Steven Levy, who was embedded with us during our State Department trip to Iraq this past April, has a feature story in this month's issue of Wired:

Despite being three years old, the Dear Red States Craigslist posting from 2005 is suddenly circulating again. I guess it must be election season that has revived this. But I figured I'd take a quick shot at a response.

Dear Red States We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

Hot Damn. Thanks. You're like people who have stayed long after the rest of the party goers have gone home. We've been hoping you'd finally leave, but we're too polite to simply throw you out.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

Well, actually, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Washington are typically considered swing states, but you can have them. Congratulations. You got two states too cold to live in, a failing automotive industry, and Washington.

As for the beaches, we got the entire gulf coast an the Atlantic up to North Carolina. You got the rocky coast of the northwest and the Jersey Shore (whose tourism board just recently announced their new slogan Guidos in Speedos). Again. Congrats.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. We get 85 percent of America 's venture capital and entrepreneurs.

I don't mean to quibble with your argument, but Bank of America is the nation's largest and one of the few solvent banks. It's located in North Carolina. We'll take that.

I also suspect that most of the corporate CEOs that built that wealth will move in with us since better than 75% of them vote Republican.

You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

You can have the tax revenue. We'll give the other 1/3 back to the people since they know how to spend it better than your army of bureaucrats.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire

Since our troops will be coming home in a year under President Bush's plan anyway, that's fine with us.

You're also likely impose strict gun control while we a) have a tendency to support regime change b) have a lot of guns. In addition, since most of America's nuclear arsenal sits in silos in the red states, if we ever decide we want New California back Well, let's just say, Sleep tight!

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90 % of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 % of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 %of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

You got me there. Let's just hope that all the Asian students who are attending those schools will let you mow their lawns when they graduate.

While I will miss the pineapple, I think I speak for my red state family when I say we're ok giving up the wine and stinky cheese. After all, we still have all the Jack Daniels from Tennesee, all the Coors and Budweiser beer products from Colorado and Missouri, most of America's steak, and all the cigars we can roll with that North Carolina tobacco.

You also seem to forget that a) we will get most of America's total acreage. We get America's strategic oil reserve, we get all the oil in Texas and Alaska. With a much smaller population, we'll have enough energy to last generations. If we run short, we have no problem drilling off the coast of New California since we know we won't run into you there. Even if we do, like I said, we have all the guns.

That is a shame about the condors. I hear they're good eatin'.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 % of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

I can live with that.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you. Additionally, 38 % of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11, and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico .

Peace out,
Blue States

Ugh! You get Hollywood? Bummer. You've just taken on a huge sector of the economy that creates little of actual value, yet gets paid better than most CEOs. But we're willing to accept that since you have agreed to permanently dispose of Paris Hilton, Rosie O'Donnell, and Britney Spears. Thanks for taking care of that for us.

In closing, let me simply say thank you again. I think this arrangement will work out beautifully.

Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. The Mgmt.

"I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite."

When I was a young sparky attending Cubs games, I noticed advertisements for a pizzeria called Lou Malnati's on the back of the tickets. I have a vague recollection (perhaps completely fabricated) that I asked my father about going there and he explained that they were in the suburbs and did not have stuffed pizza. That meant they were far away and that I would have seen no point in eating there (in my young mind, if a pizza wasn't stuffed, it wasn't good).

By the time I tried Malnati's for the first time in 1999, I already knew that deep-dish pizza was worth eating. But the buttery crust, sweet chunky tomato sauce, and fresh homemade sausage on a Lou Malnati's pie changed my pizza worldview forever. Since that time, I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite.

Lou Malnati and his wife, Jean, opened the first Malnati's in 1971 in Lincolnwood, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. Before that, he had worked at Uno's with his father, Rudy Malnati. In fact, there is some debate as to who actually created the deep-dish pizza that Uno's introduced to Chicago. Uno's says Ike Sewell did, but a Malnati's spokesperson says that Rudy Malnati was the creator. According to Wikipedia, there was a 1955 newspaper article that backs up the Malnati version of events.

