Outside the Beltway

Simply amazing.

Afghanistan was a much different place half a century ago.

A new study looks at the reasons why people are so belligerent in their online communications.

Ten years ago starting today, John Allen Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo began a crime spree that kept the D.C. area on a knife’s edge for three long weeks.

Yet another case of breathless media reporting on academic research findings.

Not exactly journalism.

The Afghan Surge announced by President Obama in December 2009 is over. By any objective measurement, it was a failure.

A wonderfully descriptive story in the New York Times Style section that’s almost surely mere anecdote being touted as trend.

The NYT stages an interesting debate on “Which Language Rules to Flout. Or Flaunt?”

There’s no doubt about it, our political culture is pretty horrible.

Last night’s game between Green Bay and Seattle was the latest example of the sub-par officiating of the NFL’s replacement referees.

The notion that Megan McArdle is some sort of “Republican Party activist” is just nuts.

Today is the anniversary of a significant turning point in the Civil War.

The Occupy movement began one year ago today. It’s no surprise that it ended up being a failure.

Seth Mnookin laments a series of embarrassing failures in science writing in recent months but rejoices in the rich dialog that followed.

In Rick Santorum’s brand of conservatism, no smart people need apply.

Some of the Harvard students accused of cheating are speaking out, and making allegations of their own.

In a radio interview last week, Paul Ryan claimed to have run a sub-3 hour marathon. He did no such thing.

Harvard has announced the discovery of what one official calls an “unprecedented” cheating scandal.

I question the timing of the Republican Convention.

Unless something changes, Obama remains the odds-on favorite to win.

Though still just a Tropical Storm, Isaac has the potential to be as dangerous as Hurricane Katrina.

NYT executive editor Jill Abramson is shocked that her outgoing public editor thinks her paper “virtually bleeds” a “kind of political and cultural progressivism.”

The erstwhile CalPundit starts his second decade strong as ever.

A culture of fact-checking, of honesty, is as important as the actual fact-checking.

Since most pedophiles are men, Virgin airlines naturally treats all men as potential pedophiles.

The quadrennial political conventions have become, long, boring, tedious, and largely predetermined. It’s time to shake things up by making them a lot shorter.

Whether or not it’s proper to call the FRC a “hate group,” the persecution complex being displayed in the wake of Tuesday’s shooting is absurd.

Facebook’s stock has lost nearly 50% of its value since the company went public, and the plunge probably isn’t over.

At some point, however, using the bad actions of the past to justify worse actions in the present has to stop.

A columnist for The Guardian says she wishes her mother had aborted her.

There’s a wee bit more to the “Progressive defended my sister’s killer” story that went viral yesterday.