IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 111-10 February 16, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Cpl. Jacob H. Turbett, 21, of Canton, Mich., died Feb. 13 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, [...]

Like Scott, I think I’m going to call it a night.  Thanks to Spencer for giving me the opportunity to guest-blog, and thanks to you, the readers, for putting up with me. Cheers!

Gerald Seib’s diagnosis of the Senate — its problems are merely a symptom of our political system’s larger dysfunction — is mostly spot on, with the exception of this bit: Yet the real issue here isn’t the number of filibusters and cloture votes needed to stop them, but that there is so little common ground [...]

This is going to be my last post for the evening.  I want to thank Spencer for giving me the opportunity to post some things today and would like to end with with a shout out to DARPA: If you can speak the languages of the countries you invade, you don’t need incredibly awesome toys.

Iran’s cheeky retort to Sec. of State Clinton’s accusations that the country is a military dictatorship which could potentially fuel a nuclear arms race in the middle east was clever, but didn’t address the issue at hand: Those who have been the very symbol of military dictatorships over the past decades, since the Vietnam war [...]

“Chappaquiddick has caused more deaths than nuclear energy in America.” – former nuclear submarine sailor and my late father-in-law

American troop levels are the lowest they’ve been in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, the Associated Press reports.  My initial excitement at this news is hedged only by the security issues that will go along with the March elections.  Sunni politicians being kept off the ticket certainly won’t help. President Maliki’s refusal to let America [...]

I haven’t decided yet whether the Department of Homeland Security’s favorite websites and blogs nearly matching the ones in my  favorites toolbar is a good thing or not.  One of the more interesting sites that is mentioned in the DHS report is  Borderfire Report, which details Tea Party in-fighting mixed in with a somewhat disturbing amount of anti-immigrant ranting.  Borderfire [...]

Reihan Salam is unhappy with the president’s definition of bipartisanship (via Andrew Sullivan): So when the president claims that the Senate health-care bill he still hopes to salvage includes many Republican ideas, he’s stretching. Republicans wanted interstate competition for insurance policies, allowing New Yorkers to buy South Dakota policies that have fewer expensive mandates. The bill [...]

There’s something slightly morbid about live-blogging or Tweeting the recent actions in Afghanistan in almost real time. I understand the utility of documenting things as they happen (especially when civilians are being killed), and I’m not suggesting by any means that the operations shouldn’t be reported on in detail; but I have to agree with [...]