THE POLITICO: “Antiwar leaders stymied, frustrated.”
Best sentence: “It shows the tightrope Democrats have to walk with an angry group of liberal organizers who are sensing defeat.†Defeat is not an option! Except, you know, in the war. Where it’s not just an option, but a goal.
THERE’S STILL FALLOUT FROM THE DUKE NON-RAPE CASE, and K.C. Johnson has a roundup.
THERE’S NO BUSINESS like Hsu’s business.
DO MARKETS GIVE US too many choices?
At least these discussions produce hot Megan-on-Megan action in the blogosphere.
A BELIEF IN PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKES — against the Petraeus Report, anyway.
UPDATE: Related items here and here. I’ve noticed that the mantra has gone from “listen to the generals” to “stop hiding behind the generals.” Whatever. Jules Crittenden has related thoughts.
Me, I’ll go with the peaceniks and say stay five years.
UPDATE: I thought it was wrong to question people’s patriotism. Apparently, not always.
SURGING POLLS.
THOUGHTS ON THE GENDER WARS, from John Tierney. And read this post by Tierney, too.
THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: Islamists slip in Moroccan elections.
THROUGH THE MAGIC OF AMAZON RECOMMENDATIONS, I ran across 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education.
Sounds kind of like what Tony Woodlief was saying.
UPDATE: My 17 year old nephew gets this — he’s been working (in a very grunt-level capacity) at a helicopter outfit and taking lessons with the money he’s made. My sister just emailed that he had his solo flight tonight. I’m very proud of him.
STRANGE BUT HSU: The Norman Hsu scandal just gets weirder.
Meanwhile, in the New York Times, more questions about the money:
At the center of the ever-deepening mystery of Norman Hsu, the fugitive fund-raiser who was captured after a brief flight from the law last week, is the question of how he evolved from a bankrupt swindler in 1992 to a wealthy donor to many Democratic candidates, and a bundler of campaign contributions to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2007. . . .
The records show that Components Ltd., a company controlled by Mr. Hsu that has no obvious business purpose and appears to exist only on paper, has paid a total of more than $100,000 to at least nine people who made campaign contributions to Mrs. Clinton and others through Mr. Hsu. The payments occurred in the spring of 2003, several months before Mr. Hsu emerged as a contributor to Democrats and more than a year before he started bundling checks from those same people for various campaigns. In all, he has raised more than $1 million for Democrats. . . . Since Mr. Hsu’s fall from grace, efforts to learn more about the nature of his business and the source of his wealth have led mostly to dead ends.
Read the whole thing. And there’s more here.
PRESS-ROOM PANIC at the Univision debate.
THOUGHTS ON NANOETHICS, from David Brin.
I BLAME THE ALIEN OVERLORDS: “A reminder if you’re trying to get around today: 35W is closed between two exit ramps – specifically, the 8th street ramp in Duluth and the last exit before the Iowa border. I-94 is on fire in the Midway area ; winged monkeys are hurling cement blocks on 169, and 280 has been closed – and I’m quoting from the press release here – ‘to block off all possibility of escape and allow the dark army of soul-harvesting machines to fulfuill their horrible duty.’”
SIX YEARS LATER: Remembering Massoud.
PC WORLD: The fastest Windows Vista notebook tested is a MacBook Pro: “Sleek, powerful, and able to run Windows as well as the Mac operating system, the MacBook Pro makes a strong case for becoming anyone’s ultimate notebook. . . . The MacBook Pro outperformed the rest of the notebooks we tested, all of which claim Windows as their primary–nay, their only–operating system.”
CONSUMERISM RULES, even in virtual worlds. Hypothesis: People like having stuff, and it makes them happy. Interestingly, they also like to work for it.
TEACHING YOUR BABY TO Say Wiiii! There’s video.
EUROPE TURNS RIGHT: “Make no mistake: newly-elected conservative European leaders did not win their elections because they are pro-American, they won despite it.” Which makes the shift more significant, I’d say.
A LOOK AT Bin Laden and the Blogosphere.
Related item here.
POLICE TO INSTALL KEYSTROKE LOGGERS in Mumbai’s cyber-cafes.
IN THE MAIL: Zephyr Teachout, et al., Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics.
NOT FAST ENOUGH: Is humanity getting smarter?
GERMANY’S TERROR BUST: Reading between the lines. Plus a reason why Bush should pursue a “more European” approach to anti-terrorism.
