John McCain's interview on "This Week" yesterday was just crazy, at least the part about Syria. McCain is in some kind of full-blown psychopathic breakdown on Syria at this point; he doesn't know who's fighting, why it matters, why America should or shouldn't be involved, or how America could be involved, but he knows that … Continue reading someday a real rain will come
Author: DWD
writer, blogger, lover, fighter
Islamic History, Part 4: Muhammad’s Revelations and the Hijrah (~570-622)
Islamic History Series I was trying to decide how to approach the story of Muhammad, obviously the single most important episode in the development of Islam and Islamic civilization. I could start with the traditional narrative of Muhammad's life, but that risks people reading the narrative and treating it as though it were settled fact. … Continue reading Islamic History, Part 4: Muhammad’s Revelations and the Hijrah (~570-622)
Islamic History, Part 3: Arabia before Muhammad
Islamic History Series However little we really know of the Sasanian Empire, it was a major world power and it was written about at some length, so we have a fair amount of external sources even though nothing internal seems to have survived. On pre-Islamic Arabia, by comparison, we have really next to nothing. Histories … Continue reading Islamic History, Part 3: Arabia before Muhammad
Bigot is as bigot does
A different spin on the original. Last week Niall Ferguson said something stupid about John Maynard Keynes. Asked to comment on Keynes’ famous observation “In the long run we are all dead,” Professor Ferguson demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of the observation, then suggested that Keynes was perhaps indifferent to the long run because he had … Continue reading Bigot is as bigot does
Why, exactly, does PolitiFact exist?
Martina Navratilova is usually considered the greatest women's tennis player of all time, but couldn't you make a pretty strong argument that she's the greatest tennis player of all time, period? She won more Grand Slam titles than anybody, career Grand Slams (winning each of the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US … Continue reading Why, exactly, does PolitiFact exist?
Red, Red Line
I live in Chicago, and our mass transit system, the CTA, is organized into "lines" of different colors: orange, green, purple, etc. Maybe I'm biased because I live a couple of blocks from one of its stops, but in my opinion all the other colored lines are bullshit compared to the Red Line. Catching the … Continue reading Red, Red Line
Islamic History, Part 2: The pre-Islamic world
Islamic History Series There are two contextual parts to understanding the rise and rapid spread of Islam in the 7th century: the Arabian context and the wider world with which Arabia interacted. Students learning the history of Islam are usually taught the wider context first, probably because the Arabian context really flows directly into the … Continue reading Islamic History, Part 2: The pre-Islamic world
you get a cookie! part 7 of ???: michael o’hanlon
Full confession: this was going to be about Howie Kurtz and his courageous effort not to let being completely wrong about a story detract from the truthiness of the story itself, but then the Daily Beast, in a rare and tantalizing hint that somebody there has a clue, up and canned his ass. Not much … Continue reading you get a cookie! part 7 of ???: michael o’hanlon
Positing the “underpants gnomes theory of punditry” (UPDATED)
Way back in 2006, Matt Yglesias formulated the "Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics" (can't find his original, but go here instead), which he applied to a number of pundits who seemed to believe that the only thing preventing Iraq from being a smashing success was a lack of will on America's part. Named after the … Continue reading Positing the “underpants gnomes theory of punditry” (UPDATED)
how many assholes we got on this ship, anyhow?
Is it possible that we've been overthinking The Conservative Mind all this time? Got that? With all other factors being equal, conservatives were less likely to buy the exact same lightbulb if you told them it would help the environment. They didn't have any more aversion to buying energy-saving lightbulbs than anyone else, unless the … Continue reading how many assholes we got on this ship, anyhow?
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 