A staggeringy un-self-aware entry in the Post's "Being a Black Man" series: "I just think he's risen way above rap music and never agreed with those contentious and rebellious lines of rap music." Remember, being a black Republican who doesn't like Curtis Mayfield is being an "independent thinker"!
Wind-Power Projects Halted: The DoD stops wind farm construction throughout the Midwest to study radar issues. Good job, Ted Kennedy!
Electronic voting machines fail to ruin Iowa election: We're rapidly near the point where any government official who advocates buying an electronic voting machine that doesn't support a paper trail should be recalled or fired. This is no way to run a government.
Fafblog returns: Stupid Chris, going to his college reunion and denying us the world's only source of Fafblog!
"Al Qaeda is the one that’s most radical, so I think they’re Sunni.": Jo Ann Davis, chair of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Terrorism/Human Intelligence. Insert your punchline, then go pour yourself a stiff drink.
Two great bigotries that taste great together: Next up, FortWayne.com's publication of "Six Months in a Convent".
"Not everyone at last weekend's [white supremicist] meeting could stay cool on the Jewish question.": From the (Yiddish) Forward, via the New Republic. "For the small, hardy band of right-wing Jews who attended this past weekend's American Renaissance Conference, the biennial gathering of white nationalists ended on a sour note."
People Who Died 2005: The Baltimore City Paper profiles YA SF writer Andre Norton, the inventor of Valium, the James Brown backup singer behind the "It Takes Two" beat, and other less worldshaking people who died last year.
The self-creation of Christian Bailey: The man who ran the Lincoln Group, the paid propagandists in Iraq (via War and Peace)
Michael Medved ramps up "Seduction of the Innocent II: Electric Boogaloo": "Even after September 11th, Marvel Comics and other publishers are disseminating comic books that actively promote a destructive cynicism and mistrust of the United States Government." Also, they are soft on the Mutie Menace. (via Jim Henley)
The origins of the phrase "a country of laws not of men": Judge Damon Keith overturns the Mitchell Doctrine that national security is what the Attourney General says it is, in a case tangentially involving pot, Dr. Spock, and the MC5. I had no idea. (PDF) (via Crooked Timber)
Hostile Witnesses: Arthur Liman on Ollie North and the Iran-Contra hearings.
How Portland implemented Kyoto: And how its economy didn't implode.
We the Peoples: 50 Communities Awards: Sustainable developments, humanitarian activists, poverty amelioration: the UN identified 50 cities and movements in the world of note.
Silver Ring Thing loses its federal grant: "Teenage graduates of the program sign a covenant 'before God Almighty' to remain virgins and earn a silver ring inscribed with a Bible passage reminding them to 'keep clear of sexual sin.' Many of its events are held at churches."
Paul Graham makes like an economist. Or a sociologist. Or something.: In his defense, at least this time he's managed an infuriating and (to my eye) deeply under-researched essay without mentioning LISP's innate superiority for all hackers everywhere.
Oversexed: How feminists and the Christian right teamed up to fight sex trafficking: And how the feminists may have gotten rolled. "These figures suggest that the nation harbors more enslaved drywallers and baby-sitters than it does brothel prisoners."
A rocket to nowhere: Macjiej on the design and political comporomises that have crippled the Space Shuttle. (via Waxy)
John Gibson, class act and master of timing: "It would have been a delight to have Parisians worried about security instead of New Yorkers. It would have been exquisite to watch. But, alas, they picked London." Published yesterday.
The Politics of Water: A blog devoted to the fight (internationally and in the American West) over the scarce but crucial resource that's -not- oil.
H.L. Mencken's "Declaration of Independence in American": A belated happy Independence Day. (via Unqualified Offerings.)
theboxtank: A group blog "focused on retail and urbanism" (although largely devoted to bashing Wal-Mart).