REVIEWING IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON: The review’s a bit politicized, though, or at least a bit historically illiterate — anyone who thinks that politics are more polarized, domestically or internationally, than they were in 1969 has no clue. I highly recommend Michael Collins’ book, Carrying the Fire, though.
I FOR ONE WELCOME our new alien overlords.
CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS, spinning the surge for the Bush Administration?
OSAMA BIN METROSEXUAL.
CRITICIZING BRITISH GUN CONTROLS in the London Times:
Despite the recent spate of shootings on our streets, we pride ourselves on our strict gun laws. Every time an American gunman goes on a killing spree, we shake our heads in righteous disbelief at our poor benighted colonial cousins. Why is it, even after the Virginia Tech massacre, that Americans still resist calls for more gun controls?
The short answer is that “gun controls†do not work: they are indeed generally perverse in their effects.
Indeed. And I like this:
We are so self-congratulatory about our officially disarmed society, and so dismissive of colonial rednecks, that we have forgotten that within living memory British citizens could buy any gun – rifle, pistol, or machinegun – without any licence. When Dr Watson walked the streets of London with a revolver in his pocket, he was a perfectly ordinary Victorian or Edwardian. Charlotte Brontë recalled that her curate father fastened his watch and pocketed his pistol every morning when he got dressed; Beatrix Potter remarked on a Yorkshire country hotel where only one of the eight or nine guests was not carrying a revolver; in 1909, policemen in Tottenham borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by (and were joined by other armed citizens) when they set off in pursuit of two anarchists unwise enough to attempt an armed robbery. We now are shocked that so many ordinary people should have been carrying guns in the street; the Edwardians were shocked rather by the idea of an armed robbery.
Which seems a more appropriate focus for shock and outrage, to me.
DANNY GLOVER has a Norman Hsu pun roundup.
WHO IS FRED THOMPSON? Tennessee bloggers weigh in.
DARTMOUTH’S ADMINISTRATION does the deed. Plus, this: “Governance Committee considered censoring or limiting bloggers who write about Trustee elections.”
MORE ON THE INTERNECINE STRUGGLES AT DARTMOUTH.
ILYA SOMIN ON SOCIALISM: “The spectre that once haunted Europe and the world may have been defeated and discredited. But we have not yet completed the task of driving a stake through its heart.”
JEW-HATRED and Jihad.
A LOOK AT POLITICS AND THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH, in Romania.
A UNIQUE MELDING OF dead-tree media and blogging. I think it’s very clever.
GOODBYE TO CHUCK HAGEL: “From would-be anti-war presidential candidate to a guy who wants to spend more time with his family. . . . Ironically, the man who’ll most likely replace Hagel is both 1)a Democrat and 2)proudly pro-Iraq War: Bob ‘Ask Me about Vietnam’ Kerrey.”
UPDATE: Ouch.
OKAY, HERE’S AN IRAQ WITHDRAWAL PLAN I CAN LIVE WITH:
In a report to be released Sunday, a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace calls for a 50 percent reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq within three years and a total withdrawal and handover of security to the Iraqi military in five years. . . .
With some recent security improvements, the biggest problem facing the Bush administration and Iraq is the failure of politicians in Baghdad to reconcile Sunni and Shiite factions and pass critical laws to secure the fledgling new democracy. “The situation remains fluid, but a window has opened, fleetingly, for Iraq to proceed with political reconciliation. Iraq’s national politicians have been unable to take full advantage of this opportunity,” says the report, authored by USIP vice president Daniel Serwer.
That seems like a realistic timetable, and — coming from the Institute of Peace — it can hardly be called a warmongering one. And it recognizes that these things take time. Indeed, things may go faster, though this piece from the New York Times takes a less positive view.
UPDATE: McCain is still on the warpath: “McCain Warns Against Iraq Pullout.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: More here, from Sunday’s Washington Post. Excerpt:
In Baghdad, Crocker and O’Sullivan pressed Maliki to reach consensus with four other Iraqi leaders representing Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. In late August, the five announced agreement on a path forward on stalled legislation such as de-Baathification. A week later, Bush made a surprise visit to Anbar where he met with Maliki and the others to congratulate them, then met with the sheiks to highlight the success of the U.S.-tribal coalition.
