That’s how much it cost me to fuel up the Volkswagen Jetta I drive today. $3.59 a gallon, and only because I drove past stations charging nearly $4 a gallon for premium. Buying the same amount of gas in continental Europe or England would have cost me at least double that amount though, so I won’t complain. But telecommuting regularly is looking like an even better idea than it already was.
Category: Miscellaneous
Never expected to see a cellphone here …
I finally dragged myself to the gym for the first time in awhile. The combination of business school and full-time work made a somewhat reasonable excuse for not working out, but school’s been over since May.
In any case, I was rather surprised to see a woman next to me working out on the Stairmaster while chatting away on her cellphone. Later in my workout, I saw a guy doing exactly the same thing. I’ve come to expect to see cellphones in a lot of places, but seeing them in use during a workout is a new one on me.
Three Paper Town?
To the Washington Post and the Washington Times we can add another paper: The Washington Examiner. In this age of the Web, blogs and other forms of electronic media, starting a print newspaper seems an odd choice. From my time as a technology intern at the Washington Post, I remember stories from bosses about how DC used to have four newspapers. The Washington Star was the one they remembered most, since a number of them worked there before it closed up shop in 1981.
From this column by Dave Matsio, it sounds like they want to do something a little different with their opinion pages.
The rest of their website looks pretty well done. We’ll have to wait and see if the writing is good. It would be nice if they got lucky and broke an important story or two before the larger papers.
For Some Soldiers the War Never Ends
Very interesting commentary on the Defense Department’s use of stop-loss orders and activation of the Individual Ready Reserve.
Captain Exum does a great job of challenging the idea that the current U.S. force is sufficient to meet all of its commitments. This makes a strong case for increasing the size of the permanent force. How exactly the individual branches would do it, I’m not sure.
As far as the idea of a draft goes, I’m not sure that’s the best idea for the military threats our country faces today. One idea I’d like to see considered very strongly is a draft for first responders (fire, EMS, police, etc). Because so many of our current reservists leave those positions empty when they get called up, I think it would be wise if those positions could have a steadier stream of incoming personnel.
Gen. Anthony Zinni’s Remarks at the Center for Defense Information Board of Directors’ Dinner
He lays out a series of excellent ideas to be considered for solving the mess that Iraq has become. If only the current administration would listen …
Read the whole thing here.
A fascinating piece in GQ about Colin Powell.
This feature by Peter W. Galbraith makes a compelling case for how the U.S. can extricate itself from the disaster that Iraq has become. Along the way, he does a good job of touching on the positive aspects of this war (namely the removal of Saddam Hussein). To sum up his solution, it is a loose confederation of three separate states, with their own governments, militaries, etc. The only connections between them would be a relatively weak central government and revenue-sharing of oil sales (to prevent the “Sunni triangle”, which lacks oil, from being impoverished).
While it is far from the grand Bush vision of Iraq as a democratic example for the Middle East, it would probably be far better than the current situation.
The U.S. reaps a whirlwind in Iraq
This article does a good job of laying out the mistakes that both the U.S. and the UN have made. Especially important is his point that UN involvement won’t have the desired effect if they’re seen as nothing more than a proxy for U.S. interests.
Iraq duty deters re-enlistment
We can only hope this is a one-time blip instead of a signal of a longer-term problem.
I’m only a civilian, so it’s not clear to me why the Army couldn’t swap soldiers between Iraq and other bases in Europe or Southeast Asia. While it wouldn’t get them all the way home, it would at least get them out of the hot zone so they could decompress before coming home. The long duty has to be grinding these guys down.
Moody’s cuts Ciena Corp ratings to B2
This provides perhaps the best summary I’ve seen anywhere of the current & future prospects of my current employer. The whole firm definitely needs to read it.