Good Reading

Some Excellent Finds:

XKCD produces a map of the internet, graphed according to a particularly insightful compass rose.

I'm a little late in getting around to reading "Why We Fight Over Foreign Policy" from the Hoover Review, but it's a good piece. It explains, in a fair-minded way, the three main streams of thought in American foreign policy debates, and why an honorable person can hold any of them as predominant.

As the piece notes, there are bad actors in all schools: pure politicans of no principles who assert whatever happens to be of party or personal benefit. This is not that useful in understanding those scoundrels -- rather, it is a chart to understanding the good-hearted people who are suckered into voting for them.

That's highly useful in itself. One thing America needs is more of a sense that most of us are decent, for whom the Federal Government is at best a parasite, and at worst a common foe. The politicians are the problem. Those other Americans who seem so alienated are still trying to do something right, according to their own understanding.