Dildos, Dracula, urinating Marines, the Kagans, Michael Yon and cougars round out January. Did I mention agitating dildo machines for our troops overseas?

A piece of propaganda from Iran is circulating. Let’s make sure it doesn’t inch into the news. It’s based on a lie. The U.S. Navy isn’t shooting 120mm mortar rounds into Misrata.

Culture warriors should quit hyperventilating over Superman’s renunciation of American citizenship. The cartoon sucks. The 900th edition of Action Comics reviewed (and not from my parents’ basement).

Don’t Panic. We’ve heard all this before. The essential element of tabloid journalism is to state the ordinary in extraordinary terms, to write a story that while technically true is totally, and often deliberately, misleading.

The key question is whether the intelligence has really changed to give the U.S. more breathing space, or anxious to placate the Russians and trim costs, the President and the Pentagon are simply putting a different spin on the same intelligence to support the policy they now want to pursue.