Readings...

Items of interest from my blogroll:

Reflections On The Revolution In Japan: you wouldn't know it from reading American journalists, but the Japanese have been engaging in a slow motion electoral revolt against the elites who have run the country into the ground. At least that's according to this digressive, impressionistic post at Ampontan

Satellite Photos Support Testimony That Iraqi WMD Went To Syria: six years on, can you stand to relive the argument that Saddam Hussein sent his WMD's to Syria? You probably should, as the fate of Saddam's WMD's is one of the on-going mysteries of the two Iraq Wars. I'm afraid, though, that W will be vindicated...in 50 years, kind of like what happened to Whittaker Chambers.

The Times They Are A-Changin’, But Obama Isn't: Obama visits the Senate GOP caucus and asks for some bi-partisanship for old times' sake. How about after you heal the planet and cause the oceans to rise again, big shot?

Our Forgotten History: need replacement copy of the full version of the Star Spangled Banner? I mean the version with all four verses, of course.

Men At Forty: and here's a poem titled Men at Forty from Tigerhawk. If you are of a certain age, you might find the room is getting a little dusty.

Hungary Tries To Calm Markets: in the "up is down" "left is right" world we live in, it's considered a gaffe when a Hungarian official admits that his country is heading towards a Greece-style debt crisis. If you had been reading Free Will back in March 2009, this wouldn't be a surprise at all.

Beaten Gaza Activist Arrives Home In California: Lord. Is it any surprise that one of the members of the Gaza Flotilla was a sixtysomething linguistics professor from El Cerrito (literally the poor man's Berkeley)? This guy had to have noticed that most of his fellow activists were little more than anti-Semitic goons, not that this made any difference. Some people never grow up.

If the news out of the Middle East has been depressing, you should read Start Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. It tells the virtually unheralded story of Israel's dynamic economy and the cultural and social factors that allows it to thrive in a region filled with economic backwaters. One story captures it all: a kibbutz digging for water could only find warm salt water...so they started a fish farm. Inspiring.