How to destroy a Cuban exile: Alberto Coll, dean at the Naval War College in Rhode Island and (more importantly) Cuban embargo doubter is hounded for failing to disclose that he slept with a woman while legally visiting relatives in Cuba. (via Hit and Run)
Al Murashah for President: A Lebanese art collective made up a fake municipal candidate; now they're wheatgluing blank "propaganda" posters throughout Beirut. (via Hit and Run)
Bruce Schneier on neutering HIPAA: The Department of Justice has basically ruled criminal prosecutions for medical record privacy violations out of bounds.
Ben Stein jumps the shark.: Because Deep Throat is not like a Nazi war criminal who took refuge South American, even if Ferris Buehler's science teacher says so.
Spiderman, Superman, Zarqawi: I love it when Abu Aardvark takes a break from serious discussion of Middle Eastern reform to be a great big ol' comics geek.
Deep Throat outs himself: He's former FBI assistant director Mark Felt, who was considered the leading candidate by Slate's Tim Noah (but not by the huge U of I Deep Throat survey).
U.S. Senators Mount Assault on Wind Power: Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is the big mover here.
Nickel and diming Ohio's Bureau of Workers' Comp: Ohio's pension fund invested in a rare coin portfolio that -lost- hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of coins. Was the fundraiser who ran it skimming?
Mongol nomads like home on range: Hernando De Soto-style land reform hits Mongolia. (via Hit and Run)
Snailgate: How a cartoon character won an election: It's nice to be reminded what a farce collegiate elections are.
The Education of David Stockman, Cont'd: I saw the news about Collins and Aikman today and started looking for the hagiographic profile of Stockman and Heartland that ran in the Times a few years ago.
The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform: They recommend instant runoff voting, but more interesting is the makeup of the commission itself: 80 men and 80 women randomly chosen from BC's election rolls.
Jack Abramoff's mobbed-up gambling cruise business: A third-rate screenplay featuring Tom DeLay's lobbyist friend, a Gambino family bookkeeper, bank fraud, Congressman Bob Rey, and a gangland hit.
The trouble with GM: Tom Bozzo makes the case that healthcare is a shuck and jive to avoid the real problem: people don't want to pay full price for boring GM cars.
Paris schools Hannity and Colmes: PARIS: And that's exactly the problem. Maybe if you and your viewers read a little more, that's the problem right there.
Sisyphus as Social Democrat: Brad deLong on the meaning and meaninglessness of J.K. Galbraith.
Tweaking life: A six-part piece on the intersection of small-town politics, prostitution rings, meth addiction, and the reshaping of Montana.
New York Press shreds Thomas Friedman's new book: The whole damn thing is premised on a metaphor that -didn't apply in 1492-.
Some Like It Hot: Chris Mooney outlines the TechCentralStation/JunkScience.com/Exxon effort to throw chaff up in response to scientific consensus on global warning.
The Ultimate Warrior on Terri Schiavo: Someday, he'll have a show on a cable news network. Just watch.
Doomsaying economist Stephen Roach on Alan Greenspan: Given some of the things Roach has said about America's impending fiscal trainwreck, this is remarkably fairminded.
The Good Empire: Sociologist Vivek Chibber takes a run at Niall Ferguson's "Colossus".
Why America is doomed: Schmuck kids, abusive teachers, and lunatic administrators. Awesome. Check out some of the comments in the forum for extra joy.
Michelle Malkin tells us about the dangers of Christina Ricci and emo: Oh, man alive. "Promoting the cutting culture" is the new "magic hat". This doesn't pass the high school term paper level of research.
Experts have not yet quite swallowed the blogospheric Kool-Aid: A majority of experts think the future of art and entertainment is digital (and increasingly amateurized), but only a third foresee terminal partisan filtering.
Correcting the "Crimeogenic" Crowd: City Comforts responds to a Reason hit piece on the New Urbanism.
Alan Keyes' daughter comes out of the closet.: Her father, the "frequent Republican candidate", subsequently threw her out of the house; I'm glad to see she seems to have coped with people digging through her blog during the Illinois Senate campaign.
When Jack Welch Was Director of Intelligence: A CIA exercise in future history, starring the former CEO of General Electric.