In 1978, Lou Malnati died and his sons took over the family business and still run it today. In that time, the business has done well. In 1995, they were up to nine locations, and today they have 28. However, only ten of those are sit-down restaurants, three of which are in Chicago and seven are in the suburbs. In addition to the restaurants, the company ships 250,000 pizzas around the country every year.

It is also worth mentioning that Malnati's has been a remarkable corporate citizen. In 1995, the company partnered with a local community organization and opened a restaurant on the far west side of Chicago in Lawndale, a community that could be the poster child for urban decay in America. In addition to employing local residents and offering high-quality food, the Lawndale Lou Malnati's contributes 100 percent of its profits to help finance educational and recreational programs for neighborhood youth.

Enough Business, Let's Talk Pizza

Photograph courtesy of the Chicago Pizza Club

Normally when I go to Malnati's, I get The Lou, which is the pizza in the upper left in the photo above. The Lou starts with the buttery crust that is, in my opinion, the best pizza crust in Chicago. It is not quite as thick as the traditional deep-dish crust found at the more visible downtown pizzerias like Uno's and Gino's East. The texture is perfectflaky but not weak, and crisp but not hard. The cornmeal gives it a nice flavor and a yellow shade. While The Lou automatically comes with a butter crust, other deep-dish pizzas do not, although they can be upgraded to a butter crust for 75 . I've always paid the odd nominal amount, so I can't say a word about the regular deep-dish crust.

On top of the crust comes a fantastic blend of mozzarella, Romano, and cheddar cheese. Malnati's has bought its mozzarella from the same small dairy farmer for 35 years. On top of the cheese in The Lou is fresh spinach and fresh mushrooms. The next layer is Malnati's chunky, sweet, and slightly acidic tomato sauce. The Lou is topped with sliced Roma tomatoes, which are also available as a topping on its other pizzas.

A Sausage-Crust Pizza

As much as I love The Lou, which I have no problem describing in detail from recent memory, I decided to expand my horizons a bit on my recent Slice trip, and I ordered a pizza that may well only be available in a city that once was Hog Butcher for the World. I'm not sure when or why it started, but Malnati's offers a unique gluten-free pizza. Other places offer gluten-free pies, but they typically make a crust out of rice flour rather than wheat flour. There is nothing resembling bread in the Malnati's version. The crust is one large piece of savory, juicy sausage.

The bottom layer is about a quarter-inch-thick piece of sausage. The next layer is about the same thickness of mozzarella cheese. I opted for mushrooms and Roma tomatoes as toppings. The mushrooms were under the sauce, and the sliced tomatoes were on top. For reasons I can't explain, even though there is no thick crust to deal with, it still took 35 minutes to cook the pizza.

Both my dining companion and I agreed it was worth the wait. One unavoidable flaw of the sausage crust is that it does not hold onto the melted cheese nearly as well as a traditional crust. As a result, this can be a messy treat.

While Malnati's remains primarily a suburban chain, there are two conveniently located restaurants in Chicago that out-of-towners can easily reach. One, where I went tonight, is on the north side of the city, just more than a mile directly south of Wrigley Field. The other one is in River North, just north of the Loop and west of the North Michigan Avenue shopping district. Both restaurants are filled with Chicago sports memorabilia and offer deep-dish, thin, and gluten-free pizza.

I am far from alone in my infatuation with Lou Malnati's pizza. In the 1990s, Mark Evans, a suburban Chicagoan and retired Air Force officer, sent 50 pizzas to the troops in Bosnia. Recently, his 16-year-old son Kent asked Evans whether the troops currently in the Middle East had access to the family's favorite pizza. Following an email exchange with Gen. David Petraeus, the Evans family got to work. They are currently raising money to buy 3,000 pizzas to ship to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan for the Fourth of July. That's some patriotic pizza love.

