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To commemorate the end of National Poetry Month, today is Poem In Your Pocket Day. And for us ItarWebby types, it's also Poem On Your Blog Day. via Sharon at Watermark
comment posted at 2:35 PM on Apr-30-04

How to Get Out of Iraq by Peter Galbraith

Much of what went wrong was avoidable. Focused on winning the political battle to start a war, the Bush administration failed to anticipate the postwar chaos in Iraq. Administration strategy seems to have been based on a hope that Iraq's bureaucrats and police would simply transfer their loyalty to the new authorities, and the country's administration would continue to function. All experience in Iraq suggested that the collapse of civil authority was the most likely outcome, but there was no credible planning for this contingency. In fact, the US effort to remake Iraq never recovered from its confused start when it failed to prevent the looting of Baghdad in the early days of the occupation.
comment posted at 3:42 PM on Apr-27-04
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comment posted at 2:57 PM on Apr-28-04
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comment posted at 6:19 PM on Apr-28-04
comment posted at 2:26 PM on Apr-29-04

March for Choice - Estimates range from 500,000 to more than a million in attendance. With an all-star turnout and a lot of pink, it is one of the largest events to take place on the Mall in Washington D.C.; but how much of an impact will it have on history?
comment posted at 1:56 PM on Apr-26-04
comment posted at 2:30 PM on Apr-26-04
comment posted at 4:15 PM on Apr-26-04
comment posted at 4:39 PM on Apr-26-04
comment posted at 5:38 PM on Apr-26-04

No Communion for Pro-Choice Politicians
Apparently they have some issue with women having control over their own bodies so they'll deny communion to pro-choice politicians.
Hey, isn't John Kerry a pro-choice Catholic? This couldn't have anything to do with him could it?
Isn't a divisive move like this more likely to result in more people leaving the "faith"?
comment posted at 12:38 PM on Apr-23-04

NFL player , who walked away from a $3.6 million contract in the aftermath of 9/11 to join his brother in the Special Forces, dies in Afganistan. Unselfishness personified.
comment posted at 12:47 PM on Apr-23-04

Red vs. Blue and Political Self-Segregation:

“Republicans and Democrats joke these days that they can’t understand each other, that they feel as though they live on different planets. It’s no joke. They do. One of the reasons American politics is so bitter is that Republicans and Democrats are less likely today to live in the same community than at any time in the last 55 years.”

The Austin-American Statesman’s Bill Bishop begins a series of articles on the increasing political segregation across the US—a variety of segregation that has surprisingly increased while others (for example, racial) have declined. Timothy Noah of Slate has some thoughts. For background, it’s been discussed elsewhere that the traditional 2000 election red vs. blue state map is misleading and that a gradated county map might be more enlightening. Here’s one. Here’s an analysis with a different take on the data. And here are some other interesting cartograms of that election’s results. [Alternative Links Inside]
comment posted at 1:02 PM on Apr-22-04

Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey are soldiers who went AWOL and fled to Canada. They share their stories on their websites. [Via Plastic.]
comment posted at 2:14 PM on Apr-20-04

Ice Age Floods Institute. In recent geological time immensely powerful, cataclysmic Ice Age Floods regularly swept across the Pacific Northwest. A proposed Ice Age Floods National Geological Trail is in the works. Virtual tour of Glacial Lake Missoula.
comment posted at 9:15 AM on Apr-19-04

Khaaan!! I have no idea why I find this amusing.
comment posted at 2:08 PM on Apr-19-04

HR 3077 - "unprecedented federally mandated intrusion into the content and conduct of university-based area studies programmes."