Fort Lauderdale tops list of code violators in crackdown: The city was the #1 violator in its own sweep of housing code violations, largely thanks to city-owned empty lots.
Wired shills for nuclear power: I even -agree- with the thrust of the article, but the relentles strawmanism in the face of real problems and sneering contempt for people who don't get it turn the piece into Tech Central Station meets "The Long Boom".
CAN SPAM fails to work as intended: Number of knowledgable commentators surprised by this: 0.
Snopes on Adam Clymer (with extra John Kerry action): It's frustrating to see Snopes try to jam some mediocre political reporting into an urban myth debunking.
John Stossel goes "mythbusting": Urban sprawl is good for everyone! The government wants to burn national forests! We've been in a recession for four years! And other news from Stosselland.
"Official Use Only" Homeland Security briefs make it onto the web via Google cache: I hope the security compliance officer is taking a long, hard look at how he or she is running things.
If it had not been for 15 minutes...: "In 1979/80 my family took part in the biggest espionage scandal that the former country of East-Germany ever saw in its 50 years of existence."
The Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy: "Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice."
On the libertarian comics of Peter Bagge: "[I]t's simply one more instance in which Bagge's moral instincts are trumped by his aesthetic revulsion at everything he beholds."
I Have a Dream: Seventy-five years on, is his dream still deferred? (MP3; listen to one of the greatest and most moving speeches of the twentieth century)
A handful of the worst doctors measurably affect malpractice lawsuit frequency: But because of the currently flavor of political correctness, nobody is ever going to do anything about this common-sense observation. (via Off the Kuff)
Ed Kilgore: "The Real Secularists": "To quote from the Gospel According to Somebody, or perhaps it was the Epistle of Joan of Arc to the Alabamans: 'None of those who cry "Lord, Lord," will enter the Kingdom of Heaven...'" Hal Lindsay and Pat Roberston, what have you wrought?
Three-quarters of Americans have prayed for tsunami victims; less than half have given money.: Prayer is fine. A sawbuck to Doctors without Borders or the Red Cross is better, but what's a little Luke 6:38 between friends?
Comic Book Politics: Like the name says. A companion weblog to a college class. (via Unqualified Offerings)
The bad science of Michael Crichton's new book: It's like Socialist Realism for TechCentralStation readers. (via Crooked Timber)
Bill Fleckenstein: Is the Fed a Short Sale?: "I guess a fair alternative title for my talk could be: 'An Indictment of Alan Greenspan and What to Do About It.'"
Trans-Dniester Republican Bank: "According to the Decree of the President TMR from November 29, 2000 the old names in English Trans-Dniester Moldavian Republic ayd Trans-Dniester Republican Bank." Wow. I hope the country and bank eventually get moose and squirrel.
The "ticking bomb" scenario in action: A German cop threatens to torture a suspect in order to get time-sensitive information about a kidnapping victim; a German court responds.
Alexandra Boulat, photojournalist: These are some of the most artfully composed photojournalism pieces I've ever seen. Gorgeous.
EM-DAT, the Emergency Disasters Database: It can also help answer questions such as “[The site] can also help answer such questions as 'In the North African region, which countries are most affected by disasters or a particular disaster?'"
House Ethics Panel Chief May Be Replaced: The current (Republican) ethics panel head takes his job seriously, which worries Tom DeLay.
D.C. At The Bat: Baseball Prospectus ran the numbers on the boning Tony Williams and Bud Selig dreamed up.
Homeland Security Inspector General is let go: The man charged with making sure Homeland Security does its job apparently did his a little too well.
Theo van Gogh and an end of innocence in the Netherlands: "By attacking Muslims, the Dutch were also attacking their own past.... The often religious, uneducated poor Muslims reminded the Dutch of their grandparents."
"Our culture, how we know it today, is under attack from every angle.": An Alabama legislator seeks to have books with gay characters yanked from the shelves and blows up my irony meter.
CBS nixes UCC ad because it is too nice to gay people??: Well, that just burnt through my outrage fatigue.
