsy-turvy by conventional military standards: Money is more decisive than bullets; protecting our own forces undermines the U.S. mission; heavy firepower is counterproductive; and winning battles guarantees nothing.

My unnerving encounter on the highway was particularly ironic since I was there at the invitation of the U.S. Army to help teach these very principles at the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy.

Fight Less, Win More - washingtonpost.com

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are both serious foreign policy thinkers. So that makes it all the more bizarre that in one important area of foreign policy they both would drag this country backward.

That’s trade, particularly the effort to bash China as a scapegoat for our economic problems.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have signed on as co-sponsors of a bill — the latest resurrection of anti-China legislation — that could target China for punitive duties unless it revalues its currency. The China-U.S. relationship is the most important relationship in the world, and this bill would risk trade battles that would disrupt it for many years to come.
...
There’ll be a tendency among liberals to excuse Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama for pandering on trade, because they are sensible on so many other issues.

guilty i do want to excuse them but i believe in the importance of global free trade
wierd on this one i have to go with Bush

The New Democratic Scapegoat - New York Times