WMDs

Paul Volcker takes on the financial voodoo in the WSJ.

Oh, Zimbabwe!

How long have I been writing about how the U.S. is going to manage its debt problem (i.e., inflating it away)? Almost five years? The WSJ summarizes a NBER paperthat details how the U.S. could inflate away 20% of its debt in four years.

In fromage news:

Vacherin Mont d'Or: It finally came in! A stinky, cow's milk, fondue-like cheese. Peeling off the spruce top and getting to the warm, runny, slightly sweet deliciousness is a true treat.

Chimay: A cow's milk cheese made by Belgian monks. These monks are apparently famous for their beer brewing abilities and decided many moons ago to combine their love of beer with their love of cheese by making this cheese and washing it in beer. This semi-soft cheese stinks, but is rather mild, with a nutty aftertaste.

Falling Down

I should be posting about my sprint triathlon and the Turkey Trot 10k, but the pictures are elsewhere and what is a race repot without pictures. Yep. Boring.

Instead I bring you Stratfor's assessment of the President's Afghanistan strategy. It's been interesting to hear Republicans praising the president and the left not quite knowing what to do or say.

The analysis itself is interesting and I'm paraphrasing here:

What we have is the Taliban that is definitely going to infiltrate the Afghan army. The Afghan army which is the key to the success of the President's strategy. So instead of focusing all of our efforts on preventing this infiltration, which is near nigh impossible, we'll use the Pakistani ISI to infiltrate the Taliban.

What is that you say? The ISI has been instrumental in helping the Taliban in the past? No matter. We don't have any other options.