Heck. Just thought I'd see if everything is now auto-posting. You're welcome!

EDIT: Given that Senator McCain is making the surge the centerpiece of his foreign policy resume, it would be helpful, heck, it would be refreshing, if he gave some indication that he understood...

What in fact constituted...The Surge.

Details, and they're embarrassing, here.

The Economist's Blog "Free Exchange" began its Summer Book Club on Milton Friedman's Captialism and Freedom, a somewhat shorter, easier to read version of Free to Choose.

The Closing of the American Mind was written by Allan Bloom some 20 years ago. I’ve just got round to it now. Much of it lacked interest for me. I did not find Bloom’s speaking on behalf of American university students, their parents, women or minority groups worthy of much attention. A good deal of the book is taken up by Bloom’s presentation of what others think and want, only to be knocked down as straw persons. I chafe against this sort of polemical exercise.

I realize that while others here are busy saving the world, my own preoccupations with TV shows, bookshelves, and scantily clad women are in the eternal scheme of things unbearably trivial. However, I have just returned from a dental exam where I have been told that I need a second complex and painful oral surgery in the hospital at a cost of a mid-sized Cadillac (a procedure, BTW, that isn't offered in Canada and Europe or covered by insurance). So while I'm still feeling the Xanax, I would like to give a few brief mentions to a trio of summer shows that I've been attempting to follow.

Since I'm too lazy to go find one, I'll just start a new one.

Interesting link stolen from NRO, Art Garfunkel has a list of every book he's read since 1968

Intriguing on a few different levels. It'd be interesting to compare his reading at a particular time with his coincident music.

Drew Westen's new book is about psychology, emotions and how they relate to politics.

It's called The Political Brain.

Bryan Caplan, author of that book last year, The Myth of the Rational Voter, took an interest in reading Westen's book.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog on Thursday, June 19th, when the interview took place.

Because I'm being evicted from my home for several weeks (which I shall be spending at the beach) for HVAC replacement and asbestos removal, I won't be able to continue writing and posting my Memoirs during that time. This will no doubt bring relief to the hearts of all but a few--according to the stats on the latest post, about a dozen or so loyal readers. To them I recommend the following reading during my absence; a brief compendium of the cynical and humorously degenerate works that I have deliberately "channelled" while writing my own:

Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary

Since theForvm is about to be redesigned--and because summer, with its reading-for-pleasure leisurely holidays, is almost upon us--I thought I'd take the liberty of listing a few of the Roman-flavored fictions that I've enjoyed in the months since the merciful finale of HBO's colorful and beautifully cast, but often offensively inaccurate, "Rome".