"There is a great deal at stake for American higher education and academic freedom. If HR 3077 becomes law - the Senate will review the bill next - it will create a board that monitors how closely universities reflect government policy. Since the legislation assumes that any flaw lies 'with the experts, not the policy', the government could be given the power to introduce politically sympathetic voices into the academic mainstream and to reshape the boundaries of academic inquiry. Institutional resistance would presumably be punished by the withdrawal of funds, which would be extremely damaging to Middle East centres especially."

you didn't have reason to call your congressperson tomorrow? you do now. frightening.

via the excellent openbrackets.com
comment posted at 8:30 PM on Apr-16-04

Help U.S. Marines Equip TV Stations in Iraq US Marines seek to equip seven (7) television stations serving local communities within Al Anbar Province, Iraq. The Province includes the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. These stations will offer information that is more accurate and balanced than existing alternatives. The goal is to improve understanding between Americans and Iraqis, build trust and reduce tensions.
comment posted at 6:40 PM on Apr-14-04

Forget Fiction And Non-Fiction, Bud: Is The Book Liberal Or Conservative? The National Review's bestseller list (scroll down and click) is starkly divided into "Conservative Bestsellers" and "Liberal Bestsellers". Is this a quirky innovation and deliberate provocation or just plain stupid and sad? Does such a dichotomy in fact exist? How would the literature of the world fit into such a classification? (This isn't the end of the world as we know it, is it?)
comment posted at 6:04 PM on Apr-14-04

She's no Barbie To readers of Russian Fairy tales, the name Alyona conjures images of simple peasant girls who become princesses through modesty, hard work and intelligence. A modern day Alyona has surfaced in the cut-throat world of beauty pageants.
comment posted at 6:29 PM on Apr-14-04
comment posted at 7:41 PM on Apr-14-04

The $700 Million Gyroscope. A spacecraft set to test Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is now on the launch pad, with the world's most accurate gyroscopes stowed away inside. The experiment will have cost $700 million when the data is in and finally analysed. What practical benefits will the average American reap from this?
comment posted at 2:18 PM on Apr-13-04
comment posted at 6:15 PM on Apr-13-04

Men aged 18-25, have you got your lighters ready? It's going to be draft time soon, according to the Nader campaign. The Selective Service denies it.
comment posted at 2:33 PM on Apr-13-04
comment posted at 6:27 PM on Apr-13-04

Kwaito: post-apartheid South African music. What does a community of musicians do when the politics they are singing against finally collapse? They strike out in a new direction. Kwaito is a danceable multilingual hip-house, sort of, which has become not one kwaito, but many, during the last ten years or more. A history. The kwaito story. A kwaito tour tale, with more kwaito news in the sidebar. Audio samples 1, 2, 3 (click on the album covers). Full MP3s: Kwaito by KGB. Fabulous Day (Kwaito Mix), by Redd Angel. A couple more full songs here. A music video by Bongo Maffin.
comment posted at 4:00 PM on Apr-9-04

today's challenge: what do you do with those darn minority extremists when their numbers keep growing?
comment posted at 4:41 PM on Apr-8-04
comment posted at 5:49 PM on Apr-8-04

Sabra. Shatila. Falluja? At least 280 people killed. 400 more wounded. Many more buried in the rubble. A city with 300,000 civilians and no food. No water. Nowhere to bury the dead. No place to run. No end in sight. Only one camera crew is currently in Falluja. These are the pictures that are being broadcast across the entire Arab world. So... which is worse? Is it justifiable? An act of liberation? A horrific mistake? Or is it a war crime?!
comment posted at 8:19 AM on Apr-8-04

the city of najaf is no longer under coalition control, ahead of an important pilgrimage. the secretary of state: "people who are considering engaging in the pilgrimage ought to very carefully calculate because we're not in a position to provide protection."
comment posted at 4:55 PM on Apr-7-04

The New York Press lists the 50 most loathsome New Yorkers. Time to get your hate on! Here's a sample to get you started:#18 Moby Musician IT WAS BAD enough when Moby started singing; now he's singing and talking at the same time. When not crooning school-girl poetry (see "We Are All Made of Stars") or desecrating classic punk songs between hissy fits on stage, the techno prophet cum vegan ethicist of the early 90s is schooling credulous fans on a wide range of contemporary issues. Between lessons in Nicaraguan history and tales of Rummy's early-80s holidays in Baghdad, Moby pontificates in prose that would make even DJ Spooky cringe ("We're so inherently locked into our temporal and corporeal selves that we're irrevocably locked into subjectivity") and Michael Stipe wince ("cos at the end of the day peace is better than war, right?"). We're thankful for "Go" and the car commercial songs on Play, but mister, please put your space helmet back on, get in your space ship and don't stop till you hit Pluto.
comment posted at 2:29 PM on Apr-7-04

