What makes people rebel against the status quo?

Every time time the feds hire another rude, obnoxious TSA agent, or the city hires another jackass clerk or the state hires another pricky, menacing road reaver, a potential insurgent is created. That's what Steven Metz's study published at the Small Wars Journal seems to say.

"Insurgency arises from a combination of two conditions:", says Metz, "significant unmet psychological needs, and the feasibility of violence (via both attitudes receptive to it and the actual tools of armed action).  To grapple with this, a psychological conceptualization of insurgency would be more powerful and useful than a political one."

So I gather the boiling frog scenario doesn't always work after all.

Taliban facing its own "uprising"

In areas of Afghanistan that the Taliban control the local non-Talib tribes are ginning up their own anti-government uprising. What makes this an interesting occurrence is that where this is happening the Taliban is the government. So says the NY Times so these reports are somewhat suspect barring independent confirmation and it may just be the usual tit_for_tat kinda stuff that tribal cultures are  known for. But it's a development worth keeping an eye on. (Long War Journal, NY Times)