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Death to PowerPoint!
May. 15th, 2003 12:05 amI'm a long-time fan of Edward Tufte. He has a new book out, a 24-page pamphlet called The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. Cool, man.
May. 15th, 2003
Iraqi Guns
May. 15th, 2003 05:12 pmOne surprising fact about Iraq, which we learned before the war, was that there were a lot of guns in private hands. Yet gun advocates claim that the "right to bear arms" is a key ingredient of a free society. In mid-March, Slate's chatterbox asked NRA types and "experts in Iraqi politics" to explain why dictatorship has been the norm in Iraq, despite its gun-wielding citizens. I'm not an Iraqi expert by any means, but I sent in my own answers. In retrospect, my second one seems prescient:
The more people that own guns, the more people will fear their neighbors. If people fear their neighbors, they're more likely to support an authoritarian government that maintains law & order.More to follow...
Beirut Redeux
May. 15th, 2003 07:11 pmIt looks like Iraq is about to be the next Afghanistan, if not the next Lebanon. Read Hassan Fattah's piece in the New Republic for the dispiriting details.
The sad thing is none of this comes as a surprise. Plus, as Lawrence Kaplan notes (TNRD subscription required), the White House has plans to severely reduce US troop presence, and is talking about a complete withdrawal from Iraq. This, again, comes as no surprise.
The US has been placed in a crappy position: If we stay in Iraq, US troops will get killed, and the US will be accused of old-fashioned imperialism. If we move out quickly, Iraq will collapse and turn into yet another breeding ground for terrorism. All of this was apparent from day one. Yet the fact that the war's critics were right, and the hawks were wrong, seems to make no difference. "We won," so the war's advocates have been vindicated, and the peaceniks are in retreat. What can you do?
The sad thing is none of this comes as a surprise. Plus, as Lawrence Kaplan notes (TNRD subscription required), the White House has plans to severely reduce US troop presence, and is talking about a complete withdrawal from Iraq. This, again, comes as no surprise.
The US has been placed in a crappy position: If we stay in Iraq, US troops will get killed, and the US will be accused of old-fashioned imperialism. If we move out quickly, Iraq will collapse and turn into yet another breeding ground for terrorism. All of this was apparent from day one. Yet the fact that the war's critics were right, and the hawks were wrong, seems to make no difference. "We won," so the war's advocates have been vindicated, and the peaceniks are in retreat. What can you do?