Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, RIP; Age 89

Erica Wagner at the London Times notes the passage of one of the great voices of freedom: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

Years of internal exile and suffering never daunted him. The 1962 publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Back along about the end of 2006, during a  Christmas break, I wrote an extended piece about Islam and some of the problems in the world with relation to it. I’ll post it here, because I think it’;s ideas are

Bob Herbert, New York Times, attempts to slime John McCain, only to show his true and bigoted colors:

The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover

Little Green Footballs is on the ball, here, having noticed about half of blogdom is missing… if, that is you’re using IE7… saying about 7pm EDT:

I’ve confirmed that there’s some kind of problem on the Internet, that only seems

• It’s August, already? Where the hell did July go?   2/3rds of the summer is gone and I’m just getting started on the stuff I wanted to do this year.
• Honorable Mention at OTB’s caption Contest. I gotta admit, that

• I note with interest, Brian Mahoney over at Radio Equalizer, pretty much echoing my thoughts of  as regards the Knoxville Shooter and the attempt tp attach him to all things right-wing. As Brian says:
  

  Our lefty friends need to decide

Jim Rutttenberg, New York Times, is shocked that John McCain is painting BO as ill-informed, arrogant and out of touch:

WASHINGTON — After spending much of the summer searching for an effective line of attack against Senator Barack Obama

Simon Owens over at Blogasm managed to grab an interview with LA Times blog editor Tony Pierce. Yes, that’s the guy who sent the letter that put the kibosh on stories about John Edwards at that Hollywood hotel that’s been

• At some point, the rain around here has to stop. Not that we’ve had flooding of any serious amounts, but it’s rained around here about every day this summer, for at least part of the day. Today is another example.

Not sure what to make of thisreport from Fox News:

An aide to Sen. Jim Webb was found dead from a gunshot wound Tuesday morning, the Virginia Democrat’s office confirmed to FOX News on Wednesday.

Frederick Wayne Hutchins Jr., 26,

• Yeah, I was out all weekend. So, we made the trip over the weekend, to Fair Haven State Park, which is one of the best in the state. There’s a problem, though with the state Reservation system for their campgrounds;

(From The Conservative Reader)

Well, it took almost 3 months, but Congress finally passed the bill Saturday, on older version of which was  passed by the House in May, after some considerable back and forth between the Senate

John R. Bolton, in the Los Angeles Times:

First, urging greater U.S.-European cooperation, Obama said, “The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together.” Having earlier proclaimed himself “a fellow citizen of the world” with his German hosts,

Why does the left block US energy development? The answer is their value system is different from the mainstream of the country. But the left’s blocking energy development costs all of us.

Case in point. Do you know how much

• I managed to catch a first place this week at OTB’s Caption Contest.
• for the last week or so, we’ve brought up John Edwards and his scandal. Kaus has been watching this for a while too, all credit to