PEDs in Iraq

Last week, The Independent reported that "many" private security contractors in Iraq are using steroids to bolster regular workouts:

Paranoid, competitive and fuelled by guns, alcohol and steroids. That is how one senior contractor in Baghdad describes the private security industry operating in the city's Green Zone...

At night they return to the Green Zone, where the only releases are working out in the gym – with many also using steroids

Ted Rall's September 12 cartoon emphasizes this point, but I've rarely seen the alleged drug problem mentioned in the mainstream reporting about Iraq.

The LA Times did report a major drug bust in August 2005:

Italian police seized 215,000 doses of prohibited substances as they broke up a ring that supplied steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to customers around the world, including American soldiers in Iraq, a police official said Monday.

The U.S. military there had no immediate comment, but steroid abuse has long been discussed as an issue in Iraq, where American troops and contractors work out in gyms on military bases and even in the mirrored halls of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces.

Both this story and the Rall cartoon implicate U.S. troops, not merely private contractors.

The American Council for Drug Educationdr suggests that steroid abuse causes severe behavioral problems:

Some users show bad judgment because the drugs make them feel invincible. Other users suffer from uncontrolled aggression and violent behavior called “Roid Rage”, severe mood swings, manic episodes and depression. They often suffer from paranoid jealousy, extreme irritability and can have delusions.

Oh, and of course, they are not good for your health either.


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How fast did this page load where you live?

AT&T's U-verse service has arrived in Louisville -- potentially challenging Insight Communication's dominance of the cable television and broadband markets.

Maybe the consequence will be improved service (and lower price). Right now, Kentucky ranks 31st in internet download speed -- 4.6 megabits per second. That's roughly 10% below the national average of 5.1 mbps.

Granted, Louisville residents probably benefit from a higher download speed than do rural Kentuckians -- but readers should keep in mind that US speeds are not especially fast by world standards. Many European countries have internet download speeds that are much faster -- France, Sweden and Finland average between 15 and 20 mbps.

Korea and Japan obliterate the US, with speeds average 45 and 60 mbps, respectively.


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Telemarketing College Prep

A few minutes ago, I received a phone call from someone who identified himself as a representative of the Smart Education Foundation. He asked for a parent of my oldest daughter (he had her name) and then proceeded to try to market an ACT/SAT test preparation software (DVD) package for $189 plus $10 shipping and handling. The "non-profit corporation" (licensed since July 13!) guaranteed a 300 point improvement in SAT scores (and a comparable increase for ACT, though I didn't catch the precise number).

He sounded like a polished telemarketer and I could hear other telemarketers in the background, presumably "selling" the same product.

He said the software was tax deductable (and returnable for a refund) and that Smart Education Foundation (SEF) used customer "donations" (???) to fund use of the program for needy college-bound children.

As he was about to ask me for my credit card number ("So, does this sound like something you would be interested in for XXXX [my child]?"), I asked him the percentage of funds they donated to needy children.

He had no answer -- though he assured me it was a good question -- and then quickly moved to tell me the website and phone number (which you can find on their website in any case).

The website provides the details about their benevolence: 6 awards for a total of $5000:

The Smart Education Foundation (“Sponsor”) offers the following awards to our members only:

• 3 awards of $500.00 each
• 2 awards of $1,000.00 each
• 1 GRAND PRIZE award of $1,500.00

Oh, but check out the fine print. This is the first rule:

All applicants must be enrolled in the “Continuing Education” online service provided exclusively to our members. All members must continue to pay the monthly fee of $54.95 for at least 4 consecutive months in order to compete in the contest. Contestants must keep the online service throughout the month the award drawing takes place.

Even a "winner" has to pay at least $220 to compete in the contest for the prize. The other rules are fairly onerous too.

Their telemarketers certainly fare better than this, as an August 13 ad on Craiglist in Chicago assures experienced

"Educational Consultants can Earn Between $35,000 and $75,000 + A Year!"

I found an ad from this past week, so they are still recruiting for telemarketers.

