Work has me swamped for about a week and I need a little time to clear some things off my plate. Ergo I have added a guest blogger for the week, known to you here as reader jw. JW was at the last MOB Road Show and I thought we might get him to blog on his own then, so maybe a taste of it this week might just be the thing that launches him, as it has done for the latest PowerLine blog of the week Big Lizards.

I'll get a post up about the crackdown in Belarus and the Ukrainian parliamentary elections sometime today, and then I expect to disappear for the rest of the week. But check back for jw's insights into academia and politics. JW, the floor is yours!