"I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite."

When I was a young sparky attending Cubs games, I noticed advertisements for a pizzeria called Lou Malnati's on the back of the tickets. I have a vague recollection (perhaps completely fabricated) that I asked my father about going there and he explained that they were in the suburbs and did not have stuffed pizza. That meant they were far away and that I would have seen no point in eating there (in my young mind, if a pizza wasn't stuffed, it wasn't good).

By the time I tried Malnati's for the first time in 1999, I already knew that deep-dish pizza was worth eating. But the buttery crust, sweet chunky tomato sauce, and fresh homemade sausage on a Lou Malnati's pie changed my pizza worldview forever. Since that time, I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite.

Lou Malnati and his wife, Jean, opened the first Malnati's in 1971 in Lincolnwood, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. Before that, he had worked at Uno's with his father, Rudy Malnati. In fact, there is some debate as to who actually created the deep-dish pizza that Uno's introduced to Chicago. Uno's says Ike Sewell did, but a Malnati's spokesperson says that Rudy Malnati was the creator. According to Wikipedia, there was a 1955 newspaper article that backs up the Malnati version of events.

In 1978, Lou Malnati died and his sons took over the family business and still run it today. In that time, the business has done well. In 1995, they were up to nine locations, and today they have 28. However, only ten of those are sit-down restaurants, three of which are in Chicago and seven are in the suburbs. In addition to the restaurants, the company ships 250,000 pizzas around the country every year.

It is also worth mentioning that Malnati's has been a remarkable corporate citizen. In 1995, the company partnered with a local community organization and opened a restaurant on the far west side of Chicago in Lawndale, a community that could be the poster child for urban decay in America. In addition to employing local residents and offering high-quality food, the Lawndale Lou Malnati's contributes 100 percent of its profits to help finance educational and recreational programs for neighborhood youth.

Enough Business, Let's Talk Pizza

Photograph courtesy of the Chicago Pizza Club

Normally when I go to Malnati's, I get The Lou, which is the pizza in the upper left in the photo above. The Lou starts with the buttery crust that is, in my opinion, the best pizza crust in Chicago. It is not quite as thick as the traditional deep-dish crust found at the more visible downtown pizzerias like Uno's and Gino's East. The texture is perfectflaky but not weak, and crisp but not hard. The cornmeal gives it a nice flavor and a yellow shade. While The Lou automatically comes with a butter crust, other deep-dish pizzas do not, although they can be upgraded to a butter crust for 75 . I've always paid the odd nominal amount, so I can't say a word about the regular deep-dish crust.

On top of the crust comes a fantastic blend of mozzarella, Romano, and cheddar cheese. Malnati's has bought its mozzarella from the same small dairy farmer for 35 years. On top of the cheese in The Lou is fresh spinach and fresh mushrooms. The next layer is Malnati's chunky, sweet, and slightly acidic tomato sauce. The Lou is topped with sliced Roma tomatoes, which are also available as a topping on its other pizzas.

A Sausage-Crust Pizza

As much as I love The Lou, which I have no problem describing in detail from recent memory, I decided to expand my horizons a bit on my recent Slice trip, and I ordered a pizza that may well only be available in a city that once was Hog Butcher for the World. I'm not sure when or why it started, but Malnati's offers a unique gluten-free pizza. Other places offer gluten-free pies, but they typically make a crust out of rice flour rather than wheat flour. There is nothing resembling bread in the Malnati's version. The crust is one large piece of savory, juicy sausage.

The bottom layer is about a quarter-inch-thick piece of sausage. The next layer is about the same thickness of mozzarella cheese. I opted for mushrooms and Roma tomatoes as toppings. The mushrooms were under the sauce, and the sliced tomatoes were on top. For reasons I can't explain, even though there is no thick crust to deal with, it still took 35 minutes to cook the pizza.