A self-identified "scam reporter" claims that the firm has a sordid history. I'm not 100% sure it is the same firm, but the story sounds similar.

I found one guy on LinkedIn (update: reference to his personal page deleted 9/13/09 upon reasonable request) who lists his affiliation as "Educational Advisor" at Smart Education Foundation (SEF) in Chicago. He is a 2007 college graduate...

"Caveat emptor."


3/17/10 update: They called me again today! The telemarketer again had my daughter's name and asked for her father or mother. I cut him off when he mentioned calling from the "Smart Education Foundation" and I asked if he was selling education software. I politely thanked him for the call and hung up.


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Internet radio

Does anyone have an opinion about the various internet radio choices? As readers may recall, my favorite XM station (X-country) perished with the Sirius merger. After the end of the baseball season last year, I let my subscription lapse (anyone want to buy a radio and boombox?).

Lately, I've been listening to Americana Homeplace radio on my computer, but I am thinking about buying a radio that I can use when I'm not on the computer. I don't know much about the various brands, though Grace has received some positive reviews. I'm looking for some feedback here.

Help?


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Cash-for-clunkers: lawnmower edition

Last week, my 12-year old Craftsman gas-powered lawnmower died. It had been a gift from my Dad, replacing a similar older model that was stolen from the garage more than a decade ago. The guy at the hardware store said the problem was probably the carburetor and that it would likely cost at least $100 to fix it. And I'd have to find a repair shop since they only did minor repairs.

I read Consumer Reports recommendations about lawn mowers and shopped the various "best buy" options on-line -- and discovered that the new mowers were going to cost from $225 to $400 (or more). Ugh.

When I inserted the word Louisville in my search for local electric mower retailers, I discovered that the city of Louisville has a Lawn Care Rebate Program that helps consumers and air quality. I had read about this program a few years ago (and even clipped an article that was with my old mower manual), but had forgotten about it altogether -- and wasn't even sure if it was still ongoing.

It is!

The city will provide a $50 rebate if you buy an electric mower -- and $50 more if you trade in an old mower like mine! I had to drive a few blocks to the drop-off center, but all I needed in addition to the junk mower was a driver's license for ID. The clerk handed me a signed and stamped rebate form that instantly cut $100 off the price of the electric mower I bought at a local hardware store.

The price was $10 cheaper at a big chain store in the suburbs, but I prefer to buy locally and the chain store doesn't honor the city's rebate. I would have had to mail in the form and wait for the cash rebate. Plus, the employees in the local shop had already assembled the mower.

After reading the manual, I was ready to mow. It took some effort to work around the cord (primarily because of our rose bushes, tomato plants, and rock garden), but I really liked the relative quiet of the new mower. And, I'll never have to worry about whether my can has gasoline, whether the mower needs an oil changes or tuneup -- or if I am contributing to growing urban asthma rates.


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The future of Iraq

In July, I was interviewed about Iraq by Northwestern graduate student/journalist Jessica Harbin. University PR people set it up after she contacted them, so we expected the piece would eventually appear on the Medill News websites. Instead, the piece appeared on Harbin's blog, Mid-East Meets Midwest.

I'm quoted many times throughout the piece and she also apparently talked to Raed Jarrar and Professor Daniel Byman, among others.

Here's a taste:

University of Louisville Political Science Professor Rodger Payne says allowing Iraq’s fledgling democracy to establish its legitimacy with its people is critical to its long-term success.

Payne said, “A new democracy, like Iraq, that’s not fully democratic, those are among the most vulnerable government types in the world.”

As such, it is important that the United States take a step back politically, as well as militarily, for a democratic Iraq to become legitimate enough to survive domestically and internationally.

“I think the worst thing that can happen from the U.S. point of view is for Iraq to be perceived as essentially a client state for the U.S., with a government that’s basically approved by the U.S., and that would essentially let the U.S. do whatever it wants,” Payne said, warning that this scenario could turn into a reality if the U.S. didn’t scale back its interference in Iraq.

Read the whole thing. Harbin asked very good questions and did a good job reporting.


