Liberal Talk Radio

Andrew Sullivan has posted a great YouTube video of a U.S. Humvee driving through downtown Baghdad. Bumping the locals’ cars, as Sullivan writes, can “hardly endear the U.S. forces to the local population.” Indeed.

A couple of other interesting things. First, note that none of the traffic lights work. Second, it’s weird seeing a third-world country with so many cars on the road. I’m not the most well-travelled guy on the planet, but the few times that I’ve been to a poor, third-world nation, I’ve noted that bicycles, buses, and motorbikes are the normal forms of transit. This is obviously the result of living in an oil state (cheap oil + enough local wealth to buy cars), but it’s still jarring.