The slew of stories on the fallout from rising food prices have primarily concentrated on the immediate political effects of riots and social upheaval mostly in developing nations.

I have a magnificent view this morning of the Arkansas River out my hotel window and just snapped this pic. I’ll be speaking to the Arkansas Committee on Foreign Relations this afternoon — and back to DC tonight.

When I was thinking about launching a civil society battle over John Bolton’s nomination to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations and planned to do what I could to block his Senate confirmation, I talked to a few Senators about it — on both sides of the aisle.

Just got back to Washington from the Middle East, or what I called the Middle West when I lived in Japan. I’m tuckered out — but may be back on later. For those in Arkansas, I’ll be down in Little Rock on Tuesday speaking at noon for the Arkansas Committee on Foreign Relations.

This is a guest post by Richard Vague, a Republican business person concerned about the economic consequences of the Iraq War. Richard Vague is Chairman of “American Respect” and authored Terrorism: A Brief for Americans.

Arab American Institute President James Zogby just included me tonight on the distribution of his 14 April 2008 Washington Watch report titled “The Disconnect: How Arabs and Americans See 2008“.

I hear that there are about 500 of them here, and many Saudi officials — from advisers to the King to Members of the Shura Council — say that blogs are undermining official media and breaking up cartels of media control.

James Pethokoukis of US News & World Report has just published an interesting article titled, “The Return of Big Government.

I’m still in Saudi Arabia and haven’t had the time to absorb everything that has been churning this last week with the Petraeus/Crocker hearings and other Senator Foreign Relations Committee meetings focused on Iraq that Senators Joe Biden and Richard Lugar have called.

(Gas pipeline map from The Economist, Jan. 24, 2008) One of the leads for this week’s Economist emphasizes the role of energy security for Europe, and in particular, pipeline diversification over missile defense.