Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
H.R. McMaster has been officially nominated by the president for brigadier general and is “currently enroute to serve as director, concepts development and experimentation, Army Capabilities Integration Center, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Virgina.” Foreign Policy‘s Blake Hounshell reports that, The ARCIC is a relatively new center that has the potential to [...]
Good line, purportedly from Jon Stewart: Obama is not upset about the cartoon that calls him a Muslim extremist. Who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists. via Steve Garfield. See “New Yorker Obama Terrorist Cover” for background and commentary on the story. UPDATE: Amusingly, I see via Memeorandum, the hubbub goes on. Obama is continuing [...]
William Arkin contends that recent political maneuvering has put Barack Obama and President Bush in almost identical positions vis-Ã -vis Iraq: The Bush administration’s potential Iraq withdrawal plan, floated in The New York Times over the weekend, to draw down brigades further before September of this year and to accelerate withdrawals in 2009, has collided with [...]
In commenting about John McCain’s budget plans, Matthew Yglesias threw out this comment: Given the present circumstances, I can’t think of any good reason for a presidential candidate to be promising to that we’ll be at balanced budgets in four years. It would be nice to see the deficit on a decreasing trajectory rather than [...]
Michael Yon says that we’ve won the war in Iraq and all that remains is clean-up. The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and [...]
Anheuser-Busch agreed to sell to Belgium’s InBev last night, demonstrating that all the howls about American pride were mere haggling over price. All it took was raising the offer to $70 per share from $65 per share — “a 27 percent premium over Anheuser’s record-high stock price in October 2002″ — and giving a Busch [...]
Time for the Monday OTB Caption ContestTM I’m baaaaaaccckk!…. Happy Bash Steel Day! Thanks to Dodd for providing a couple excellent contests over the last couple of weeks. REUTERS/Eloy Alonso (SPAIN) Winners will be announced Thursday PM
The widespread rumors of a government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already had dramatic consequences, perhaps creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Iain Dey and Dominic Rushe, writing for The Times of London, note that, “The two companies lost almost half their market value last week as rumours of a government bail-out swept the [...]
Newsweek has released a new poll and is excited by the huge change: “Glow Fading? The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by only 3 points. What a difference a few weeks can make.” This is quite amusing in that pretty much everyone agreed that the June 20th Newsweek poll was an [...]
It seems that the leading man-made cause of global warming is environmentalism; specifically, efforts to improve air quality by reducing pollution, New Scientist reports. Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1 °C: much more than expected from greenhouse-gas warming alone. Christian Ruckstuhl of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland [...]
President Bush had a minor language gaffe during a light and amiable luncheon with the other G-8 leaders: The life-of-the-party president, mingling before the meal, chatted animatedly about his parents’ health, his birthday and the corruption charges facing one of his best buddies in Europe, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. “Amigo! Amigo!” Mr. Bush [...]
George Will has been at the top of the pundit game for so long that you’d think he’d have joined a sizable number of his peers in seemingly dusting off one of their stock columns every week. Not so. Will’s latest installment is on the virtues of beer. “The search for unpolluted drinking water is [...]
Duncan Riley laments the demise of the blogroll. Once upon a time in the land of the blogs, the blogroll reigned suprmeme. Everyone had a blogroll, and it was a great way to discover new and interesting blogs. But somewhere along the way blogrolls fell out of favor, and you don’t seem them much at [...]
Today’s Outrage of the Day on the right side of the blogosphere regards this latest bit from Barack Obama, regarding the need for our educational system to get better at teaching other languages. Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can [...]
John McCain’s secret plan for Iran: kill them with cigarettes. Presidential candidate John McCain, who once sang in jest about bombing Iran, on Tuesday reacted to a report of rising U.S. cigarette exports to the country by saying it may be “a way of killing ‘em.” McCain, known for acerbic comments and for sometimes firing [...]
As if to prove Robert Heinlein correct, the House Administration Committee is, apparently with honorable intent, considering effectively banning the use of popular social media sites, including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook by Members. Soren Dayton couches this in partisan terms: “In typical fashion, House Democrats are trying to pass rules that stifle debate and require [...]
Iraq’s national security advisor announced today that the Iraqi government will be demanding a hard timetable for American troop withdrawl: Iraq will not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it includes dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the government’s national security adviser said on Tuesday. The comments by Mowaffaq al-Rubaie underscore [...]
Louis Gray believes the importance of blog linkage is declining, noting that, “I’ve seen traffic from other blogs to be driving an ever-declining percentage of visits to my site, swamped by social media tools, aggregation sites, and of course, Google search.” He offers three likely explanations: 1. People are relying on aggregators to find them [...]
One more OTB Caption ContestTM from me before Mr. Dill returns on Bastille Day. Get into the swing of things with this one: REUTERS/Vincent West (SPAIN) Winners will be announced Saturday PM.
A bizarre story in the London Telegraph, “Toddlers who dislike spicy food ‘racist,’” is getting some play, thus far only from conservative blogs. The National Children’s Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents [...]
Two articles cited in today’s Small Wars Journal roundup have almost nothing to do with wars, small or otherwise, but are nonetheless interesting in showing the state of flux of some key international institutions. Steven Erlanger reports on a bold attempt to forge a “Union of the Mediterranean” which would be something of a minor [...]
Al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI] is all but defeated, Marie Colvin reports for The Sunday Times. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured [...]
Barack Obama gave a speech yesterday in which he said there was some flexibility in his plan, touted throughout the Democratic primary season, to withdraw combat troops from Iraq within 16 months followed by another speech in which he explained that he meant no such thing. Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny have a solid summary [...]