The trip energized Bush and his team. Even Gates said he was more optimistic than he has been since taking office. While the secretary had been “cagey” in the past, a senior defense official said, “he’s come to the conclusion that what Petraeus is doing is actually more effective than what he thought.”
But the trip did not end the debate.
Nope. Probably nothing will, at least until after the 2008 election. Meanwhile, on the political front, a reader sends a link to this story, which I had somehow missed when it came out the other day:
Huge strides towards peace in Iraq were made during discussions between Middle Eastern power-brokers over the weekend, Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister said today.
Martin McGuinness said four days of Finnish talks involving politicians from Northern Ireland and South Africa were a major stepping stone towards a resolution of conflict in the troubled region. . . .
Organisers said the representatives from Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq agreed on a road map to peace during the secret talks in Finland.
The four-day meeting brought together 16 delegates from the feuding groups to study lessons learned from successful peacemaking efforts in South Africa and Northern Ireland.
Is there anything to this? Beats me. I’d certainly like it to lead to something.
MORE: Further developments here:
President Bush’s top two military and political advisers on Iraq will warn Congress on Monday that making any significant changes to the current war strategy will jeopardize the limited security and political progress made so far, The Associated Press has learned.
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who has been less forthcoming than Gen. David Petraeus in advance of his testimony, will join Petraeus in pushing for maintaining the U.S. troop surge, seeing it as the only viable option to prevent Iraq and the region from plunging into further chaos, U.S. officials said.
Crocker and Petraeus planned to meet on Sunday to go over their remarks and responses to expected tough questioning from lawmakers – including skeptical Republicans. But they will not consult Bush or their immediate bosses before their appearances Monday and Tuesday, in order to preserve the “independence and the integrity of their testimony,” said one official.
Read the whole thing.
MEN ARE FROM MARS, Dennis Kucinich is from Venus.
THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES is now available online. Not in the Edward Gorey version, though. Er, though that’s online too, I guess. . . .
MESSAGE discipline.
OSAMA, FRUSTRATED: “It really must gall him that President Bush can fly into al-Anbar Province in Iraq, the former al Qaeda stronghold, while the only thing Osama can fly into is a rage.”
ANNALS OF SEXISM: “How men cope with being cast as predators.” Excerpt:
Ted Wallis, a doctor in Austin, Texas, recently came upon a lost child in tears in a mall. His first instinct was to help, but he feared people might consider him a predator. He walked away. “Being male,” he explains, “I am guilty until proven innocent.”
In San Diego, retiree Ralph Castro says he won’t allow himself to be alone with a child — even in an elevator.
Last month, I wrote about how our culture teaches children to fear men. Hundreds of men responded, many lamenting that they’ve now become fearful of children. They said they avert their eyes when kids are around, or think twice before holding even their own children’s hands in public. . . .
It’s true that men are far more likely than women to be sexual predators. But our society, while declining to profile by race or nationality when it comes to crime and terrorism, has become nonchalant about profiling men. Child advocates are advising parents never to hire male babysitters. Airlines are placing unaccompanied minors with female passengers.
Child-welfare groups say these precautions minimize risks. But men’s rights activists argue that our societal focus on “bad guys” has led to an overconfidence in women. (Children who die of physical abuse are more often victims of female perpetrators, usually mothers, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.)
Similar bigotry regarding race wouldn’t be tolerated. This, on the other hand, is embraced.
UPDATE: Related post here.
GOOD NEWS ON TAXES AND THE ECONOMY: “I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with how the debate has gone so far. To be fair, I mostly read the financial pages–but on those pages, there is a serious debate between people who are clearly interested in fixing the damn problem. There is passionate disagreement, but little fulmination about the morals of the borrowers or lenders, or the people arguing for different solutions. It may be the first time in my life I’ve ever witnessed an economic argument where almost everyone involved seems to feel that the matter is too important to risk hurling ideological brickbats.”
Okay, actually if the economic situation has managed to scare everyone into being serious, maybe that’s bad news. Where do I get some Krugerrands, fast?
UPDATE: Oh no — hemlines are going down!
ANOTHER UPDATE: I don’t know if hemlines are the reason, but Greg Mankiw notes that the bettors at Intrade now see a recession in 2008 as more likely than not.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: “Today is the 41st anniversary of the premier of Star Trek.”
THOUGHTS ON single-sex education.
