drat fink
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rascal racicot
"The political reforms passed after Watergate had two somewhat paradoxical consequences. On the positive side, outright, cash-in-a-bag corruption became quite rare in Washington. On the negative side, sleaze got much more inventive. The fruits of this trend included such instruments of dubious virtue and technical legality as corporate soft money, "honoraria" for speech-making, campaign contribution "bundling," insider stock deals for members of Congress, and ever more blatant forms of influence-peddling."
df tribune
The Future of bin Ladenism
Pipeline Politics
Carlyle's Way
Bush Family Value$
Bad Intelligence Causing Pentagon-CIA Rift
A Creeping Collapse in Credibility at the White House
band on the run
"There, boasted a flurry of HBO press releases, several dozen construction workers had labored mightily to build an 80-square-foot high-definition movie screen, a viewing tent, and a reception area that could accommodate up to 1,000 guests, "as well as lounge and bar space." The occasion for all this was not so much the annual D-day commemoration, which was squeezed in after lunch, but an event that had for all intents and purposes replaced it: the star-studded premiere of Band of Brothers--a $125-million television miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, based on the book by Stephen E. Ambrose, telling the true-life story of Easy Company, and appearing on a TV screen near you in early September."
clear channel
"The United States is more likely to suffer a nuclear, chemical or biological attack from terrorists using ships, trucks or airplanes than one by a foreign country using long-range missiles, according to a new U.S. intelligence estimate."
df gazette
Saudi Arabia's anti-American fiction
Arms Buildup Enriches Firm Staffed by Big Guns
Is George W. Bush God’s President?
The Nixon Story You Never Heard
the wright approach
"It's true that, with victory coming sooner than just about anyone (including Krauthammer) predicted, street demonstrations died young. Regimes weren't toppled. But my main concern was never about regimes being toppled. My concern was—and is—about what may be the scariest trend in the world: Thanks to technological evolution, man-in-the-street rage, even if it doesn't assume regime-toppling form, is increasingly lethal. Very small groups of people—including groups of one—can take a real toll on the national psyche."
memo to tyndall
"But agree or disagree with Mr. Sullivan, it’s hard to deny that he is the surprising new media/political development of the post–Sept. 11 period. A media/political development because he’s gone beyond his influential print platforms, The Times of London and The Times of New York. What gives him an edge in impact and reach over Mr. Hitchens (and just about everyone else) is the way he’s turned his political Web site (Web zine, Web log, online diary—whatever you want to call andrewsullivan.com) into a powerful weapon of nonstop, 24/7, omnipresent total-surveillance panoptican punditry. Using his political Web zine (a form pioneered by Mickey Kaus in his witty Kausfiles.com), he’s done more than just frame the debate; he’s dominated it, smothered it with an overwhelming energy and forcefulness that allows him to riddle his opponents with ceaseless real-time hectoring and invective and polemic."
infinity in sound
esquivel's space has popped...2...3...cha cha cha
occidents will happen
"In 1942, not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a group of Japanese philosophers got together in Kyoto to discuss Japan's role in the world. The project of this ultra-nationalist gathering was, as they put it, to find a way to "overcome modern civilization." Since modern civilization was another term for Western civilization, the conference might just as well have been entitled "Overcoming the West." In a complete reversal of the late-nineteenth-century goal of "leaving Asia and joining the West," Japan was now fighting a "holy war" to liberate Asia from the West and purify Asian minds of Western ideas. Part of the holy war was, as it were, an exercise in philosophical cleansing."
tell us what you really think
"Disgruntled has-beens everywhere have a new hero and role model: Bernard Goldberg, the one-time CBS News correspondent and full-time addlepated windbag who is trying to make a second career out of trashing his former employer. Goldberg has picked this moment in time to haul out the old canard about the media being "liberal" and the news being slanted leftward."