Category: long story short

Matthew Riemer, writing in YellowTimes.org, debunks the notion that criticism of American foreign policy is inherently anti-American.

Mark Kleiman unpacks the Big Lie in the way the right uses the poll-tested shibboleth word “quota” to oppose any and all affirmative action programs.

The political spectrum here in the U.S. has become increasingly muddled over the years. Conservatives adopted the lingo and some of the verities of liberal progressive thought and more recently the rump of the left has toyed with attempting to coopt the aspects of right-wing thought it finds least unpalatable. We’ve got a darling of…

Soundbite at the top of the Lehrer show today quotes W. warning Iraqi line officers from obeying commands to use biological or chemical weapons again us (just as last time they were warned and they apparently refrained from doing so — whether we poisoned our own troops with experimental prophylaxis is another question). Bush warns…

I’m sure an unnamed political advisor from the previous Bush administration is regretting his loose lips many years ago when he confessed to Maureen Dowd that his boss was surprised to find a person with her background covering the White House for the New York Times. The op-ed (deadly serious, as opposed to her frequently…

Joshua Marshall has been burning up the wires lately at his Talking Points Memo blog site, holding the administration’s feet to the fire on their utterly failed policies toward North Korea. TPM’s recent post on the subject goes to the heart of the question of how long the Bush folks have been sitting on certain…

Once again I am into the thick of a new project, coauthoring a technical book. As is often the case, I can’t discuss the title or topic in public just yet, but of course I will do so as soon as I can. In the meantime, I expect my blogging to either drop off (as…

Scot Hacker has posted a series of photos from the antiwar protest in S.F. yesterday. Great images. A fine contrast to the sourmouthing coming from the pro-war crowd. I didn’t attend. B wanted to bring a sign saying “No Bush War on the Environment” but we didn’t have it together. Let the tea-leaf readers interpret…

I always wondered how to pronounce Tufte. (Thanks to plasticbag.org for the pointer.)

Dick Cheney may be hiding out in an undisclosed location unavailable to answer questions from the public (just as his boss ended the practice of holding press conferences back in February of 2001), but you can ask a simulation of Dick Cheney anything you like. My question: Will Halliburton benefit from the reconstruction of Iraq…

Republicans hauled out “class warfare” talking point this week as they do every time one of their “tax relief” plans is challenged as extremely tilted toward the superrich. It must poll well for them. If you’re tired of hearing this feint or disappointed with the timid rigidity of the Democrats’ response, Matthew Miller of Tribune…

Hey, why are we letting out-of-staters choose our California Quarter Design? Some of these are hilarious. Apparently Davis will pick one from the top 5 vote getters.

I got to wondering why the voices raised in opposition to Paul Krugman’s series of columns about the Bush presidency always seem to go for the ad hom argument, at times resorting to coordinated smearing and so rarely seem to engage with the substance of his (coherent, by way of contrast) lines of argument. When…

This August, 2000 Austin Chronicle article (The Candidate From Brown and Root) connects the dots on Brown and Root, LBJ, Halliburton, and Dick Cheney.

Too lazy to pad out to my front drive and pick up the Sunday Chronicle, I’ve been reading New York Times op eds and now skimming Slate. There’s a tight little William Saletan article from Thursday, Wise Counsel: Edwards copies Clinton’s message—in invisible ink, that makes the point that John Edwards has mastered the Clinton…

In his op ed today, A War for Oil?, Tom Friedman mentions the president’s recent soundbite: Mr. Bush’s recent attempt to hype the Iraqi threat by saying that an Iraqi attack on America — which is most unlikely — “would cripple our economy” was embarrassing. It made the president look as if he was groping…

So the day after we arrived here in New York we decided to see a matinee of the new Lord of the Rings movie down on 86th street and 3rd. We didn’t pay cash for tickets. I called the the number listed for the theatre in the newspaper ad, which was really just the new…

I’ve been wondering when the Lott flap would lead to a more comprehensive investigation of how the old Dixiecrat movement became the Goldwater/Nixon “southern strategy.” To quote Lyndon Johnson when he signed the 1964 Voting Rights Act, “I think we’ve just delivered the south to the Republicans for a long time to come.” The Republicans…

Got my copy of Jaguar today, installed it no problem, so now I can use the latest version of Kung-Log for posting to MT (and it now picks up what tune you’re playing in iTunes, like the iJournal client for LiveJournal does, thanks to a request from shacker—woo hoo!—though it appears I have to insert…