Well, let’s not go there; that appears to be around the total number of foreign nationals detained by the United States (officially, that is) in various aspects of the “war on terror”, according to this Grey Lady report. Very few of the detainees, by number at least, appear to be detained for the years and years that detainees have been held in, say, Guantanimo Bay, Cuba. Perhaps many of the detainees have actual intelligence value; or perhaps few or none do. That’s just it: we have no idea. And remember: these are the above-board, official detainees, rather than the invisible...

Without further explanation, let me reprint an e-mail I received this morning from former senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards: Dear Seth, I was wrong. I wrote these words about my vote to authorize the Iraq war in a Washington Post op-ed piece and I want to share my views with you as well. Almost three years ago, we went into Iraq to remove what we were told — and many of us believed and argued — was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces...

You won’t be able to, because this September, thanks to the combination of increased oil imports as a result of Gulf Coast disruptions caused by Hurricane Katrina (and later Rita) and decreased exports as a result of a strike at Boeing plants, and because of Walmart shutting out American suppliers in favor of sole-source Chinese contracts that would be blatantly illegal under American law (the article doesn’t say that, but we all know its true), America’s trade deficit hit a record at over $66 billion in September. Apparently, some deal with China has been reached to limit textile imports, but...

A series of suicide bombing attacks have killed dozens in three Western-affiliated hotels (Days Inn, Grand Hyatt and Radisson) located in Amman, Jordan. Most of the 57 dead appear to be Jordanian nationals, many of them attending a wedding. The M.O. of coordinated attacks in an Arab country closely aligned with the United States should come as no surprise to anyone; as usual, the victims are primarily innocent locals, with no particular dog in the larger fight. God damn it. On a day that finally saw the war criminal Judy Miller “retire”… we now get this God damned escalation in...

The U.S. Supreme Court granted review in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a case brought by a detainee at Guantanimo Bay challenging the military tribunal process and other issues. As you will recall, this very blog interviewed Mr. Hamdan’s lead civilian counsel Neal Katyal, around a month ago. Professor Katyal was kind enough to respond to my request that he answer some follow-up questions, by noting that, at this point, he is telling all media sources, big dogs and talking dogs alike, that he has no comment at this time (a decision I certainly respect.) It looks like the case will be...

Your talking dog finished today’s ING New York City Marathon in a stunningly mediocre finishing time of 5 hours 40 something minutes… thus, reversing the effectiveness of last year’s strategy of running Washington, D.C.’s Marine Corps Marathon a week before… this year, evidently, I didn’t fully recover from the earlier marathon (perhaps driving back from it wasn’t the greatest of ideas…). Live and learn… we’ll have to consider this in planning next year’s mishugas. The City came out in its usual gigantic and enthusiastic numbers, Mrs. TD and the Loquacious Pup and Mr. Crabcakes were out on the course cheering,...

First, we’ll start with a quick trip to our comrades at Pravda, particularly our old buddy Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey who takes aim at our European friends (and not us stateside!), with this analysis of the riots in France with a broader eye at European behavior writ large. Next, I coin a new phrase over at The American Street (at least, I haven’t seen the phrase before); anyway, I’m shocked… shocked, I tell you… to hear that Halliburton not only overcharged the Iraqi people, but delivered them substandard work as well (“Your Halliburton dividend check, Sir? Thank you…”) The (current) President has...

That would be a bill that passed the senate on a more or less party line vote and purports to simultaneously cut medicare and medicaid funding as well as farm subsidies, while also permitting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, budget cuts estimated to run around $30 billion over the next few years, or $6 billion next year, or in any event, maybe 2% of the federal budget deficit, although coupled with the latest round of tax cuts for the rich ($70 billion), the measure will actually make the deficit still worse! The alleged fiscal conservative party, through...

Well, well. It seems we have an… embarassing situation. It seems that a key Al Qaeda player just kind of walked out of American custody at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Omar al-Faruq, purportedly an organizer of Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia and confidant of OBL himself, was captured in Indonesia, and rendered to us. Interestingly, Mr. Faruq’s disappearance (apparently, he picked a lock and slipped past an Afghan guard) has become an issue at a military trial in Texas of Sergeant Alan Driver on charges of abusing prisoners in Afghanistan (you will note that its always a sergeant; it...

The Grey Lady gives us this discussion of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, a case where soon-to-be-Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. dissented in part in a case challenging various Pennsylvania state laws designed to reduce access to abortion. The part at issue, which reads like an audition to be this President’s nominee at this time, would require married women to notify their husbands to obtain an abortion… not encourage it, or suggest it… but require it, even in the case of abusive or criminally abusive husbands. A 6-3 Supreme Court held the other way in a decision by Chief...