Miscellany

-Realising the waters are still murky to make any valuable predictions on the exact form the newly-born democracy in Iraq will take, I find it usefull to look at other countries with similar experience and composition as real-life lab experiments. Countries of Central Asia, in my opinion, are good models: heavily Islamic, often with skewed to single-industry economies, de-jure socialist ideology and de-facto tribal society in their past. Good place to find informed and reasonable portrait of the region, as well as plenty of further linkage on the blogroll, is Registan led by main contributors Nathan Hamm and Laurence Jarvik, among others.

-Should China start stimulating domestic demand instead of relying on exports to America? Jane Galt comments.

-Each of these 2 posts from neighboring O blogs on my bookmarks, Outer life and Odious and Peculiar, are written by peace-loving, reasonable, patient man...
-Is Nobel Prize heading the way of United Nations? Looks like familiar pattern, put together by this Samizdata post

-It's Maggie's birthday (and, accidentally, my mother's. Happy birthday, mom!). To Mark Steyn, for overview.

-If you, like me, always wanted to hear Mr. Lileks speak, rejoyce! First Bleatcast is on and it is about (spoilers alert!) Chopping off heads of drug addicts in Metropolitan Museum of Classical Music!