Both my dining companion and I agreed it was worth the wait. One unavoidable flaw of the sausage crust is that it does not hold onto the melted cheese nearly as well as a traditional crust. As a result, this can be a messy treat.

While Malnati's remains primarily a suburban chain, there are two conveniently located restaurants in Chicago that out-of-towners can easily reach. One, where I went tonight, is on the north side of the city, just more than a mile directly south of Wrigley Field. The other one is in River North, just north of the Loop and west of the North Michigan Avenue shopping district. Both restaurants are filled with Chicago sports memorabilia and offer deep-dish, thin, and gluten-free pizza.

I am far from alone in my infatuation with Lou Malnati's pizza. In the 1990s, Mark Evans, a suburban Chicagoan and retired Air Force officer, sent 50 pizzas to the troops in Bosnia. Recently, his 16-year-old son Kent asked Evans whether the troops currently in the Middle East had access to the family's favorite pizza. Following an email exchange with Gen. David Petraeus, the Evans family got to work. They are currently raising money to buy 3,000 pizzas to ship to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan for the Fourth of July. That's some patriotic pizza love.

Whatever figure you pick -- $523 billion or $3 trillion -- the obvious point is that the money could've been invested in technology that would do far more to secure the nation's future. Like, what if that had been spent on building nuclear power plants and electric cars? Could the U.S. have vastly accelerated its independence from Middle East oil? Not to mention what that would do for global warming. The latest Wired argues that nukes are the only way to save the planet.

It's all a moot point, of course. The investment opportunity is gone, the money dispersed to military personnel, defense contractors and all that. (As if, just coming off Memorial Day, the dollars even matter compared to the loss of life and other casualties.) But the debate needs to happen. Maybe it will help encourage better decisions going forward, and it's an interesting question of whether new technology can sometimes solve the same problem as a war.

-Sam Zell is sorry about all the profanity he's been spewing on his tour of Tribune Co. newsrooms. Except he's not sorry at all: "Extremism in the pursuit of opportunity is not a vice." [LA Observed]

-Two CBS News journalists are missing in Basra, Iraq. [AP]

-Is NBC courting trouble with the FCC by rerunning the Brian Williams-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live? [Eat The Press]

-Ray "Benzino" Scott and Dave Mays, who were tossed out at The Source two years ago, are launching a new hip hop magazine, Monsta. [Mediaweek]

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The American ship is sinking from the weight of its own economic narcissism. Our accountants and finance professionals have been richly rewarded for squeezing the last microscopic drop of profitability out of every other profession. That's why American newsrooms don't bother with news. That's why American old age homes imprison their residents as cheaply as possible. That's why American insurance companies refuse to pay out claims for sick people or destroyed homes. That's why we've proven that America is massively incapable of nationbuilding in Iraq or in Afghanistan or even in Louisiana.

So, thanks to the beancounters who know what things cost but not how to actually do anything, American is accelerating toward becoming a third world nation. And no one in the rest of the world will give a shit, and rightfully so, thanks to our cavalier attitudes toward Iraqi civilians, toward Sudanese refugees, toward the Chinese children who sew our clothing, toward the immigrants who work on our farms and in our hotels and hospitals and in those extremely profitable old-age homes, and toward anyone who isn't white and speaks English.

This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. Are you more worried about getting blown up or watching your house, savings and job disappear into the nothingness?

The American ship is sinking from the weight of its own economic narcissism. Our accountants and finance professionals have been richly rewarded for squeezing the last microscopic drop of profitability out of every other profession. That's why American newsrooms don't bother with news. That's why American old age homes imprison their residents as cheaply as possible. That's why American insurance companies refuse to pay out claims for sick people or destroyed homes. That's why we've proven that America is massively incapable of nationbuilding in Iraq or in Afghanistan or even in Louisiana.

