Political Animal: Rudy (May 1, 2007)
Read the whole thing to get a grasp of why veteran New Yorkers are astonished that anyone thinks Giuliani has even a remote chance of becoming president. Nickel version: it's only a matter of time until he implodes on the campaign trail with the cameras rolling. And rolling. And rolling. (comment | comment)

Political Animal: Factional Politics in Iran (April 3, 2007)
This more or less fits with Juan Cole's suggestion that the crisis is basically a product of internal Iranian politics: "Tehran's hard-liners...are trying to use the incident to rally the public around the flag and revive their flagging fortunes on the geopolitical stage with appeals to Iranian patriotism." However, it goes a bit further in suggesting that even the Revolutionary Guards are badly split on what to do next. (comment)

French Élection 2007: Will the real Sarkozy please stand up? (April 3, 2007)
Nicolas Sarkozy has almost always presented himself as the one candidate ready to make the tough reforms necessary to get France moving again.

French Élection 2007: Cécilia, Sarkozy's Hillary? (March 31, 2007)
Cecilia Sarkozy is most known for leaving her husband Nicolas in 2005 for another man in New York, and then returning a year later. But while keeping a low-profile since, Cecilia has been one of the most influential people behind the Sarkozy campaign, and as a communications expert, the proponent of his "softer image" approach.

Fistful of Euros: What the hell is an economic government? (March 27, 2007)
So, somebody has a brilliant idea to solve all Europe’s problems. What is it? It’s to set up a European economic government for the EU. It’s not exactly new - several people in the Jospin government thought so, including Dominique Strauss-Kahn. It might have something going for it.

Political Animal: GINGRICH: STOP BEING LIKE ME (March 22, 2007)
Newt Gingrich has seen the 1984/Hillary YouTube ad and he doesn't like it...(comment)

Political Animal: Principles (March 22, 2007)PRINCIPLES....Matt Yglesias responds to a piece by David Boaz in which Boaz remarks that one of the nice things about having principles is that you don't have to examine every single new situation de novo:

This, to me, is more or less why it's not a very good idea to try and debate policy specifics with libertarians. That it's an ideology that precludes trying to decide issues through some dull "look at all the data and decide what we think about every issue" doesn't, of course, demonstrate that it's incorrect, but it hardly lays the groundwork for a productive exchange of ideas.

Normally, I'd say this is an unfair criticism. After all, we all have principles we believe in, and we all use those principles to guide us on topics that we don't have encyclopedic knowledge of. It's not just libertarians.(comment)

Political Animal: The Hackocracy.... (March 16, 2007)
Matt Yglesias warns aspiring pundits against appearing on blowhard radio and TV shows

As I well recall from my appearances on the Hugh Hewitt showing, appearing on hack-controlled media outlets is not an effective method of persuading the audience. The rules are rigged....Television is especially tricky for providing the illusion of unmediated reality while, in fact, allowing a thousand different kinds of mediation. Thinking that you can beat television professionals whose job is to make you look bad on a television network that they control is just hubris. Nobody's that smart. Nobody's that clever. Nobody beats the producers.

The Miserable Annals of the Earth : 99 severed heads roll by (March 15, 2007)
I was composing my review in my head as I watched 300. Words like 'retarded', 'moronic', 'idiotic', and 'jesus, Leonidas, just kiss him already, would you?' kept recurring, much though I tried to rise above them . Yet, mostly, as the film continued to flicker across the screen before me, I found myself planning to emphasize just how bizarre I found it that conservatives could somehow manage to embrace this movie so enthusiastically, while clearly identifying themselves with Leonidas and his 300 doomed but supposedly noble warriors.

