About This Blog

Welcome to birdbrain, my personal blog.

This blog was launched in June 2007 (June 25, to be exact) and was from the start designed to reflect my personal interests. As my interests evolved towards politics, the content gradually became more political, with the result being a strong focus on current events.

My name is Natalie and I am the author of this blog. I live in the United States and I am currently a university student studying history and the Russian language. After finishing my undergraduate education, I plan to go to law school and eventually practice international law, and I may possibly move overseas.

Aside from my studies and blogging, I enjoy reading, writing, playing the violin, photography and knitting. My reading focus has shifted from fiction to nonfiction in the past few years. I have played the violin for almost eight years now. I don't aim to play professionally; I do it for fun. I am an amateur photographer--I shoot with a three-year-old Canon PowerShot A540 (it's an excellent camera, by the way). And this summer, I want to knit a pair of socks. In addition, I also am learning to speak Russian--maybe that's also part of my studies, but I also consider it part of my daily life as well.

I have very diverse and varied interests, as are reflected in my posting. I have a particular interest in politics and foreign affairs, so many of my posts reflect this. However, I have blogged about various things such as history, classical music and crocheting. As I said earlier, birdbrain is not a blog solely about one subject--rather, it is a reflection of my rather eclectic interests.

In October 2007, I had my political awakening. It was around the end of October that I became truly interested in politics, both foreign and American. What sparked my interest was the blog war that caused a rift in the right-wing blogosphere over a particular Belgian political party (Vlaams Belang). The rift still remains, and I still retain my support for Vlaams Belang. Over time, my interests have refined: Europe is my special area of focus, especially the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. Thanks to the Vlaams Belang controversy, Belgian politics is also a special area of focus for me.

It was also in October 2007 that I officially became a member what I like to call the counterjihad movement (I have also seen it called the antijihad movement, but I don't like that term as much). For a while I bought into the falsehoods about Islam being a "religion of peace" and such, and I was a fervent supporter of America's 2003 invasion of Iraq. Since then, I have changed, especially since reading counterjihad blogs (Robert Spencer's excellent Jihad Watch is one of my favourites).

I know that my views are rather unconventional and therefore will be objectionable to many people. Nevertheless, I have the freedom to publish my thoughts, and readers are free to disagree, by email or in the comments, in a civil manner. I welcome and encourage intellectual debate.