So, thanks to the beancounters who know what things cost but not how to actually do anything, American is accelerating toward becoming a third world nation. And no one in the rest of the world will give a shit, and rightfully so, thanks to our cavalier attitudes toward Iraqi civilians, toward Sudanese refugees, toward the Chinese children who sew our clothing, toward the immigrants who work on our farms and in our hotels and hospitals and in those extremely profitable old-age homes, and toward anyone who isn't white and speaks English.

This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. Are you more worried about getting blown up or watching your house, savings and job disappear into the nothingness?

Obama: I'm not against wars but COLUMN FOR THE HYDE PARK HERALD FOR WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2002 by Senator Barack Obama, D-13 The following is a speech that I gave at a recent rally regarding the situation in Iraq. The rally was downtown at Federal Plaza and several Hyde Parkers attended: Good afternoon. Let begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars. After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administrations pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perles and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Roves to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone thru the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what Im opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Queda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Queda, thru effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons in already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair. The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not we will not travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

Geekabout.com: Fifteen of the world's greenest buildings.

PhotoBucket.com: Imagine if your work gave you this warning.

eclipptv.com: Video of Rupert Murdoch at Davos, interviewed by Charlie Rose, about using his global media enterprise to shape world events like the war in Iraq.

Enn.com: Twenty-one things you didn't know you could recycle.

--Kevin Maney and Andrea Chalupa

Major Andrew Olmsted, who posted a blog since May 2007, was killed in Iraq on Thursday, Jan. 3. Major Olmsted, who had been based at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, began blogging after his unit was sent to Iraq with the mission of helping to train the Iraqi Army. No official details have been released on his death, but reports say that he and a second member of his unit were killed during an enemy ambush in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. Olmsted was determined to make a difference in Iraq. The sooner the Iraqi government doesn't need U.S. support to provide security for its people, the sooner we will probably be asked to leave.

What's incredible is that he wrote a blog post in case he was killed and asked a friend to publish it:

This is an entry I would have preferred not to have published, but there are limits to what we can control in life, and apparently I have passed one of those limits. And so, like G'Kar, I must say here what I would much prefer to say in person. I want to thank hilzoy for putting it up for me. It's not easy asking anyone to do something for you in the event of your death, and it is a testament to her quality that she didn't hesitate to accept the charge. As with many bloggers, I have a disgustingly large ego, and so I just couldn't bear the thought of not being able to have the last word if the need arose.

You can read the full post here.

Here is the four-part feature by Kelly Kennedy with video and pictures in the Army Times.

This is a development that gadget makers want, cell phone makers want, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants. Actually, if it breaks the business model of wireless carriers subsidizing cell phones for consumers, even the carriers will be happy.

But...what happened inside Verizon Wireless? The company until now had been the control freak of the wireless industry. It seemed to believe in the dogma that if it built the network, it should be able to control every device on it and, to a large extent, what people do with those devices. This kind of shift is like right-wing Republicans turning against the war in Iraq, the Catholic church embracing women priests, or James Bond getting married.

Hallelujah. Let's hope we see more of it in the wireless industry.

In fact, Mr. President, your initial pro-war arguments offer the best path toward understanding why the conflict has been such a disaster for U.S. interests and global security.

Following your lead, Iraq hawks argued that, in a post-9/11 world, we needed to take out rogue regimes lest they give nuclear or biological weapons to al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups. But each time the United States tries to do so and fails to restore order, it incurs a high -- albeit unseen -- opportunity cost in the future. Falling short makes it harder to take out, threaten or pressure a dangerous regime next time around.

Foreign governments, of course, drew the obvious lesson from our debacle -- and from our choice of target. The United States invaded hapless Iraq, not nuclear-armed North Korea. To the real rogues, the fall of Baghdad was proof positive that it's more important than ever to acquire nuclear weapons -- and if the last superpower is bogged down in Iraq while its foes slink toward getting the bomb, so much the better. Iran, among others, has taken this lesson to heart. The ironic legacy of the war to end all proliferation will be more proliferation.

