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I don't believe the claim that we've now reached half a million IDPs in Iraq, displaced in the aftermath of the Samarra bombing. But the lower and better-sourced figure of 60,000 people is scary enough. I'm going to spend some time digging down to the facts on this - watch the IAG page on refugees for any useful documents I turn up.
I don't understand why Bush praises Arab governments when they do something he likes. Doesn't he realise how much more suspect that makes them in the eyes of their citizens?
Center for Tactical Magic; I think I'm in love.
All roads lead to danah,; a frivolous google for "land of the livid" (because it's a fantastic phrase) leads to a two-year-old account of her going through finals. Hehe!
This one should have 'oil politics' written all over it: China offers to help stabilise the Middle East. This is based on comments by Hu Jintao during a visit to Saudi Arabia; I don't know whether there's anything new her, because the papers won't tell me and I don't know much about China.
Reidar Visser does it again, this time with an essay on the historical roots of the centralism/federalism debate in Iraq.
Songs about zombies, something I came across while unsuccessfully hunting down lyrics to the Hellbillys' Surf Zombies. Among other beautiful things, it turns out that there is a Murderdolls song she was a teenage zombie: something for John's sets between 'teenage vampire' and 'island of zombie women', no doubt.
Gowers Review of intellectual property; we only have until Friday to submit comments
This is a good-looking list of books on the big environmental-poltiical issues.
Ten things to do when you're blue. You can never have too many lists like this. I have a couple of my own, but whenever I'm down I forget to look at them. With any luck next time, I'll find my way here.
Gold-farming has led to anti-Chinese prejudice in WoW. This does happen in the RuneScape community as well, but for some reason isn't so common.
New Statesman article on the mystique of massive third-world cities
Wikipedia's article on the Iraqi insurgency is outstandingly bad. I don't understand why it isn't 50 times better, given how many people are interested in the subject.
More from Helena, who picks apart Kerry's recent comments on moving US forces out of Iraq. She notices that he talks about withdrawing 'combat forces', leaving wiggle-room to keep some vague other forces in the country.
Helena argues that the US and UK have been campaigning for Jaafari not to be come prime minister, and therefore that they are behind the current political 'impasse'.
Another article on the likely use of air-power once ground troops leave Iraq
Password scamming illegal in China? - a man in Guangdong province has been fined AUS$870 for stealing passwords. As far as I can tell, the verdict relies on the view that people have property rights to their characters in games. If that gets established in law (without something saying people have to obey the rules of the game), it becomes harder to eliminate gold farmers.
Less positive article touching on RuneScape's effects on players.
Interesting article on neuroscience, with a very tenuous link to social policy
The Telegraph writes about the use of sim cards as ways of transferring drug networks between people.