Uncategorized

Well, that’s more or less the kind of consistent theme here at the talking dog that has pretty much devastated my traffic numbers, along with the “big box” blogs… but Chris Bowers, himself a pretty good demonstration of the phenomenon he describes, notes that money (i.e. bloggers working for it) has pretty much decimated the ranks of the free-standing amateur blogger, who he now suggests is an endangered species in the progressive blogosphere, anyway. Bowers specifically notes that Nate Silver’s “fivethirtyeight.com” is going to be hosted by the New York Times web site as the occasion for his discussion, but...

We can play a slight game of Rashomon between the generally reported version of events and the Israeli version of events, but the undisputed facts remain: Israeli naval forces attacked a group of five ships carrying aid to the blockaded Gaza strip in international waters, and at least ten (Israeli press reports fifteen) people, almost certainly civilians, are dead, and four Israeli military personnel were wounded. In the last few years we have seen one of the most distressing things imaginable for American Jews: Israel’s behavior, long some of the most careful and restrained in the world, has been as...

Well, I’m as disappointed as anyone that the “top kill” procedure of simply pumping in mud and concrete to try to gunk up the hole causing the oil mega-leak in the Gulf of Mexico… well, “top-kill apparently didn’t work.” But then… what is it we can do? We can consume things, to the point of having tens of millions of morbidly obese people and literally an entertainment program devoted to such people trying to lose weight! We don’t seem good at having, say, created private sector wages. And we can’t seem to rebuild New Orleans or the World Trade Center...

Right now, I’m asking for yours: take action to assist Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who is under attack by our military for the crime of… wait for it… discharging his duty honorably and refusing to dishonor the flag and his uniform by engaging in misconduct as a Guantanamo military commissions prosecutor with respect to the case of tortured juvenile Mohammad Jawad (who has been released, btw) (via Candace).. My own interview with Col. Vandeveld is here. Col. Vandeveld is a genuine American hero: a man of conscience, who answered the call and was willing to prosecute military commissions defendants to the...

It seems that the Government’s latest exercise in poor sportsmanship in Guantanamo detainee contested habeas cases (in which it holds every advantage, but is still losing over 70% of them anyway) is to insert clauses in the very same House bill that ensures that Guantanamo will remain open (and hence an open beacon and focal point for all of America’s enemies to rightfully regard us as the monstrous hypocrites we are, thus requiring a continued and expensive military presence everywhere) that will now add an extra level of harassment toward the intrepid souls who signed on to do detainee representation...

Let me be the first to say that I have no brief whatsoever for American/Yemeni dual national and pain-in-the-ass cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (who apparently is the subject of a new video released by a supposed al-Qaeda affiliate and hence is the subject of renewed calls for his extra-judicial execution). If indeed he exchanged e-mails with the Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and he communicated with Christmas underpants bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in such a way as to facilitate either of their plots, then I say we find Mr. al-Awlaki, try him, and if found guilty, punish him to...

Well, we’ll start with Kentucky Senate candidate Trey Grayson… well, the guy who beat him in the Republican primary, anyway, Dr. Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, who is of course, “the Tea Party” movement favorite in Kentucky… and now we know why. In an editorial board interview, it seems, Dr. Paul managed to combine the two obsessions of that movement (libertarianism and, of course, racism) in one sentence, suggesting that the hard part of freedom is believing that the Civil Rights Act should not prohibit blatant racist acts of discrimination (say, “Whites only” lunch counters) by private enterprises. And...

We’ll start with the absolute outrage of that Trump having the audacity to name a Muz-lim as Miss U.S.A. this HuffPo piece by former GTMO Chief Prosecutor and current gad-fly retired Colonel Morris Davis in which he likens the win-loss record of (my fellow Columbia College alumni) Barack Obama and Eric Holder in Guantanamo detainee habeas corpus actions (13 wins against 35 losses) to the win-loss record of ousted Redskins coach Jim Zorn (a comparable percentage at 4 wins/12 losses). Col. Davis goes further, and ties in the recent “liquidation of enemies of the state because the President decides they...

This comment from Jeralyn at Talkleft on the Obama Administration’s proposal to alter the rights of terrorism suspects (Charlie Savage in the Grey Lady has more) by delaying the time before which they would be presented to a judge for arraignment so that they may be waterboarded interrogated longer… pretty much sums up my rather unified feelings toward the third term of the Bush Administration first (and at the rate things are going, hopefully only) term of the Obama Administration; specifically, Jeralyn’s take: Taking rights taken from terror suspects today just makes it easier to take them from all of...

I have little to add to what Greenwald or Paul Campos has about my college classmate and President Barack Obama’s choice of Elena Kagan as his nominee to replace retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. The Cliffnotes version is that, like Barack himself, Kagan has left virtually no paper trail, and, as an ideological matter, is a complete tabula rasa (that’s pretty much code for “stands for nothing”) but has convinced smart glib people that she is smart and glib, and as a Harriet Miers-like cipher and loyal retainer won’t give Barack too much trouble in the nominating process,...