Democrats, and a growing number of Republicans, are determined not to wait until September for the president to report on whether the surge is working. The American people have had enough. They want out. As we move into the endgame, though, the public needs to understand that neither Republicans nor Democrats are presenting them with a realistic strategy.

We need to determine — now, today — whether this is a fight that can be resolved or a riot that we need to build a wall around and wait until it exhausts itself.

See also, Senate Cloakroom Clash.

In Or Out | Tom Friedman

On June 15, 2007, Generals David Petraeus and Ray Odierno launched the largest coordinated military operation in Iraq since the initial U.S. invasion. The campaign, called Operation Phantom Thunder, aims to expel al Qaeda from its sanctuaries just outside of Baghdad. Denying al Qaeda the ability to fabricate car bombs and transport fighters through the rural terrain around Baghdad is a necessary prerequisite for securing the capital city, the overarching military goal for Iraq in 2007.

Operation Phantom Thunder is the first co- ordinated, offensive campaign against the insurgency in Iraq.

Phantom Thunder is unusual in the annals of counter-insurgency for its scale and its combination of multiple, complex movements over a large area, all of which focus on essential tasks of counter-insurgency.

The operation has been designed to avoid the pitfalls of previous approaches, denigrated by some critics as a “whack-a-mole” strategy that allows defeated insurgents to flee to safe havens and reconstitute.

A war this large and complex will not end with a single battle or campaign. The art of military command in such conflicts lies in tying multiple, simultaneous, and successive operations together over time. If these operations work properly, they will steadily improve the situation on the ground. The preparations for Operation Phantom Thunder have already done so. The current operation aims to do more. Future Iraq Reports will de- scribe Phantom Thunder in greater detail, as well as the subsequent operations that will surely fol- low.

The Real Surge: Preparing for Operation Phantom Thunder

With enactment of the FY2007 supplemental on May 25, 2007, Congress has approved a total of about $610 billion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks: Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Afghanistan and other counter terror operations; Operation Noble Eagle (ONE), providing enhanced security at military bases; and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

For the first half of FY2007, CRS estimates that DOD’s average monthly obligations for contracts and pay is running about $12 billion per month, well above the $8.7 billion in FY2006. For FY2007, obligations are about $10 billion in Iraq, $1.9 billion in Afghanistan, and less than $100 million for enhanced security.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that additional war costs for the next 10 years could total about $472 billion if troop levels fall to 30,000 by 2010, or $919 billion if troop levels fall to 70,000 by about 2013. If these estimates are added to already appropriated amounts, total funding for Iraq and the GWOT could reach from about $980 billion to $1.4 trillion by 2017.

The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11

Among the most expensive meals in America is the perfectly crafted sushi at Manhattan's Masa. But sushi is also one of the country's most workaday meals—found in corporate cafeterias and delis alike. Sushi has saturated nearly every level of our food economy: How did this ostensibly Japanese food come to be so dominant? This season, two serious-minded books examine how sushi got to be one of our reflexive dining options, and how our taste for rice and fish affects our oceans.

Talking sushi with Trevor Corson and Sasha Issenberg

Everything old is new again, when you reinvent the wheel. It's merely coincidental that your new wheel looks a lot like some wheels from five years ago.

Initial Task: Rethink and reinvent online social networking

Refined Focus: Discover the user needs related to social networking and explore how a unified social network service can enhance their experience.

Prototype Goal: Create a system for users to seamlessly share, view, and respond to many types of social content across multiple networks.

Gee, sound familiar?

Socialstream is a system where users can seamlessly share, view, and respond to many types of social content across multiple networks. It is the result of a rigorous user-centered design process that involved formal research and evaluation with over 35 participants and weekly critiques from clients and colleagues.

Socialstream

The peak oil crowd might want to check this out.

World Without Oil is a serious game for the public good. It enlists the 'collective imagination' of Internet users to help us confront a real-world issue: the risk our oil dependency poses to our quality of life. It's the first major "alternate reality game" to use immersive collaborative storytelling to build a vivid, realistic vision of a possible future.

Here's how to play:

(1) Imagine your life in this oil shock.
(2) Create something on the Web to express your reality: a blog post, an image, a video, an audio file.
(3) Tag it "worldwithoutoil" so others can find it.
(4) Tell us about your creation by emailing it to us. Be sure to include a link to your story!

World Without Oil

This book gets mixed reviews, but the message may resonate ...

From Publishers Weekly:

Twenty-something journalist Daniel Brook sees the best minds of his generation scrivening away as corporate lawyers and accountants, and he's furious about it. His fresh and striking pay-gap polemic laments the plight of "educated, idealistic young people" who must choose whether "to be a sellout or a saint" — that is, whether to take a lucrative corporate job or to eke out a pauper's existence in creative or nonprofit work.

"The new economic realities," Brook writes, "are shaping people's lives, closing off certain career and lifestyle options. They are reducing freedom."

Many readers will wince in recognition of their work/life compromises. "Corporate America is riddled with secret dissenters," Brook notes; he does a real service asking why it must be this way.

From Booklist:

Selling out in order to make big bucks used to be viewed with contempt, but, Brook argues, in today's aggressive society, it has become ever more acceptable, even mundane.

For many people the choice comes down to sticking to one's ideological guns or living a comfortable life, but for "boomerang kids" -- college grads so far in debt that they have to move back in with their folks -- selling out is the only way to escape childhood.

An exploration not only of the economics of compromise but also of the frustration that comes in the wake of putting material concerns ahead of personal beliefs.

The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America

See also the recent radio segment, Graphic Design Can Cause Seizures.

79 Short Essays on Design brings together the best of designer Michael Bierut’s critical writing—serious or humorous, flattering or biting, but always on the mark. Beirut is widely considered the finest observer on design writing today. Covering topics as diverse as Twyla Tharp and ITC Garamond, Bierut’s intelligent and accessible texts pull design culture into crisp focus. He touches on classics, like Massimo Vignelli and the cover of The Catcher in the Rye, as well as newcomers, like McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and color-coded terrorism alert levels. Along the way Nabakov’s Pale Fire; Eero Saarinen; the paper clip; Celebration, Florida; the planet Saturn; the ClearRx pill bottle; and paper architecture all fall under his pen. His experience as a design practitioner informs his writing and gives it its truth. In 79 Short Essays on Design, designers and non-designers alike can share and revel in his insights.

Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design | Michael Bierut

This is a week old now, but somehow I'd missed it.

A secret U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror "spectacular" this summer, according to a senior official with access to the document.

"This is reminiscent of the warnings and intelligence we were getting in the summer of 2001," the official told ABCNews.com.

ABC News: EXCLUSIVE: 9/11-Type Warnings Seen

Recommended for those who liked The Indestructible Beat of Soweto, which I mentioned a few months ago (though it seems longer, somehow).

This compilation introduced Mahlathini to the rest of the world. Primal, growling mbaqanga (with backing vocals by the Mahotella Queens), it prompted many critics to call Mahlathini the "Howlin' Wolf of South Africa."

Mahlathini: The Lion of Soweto