Given what I do, I’m constantly receiving books from publishers. And they’re almost all about contemporary politics. All I really read though is history. And in most cases as far from anything contemporary as I can get. (I’m actually going to try to start doing reviews of some of these like I used to on the site.) Right now I’m reading 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West. Admittedly, you know how it’s going to end. So that eliminates a certain element of dramatic tension. But I’m finding it a pretty good read. Peter Heather’s new Fall of the Roman Empire was also quite good, though again, you sort of know how it’s going to end. And I’m also going back and reading C.V. Wedgwood’s Thirty Years War.
But I’m going to need a few good books to read soon. So I’m looking for some recommendations. Good thick works of history, compelling narratives, distant places or the distant past. If you’ve got a good book to recommend, please let me know.
Big oil astroturf group, Competitive Enterprise Institute, launches the new attack on Al Gore.
Personal Note: I remember watching on Crossfire years ago CEI sachem Fred L. Smith explaining how global warming was actually a good thing because of all the cool new crops we could grow.
Late Update: The good folks at ThinkProgress have found the 1992 Crossfire in question. And they’ve got the actual quote.
Kevin Phillips brings out the big cannons to take on Robert Rubin’s new ‘Hamilton Project’.
Ralph Reed is running for Lt. Gov. in Georgia. But he can’t run fast enough to escape his Abramoff gambling money past.
Art Brodsky brings us the latest from the senate on the battle to save the Internet and Net Neutrality. Definitely give this a read to see what you can do today.
Why did Secret Service logs only show two Abramoff visits to the White House? Paul Kiel solves the mystery.
Phone jammer James Tobin sentenced to 10 months in prison.
Not just it’d be funny it weren’t so tragic, but genuinely funny.
From US News …
Some Bush administration officials are unhappy with the consensus intelligence community assessment that Iran could attain a weapons capability sometime between 2010 and 2015, based on assumptions about its ability to overcome technical problems. More-hawkish officials view the CIA, scorched by criticism over its exaggerated reports on Iraqi nuclear efforts, as timid on Iran, and Vice President Dick Cheney is said to have recently criticized the intelligence assessment in private as “too cautious.”
I’m sure glad this isn’t going to be handled anything like last time.
Next up, what about the Cheney family’s private slush fund for Iran work?
Annals of the War on Terror.
It seems the whole security clearance process is shutdown indefinitely at the Pentagon because Steve Cambone, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and the Office of Personnel Management can’t work out a silly billing dispute.
That means that anybody new we hire to do national security related work can’t start because they can’t get their clearance.
Who’s crazy enough to think we should actually be talking to the Iranians?