Good idea from Ezra Klein: This is a baffling waste of good information. Reporters are endlessly interviewing newsmakers and then using, at most, a handful of lines out of thousands of words. The paper, of course, may not have room for thousands of words of interview transcripts, but the Web certainly does. Nor does it [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 598-10 July 12, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Pfc. Anthony W. Simmons, 25, of Tallahassee, Fla., died July 8 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, when insurgents attacked his unit with indirect fire. He was assigned to [...]

It’s the fifteenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, and via Laura Rozen, here’s an interview Samantha Power gave to what I gather is a Serbian publication (sorry if I’ve gotten that wrong) Bosniac Muslim publication. Power, whom I respect a great deal, is the senior National Security Council staffer dealing with human-rights promotion and multinational [...]

So it turns out that I’ve got two tickets for the Cap’n Jazz reunion in Chicago on Saturday that I won’t be able to use. You want them? They’re $15 apiece, but I’d need you to pay the costs of me getting them to you as well. Let me know in comments if you’re interested [...]

To Yochi Dreazen, an excellent military and national-security reporter with the Wall Street Journal who, an emailed announcement informs me, is going to the (apparently revamping) National Journal to continue his excellent coverage. Just a great hire by National Journal, and one that speaks very well of its editorial judgment.

A couple days ago, commenter Pococurante took me to task, as he has in the past, for not banging the table against Hamas and Hezbollah when I write about Israel. And it kind of pissed me off, as I thought it was a dodge from the criticisms I offer of Israeli strategy. But now I’m [...]

I haven’t seen it yet — the book I read after I (finally) finish Shane Harris’ excellent The Watchers will be War by Sebastian Junger — but this excellent Paul McLeary review fortifies my desire to see it as soon as I can. Great kicker graf from Paul: Restrepo is what population-centric counterinsurgency looks like [...]

A fair point from Michael Cohen in partial response to something I wrote about considering civilian casualties to have strategic implications for the Afghanistan war: If we’re not willing to accept the fact that civilians are going to be killed in war – and that lives will be upturned by the determination that our perceived [...]

Tom Ricks quotes this piece of advice from Fred Reed about the absurdity of defense journos believing themselves to be world-historical figures: It’s the reporter’s disease: You come to believe that the Secretary of the Air Force wants a press breakfast with you because he respects the depth of your thought. No. He thinks you [...]

“The Stadium is not the same without his voice.” Well said, Bernie. RIP.