Finally, new accounting rules are convincing some state governments to get their heads out of the sand about the cost of future medical benefits. Alas, one of the ways states are cutting costs is by shifting the costs to Medicare, which is in even worse shape fiscally.

The government's audited financial statement, released Friday, reported that Medicare's unfunded liability rose $2.4 trillion in 2006 to $32.3 trillion.

FEMA has only 2,600 employees.

Tasty squid! (HT: Bruce Schneier)

More bad news from Waziristan.

In this link-rich post, Mickey Kaus warms up to partitioning Iraq.

Two strategy games whose rules recently caught my eye are Chameleon and Arimaa. I can imagine simple modifications of each game that would admit more than two players.

Miscellany

The AMT puzzles Arnold Kling. I'd also note a counterintuitive fact from the WSJ article($): the government would raise more tax revenue over the next ten years by repealing the rest of the tax code than by repealing the AMT.

Some medical screenings do more harm than good.

I've advocated partitioning Iraq in the past, but I'm increasingly convinced it's too late for us to oversee a partition; Iraqi militias are already carrying it out, and more intensely than a few months ago.

The distribution of consumer spending (compared to the distribution of income).

J.B. Hunt (1927-2006) . (See also here.)

More on the Stern Report by Brad Delong and then Arnold Kling.