Surfing the Net

• Good news in Iraq with the capture of Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia's second in command, al Saeedi. I'm happy to see the murderous thug captured, humiliated, and (hopefully) punished by the same government he sought to undermine. I have to wonder, though, just how devastating a blow this actually is for Al Qaeda. It has been a bit confusing trying to get a feel for Al Qaeda's actual strength, activities, or effectiveness in Iraq. It may be that the death of al Zarqawi and the capture of al Saeedi are simply impeding Al Qaeda's efforts to establish roots in Iraq. If Al Qaeda disappeared from Iraq tomorrow I wonder how much of a difference it would make in the day-to-day.
  

• Fascinating thing, this insistent blogospheric worship of Israel. I saw it first in the way Michael Totten got hammered in his coverage of the Lebanon conflict (no anti-semite, he) and then, while randomly surfing info on Badr vs Sadr, stumbled on it at the Back to Iraq blog (which I'm sorry I found too late -- it looks like it was a great blog!). It's kind of scary the way people have adopted a cartoonish image of the modern Middle East... very one dimensional and subjective. This recent manifestation of the greater "you're either for us or against us" argument is so astonishingly retarded that I hardly know what else to say.

• Interesting Labor Day op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. Heroes of an earlier day, I have long questioned Labor's ability to make a productive contribution in the modern labor market. I used to think until very recently that labor unions might reinvent themselves as a check against unfettered globalization but I don't see any sign of that happening and I'm not sure how effective it would be anyway (wouldn't it merely hasten the exit of jobs from our shores?). A more efficient check would be an organized movement on the consumer side. But I dream...