I took a look at the web site from commenter "Obsidian"
and came across this wonderful map he posted.
So much for the skiplaoders of crap we've heard over the last four years about a Red America and a Blue America. This map shows 2000 voting by county, not by state. It mostly shows that Americans, in [...]

Thousand of articles and blog-postings worldwide have already been generated in response to the so-called "Lancet Report"� which suggests 100,000 Iraqi war deaths.
Let's add one more. One of our most intrepid and industrious blog commenters — none other than the now infamous GMroper — who stirred it up here last week with his profiling [...]

Don't ask me how the new Osama Bin Laden tape is going to affect the Bush and Kerry campaigns. I haven't a clue.
I do know how it ought to affect the rest of us. OBL's non-chalant manner of justifying and vowing more mass death ought to chill us.
Equally chilling is the report coming today [...]

The Bush administration is in Deep Caca over Al Qaqaa. Minnesota TV station KSTP has produced what seems to be the smoking gun video"� or to use Condi's phraseology, the mushroom cloud video.
Turns out that the station's embedded reporters arrived at Al Qaqaa on April 18 2003, nine days after the fall of [...]

Are we watching the death agony of American Conservativism — even if Bush wins on Tuesday? Mark Schmitt, over at The Decembrist is convinced of it. His polemic caught my attention last week and I've been meaning to post on it and have just gotten around to it. Make sure you read his entire essay [...]

For the first time since 1972 I will be voting for a Democrat for President.
But I do so with no illusions. I don't think the election will "settle"� much of anyhing.
Nor do I believe that this is the Most Important Election In My Lifetime.
Please take a moment and read my full argument in my [...]

Cuba's Fidel Castro announced today that the U.S. dollar -- which has been legal tender in Cuba for the last decade-- will no longer be accepted for consumer purchases. Cubans will now have to trade their dollars for funny money scrip issued by the state. The exchange is one to one MINUS A [...]

After I posted an analysis of John Kerry's larded speech style by Slate's Chris Suellentroplast week, one of our regular blog commenters, "GM"� wrote a thoughtful profile of the Democratic candidate.
He was then besieged by other readers to do a similar breakdown of George W. Bush and "GM"� — a Bush supporter--willingly complied.
I found [...]

April 11, 2003. Donald Rumsfeld on the insignificance of looting in Iraq:
"The task we've got ahead of us now is an awkward one ... It's untidy. And freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. [...]

Time to show off your brain power. Below find two passages of steamy fiction.
Your task: Guess who wrote them:

The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve crossing a dark cathedral stage -- no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they knew would not be able to once they ate of [...]

The readers of this blog have been very very good. Now it's time for your reward. If you thought Jon Stewart was great on Crossfire, then Triumph, The Insult Dog is FABULOUS! Click on the link below and prepare yourself for the funniest six minutes you'll have this year.
Triumph goes to Spin Alley after [...]

Lo and behold, Christopher Hitchens returns to The Nation magazine in a one-week guest starring performance"�sort of. This week's issue of America's oldest weekly journal of opinion carries a thousand word piece by Hitch on why he's "slightly"� for Bush come November 2nd. (David Corn has an excellent companion piece in the same issue, by [...]

I attended the PEN USA Literary Awards banquet tonight in Los Angeles and among the presenters was Susan Estrich. Watching her onstage brought back nightmarish flashbacks to the 1988 Michael Dukakis campaign of which she was the General Manager (something I would pay any price to have expunged from my official bio).
But I did [...]

There's a fascinating story coming of Mexico today about the dissident grandson of Che Guevara — Canek Sanchez Guevara. He's published an open letter from Mexico denouncing Fidel Castro as an "aged tyrant"� and as "messianic"� leader who persecutes trade unionists and poets alike.
Some background:
I first met Che's grandson — Canek Sanchez- in [...]

One reason why Iraq is not like Vietnam is that there was no Internet back then. If soldiers then had some way to constructively blow off their discontent perhaps there would have been fewer fraggings"� and, more importantly, fewer cases of G.I.'s who came back home suffering from irreversible trauma.
By contrast, American soldiers today [...]

Only George W. Bush is tough enough to keep us safe, remember? But his administration can't provide armored trucks for the reservists in Iraq who have to drive into the fiery maw.
That's what seems to be underlying the refusal of eighteen U.S. soldiers earlier this week to obey an order. Word coming [...]

The fate of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet still hangs in the balance. A thee-doctor panel selected two weeks ago to review his fitness for trial has come back with a split decision. The heroic investigative magistrate, Judge Juan Guzman, will decide most likely next week how or if to proceed with murder charges against [...]

A couple of postings down the blog you'll find media critic Jay Rosen's razor-sharp analysis of the Sinclair Broacasting to-do. Now, Rosen's back with another must-read posting.
Rosen argues that John kerry is making a mistake by dismissing Sinclair's offer to have him on the air to somehow answer the pseudo-doc "Stolen Honor." Sinclair is pre-empting [...]

I'm on record a few posts down saying that Kerry's reference to Cheney's Lesbian daughter in the last presidential debate was a low blow. It was a blatant act of political opportunism designed to drive a wedge between the VP and his most reactionary followers.
It was NOT, however, an offensive comment. Let me repeat: Opportunistic [...]

Lots of huffing and puffing going on about the decision by the Sinclair Broadcast Group -- owner of 62 TV stations in 39 different markets--to order pre-emption of some of its prime time programming so that in the last few weeks of the campaign it can repeatedly air the crude anti-Kerry propaganda film Stolen Honor.
It's [...]