Congressional bean counters are unhappy at the State Department's budget for Iraq. (Look at the Washington Post's story on State's budget request here.) As troops draw down to 50,000, the State Department civilian advisers and police trainers are going to lose the security of having quick reaction forces on call [...]

Dear readers, serious thanks for reading and visiting over the least year or so. I've learned a lot about Latin America and online writing since I began thinking aloud about the region here, and look forward to hearing from some of you again at this column/blog's next version. True/Slant was a [...]

I write my last post for True/Slant a bit worn out from a full day of kayaking yesterday. It was easy river kayaking, mainly, with just one madly technical section of Class 2 stuff, but a full day of paddling and some porting in the sun saps you a bit. The [...]

This is my last True/Slant post for, as of tomorrow, True/Slant will be no more. You will be able to read more of my bloggery, if you so choose, at themoscowdiaries.wordpress.com but for now here is my last T/S post. A debate has been raging here, in the comments section, as [...]

So I suppose this will  be my last post on True/Slant. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending I suppose on your view of my writing, I don't have the time to do a long-winded and dramatic goodbye. Please know, though, that I greatly enjoyed my time here, particularly the chance to interact with [...]

In November 2008, this so-called Jet-Set Hobo was in Buenos Aires when he filed his first story for True/Slant. It was called 'From Argentina with Love', and was in some way concerned with what was the new James Bond movie, 'A Portion of Condolence'.  If there was any actual film [...]

Via Kottke: My college Spanish professors never went here.

Reports this evening that a hijacking has been stopped at Domodedovo airport in Moscow. Yesterday afternoon. Apparently, a passenger on a Moscow-bound flight from Mineralnye Vody "made demands" of the crew and held up the plane for two hours. One report says this passenger turned to the plane's captain saying he [...]

I was going to do a number-filled post incorporating all of the latest demographic data from GosKomStat, data that show that Russia's demographics continue their slow but steady improvement, but then I saw that Anatoly Karlin had already produced a quality overview of the recent trends. However since Russian health and [...]

Let us say it. Barring the unforeseen, there will be a major Middle East war in the next two years. On one side will be Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and possibly Syria. On the other side will be Israel... and likely just Israel. Furthermore, odds are that Israel will initiate the war. But they [...]