Besides Adiga, Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, 1981), Arundhati Roy (God of Small Things, 1997), and Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss, 2006) won the prize for India.

Digg this! [ what's this? ]

Remember Sarah Palin's bizarre plea to the Alaska State Troopers that her former brother-in-law, Trooper Mike Wooten, ought to be fired because he had "unfairly" chased down and shot a wolf on a snowmachine? And remember how ridiculous that complaint

Ben Smith talks to a Republican consultant, who had done a focus group showing a hard-hitting, no-holds barred anti-Obama attack ad from a 527 that has yet to air, to a group of midwestern Reagan Democrats. The results: Reagan Dems

Douhat: I've always found the class-war element in inter-pundit sniping a little bizarre: Whether it's the netroots types hating on center-left columnists, or paleocons whining about how neocons get invited to all the cool parties, or Hanson's peculiar vision of

Another interesting tidbit from the Branchflower report on Troopergate, from Branchflower's interview with Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan's executive secretary, Cassandra Byrne: MR. BRANCHFLOWER: And then the last call was in April of 2008. I think you told me

In election after election, Republicans have enjoyed a considerable cash advantage. That's not true this year, especially when it comes to House races. Yes, Democrats are benefiting from the fatigue that's set in over Republican rule, from the anger generated

WaPo: The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects -- documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials

Bravo! And death to that godforsaken PBS "is Sarah Palin qualified to be vice president" zombie poll from hell. palinaspresident.com The Freeway Blogger strikes the Beltway. Dick Morris' map this week is a little better than his map two weeks

You want to break the conservative movement, you take out its leaders. House and Senate Republicans are rushing to the aid of U.S. Rep. John Shadegg (R-Phoenix), the seven-term congressman who finds himself in a surprisingly difficult fight for re-election.

She really defies mockery, doesn't she? What could I possibly say to make this funnier? "It seems like, and in our last rally too, and in other parts around this great Northwest, here in New Hampshire, ya just get it."

The Politico reports that the cash-strapped National Republican Congressional Committee, having saved the majority of their resources for the final three-week push, is starting to demonstrate their line of attack (or in this case, defense). Apparently, they are targeting only

Well that was interesting. The Junior League treated us to dinner at the Buca di Beppo store in Santa Monica. If you've not eaten at Buca di Beppo, it's a mid-scale Italian-themed chain that hasn't succumbed to the please everyone

Despite running the worst GOP campaign since Bob Dole's single-shoulder-shrug of an effort in 1996, McCain remains in contention for next month's election. By which I mean he is still alive and not too embarrassed to show himself in public,

Citing administration and intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Post said the memos, which still remain classified, were issued in response to repeated requests from then CIA chief George Tenet.

ABC news reported last week that two former NSA linguists had been told to listen and record phone calls of Americans stationed in Iraq. Adrienne Kinne, an Arab linguist for the Army, and David Murfee Faulk, an Arab linguist for

In a statement, vice presidential press secretary Megan Mitchell said Cheney met with his doctors Wednesday morning and "it was discovered that the Vice President is experiencing a recurrence of atrial fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of

Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and ranking minority member Tom Davis (R-VA) said in a bipartisan report that Bush made a "legally unprecedented and an inappropriate use of executive privilege" when he withheld FBI reports of interviews with Vice President

Speaking from the White House after meeting with his Cabinet, the President said, "We have taken extraordinary measures because these are extraordinary circumstances.... it's very important for the American people to know that the program is designed to preserve free

With barely 20 days left until the election, the big-money players have been placing their campaign contribution bets on change, according to data from the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.