Small Precautions

From Naylor, The Wages of Crime , p.10: The great majority of what is conventionally described as [transnational organized] crime is the pro...

Amy Wilentz, on loving to hate L.A. : L.A. has long been viewed as an embarrassment by America. Because it is the city at the end of the con...

I'm hoping soon to add some countries in Africa. You can create your own map here .

The Playboy ideal of urban living , c. 1962. Actually, it still looks pretty sweet.

Eminent historian Eric Foner suggests that Bush is the worst President in the history of the country : Historians are loath to predict the f...

The rise and fall of empires in the Middle East .

Kevin Drum, on the right's forthcoming effort to airbrush history : The whole wingnut universe is preparing for another decades-long rer...

Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations talks about whether it matters whether or not Iraq is in a "civil war" : It'...

Channeling Albert Hoffmann's problem child .

2+ years later, this is still the best insight on why things went so wrong in Iraq : The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from th...

Henry Kissinger, on the prospects for military victory in Iraq: If you mean by "military victory" an Iraqi government that can be...

With the usual GOP-administrator's Orwellian touch : The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, th...

From Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman's wonderful Ethical Realism : Among the enormous numbers of analysts in Washington still employed in...

Redmond, making all the right moves with Zune: "I've never seen a business so blatantly screw its business partners," says P...

Tomorrow it will be 88 years since the end of World War One. Wilfred Owen died in combat one week before the end of the war, just eight mont...

From the Daily Telegraph, good news : "As the Lord High Executioner said in The Mikado, 'I have a little list'," John Ding...

Tony Woodiwiss : "Choice" has today replaced "opportunity" at the core of official discourse: "choice," howeve...

Ronald Reagan, acceptance speech, RNC, 1980 : Can anyone look at the record of this administration and say, "Well done"? Can anyon...

The Economist, on Pelosi : "It's like listening to a cross between a Stepford wife and Jesse Jackson." The article blithely as...