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Not in the best interests of baseball?

In 1976, major league baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn used the authority of his office to prevent Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley from selling off star players from its three-peat championship team. ESPN:

Finley tried to sell [Vida] Blue to the Yankees and [Rollie] Fingers and Joe Rudi to the Red Sox for a combined $3.5 million, claiming he needed the money to sign free agents and rebuild. Kuhn disagreed, voiding the sales by saying they weren't "in the best interests of baseball."

The free agent era had just started and Finley wanted to get something in return for his stars.

Yesterday, the Toronto Blue Jays made a transaction even more egregious than the ones Finley tried to complete -- and the current baseball commissioner Bud Selig is apparently not going to stop it. The Jays simply waived starting outfielder Alex Rios (and the nearly $62 million remaining on his contract from now through 2014). He was claimed by the Chicago White Sox, who will apparently not give the Jays anything in return. No grade C prospect, no cash considerations, no player-to-be-named later.

Nothing.

To my thinking (which not everyone shares), this transaction is not "in the best interests of baseball" because it likely hurts competitive balance and might encourage teams to risk moral hazard. NYT:

The economy has worsened since the Jays signed Rios, who would probably not get that lucrative a contract if he were a free agent in the off-season. The Jays see unloading Rios as an opportunity to use that money to address other needs.

A big-market team like the White Sox acquire a talented player without giving the Blue Jays anything in exchange -- other than the money owed on the player's contract.

Ordinarily, the only players exchanged through waiver claims are really bad. They are literally unwanted by their current team because they are unskilled. That's not Alex Rios. He may be overpaid, but he has significant value as a baseball player.

Lopsided trades and outright sales (like the ones Finley pursued in 1976) are arguably not in the best interests of competitive balance, but this transaction seems fairly clearly bad for the game. While it is true that the Jays now have $62 million to spend in other ways, they are also down a somewhat above average outfielder (he has more value to the Sox as a centerfielder) -- and they didn't receive any compensation for the player's five years under contract.

As proven repeatedly over the years, baseball salaries that seem high in the current context may look like a bargain in a season or two. In this case, Rios is under contract through 2014 so there was plenty of time for the situation to change.

Bud Selig should have intervened for the sake of the game.


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New blog: Climate Politics

Starting this week, I'll be blogging until at least the end of the year on the e-IR website. The new blog is narrowly focused on Climate Politics: IR and the Environment, so I'll still be blogging about other issues here -- and international relations topics at the Duck of Minerva. The idea is to focus on the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen this December.

Hopefully, I'll have something to say as I'm currently writing a chapter on the politics of climate change for a new edition of Ralph Carter's USFP textbook. Also, I'm teaching "Global Ecopolitics" this fall, with a focus on climate change.

If you are interested, drop by the new blog.


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Rush Limbaugh: Idiot Savant of Bloviating

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh compared Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler. The money quotes being widely repeated are from a fairly lengthy rant:

"Obama's got a health care logo that's right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook...they [Nazi's] were for cradle-to-grave nationalized healthcare....a Hitler-like policy that's being heralded like a Hitler-like logo...Obama is asking citizens to rat each other out like Hitler did."

Limbaugh has perhaps proven Godwin's Law for public discussion (in the context of the health care debate). Eventually, some doofus always compares an opponent to Hitler and the Nazis.

Remember just a few years ago when conservatives went crazy with outrage because two obscure videos produced by people entering an on-line ad contest compared then-President George W. Bush to Hitler? The video ads were originally hosted on the MoveOn website (along with 1500 from other competitors) and they quickly created a political firestorm.

MoveOn just as quickly denounced the ads, removed them from the web, and announced procedures to make sure the error could not repeated. The ads in question were not among the 15 contest finalists that received the lion's share of attention (and web traffic). In fact, most attention drawn to the ads came thanks to the Republican National Committee, which featured the ads on their website to highlight the evil of MoveOn.

