Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
The Mumbai Commissioner has publically accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of masterminding the Mumbai bombings. Hours after the broadcast of an interview in which Gen Musharraf claimed that the US and its allies would fail in their “war on terror” without the support of Pakistan and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the senior police officer in [...]
[UPDATE 09/30/06: Well, I'm happy to be proved wrong, at least in part. MSNBC runs this article: At Ramadan, TV turns up heat on extremists: Satirical Saudi show makes mockery of militants, draws fundamentalist ire which talks about the impact of "Tash Ma Tash". I'm glad to see it and wish there were more.] Opening [...]
Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . . and now also Saturday Traffic Jam for those who wish to link. Rodney is seeing Red Wizbang has a Koran-naut. The Right Place has the UN-Cola Nut Willisms shows that Chilly Willy can’t stand the heat. The Man thinks he should’ve visited White Castle instead. At Bullwinkle blog, the [...]
The resignation of Rep. John Foley over soliciting gay sex from underage pages has taken an even more bizarre turn. It seems that House Republican leaders knew about Foley’s conduct for months. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of inappropriate “contact” between [...]
Al-Qaeda’s second in command put out a long commercial long commercial for the Democratic Party today. The deputy leader of al-Qaida called President Bush a failure and a liar in the war on terror in a video statement released Friday, and he compared Pope Benedict XVI to the 11th century pontiff who launched the First [...]
Another loophole has opened in the gay marriage front, with a judge ruling that Rhode Island gays can marry in Massachusetts. A gay couple from Rhode Island has the right to marry in Massachusetts because laws in their home state do not expressly prohibit same-sex marriage, a judge ruled Friday. Wendy Becker and Mary Norton [...]
Mark Foley has resigned from Congress. Saying he was “deeply sorry,” Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from Congress today, hours after ABC News questioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with current and former congressional pages under the age of 18. A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited [...]
UNC lawprof Eric Muller posts about Michelle Malkin, a lot, on his blog, Is That Legal? Yesterday’s installment is a rather inexplicable rant saying that her recent syndicated column criticizing Charlotte Church’s transition from Christian rock teen queen to 20-year-old skank is hypocritical because–brace yourself!–Malkin wore a bikini and went to parties in 1992 and [...]
According to Drudge, Al Gore apparently informed a number of U.N. Delegates that cigarette smoke can contribute to global warming. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned hundreds of U.N. diplomats and staff on Thursday evening about the perils of climate change, claiming: Cigarette smoking is a “significant contributor to global warming!” Gore, who was [...]
This is a page 1 story in today’s Washington Post: Animal waste is a major cause of pollution. Does a bear leave its waste in the woods? Of course. So do geese, deer, muskrats, raccoons and other wild animals. And now, such states as Virginia and Maryland have determined that this plays a significant role [...]
Austin Bay calls for an aggressive international intervention to stop the genocide in Darfur. In February 2004, reflecting on Rwanda’s genocide, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said: “There can be no more binding obligation for the international community than the prevention of genocide. … The events in Rwanda … were especially shameful. The international community [...]
Bruce McQuain asks, “Where was Afghanistan in the NIE?” Afghanistan was just as much an invasion of a Muslim country as was Iraq. And in the case of Afghanistan, it was a Muslim country being run precisely as the jihadists think the world should be run. What could be a more perfect “cause celebre” than [...]
A student activist group has joined New Hampshire Governor John Lynch in trying to fire a University of New Hampshire professor for his rather bizarre views on the 9/11 attacks. A small group of students has started a petition to remove a University of New Hampshire professor who believes that Bush administration officials planned the [...]
My latest for TCS Daily, “An Intelligent Reading of the National Intelligence Estimate,” is up. It takes a look at the Key Findings from the controversial National Intelligence Estimate released earlier this week and finds a very mixed bag.
Pete DuPont is shocked–shocked!–that American college students have a poor knowledge of American history. Among college seniors, less than half–47.9%–correctly concluded that “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal” was from the Declaration of Independence. More than half did not know that the Bill of Rights prohibits the [...]
His rants against the Bush administration have made Keith Olbermann a rock star among the denizens of the Left Blogosphere and and object of scorn and ridicule on the Right. It’s rather amusing, then, to see a pro-Olbermann blogstorm among the latter. The catalyst? A bizarre Page 6 column in the NY Post by Paula [...]
While still a longshot, some stumbles by favored Republicans and surprisingly strong showings by some underdogs are making Democrats optimistic about their chances of winning back the Senate. Six weeks before Election Day, the Democrats suddenly face a map with unexpected opportunities in their battle for control of the Senate. In Virginia, a state that [...]
Via Brandon Minich, I see that Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens was thought to have attempted suicide via pain medication. Fortunately, it appears those reports are false. Terrell Owens denied a police report he attempted suicide, saying he became groggy after mixing painkillers with supplements. As if to prove he’s doing fine, Owens went from [...]
Larry Sabato, the quintessential academic media whore, now says he never heard George Allen use racial slurs, a day after strongly implying that he had on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews. “I’m going to stay with what I know is the case. And the fact is, he did use the n-word, whether he’s denying it now [...]
