Why the blog name "Powerpundit?" It is a cross between my two favorite blogs - Powerline and Instapundit (Lawyers, all of them are, and brilliant bloggers to boot). Also, "power" fits with my type A personality. Plus the domain RickEdwards.com was taken, and RickEdwardsBlog.com just seemed - corny.

What is your educational background? Bachelor of Arts in History; Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Washington, and planning for law school.

Who are your favorite columnists? Charles Krauthammer, Mark Steyn, Fred Barnes and sometimes Bob Novak, to name a few. You will see lots of Krauthammer here. Why? Because he is brilliant and he always makes sense.

What part of the political spectrum is this blog coming from? Center-right. I am generally favorable to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. However, having said that if either one of them does something stupid (highly unlikely, but always possible) then I will let you know about it.

What does "center-right" mean? The political spectrum spans from extreme left to extreme right. The center-right political perspective is the part that includes and is between the center and right of center. Essentially, it means that I am not a "right-winger"

Why don't you allow comments? Because you can email me and a comments section is too distracting. Yes, it is true that I can enable registration so that the spammers and nut jobs can't get through. But, I don't want profanity and the kind of personal fights that I see going on at some other sites. I could prevent that by policing the comments section and removing the offending posts. But I think that my time is better spent looking for stories that I think will be of interest to you, rather than spending it scanning and deleting inappropriate comments. Also, it is my belief that a comment section can open a blogger to significant legal risk if something blatantly defamatory or libelous is posted about a person or organization, and I don't happen to catch the offending comment and remove it.

What is your posting policy? Often, a news story will simply be posted here without commentary. That's because either I don't have much more to say about it, but think my readers will find it interesting and informative, or I am pressed for time and will come back later and make a comment. At other times, I will have a lot to say about a news item or something that I saw on another blogger's site. Occasionally, I will simply write an editorial without any specific background story being linked.

If I find a news item while visiting another blogger's site I will credit that blogger with a "hat tip" or "via" comment.

The goal here is to be a reputable, reliable source of information for the readers who come to Powerpundit. Even if you do not agree with my commentary, you have a right to expect that the sources of my information (via links) are clearly available.

If an error from a source is found I will post an update and announce the correction. If it is simply a spelling, or other grammatical error, then it will be changed without announcement. If I find that I have something more significant to say later about a previous story, often I will come back and add my comment without announcing a change. If new, significant information pertaining to a post becomes available I will add it as an "update." Sometimes an "update" will be information that actually was posted or written by a source before my post, but I had not run into it at the time I was composing the post.

In addition to political, foreign policy and economic stories I will also occasionally have some aviation and science mixed in. Aviation especially because I am an airplane geek. Yes, when I can find an occasional spare moment I am one of those computer pilots. Spare moments, however, are hard to find these days.

Email me tips! Email me often if you find some significant news that you haven't seen here, but you think would be appropriate to be covered on Powerpundit. I may not always answer your emails - due to the amount of them I get - but I always read ALL of them.

Remember, some of the best news tips come from non-bloggers. It was an observer who posted on Freerepublic that he didn't think that the memos used in the RaTHergate report were authentic. The rest - of course - is history.