"He is an agenda masquerading as a man...": "...the proverbial pompous ass and, worse, a genuine threat to freedom of speech." Washington Post t.v. critic Tom Shales doesn't like FCC Michael Powell much.
Huge post-election demonstrations in Ukraine: Here's hoping for a peaceful solution that leads to real democracy and another thumb in the eye for Putin.
G. Gordon Liddy unleashed: An interview with Brown's -other- famous radio host alumnus.
Why Robert Blackwill lost his job: The top NSC official in charge of Iraq policy didn't get shoved out in a conflict between realists and neoconservatives; he reportedly resigned because he hit an aide. Did this sort of thing happen to Lord Palmerston?
Bruce Schneier on electronic voting: When Bruce Schneier speaks, I wish politicians would listen.
The Edelweiss Pirates: A semi-criminal long-haired folk-singing proto-hippie anti-Nazi youth movement. (via)
Red America, Blue America revisited: "'Divided America,' where people split roughly evenly between Republican and Democrat, and 'decided America,' where everyone is a Democrat." The nation is about 10% pure urban blue. (via)
Marryanamerican.ca: A resource for Americans looking to move north and Canadians looking to get some.
Wear it with pride: I hope you did, too.
Mathematicians Against Terror: Using game and network theory to study the makeup of terrorist organizations -- and where the weak points are.
Sinclair Broadcasting and the Berlisconi-ing of America: I don't know which is most depressing, the article, the comments, or the breakdown in responsibility to shareholders that I think Sinclair represents.
Operation Truth makes a t.v. ad: The theoretically non-partisan group has made the most effective commercial I've seen this campaign cycle. It's painful to watch.
Straight-faced joke or painful idiocy?: Daniel Milian should indicate these things by making little air quotes when he's getting interviewed by CNN and is kidding.
Anti-Semitic visionary Anne Catherine Emmerich is beatified: "The pope did not mention the German mystic's controversial book of visions on Christ's final days, for which she is best known." Maybe he'll rescind Vatican II and make Mel Gibson even happier. (see also) (via)
Bruce Schneier's security blog: Sure to become an indispensible resource for crypto wonks, privacy advocates, and people who want a good, clear explanation of the issues.
Anti-New Deal cartoons from African-American papers: After 1932, FDR eventually garnered a great deal of support from blacks, but it obviously wasn't universal. (via)
Robert Novak's highly objective debate blog: "Kerry opening statement: Posted: 9:09 p.m. ET -- Kerry opens by pandering to Florida."
Making sausage the President's way: "War, unlike budget forecasts and campaign coverage, is quite merciless with falsehood."
Some classy anti-Kerry buttons: I'm particularly fond of the one that mocks my grandfather's Purple Heart.
Richard Perle and Lord Conrad Black's excellent adventure: How a neo-conservative defense policy analyst and a conservative Canadian media baron became friends, then enemies, then figures in a huge financial scandal. (see also)
Hot girls, frisky delegates: The Village Voice gets a strip club waitress to keep a tally of how her week goes. A cheap shot, but it's shaping up to be really amusing.
"Don't you like to watch two lesbians playing pool?": I hope this comes up during the presidential debates. (via)
Errol Morris' MoveOn ads: "'If you’re doing an ad for Quaker Oats or Tylenol or whatever, there's a set of boundaries that you work within, but you're not really worried about offending anyone,' Eric Korsh, one of Morris's producers, told me." (see also)
Generation Joshua: Mobilizing home schoolers for Bush: There's a focused, partisan counter-establishment to the media and to the academy. Why -not- gear up religious high schoolers to hit the road for Bush? (via)
Reporting from Bizarro Venezuela: I'm not a fan of Chávez -- I think he's an unprincipled demagogue and probably bad for democracy -- but it takes real chutzpah for a -reporter- to claim winning 58% of the vote with massive turnout proves his opposition's case.
The great middle class tax shift: Now that the CBO has confirmed it, can we stop calling the idea that Bush's tax cuts benefit the affluent "class warfare"?
The Marine recruiter bucket shop: The sales techniques Marine recruiters turn to in my affluent (and therefore unpromising) home town.
