What I Saw at the Afghan Election  —  Before firing me last week from my post as his deputy special representative in Afghanistan, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conveyed one last instruction: Do not talk to the press.  In effect, I was being told to remain a team player after being thrown off the team.

Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb  —  Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.  —  The report by experts …

Socialism and Christian-Bashing Crash at Box Office  —  Tough times for leftie Hollywood.  Nothing's gone right this week.  None of this is their fault, of course.  In order to understand that it might not be a good idea to rally around a child rapist, bash religion in a religious country …

A Smarter (and Cost-Efficient) Way to Fight Crime  —  LAW enforcement policy in the United States rests implicitly on the “rational actor” model of traditional economics, which holds that people take only those actions whose benefits exceed their costs.  —  This model says that crime …

Army chief warns of ‘terrifying prospect’ of failure in Afghanistan  —  The head of the British Army, General Sir David Richards, has issued a wake-up call to the public by warning of the “terrifying prospect” of a defeat in Afghanistan.  —  In an unprecedented intervention …

Saturday Night At The Movies  —  Let fiefdom ring  —  By Dennis Hartley … -Billy Bragg  —  So it's not just me.  A few months ago, in my review of Public Enemies, I wrote: … For the opening credits of his latest sock-it-to-mentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore runs …

Israel names Russians helping Iran build nuclear bomb  —  Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has handed the Kremlin a list of Russian scientists believed by the Israelis to be helping Iran to develop a nuclear warhead.  He is said to have delivered the list during a mysterious visit to Moscow.

The Rabbit Ragu Democrats  —  IN the annals of American excess, there often arrives a moment when those with too much money, too much clout and too much hubris just can't stop themselves from tempting the fates.  They throw an over-the-top party in public, or parade their wealth and power before the press …

Ireland Votes for A Stronger E.U.  —  Henry Kissinger once famously asked, “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?”  The answer, thanks to the Irish, may soon be the president of Europe.  —  Irish voters have removed the single greatest barrier to regionwide adoption of the Lisbon Treaty …

Garofalo: Led by Limbaugh, ‘Tea-Baggers’ a ‘White Power Movement’ Motivated by ‘Racism’  —  “Actress/activist” Janeane Garofalo used another media appearance to smear anti-Obama protesters as racists, this time, Friday night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, insisting “it's obvious to anybody …

CONSERVATIVES' OLYMPIC GLEE CONTINUES.... It seems likely that conservative delight over the International Olympic Committee awarding the 2016 games to Rio will fade rather quickly.  There's just not much to keep their joy going — the United States sought the Olympics, made it to the final round, but came up short.

Obama's Anzio  —  I'm late on this, due to festschrifting.  But another bad employment report yesterday.  I'm feeling pretty bleak about this.  —  And the worst of it is that it was more or less predictable.  I went back to my first blog post — January 6, 2009 — worrying that the Obama economic plan was too cautious.