My colleague and friend Nir Rosen has been working his way through some of the more interesting sites and scenes in Lebanon — and trailing along with many Nasrallah groupies to get a fix on the Hezbollah leader’s rise and on the evolving shape of Lebanese politics and identity.

(photo credit: Matthew Winters) For all of the TWN supporters who have sent notes to help assuage the pain I am still in from some seriously deep dental work, thanks much. I’m in Chestertown, Maryland — trying to get over jaw shock.

North Korea has announced that it will conduct a nuclear test, and few doubt its resolve to do so. To some degree, the escalating temper-tantrum that North Korea is engaged in has to do with its irritation that the United States is not talking to the failed communist state.

This strikes me as an effort that could just as easily swing towards the brave — or the reckless. Verizon has launched a new policy blog called PoliBlog.

A friend sent me this picture which captures the concern of many Bush 41 administration realists with the decisions and driving of the country by Bush 43.

Some are critiquing Senator Bill Frist’s comments that “people who call themselves Taliban” should be brought into the Afghan government. If Frist actually made these comments, the rationale is exactly the same that many have argued about Hamas and Hezbollah.

I have written previously about the important lesson my briliant, humanistic Japanese politics professor Hans Baerwald taught me: one just can’t really know the norms of a political system, or any system, unless observing that system under stress.

Monday morning, 10:05 am, I’ll be chatting for about half an hour on New York public radio’s “Brian Lehrer Show.” Much to discuss. Gas prices may be plummeting just in time for the elections. I paid $1.

I drive a GMC Sonoma truck and sometimes get a kick valet parking it at high-end receptions and dinners in DC — but the bottom line is that I love my truck. . .or did until GMC just made an outrageous deal with Fox’s Sean Hannity.

I’m at a conference at the College of William & Mary but am also having a serious dental problem with a tooth fractured ten years ago — and need to deal with that. The thread is open.