About That Trigger

As the saying goes, third time is the charm:

Expert consensus grows on contribution of record high food prices to Middle East unrest

I have to say, the “status quo” media does come in handy some times. For example, one day “Scientific American jumps the shark,” and another day they are cited prominently in a subhead to help make a point. Good heavens! Which is the true Scientific American?

Anyway, it seems Romm is determined to play this card (my emphasis):

As unrest spread through the MidEast, it became increasingly obvious that higher food prices were playing a key triggering role.

I don’t have time right now to plow through all of Romm’s “expert” articles, so I’ll just say what Nicholas Kristof says in his op-ed :

Today, we are all Egyptians!

That includes you, Joe, tangential climate change link and all.

UPDATE: Charles Blow, in his weekly NYT column, writes:

It is impossible to know exactly which embers spark a revolution, but it’s not so hard to measure the conditions that make a country prime for one.

Go have a look at the data.