HOT5 Daily 1/4/2011

1. "Brooke Goldstein: Countering Lawfare" Must-read article.

Representative Sample: The third goal is to frustrate and hinder the ability of Western democracies to fight against and defeat terrorism. Here, lawfare takes the form of a complementary legal campaign to terrorism and asymmetric warfare and seeks to denigrate society’s legitimate interest in security and self defense. As [U.S. Air Force] Maj. Gen. [Charles] Dunlap pointed out in 2001 in his Harvard Law Review essay, ‘[F]oes of the United States’ who are unable to ‘seriously confront—let alone defeat—America militarily’ are realizing their objectives through legal means. Their strategy is to undermine the American people’s support for our troops by making us believe that war is being conducted in an unfair, inhumane way.

2. "A Crude Theory" There does seem to be some correlation between Russian behavior and oil prices

Representative Sample: Oil is once again above $90 a barrel—and the price is rising. And if that's the reason, it's nothing new. In fact, if one were to plot the rise and fall of Soviet and Russian foreign and domestic reforms over the last 40 years on a graph, it would match the rise and fall of the international oil price with astonishing precision.

3. "No Matter What They Call It, It’s Still A Drilling Ban" De-facto ban as oil prices continue to rise.

Representative Sample: The Obama administration says they lifted the moratorium on drilling for oil off the shores of the US. But since they aren’t issuing any drilling permits, or allowing stalled rigs to go back into production, the drilling ban continues. So does the damage to the economy.

4. "The Top Ten Reasons Why Cats are Better than Bibliobloggers" Pretty amusing.

Representative Sample: It's a series of graphics.

5. "For a good cause: Half a million people fund Wikipedia" Impressive fund-raising.

Representative Sample: With an average contribution of $22, they funded the $16 million goal in a month and a half. 2009's fundraiser, by contrast, raised only $8 million from 240,000 individual contributions.

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