Just out from the Washington Independent: what Jim Jones’ speech to J Street means for American Jewish politics, and for the peace community more broadly. If I’m cherry picking grafs from my own work, I like this one, where J Street co-founder Daniel Levy takes on the organization’s critics. “The smear campaign” represents “business as [...]

Steve, one of the great Washington machers, launches his new blog The Palestine Note, and has an interview with Khaled Meshal that I, uh, haven’t had a chance to watch yet, as I’m at the J Street conference. Much more on that later, after I bang out a Windy story about the conference and Jim [...]

My full react to this powerful Washington Post story is over here at the Windy, but I’ll repeat myself, for a teaser: McChrystal has tacitly paid respect to the critique, saying in his much-derided London address that jobs programs could do much to deprive the Taliban of foot soldiers who fight because their lack of [...]

The one that Duss took yesterday? I’m not sure, but Haaretz has an idea: Opposite the hotel, Bob Kunst, of the rightist group Shalom International, held a one-man protest against the conference with a poster that read: “J St. Nazis.” That would appear to be these guys. I find it stunning that an organization that [...]

Is “a fascinating backdrop” just a heavier and velvety “rare window“? Yeah. I can’t seem to stay asleep.

Jesus, this took up way more of my day than I thought it would. Kerry, just back from Afghanistan, gave a very nuanced speech in which he backed a lot of counterinsurgency approaches, but resisted sending more troops without a thoroughgoing commitment to a greater civilian and Afghan-capacity commitment. Kerry urged the Obama administration to [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 832-09 October 26, 2009 DoD Identifies Army Casualties The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Oct. 23 in Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device. The soldiers were assigned to the 569th [...]

Possibly the greatest Hood Internet mischief ever? I don’t know because the file was still processing when I pre-wrote this post. But the idea’s pretty amazing, no? Just A Friendomania (Biz Markie vs Phoenix vs Classixx) – The Hood Internet

I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I turned to my pal Martin Krasnik, a journalist with weekly Copenhagen newspaper Weekendavisen, to tell me what’s up with NATO Secretary General and former Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen for the Washington Independent. Krasnik has been doing some reporting into Rasmussen’s already-controversial tenure as NATO secretary general, [...]

No, this isn’t Slate, although a provocative yen for the more blithering aspects of counterintuition forms the basis for the “Mark Foley was right!” refrain in this excellent track from Britain’s Future Of The Left. If you, like me, are curious about the refrain “Colin is a pussy,” it is explained here that the reference [...]