A few links

Don't have much time for analysis today, so here are a few links of interest. 

Here's a story about massive protests over power cuts.  Violence is sexy and draws the headlines, but in a faltering state with deep mistrust- often outright hatred- of the government, annoyances throughout daily life can explode.  It reminds me of a part in the great biography of the old Mayor Daley and his Chicago, Boss, by the inimitable Mike Royko (and he is inimitable, so stop freaking trying, John Kass), about the 1967 riots.  The proximate cause was the fire department closing hydrants on the west side, to save water, while white kids in the north were allowed to frolic at their leisure.  This was the last straw, and huge swaths of the city burned.  Daley, who thought everything could be fixed with projects and buildings, quickly trucked in pools and let the hydrants flow and built swimming structures.  As Royko said, if Chicago didn't have the happiest blacks, it "at least had the wettest ones."  This of course ignored the underpinnings of discontent.   It is a difficult dance- daily grievances exacerbate discontent, but the roots don't go away with band-aid gestures.

Here are a couple of stories about AQAP, its evolving leadership, and stepped-up tactics by the Yemeni government.   AQAP is getting a deeper bench and growing stronger roots- indeed, it inspires any number of hackneyed and mixed metaphors. This just underscores the ultimate futility of relying solely or even largely on military methods.   Military and intelligence action is indispensable to avoid attacks in the short-term, but we'll be risk being stuck in that mode forever.