Iraq

There’s not much that gets me mad anymore.  I’m just waiting for Bush to leave office so I can stop rolling my eyes.  But this story in the New York Times really puts the cost of the war in Iraq in perspective: For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign —…

One of my new favorite blogs is called The Sandbox, from Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau.  He’s basically republishing blog entries from military personnel from their own blogs.  Occasionally I think he’s also publishing letters. It’s an excellent, unfiltered look into the minds of the soldiers both deployed and home, and the writing is all pretty…

The Christian Science Monitor is running a multi-day series on the 84 day hostage drama of Jill Carroll, a reporter who was kidnapped while working in Iraq and frankly, very lucky to be alive.  Although the CSM’s site is abysmally slow because of the load, it’s worth bookmarking and reading.  There’s a new installment daily,…

A couple of things that hit me as I worked the 3am shift before an out of town pitch today: So we finally know what the infamous terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi looks like.  He disturbingly resembles Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) of Clerks fame.   Link: Zarqawi Taunts U.S. in Video. Zarqawi said in his latest video…

Howard Kurtz’s latest column in the Washington Post is about the media’s hostile tone in questioning the President about Iraq.  I think this question from the President’s press conference last week sums it up best for me, ABC’s Jessica Yellin: "Are you willing to sacrifice American lives to keep Iraqis from killing one another?" No,…

I came across this tribute to a Texas soldier killed in Iraq and reading it when I came across the photo of the slain soldier’s infant son on this page.  I have to say, I’ve seen my son wrapped up just like this, with almost the exact same expression on his face. 

From Wikipedia: "Adhocracy is the absence of hierarchy and is therefore the opposite of bureaucracy."

Adhocracy is a concept that existed before the Internet and will exist long after the Net is gone.  It’s currently at work today in Iraq, and it would behoove you to read conservative journalist Michael Yon’s essay today on why so many people have so much to gain from the continuing chaos in Iraq.  (Read "Empty Jars", by Michael Yon)