News Brief, Planet Unicorn Heyyy Edition

Cross-posted at The Conjecturer, where you’ll find an explanation for the edition name. I’m sorry.

The Pentagon

• I think Lance should have highlighted Blackfive’s major point about the stupid restrictions on war blogs: the Pentagon has already lost the information war in the public arena. The supreme importance of competing narratives was chillingly highlighted in the 2004 (!) documentary Control Room. These rules are admitting failure, in a way, yet another way the DoD has failed to adapt.
• But major lulz at the AP for being such retards. Gee, I wonder how selective enforcement of OPSEC rules will pan out? Could it even, I don’t know, undercut the reason for OPSEC rules in the first place, if they’re turned into just another tool of coercion by the chain of command?
• The Small Business Fairness in Contracting Act was supposed to remove the dumb contract bundling tradition in military acquisitions. But it doesn’t, and it does nothing to end the rampant fraud and abuse of small business set-asides in defense contracting. But it also lowered the proportion of contract dollars handed out to small businesses. So the whole system remains a tangled mess.
• Meanwhile, after losing $1 billion, Veterans Affairs awarded its top executives the largest bonuses in the entire federal government.
• In the newest DefenseTech, a look at the rapidly growing global market for diesel submarines, which we no longer build. They also have a good run down of the current angst over replacing or upgrading cargo lifters. On a purely stylistic note, I adore that NextBook format, and immediately vastly prefer it to PDF.

Around the World

• The Russian drive to force its imperial legacy on its victims came to something of a head yesterday, when an angry mob attacked the ambassadors of Sweden and Estonia in Moscow. In addition, the rail line between Estonia and Russia, on which travels mucho oil shipments, has been mysteriously closed. European officials were naturally protesting in strong language, but if you think this will prompt any moves to reduce their dependence on Russian oil, encourage more adult behavior from Russia, or perhaps develop a European-wide policy on foreign interference in member states’ affairs, you’re kidding yourself. Europe is officially the worst country in the world.
• A deeper look at the spurious allegations against American businessman Mark Seidenfeld, awaiting trial in Kazakhstan.
• Hamid Karzai says dozens of civilian casualties are not understandable anymore, and he’s right to. While it’s nice and easy to drop precision bombs during combat, when it’s a messy insurgency and guerilla war in the midst of a civilian population, they are just not effective, especially when massive collateral damage greatly harms your ultimate objective.
• The new Taliban in Nigeria? Hardly. Misusing the term “Taliban” is a bad idea, especially when the actual Taliban have moved beyond their original definition of “pious religious students.”
• Oh look, AQ Khan is still busy proliferating nuclear weapons. It’s a good thing we’re totally okay with Pervez Musharraf placing him under house arrest and not allowing Americans to speak with him for years. Now that we are giving Uncle Pervy $600 million a year, we get a single interview. Let’s hope Turkey’s diplomatic efforts will prove more fruitful.
• Yes, it’s nice that Australia can use beer to make clean water, but since when is it an environmental plus to have “renewable, non-polluting carbon dioxide?” More precisely, since when is carbon dioxide considered non-polluting?
• What walking pace says about cities, health, and time management.
• First they sold me on Kabul, now they’ve sold me on Vilnius. Who’s up for a vaca?

Back at Home

• Chicanery over the role of al-Qaeda in Iraq, including the plea that we must stay in Iraq to defeat Osama bin Laden, who happens to be in northwestern Pakistan. It’s true the Commander guy is in charge of the troops, but Congress has the constitutional authority to fund or defund the war as it sees fit (it also has egregiously punted the declaration clause, something that makes me deeply unhappy). If the Congress disagrees with the war, de-fund it. The time table is a lame sidestep.
• 09f9.com. The invaluable EFF has more on the case, and how it is actually not a copyright issue, but an intellectual property issue, despite the credulous linking of the Instapundit.
• Can a big drop in productivity be explained by the housing slump? I share Drum’s skepticism here.
• My stab at the Wonkette cover contest, identifying Time’s most influential people. I’ll be starting top left and going counter-clockwise: B. Hussein Obama, Steve Book of Job, Tyra Banks, Leonardo DiCarpaccio or something, some coach no one cares about, The shadow foreign secretary, the fat guy who is super serial about global warming, QUE2 before she’s traumatized by looking at Richmond, Sauruman Khameini, Galadriel, some Moonie, and a turtle. Ugh. Time Magazine, even though you made me Person of the Year last year, you and I are through. DONE. Finito. Or something.
• Thomas Sewell, writing for National Review Online: “the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.”