Ãngrid Betancourt Pulecio was freed yesterday in a daring rescue by the Colombian National Army after more than five years of captivity by FARC narco-terrorists. [S]he and 14 other hostages — including three U.S. military contractors held since 2003 — were airlifted to freedom in an audaciously “perfect” operation involving military spies who tricked the [...]
Blogger Brian Beutler was shot in DC’s Adams Morgan neighborhood Monday night, Greg Sargent reports for TPM. Brian Beutler, a well-known progressive blogger, was shot and seriously injured during a mugging last night in Washington, D.C. One bullet damaged Beutler’s spleen, and he had it removed during surgery this morning at the Washington Hospital Center. [...]
James asked me to fill in for the estimable Mr. Dill and handle the OTB Caption ContestTM during his vacation. This being an area in which I have some experience, I was only too happy to accept. So, take aim at this: REUTERS/Steven Shi (CHINA) Winners will be announced Saturday PM
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his gang of mullahs are said to be “seriously considering” the latest EU 5+1 proposals on resolving the international standoff on the Iranian nuclear program and are telling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to pipe down. Warren Strobel: Iran’s senior diplomat said Tuesday that Tehran was seriously considering a new offer from six [...]
Henry Farrell, Eric Lawrence, and John Sides have collaborated on a paper, still in late draft stages, entitled “Self-Segregation or Deliberation? Blog Readership, Participation, and Polarization in American Politics.” A PDF of the working copy is available here. Henry reports that, [B]log readers seem to exhibit strong homophily. That is to say, they overwhelmingly choose [...]
Arthur Silber is, as am I, fascinated by the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama. He notes some anecdotal creepy gushing on a local radio show and then Reactions of this kind to Obama are fairly common. No, they are not this extreme much of the time, but such statements are far from unusual. And [...]
Tyson Homosexual ran 100 meters in a wind-aided 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials today, in what would have been world record time. I mean, Tyson Gay. Leftie People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch blog reports that, In addition to blocking traffic from websites they don’t like, it looks like the web-geniuses [...]
The news over the past 48 hours or so about movement in solving the nuclear arms standoff with North Korean has been stunning. Not only is President Bush taking the DPRK off the “state sponsors of terrorism” list but the Kim government has taken major steps to dismantle their program and provide with stringent verification [...]
North Korea gave China the long awaited accounting of its nuclear activities, as agreed in the six-party talks. In return, the US will delist NK as a state sponsor of terrorism and lift some trade sanctions: The United States on Thursday welcomed a long-delayed North Korean account of its shadowy nuclear activities and said it [...]
Jane Hamsher wants to know, “If You Can’t Use a Computer, How Can You Be President?” I chuckled when I saw the story at memeorandum since, after all, it’s unlikely that any president before Bill Clinton could “use” a computer in any meaningful sense. (Maybe Jimmy Carter, who was a nuclear engineer in a past [...]
That’s how Instapundit refers to James Hansen, apparently the most intemperate of the global warming alarmists (yes, he’s worse than Gore because he’s Gore’s science advisor). Here’s Hansen’s latest proposal: James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on [...]
Ann Dunwoody has been nominated for a fourth star, making her the first woman to achieve that rank in American history. “This is an historic occasion for the Department of Defense and I am proud to nominate Lt. Gen. Ann Dunwoody for a fourth star,” said Defense Secretary Robert Gates. “Her 33 years of service, [...]
George Carlin, a comedian known for his combination of raunchy language and intellectual humor, died of heart failure last evening. He was 71. Carlin was an interesting guy, combining brilliant observational humor with political activism. Like too many comics in the HBO era, though, it often seemed that he was vulgar and outrageous simply because [...]
Bernhard Warner brings an interesting perspective to the fight between the AP and the blogosphere over copyright law. In attempting to bolster the AP’s case, he actually weakens it considerably. To understand where the AP is coming from with this caveman approach to copyright enforcement, you have to understand what it’s like to work for [...]
Jeralyn Merritt is upset by the news that Barack Obama is thinking about running ads during the Olympics, perhaps spending up to $4 million. At some point, aren’t voters likely to feel the ads are intrusive? Or at least start rolling their eyes? I’m getting angry that every time I click on a news site, [...]
In the comments to my latest post on domestic oil production, in which I continue my skepticism over the benefits to more domestic oil production, a number of claims were made in the comments that raised some interesting issues. So I thought it might be worthwhile if I went ahead and investigated some of these [...]
If a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Barack Obama is a wise man, indeed. He’s changed his mind a lot lately. The latest example is NAFTA. After having campaigned in Ohio and elsewhere on the need to renegotiate our trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and excoriating Hillary Clinton for her long-time [...]
Matt Yglesias lists the people on Barack Obama’s “National Security Working Group” and finds that they’re “mostly names we’ve heard before in Obamaworld or else graybeard elder statesman types.” Kevin Drum is mildly disappointed, finding it kind of dull. And, indeed, there are no surprises here: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Senator David Boren, former [...]
Conflicting headlines today on the state of the polls and, specifically, whether Barack Obama has gotten a “bounce” after consolidating the Democratic nomination and getting Hillary Clinton’s support. John Zogby: “Reuters/Zogby Poll: Obama Leads McCain, But Wins No Big Bounce — Defeating Hillary Clinton and locking up the Democratic Party nomination fails to propel Obama [...]
The cover story of the current Atlantic (Monthly) is an interesting piece by Nicholas Carr which asks, Is Google Making Us Stupid? It begins with the standard “the Internet is giving us short attention spans” meme but eventually gives us much more than that. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that [...]