Political Animal: Harshing on Unions (March 4, 2007)
This discussion, I think, ends up being similar to discussions of the minimum wage. Simple economic theory suggests that a higher minimum wage ought to reduce total employment. Likewise, simple economic theory suggests that unionization ought to reduce economic growth. But in both cases, more sophisticated labor theory suggests lots of possible countervailing factors...(comment|comment)

Political Animal: Experts versus the Mob (February 13, 2007)
It comes from the second edition of the "Terrorism Index," a joint project of Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress that surveys equal numbers of (self-described) liberal and conservative national security experts. The full report is here. An excerpt is below. Question: Is the gap between the public and the experts surprising? Predictable? And does it mean anything? (comment)

The Sharpener: The fallacy of finite responsibility (December 8th, 2006)
Suppose mafioso A pays hitman B to kill politician C. Is B any less a murderer than if he’d committed the crime off his own back? Obviously not: he’s 100% guilty. But does it follow that A is not responsible for the killing? Again, clearly not: it was his actions and his intentions which led to the politician’s death, 100%. But what if A decided to kill C because of informant D, who tipped him off about C’s planned crack-down on organised crime. Then doesn’t D also deserve some blame for C’s death? And if so, does that lessen the guilt of either A or B?

Prometheus 6: No comment, since it speaks for itself (November 18, 2006)
Several weeks ago I, along with my husband attended a book signing for Ward Connerly and his new book Creating Equal. For those, who don't know Ward Connerly is the black University of California Regent who agitated for the abolishment of affirmative action in the university's enrollment policies...

Prometheus 6: The first article on Bushista incompetence [...] (November 17, 2006)
A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night.

Prometheus 6: Sow. Reap. (September 29, 2006)
And the pathetic thing is how little your sexual mode has to do with your competence. Not that Foley can be all that competant given that he volunteered for this grief by hiding and supporting those that would make him hide.

Newstand: Thai coup: Pre-text or reason? (September 20, 2006)
To get my bearings on last night's coup in Thailand, I (naturally) consulted the pages of the Nation, the country's best newspaper. (I've met some of the Nation's editors; I wish them well.)  The following unsigned "Comment" is a precise balancing act, but I think it leaves no doubt about the damage sustained by Thailand's democratic project.

Macam-Macam: Thaksin overthrown (September 20, 2006)
The Thai people's love-hate relationship with their Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, may have come to an end as the Thai army seized power last night and suspended Parliament and the Constitution.  Thaksin is currently in New York.

Heretical Jew: The Power of Words, and the Abuse of that Power (September 15, 2006)
Many people have grown accustomed to using the phrase "Islamic Fascism". I disagree with the use of the term for a couple of reasons.

Prometheus 6: Imperialism & Industrial Organization (September 7, 2006)
Recently I wrote an oddly-structured essaythat began with my extreme anxiety about current events, and turned immediately to the distantly related topic of US industrial management.

I think the problem is that the neoconservatives actually represent a tradition of industrial management from the USA. The "American System" of manufacturing emerged from the refining of petroleum and the production of machinery (which accounted for nearly all US exports from the late 19th century to the mid-20th); it involved firms that had a large, professional system of modular, bureaucratic management in distribution, development, and production. By the 1920's these industrial bureaucracies had replaced the old powerhouses of investment bankers.

Newstand: Tony Blair wants his mommy (September 5, 2006)
This AFP story on inq7.net wins my vote for, ah, most unexpected headline of the year: "Blair's anxious tummy rub reveals the helpless child within"

LONDON -- Awkward questions over British involvement in Iraq expose Prime Minister Tony Blair's helpless inner child, a psychologist said Tuesday after studying the body language of the country's politicians.

Prometheus 6: American society writ really, really small (August 15, 2006)
I support Arizona's potential bribe to voters...I gotta support this too.

Cash for Grades
A Santa Ana school trades the green stuff for good algebra scores.
WHY DO WE eliminate incentives from our public education system? We all agree that educating our children is important, but we fail to use the most proven performance-enhancement tool of the marketplace — cold, hard cash.

Prometheus 6: Discuss (Guest Post by James R MacLean) (August 14, 2006)
Recently I wrote an oddly-structured essay that began with my extreme anxiety about current events, and turned immediately to the distantly related topic of US industrial management.

Prometheus 6: A guest editorial (Guest Post by James R MacLean) (August 11, 2006)
I cannot recall being so distressed by world events as I am now. I suppose the events of 2003, horrifying as they were, were only a lower course of cut stone in the pyramid of evil. It was a previous step, before things got really awful. . I read it before and wrote a series about it (here).

