From the Archives

Looking for the Colonel Jessup discussion I referenced in my last post, I came across the post "GOOD MOVIE, WRONG LESSON," written on January 31, 2003 and imported over from the original blogspot site (unfortunately, owing to then-existing vagaries, sans comments).  It was the fourth substantive post and fifth total post ever on the site, written on my first day ...

Obama’s Surge Purge Emerges, Demonstrates Nerve, Verges on Scourge, Reactions Diverge

Barack Obama has taken things off his campaign site that might be used by opponents to embarrass him, James Gordon Meek reports in the NY Daily News under the headline "Obama Purges Web Critique of Surge."  Why, it's our Outrage of the Day! Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop ...

The Importance of the Deficit

In commenting about John McCain's budget plans, Matthew Yglesias threw out this comment: Given the present circumstances, I can't think of any good reason for a presidential candidate to be promising to that we'll be at balanced budgets in four years. It would be nice to see the deficit on a decreasing trajectory rather than an increasing one, but achieving short-term ...

Google Walking Directions

Google Maps is beta testing a new "walking directions" feature, Alex Chitu reports.  Apparently, it's just being tested  out on a small number of randomly selected users. Since I wasn't among those selected, I was a bit dubious since I was unable to personally verify, let alone test, said service.  A quick search of another of Google's products, its ubiquitous ...

By Any Other Name…

Jonah Goldberg has sparked a minor blogospheric furor for a recent column in which he castigated Barack Obama, John McCain, and others for promoting a compulsory national service program, which he compared to slavery. There's a weird irony at work when Sen. Barack Obama, the black presidential candidate who will allegedly scrub the stain of racism from the nation, vows to ...

Al Qaeda in Iraq Defeated?

Al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI] is all but defeated, Marie Colvin reports for The Sunday Times. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.  Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in ...

Obama to ‘Refine’ Iraq Deadline, Keep it Exactly Same

Barack Obama gave a speech yesterday in which he said there was some flexibility in his plan, touted throughout the Democratic primary season, to withdraw combat troops from Iraq within 16 months followed by another speech in which he explained that he meant no such thing. Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny have a solid summary and analysis piece for the NYT, ...

Conservative Bloggers Silent On Torture?

Shaun Mullen wonders "Why Are Right-of-Center Bloggers So Silent On Torture?" He searched high and low and could find no right-of-center bloggers who made any mention at all, for example, of yesterday's NYT story "China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo."  I'd note that Andrew Sullivan wrote roughly 600 posts on the subject yesterday, including this one, which pretty well covered our bases.  ...

Obama’s ‘Sweetheart’ Home Loan

The Manufactured Outrage of the Day comes to us from Joe Stephens and his page A3 piece for today's Washington Post, "Obama Got Discount on Home Loan." Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a ...

Rush Limbaugh Signs $400 Million Contract

Rush Limbaugh isn't going to have any trouble affording good cigars, having just re-upped with Clear Channel through 2016 for $400 million, including a $100 million signing bonus.  And you thought pro athetes got paid a lot. Said to be Limbaugh's most lucrative deal ever by far, the new agreement runs through 2016 and includes a previously unheard-of nine figure signing ...

Obama, the South, and the Black Vote

Thomas Schaller,  the author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South, argues that the notion that Barack Obama has a good chance of winning Southern states because he'll energize black turnout is based on fallacious reasoning. The first myth is that African-American turnout in the South is low. Black voters are actually well represented in the Southern ...

Obama = Charismatic = Hitler = Armageddon

Arthur Silber is, as am I, fascinated by the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama.  He notes some anecdotal creepy gushing on a local radio show and then Reactions of this kind to Obama are fairly common. No, they are not this extreme much of the time, but such statements are far from unusual. And many of Obama's less obviously deluded ...

Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Blogs

Some Obama supporters are apparently taking advantage of Google's terms of service to silence anti-Obama blogs, Simon Owens of Bloggasm reports. The company automatically shuts down sites upon receipt of TOS violation claims until they're able to do a human audit, a rather slow process with given little priority on the free BlogSpot service. After some digging it became apparent ...

Caption Contest Winners

The Trash Heap Has Spoken Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over. This will be the last contest at OTB for a couple of weeks. (Courtesy of Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines) ✰ THE WINNERS ✰ First: Cowboy Blob - So there I was, perfectly camouflaged at the bottom of the swimming pool.... Second: Hodink - "Auntie Em and the gang greet Dorothy. ...

McCains Pay Back Taxes on Aunt’s Condo

The latest mini-scandal in Campaign 2008 is that the McCains have apparently not done a good job keeping track of their finances.   HuffPo has gotten 1420 Diggs at this writing with a story headlined "McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years, Newsweek Reports." It promises "a highly embarrassing report."  Newsweek has delivered with "Mrs. McCain, San Diego County ...