Barack Obama has said that the leaking of classified documents on the war in Afghanistan is a concern, but that it had not revealed any new information.

In his first public reaction to the leak, the US president said the data justified his decision to overhaul the US military strategy in Afghanistan.

via BBC News – Obama: ‘Nothing new’ in Wikileaks Afghan records leak. Wait a minute, it’s three things at once, a security concern, no new information and allows the public to have a justification for a past decision? Anybody follow the logic behind all of those?

So what’s the answer? Americans overwhelmingly favor guaranteeing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions — but you can’t do that without pursuing broad-based reform. To make insurance affordable, you have to keep currently healthy people in the risk pool, which means requiring that everyone or almost everyone buy coverage. You can’t do that without financial aid to lower-income Americans so that they can pay the premiums. So you end up with a tripartite policy: elimination of medical discrimination, mandated coverage, and premium subsidies.

via Op-Ed Columnist – Closing Arguments on Health Care – NYTimes.com. Krugman making his “final” arguments for a national health care plan.

Seeking to exploit the Internet’s potential for prying open closed societies, the Obama administration will permit technology companies to export online services like instant messaging, chat and photo sharing to Iran, Cuba and Sudan, a senior administration official said Sunday.

via U.S. Hopes Internet Exports Will Help Open Closed Societies – NYTimes.com. An awesome decision for free internet services which are generally geared towards increasing the flow of information into and out of repressive regimes.