Sadly, No! James R. MacLean Is A Very Smart Man (August 9, 2006)
Take his post here, for instance, on the History of Hamas (and so much more). Excerpt:

..[T]he Washington community that favored a permanent global role for the USA would essentially engulf the polity of the Jewish state. The practice of unlimited support for Israel’s expansionism allowed a deviant faction in that country’s politics to capture the state; the one guarantee for survival was not peace, but collusion with a superpower. Rather than Israel controlling the West, as some demagogues would have it, a small group of empire builders have exploited the USA and Israel; neither country has serious democratic accountability for its foreign policy, and both were sucked in by the path of least resistance. Instead of agreeing (through messy, democratic processes) on a general vision of the future, both countries have been seduced into the day-to-day coping strategy of doing what they’ve done before, attacking reformers as unsympathetic or even traitors, and defending useless carnage as “self-defense.”

In this one post MacLean — it’s hard not to call him “Hobson” — makes it plain that Hamas is abominable, that its aims are horrid. Yet he also demonstrates that it is a creation of imperialism.

Randy McDonald: [BRIEF NOTE] Three Lebanon Articles (August 8, 2006)
(Reference to Part 4, 6th Arab Israeli War)

Prometheus 6: Half of the story (August 2, 2006)
My problem is I can't find the line that seperates the current crisis from every other one since the establishment of Israel. Arab nations never accepted the institution of the state of Israel as valid.

Dove's Eye View: Jews protest Israeli action in S.F. (July 18, 2006)
Link: Jews protest Israeli action in S.F..

A few hundred protesters chanted, beat drums and waved signs and flags Monday outside the Israeli Consulate during a rally organized by local Jewish groups to decry Israel's military actions in Lebanon and Gaza.

Pseudo-Polymath: On Poverty, Pyramids, and Global Warming (July 5, 2006)
One of the seven wonders of the Ancient world are the Pyramids. Ancient tombs built to honor and glorify ancient kngs … or public works/werkfare projects for a starving populus looking for gainful employment in a system in which production was centrally controlled? Is there a lesson there for today?

Arab Media: Where is the coverage of protests against the war in Lebanon? (June 12, 2006)
Do you think it's strange that the only protests the BBC has covered are those in Iran, thus feeding into the American rhetoric about Iran's support for Hezbollah. Yet there were also protests in Israel, though we never heard about those. According to an article in Ynet news

Prometheus 6: Yeah it sucks but don't give up yet (May 10, 2006)
I'd really like the charter school thing to work. But .

Michigan quickly opened more than 200 schools under one of most liberal charter laws, and the program has been riddled with problems from the start. A multistate study by the Evaluation Center, a well-known research group at Western Michigan University, describes charter schools in Michigan, Ohio and some other states as actually having a negative impact on student achievement.

Okay, this was a first pass at it. Like I've always said, if you really have a worthy cause you don't give up on failure...you change techniques.

Prometheus 6: George Bush's Staff Doesn't Care About Black People (May 10, 2006)
Subtitled "How To Be One Of The Good Ones."

You do not get off that easy, you sell-out punk... This is objectively foul

Dustee Tucker, a spokeswoman for Jackson, told the Dallas Business Journal Tuesday that Jackson's comments at his April 28 speech were purely "anecdotal."

Prometheus 6: Today's National Sell-out Award goes to... (May 9, 2006)
U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson

Once the color barrier has been broken, minority contractors seeking government work may need to overcome the Bush barrier.

That's the message U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson seemed to send during an April 28 talk in Dallas.

...Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.

"He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years," Jackson said of the prospective contractor. "He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something ... he said, 'I have a problem with your president.' [...] "He didn't get the contract..."

Prometheus 6: $9300.00? (May 10, 2006)
In case you forgot, this is the lady that tried to get creationism installed in Alabama's biology curriculum...

Schrenko pleads guilty
By Beth Warren | Wednesday, May 10, 2006, 10:18 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Former State School Superintendent Linda Schrenko pleaded guilty this morning to defrauding the government and money laundering.

