As the Czech Republic leads the United States 2-0 at the half in the first World Cup match for both teams, it occurs to me how odd it is to be able to watch the game live on ESPN2 (which I am in fact doing at the moment). Last World Cup, it was much harder to get live coverage, even of the US team's matches, to say nothing of the matches of other and better teams. I was able to catch a fair bit of the tournament since I was in Germany for half of that summer, but the stateside coverage was, as I remember, quite pathetic -- especially given that the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in...

A mutual friend sent my wife an email about EssayFraud.org. The site claims to protect students against "fraudulent" mail-order foreign-operated academic paper services. These scam artists, claim the staff at essayfraud.org, will either steal unsuspecting students' money or send them papers "riddled with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes." They note that:Foreign sites like [omitted] hire poor, ESL writers in Pakistan for as little as .70¢ per page, which is how they can offer the low prices of $6.95–$15.00/pg that lure students into their traps. Qualified writers in America will not...

Victor Davis Hanson reviews Cobra II. Some of the highlights: Gordon and Trainor do not even inquire whether the ties between al Qaeda and Saddam’s intelligence agencies, which had prompted formal condemnation from both the Clinton administration and the Senate, might not have been a worthy casus belli in a post-September 11 world.Put "after the fold" in hereNor do Gordon and Trainor credit the still more telling fact that, following the Afghanistan campaign in the fall of 2001, some fifteen months of national and worldwide discussion ensued concerning Iraq, including the excruciatingly...

Many prominent bloggers on the left side of the blogosphere are meeting this weekend in Las Vegas for the first annual "YearlyKos" convention. There are certainly multiple panels that sound interesting, though I have no idea how meaningful this convention will prove to be. From a social science point of view, it clearly seems like a political blog-related event worth watching.A few hours ago, for example, the convention featured a panel on the "CIA Leak Investigation," which included these participants: former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Washington Post columnist-blogger Dan Froomkin,...

To say this event is dominating discussion in the MSM and blogosphere would be an understatement. So I'll do my part to pass along some things worth reading:David Ignatius on the potential breathing room afforded by Zarqawi's demise.Defense Tech on the weapons systems and techniques that took Zarqawi out and what it indicates about the mini-evolution of airpower.King Daddy in many ways echoes the senitments here at the Duck.Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou offers some brief perspective on who Zarqawi was and the nature of his relationship with al-Qaeda. Filed as: Zarqawi

My colleague Dan Byman explains why Zarqawi's death probably won't make things better, and may even make them worse (via Robin Varghese of 3 Quarks Daily):Still, the history of killing terrorist and insurgent leaders suggests that we must be cautious before declaring the death of any leader to be decisive. In 1992, Israel killed Abbas al-Musawi, the secretary-general of the Lebanese Hezbollah, to much self-congratulation. Although Musawi was a determined and capable leader, his successor, Hassan Nasrallah, has proved to be one of the most effective terrorist and guerrilla leaders in...

[Updated] Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi has been killed in Iraq by an air strike. Reaction about the impact this will have on the insurgency is noticeably more muted than comments following the capture of Saddam.And the fact that reactions have been measured is comforting since this administration has been anything but when it comes to purported "turning" and "tipping" points in Iraq. [Perhaps I spoke too soon.]My gut feeling is that it probably won't matter much. We are not dealing with a coherent mass where a decapitation strike would actually mean all that much on the ground. The insurgency has...

Bush today, speaking in Nebraska on immigration:This is a tough debate for America, it really is. It's a tough debate because it's one in which the language can sometimes send the wrong signals about what we're about. People are very emotional about this issue. And my admonition to people who are concerned about the immigration debate is to remember that language can send signals about who we are as a nation. That harsh, ugly rhetoric on the debate tends to divide our country. It tends to forget the values that have made us great.Language sends signals....So what kind of signals has Bush...