Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
- Dennis the Peasant contrasts how Ohio politics appears from Berkeley, California with how it looks in Ohio and, in the process, illustrates something I’ve noticed increasingly about the progressive wing of the Democratic Party: their political calculus appears to be off.
- Econbrowser James Hamilton looks at the new new energy bill, HR 3893, and finds some things to like. Frankly, I doubt this:
One can make a case that had such a measure been in place five years ago, this summer we would have had additional refineries in Yuma, Arizona and Santa Fe Springs, California.
I think that any attempt to build a new oil refinery or nuclear power plan anywhere in the continental United States will be met with protests and legal opposition not due to widespread opposition but due to the commitment of those ardently opposed and the ease of organization provided by the Internet.
- Steve Antler, the EconoPundit engages in a little late night econometrics. In Chicago, no less! Well, as long as they’re consenting adults…
- Do some Blogspot-based sites seem a mite sluggish to you today?
- India Uncut notes that Tintin has finally been translated into Hindi.
- Major K.’s recent post on literacy in the Iraqi army has an implicit question and its one I’ve asked before. Iraq has been cited widely as one of the best-educated Middle Eastern nations with literacy rates of 85% or better. Are the numbers being fudged?
- The Talking Dog interviews Neal Katyal, lead attorney for Salim Hamdan whose case has been appealed to the Supreme Court.
That’s the lot.
The literacy rate in Iraq collapsed over the 1990s.
As much of the “information” that was pimped about in the Right Bolshy circles prior to the Iraq war.
Looking at my old McKinsey documents from 2003 when I was working on Iraq issues, I have 1980 giving a 67 percent literacy rate, a 1998 estimate of 50 percent. One might expect rough basic literacy rates in the 45-50 percent range given the near collapse of the basic schooling system during sanctions.
You need better sources.
I was going from the UN Human Development report, Collounsbury. It gives a 74% literacy rate for the 15-25 age cohort (which includes most of those in military service). That includes both males and females and it seems to me that there would probably be something of a gender differential.
But I always appreciate better sources of information.