Juan Cole still gets it wrong, or half-wrong, on Libya

In this "open letter to the left" supporting current (and possibly additional?) intervention in Libya, Cole has several things with which I disagree.

First, yes, the AP and other mainstream media may have overstated to some degree the amount of Islamists in the opposition. And, its of "al Qaeda" for Libyans who fought in Iraq may be a bit imprecise.

However, with those claims, I get the impression Cole is trying to sweep any concerns with the nature of the Libyan opposition under the rug. Even if "al Qaeda" is a wrong identifier, nonetheless, a number of fighters in the Iraq war are now back in Libya involved in the opposition. So, too, are other Islamists. It's interesting that after knocking down a semi-straw man, Cole doesn't provide his own actual guesstimates.

I get the impression that the bottom-line issue for Cole is the UN OK, or perhaps, in lieu of that, a NATO OK. After that, whenever it happens, he's OK with being a Wilsonian, realpolitik be damned.

Second, he doesn't further look at the opposition in other ways. How organized are they? How tribalist are they? How well are their leaders likely to be significantly better than Gadhafi?

Third, he erects other straw men as to why some in the left oppose, or at least question, U.S. intervention. Meanwhile, for we pragmatics of the left, he nowhere addresses concerns such as mission creep, exit strategy, funding, etc.

And, speaking of mission creep and NATO, supposedly it's now debating arming the rebels.

So, we've gone from enforcing no-fly zones to actively targeting Libyan artillery, whether anti-aircraft in specific or not, and now, arming rebeles whose cohesion or goals we're not even sure of is being discussed. Wunderbar.

And, way to go, Cole on the UN fig leaf. And, also, Massimo Pigliucci on the "just war" nonsense. Way to go both of you on not thinking this through.

Juan Cole still gets it wrong, or half-wrong, on Libya

In this "open letter to the left" supporting current (and possibly additional?) intervention in Libya, Cole has several things with which I disagree.

First, yes, the AP and other mainstream media may have overstated to some degree the amount of Islamists in the opposition. And, its of "al Qaeda" for Libyans who fought in Iraq may be a bit imprecise.

However, with those claims, I get the impression Cole is trying to sweep any concerns with the nature of the Libyan opposition under the rug.

One was Social Security IS in trouble

I had no idea, until reading this, that Medicare recipients had a "make good" payment from Social Security if the change in Social Security's COLA was not enough, by itself

One way Social Security IS in trouble

I had no idea, until reading this, that Medicare recipients had a "make good" payment from Social Security if the change in Social Security's COLA was not enough, by itself, to cover the annual rise in Medicare Part B premiums, which cover doctor visits and are paid for out of Social Security benefits.

First, this is obviously a robbing Peter to pay Paul issue, so it's dumb on that grounds.

Second, by shuffling off part of Medicare's problems onto Social Security, it hides some of Medicare's problems.

Third, it increases the likelihood politicians of BOTH parties will wrongly handle both Medicare and Social Security.

JournalismJobs caving to SEO world

Journalismobs.com is probably the nation's pre-eminent journailsm jobs bulletin board.

Unfortunately, it's throwing away that pre-eminence.

Two weeks ago? An ad for eHow.

Last week, I have just seen? An ad for the Examiner, and, worse yet, one deliberately trading off the "plight" of the HuffPuffers.

Three-party monte in Texas

Good observation here that Texas has three parties, except I'd rephrase it as: Democrats, conservative but not nutso Republicans and nutso Republicans.

On two financial issues, the use of the Rainy Day Fund for the next budget, and further reforming the franchise tax to generate more money for the state in general and education in particular, it's clear that Gov. Helmethair, Rick Perry, is a nutso.

It's pretty clear Speaker Joe Straus is not.

That leaves Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst as the tiebreaker. Dewhurst has in general struck me as suaver, more urbane Perry but not much else.

Now, given his claim that education funding can even be increased in the new budget, without mentioning the Rainy Day Fund one way or the other, he strikes me as also being even more disingenuous than Perry. Selling state land? Outside what's in state parks, most of it's not worth a lot unless the state sells the mineral rights with it, which would be dumb squared.

That said, the first link above says another way of slicing the GOP divide, speaking of Dewhurst being a suaver, more urbane Perry, is between urban and rural constituencies. In light of that, one of the state's two big urban conservative papers, the Morning Snooze, opines that the Texas House is cutting the 2012-13 budget too much. At the same time, the Snooze abdicates editorial responsibility by going Ronald Reagan in talking about looking for "government inefficiencies."