My latest appearance

on Civil Discourse Now is here.  This week's episode features co-hosts Mark Small and Paul Ogden, along with guests Nicholas Martin and myself.  We discuss the effects of the Citizen's United case.

New addition to the library

The Frontiers of Imperial Rome, by David J. Breeze.

The Frontiers of Imperial Rome, I thought, was supposed to be the first analysis of Roman border policy since David Luttwak's classic The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire.  Based on my first skim, that is not the case, which is somewhat disappointing.  Breeze's book is not on border policy per se, but on the borders themselves, as in the fortifications. 

And on that, it looks impressive.  Oodles of diagrams, charts, maps and plans.  Lotsa technical stuff.  Should be a fun read.

Islamists want to destroy Egyptian pyramids

After the crime against humanity the Islamist Taliban committed by destroying the Bamiyan Buddhas, we should have expected that Islamist control of Egypt would threaten its pre-Islamic historic sites, including the Giza Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Valley of the Kings and the various other ancient pyramids across the country.  And, those pre-Islamic sites are now in danger:

The pyramids at Giza are the most stunning sight I have ever seen.
True, their lonely eminence is threatened by Cairo's unlicensed building sprawl, with half completed houses inching their way towards them.
Surveying them at night as the calls to prayer multiplied into a thunder of sound from central Cairo already told me a few years back what was coming.
For now members of the Nour (The Light) Salafist party, which won 20 per cent of the vote in recent elections, are talking about putting an end to the 'idolatry' represented by the pyramids.
This means destruction - along the lines essayed by the Afghan Taliban who blew up the Banyam Buddhas - or 'concealment' by covering them with wax. Tourists would presumably see great blobs rather than the perfectly carved steps.

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Skyrim warning

If you have a life and want to keep it, do not repeat do NOT play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  I swear Skyrim qualifies as video game crack.  Extremely addictive.  Great story, huge open world, more missions than I can count, interesting characters.  Like great books, the best games invite you to lose yourself in them.  Skyrim definitely qualifies.  Even though it's the middle of winter, you always come back wanting more of the icy, torn province of Skyrim.  Game of the Year material.

New additions to the library

The Second Bull Run Campaign, July-August 1862, by David G. Martin
Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas, by John J. Hennessy.

I've always found the Second Battle of Bull Run to be more interesting than the First.

What's going on in Iran?

Some interesting things could be happening in Iran right now; it's always hard to tell with those malevolent mullahs.  But they seem to be quite angry about ... something:

Iran is rolling out one defiant step after another these days.  In recent days it has begun ten days of naval games in the Straits of Hormuz while warning that it would close those straits to oil shipments if it is attacked.  It has warned Turkey that, if attacked, it will respond by attacking NATO facilities on Turkish soil.  It has announced the successful construction of its first nuclear fuel rod.  It has tested a medium range missile. The recent upsurge in sectarian violence and polarization in Iraq seems to reflect in part Iranian efforts to deepen relations with militant Shiites next door.
Iran also seems to be stepping up its efforts to forge relationships with some Latin American countries whose leaders are not overly fond of the United States. The great A-jad has a four country tour planned this month as Iran looks to build economic and security relationships that might help it evade sanctions.

Close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked? Or merely inconvenienced?
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Did Russia murder the Polish government?

In April 2010, senior members of the Polish government, including the Polish president and first lady, got on a plane to head to Smolensk, Russia, to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Katyn Massacre, in which Josef Stalin ordered the murder of 20,000 Polish army officers and other intelligentsia and had them buried in the Katyn Forest, outside Smolensk, in an attempt to decapitate Poland in preparation for installing a post-war communist regime.

This was one massacre for which the Nazis, who discovered the mass graves in the Katyn Forest, were not responsible, though they, too tried to decapitate Poland by killing its intellectuals.  The Nazis conducted a very public investigation, witnessed and vouched for by the Red Cross, that fixed guilt for the massacre on the Soviet Union.  Stalin denied in, blaming Germany.  Roosevelt and Churchill stayed silent, not wanting to alienate their ally.  Arguably no country suffered more in World War II than Poland.

The 70th Anniversary was to witness a very public admission by the Russians (they had only admitted responsibility in 1995) for the massacre.  A very, very big step for them, though, one might say, out of character for Vladimir Putin.

But the Polish plane never arrived.  Instead, it crashed under mysterious circumstances outside Smolensk.

Sound suspicious to you? It did to me at the time.  And Russia's behavior in "investigating" the crash has only added to those suspicions.  The Washington Examiner's Diana West:

What really happened in the forests at Smolensk, Russia, when a Polish aircraft carrying Poland's national leadership crashed in April 2010, killing all 96 people on board, including Poland's president and first lady?
The answers Russia presented to the world in its official 2011 crash report are wholly unsatisfactory. Indeed, the Moscow-controlled crash investigation seems to have been designed to suppress or tamper with evidence to exonerate Russia of all responsibility for an accident -- or guilt for a crime.

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