Does anyone believe Limbaugh's reductio ad Hitlerum is going to create the same reaction -- from those on both the left and right outraged by the Bush comparison? To jar your memory, here's Fox News, January 2004:

RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie called the ad, "the worst and most vile form of political hate speech."

Of course, Limbaugh has used the term "Feminazi" for years without sparking this kind of reaction from RNC chairs and others, which likely means that the outrage about the Bush comparison may have been completely partisan and cynical.


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Waiting for the locusts

Just over 24 hours ago, Louisville received about 6 inches of rain in 75 minutes. It was the most intense rain anyone can remember and the effects were predictable. The main University of Louisville campus, for example, is closed today because of the flooding. The photos reveal the water's reach at my workplace. Fortunately, my office is on the second floor of my building, which was apparently undamaged. The basement was flooding yesterday morning, however, and we await word about the first floor offices.

Luckily, my family lives in a neighborhood known as "The Highlands," which was famously unaffected by the great Flood of 1937. The region is defined by a steep 60 foot incline above the flood plain. That historic disaster flooded 60% of Louisville as it rained for 53 consecutive hours (about 19 inches of rain accumulated) and the Ohio River was above flood stage for more than three weeks.

Regular readers may recall that September 14, 2008, Louisville was socked by hurricane-force winds as part of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Temperatures were mild, thankfully, during the 10 day period my home lacked electricity. It was a minor inconvenience to live out of a cooler, cook on a grill, and read by a lantern. It was like camping in one's own home.

On January 28, 2009, Louisville was hit by a deadly ice storm that left my family homeless for nearly a week as our electricity was out and temperatures were well below freezing. Roads were treacherous and ice-covered trees became deadly threats to humans.

My spouse and I have lived in Louisville for 18 years and have experienced three incredibly strange storms in the past 11 months. In the previous 18 years, we had a couple of heavy snowfalls (the most memorable featured 19 inches that shut down the state on MLK day 1994) and a heavy rain that dropped 9 inches of water over a 30 hour period.

These more recent storms have been unique and more than a little frightening. Yesterday, I know of at least two other people who made Biblical references suggesting that a plague of locusts might be next. The local newspaper agrees.

Any good scientist would say that it is impossible to blame a particular storm on global climate change. However, the consensus among scientists remains that global warming increases the intensity and frequency of major storms.


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London Times: Best 60 books of past 60 years

In honor of the Cheltenham Literary Festival, the London Times has compiled its list of "The best 60 books of the past 60 years." The list is somewhat surprisingly filled with popular fiction rather than "literature."

I skimmed quickly and found that I'd read the following works:

1949
Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell

1951
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger

1953
Casino Royale
Ian Fleming

1954
Lord of the Flies
William Golding

1960
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee

1961
Catch 22
Joseph Heller

1965
Dune
Frank Herbert

1975
Salem’s Lot
Stephen King

1979
Smiley’s People
John le Carré

1986
Tourist Season
Carl Hiaasen

1990
Get Shorty
Elmore Leonard

1995
Northern Lights (aka The Golden Compass)
Philip Pullman

2006
The Road
Cormac McCarthy

There are many books on the list that I should read, of course. These books have the advantage of being stacked a few feet away, in the "to be read" pile:

1958
Our Man in Havana
Graham Greene

1964
Funeral in Berlin
Len Deighton

Eventually, I'll likely read Wodehouse, Coetzee, DiLillo, Nabokov's Lolita, and Dick's A Scanner Darkly.


Hat tip: Largehearted Boy.

If you are now inspired to do some additional summer reading, most books on the list are available at worker-friendly independent bookstore Powell's. Disclosure: use this link and the blog receives a 7.5% commission on your purchase.


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Transparent banking

In The Nation July 13, economist Joseph Stiglitz notes that greater banking transparency could help fight corruption in the developing world.

Developing nations are often criticized for corruption, but secret bank accounts wherever they may be facilitate corruption, providing safe haven for stolen funds. Developing countries want this money returned and want access to information that will allow them to detect secret accounts.

Stiglitz is critical of recent congressional legislation for failing to go far enough to solve this problem.

