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Seth MacFarlane is Big in China
One of many charming touches in Seth MacFarlane's Oscar-hosting role -- remember that? -- was the line about those wacky, funny-talking Hispanics. It was a good thing, he said, that Salma Hayek, Javier...
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Forgotten War, Forgotten Deaths
With a few weeks' retrospect, it's clear that the most objectionable part of the Chuck Hagel confirmation melee was not the personal smears, nor the posturing by Senators Graham and McCain et al, nor...
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False Equivalence: Going to the Source
More times than I would like, I have turned to the Washington Post's editorial page to illustrate classic "false equivalence" thinking. E.g.: one party filibusters all nominations; therefore "both...
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Interesting Software: Search Visualizer
I won't try to explain this but will just suggest that you give it a try. It's Search Visualizer, a web-based system that processes search results from Google and other search engines and displays them...
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What the Iraq War Did To and For the Middle East
Ten years after the start of the Iraq War, it can be easy to lose sight of how much of the argument for it was idealistic. By that I don't mean that such arguments were correct or should have been...
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Aboard the Beijing-Shanghai Bullet Train
A few days ago my wife and I took the famed Chinese high-speed train from the Beijing South Station to Shanghai's Hongqiao. Total distance 800+ miles, travel time (including en-route stops) just over 5...
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Why the TSA Is Right, and Markey and Schumer Are Wrong, About the Little Knives
Through the past decade I've argued that the most depressing and insidious aspect of America's "security theater" response to the 9/11 attacks is its ratchet-like nature. You can always add new...
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The Sequester, Budget Policy, and the Future of U.S. Innovation
If you haven't come across it yet, please do see the open letter published yesterday on our Politics Channel from the directors of three of the U.S. National Labs. These places are famous around the...
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On the 'Idealistic' Case for War
As discussed previously here. One reader who served in the U.S. military during the Iraq era makes this case:Let's see if we can make a better case for Iraq. I was a "liberal hawk," and I think I still...
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Todays 'Google, How Could You?' Round-Up
Routine personal disclosure: many of my friends work at Google, as does one of my sons.Routine general disclosure: the world has been transformed, overwhelmingly for the better, by the tools Google...
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George Orwell on the Filibuster
From today's Politico story about the prospect that an assault-weapons ban will be filibustered in the Senate. Note the three passages in boldface:The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a hugely...
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Showdown in Utah: Bulldozers vs. Paragliders
I find this an improbably compelling story. Short version: a unique natural mountain configuration has made a site in Utah the best place in America for one particular pursuit. The pursuit is...
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The Phoenix's Role in Climate Coverage
I seem to be one of the few people in journalism who never worked or wrote for the Boston Phoenix. I certainly read and admired it, and feel the same general malaise at news that it is gone. Wen...
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The Sequester, as Seen From Inside the Military
Most of the country seems to be edging into an "ehh, who cares? It's all politics!" attitude about permanent-emergency government funding. Here is a note from a serving officer about what "the...
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False Equivalence: Where It Came From
You know the syndrome. And, hey, if you've forgotten, check these two recent examples. Today several hypotheses about its origins. First, from a reader in Colorado, the idea that the false-equivalence...
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For St. Patrick's Day, Dancing Hungarians!
Turn to me for your seasonal Magyar/Hibernian connections. I mention the item below purely because I love it. But if you imagine the dancing figures in the video not as folk dancers from Sapientia...
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How We Thought, and Think, About Iraq
I'll try to work through a number of items on this topic today. Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the start of the ruinous invasion of Iraq.1. The ongoing effect. A reader in the upper Midwest...
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Ten Years Later, What Paul Wolfowitz 'Owes to the Country'
Andrew Bacevich has a wonderful essay, in the form of an open letter to Paul Wolfowitz, in the current Harper's. You have to subscribe to read it -- but, hey, you should be subscribing to any...
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False Equivalence, Steubenville Edition
You can consider this a kind of open-letter response to the many, many emails that have come in about the video below. This clip displays quite an astonishing sample of "false equivalence" framing by...
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Why We Won't Learn From Iraq
Ten years ago today the U.S. began its invasion of Iraq. I argue that it was the worst strategic mistake since the end of World War II, and probably the biggest "unforced error" in American history....
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