Who’s Spookin’ Who: Worth-What-You-Pay Speculation on the latest round of the Great Game, Post-Cold War Follies Edition

So, bearing in mind that I routinely rail in this space about the propensity of pundits to opine wildly beyond their competence and knowledge, herewith my one bit of blather on the recent great victory in the war against post-Soviet perfidy of the sort of, kind of, journalism/schmoozing spying nature. I first heard of the arrest [...]

Marc Ambinder, General McChrystal, My Uncle, and Gays in the Military

American policy on gays in the military has been a self inflicted wound for years now.  The loss of Arabic (and Farsi) language specialists at just this moment in our strategic history was an own goal if ever there was one.  But the firing of General Stanley McChrystal has brought into sharp relief another truth [...]

They keep us alive to serve the machine: vacation edition

Through a concatenation of circumstances too complicated to explain (involving as it does an odd personal slice through 20th century history and a bit of the dynamic of globalism in recent years) I am sitting in the drawing room of the residence of the South African ambassador to Sweden. It is a glorious day here [...]

Carly Fiorina Reveals the Source of Her Failure at HP: Can’t Walk, Chew Gum at the same time/shouldn’t be a Senator edition.

So, stylist/Senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina is turning her attention away from her opponents ‘do to more serious matters. Unfortunately, she brings the same gravitas to the question of confronting the gulf oil disaster that she did to the matter of Barbara Boxer’s hair. The AP reports today that while she supports President Obama’s success in [...]

On the matter of an extended walk around Dublin

SEK (Scott Kaufman) explains it all to you. (via LGM). I am feeling stately, plump.  I rarely dine with anti-Semites (never knowingly).  I do not eat with relish the internal organs of beasts and fowls. (The occasional fois gras excepted.  Sweetbreads too.  My tante Helen’s chopped liver also. Oh hell.) Happy Bloomsday, all, a day [...]

Completely Outsourced Eye Candy: Jedi Bear edition

I know that reposting something from Andrew Sullivan’s blog is sort of pointless, given that outlet’s reach, but on the off chance you haven’t seen this, you should.  It’s true snort material.

For a good time in Edmonton (Crack o’ Dawn edition)

Anyone in the greater Edmonton/University of Alberta area tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. can come and hear me talk about “Newton’s coins and Einstein’s letters: living lives in science and society.” I’ve been very kindly invited by folks running the first university-wide celebration of graduate student research in engineering to talk about some aspects of life [...]

On the low expectations of bigotry: Chuck Schumer/data matters edition

Picking up a thought from before the weekend, when John Cole posted on a gem of insight moment of uncharacteristic clarity from the senior senator from New York.  It was notable for an admission that the Gaza blockade has as its overarching purpose not the military one — but a collective punishment, a starve-them-out intention. [...]

In the Matter of the US vs. Bush…

not yet indicted for confessed war crimes, I give you an amicus brief from Ambrose Bierce: PARDON, v.  To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime.  To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.  (From The Devil’s Dictionary) That second definition applies particularly well to the accused’s partner in such crimes, [...]

Megan McArdle is Always Wrong…Health Insurance Reform/Great Depression edition

I’m trying (and failing – ed.) to learn how to go all Daniel Goldin on my blogging stylz these days (you know, “faster, better, cheaper” and all that), so let’s see if I can keep this latest bit of outrage at Megan McArdle’s willed incompetence short and to the point. In this post she considers [...]