Barak Obama the Antichrist: "And it saddens me that if a politician plans to influence society positively instead of merely padding his wallet and ego, you immediately assume he's being influenced by Satan, as if servanthood and the demonic were one and the same."
Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at FOXNEWS.COM.: Fox reports and you decide, but John Moody decides what Fox reports: "His political courage and tactical cunning are worth noting in our reporting through the day."
The master narratives of the 2004 election: Because reporters are lost without a spin-doctor-provided game plan.
The Decembrist: On Barbara Ehrenreich and Elites: I want to check out "The Guardians" on smart cookie Mark Schmitt's recommendation, given that "God and Man at Yale" seems to me to be one of the three or four historically important postwar political works.
Japanese Defense Ministry to publish manga: They also hope to make their annual white paper more interesting to younger Japanese by throwing defense minister Shigeru Ishiba into the Jusenkyo Springs, where he will be cursed to turn into a panda. (via)
4president.org: Campaign literature for presidential campaigns dating back to 1960. Dig that groovy Sanford '76 bumpersticker! (via)
Politicizing safe sex programs: The piece is terribly overheated, but then again, this is a terrible, terrible idea. (some feedback) (leave your own)
Simone Ledeen goes at it with a critic: The daughter of prominent conservative pundit Michael Ledeen responds to criticism over perceived nepotism in her hiring by the CPA in Iraq. On a blog. (see also) (and this)
Gwendolyn Britt reaches the merry-go-round: Glen Echo Park's merry-go-round is still beautiful; I hope some of the protestors who fought to the Supreme Court to desegregate the park got to enjoy it.
Condos, gated communities, and shadow governments: A libertarian considers the problems of semi-voluntary associations.
Bashing Unitarians: The religion of John Adams and Joseph Priestly is a "controversial religious cult".
Washington Post drops an f-bomb: Beyond the Cheney thing, does anyone reading the Washington Post ever really need to be protected from four-letter words? Or are kids trading Dana Milbank columns like Yu-Gi-Oh cards now? (here's why)
Register to vote, get a free comic book: It was an idea from Brian Vaughan, the writer of the well-regarded "Y: The Last Man". More people, even those without politically themed superhero comics to promote, should do things like this.
Bruce Schneier on Iranian codebreaking: Schneier is the world's best writer on the topic of cryptography, and he suggests that the general public can't conclude a damn thing from the facts that are public. (via)
The UN is hiring: If you can score well on a standardized test and are younger than 32, you can enter the exciting field of black helicopter piloting!
"Do we really think that Jesus's primary concern in this election year would be a marriage amendment?": Despite the Christian right's hopes, gay marriage doesn't seem to be an important issue to most congregations.
Rev. Moon vs. the Washington Times?: "Insiders said that Japanese backers of the church had been especially unhappy with the Times's huge losses and with its right-wing positions on global political issues."
Laura Rozen's War and Piece: One of those "professional journalist pursuing her fixations"-type blogs, and -the- go-to source for information about the friends and relations of Ahmed Chalabi. More professional journalists should pursue their fixations.
Pro wrestlers Nikita Koloff and Krusher Kruschev remember Reagan: "Ivan Koloff, who, like Nikita, retired from wrestling in the early 1990s, says that the end of the Cold War 'took the edge off' his character. 'Democracy is good for the world,' he says. 'But it was bad for business.'"
Walking is for Communistic one-worlders: If John Galt were in charge of urban planning, he, too, would make sure that there were no neighborhood markets or six-block walks. (via)
Lobster: The Journal of Parapolitics: Issue 43 contains such articles as: Parafinance: Enron and drilling for red ink; Blair and Israel; How to fix an election; Mind control etc; The corporate ex-spook business; and Into the Whitehall maw: The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), The Norman Baker case, the Information Tribunal, and MI5 certificates.
"Authority to set aside the laws is 'inherent in the president.'": America is a government of laws and not men, but I guess sixth-grade civics and a general sense of uncreepy non-totalitarianism is just too much to ask for.