Prometheus 6: Dispassion may not always be appropriate (April 19, 2006)
I feel like I should write a big dramatic thing. See, I'm the family stoic. I'm a bit more precise online...the best of us must reach for a word or stumble over one's own tongue once in a while...but my real life persona is pretty close to what you get here. Only in a crisis, I'm worse. ALL emotion shuts down and I drop into pure computation mode.

Prometheus 6: I wonder how that compares to the time and expense of building our oil infrastructure (April 10, 2006)

With Big Boost From Sugar Cane, Brazil Is Satisfying Its Fuel Needs
By LARRY ROHTER

PIRACICABA, Brazil — At the dawn of the automobile age, Henry Ford predicted that "ethyl alcohol is the fuel of the future." With petroleum about $65 a barrel, President Bush has now embraced that view, too.

Prometheus 6: George Will is useful today (April 8, 2006)
The most important thing Mr. Will says has nothing to do with Sen. McCain:

McCain is considered morally compromised because he now favors making permanent some of President Bush's tax cuts that he opposed when they were first proposed. But enacting the cuts as temporary was purely a parliamentary maneuver.

Prometheus 6: The Senate concludes deliberations with the spirit of true compromise (April 7, 2006)
Remember, compromise is that state of ambiguity in which everyone can claim a victory. This is the case here. The xenophobe wing is fighting for its constituency, the business wing is fighting for its constituency and the law remains unchanged.

Prometheus 6: Too late for all those regrets (March 23, 2006)
And let me tell you the real threat in the Middle East. If any Arab country in the Middle East gets a single nuclear weapon, Israel's military dominance is gone...

Prometheus 6: I hope the movie is scripted better than the coup... (March 22, 2006)
A new feature documentary shows how gang members in Haiti allegedly became former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's private army...

The Girl Gets Away: No wonder Republicans are so concerned about declining rates of wedlock (March 14, 2006)
I’ll let you in on a little secret, Jeff Jacoby. When we say that, it’s because we’re trying to get you to like us. We know how threatened you can be by women with brains and opinions, and so we try to show no evidence of either when we’re desperate and trying to pick up Jeff Jacoby in a singles bar

Spero Meliora: Redefining Freedom (February 10, 2006)
What I have discovered is that we Americans have traditionally defined our freedoms negatively. That is to say that we deal in terms of what we are free from rather than what we are free to do. We are free from government interference in our speech, but we are not free to communicate by the most common and widely accepted means unless we posess the wealth to purchase the needed communications technology.

Zefrog: Drawn Into The Cartoons Crisis (February 4, 2006)
t apparently all start on 30th September, last year, when, after the author of a book on the prophet Mohammad had complained that he could not find illustrators, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of twelve cartoons representing the prophet.

Akram's Razor: Whose fault is the Danish boycott? (February 1, 2006)
When I look at analysis of the Danish cartoon controversy, I'm struck by how so many otherwise well informed and intelligent commentators simply don't get what's really going on. The basic reasons for and issues involved in this crisis are pretty easy to grasp, but conspicuously absent from most discussions of this saga.

Our Word is Our Weapon: Ah, those free-trading Asian Tigers! (January 27, 2006)
When Heather Stewart of the Observer describes the UK government’s enthusiasm for “the free-trade, high-growth model which has seen the Asian Tigers, China and India burst onto the global market place in the past 20 years”, she neglects to mention that while all of those countries have enjoyed high growth, none of them (unless you count Hong Kong) have used free trade.

Africa Unchained: Donor Darlings' stifle Democracy (November 9, 2005)
In Africa's decade-plus experiment with multiparty democracy, there appears to be significant backsliding, ironically, among some heads of state once heralded as the next generation of great leaders on the continent.

Consider Phlebas: Only Slightly Manic Linking (October 18, 2005)
In the last quasi-philosophy-related item, Matt Yglesias seems to claim that the horror of the Allied bombing of Germany in the Second World War is mitigated by the fact that the Germans could have given up, or overthrown Hitler, or something. I find this incredibly difficult to accept.

Vermetel: Political test (US) (September 27, 2005)
According to this test, I would be a Democrat in the US...

