Garance Franke-Ruta

THE GERMS AND THE SOAP. If you’d like a moment of levity after lunch, please read this hilarious Los Angeles Times story about how the drummer for punk rock band the Germs was arrested for alleged narcotics posession, when he insists all he had was Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, which helps “give him the complexion […]

REPUBLICANS WHO WANT OUT. The Politico reports on a new G.O.P. fracture: A diverse collection of House Republicans has formed an ad hoc group to negotiate with the White House on a compromise Iraq spending bill, Politico’s Ryan Grim reports. The group plans to hold talks with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, who has been […]

ANOTHER CRACKDOWN IN EGYPT. For quite some time I’ve been getting daily updates from a tiny little Cairo-based outfit called The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, sponsored by the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, which was at the forefront of the effort to document what was happening to Egyptian bloggers and democracy activists in the […]

SIERRA CLUB. Feministing‘s Jessica Valenti has a great addition to the debate on online harassment and crime kicked off by Kathy Sierra and Salon‘s Joan Walsh over at The Guardian. From “How the web became a sexists’ paradise”: While no one could deny that men experience abuse online, the sheer vitriol directed at women has […]

A HOSTAGE SWAP? Via Andrew Sullivan, Harper’s Magazine contributor Scott Horton asked yesterday if there was some kind of background deal linking the release of the 15 British marines and sailors captured by Iran to the release of an Iranian diplomat by U.S. forces in Iraq. Today comes this report from Eli Lake of The […]

LATIN LOVER. The funniest part about this YouTube of Newt Gingrich trying to backpedal in Spanish from having called Spanish “the language of living in a ghetto” is his accent. He’s speaking Spanish with a classic, high-school Latin accent, as if reciting Virgil! Too much. –Garance Franke-Ruta

THE SPECTER OF ACCIDENTAL WARS. To briefly address Robert‘s reply to the item I posted this morning — he thinks he’s disagreeing with me, but I actually agree with every point he made. Look: It’s news that the Israeli Prime Minister felt sufficiently worried about Syrian defensive anxieties that he sent a message via our […]

YOU GET WHAT YOU PREP FOR. Adding some context to what Fox News has started calling, with no intent of inflaming the public, I’m sure, the new Iranian hostage crisis, The Jerusalem Post reports: Iran, Syria and Hizbullah are preparing their defenses for a war in the summer, and they are more worried about an […]

GROVER AGREES. Because my life isn’t weird enough, I stopped by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.‘s book party last night at Morton’s Steakhouse, which celebrated the publication of The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy President’s Life After the White House with bottles of Beringer, steak sandwiches, crabcakes, and shrimp the size of my palm (definitely not kosher […]

READ THE WHOLE THING. And then buy the book from which it’s excerpted. The Washington Post reports: It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous — later retracted — 16 words: “The British Government has […]