This piece by Juan Cole ends on a perfect note: it’s one thing to make a disastrous mistake for the first time, but when the opportunity to predict the mistake’s consequences exists and one still undertakes the same disaster, then it goes beyond tragedy and into something worse.
Yay Barry! Yay baseball! I would like to take this post to acknowledge that, unlike Rick Reilly or any of the sports media world’s other garment-rending, tsk-tsking tradition police, I’m taking a real stand on Barry Bonds’ new MLB career homerun record: This is the greatest thing to happen in baseball in 30 years, and […]
A good one from Iowa: BETTENDORF, Iowa – Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons’ decision not to enlist in the military, saying they’re showing their support for the country by “helping me get elected.” I have no beef with the civilian sons part; they can do whatever they choose with […]
For a heavy but very good read, check out this New Yorker article on the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. (h/t Mark.) For some reason we haven’t seen many big pieces mentioning the impact of extra-tough interrogation tactics—the euphemism bell just went off—on the interrogators themselves, but this piece notes that it’s not just the […]
This one’s kind of a stretch, but still from a cool site.
I’m sitting here watching episode No. 2 in a row of Human Weapon, the History Channel’s show where two guys go around the globe and do martial-arts training native to various locations. I’d say they do maybe five minutes of actual history in these shows — all of which seems to center around the Pacific […]