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May 2008 - Posts

Quote of the day (on media pundits)

Friday, May 16, 2008 11:30 AM
On the subject of TV pundits, the always-wise Sven had this to say : The real issue is why this doofus was invited in the first place. If a journalist interviewed winos about Federal Reserve policy, our first question probably wouldn't be why winos don't
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Why punctuation matters

Thursday, May 15, 2008 11:11 PM
This is a true story, but I'm changing the names to protect the innocent. A co-worker, whom I'll call "Mark," has been on assignment recently about 10 or 11 time zones away. Back home, his co-worker "John" sent him an email about a meeting that transpired
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Does Bush think the Secretary of Defense is an appeaser?

Thursday, May 15, 2008 12:57 PM
Yesterday, President Bush delivered a speech in Israel in which he called "appeasers" anyone who advocates talks with Iran. He even drew an explicit parallel to 1930's-era Nazi appeasers : "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with terrorists
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The slow implosion of the GOP

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 9:34 PM
The Republican Party seems to be ensnared in a slow-motion downward spiral of late. Party unity on Capitol Hill has all but evaporated, the rank and file are disassociating themselves from the White House like rats from a sinking ship, and the prospects
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The kangaroo courts begin to collapse

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 9:30 PM
The sham "trials" of detainees at Guantanamo have always been legally and Constitutionally invalid, but they were continuing anyway. Now, the process of these show trials has met some blowback from within the Pentagon (in contrast to civilian trials,
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The numbers speak

Monday, May 12, 2008 10:41 PM
The numbers speak for themselves : Eighty-two percent of Americans now say the country's seriously off on the wrong track, up 10 points in the last year to a point from its record high in polls since 1973. And 31 percent approve of Bush's job performance
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Saturday "Lost" blogging: "Cabin Fever"

Saturday, May 10, 2008 12:50 PM
" Cabin Fever ", this week's episode of "Lost," brought us a little closer to the rescue of the Oceanic Six, reinforced the suggestion that Claire is dead, painted a picture of John Locke as some sort of Dalai Lama over the island, and revealed that the
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Another Yoo torture memo

Thursday, May 08, 2008 11:40 PM
In August 2002, John Yoo wrote an infamous memo on behalf of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel which attempted to justify the use of torture by the CIA. The memo has since been released ( PDF here ), widely circulated, and then disavowed
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Veto bait

Wednesday, May 07, 2008 10:27 PM
The pending House appropriations bill that would provide "emergency" funding for the continued occupation of Iraq is certain to draw a veto from the White House (and how much longer is this five-year-old occupation going to be falsely labeled an "emergency"
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Some interesting quotes from a recovering neocon

Tuesday, May 06, 2008 10:30 PM
Lawrence F. Kaplan, one of the premier neocon cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, has had a change of heart. He no longer considers himself a neocon, and he has had some very unflattering things to say about the Iraq invasion (which he and William
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Sanchez speaks

Monday, May 05, 2008 8:52 PM
From a new memoir by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former commander of US forces in Iraq : Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily
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Destroying the Grand Canyon for fun and profit

Sunday, May 04, 2008 10:11 PM
Because of the resurgence of nuclear power, uranium mining claims in the western US have skyrocketed from 2,000 in 2001 to over 43,000 last year. Those claims are now encroaching on the Grand Canyon and other western monuments: On public lands within
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Bush spins ethanol, lies about ANWR

Saturday, May 03, 2008 11:20 PM
Following a speech in Missouri yesterday, President Bush engaged in an exceedingly rare question-and-answer session with employees of the company where he was speaking. Among other topics, he repeated his threadbare spin of ethanol as a viable fuel source
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Friday "Lost" blogging: "Something Nice Back Home"

Friday, May 02, 2008 10:50 PM
As I do every week, I watch "Lost" online a day or two after it airs on TV. In the meantime, I deliberately avoid reading any reviews or commentary online about that episode. Before writing this post, I've maintained that practice, so I still haven't
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