So overwhelmingly negative is the reportage from Iraq that I find myself doubting the UK Independent report I wrote about last week, claiming that more people are dying in Zimbabwe than in Iraq. No, it can’t be- 3500 dying a week, that’s an enormous number – it just can’t be right, I find myself thinking. [...]

Betsy Newmark, who blogs at Betsy’s Page, is a charter school history teacher from North Carolina who is a solid and sensible Republican who’s views I rely on to get a sense of what well informed, everyday Republicans think about various issues and candidates. She has previously expressed reservations about John McCain as the 08 [...]

Lizard has a deep financial insight!

Addendum: Patterico has researched the LA Times article quoted at the end of this post and confirmed much of what I suspected was going on. The direct link to Patterico’s excellent Fisking is here. The situation in Ramadi has concerned me for some time. The US has seemed unable or unwilling to crush this last [...]

I happen to know a bit about Zimbabwe having spent considerable time there off and on in the late nineties through 2001.� I came to love the place and its people, black and white, and therefore feel its current suffering on a personal level. In a recent article in the UK Independent it was brought [...]

I was surprised and delighted to see that Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi’s candidate for majority leader, in the House of Representatives lost decisively to Steny Hoyer, the current number two. She made a big deal of pushing Murtha, and the party went with Hoyer� . Now you have to understand that I am a Democrat, [...]

One more shirt after this. Then it will be on to other things.

Anyone who has heard of McLuhan has probably heard his most famous quote “The Medium is the message.” I studied McLuhan quite a bit in connection with my teaching about media in the seventies and eighties. What I have realized lately getting interested in McLuhan’s thinking again and referring to it in some of my [...]

As the release of the Baker Report nears, I am still of the opinion that the grand strategy of the US to switch its focus from Europe to the Middle East and to promote modernization of the Arab world through promotion of democracy is still the right course overall. But I have certainly learned that [...]

After the initial flurry of good will between the new congressional leaders and the administration the question is how will the Democrats use their new congressional power. Will they go all out and try to defund the Iraq war and even impeach Bush? I doubt it. In fact the early signs are very good that [...]