Rainy Day Reading - Day 2
Still raining here in Houston, although thus far today it's been pretty light. Again, as my street often floods, I'm housebound. (The fear is I'll go out and not be able to get back.) So, I'm reading a little more this AM. Here's a few that I found interesting.
Japan plans to pull out of Iraq. (I've never seen such a great example of "declaring victory and going home.")
Two articles on the return of the Taliban. USAToday: Revived Taliban Waging 'Full Blown Insurgency,' and more interestingly to me, this WaPo piece about the spread of Taliban influence into Pakistan. Not only is it affecting the tribal areas along the border, but it's beginning to extend fingers into larger government controlled towns, and the Pakistani military appears to have largely pulled out.
There's a pretty big report by the AP on police and the Feds using databrokers to buy information including cell phone records. "Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers. But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies any price." And there's been personal abuses.
This was actually yesterday, but if alot of the Iraqi translators for the US in the Sunni Anbar province have "joined up" out of their hatred of Saddam, just how fair of a translation/interpretation are the Sunnis getting when talking to US forces, and how much does that affect the US's relationship with the locals?
Japan plans to pull out of Iraq. (I've never seen such a great example of "declaring victory and going home.")
Two articles on the return of the Taliban. USAToday: Revived Taliban Waging 'Full Blown Insurgency,' and more interestingly to me, this WaPo piece about the spread of Taliban influence into Pakistan. Not only is it affecting the tribal areas along the border, but it's beginning to extend fingers into larger government controlled towns, and the Pakistani military appears to have largely pulled out.
There's a pretty big report by the AP on police and the Feds using databrokers to buy information including cell phone records. "Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers. But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies any price." And there's been personal abuses.
This was actually yesterday, but if alot of the Iraqi translators for the US in the Sunni Anbar province have "joined up" out of their hatred of Saddam, just how fair of a translation/interpretation are the Sunnis getting when talking to US forces, and how much does that affect the US's relationship with the locals?
posted by mikevotes at
7:42 AM
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