Paul Collier makes a similar argument in The Bottom Billion and calls explicitly for new international norms -- such as budget transparency -- to make this kind of corruption far more difficult.

Collier also calls for transparency initiatives in natural resources.

The U.S. spent much of the 1990s arguing for a "strategy of openness" -- seeking open markets, especially. However, as Andrew Bacevich outlined, the Clinton administration sweepingly sought to remove "barriers to the movement of goods, capital, people, and ideas."

Perhaps the Obama administration can devote some attention to a slightly different form of openness. The President certainly seems to understand the critique offered by Stiglitz and Collier.


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Summer Duck

Today, at the Duck of Minerva group IR blog, I posted "Is America cool again?" The piece looks at results from the latest Pew Global Attitudes Project, which finds some big improvements in the U.S. image around the world -- apparently attributable to the Obama administration.

On Monday, July 6, I posted "RIP: Robert McNamara." I saw the former Secretary of Defense speak a couple of times and dined with him once.

On Friday, July 3, I blogged "Oops" about an unfortunate mistake concerning a book ad (since corrected) at the Barnes and Noble website.


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High noon high

Watching "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" wasn't as difficult as trying to sit through Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" (which I failed to do), but the former certainly reminded me of the latter. Guess which film this reviewer is describing?

[The] film is a highly stylized, dreamlike tone poem that defies linear conventions and is almost surreal in its approach. Using flashbacks and recurring images from different points of view, the film captures the mood and tone of its adolescent world: its perceptions, its self-absorption, and ultimately its darkest instincts.

The camera is a detached observer, and the strength of the film lies in its acute power of observation and detail....[The director] shows us all the surface rituals

In the end, both feature a troubling school massacre.

That review describes scenes of cheerleading rather than quidditch, but the meaning for the larger story is similar.

There is an important difference between these films. In the more recent one, the protagonist vows revenge -- foreshadowed by both prior books and films and the fact that Harry Potter has tasted a bit of evil in this film (the inevitable ring -- and of the course the subtitle character's potion book).

Perhaps the final episode will be "Harry Potter at High Noon."


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No future

Clearly, I have no future as a foreign policy wonk. I've violated many of Stephen Walt's "Ten Commandments for Ambitious Policy Wonks." The list describes “taboo” subjects in contemporary foreign policy discourse. Interestingly, his list doesn't include this taboo.

While I've often implied arguments against many of the commandments, on this blog I've fairly directly challenged #3. Thou Shalt Not Question the Need for a Nuclear Deterrent.

and #5: Thou Shalt Not Call For an Accommodation with Cuba (or North Korea, or Iran, or….).

And #9: Thou Shalt Not Question the Right of the United States to Intervene in Other Countries.

Read the entire list.


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Threatdown: The Heat is on China

China recently passed the US and became the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases. According to US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Chinese emissions are poised to explode.

If China’s emissions of global warming gases keep growing at the pace of the last 30 years, the country will emit more such gases in the next three decades than the United States has in its entire history, said Mr. Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics.

Chu was speaking at Tsinghua University, apparently viewed as China’s top science university.

On US soil, US officials seem even more worried about China's long-term role, implying that the world may view China as a threat to ecological security:

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce that China shared a special responsibility with the United States to address global warming. China passed the United States two years ago as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and the two countries together account for 42 percent of humanity’s emissions of these gases.

“Fifty years from now, we do not want the world to lay the blame for environmental catastrophe at the feet of China,” Mr. Locke said.

In 2007, by the way, European officials annoyed American diplomats by reminding the world that US emissions had increased 60% over 1990 Kyoto baseline levels. As recently as 2005, China claimed that it was reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.


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Obama on Climate at G-8

Last week, President Obama told the other G-8 leaders that the U.S. plans to make some rather remarkable changes in terms of climate change policy. After dismissing all doubts about the science and calling for developing countries to make reductions in future emissions, the President said:

We also agree that developed countries -- like my own -- have a historic responsibility to take the lead. We have the much larger carbon footprint per capita, and I know that in the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short of meeting our responsibilities. So, let me be clear: Those days are over. One of my highest priorities as President is to drive a clean energy transformation of our economy, and over the past six months, the United States has taken steps towards this goal.

