Tonight, I'm trying out a slightly modified Disqus look for the site. What do you think?

There are a few differences including the fonts. It is now easier to see discussions taking place in other NB comment threads by clicking the "Discussion" tab in the comments below. One other addition: the comments now live update as they are made.

You've probably noticed, but we've made the official transition over to our new, Disqus-powered comments on our blog postings. Please use this thread to ask any questions you still have about the switchover. I will be keeping an eye on it today and answering your inquiries.

Note: To make things easier, this blog post will allow for commenting by registered users of the old comment system.

Yesterday former Rep. Artur Davis -- who served in Congress as a Democrat but recently became a Republican out of frustration with the Obama administration -- was a featured guest of the Heritage Foundation's weekly blogger briefing.

Davis briefly discussed the similarities between the upcoming election and the election of 1980. He claimed that Ronald Reagan had to make the American people realize that what the Carter administration was doing was ruining the economy and that Mitt Romney will have to make a similar case regarding President Obama.

Be kind to Bob Shrum. Perhaps the 68-year old is suffering from the not-so-early-onset of some dread memory-loss syndrome.  

How else to explain his suggestion on Al Sharpton's MSNBC show this evening that the National Restaurant Association's settlement for a relatively modest sum, in today's litigious world, proves that Herman Cain must have done something wrong?  Does the failed presidential campaign consultant's support of Bill Clinton, despite his much larger, $850,000 settlement with Paula Jones while "adamantly denying" her claims, fire any synapses in Shrum's cerebrum? Video after the jump.

Amazon says that Dikötter's "Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962" will be released on September 28. The Independent's Arifa Akbar relays Dikötter's core conclusion that "At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years." This is a significantly higher number than the highest previous estimate of Jung Chang, who asserted in her 2005 book, "Mao: The Unknown Story," that "38 million people were starved and slave-driven to death in 1958-61." The seven million extra deaths would move Chang's 2005 total of "more than 70 million" into the neighborhood of 80 million, padding Mao's lead over Stalin and Hitler as the worst mass murderer in human history.

The Independent's Akbar also writes that "Mr. Dikötter is the only author to have delved into the Chinese archives since they were reopened four years ago." If true, this reflects a startling lack of curiosity.

I hope Nick Kristof is just a little curious, and will peruse what Mr. Dikötter has documented when it becomes available. Perhaps it will move him to reach conclusions a bit different from those he reached when he reviewed Chang's book in October 2005 (bolds are mine):