IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 246-10 March 29, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Lance Cpl. Jacob A. Ross, 19, of Gillette, Wyo., died March 24, while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, [...]

First: thanks to Dara, Ned, Daniel and Matt for a wonderful weekend-plus’ guestbloggery. I ended up breathing deeply and leaving my computer at home in order to enforce vacationing, something that also rationed my iPhone usage. A pleasant second-order effect of that decision is not to know what was on my blog for three days, [...]

Domenico Montanaro, MSNBC: First Read has verified some of the charges the Republican National Committee approved in its March Monthly report, including almost $2,000 spent at a sex-themed nightclub in West Hollywood, as well as more than $15,000 spent at ritzy Beverly Hills hotels I imagine the people who expensed this stuff aren’t going to [...]

Will Wilkinson muses on how to best help out poor countries that are probably going to bear the brunt of the negative effects of climate change, especially in light of a correlation between carbon emissions and GDP growth: In light of this kind of evidence, policies that would slow growth in incomes and energy use [...]

Well that’s it for me folks. I’m done here. Special thanks to Spencer for this great opportunity. Thanks to my co-bloggers, Dara, Matt, and Ned, and most of all thanks to all of you for reading me and bringing the insightful comments.

There is no doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t have volunteered myself for this guestblogging gig. I’ve never been a terribly regular blogger, I’m certainly out of practice, and I was looking forward to a relaxing three-day weekend. I owe my spot here over the last few days, and my profound thanks, to Spencer [...]

I, for one, am fairly happy about this. Not because it’s Pakistan in particular (although from what little I know about Drone warfare and Pakistan, I’m not unhappy Pakistan isn’t getting weaponized drones) but because the casualty civilian death count from Drone warfare is embarrassingly high. I won’t waste your time pretending to know a [...]

The day’s guestbloggery is almost over, but before we go I couldn’t resist another song. Since we’ve clearly got a lot of Hold Steady and Gaslight Anthem fans in these parts, I thought I’d go for something in that vein: Lucero’s “The Devil and Maggie Chascarillo.” (Incidentally, the world’s greatest bar band just released another [...]

I propose a new rule for the next major legislative skirmish: Can we ban, forever, any iteration of the phrase “the American people want,” “the American people don’t want,” or any permutation of either as a rhetorical tactic? It’s not just that phrases like this get thrown around with no regard for the latest polling. [...]

Regardless of your take on the legal case for the Affordable Care Act’s unconstitutionality–although that case does seem pretty weak–there’s something a little sad and a little hilarious about watching a party that has, in the past, spilled so much ink and pierced so many ear drums shrieking about the horrors of “judicial activism” and [...]