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Thursday, January 06, 2005 |
 Question. Does Channel 9 preserve their content? I found this demo of "Windows Media Connect" on Google and it won't connect.... UPDATE: it is fixed.
8:48:54 AM 
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The Economist. ...this week, Mr Allawi's intelligence chief, Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani, told the French News Agency (AFP) he reckoned there were perhaps 200,000 insurgents (including those who provide logistics and shelter to the fighters), easily outnumbering the American troops in Iraq.
7:59:22 AM
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NYT. Friedman talks about toppling the "tribes with flags" in the Middle East as if it was similar to "uncorking champagne." I see it as playing with hand grenades in an ammo dump of primary loyalties. Let's see who is out of touch with reality...
Both Friedman and Bush underappreciate the long-term consequences of Iraq. 9/11 was a black swan and unlikely to be repeated with any meaningful frequency. Iraq changes the dynamic. Global guerrilla warfare within the borders of the US is now nearly inevitable.
NOTE: I wish I wasn't right on this, but I was right about a guerrilla war in Iraq, infrastructure disruption in Russia, growing instability in Saudi Arabia, high oil prices (due to global guerrilla activity), and the lack of meaningful guerrilla opposition in Afghanistan (at least until they begin to crack down on opium production this year).
7:17:13 AM
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Insider White House memo to conservative supporter on the Social Security issue hits the WSJ (it lays out the problem with the approach): "If we borrow $1-2 trillion to cover transition costs for personal savings accounts and make no changes to wage indexing, we will have borrowed trillions and will still confront more than $10 trillion in unfunded liabilities," the memo says. "This could easily cause an economic chain reaction: the markets go south, interest rates go up, and the economy stalls out."
Interestingly, it seems that Bush is doubling down in a big gamble: "He cannot afford to fail. It would have repercussions for the rest of his program, including foreign policy. We can't hand the president a defeat on his major domestic initiative at a time of war."
7:05:22 AM
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© Copyright 2005 John Robb.
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