Personal Stuff: At Fascinating History, Alterior has a link-rich post on"The History of Tampons." Cliopatria has treated this subject more raggedly than periodically, but David Salmanson's"Summer Reading" did call for closer examination of it. Thanks to David Davisson at Patahistory for the tip.

Stills and Moves: Or, Stillies and Movies. The Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division has just posted its 1,000,000th image on-line. The images are fully searchable here and discussed in greater detail here. On the other hand, there's a spoilers alert on this new nine minute trailer for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that takes you from the Battle of Britain to the Battle of Narnia. Thanks to Kevin Murphy at Ghost in the Machine for the tip.

Red, White, and Black: In"Defence of the Realm of Ideas," TimesonLine, 26 November, Rosemary Richter reviews Robert Conquest's newest book, The Dragons of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History. Johann Hari,"The Red and the Green," New York Times, 27 November, reviews Paul Berman's newest book, Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer, and Its Aftermath. David Oshinsky,"Making History," New York Times, 27 November, reviews John Hope Franklin's newest book, Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin.

In Memoriam: Colonel Ted Westhusing, an honorable man.

John H. Lederer - 11/29/2005

I have already spent two hours peering with fascination at the LC photographs. I look forward to heading for more.

I have only covered perhaps several hundred of the million.

Family, dog, work, duty neglected. It is worse than alcohol (and yes there are some neat Temperance Movement photos too) or dope (yes, there are pictures of opium dens).

What a resource. Possibly more distracting than Google.

Thanks for the tip!

Oscar Chamberlain - 11/29/2005

This article, and the story behind it, deserves a much wider readership.

I have long thought that while the decision to invade Iraq was defensible, that the execution has been horrendous and incompetent. This article makes me wonder if the corruption of American ideals by pride and by greed may have been far more important in our failures than manpower levels or strategy.

Louis N Proyect - 11/29/2005

I often find myself more annoyed by the ideological baggage carried by NY Times book reviews than by the sort of slipshod reporting that you get from a Judith Miller. With virtually zero exceptions, books on the left get trashed by reviewers who have an agenda. For example, the foreign editor of the Times--of all people--reviewed Robert Fisk's latest book and guess what, he didn't like it. Then you get Hari, a "bombing leftist", going all weak in the kneew for a book by another bombing leftist. How this newspaper got the reputation for being liberal is a mystery. Unless your idea of liberal is the late Senator Henry Jackson.