The Afghanistan Reboot: Can Obama and Petraeus Work Together? by Joe Klein from Time Magazine  is a thoughtful piece about the situation in Afghanistan.

One thing that I have learned from my experience in the Army and my experience in private sector employment is the danger of trying to go over the head of your boss and to appeal to higher authority to get what you want.  I am beginning to see that this was the technique that McChrystal and some others in the military have been trying to use.

The analogy to my experience isn’t perfect, but I think it still applies.  Unless your boss is totally incompetent, he or she enjoys the confidence of his or her boss.  Your boss’s boss probably knows your boss much better than he or she knows you.  The further up the chain of command you go, the more likely these observations are true.

When you go up that chain of command, you are asking your boss’s boss to consider issues that he or she has delegated to your boss.  The first thing your boss’s boss is likely to do is to ask your boss for an explanation of the issue.

If your boss appears to his or her boss to have a good handle on the situation, then the issue will probably be re-delegated to your boss.

The bottom line is that you had better have an exceptional case to present if you want to try going up the chain of command.  You had also better have strong evidence that you have tried all the normal processes to be heard and that those processes did not give your idea a fair hearing.  You should also believe in your case so strongly that you are willing to risk your career over it.

At the very least you need to be aware of the above dynamic and be prepared to take counter measures to overcome your disadvantages.  Understanding the dynamic makes you think of ways to avoid being seen as just a chronic complainer.

A story in The New York Times, U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan, seems to indicate that there are such vast mineral deposits.  I like to think that I was suspicious of this story when I first read it. I was suspicious on factual grounds and because of my general mistrust of The New York Times, given its recent history for making things up at the behest of U.S. government insiders.

Even if true, it reminds me of the suspicions that George Bush attacked Iraq to help US companies (and British Petroleum companies) get their hands on Iraq’s oil wealth on highly favorable terms. (Favorable to the oil companies, not to Iraq).

Now the story Analysis: Did the “gray lady” get played? is published on the Global Post web site. The story offers a bunch of questions on why the decades old pieces of information have recently become so important.

The author of the analysis piece, Jean MacKenzie, does not mention any names.  However, to me the name of General McChrystal somehow pops into mind.

In any case, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, if it turns out that Afghanistan does have immense mineral wealth it only makes our position there less tenable, not more. Again, the U.S. military might have been better off if they hadn’t been so forceful in pushing this story.  Maybe that’s why I think of General McChrystal.

At consortiumnews.com is the article How US Media Botched Iran’s Election.

One can still remain skeptical of the premise of the article (if you want to), and still have your mind opened to the possibility that what we think we know about the recent election is very far from reality.

U.S. foreign policy toward Iran may be way off base because of this faulty story line that western countries are accepting.

At least one has to wonder what Brazil and Turkey think they know that would lead them to try to deal with Iran on purely diplomatic term.

Maybe there is a rational reason why Russia and China are so hard to convince to go along with us on our bellicose behavior toward Iran.

Would our heads explode if we were to contemplate these possibilities?

The article Inside The Mind Of The Anonymous Online Poster that appears on the boston.com web site is a fascinating look at the issue of anonymity and online blogs.

There is nothing actionable about what we learn from the article.  However, it is nice to know that the people who run these sites are concerned about the impact of anonymous posters.

I have been reading the comments on Yahoo! News lately. True to the name, it seems to attract mostly the yahoos to post comments.  I think it is actually worse than what I read for comments on the Worcester T & G web site.

There is no real surprise that the Republicans don’t want economic recovery while Obama is in office. The thought that the middle class can be convinced that this is a good idea is the surprise.

When can we say that people like this have crossed the line?

After posting the above video, I received another from Harry Reid.

Perhaps I could have made another post titled Has Harry Reid Gone A Bit Far?

Here is the email that I sent to Harry Reid in response to the latest video.

Senator Reid,

Please ask Senator Martha Coakley about making the underdog Scott Brown the issue in the campaign.

To your logical mind, her logical mind, and my logical mind there was no way that people could buy what Scott Brown was selling.

And you know my first sentence was erroneous, because we have Senator Scott Brown not Senator Martha Coakley.

You must focus on your positive message to the electorate.

Let Sharron Angle do herself in. There is no need for your campaign to make her look like the sad underdog who needs a defense from the brutal professional politician, Harry Reid.

I know these attacks are fun and almost irresistible, but Sharron Angle supporters will not appreciate being called idiots. She will make your attacks the focus of the campaign. Stop now before it is too late.

Reuters is carrying a version of this story.

A Texas Republican apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward on Thursday for having to set aside $20 billion for Gulf of Mexico damage claims, drawing ridicule from Democrats and embarrassing Republicans.

You just gotta love those Texas politicians.  No wonder Sharon calls herself a New Englander.

Gina M had this on her facebook page. It was too good to pass up.

This article “explains” the anger of the Tea Party adherents. This also explains why libertarians are so firm in their belief that the social world can be made to work in ways that it clearly does not.

As one example from the article, we may all be angry that people and institutions who behave irresponsibly in the economic sector can drag down the whole economy, even those who are trying to act responsibly.  Even the irresponsible can be angry at this fact of life.

The Tea Party people firmly believe that by eliminating certain institutions that this interdependence can be eliminated.  Some of the rest of us understand that this interdependence is an essential part of modern society and we have to come to terms with it.

I draw a corollary from this article.  There will be a large segment who will not understand the argument presented in this article.  We must come to terms with that fact of life, too.  Yet, I still write this blog. How odd.

Documentary maker Iara Lee smuggles out video despite Israeli attempt to confiscate all recordings

Follow this link to the article  and to the 15 minutes of video.  This is posted  on the UK Guardian web site.  In the video, there is blood, but it is not too gruesome to watch. Just pretend that it is a movie and not a documentary.