How can an organization that is devoted to the ethical treatment of animals endorse a policy that would kill millions of family pets? Only through some pretty amazing mental gymnastics that rely on a mainstay of the liberal agenda, gun control. You see, banning “pit bulls” is the same as banning guns mixed with ignorance. [...]
John Robb offers a counter-intuitive assessment of China’s path arguing that, rather than The Next Big Threat, it could be on the verge of collapse. While the US Department of Defense continues to focus on the emerging threat of China as a conventional power and Goldman Sachs contemplates the exact date of China’s emergence as [...]
James Forsyth offers an interesting appraisal of Tony Blair’s valedictory address to the the Labour Party Conference. He illustrates that great leaders can change a country’s political climate for years, if not decades. Blair’s essential acceptance of the main tenets of Thatcherism will be a key part of his legacy. Yes, creeping taxes and regulation [...]
Richard Miniter uses Sunday’s dust-up between former President Bill Clinton and Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace to review the former’s record on fighting terrorists. Bill Clinton’s outburst on Fox News was something of a public service, launching a debate about the antiterror policies of his administration. This is important because every George W. Bush [...]
James Lileks observes that the list of things that spark outrage and violence from Islamists is long, indeed. Clip and save, for this may come in handy: If you mock Islam with a drawing or a novel, you get riots and dead people. News of mishandled holy books yields riots and dead people. Insufficiently reverent [...]
As promised, the White House has declassified portions of the controversial National Intelligence Estimate that reportedly says the Iraq War has worsened the terrorist threat. The declassified portions, in their entirety: Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States” dated April 2006 Key Judgments United States-led [...]
Robert Kagan has a withering critique of recent media reports based on leaks from a National Intelligence Estimation saying that the war in Iraq has created more terrorists. He observes that in both the NYT and WaPo stories, “there were no quotations from the NIE itself, so all we have are journalists’ characterizations of anonymous [...]
Don Boudreaux has an interesting comparison of Paul Krugman’s thinking with that of Frederic Bastiat’s when it comes to competition, freedom and the ability to make one’s own decisions. Boudreaux quotes Krugman, is giving individuals responsibility for their own health spending really the answer to rising costs? No. ….it’s neither fair nor realistic to expect [...]
NY Post gossip columnists George Rush and Joanna Molloy report that on-the-job marital squabbling between Brit and Kim Hume have led to the latter’s leaving the Fox News Channel. Marital sniping may have led to the departure of Brit Hume’s wife, Kim, from Fox News last week. Kim Hume’s imminent exit as Fox’s D.C. bureau [...]
Steve Clemons reports that the White House’s bid to have John Bolton confirmed as our UN Ambassador before his recess appointment expires is dead, with the cancellation of a last-chance meeting previously scheduled this afternoon. This is one of the more bizarre excercises in which we engage. The chief reasons to oppose Bolton for the [...]
Glenn Reynolds and John Hinderaker headed from their homes near Knoxville, Tennessee and Apple Valley, Minnesota, respectively, yesterday for an event in D.C. Reynolds went by plane, Hinderaker by car. The latter got there first leaving the former to observe, “I’m beginning to think that air travel is overrated.” As a wise man once observed, [...]
Douglas Farah notes from a recent House Intelligence Committee Report that the “U.S. intelligence community has only a single office devoted to understanding political Islam,” the CIA’s Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program. Moreover, that Program is not doing us much good, if the comments of its former director, Dr. Emile A. Nakhleh, in Harper’s is [...]
Stetson University law school dean Ellen Podgor wonders whether it’s fair that former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow is getting a radically reduced sentence for testifying against his corporate superiors, thereby essentially punishing those who elected to exercise their Constitutional right to a jury trial. He also wonders if prison is even the most appropriate way [...]
Carolyn O’Hara notices (via Wonkette) something odd about this week’s editions of Newsweek magazine: All editions save the U.S. variant (i.e., the primary one) put the story of the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan on the cover. What knocks it off in America? A photo essay profile of Annie Leibovitz entitled “My Life in [...]
I think the best way to sum it up is as follows: The FBI Doesn’t Have a Clue. If you recall, initially quite a bit of interest focused on Steven Hatfill as a person of interest. Particularly the FBI was interested in Hatfill’s supposed secret underwater laboratory. Now the nobody talks about Hatfill anymore. Probably [...]
The comments by Dallas Federal Reserve President, Richard Fisher, helped push the Dow up 68 points, Stocks rose smartly Monday after Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher suggested inflation would be dampened by a slowing economy and said that while the housing and auto sectors are economic weak points, the rest of the U.S. economy [...]
John McCain has specifically listed the previously accepted interrogation techniques banned in the compromise between the White House and the Congress. A Republican senator who played a leading role in drafting new rules for U.S. interrogations of terrorism suspects said yesterday that he believes a compromise bill embraced by party leaders and the White House [...]
The Army Chief of Staff has withheld his budget plan in protest over a budget that’s 41 percent short of operational requirements. The Army’s top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of [...]
Salon quotes three former teammates saying George Allen used the word “nigger” frequently in the early 1970s. Three former college football teammates of Sen. George Allen say that the Virginia Republican repeatedly used an inflammatory racial epithet and demonstrated racist attitudes toward blacks during the early 1970s. “Allen said he came to Virginia because he [...]
The National Intelligence Estimate concludes that the Iraq War has spawned a new generation of terrorists. A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the [...]