As a refreshing mint, check out the length of the y-axis on this graph comparing the cost of the war and the amount spent by the US govt on energy R&D. (thx, ivan)

Take banks' losses on CDOs. What happened there? Banks such as Citigroup and Merrill Lynch would bundle up lots of bonds, many of them backed by subprime mortgages. They would then take the income from those bonds, and split it into tranches, much like the income from mortgages is aggregated and tranched in mortgage-backed securities. They would then sell the tranches to investors attracted by the high yields on offer, and they would make healthy profits by charging a fee for their services structuring the CDO in the first place.

But there was a problem. It turned out to be quite easy to sell the lower-rated tranches of the CDOs, and even the weakest of the AAA-rated tranches. But at the very top of the waterfall, there was a large chunk of so-called "super-senior" notes, which yielded so little that no one seemed particularly interested in buying them. As a result, the banks structuring the CDOs tended to keep those super-senior tranches on their own books an activity which they thought carried negligible risk, since the debt was, as we used to say in England, as safe as houses.

When houses turned out to be not very safe, those super-senior tranches went from being safe to being unsellable at pretty much any price. You could try to look to something like the ABX index to get an idea of what the market considered them to be worth, but for many reasons the ABX is an atrocious guide to the value of super-senior CDO tranches. All the same, those CDO tranches are now clearly not valued at par, and so the banks concerned, responsibly enough, have written down the value of those tranches by many billions of dollars.

Now, here's Stein:

Why didn't the directors ask the chiefs, Gee, how can you continue to earn a far higher rate of return on debt than the market rate? How are you defying gravity this way? Can it last?
Why were the questions not asked?

Well, Ben, the questions were not asked precisely because the super-senior CDO tranches weren't earning more than the market rate: that's why no one was particularly interested in buying them. They were considered ultrasafe, ultraboring, low-yielding assets. The banks were happy to hold on to them because they were safe and because they came with hefty fee income attached. But if no one structuring these things foresaw that they might plunge in value, it's a bit much to ask directors to be so prescient.

What the directors should certainly have been doing is keeping an eye on total CDO exposure that's where the Merrill directors fell asleep at the wheel. But the number they should have been looking at was the rate of increase of total CDO assets, not the spread between market interest rates and the yields on CDOs. Looking at that spread would have told them nothing.

Stein doesn't stop there, of course. He accuses Merrill of being "P.C." in its choice of directors, stopping just short of making the same accusation about the chairman of the board in particular, who of course was African-American. And he is also unimpressed by Bob Rubin:

When I saw that Citi had taken a bath in collateralized debt obligations and subprime, and saw that Robert E. Rubin had been on the board in a major position and had failed to stop the train wreck, I was staggered. And now he has been named chairman. He couldn't protect Citi's stockholders, and now he's in charge? And let's remember, he was Treasury secretary when we had the first part of one of the worst bubbles in stock market history. What on earth are the Citi directors thinking?

Clearly, everybody on Citi's board "failed to stop the train wreck" should they all have been defenestrated along with Chuck Prince? And I really don't see what Rubin, as Treasury secretary, can or should have done to prevent a stock-market bubble. It may or may not be fair to blame Alan Greenspan, who was in charge of monetary policy and margin requirements, for that bubble. Rubin, by contrast, was in charge of fiscal policy, which has precious little effect on stock prices.

Stein finishes off with an appeal to patriotism, implicitly accusing Rubin and the other board members of immorality:

It certainly hurts to spend day after day, as I did this fall, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center where the incredibly brave wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan learn about walking and eating without their natural legs and arms and to realize that the America for which they're fighting is led in so many arenas, especially the money one, by such weak, disappointing specimens.
It's high time that the America for which soldiers sacrifice so much is run on a moral standard more like theirs.

Do you hear that, Mr Rubin? You should behave, at Citigroup, much as US soldiers behave in Iraq and Afghanistan. Your thank-you letter for this advice should be sent to Ben Stein, c/o the New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, NY 10018. Hop to it, before more "fresh tears keep the ground damp" at Arlington National Cemetery.