We've made historic investments in the billions of dollars in developing clean energy technologies...

We've also for the first time created a national policy raising our fuel-efficiency standards that will result in savings of 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of vehicles sold in the next five years alone. And we just passed in our House of Representatives the first climate change legislation that would cut carbon pollution by more than 80 percent by 2050.

These are very significant steps in the United States.

It is far too early to rejoice, but these are important initiatives.

Indeed, it is relatively easy for politicians to make big promises about policy changes due over the course of four decades. Needless to say, they won't be around to assure followup. By contrast, it is far tougher to make costly investments in the short-term that have measurable benefits.

Rhetorically, it is also interesting that Obama used the same sort of unifying language globally that he employed in his 2008 political campaign:

It is no small task for 17 leaders to bridge their differences on an issue like climate change. We each have our national priorities and politics to contend with...

It's even more difficult in the context of a global recession, which I think adds to the fears that somehow addressing this issue will contradict the possibilities of robust global economic growth.

But ultimately, we have a choice. We can either shape our future, or we can let events shape it for us. We can fall back on the stale debates and old divisions, or we can decide to move forward and meet this challenge together. I think it's clear from our progress today which path is preferable and which path we have chosen. We know that the problems we face are made by human beings. That means it's within our capacity to solve them. The question is whether we will have the will to do so, whether we'll summon the courage and exercise the leadership to chart a new course. That's the responsibility of our generation, that must be our legacy for generations to come, and I am looking forward to being a strong partner in this effort.

At this July 2009 G-8 meeting, it sounded as if the U.S. under new management was trying to reclaim leadership on an important global issue and heal the so-called "transatlantic rift" that marked the Bush years (especially during his first term).

Especially given that the alleged U.S.-European divide never came close to full separation, it will be a lot easier for Obama to accomplish this political task than to take the kind of policy action necessary to stave off global climate chage.


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Newsweek's 50 Books for Our Times

Newsweek recently posted a list of "Fifty Books for Our Times." It is laden with contemporary works of non-fiction, in stark contrast to the novel-heavy "meta-list" of the "Top 100 Books" compiled from other top booklists: "Modern Library, the New York Public Library, St. John's College reading list, Oprah's, and more." This is their justification for wanting a new list to supplement the classics:

which books—new or old, fiction or nonfiction—open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways.

Fair enough.

In scanning through the 50 books, I discovered that I haven't read very many of them. In the first 20, I've read only Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Many others look interesting (some were already on my "to-read" wishlist) and I plan to read them eventually.

As for the remainder of the list, I've read some Mark Twain (three books are compiled as "The Mississippi Books"), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, and Underworld by Don DeLillo. That's it, five of fifty. Nearly all are novels.

I do much better on the classic list of 100: 1984 by George Orwell, The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Joseph Heller's Catch-22, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird, Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Shelley's Frankenstein, Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five, Orwell's Animal Farm, William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Rabbit, Run by John Updike, Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon, and Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" (actually 3 books).

That's 20 of 100, though I confess that many were read in high school or college English classes.

Plus, I've read memorable portions of many others on the list: Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Social Capital, Karl Marx's Das Kapital, The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, Thucydides's Peloponnesian Wars, A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh (I likely read this entire book to my daughters), John Milton's Paradise Lost, various works of Shakespeare, and The Holy Bible.

That's 8 to 10 more, depending upon how many works of Shakespeare I can recall reading (as opposed to simply viewing)

Some more from the top 100 compiled list are on my shelf, just waiting to be read one of these days. Top-listed works by Evelyn Waugh, Ralph Ellison, Conrad, Anthony Burgess, and Robert Penn Warren are literally stacked or shelved nearby in a "to read" collection.

Maybe I should set them aside in favor of books from the contemporary list?

Take a look at that Newsweek list and make a recommendation if something is familiar -- and good.


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