The Rundown

• Matthew Yglesias asks an important question — Would Rudy Giuliani Bomb Iran? (I’ll give you a hint: the answer is “yes.”)
• In other scary war news, there have been murmurs about the draft again in recent weeks. Steve Levitt of Freakonomics fame makes a pretty persuasive argument against. Fortunately, the Pentagon’s official line is still that the draft is off the table.
• Via Brad DeLong, Abu Aardvark points out that a Petraeus/Crocker report might, due to the nature of their respective positions, be somewhat schizophrenic.
• Jesus Christ, why does Chuck Schumer want anything to do with copyrighting fashion designs?
• The Democratic Strategist thinks election reform is a good idea. So do I. I’d like something even more radically than what the author would like, but anything is better than what we have now.

The Rundown

• Libya finally revokes the death sentences of the Bulgarian doctors in the AIDS case. I can’t say I’m surprised, not even Ghaddafi is that crazy.
• Friendly reminder: Actually being innocent doesn’t necessarily get your conviction overturned under US law.
• Would an Iraqi civil war take the wind out of Iran’s sails? And how should we feel about that?
• Ron Paul rising. Weird.
• This has been widely reported, but the contents of an unintentionally hilarious Richard Nixon memo came out today.
• A pretty good Boston Globe piece draws parallels between the British occupation of Palestine and a certain other Middle East quagmire.