Flit

War of the Worlds mini-review

Like Jaws, a film version entirely faithful in its spirit and narrative arc to the written source, to the point where the movie's flaws are pretty much Wells' own. That either bothers you, or if you're like me, it doesn't much. The "bringing your kids" subplot is restrained, adding dramatic tension without leading to any Jurassic Park kids-save-the-day idiocy. The differences between Independence Day and this are the differences between an awful movie and a tolerable one.

The sun sets, redux

This is fairly big news:

"Military commanders are making plans for a major cutback in the number of British forces in Iraq as they prepare to take over responsibility for security in Afghanistan which, they say, the US wants to leave as soon as possible.

"They say the number of British troops in Iraq could be cut to fewer than 2,000 over the next 12 to 18 months. There are some 9,000 there now. That would make it much easier for Britain to meet its commitment to take over the lead Nato role in Afghanistan from next May."

UPDATE, July 7: It should be interesting to see how today's disgusting London subway attacks will affect the redeployment plans. It's hard to see how the British government could countenance anything that looked like a Spanish-style withdrawal from Iraq, whether it made strategic sense or not, at least in the immediate term.