There is no shortage of political pundits now wading into the discussion of global warming, despite the scientific complexity of the field. One of the latest entries is Alexander Cockburn. I have read Cockburn regularly over the years, and while I recognized him as a very talented polemicist whose…

By terrorism standards the attacks of 9/11 were spectacularly successful, not only in the extent of death and destruction they produced, but in instilling a deep sense of horror in the American public. But the attacks were carried out with the crudest of instruments: commercial airliners hijacked…

My nomination for Man of the Year in 2005 is Patrick Fitzgerald. Anyone who could flush out a sleazy journalist like Judy Miller and toss her in jail without blinking an eye gets my vote. More significantly, though, it was only after Fitzgerald’s tenacious investigation that the media woke from its…

There was something unsettling about Donald Rumsfeld recent tough-talk speech in Singapore in which he described his concern over what he viewed as China’s alarming weapons buildup. Rumsfeld speech was the top story next day in the Los Angeles Times, my local paper. And at the nearby Starbuck’s I…