Things I have flipped through or been told to read
As I have been working I-Banker hours lately and have been completely detached from reality (more so than usual), here's my own version of the obligatory blog post "what I have been reading lately".

• The ‘Nation Brand’ Marketplace (CFR). National public-relations campaigns typically raise eyebrows. The whole idea of a country advertising itself evokes propaganda—and history’s most notable propaganda efforts, in Stalin’s Soviet Union, for instance, or Nazi Germany, carry dark connotations. Yet just in the last ten years, an industry has emerged to help countries better tailor their image. As a new Backgrounder outlines, “nation branding” has established itself as a hip new field, both in academia and consulting.
  
  Related: The Challenge of Place Branding in Emerging, Transitional, Negatively Viewed and Newly Industrialised Nations (Journal of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy)
  
• Send the State Department to War (Max Boot, NYT). Great article in keeping with recent conversations; just skip the first two paragraphs if you're pro-AFSA. ...This is only a baby step toward a larger objective: to reorient the department and the government as a whole for the global war on Islamic terrorism. Yes, this is a war, but it’s a very different war from conventional conflicts like World War II or the Civil War. It is, in essence, a global counterinsurgency, and few counterinsurgencies have ever been won by force alone. ...
  
• Aunt Benazir's false promises (Fatima Bhutto, LAT). I have personal reasons to fear the danger that Ms. Bhutto's presence in Pakistan brings, but I am not alone. The Islamists are waiting at the gate. They have been waiting for confirmation that the reforms for which the Pakistani people have been struggling have been a farce, propped up by the White House. Since Musharraf seized power in 1999, there has been an earnest grass-roots movement for democratic reform. The last thing we need is to be tied to a neocon agenda through a puppet "democrat" like Ms. Bhutto.
  
• Porsche makes more money from options trading than from cars (FT, via FP). Porsche yesterday revealed it earned three times as much money from trading derivatives as it did from selling cars, prompting accusations it was acting more like a hedge fund.

Finally:

• FEMA Rap for Kids (FEMA) Disaster . . . it can happen anywhere / But we've got a few tips, so you can be prepared / For floods, tornadoes, or even a 'quake / You've got to be ready - so your heart don't break. / Disaster prep is your responsibility / And mitigation is important to our agency. / People helping people is what we do / And FEMA is there to help see you through / When disaster strikes, we are at our best / But we're ready all the time, 'cause disasters don't rest.
  Better or worse than their last bad rap?