I WONDER IF THEY’VE GOT HIM ON A HSUICIDE WATCH:
Fugitive political fundraiser Norman Hsu was behaving erratically as he fled the Bay Area on Amtrak’s California Zephyr, at one point stripping off his shirt and shoes, before paramedics were called to take him off the train in western Colorado, passengers said Friday.
Hsu, 56, on the run for the second time from a 1992 grand theft conviction in San Mateo County, was arrested Thursday after the paramedics took him to a hospital from the train station in Grand Junction, Colo. A spokesman at St. Mary’s Hospital said Friday night that Hsu was in fair condition but would not say what was wrong with him.
It would be troubling if he were to die and leave so many questions unanswered.
A BUSH BLAST from the past! But really, UNICEF? Even then?
REVISIONIST HISTORY: The Associated Press gets it wrong on Kyoto again: “Readers with a long memory may recall that the United States never adopted the Kyoto Protocol because the Clinton administration never submitted it for ratification to the Senate. The Clinton administration never submitted it to the Senate for ratification because in July 1997 the Senate voted 95-0 to adopt a resolution stating that ”the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto.’” Yet according to AP, the U.S. was a party to Kyoto until Bush unilaterally pulled us out.
It’s not like this is the first time the Associated Press has blown it.
UPDATE: Maybe the AP just has a short memory.
A LOOK AT the real health care crisis. “I am talking about IIH – Internet Induced Hypochondria.”
IN THE MAIL: S.M. Stirling’s The Sunrise Lands,
UPDATE: Opened it up and almost immediately came to an amusing easter egg — a swordsmith named A.E. Isherman, whose motto is “The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.”
FAKE BEARDS from the Al Qaeda gag shop. I’m guessing that their whoopee cushions are . . . explosively funny.
GREEN IS AS GREEN DOES: Thoughts on private jets and carbon offsets.
HSU-FLY, DON’T BOTHER ME! What made Norman Hsu run? “Much about Mr. Hsu remains a mystery, most notably the source of the money for the donations that made him a favorite in Democratic circles. . . . Mr. Hsu’s past, illuminated by documents fished out of storage at various courts and interviews with former partners and friends, is full of failed businesses, a kidnapping, lawsuits and bouts of financial ruin followed by hard-to-explain recovery. . . . Politicians and donors describe a pleasant and friendly man, though most are hard-pressed to say what he did for a living.”
DAVID ADESNIK notes how fast things are changing in Iraq.
THOUGHTS ON PARENTING, from Tony Woodlief.
THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS, from Leonardo Da Vinci.
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY WINS F.I.R.E.’S speech code of the month.
Which is nothing to be proud of.
NOT MY IDEA OF AIDE MATERIAL: “A high-ranking official in Gov. Blagojevich’s office spent nearly two years in a federal prison for refusing to aid a government terrorism probe into a series of bombings in Chicago and New York City.” (Via Hot Air).
UPDATE: Bill Hobbs emails: “I read the Sun-Times story. Which political party is Blagojevich from?”
It’s a mystery!
REMEMBERING Madeleine L’Engle.
MICKEY KAUS: “Michelle Obama maybe doesn’t need to worry so much anymore that her husband will become a god-like figure requiring her unique humanizing skills. He’s losing by 15 points in the Democratic party to someone who voted for the war and hasn’t apologized.”
IS “UGLY NARRATIVE” newspeak for true? Interesting discussion in the comments.
WILL WILKINSON on tax increases: “It is possible that the state can make its citizens better off by taking $1.76 to spend $1.00, if those very expensive dollar bills are spent on highly valuable public goods folks can’t coordinate to provide privately. But I reckon this kind of bona fide public good is a pretty small part of the existing budget.” I’m afraid you also have to allow for those missing and possibly nonexistent pumps.
ANDY ROTH IS PREPARED TO respond to bin Laden.
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Another twisted tale of Congressional earmarking:
The U.S. Navy wants a business owned by the family of Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski to hand over a piece of high-tech equipment bought with some of the $9.25 million in taxpayer funds Kanjorski steered to the company.
Except no one seems to know where to find the equipment — a high-pressure pump.
The mystery of the missing pump, combined with newly unearthed evidence that federal investigators probed Kanjorski’s connections to the company, Cornerstone Technologies, has given new life to a story that seems unlikely to go away. . . .Kanjorski encouraged the creation of Cornerstone in the late 1990s to develop — and one day commercialize — the technology. It was formed by his nephew, Peter Kanjorski, and a scientist, Bruce Conrad, who were joined in the company by four of the congressman’s other nephews and his daughter.
