The news of the day

After reading the morning paper, I was going to say something like this, but I see Kevin Drum already has, so I'll just copy his post over here:

GLOBETROTTING....The newspapers are just a great big bundle of foreign policy cheer today. First up, Iraq:

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq's borders from external threat until at least 2018.

Oh, goody. Next, Afghanistan:

After more than six years of coalition warfare in Afghanistan, NATO is a bundle of frayed nerves and tension over nearly every aspect of the conflict, including troop levels and missions, reconstruction, anti-narcotics efforts, and even counterinsurgency strategy. Stress has grown along with casualties, domestic pressures and a sense that the war is not improving, according to a wide range of senior U.S. and NATO-member officials who agreed to discuss sensitive alliance issues on the condition of anonymity.

And finally, the world's most dangerous country:

Pakistan's premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.

So how are things going in your neck of the woods these day?

Oh. One other thing in today's good news. About a month ago, my cardiologist put me on Vytolin (a combination of Zetia and Zocor) instead of just Zocor, which I had been on before with good results. Today, the NY Times tells us that a long delayed study by Merck and Schering-Plough (which jointly market the drug) showed it not only did no good, it actually probably increased the build up of plaque in the blood vessels. I had already stopped taking it two weeks ago when a similar article in the Times told us that another long delayed study showed it increased liver damage. My doc wasn't happy when I told her I had stopped. Tells you something about the hand that feeds her, I guess.