Only a matter of time… I almost missed this little detail from the Washington Post: North Korea startled international diplomats yesterday by threatening to test a nuclear weapon in response to perceived hostility from the Bush administration, a U.S. official said after the second day of six-nation talks in Beijing on North Korea’s nuclear program. […]

Uh Oh… An article in this week’s Economist (subscription required to read the entire article) suggests that China may actually be getting closer to the point of revaluing the yuan than I thought when I wrote about this issue last week: Time to worry about China’s strong economy, not just its weak currency WHEN John […]

Iraq WMD Exaggerations: Casualty #1 It looks like Tony Blair’s right hand man (people call him Blair’s Karl Rove) is the first major political casualty of the Bush/Blair WMD exaggerations: LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Tony Blair’s powerful communications chief, Alastair Campbell, a central figure in the controversy over whether Britain exaggerated Iraq’s weapons threat […]

MTV Video Music Awards I didn’t watch them, but skimming the news I can’t help wondering how many Google hits I’d get if I were to post the words “Madonna”, “Britney Spears”, and “kiss”. Nah, that’s too cheesy. AB (Frustrated Googlers, click here to find what you’re looking for. See also here.) But before you […]

Kurtz and Franken Howie Kurtz has a lengthy piece on Franken and his book today; it’s partly a summary of Franken’s charges and partly an interview of Franken (there’s little by way of addressing whether the charges have merit, which is a rather weak showing for a star media analyst). On balance, my fair opinion […]

Reasonably Good News From Reuters, Gross domestic product, or GDP, grew at a revised 3.1 percent in the second three months of the year, the government said before the open. That was up from the 2.4 percent rise estimated a month ago and slightly above Wall Street expectations for a 3.0 percent gain. AB UPDATE: […]

Update on “It’s because they’re stupid, that’s why. That’s why everybody does everything.” Just click here. As some might say, Jeebus. (For context on the title of this post, click here). AB

Leave No Fraudulent Statistics Behind A while back, Education Secretary Rod Paige made the news because Houston high schools, Sharpstown High School in particular, were caught faking drop out rates. Now, via Susan Nunes, I see that Houston high schools are also lying about how many of their students plan to go to college: Across […]

Angry Bear Traffic Tops 100,000 Per Day That, of course, is only on a pro forma basis. Ezra Klein at NotGeniuses has an interesting theory: What I’m trying to get is that in terms of sheer effect, 5 blog readers, due to how specialized and specific the medium is, equal thousands of Washington Post readers […]

Happy first anniversary to Dwight Merredith and Kevin Drum (who also had his one millionth visit the same week!). And best wishes to the TBogg family. AB