Prometheus 6: Third try (September 5, 2005)
They locked down the entrance doors Thursday at the Baton Rouge hotel where I'm staying alongside hundreds of New Orleans residents driven from their homes by Hurricane Katrina.

"Because of the riots," the hotel managers explained. Armed Gunmen from New Orleans were headed this way, they had heard.

The American Street: More of the same (July 24, 2005)
Egypt’s worst terror attack kills more than 80, signaling jihad has come home

Prometheus 6: I TOLD you I'm not impressed (June 15, 2005)
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) refused repeated requests for a roll call vote that would have put senators on the record on a resolution apologizing for past failures to pass anti-lynching laws, officials involved in the negotiations said Tuesday.

Prometheus 6: I'm shocked...SHOCKED, I tell you... (June 15, 2005)
Though President Bush did not take the time to look out for workers from the United States or Central America, the usual players [major corporations] will be doing just fine under CAFTA.

Prometheus 6: The alternative is...to stop being either capitalist, democratic or both (June 15, 2005)
The income gap between the rich and the rest of the US population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself. Is that a liberal's talking point? Sure. But it's also a line from the recent public testimony of a champion of the free market: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Prometheus 6: Not being realistic (June 15, 2005)
Is anyone thinking what raising the retirement age would do to the job market?

Prometheus 6: Before I fade away for the evening (June 13, 2005)
I saw the Puerto Rican Day Parade today. It's sort of become the Latino Day Parade. I like the parade. I like the Columbus Day Parade too, and St. Patrick's Day one as well. No, I'm not angling for a Martin Luther King Day parade. I'm just noticing a touch of cultural nationalism seems, I dunno...normal.

Prometheus 6: I was going to make a joke of this...but no. (June 13, 2005)
But what does it mean when more than half of a society may suffer "mental illness"?

Prometheus 6: Seriously significant (June 13, 2005)
The world's wealthiest nations formally agreed Saturday to cancel at least $40 billion of debt owed to international agencies by the world's poorest lands, most of them in Africa.

Prometheus 6: Why does Roland Fryer use such imprecise language as "acting white"? (June 9, 2005)
[What] is a "stylized" fact? And that "equilibria" of "all ability types choosing different levels of education" is an unsupported assumption. [...] Two months later comes An Empirical Analysis of ‘Acting White’, where it is said...

Damnum Absque Injuria: Lottsa Personalities? (May 11, 2005)
Tim Lambert thinks he caught John Lott in a lie, and Michelle Malkin appears to agree. It all boils down to the identify of an anonymous Amazon reviewer who calls himself/herself/itself “Economist123? and, alternatively, “Washingtonian2.” Whoever that is wrote a glowing review of Lott’s book, More Guns, Less Crime, albeit a poorly researched and not particularly well written one. This would be very bad if Lambert’s theory proved correct that Economist123 was Lott himself....

Prometheus 6: All the U.S. supported media in the world... (May 3, 2005)
...won't impact the American image in the Middle East as much as this sort of thing [random violence against Iraqis by US troops]

Prometheus 6: My family got no ugly people so I wouldn't know (May 3, 2005)
Canadian researchers have made a startling assertion: parents take better care of pretty children than they do ugly ones.

Body & Soul: Schwarzenegger's seduction (April 30, 2005)
Earlier this morning, I was thinking about how the left benefited from focusing on one big commercial bully, rather than asking people to dig into complicated issues about development, and then I sat down with the Los Angeles Times, and on the front page is the perfect counterpart of framing from the right -- when you're in political trouble, focus on one small, powerless group to bully.

Prometheus 6: Eleanor Clift vs Prometheus 6 (April 20, 2005)
Unearned income (as defined by the US Tax code) is taxed at a much lower rate than earned income. In the U.S. Tax code, unearned income is privileged over earned income, and in Republican political and economic policy even more so.

