Chalk it up to incompetence; I was so very sad that we couldn't get tickets to the showing of Zhang Yimou's "Hero" at SIFF. Then I read the synopsis, discover that I've already seen the movie, including apparently twenty minutes not in the current cut. It's...
What's the deal with the Tenet resignation? I don't know. Via Kevin Drum, Mark Kleinman has an interesting theory. I'd certainly like to believe that story, although it's probably too good.
I should make clear that I don't consider those who gamble on political events to have any special insights, as dsquared at crooked timber has demonstrated. In general the numbers.
Everyone's all over poll numbers for the Presidential election, and everyone's watching the Senate pretty closely as well. (Speaking of which, there is a nice and very flattering profile of Barak Obama in the most recent New Yorker, which doesn't appear to be online--he looks hard to beat,...
The ongoing Canadian election is fascinating from a political junkies standpoint, as it seems as if the reborn Conservative party could capture a plurality government, and it is unlikely that.
Via the incomparable Bob Somerby, this gem from Boston Globe typist Nina Easton on The Tweety Matthews Show ("complacent millionaire pundit values on a cable-access budget!"): EASTON: There is--there's no doubt that that's.
Media Matters takes apart Stephen F. Hayes argument that Bin Laden and Hussein had an operational relationship between 1990 and 2003. This one requires just a smidgeon of common sense. A connection between Bin Laden and Hussein is all that this administration needs. If one were...
The Democrats are +1 in the House, with Stephanie Herseth having won. Good news--if there's anything better than a Democratic Congressperson, it's a hot Democratic Congressperson. Picking up a seat in.
Nick Kristof thinks that communism in China ended on the day of the Tiananmen Square massacre. It's just taken the Chinese fifteen years to notice. So when will political change.
A reader writes: In all seriousness--Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at the U.S., and for the sake of our credibility as a world hegemon, the U.S. was forced to stop playing the game of brinkmanship with Saddam since he kept pushing the envelope further and further....
In one of the least surprising developments in legal history, the recent federal act criminalizing D&E abortions was struck down in federal courts. This was inevitable, because the law directly contradicted.
Despite my first post here, I don't plan to use this blog to engage in handwringing about past failings on my part. I'll comment on blogs and politics, like my.