"For consumers and the economy, the consequences could well be dire. The result will be higher prices and fewer choices for consumers, and fewer jobs, less innovation, and reduced investment in the industry."

An impressively rigorous, unsentimental, and harrowing look at combat during World War II, Band of Brothers follows a company of airborne infantry -- Easy Company -- from boot camp through the end of the war. The brutality of training takes the audience by increments to the even greater brutality of the war; Easy Company took part in some of the most difficult battles, including the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the failed invasion of Holland, and the Battle of the Bulge, as well as the liberation of a concentration camp and the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest. But what makes these episodes work is not their historical sweep but their emphasis on riveting details.

Band of Brothers turns a vast historical event into a series of potent personal experiences; it's a deeply engrossing and affecting accomplishment.

If the White House thought the documents it doled out this week would put to rest the concern that the brutal behavior of American soldiers in Iraqi prisons had been sanctioned from above, it was wrong.

"I've taken a lot of American people to Dalian, and they are amazed at how fast the China economy is growing in this high-tech area. Americans don't realize the challenge to the extent that they should."

Dalian has become the Bangalore of China.

"We have 22 universities and colleges with over 200,000 students in Dalian." More than half graduate with engineering or science degrees, and even those who don't are directed to spend a year studying Japanese or English and computer science.

The Department of Defense today released documents related to the development of interrogation procedures at Guantanamo. These documents are made available to demonstrate that the actions of the U. S. Defense Department are bound by law and guided by American values.

New details about interrogation techniques were found today in several hundred pages of documents released by the White House and the departments of Defense and Justice that portray a Bush administration struggling to set down specific rules governing interrogation methods in the early days of the war on terror up to the start of the war in Iraq in March 2003.

The Saudi royal family is downplaying the insurgency as much as possible, which is understandable: If the jihadists were to overthrow them, the consequences would make the Iraq war look like a minor regional skirmish: Western Europe and Asia depend on Saudi oil as much as the United States does.

Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, recently called for a ruthless campaign -- "a war," he wrote, "that does not mean delicacy, but brutality." However, it's not clear that Saudi forces are capable of waging such a war.

Michael Scott Doran has become quite a star in Saudi Arabia.

His contention that the ruling family, the Al Saud, are split into a pro-reform wing headed up by Crown Prince Abdallah and an Islamist-inclined, anti-reform wing headed up by Interior Minister Prince Na'if, excited the interest and comment of many in the kingdom.

Prince Na'if himself felt constrained to go on al-Arabiyya, one of the new Arabic-language satellite news channels that are now competing with al-Jazeera, to deny Doran's account.