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George Zornick is a writer for The Nation.

Ask any defense lobbyist in Washington — spending on defense is threatened like no time in recent memory. Under the Budget Control Act, the budget for defense will be subject to a strict cap (a process known as sequestration) beginning in 2014 and lasting until 2021. This would necessarily create steep, across-the-board reductions in defense spending.

Jamie M. Fly is a writer for The Weekly Standard.

President Obama's budget cuts defense by $487 billion over the next ten years. Furthermore, the president has not led an effort to avoid an additional $500 billion of cuts under the so-called "sequestration," which will likely result in what Obama's secretary of defense predicts will be "smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history."

Katie Paul is a Beirut-based journalist and former Fulbright fellow in Damascus.

Orders for durable goods rose 2.2 percent in February, according to figures released this morning (PDF). Th AP has the details.

We have a simpler question. What's a durable good? Also: Why does it matter?

Durable goods, as the name suggests, are things that don't break easily. More specifically, they're products that are used for more than three years.