A Good Week For Blogging
Both John Robb and Phil have kind words. Kawasaki dropped by. Made it onto Tanji’s roll. Thanks all.
On DailyKos
Barnett opines on the bullying nature of DailyKos.
Some quick thinking: The search for the lowest common denominator creates constant pressure for this kind of partisanship. Scale down the group and that pressure would be alleviated as more esoteric commonalities would be able to gain primacy.
Impact Of Iraq
Mother Jones– A slamdunk compilation of facts and figures regarding Iraq –
The rate of terrorist attacks around the world by jihadist groups and the rate of fatalities in those attacks increased dramatically after the invasion of Iraq. Globally there was a 607 percent rise in the average yearly incidence of attacks (28.3 attacks per year before and 199.8 after) and a 237 percent rise in the average fatality rate (from 501 to 1,689 deaths per year).
And even when attacks in both Afghanistan and Iraq (the two countries that together account for 80 percent of attacks and 67 percent of deaths since the invasion of Iraq) are excluded, there has still been a significant rise in jihadist terrorism elsewhere–a 35 percent increase in the number of jihadist terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan and Iraq, from 27.6 to 37 a year, with a 12 percent rise in fatalities from 496 to 554 per year.
There is a lot more, four major parts plus a list of great resources, so give it a read.
RIAA + College
AP – This is an excellent way to alienate most of the core of music industry –
Cracking down on college students, the music industry is sending thousands more complaints to top universities this school year than it did last year as it targets music illegally downloaded over campus computer networks.
A few schools, including Ohio and Purdue universities, already have received more than 1,000 complaints accusing individual students since last fall — significant increases over the past school year. For students who are caught, punishments vary from e-mail warnings to semester-long suspensions from classes.
Healthcare – $4.1T by 2016
Forbes – 20% of GDP –
Federal forecasters predict that US health-care spending will double by 2016, to $4.1 trillion per year.
“They’re trying to deflect costs onto other parties,” she said. “What we really need is a transformation of the health-care system that gives us value for the money we’re spending. We clearly have to do something about the underlying rising health costs that affect everyone.”
Not sure if cost shifting is the core problem, but she’s right, something needs to be done.