Ocelopotamus

• “Iraq hasn’t even begun”: Writing in the LA Times, Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European studies at Oxford University, examines the long-term consequences of the debacle in Iraq, and concludes, “Looking back over a quarter of a century of chronicling current affairs, I cannot recall a more comprehensive and avoidable man-made disaster.”
• Digby on the neglected infrastructure of American cities: “Wednesday, in New York, a pipe installed in 1924 finally gave way and ended up killing someone. Imagine that. They built things to last in those days, but I doubt anyone ever dreamed that they would have to last for nearly a century … This is the legacy of the past 25 years of neglect … There is a price to pay for this free lunch the conservatives have been selling for the past 30 years and the bill is coming due.”
• Speaking of infrastructure, the Sun-Times ran a great essay a couple weeks back about the benefits to Illinois of getting Chicago’s train system up to speed, and the dangers of letting it fall apart.
• Dutch Treat: Grendel at Earthgoat has a very entertaining slice-of-life post about the small cultural differences he’s observed while living in the Netherlands. (Apparently there are special traffic signals just for pedestrians with pony tails!)
• Via AKMA, Typographica’s favorite fonts of 2006. I’m partial to Paperback, myself.
• THE PINK SECTION: Ian McKellen speaks up in Singapore.
• Yet another example of why separate-but-equal doesn’t work: UPS refuses to provide benefits to same-sex couples in civil unions in New Jersey. Via Towleroad.
• THE GREEN SECTION: Another article, this time from Variety, about how Rupert Murdoch has seen the light on climate change and is going to take his empire, including News Corp., carbon neutral. My question is, when does his conversion start influencing the content on Fox News? When do Hannity and O’Reilly get the memo ordering them to start telling their viewers that global warming is real? Because that should be interesting.
• Meanwhile, a “major new scientific study” confirms that heavier rainfall in the UK is the result of climate change.
• “Dead rivers and raw sewage”: Der Spiegel looks at how India is choking on pollution.
• A species of long-beaked echidna, believed to be extinct, turns up in Papua New Guinea. On the flip side, Texas ocelots are edging closer to extinction, with a recent death leaving less than 100 of the cats alive. And: What happens when flamingos go on strike.
• HEALTH: Migrant workers are taking HIV back home with them.
• TECH: It’s amazing how many people I see walking around with their iPods on during rainstorms. Here’s why that’s a really bad idea.
• MUSIC: Bryan Ferry has finished recording an album of Dylan covers talks about the album of Dylan covers titled Dylanesque he released back in MARCH, and somehow I missed it (doh! I blame it on not having Tower Records to browse at anymore). “Asked what he thought when Dylan dropped the acoustic image and went all electric with the 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, Ferry laughed. ‘That’s when I got into him. When the guy shouted ‘Judas’ at him? I would have been the one cheering,’ he said of the seminal moment in rock history when one fan made his displeasure known during Dylan’s 1966 show in Manchester, England.”
• COMICS: My pal Janis from The Kraken did a great roundup of her favorite online comics. I definitely agree with her that this installment of Bob the Angry Flower is not to be missed.
• This Modern World explores the mysteries of the Quantum Cheneyverse!
• Tom Toles: one section that probably won’t change much if Rupert Murdoch buys the Wall Street Journal. Ruben Bolling: new, high-minded cereal mascots. And here’s Bob Geiger’s Saturday cartoon roundup.

(h/t Norm Sloan for a couple of items here.)