Prometheus 6: Technically this should have little impact (April 19, 2005)
After last week's market plunge - when America's three main stock gauges fell more than 3 percent - Wall Street and unusually nervous individual investors are looking to the flood of earnings reports this week to see how optimistic corporate America is in its outlook for the economy.This is important, but its importance isn't what most folks think it is

Prometheus 6: The joys of an agrarian society await us all (April 19, 2005)
It's as if we have an industrial-age presidency, catering to a pre-industrial ideological base, in a post-industrial era. [quote from Thomas Friedman]

Prometheus 6: California won't be ready for that discussion until most of them wake up hungry (April 18, 2005)
Chiefly a debate between James R MacLean and DW Shelf over public transportation

Prometheus 6: From an article celebrating the color-blind outlook of Black Republicans. (April 18, 2005)
n fact "radically committed to color-blindness" means "specifically rejecting everything connected with the collective identity you share in and, in the face of all evidence, deny." That requires an exquisitely honed color sensitivity.

Prometheus 6: I have a question (April 16, 2005)
The Bush administration yesterday stepped up its appeals for China to let its currency rise, as pressure mounted in Congress for tougher action on a host of Chinese practices that allegedly fuel the burgeoning U.S. trade deficit...

Prometheus 6: As long as the economy keeps growing you have nothing to complain about. Right? (April 12, 2005)
This is the first time that salaries have increased more slowly than prices since the 1990-91 recession. Though salary growth has been relatively sluggish since the 2001 downturn, inflation also had stayed relatively subdued until last year, when the consumer price index rose 2.7%. But wages rose only 2.5%.

Prometheus 6: The thought experiments (April 11, 2005)
You can tell whether the respondent is Black or white by whether they suggest controlling the environment or controlling the individual.

Prometheus 6: A thought experiment (April 10, 2005)
Consider: if one were bound and determined to make sure Black people remained primarily in the lowest socioeconomic position and were in a position to act effectively toward that end, what steps should one take?

Prometheus 6: The reason they should get another fucking job (April 10, 2005)
The pharmacist who refuses emergency contraception is not just following his moral code, he's trumping the moral beliefs of the doctor and the patient.

Prometheus 6: I'd like to see how this one gets enforced (April 10, 2005)
Spanish men will have to learn to change nappies and don washing-up gloves under the terms of a new law designed to strike a blow at centuries of Latin machismo.

Prometheus 6: A second, totally unrelated, thought experiment (April 10, 2005)
Consider: if one were bound and determined to make sure white people remained primarily in the highest socioeconomic position and were in a position to act effectively toward that end, what steps should one take?

Prometheus 6: I have your answer, James (April 6, 2005)
In the comments to a post about Sen. Cornyn's subtle threat against the federal judiciary, James MacLean said:

Maybe someone should ask Sen. Cornyn how he feels about US. vs. Cruikshank.

US vs. Cruikshank (1870) is one you should know about, P6: according to DuBois, it was the legal case that effectively disabled the 14th & 15th Amendments. The most spectacularly convoluted, contorted logic I've ever seen in a majority opinion.

Prometheus 6: I'm only posting this because the Quote of note is a useful reminder (April 5, 2005)
It was not until 1948 that the flag resurfaced in connection with a white-supremacist political movement, the Dixiecrats, those Southern Democrats who bolted their party in protest against its civil rights program.

Prometheus 6: They're lucky" unloved" is all they feel (April 3, 2005)
"It's not his voting record that's so bad," said Keith Crane, a Connecticut resident who runs DumpJoe.com and is part of an effort to find a primary opponent in 2006 for Mr. Lieberman. "It's his rhetoric that's horrid. We're an opposition party now. That means we all have to stick together."

Prometheus 6: I freely admit projecting the outcome of all this international protectionism is beyond my limited skill (April 5, 2005)
WASHINGTON, April 4 - The Bush administration, reacting to a flood of Chinese clothing imports since January, began a process on Monday to impose import quotas on shirts, trousers and underwear.

Prometheus 6: Justices that are Cornyrd means DeLayed justice (April 5, 2005)
Sen. John Cornyn said yesterday that recent examples of courthouse violence may be linked to public anger over judges who make politically charged decisions without being held accountable.

Prometheus 6: Man, if people keep being realistic our whole economy might collapse (April 3, 2005)
...Reform based on a notion that taxes are bad for the economy is just that: a notion not backed by strong evidence. And the costs of ignoring experience in favor of hope can be high: mounting deficits, decaying infrastructure, inadequate investment in public education and research.

