This week's Free Will Astrology

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
In his book Crying: the Natural and Cultural History of Tears, Tom Lutz asserts that people don't cry as much as they used to. The English of the Victorian era, supposedly renowned for their stuffy behavior, put us to shame with their abundant outpouring of tears. So what's our excuse? There's as much, if not more, to be mournful about nowadays; and we certainly don't suffer from a lack of events to spur our cathartic joy and empathy. Would you like to volunteer to do something about the modern weeping deficit, Libra? In the coming days, you'll have rich opportunities to unleash tears of breakthrough and release.


Is this a good thing, or a bad thing, I wonder...

Assorted articles

Conversations with the Powers That Be in Davos by a writer for Newsday.
Fascinating stuff.

History

Governing Iraq: Modern History and "The Day After", Part 1 from The Estimate.
Interesting historical analysis of Iraq and what we might be able to expect in the aftermath. (The last century; it was carved out of the Middle East after WWI in basically the same arbitrary way Israel was.)


A brief overview of Baghdad's history. Chicago Tribune
"Mongols sacked it, the Ottomans controlled it and the British shaped it. But none of them could hold it."


Liberate? For centuries we've been "liberating" the Mideast. Why Do We Never Learn? by Robert Fisk, originally appeared in The Independent (UK)


Some others:

The dogs were yelping. They knew bombs were on the way. Robert Fisk, The Independent (UK)

Even the war game "training" was rigged, according to US general who resigned in protest.
Put in charge of the "enemy" (low-tech, third-world) military in the game, "We were directed... to move air defences so that the army and marine units could successfully land," he said. "We were simply directed to turn [air defence systems] off or move them... So it was scripted to be whatever the control group wanted it to be."

And he was still outwitting the US forces in the game. Sunk a good part of the US navy- they had to restart the game so the US stood a chance.


Lessons learned by those of us watching:

"Never get into a land war in Asia" is still good advice.

The commanders involved apparently never played Risk as children.