In 1998, with the help of Rep. John P. Murtha, a fellow Pennsylvanian and the top Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Rep. Kanjorski earmarked $3.5 million for the research through the Navy.
Sounds like a culture of corruption to me.
UPDATE: A nepotistic connection here: “So, the head of the company he secured earmarks for is on his payroll, but he’s doing a Sergeant Schultz and knowing nothing? I don’t think!”
“AHISTORICAL NONSENSE:” You’ll be shocked when you see the source.
SHOOT YOUR HUSBAND — go on Oprah! (Via Brendan Loy).
DCGUNCASE.COM is a new blog about Parker v. District of Columbia, the case in which the D.C. Circuit struck down the DC gun ban. The case is now on petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court.
THE ZERO-TAX CHOMSKY/BIN LADEN TICKET: I’m for it, but only if they have to debate Ron Paul and Mike Gravel.
UPDATE: “Read my lips — no new taxes.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Another supporter!
MORE: Incisive commentary from Frank J.: “What I don’t from the video is what exactly was the reaction he was hoping from 9/11 since apparently the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq weren’t it. I should also note that Osama is not a Truther since he sounds pretty sure he’s responsible for 9/11. Someone should ask him about WTC 7.”
A LOOK AT THE PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSION’S diversity problem.
MADELEINE L’ENGLE HAS DIED. When I was a kid, I very much enjoyed A Wrinkle in Time. And the Insta-Daughter liked it a lot too.
ARE THE WHEELS COMING OFF the anti-war bus in Congress?
DEFENDING the indefensible.
UPDATE: Tom Smith on Eric Hobsbawm: “It just goes to show, if you are very smart, reasonably dishonest, and don’t care about the sufferings of actual humans, your opportunities to promote evil are really quite good, and you may come to be greatly admired.”
RESOLVING THE GOLDSMITH CONTRADICTION: “In sum, Goldsmith believes that the War on Terror has been hobbled by excessive legal constraints, but also argues that the Bush Administration’s response to the problem was both legally dubious and politically counterproductive. In my view, he is largely correct on both counts.”
That’s accurate. And I think Goldsmith is largely correct on both counts too. Plus, I agree with the commenter who says that The Goldsmith Contradiction would make a great Robert Ludlum title.
The surge was not going to work. But the surge has worked.
Everybody from the Brookings Institution to the Washington Post has gotten around to admitting that. Even such an inveterate war opponent as Rep. Brian Baird, who voted against virtually every bill supporting the war, has reversed his stance to accept the simple, undeniable fact that the surge is working.
But that doesn’t matter anymore.
Of course not. Plus, this:
Seibel goes on to explain that the story was pegged on the Pentagon’s assertion earlier this summer that U.S. casualties would likely increase with the surge of troops.
“Pentagon officials and the White House had predicted that U.S. casualties would rise, especially since the U.S. forces had launched major offensives in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, and Babil province, to the south,” the response said. “One of the most recent restatements of that premise came in the White House’s July 12 assessment of progress in Iraq on Pages 3 and 4.
“So what happened?” Seibel wrote. “Not what had been predicted. U.S. deaths caused by enemy action peaked at 120 in May, before the surge reached full strength or Operation Phantom Thunder was launched. Combat casualties then fell consistently for the next three months, reaching a low of 56 in August. That’s the lowest number of combat casualties all year. You have to go back to July 2006 to find combat casualties at that level.”
The result? Angry emails from lefties. It’s like they want the news to be bad. (Via Newsbeat1).
Or, as you might put it: “In another war, all this progress would be cause for bipartisan rejoicing.” Or in another country.
SEXIER THAN KEITH OLBERMANN AND TUCKER CARLSON COMBINED: The latest Corn & Miniter Show is up!
JOEL GARREAU INTERVIEWS Wiliam Gibson. Gibson: “The geezer of the future will have more plugs and jacks — will be more into that, probably, than younger people — because he’ll need it.”
AIRING FRED THOMPSON’S family laundry.
HATE TALK FROM THE HEARTLAND: I await the outrage of the New York Times editorial board.
WELL, THAT HURTS: Osama slams Democrats for not ending war.
