Katrina Reminder

So today begins Iraqi sovereignty. Apparently they are exercising their right not to go along with the US already. So we have Paul Bremer, Lakhdar Brahimi and the former IGC trying to figure out who is NOT in charge. So now the question is who’s taking care of our people?

Ali Eteraz has a highly speculative piece up on the latest OBL video. I’m actually with him until he gets to the Bollywood part. I hope that there are professionals watching these videos and trying to figure out next moves, but even in the popular media and quick deconstruction like this would take a lot of air from AQ’s mission. Imagine instead of the headline “OBL loves him some martyrs, run for your lives,” we got headlines like “Latest OBL video give further proof that he’s dead, AQ clueless.” Of course, the second headline shouldn’t be read to minimize the…

I came across an interesting article on Slate. So, where should one go to learn Arabic in an environment with relatively little propaganda? And should one start classical and then go colloquial or vice versa?