Archive | September, 2004

That’s the current ratio of Guantanamo detainees judged to be enemy combatants by the recently-enacted military tribunals versus those found not to be enemy combatants by the tribunals. For the story of the 1, see here.

If you want more evidence that you shouldn’t trust online polls, check out the Newsweek poll results, which show the online poll results (black) side by side with the scientific poll (grey). The gulfs are huge, because for many reasons the people who (1) heard about the Newsweek online poll and (2) were willing to […]

Interesting piece in Ma’ariv about Iran’s attempt to take control of the Palestinian movement away from Arafat, and to cooperate with Al Qaeda. Debka has lately carried similar reports. Arafat invited Iran and Hizbullah into the Palestinian movement to provide it with resources and manpower, but now risks being usurped by his “allies.” If massive […]

Forget the flap over whether gun control legislation Kerry once supported would have banned the gun he brandished in West Virginia, Stop the Bleating suggests it was illegal for Kerry to accept the gun. In short: It is (with a few exceptions, none of which appear to apply in Kerry’s case) unlawful for a non-licensee […]

During the primary campaign, a prominent Democratic Senator challenged Howard Dean’s anti-war stance by proclaiming: those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don’t have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be […]

Art Blakey, Get the Message. With Chuck Mangione, Keith Jarrett, Reggie Workman, and Frank Mitchell. Eclectic, unusual group for Blakey, most interesting to me for hearing Chuck Mangione (of all people) jam in a hard-bop context (quite different from his later performances at the Mega-Lo-Mart). His sound remains very distinctive here. Somewhat obscure disc, but […]

Mickey Kaus quotes Teddy Davis of ABC News: There is no way to know where Kerry will ultimately end up on Iraq. If Davis is right — and his column seems to support that position — and if enough of the public ends up having that perception, that can’t possibly be good for Kerry.

Saw this movie a couple of weeks ago, and was disappointed; it got very good reviews, and it certainly has some visually stunning items, but the story seemed melodramatic and hackneyed rather than tragic or mythic. Ann Althouse likewise wouldn’t recommend it.

A reader writes, apropos the hostages for headscarves question: I have not been following this matter, and have no firm opinion on how the French should respond. But you seem rather blithely to overlook the fate of the hostages. Surely their lives are more important than the head-scarf law, whether one approves of that law […]

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Reader Jim Herd passes along this story; I particularly like the quote I set in bold below: Many of France’s more than 5 million Muslims have rallied surprisingly behind President Jacques Chirac in recent days, defending what most Muslims have bitterly opposed until now: a law prohibiting Muslim girls from wearing religious head scarves to […]

The Drudge Report often displays banner headlines trumpeting the latest political gaffe or mistep. These tidbits are often amusing, and sometimes telling. Today, however, Drudge misfired with the headline, “Kerry Cosponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves.” According to Drudge (or at least the version of the story still up around noon EST), Kerry co-sponsored the […]

Yoel Marcus in Ha’aretz: Unlike September 1939, when Europe quickly realized that it was looking at a world war, it’s not clear whether Europe today realizes what America grasped long ago – that World War III is in full swing. This war is different from all the wars in history. It’s not countries fighting countries. […]

EyeonthePost.org has some thoughts on the Washington Post’s coverage of what strikes me as, thus far, a major non-story–the allegation, still unproven, that a low-level, non-Jewish, Pentagon official shared a single classified document discussing American policy toward Iran with members of AIPAC. EyeonthePost reports that the Post is now up to nine articles in eight […]

Interesting observations by several members of Commons Blog on what they perceive as an increasing politicization and activism at National Geographic and National Geographic Magazine. I don’t subscribe to National Geographic so can’t say one way or the other, but it did prompt me to recall that I used to be a member of the […]