First, a couple things to bear in mind:

The person of the year doesn't have to be a person. In previous years, it's been a group of people ("The Whistleblowers," 2004), an abstract figure ("The American Soldier," 2003), a pronoun that's really a concept ("You," 2006) and even a device ("The Computer," 1982).

The person of the year is meant to be the most influential person/group/entity/concept of the year, but the designation is value-neutral -- at least in theory. Past POYs have included Richard Nixon, Ayatollah Khomeini and Adolf Hitler. In practice, Time has seemed to favor feel-good POYs in recent years, possibly because it's easier to sell the issue to advertisers. Hence Rudy Giuliani in 2001 instead of Osama bin Laden.

And now for the contenders:

Pervez Musharraf
This would be something of a throwback choice -- an actual individual rather than a group or concept, a dictator rather than a hero. Picking Musharraf would reflect an emerging consensus that Pakistan -- not Iraq or Iran -- is the make-or-break foreign policy issue of the next few years. On the other hand, even though POY is supposed to be value-neutral, Time editors might worry that bestowing the title on Musharraf so soon after he declared emergency rule might be seen as an endorsement of his power-grab.

Rupert Murdoch
It's been a banner year for Murdoch, with his acquisition of The Wall Street Journal and the launch of Fox Business. And his $580 million purchase of MySpace in 2005 put him right in the middle of the year's biggest media story, social networking. While a media mogul might seem like an insidery choice, past POYs have included Ted Turner and Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

The Dissenters
A politician POY is unlikely this year, since next year's selection will almost certainly be the winner of the presidential election. (The last time a new president wasn't named POY was 1988, when "Endangered Earth" beat out George H.W. Bush; before that, it was 1968, although Nixon was recognized after his 1972 victory.) If it's to be a political cover, I'd guess we'll see some kind of concept package expressing the national mood. Thus: "The Dissenters": the figures who give voice to our exasperation with the Bush Administration. Time likes three-person tableaux, so let's say Stephen Colbert, Keith Olbermann and perhaps Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org, or Arianna Huffington? Or forget "The Dissenters" -- wrap them in a flag and call it "The New Patriots."

I know I'm missing obvious possibilities here -- is there someone who could serve as the face of the sub-prime crisis? -- but I'm out of ideas, and rather than ask all my co-workers to help me look smart, I figured I'd crowdsource this one. If you have suggestions, put 'em in the comments, and if I can I'll bounce them off the panelists.

"I think the insurance liability could exceed $2 billion when everything is said and done," said Robert Klein, Director of the Center for Risk Management and Insurance Research at Georgia State University. "This could be the biggest loss since Katrina."

Jason Kirchner, the chief spokesman for the U.S. government's response to the disaster concurred. In a telephone interview withe Portfolio.com, he said that if the damage is "anything like what we saw during the San Diego fires of 2003," then the potential insurance industry liability could be massive.

"We're talking in the billions of dollars," Kirchner said. "We have a vast amount of fire in Southern California."

Insurance companies facing potential settlements include Allstate, State Farm, American International Group, Chubb, and scores of smaller insurance and reinsurance companies. A.I.G. has sought to protect its wealthiest California clients by preemptively spraying fire retardant around their homes.

Because there are so many major blazes raging at once, authorities have instituted a "unified command" protocol reserved for only the most serious emergencies, Kirchner said, adding that the government's focus right now is on assessing fire conditions and deploying resources.

Industry experts warned that more destruction could be forthcoming.

"Over 900 properties have been destroyed and thousands more remain threatened," said Neena Saith, a catastrophe-response analyst at insurance consultancy Risk Management Solutions. "The Witch fire in San Diego County has caused the most destruction so far. But it is the Canyon fire that many insurers will be keeping a close eye on, because Malibu is a million-dollar area, and if the fires reach that area, there is the potential for major losses."

