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The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. –Tacitus
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Henry James on How to Write a Novel
In April, New York Review Books released
On Writers and Writing
, a collection of 17 essays by 19th- and early 20th-century novelist and critic Henry James. Writing in
The…
July 29, 2025
Is Selling Unclassified Information About the U.S. Embassy In Oslo A Crime?
A 27-year-old contract security guard at the U.S. embassy in Oslo was charged July 22 with espionage for sharing information about the embassy and its staff with Russia and…
July 27, 2025
Iranian technology launched Russian drone industry
Russia has used technology acquired from Iran to launch more than 24,000 drones against Ukraine so far this year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
July 20, 2025
AI slows coders
Open source programmers took 19 percent more time to write code with artificial intelligence than without, a study released July 10 found.
July 20, 2025
Kill your second brain
A vast echochamber advocates using notetaking software to create “a second brain.”
July 19, 2025
Anti-Money Laundering Laws Don’t Work
A new study by criminologists Mirko Nazzari and Peter Reuter in the journal
Crime and Justice
concludes that despite the growing number of anti-money laundering (AML) laws…
July 13, 2025
Spies Can’t Hide
David Ignatius of The Washington Post looks at entrepreneurs seeking to profit in a world in which technology has made it difficult, if not impossible, for spies to hide:
July 10, 2025
Tradecraft Review Declassified
The CIA has declassified a “tradecraft review” of the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
July 9, 2025
Documents Shed More Light On CIA’s Relationship With Lee Harvey Oswald
Newly released documents show that a CIA officer monitored Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK’s assassination, Axios reported.
July 6, 2025
AI Legal Hallucinations Database
Damien Charlotin, a research fellow at the HEC Paris business school, maintains a database of court filings that include hallucinated citations and legal arguments. As of…
July 5, 2025
John Oliver rants about ‘AI slop’
‘AI slop’ is the new spam.
July 2, 2025
The Day Berlusconi Slept on the Ambassador
From former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s obituary in The New York Times:
June 13, 2023
The Inspection Did Not Go Well for the Senior Consular Representative
An April 2023 report by the U.S. State Department’s Office of Inspector General said the job of Senior Consular Representative at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in…
June 5, 2023
No Country Faces Its Past Honestly
From Red Memory by Tania Branigan:
June 5, 2023
Corruption is Opportunity for the Poor
In her 2012 book, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” Katherine Boo wrote of a government program in India that encouraged poor women to pool their savings so they could make…
June 5, 2023
Noted Historian of Comics was a U.S. State Department Interpreter
A noted comic historian who died in December was a U.S. State Department interpreter in the 1960s and 1970s.
May 7, 2023
Don’t Local Organizations Love Costly Overhead and Boozy Celebrations Too?
USAID wants to give more funding directly to local organizations overseas instead of to giant non-profit intermediaries in Washington.
May 7, 2023
Stop Sending Food!
Robert Gersony was a consultant for the U.S. State Department and other international organizations who was known for his methodical, deeply researched reports on…
April 2, 2023
The Government Hates Answering the Phone
From a Washington Post obituary of Kenneth Brody, who led the U.S. Export-Import Bank under President Bill Clinton:
March 30, 2023
Treat Your To-Read Pile Like a River
Oliver Burkeman says you should treat your to-read pile “like a river (a stream that flows past you, and from which you pluck a few choice items, here and there) instead of…
March 29, 2023
Eye Rolling Over Biden’s Summit for Democracy
Ishaan Tharoor writes in the Washington Post about Biden’s Summit for Democracy:
March 29, 2023
Finding the Voices of Marginalized People in Archives
The New York Review of Books interviewed Scott W. Stern, an environmental lawyer and the author of
The Trials of Nina McCall
, “about a mid-twentieth century government…
March 27, 2023
One Third of USAID’s Programs in Haiti were Unsuccessful
At least one-third of USAID’s programs in Haiti from 2010 to 2020 were unsuccessful, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says.
March 25, 2023
What Changing the Paper Size at the U.S. State Department Says About its Ability to Change
From a 2001 Government Executive magazine article on “The Powell Leadership Doctrine”:
March 24, 2023
‘Maybe Putin Should be Worried’
Thomas S. Warrick, writing for the Atlantic Council, says most heads of state charged internationally eventually faced justice, albeit it was sometimes “rough justice”:
March 24, 2023
When They Boot Your Chef From the Country, You Know it’s Serious
The Hill reports:
January 19, 2022
USAID Shortchanged Countries With the Greatest Water, Sanitation, and Health Needs
A 2014 law requires USAID to spend its funds for improving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH, in aid jargon) on countries with the greatest need.
January 16, 2022
China Lends Less To Africa
So says the Financial Times:
January 16, 2022
At Least the U.S. has Helium and Beryllium
The Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration identifies 35 critical and strategic minerals important to the U.S. economy. China produces 19 of them. The United States…
January 2, 2022
The State Department Will Never be Diverse Unless it Pays its Interns
Foreign Policy explains why:
December 31, 2021
Why Does the U.S. Classify Descriptions of Weddings in Dagestan?
Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program, writing in Foreign Policy:
December 24, 2021
Chinua Achebe Was Not A Heart of Darkness Fan
From Chinua Achebe’s 1977 essay on Joseph Conrad’s “The Heart of Darkness”:
December 13, 2021
One-third of Chiefs of Mission are not Positive, Inclusive, or Professional
One-third of U.S. ambassadors and other chiefs of mission did not set “a positive, inclusive, and professional tone for their missions,” according to State Department’s…
December 5, 2021
Nine Kings Embodied A World Soon to Vanish
This marvelous photo of nine European kings assembled for the 1910 funeral of England’s Edward VII recalls the opening paragraph of Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, in…
May 21, 2021
Reasons Not to Like JFK
Historian Michael Kazin’s review of the latest of more than 40,000 books on JFK offers good reasons not to admire the dead president.
May 21, 2021
Why Dissident Chinese are Pro-Trump
From “Seeing the CCP Clearly” in the New York Review of Books:
February 7, 2021
Asian Black Bears Scavenge Ghost Villages
The Guardian on the impact falling birth rates will have on advanced economies in the years ahead:
February 6, 2021
Demilitarize Democracy
Mandy Smithberger and William D. Hartung writing in The Nation:
February 6, 2021
Your Middle Class Neighbors, the Insurrectionists
Robert A. Pape, a political-science professor at the University of Chicago, and Keven Ruby, a senior research associate of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, writin…
February 6, 2021
Neil Sheehan on Government Liars
Former New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan died January 7, the day after lies incited the attack on the Capitol. Hedrick Smith, in his remembrance of working with Sheehan…
January 10, 2021
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