This looks like quite the interesting read. Er, if you're into that sort of thing.

Oh, and apologies for lack of posts; am swamped trying to catch up with work after the last few days of blogging madness. Will have a few longer things up later this evening on Social Security, taxes, and hm, maybe even on this thought-provoking post by praktike. On the last, if I recall correctly, during the Cold War the AFL generally worked to undermine the labor movement in Eastern Europe—mainly by working to set up alternatives to the pro-communist labor unions in France, Italy, Germany, etc. So you could see a similar model working in the Middle East. The only point, I guess, is that the "labor movement" has a variety of faces, and they often conflict with each other. Which just means that praktike's scrutiny toward the subject is really quite important, and Beinart's "broad brush" approach sadly unhelpful.