Malibu is home to many wealthy Hollywood figures. Mel Gibson and Kelsey Grammer were among those forced to flee from the flames.

Nearly 1,000 homes, businesses, and other structures had been destroyed as of Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reported, prompting fears that the cost of the disaster could reach several billion dollars, surpassing the deadly San Diego "Cedar" fire of 2003.

As the fires raged out of control Tuesday, insurance industry analysts struggled to estimate the potential losses.

"We don't have any numbers yet," Insurance Information Institute vice president Loretta Worters told Portfolio.com. "Homes are still burning. The biggest losses could come if the fires reach the McMansions in Malibu."

John Wood, a Smokejumper captain based in Redding, California, said that unusually strong winds had exacerbated the flames.

"The Santa Ana winds have come through and created a very dangerous situation," the 40-year-old firefighter said in a brief phone interview.

Initial reports from first responders battling the blaze were ominous.

"It was like Armageddon. It looked like the end of the world," Mitch Mendler, a San Diego firefighter, told the Associated Press as he and his crew refilled their fire truck with water from a hydrant near a local mall, before heading back into the fire.

The disaster will be a key test of state and federal disaster response two years after Hurricane Katrina.

According to the L.A. Times, the costliest fires in California history are the 1991 Oakland Hills fire ($2.5 billion), the 2003 San Diego fire ($1.1 billion), the 2003 San Bernardino "Old" fire ($1 billion), and the 1993 fires in Los Angeles and Oakland, which together cost $1 billion.

Bloomberg News reported that at least six homes were destroyed in Rancho Santa Fe, a residential community where the average sale price is $2.5 million. Last year, Forbes magazine ranked Rancho Santa Fe as the second priciest Zip code in the U.S.

But with no respite from the gale force Santa Ana winds expected until Tuesday eveningsome gusts reached 85 m.p.h. on Mondayfire crews appeared overwhelmed by the multiple infernos.

None of the biggest firesincluding Witch, Harris, Ranch, Canyon, Buckweed, and Magicwere reported to be more than 30 percent contained as of Tuesday. Several were reported to be expanding and merging.

The catastrophic Witch firewhich has burned 145,000 acres and destroyed at least 500 homes and 100 commercial establishmentswas completely uncontained on Tuesday afternoon, according to multiple reports.

Larry Himmel, a reporter for San Diego's Channel 8, provided an astonishing dispatch of the damage while standing in front of his house as it burned to the ground.

"This was a living hell coming over the hill, and this is what I come home to today," an emotional Himmel reported.

In an indication of the severity of the emergency, all San Diego schools were closed, Hewlett-Packard evacuated employees from its large office near Escondido, the San Diego Chargers moved practice to Arizona from Qualcomm Stadium, which is being used as an evacuation center, and the Navy asked only "essential personnel" to report to work, Bloomberg reported.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called the crisis "a tragic time for California," and declared a state of emergency in seven counties.

Late Monday, Schwarzenegger announced that federal help was on the way, in the form of six C-130 military transport aircraft capable of dropping up to 3,000 gallons of water or flame retardant at a time.

State officials implored citizens to avoid unnecessary cell phone and 911 calls and pleaded for assistance from fire departments in California's neighboring states.

Two Google Maps features depicted the scope of the emergency. Multiple Red Cross centers and other evacuation sites were reported to be at capacity, and sections of Interstate 5, Interstate 15, and the Pacific Coast Highway were reported closed.

Schwarzenegger called up 1,500 California National Guard troops to help battle the blaze, after earlier deploying soldiers from the Mexican borderwhere they were guarding against illegal immigrants. More than 20,000 California National Guard soldiers and airmen have been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11.

As fire crews battled the infernos, fewer than 100 firefighters were left to protect San Diego, a 400-square-mile city, said John Langford, a spokesman for San Diego Fire and Rescue.

More than 2,300 inmates from California state prisons were enlisted to aid state and local firefighters.