Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Catching Up

If you haven't been paying attention to the news out of Iran lately, this is an excellent roundup of the issues including, as bill notes, four reasonably likely future scenarios:
The Couch Spectator Solution...
The “Don’t Make Us Spank You” Solution...
The “No More Fondue Forks For You” Solution...
The “Look Away and Let The Israelis Do It” Solution...
He leaves out the "Imperial Overstretch Solution" -- we attack Iran anyway, springboarding from our oh-so-secure Iraqi positions and exploring the outer limits of (i.e., overstepping dramatically) our economic, diplomatic and military might, not to mention our moral authority -- which isn't as unlikely as he'd like to think.

To be fair, the evidence that Iran is dangerous is at least as strong as the evidence against Iraq was.... but I'd be happier if the administration had shown any progress in dealing with other nuclear proliferators without major oil reserves or ideological allies: a.k.a. North Korea.

Also, a number of bloggers I respect have been talking about Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor reporter kidnapped in Iraq and scheduled to be killed shortly if "all female prisoners" aren't released (they've also been talking about her deceased translator, a tragic loss). It's an atrocity, and I haven't said much about it mostly because I feel like there's a larger context I need to think through before I go too deeply. But it's an atrocity and it isn't going to help the insurgents accomplish anything, that I can see.

In Happier News: Operation Stardust has brought comet samples back to Earth! Here's the press release and clean room webcam.

And the seventh Carnival of Feminists is up and its.... alphabetical? I'm neurotic, but it never occurred to me to arrange a carnival like that.

5 comments:

Sour Duck said...

"And the seventh Carnival of Feminists is up and its.... alphabetical? I'm neurotic, but it never occurred to me to arrange a carnival like that."

Interesting approach Lauren took. She neatly side-stepped a thorny issue that way. But I'm not sure it's the best solution. Still. Kudos for trying.

I'm unsure of the length, too. Splitting it up into two posts may have helped. Also I would've grouped all the pop culture stuff together at the top.

But who am I kidding? I'm just green because of that Lempicka graphic she obtained! :D ;)

Ahistoricality said...

No, it works pretty well, really. I think she split the pop culture stuff up to keep the entries reasonably even in length: makes for easier reading, I think. I don't know how I feel about the "two posts" thing: it seems like a carnival ought to be unified, so that links to it really do cover the whole thing. But that's a gut reaction.

I did note one sloppy citation (a satirical piece that she classified incorrectly; it was even better than I thought!) but otherwise I've enjoyed it.

Sour Duck said...

Oooh, Ahist - disagreeing with me! I like it...

My concerns are petty really. But keep me busy.

I'm convinced by your meagre response, at any rate. Yes, I'm feeling whimsical and flippant today...!

The piece you're referring to is Cruella-blog's piece, I'm pretty certain. I nominated that one. ;) Actually I nomintated about four pieces that made it into the issue. Big brass star for me.

Ahistoricality said...

Well, I'd give you a silver star, at least, for nominating that post alone....

One of the things I love about the rotating carnival format is the experimentation with form. There is no perfect organization for a carnival (I'm going to make this a categorical statement, and people can beat on me at will, but I'm going to stand by it) A carnival, by definition, is made up of recent posts which cannot be predetermined by host or organizer, and therefore what works for one edition of one carnival, even within a single carnival, will fall quite flat another time.

There's also the "reader-response" issue: even if you and I hate it, it might turn out to be the best-read, most-linked CoF ever.... you never know.

Sour Duck said...

"Well, I'd give you a silver star, at least, for nominating that post alone...."

:D

[rest of your comments]

Mmm, mmm. (sagely agreeing noises)