Industry Figure Tom Chappell

It’s out, and it’s pretty great.
Beware the comments link below; it may contain horrible, horrible spoilers. Also, avoid reading the reviews, because the ones I’ve read have been incredibly cavalier in this area. One possible remedy is suggested by Penny Arcade.
In case you don’t know, Serenity started life as an amazing (though […]

You might have heard that some insurgent actions in Baghdad a week or two ago were in retaliation for what the coalition forces had done at Tal Afar. And if you were like me, you might have wondered, “WTF?”
The mainstream news was that we had sent a mess of troops in there […]

More news out of Basra. First up, a wild story about a daring rescue from The Washington Post. Unfortunately, our guys were being rescued from the Iraqi police, rather than by them:
British armored vehicles backed by helicopter gunships burst through the walls of an Iraqi jail Monday in the southern city of Basra […]

A grim post on Juan Cole’s brilliant Informed Comment today:
An observer in Iraq writes to me:
“The situation has deteriorated in Baghdad dramatically today. Five neighborhoods (hay) in Baghdad are controlled by insurgents, and they are Amiraya, Ghazilya, Shurta, Yarmouk and Doura. It is very bad. My guys there report that cars have come into these […]

Well, it’s been months since he was first nominated, and I keep waiting to hear about this story on Meet the Press or one of the other Sunday shows, but the media just isn’t interested. Supreme Court Chief Justice Nominee John Roberts is as extreme as they come, maybe even John Bolton extreme (without […]

The Washington Post, yesterday:
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in an interview yesterday that the United States could withdraw as many as 50,000 troops by the end of the year, declaring there are enough Iraqi forces trained and ready to begin assuming control in cities throughout the country.
After the White House and Pentagon were contacted for […]

This American Life this week covers the aftermath of the Katrina flood. One of the most disturbing segments is about Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, emergency medical services (EMS) workers from San Francisco who were caught in New Orleans when Katrina struck. [There were no flights out available, no rental cars available.]
Lorrie […]

People have asked me, “Why are you so consumed with hatred for the Bush administration? Surely this is not moderate, or even healthy?”
And yeah, a more well-tempered Tom Chappell would laugh these things off. But let me tell you: it’s Sunday night, and right now, I’m thinking that there are going to be 10,000 dead […]