UPDATE: Kos does some slamming of his own.
Meanwhile, Jeff Goldstein has some thoughts, too.
ANOTHER UPDATE: A Bin Laden roundup.
Plus, this observation about Osama: “Further proof that he is just another multi-millionaire who hates America.”
A BAD DAY FOR FRED THOMPSON? I don’t like this proposal for a federal marriage amendment — if state judges need to be kept in line, it should be done by state legislatures. And Andy Roth says that Fred just misrepresented his position on McCain-Feingold on Laura Ingraham’s show.
UPDATE: More on Thompson’s gay marriage proposal, including video, from Ryan Sager.
ECO-HYPOCRISY UPDATE: Al Gore goes Gulfstream again.
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: So much for promises that the new Democratic Congress was going to be different:
Move over Bridge to Nowhere. Congress is back in town, and clearly back to business even uglier than usual.
It takes hard work to come up with an earmark more egregious than that infamous Alaskan bridge, but California’s Dianne Feinstein is an industrious gal. Her latest pork–let’s call it Rambo’s View–deserves to be the poster child for everything wrong with today’s greedy earmark process.
The senator’s $4 billion handout (yes, you read that right) to wealthy West L.A. (yes, you read that right, too) is the ultimate example of how powerful members use earmarks to put their own parochial interests above national ones–in this case the needs of veterans. It’s a case study in how Congress uses the appropriations process to substitute its petty wants for the considered judgments of agency professionals. And it’s just the latest proof that, no matter how much outrage the American public might display over these deals–and no matter how often Congress promises to clean up its act–the elected have no intention of reforming the process. . . .
Given the recent uproar over Walter Reed, and Congress’s many calls that we do more for the men and women returning home wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan, you’d think no elected representative could possibly have the chutzpah to impede the VA’s considered attempts to inject efficiency into its facilities and provide better care for its constituents. Think ever so much again. It turns out the well-to-do in West L.A. consider the veteran’s center grounds their own little rolling, personal park, and they want it to stay that way–thank you very much.
Meet the new boss, yada yada.
THOUGHTS ON VIOLENCE AND MASCULINITY: “If the authors’ theory is correct–that traditional masculine socialization leads to violence–then why was it that in years past, when we had more traditional masculine socialization, fewer guys were shooting up schools?”
STEVE CHAPMAN on Putin and Stalin.
IN THE MAIL: Laura Ingraham’s new book, Power to the People
THE LONDON TIMES REPORTS: “Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to ‘shed blood’ for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.”
SOME COOL FAMILY PHOTOS, from Mr. Bingley.
“LIVING WAGE” HYPOCRISY in Maryland.
AUGIE’S QUEST: A video on Lou Gehrig’s disease. Every view raises a dollar for charity, and it comes recommended by John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting. (Our podcast interview with Ondrasik can be heard here).
AN INTERVIEW WITH BILL ARDOLINO in Fallujah.
MICHAEL LEWIS: “So right after the Bear Stearns funds blew up, I had a thought: This is what happens when you lend money to poor people.”
MORE ON THE SURGE: “An independent commission created by Congress said Thursday that U.S. forces in Iraq could give a larger role to the Iraqi Army by early next year, if the Iraqi forces continued to improve. . . . Congressional Democrats expressed immediate skepticism, saying in a hearing that they feared the Bush administration would selectively use this, parts of other recent reports and much-awaited assessments due from senior U.S. officials in Baghdad next week – including a major congressional briefing Sept. 11 – as part of a campaign to press for still more patience.”
So they set up an independent panel to dilute the impact of the Petraeus Report. Then when it reports something that doesn’t fit the talking points, they express “immediate skepticism.”
As Don Surber comments: “That loud gulp you heard is from the 49 Democratic senators, independent Bernie Sanders and Republican Chuck Hagel. Remember, the No. 3 House Democrat, James Clyburn of South Carolina, said in July that good news from Iraq is ‘a real big problem for us.’ . . . Sabotaging their own report does not help Democrats.”
EX-LAW PROFESSOR? Andrew Keen knows as little about me as he does about the things he writes about. Which hasn’t stopped him from spamming me for attention. All he had to do was look at the bio in this review of his book — but maybe he didn’t read that far.
A PETITION TO SUPPORT THE SURGE: They re-sent their iFrame gizmo and promise that it will work this time. Here goes:
