Many Iraqis struggle every day to find work, but a shortage of jobs, superimposed on a tradition of using personal connections to do business, has led to what Iraqis complain is an explosion in corruption and graft among their nation’s officials.

Between the sight of China’s dazzling Olympics and the sound of Russian tanks, it’s clear that America is not the only big shot in the world. Will John McCain and Barack Obama take notice?

Anyone who still doubts that the evangelical Christian world is going through a political revolution was not watching Pastor Rick Warren’s presidential forum over the weekend.

In the upcoming debates, three white men will be in charge of questioning Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama on behalf of millions of American voters who, as a group, are less white and male than ever before.

A member of the U.S. Olympic diving team was disqualified from competition today when it was learned that he did not have a sufficiently compelling human story line to exploit on the NBC telecast of the worldwide sporting event.

Forget the moderate image, promoted by an admiring media. Forget the so-called straight talk and independence. With the Russian-Georgian war winding down, McCain has firmly established himself as an old-fashioned Cold Warrior and a supporter of the huge oil companies that have a big stake in Georgia and the rest of the Caucasus.

For reasons too numerous to fit into a short summary, Pat Buchanan isn’t someone whose writings we’d routinely pick up on this site. However, in this case his essay about the Georgia-Russia conflict, er, bears repeating here, if only to illustrate how not all conservatives see the recent clash in Eastern Europe the way the Bush administration does.

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?