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The recently famous one-eyed lion at the Kabul zoo died on Saturday, probably of old age. I’m continually disgusted that this story gets so much less coverage than this stupid, annoying, irrelevant story.

Just noticed that the fourth installment of the design document for Perl 6, Apocalypse 4, was released. This Michael Dorf column explains what an unlawful combatant is, and what the implications under the Geneva Convention are for prisoners of that status (as opposed to prisoners of war). The Economist has a fine article on foreign aid for Afghanistan, or rather the lack thereof. Frankly, the idea that the world in general (and the US in particular) would negligently let Afghanistan slip back into anarchy (and possibly the hands of terrorists) makes my jaw drop. A big chunk of the money we’re giving to Afghanistan is going to be spent on anti-drug programs. The best anti-drug program is giving the farmers in Afghanistan a chance to make money growing something other than opium. I supported rousting al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, but if we neglectfully leave them without the opportunity for something better, it will all have been for naught. ...

OK, Republican Senators are admitting that they like Hillary Clinton. I think the Earth is shifting on its axis. Jack Shafer leapt to the defense of Paul Krugman at Slate yesterday, and provided a reminder of Andrew Sullivan’s own conflict of interest scandal, which I had completely forgotten. Now a nonprofit antitrust organization is suing both Microsoft and the Justice Department for failing to disclose information about their settlement deliberations required under the Tunney Act. ...

More Enron/eBay fun, via a reader: here’s the Enron Risk Management Handbook complete with a bitterness-soaked description, currently up to $225. If you miss out on this copy, don’t fret, there appear to be plenty more where that one came from. I must have woken up in 1997 this morning – Netscape is suing Microsoft for something related to Web browsers. Richard Koman has an excellent interview with Brewster Kahle (the creator of the Internet archive and wayback machine) over at the O’Reilly Network (link found at Dangerousmeta). ...

Am I the only one who found the following quote from Donald Rumsfeld a bit unsettling? Obviously, anyone would be concerned if people were suggesting that treatment were not proper. The fact remains that treatment is proper. There is no doubt in my mind that it is humane and appropriate and consistent with the Geneva Convention for the most part. What the Hell does “for the most part” mean? Amazon.com posted a legitimate profit for the fourth quarter. Yes, folks, they’re actually making money. ...

So this week we find out how much money countries are going to kick in to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan. The UN says $15 billion over 10 years is needed, the Afghans are going to give their estimate tomorrow morning. I certainly hope that the US bellies up to the bar on this one and gives generously. The Afghans have suffered plenty over the past 20 or 25 years in service to America’s geopolitical agenda, and we ought to remember that when we make out our check. ...

The massive conflict of interest problems that plague public accounting are of course big news now that Arthur Andersen’s accounting gymnastics on Enron’s behalf have been exposed, but there were plenty of people who were concerned about them back when everybody thought Enron was real. One of them is Arthur Levitte, the former head of the SEC. How was he rewarded? Let’s see: Executives from the auditing firms said the proposals were unduly burdensome and unnecessary. But speaking of the episode this week, Mr. Levitt said the calls reflected the political influence of the industry, which ultimately succeeded in weakening his proposals to reduce the potential conflicts of interests at accounting firms. ...

Salon has not one, but two good pieces on Enron today. The first is Scott Rosenberg in full rant mode (sadly, Premium only), arguing that the Enron rise and fall is obviously a political scandal. Here are a couple of choice paragraphs: The Enron affair seems to have earned its “get out of jail free” card from the pundits because, so far, it seems that no one in the Bush administration was stupid enough to try to help the corporation last autumn as its fortunes circled the drain. And since Enron’s campaign-donation tentacles and friends-in-high-places influence appears to have extended to both parties – lopsided a good ways toward the Republicans but also boasting some serious Democratic names (including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and New York Sen. Charles Schumer) – the Enron saga does not perfectly fit the capital’s partisan templates. … It may be that Enron and its officers did nothing in technical violation of the law. If so, the scandal lies precisely there: that what they did was legal when it plainly should have been outlawed; that they managed to buy the laws they needed to build the financial house of cards that earned them millions before crashing down on stockholders’ heads. ...

Newsweek has the best overview of the Enron collapse yet. Microsoft has released an “internal memo” written by Bill Gates that urges employees to make security and privacy their top priority. My personal feeling on this is that a leopard can’t change its spots, at least not quickly. The hole keeps getting deeper and deeper for Arthur Andersen. It has now been revealed that Sherron Watkins (the Enron whistleblower) warned them about the company’s accounting shenanigans five months ago, and the firm considered dropping Enron as a client in February, 2001. ...

The World Bank says it’s going to cost $45 billion over the next 10 years to rebuild Afghanistan. That’s chump change (the Afghan government says it will cost $45 billion, which still isn’t that much). Consider that we funnelled $7 billion in military aid to the Afghan resistance in the eighties, or that we spent $20 billion in one fell swoop to “bail out” the airlines. We can get a country of over 20 million people back on its feet for less than $1,000 per person. The disparity in wealth between the developed world and the “developing” world is insane. ...