Prometheus 6: We need more nuclear weapons in the hands of law abiding nations too (April 3, 2005)
Paul Bucher, the district attorney for the Wisconsin county where a man opened fire in a church service last month, killing seven people and himself, has one answer to the deadly mass shootings around the country in recent weeks: more guns.

The Head Heeb: Deja Vu (March 29, 2005)
Lebanese caretaker prime minister Omar Karami is expected to announce on Thursday that he will resign for a second time after failing to form a national unity government. This will be precisely 30 days after his original resignation, and three weeks after he was reappointed by President Emile Lahoud. His second departure will force Lahoud to resume consultations with the members of Parliament and restart the process of forming a government from scratch, possibly delaying the general election.

The Head Heeb: The Next Revolution (March 28, 2005)
In case anyone was uncertain up to now, the events in Kyrgyzstan have made it crystal clear that the world is in its biggest wave of sustained grass-roots revolution since 1989. During the past two years, protesters in six countries have succeeded in driving governments out of office, with four of the incidents happening within the past six months. Not all of these have led to immediate democratization - the two Bolivian revolts have left the political system largely unchanged, and the jury's still out on Kyrgyzstan and Lebanon - but the idea that the people can overthrow a repressive government has taken firm root... Which leads to the inevitable question: who's next?

Dove's Eye View: The Forward on Columbia U. (February 11, 2005)
As'ad Abu-Khalil tips us to an article in the Forward Newspaper Online: Columbia Students Say Firestorm Blurs Campus Reality. This whole business has me depressed and mildly paranoid. It's a sign of hope that the Forward is taking a measured position on it.

Prometheus 6: Wrong question (November 12, 2004)
Before the election it was often asked, "Is it better for America to be liked or respected?" No one asked the about the third option: neither liked nor respected.

Body & Soul: Uncomfortably numb... (November 3, 2004)
...and unfortunately the numbness is starting to wear off... A few days ago, I got an e-mail from a reporter asking what I would do if Bush won. Among other things, I said that I would almost surely shut down the blog and spend more of my time writing poetry and fiction, because I think I've said everything I have to say about how bad Bush is, but I don't think I have yet gotten every story I have to tell out of my system.

Prometheus 6: Security moms, NASCAR dads...Bush even makes up voters (October 3, 2004)
Stories in recent weeks have hailed the distinctiveness and political importance of security moms. But like the now-discredited "NASCAR dads" swing group before them, there is little if any hard evidence that security moms will have a distinctive impact in this election -- or that they even exist as a distinct group, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll

Prometheus 6: You haven't made the case for Black people to vote for George Bush (October 1, 2004)
You ["Molotov"] were providing reasons Black people should vote for George Bush. I say you haven't met the condition. You haven't given valid reason because you credit Bush with actions taken Black people in the face of his specific refusal to address the specific issues Black folks have.

Prometheus 6: Um, what happened to John McWhorter? (September 9, 2004)
It's time we descendants of slaves brought to the United States let go of the term "African American" and go back to calling ourselves Black — with a capital B.

Prometheus 6: You mean fucking people up ISN'T the best way to get information? (September 7, 2004)
BAGHDAD -- The US military is reaping more high-quality intelligence tips from Iraqi prisoners than ever, since it jettisoned several coercive interrogation techniques after the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal in May, the American general in charge of Iraqi prisons said yesterday.

Prometheus 6: Future advantages of wealth (August 29, 2004)
So you can already buy HGH (Human Growth Hormone) to make your kid some four inches taller and fifty pounds heavier. And you can buy a better education, better equipment and medical care. I can't say this is all bad, but I can say it would suck if only the wealthy could have it. And it would be worse to do it strictly for cosmetic reasons.

Prometheus 6: Dole is senile and just says what they tell him to say (August 25, 2004)
I'm sorry, but when I read

"He's got himself into this wicket now where he can't extricate himself because not every one of these people can be Republican liars,'' said Mr. Dole, whose right arm was left limp by a war injury. "There's got to be some truth to the charges," he said.

Prometheus 6: There are two things I would like to make clear (August 20, 2004)