Hardliners holding onto control in China: What could be more soothing than political unrest between the old guard and what modest reformers the Chinese Communist Party has got?
Ed Anger lives!: And he's a woman from Virginia, and apparently perfectly serious! (via)
Learn from Comrade Lei Feng: "His greatest desire in life was to be nothing more than 'a revolutionary screw that never rusts'." (via)
"And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore": Eric Bogle's "And the Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'" (though you may know the Pogues version): Then in nineteen fifteen my country said: "Son, / It's time to stop ramblin', there's work to be done" / So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun / And they sent me away to the war
Anysoldier.US: Send a care package to a complete stranger serving overseas.
"I earned these scars.": Four soldiers return home, and the process of putting them back together begins.
Kitsch and Kalashnikov: Afghan wars, Afghan rugs: "Early pictorial, or 'aksi', war carpets are a fascinating hybrid of traditional abstract motifs slowly transforming into military objects. Where one might expect to find a 'boteh' symbol (an ancient precursor to our paisley), one finds instead a woman in a burka beside a tiny Kalashnikov rifle -- or a view from the ground of a B-52 unloading its deadly cargo." (via)
Rezedents Rights & Rispansabilities: A HUD pamphlet mistakenly translated into Jamaican patois instead of Haitian creole. "Dis brouchure briefly liss some ahf yuh muos impowtant rights ahn rispansabilities fi elp yuh fi get di muos owt ah yuh owme." (via)
Send Back Liberty: It's a year later, and that French tart is still cluttering New York Harbor.
The Army War College Journal of Science Fiction: Using future history to make a point. (via)
The Red Box: The exciting game of British budget management!
Rape rooms: a timeline in quotes: I don't know who I feel worse for, honestly, the poor sods who were tortured while in American custody or the next soldier or marine who gets captured and bears the brunt of Iraqi wrath.
The Talmudic scholarship of tax protestors: Actually, the analogy to the world of subterranean world of s.f. fandom seems really, really apt. Tax code parsing as fanwank! (via) (see also)
Pictures from bejeweled crowning of the Washington Times publisher at Senate office building: "And Moon gives a speech announcing that it's time to recognize him as the Messiah..."
Another six words I agree with.: Sodomizing a prisoner with a chemical light is "just blowing off steam."
Three-way hive-mind cage-match!: Oh mercy. Which is better, the Hobbesian "your report only contains one fact, and you made it up" or the Gareth crack in the comments? (Warning: Cheap shots aplenty.)
Columbia Journalism Review on red vs. blue stories: And one particular clichéd, almost Brooksian piece in the Post.
An American brain drain?: However will the U.S. end the mine shaft gap?
Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy: The successful creation of the modern revolutionary Peking opera "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy" is a splendid victory for Chairman Mao's revolutionary line on literature and art. (via)
Glenn Coggeshell, your not so typical candiate for Congress: Please also to be examining his band, Malachi, please. (see also)
"It's all bad news": This letter from Iraq goes well beyond "profoundly depressing."
The casualty-aversion myth: Nobody, but nobody, thinks as hard about these issues as the country's war colleges; I wish their work were more widely disseminated to laymen like me. (via)
Why I hate David Brooks: This piece doesn't quite convey his dripping condescension, but it's close. (via)
Guide to the 2004 Prohibition Party Candidates: Alas, intraparty squabbling may keep them from being a powerful force in this year's election. (via)
Which blogs does Senate candidate Brad Carson read?: That's actually an entirely credible list, and he gets bonus points aplenty for Crooked Timber.
LaRouchies game the 1986 Illinois primaries: Is it a rebuke to rational choice theory? And check out those wholesome whitebread names! (via)
The Gadflyer goes live: http://gadflyer.com/... (via)
The Press Gaggle: The standup comedy of the White House press corps.
Mary Landrieu is cute as a bug: And her healing rays make John Kerry look positively living!
Kim Il Jong's chef tells all: "Why can't our cooks make them this way? The aroma of the mugwort is also very nice." (via)