that I actually conceived of the idea for this post last week but was only able to force myself to write it today by promising myself a variety of self-care rewards like naps and whiskey.
The former Wall Street Journal writer Bret Stephens has a column today to kick off his new digs at the New York Times that meanders into climate change territory and has raised some hackles. In the...
AÂ dilute alcoholic solution of Brilliant Green (Viridis nitentis spirituosa) is a topical antiseptic, effective against gram-positive bacteria, also known under a Russian colloquial name zelyonka....
This is a guest post by Amelia Hoover Green, Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Politics at Drexel University. Will Moore's death was a tragedy. To state the hopefully obvious:...
[updated on 12.4.05]I know I promised to comment on the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, but to be honest it isn't worth the effort and I don't know if I have the strength. Those who read this blog are intelligent enough to see the Victory Stratey for what it is--a transparent attempt to...
President Bush spoke at the US Naval academy today. His theme? Well, Bush wants to close off talk of troop withdrawal from Iraq:These decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders -- not by artificial timetables set by...
I don't have time to comment on the document yet since I just got my hands on it, but I will definitely post my thoughts soon. In the meantime, here is a link to the full-text.Filed as: Iraq, Exit Strategy
An excellent piece by Justin Webb at the BBC on the ongoing war on science by evangelical christians in the US and its impact on politics and the Republican party.Patrick has previously blogged about so-called "intelligent design" and I don't think I can improve on his points, suffice it to say...
Why, oh why do people continue to assert that the US is required in any way to defend Taiwan in the case of an attack by mainland China? The latest example of this fallacy comes from an AFP report from Monday. The article recounts Chinese President Hu Jintao's restatement of China's position on...
Josh Marshall asks if Abu Musab Zarqawi is really the mastermind behind Mesopotamian jihadism.It it is hard not to see this information in the light of the fairly constant tendency through the War on Terror to build up varous Terrorist Masterminds, who become the focus of most or all news...
My 18-month old daughter is in a binge-reading phase. She hunts for a book, carries it over to any adult who happens to be in the vicinity, and presents it while exclaiming "Enh! Ehn! Booshk! Enh! Enh!" Sometimes she will jab one finger while insisting "Sit! Sit! Sit!" In either case, her appetite...
Just wanted to wish my fellow members of the Duck as well as our readership a Happy Thanksgiving.
Journalist James Bamford has a tremendously explosive story about the Rendon Group in Rolling Stone magazine (posted November 17, 2005). The story mentions some of the Rendon group's activites over much of the past twenty years, "selling" virtually every war and military intervention the US has...
An update to my earlier post on Congresswoman Jean Schmidt of Ohio.From the Washington Post: "Schmidt doesn't understand what the fuss is about, and sees herself more as victim than villain." Read on.Filed as: Jean Schmidt
The Washington Post has an interesting story regardingt the LDP, Japan's ruling party, and their formal plans to revise the Consitution. These revisions would allow the country to posses a "formal military" for the first time since the end of the second world war. Up till now, Japan has been...
Over at Abu Aardvark, Marc Lynch provides some empirical evidence for the fact that major IR journals have had very little to say about al-Qaeda over the past few years:All told, these seven journals published 796 articles between 2002-2005. I found a total of 25 articles dealing even loosely with...