Category Archives: Current Events

More about Afghanistan from Fred Kaplan.

Bill Carter offers up a brief profile of Craig Ferguson. I am intrigued to learn that he once appeared in a production of The Odd Couple playing Oscar (the sloppy one) to a Felix played by Peter Cook. Wish I could have seen that.

Ezra Klein (him again) provides a nice summary of what health care costs these days.

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) made some remarks Tuesday at a Finance Committee Hearing about how many nations on this planet manage to have universal health care without having it run by the government. So along comes blogger Ezra Klein to point out that every one of Conrad's examples is a system that is, one way or another, run by the government.

For years, my Conservative friend Roger has tried to tell me that the main reason that medical care costs so much in this country is that juries award huge malpractice settlements to some patients, and doctors have to spend zillions of dollars to purchase malpractice insurance. According to Dave Leonhardt, the cost is actually microscopic…but that doesn't mean that the current malpractice practices are working to our advantage.

If you're mystified by all this talk of sending more troops to Afghanistan or not sending more troops to Afghanistan…well, you're not alone. Fortunately, we have Fred Kaplan to explain it all.

The A.V. Club offers up 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will. It's basically a list of fifteen things Kurt Vonnegut said better than anyone else ever has or will.

Bruce Bartlett on why it's so difficult to cut federal spending. It's easy to say, "Let's slash the budget," he says, but not so easy to do.

Fred Kaplan thinks Obama did a smart thing by axing George W. Bush's plan to deploy a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. And not just because anything that makes John Bolton mad is probably the right course of action.

And while you're over in Slate territory, take a look at an article by Timothy Noah. He explains how he made a mistake in an online article and it wound up in Barack Obama's address to Congress.

One of the reasons I link to so many Fred Kaplan articles is that he seems to go largely unrebutted. His articles for Slate get read by everyone who covers his beats (mostly foreign relations and our military) and only rarely does anyone feel compelled to argue…and this is on the Internet where you can get a fistfight going if you say the sun came up this morning.

I dunno who's right or wrong — or if there's even a right or wrong in this discussion — but his recent article on what to do in Afghanistan is getting some pushback from others. Here's one dissent and here's another, and I thought in fairness, I oughta link to them, too. We link, you decide.

Joe Conason deals with some of the rumors and accusations about ACORN.

Garrison Keillor recently had a small stroke…but lived to write about it.

On at Slate, Timothy Noah cites some stats on how bad health care in this country has gotten lately…and how much more expensive it'll get if nothing is done.

And my man Fred Kaplan discusses whether we can just buy a victory in Afghanistan.

Jeffrey Toobin reports on the progress Obama has made in getting federal judges confirmed. Apart from Ms. Sotomayor, there haven't been any. Apparently in the eyes of some, the mere fact that Barack Obama nominated someone is reason enough to try and block their appointment.

Alan Alda remembers Larry Gelbart.