Author: david

CNN Top Stories: U.S. seeks extradition of one-eyed, hook-handed cleric –That’s going to be so hard to find! I think we should say either one-eyed or hook-handed or both.

Young voters are being courted nationwide Scripps Howard 7/20/04 (My italics) “Both parties are trying to capture the nation’s largest voting bloc. Comprised of about 43 million people between the ages of 18 and 30…” I hear the voting bloc between the ages of 18 and 31 is slightly larger. One of the smallest is…

‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Making GOP Nervous Article “…Republican operative Joe Gaylord said. ‘It’s a problem only if a lot of people see it.’” -DKo: If the projections below are anywhere near accurate, the Republican “problem” will be immense. “…through last weekend, theaters already have sold an estimated 12 million tickets to ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’ “A Gallup survey…

Bush: U.S. Looking Into Whether Iran Involved In 9/11 Article [My italics] The commission has found more al Qaeda contacts with Iran than with Iraq, officials said. [But] White House spokesman Scott McClellan said there was “no evidence that there was any official involvement between Iran and the Sept. 11 attacks.”…. Bush noted McLaughlin had…

NASA Denies Funding for Key Satellite, Washington Post. 7/19/04 NASA is allowing a highly successful satellite to fall out of Earth’s orbit by refusing to fund it….NASA…did not order a planned firing of its rockets…to hold the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite in orbit….Without periodic assists from its thrusters, atmospheric drag will send the satellite’s…

NYT “Sarkozy….has acquired a reputation as a man of action…who speaks his mind on controversial issues, while Chirac is often seen as reigning more than ruling, speaking obtusely and saying little to offend.” In this case, the word they meant to use is anybody’s guess. Mainly obscurely, I’d think, with some mix of abstrusely, opaquely,…

There have been a lot of complaints that our system of color-coded terrorism alerts does not provide enough useful information. When Ridge or Ashcroft issues a new threat alert, they never specify the targets. Will it be kidnapped prisoners? Random bystanders? Home invasion sprees? Wedding parties in the desert? Well, give me a break! Obviously,…

Is A Housing Bubble About To Burst? Business Week “If 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rise just one percentage point, to 7.2% from their current 6.2% … house prices would have to fall 11% to keep new buyers’ monthly mortgage payments from rising. If fixed rates went to 8%, prices would need to fall 20% to keep…

Statling new evidence suggests that sugar-pills may be the answer to some of humankind’s most dreaded diseases, however scientists are at a loss to think of ways to rigorously test them.

At last, Vice President Cheney has had the guts to stick his neck out and move the flag-burning ammendment to the front burner. Facing up to the flag-burning crisis that is overwhelming our nation may not be popular or fashionable or “hep-cat,” but it is the right thing to do.

(The Reuters video in question) Mostly British and American, I suppose.

It has been widely reported and openly acknowledged that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld issued orders to employ “harsh interrogation techniques”–orders that were later rescinded. A similar sequence occurred later in Iraq, with respect to interrogation orders issued by General Sanchez. In both cases, the orders were reversed on legal advice that the techniques authorized looked…

Iran Is in Strong Position to Steer Iraq’s Political Future, NYT, 7/3/04 ….Already, the Iranian government has quietly strengthened its presence in Iraq by providing financial backing…and by flooding the country with intelligence agents, the officials say….Most worrisome to American officials are Iran’s close ties to powerful Shiite clerics like Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani…and Moktada…

In March, I blog-worried about which of two questions about Bush and Terrorism would prevail: Our Question or his. I think now we know. [W]hich of two messages will end up as the net “take-away” …. –The weak one is that Bush didn’t care enough about terror: It’s mushy, vague, “who can know?”, etc. –The…

This was a Reuters headline today: Serb Vote Halts Feared Slide Back to Nationalism The AP story led with: A reformist politician defeated a nationalist ally of Slobodan Milosevic… I wonder, seriously wonder, what in the world we Americans do think about nationalism. Do we think that we are nationalistic? If so, do we take…

The statements on detainee treatment released by the Bush administration yesterday carefully keep all the options of torture and Geneva violations open. From today’s NYT (All italics are mine.) “[A] senior Justice Department official said the document [the already infamous 8/02 Justice Department memo] was ‘overbroad and irrelevant’ and was unnecessary because no one in…

I was listening to a review of this new kid’s movie, and I don’t get why there’s a law that a rowboat will not harm a human being!

When Cheney issued the shootdown orders on 9/11, he said Bush had “signed off on the concept.” Apparently Bush told him not to issue the order right away, when he got off the phone. It was more like: “Shoot down the planes, but only if someone asks.”

Many of us saw this news item last week: Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90’s Attacks, NYT, 6/9/04, article “Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization…that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990’s to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the…