I’ve never quite understood why so-called patriotic conservative bloggers and pundits take swipes at Canada all the time: Canada has been described lately by a conservative U.S. television host as "a stalker" and a "retarded cousin." Another pundit recently asked if Canadians weren’t getting "a little too big for their britches." There’s been a spate of Canada-bashing by right-wing media … Read More
What Was The Most Looked-Up Word In The Dictionary In 2005?
"Integrity" No kidding. "Integrity" was the word most looked-up on Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, as reported here. Speaks highly of us as a culture, don’t it? Then again, maybe people were looking up the spelling, not the definition. Here’s the top ten list: Top 10 most looked-up words of 2005 1. integrity n. firm adherence to a code, especially moral or … Read More
Sleep Tight
Yikes: About 150 pounds of commercial plastic explosives has disappeared from a private storage site, along with 2,500 blasting caps and 20,000 feet of explosive detonation cord, authorities said Monday. "In the hands of the wrong person, this material can be very, very destructive," Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White said at a news conference. Wayne Dixie, an agent with the … Read More
Taking The Fun Out Of Sudoku
How many Sudoku problems are there? If you visit your local bookstore, where Sudoku puzzle books abound, you would think there are millions. The Sudoku craze is boffo box office (so to speak). And it looks like there are plenty of puzzles to be had. Actually, for a typical 9 x 9 Sudoku grid, there are 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 possible arrangments where … Read More
Rove In The Crosshairs
I haven’t been following the minutae of Plamegate lately, but if this is true, it doesn’t bode well for Karl Rove: In late January 2004, the grand jury investigating whether top officials in the Bush administration knowingly leaked Valerie Plame Wilson’s name and covert CIA status to reporters subpoenaed the White House for records of administration contacts with more than … Read More
The “Oddfather” Is Dead
Newsday: Mob boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, the powerful Mafioso who avoided jail for decades by wandering the streets in a ratty bathrobe and slippers, feigning mental illness, died Monday in prison. He was 77. The head of the Genovese crime family, who had suffered from heart disease, died at the federal prison in Springfield, Mo., said prison spokesman Al … Read More
Legal Justification For NSA Wiretaps
One of the best pieces in the blogosphere examining the legal landscape of the NSA wiretapping comes from Orin Kerr, law professor at George Washington University, on the right-leaning law blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. Kerr begins: Was the secret NSA surveillance program legal? Was it constitutional? Did it violate federal statutory law? It turns out these are hard questions, but … Read More
Bush And The NSA Wiretapping
This topic has been churning in the blogosphere and media for 48 hours now (at least), and I have nothing new to add. But I am absolutely appalled at the poor defense given to the action, as a matter of constitutional law. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is quite simple: There shall be no warrantless search and seizures of … Read More
Barbarism And Barbie
I don’t have much patience for scientists who insist that violent video games lead to violence in children. Yesm, I know — there are plenty of those studies, so it must be true. And politicians — including Hillary Clinton — are happy to jump on the "family values" bandwagon, as evidenced by her bill to protect children from violent video … Read More
Another War on Christmas Battle That Never Happened
From Sadly, No: I’ve decided to start debunking some of the misleading "War on Christmas" stories posted on WorldNetDaily. It’s a big pain in the ass, but I don’t wanna let MediaMatters do all the work. Let’s start with this one, called "Housing Officials ‘Cancel’ Christmas": Managers in charge of two federally subsidized housing facilities have told residents in one … Read More
Note On Bush’s Primetime Speech
(1) Bush said: Reconstruction efforts and the training of Iraqi Security Forces started more slowly than we hoped. … At this time last year, there were only a handful of Iraqi army and police battalions ready for combat. And here’s what Rumsfeld said "at this time last year" (12/8/04, to be specific): Their security forces, as I mentioned earlier, are … Read More
Billmon on Spying on America
Billmon’s brevity is the source of his wit: Bush declined to discuss the domestic eavesdropping program in a television interview, but he joined his aides in saying that the government acted lawfully and did not intrude on citizens’ rights. "Decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people," Bush said on … Read More
Light Blogging
Yes, I know there’s much going on. Bush is talking to the press, laying out plans for victory in Iraq (supposedly), and defending his decision to spy on law-abiding people like you and me. The War on the "War on Christmas" still spins away. And people are dying all the time (Jack Anderson being the latest). But it’s the holiday … Read More
Science Teaches The Obvious
"Chronic Happiness" Is The Key To Success, Researchers Say Okay, if you say so. Of course, "chronic happiness" is probably the definition of success. That’s what I say.
Congress Not Informed Of All Intelligence Issues Relating To Iraq
The non-partisan Congressional Research Service has issued a report explaining specifically the areas in which intelligence was not shared with Congress. Key graf: The executive branch generally does not routinely share with Congress four general types of intelligence information: the identities of intelligence sources; the "methods" employed by the Intelligence Community in collecting and analyzing intelligence; "raw" intelligence, which can … Read More