Grr.

My new icon didn't come out quite the way I meant it to.

Here's the basic image.

Can you tell I'm not a graphic artist? :-)

EDIT: Improved by jan_rosencrantz

EDIT: And improved even further by the 'Kitty!

tremendously linkworthy post by brithistorian

By all means read this post ASAP. A very thoughtful chap, our BH.

(no subject)

Musharraf speaks out

Pervez Musharraf is not willing to suffer fools gladly (though he's very polite). In this story, and the link to an audio/video interview with him, he makes a very strong case that Pakistan is not to blame for the problems in the region, as many would have it, but in fact the West is responsible and needs to help Pakistan, without whom the West cannot win its war with militant conservative Islam. I am impressed by him in a way I am not by most world leaders I hear. Not enough, sadly, to believe everything he says, but enough to recognize that he has a perspective that needs to get more attention and respect than I think it sometimes does in the West. He is a smart, capable, insightful man (he wouldn't have lived to be where he is now if he weren't); of course he is going to speak and work in his own intersts and in those of Pakistan ahead of those of the West, but I think he is a better ally than all of us realise, and a man walking a tightrope while juggling lit torches.