about what has been going on in Iraq on the governance side of things – and who isn’t, what with the nonexistent roadmap, the multiple acronymously-named groups with the same membership, and spying-for-Iran accusations – you can do much worse than to read Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo, particularly the archives starting May 30 and May 23. Marshall’s conclusion, at least as of just now?

Now that some of the dust has settled, we can see one thing pretty clearly: the IGC basically hijacked the process. The IGC essentially reconstituted as a caretaker government. The new President, Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, was the current president of the IGC. Hoshiyar Zebari, who was the foreign minister in the IGC, is now the foreign minister under the interim government. Allawi was a member of and choice of the IGC, etc. And so on down the list. The only key issue is that Chalabi, if not his crew, has been purged. Brahimi agreed to a laying on of hands. But he didn’t make the choices. He was sidelined.

from the world of pizza: Italy sets strict guidelines for pizza-making. Of course this has little to do with the practically unrelated dish we call ‘pizza’ in North America.