Category: Edgewise
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Subduing California (a fable)
In Ungrateful Californians, the author the Iraqi Letter to America blog posits a hypothetical fairy tale in which it isn’t the medfly but Californians themselves, in their flowered shirts, who are targeted for “help.”
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The Yuck Factor
A good example of why I don’t read Faux News’ website: I accidentally stumbled onto it today and saw a banner for Greta Van Susteren’s show tonight, with the headline “Newt Gingrich for President?” I think I speak for half of America when I say, Yikes! and, Eewwww!
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The Sadr City War on Drugs
A fairly harsh crackdown in the War on Drugs–primarily alcohol–has apparently taken hold in Sadr City and other Iraqi centers where US military power is weak. I personally find this overzealous, hard-line Islamist drug-law enforcement to be both abusive and intolerant–though I don’t doubt they can point to many depredations of alcohol on individuals and…
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Our new, permanent address
The Edgewise group weblog can now and forevermore be accessed by its own custom vanity address at the edgewise.info domain. The weblog itself is aware of that address now and will use it for permalinks and the like. We are still hosted and maintained by the good folks at Mediajunkie and in fact the old…
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You loved them in Salvador; you’ll trust them in Iraq
According to this Newsweek option, The Salvador Option, “we” are considering arming and training death squads to help quell the insurgency in Iraq and to improve our image in the Muslim world. Well, maybe not that latter part. Yes, I know this has been the talk of the left blogsophere for over a week. Many…
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There they go again
Now that CBS has scaped a few goats to appease the Republicans, it’s worth dusting off the most appropriate summary of what 60 Minutes did to George Bush on the National Guard AWOL story: They framed a guilty man.
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Haitians and Maccabees – A Tribute
Having so recently told my grandson for the first time the Chanukah story–the defeat of three successive, heavily armored Hellenic colonial armies by agrarian Jewish guerillas in 168 BCE–I read this in the paper today, and the juxtaposition brought me to tears. …an astounding, and forgotten, episode in Western history. Since Haiti alone produced as…
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Here are the talking points you requested
I hope Brad De Long won’t mind my reprinting his The Social Security Party Line: Talking Points in full: I figure I might as well lay down what the party line is on Social Security: Social Security Talking Points Social Security’s Troubles Are Smaller than Our Other Fiscal Problems The projected long-run Social Security Trust…
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At least go down swinging
Quoting from Boxer signs electoral challenge — Democrats to…: Boxer signs electoral challenge — Democrats to force debate on Ohio results My mail is flooded with the news that Democratic senators and congresscritters will contest the Ohio electoral slate. Good for them. Might we aspire to a democracy as robust as the one the have…
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F-Bomb-a-rama
As part of our ongoing War on Terror, is it too much to ask that we ban use of the phrase F-Bomb by so-called major media? Seriously, folks. Lame is lame. And that phrase is. Lame.
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Lesson from a Master
Lai-chui Hsien of Hopei achieved great mastery of Chinese neijia (“internal martial art”–Tai-Chi, etc.) “Sometimes when following the technique exactly, you feel that your body is not coordinated, your abdomen does not feel good, the postures are bad, and you are not happy. “Do not worry! You have gained something and are at a point…
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The Bush Administration’s War on Tsunami
The Bush Administration today announced its new policy: to wipe tsunami from the face of the earth. “We will find the tsunami where they live,” said one extremely senior administration official, speaking from an undisclosed vacation hideaway. “And we will smoke them out.”
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If you watch one voter suppression in Ohio movie this holiday season
Make it one of these.
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language
what today is dismissed derisvely as “politically correct” used to be called “being considerate.”
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Lovely, interesting
A 30,000-year-old instrument is uncovered in southern Germany: His early experimentation suggests that the old flute would have allowed a relatively sophisticated level of musical variation. “The tones are quite harmonic,” he says. They don’t seem to follow a diatonic scale, he notes, but rather the rules of the pentatonic scale that predominates in Asia.…
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Do Economists Indulge in Parenthetical Witticisms?
Thursday 12/16/2004 ———————————————————– RELEASE: In October, Czech retail sales continued to follow the trend of the preceding months and increased…1.1% on a seasonally adjusted month-to-month basis. On a year-ago basis, retail sales advanced 1.7% (not seasonally adjusted). DKo: A full-year seasonal adjustment? It must make sense somehow, but it does sound funny. Economists don’t indulge…
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Chilling times
According to an article on MSNBC.com, 44% of Americans “believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans.” Further: The survey showed that 27 percent of respondents supported requiring all Muslim-Americans to register where they lived with the federal government. Twenty-two percent favored racial profiling to identify potential terrorist threats. And 29 percent…
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prospects for peace
Interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas says the Palestinean’s armed uprising has been a mistake and that Palistineans should pursue independence by peaceful means. This is, I’d say, big news.