U.S. job growth strongest in 4 years in March. Non-farm payrolls climbed 308,000 in March, the Labor Department said, the biggest gain since April 2000. However, the unemployment rate actually ticked upward from 5.6%, the two-year low seen in January and February, to 5.7% in March. Note in passing that this took place during the Bush administration!
comment posted at 3:36 PM on Apr-2-04

With Ahmed Chalabi poised to take control of post-occupation Iraq--one year after the start of the war--Congress' General Accounting Office is beginning to ask questions about the operations of his Iraqi National Congress. A piece of evidence submitted by Chalabi was a list of 108 news items which were placed in mainstream media by INC-coordinated (and Pentagon-funded) defectors. Who are other Mefites' favorite fraudsters?
comment posted at 5:57 PM on Apr-1-04

Missile Defense- the biggest security lapse on 9/11. Condoleeza Rice was to deliver a speech regarding the White House's position on national security on September 11th, 2001. The speech contained no mention of al-Qaeda and stated missile defense as the central focus of security, implicating Bill Clinton for "not doing enough about the real threat - long-range missiles." An interesting revelation coming from the campaign claiming their opponents are "wrong on defense."
comment posted at 2:21 PM on Apr-1-04
comment posted at 3:53 PM on Apr-2-04

Richard Clarke asks MoveOn to remove his name and recordings of his voice from their new advert. MoveOn refuses.
comment posted at 2:00 PM on Mar-31-04
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comment posted at 2:31 PM on Mar-31-04
comment posted at 5:39 PM on Mar-31-04

The Dave Sim Misogyny Page - and a recent Onion interview. I find Dave Sim (comic book artist, notable for long-running, multiplevolume Cerebus) to have deeply troubling, almost poisoned ideas about women.(despite his efforts, these bitter screeds are almost unexplainable,unless someone here can explain them, that is - please!)Beware if you've never read them. And laugh with me, an apparentlyweak male-feminist (and lovin it!) if you have. Viva la Void.
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Mar-31-04

Declaring the Era of the Peace Kingdom "They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent. This resolution has been announced on every corner of the globe. Respected guests, it is now only a matter of time. Look at the world. Do you see anything that gives you real hope for the future? Sooner or later, we have to give what we have to our descendants and leave this world. What gift could be more precious than that of completing the family ideal in your family, so as to guarantee eternal peace and happiness for your children? Surely no one who has such an opportunity should hesitate to take up the task of building the peace kingdom on earth, for which God has waited thousands of years." --Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Address to the United States Congress, March 23, 2004 via Atrios
comment posted at 2:17 PM on Mar-30-04

March For Women - because America is not a great place to be a woman. The time is right for a public demonstration of historic size in support of reproductive freedom and justice for all women. Threats to these rights have never been so systematic and coordinated, and the lives and health of women have never faced such peril. See ya there! I will be the woman in the embroidered denim jacket - the one my mom wore when she marched for the exact same rights, 40-odd years ago. sigh.
comment posted at 3:04 PM on Mar-30-04
comment posted at 3:16 PM on Mar-30-04

The peace process in the Ivory Coast has collapsed (again). I haven't seen it reported yet but have it first hand from an official stationed there that the UN is evacuating all personnel. The evacuations in 2002 were limited compared to this. How could the Ivory Coast have come to this point? What does this mean for the rest of the region? sigh
comment posted at 3:09 PM on Mar-29-04

George Lakoff writes in his book Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think that the book began with a conversation about a single question that might be used to tell liberals from conservatives. His friend offered the question: "If your baby cries at night, do you pick him up?" Is there a basic belief that underlies all conservative and liberal positions? Lakoff's answer, that our politics are connected to how we view family, is summarized in this interview. Is he right? What about you, what makes you a conservative or a liberal?
comment posted at 3:30 PM on Mar-29-04

The world's greatest humanitarian crisis is happening in the Darfur region of Sudan. The US special envoy, John Danforth, asks, "Is the US engagement in Sudan worthwhile? There are so many issues in the world that need out attention."

Maybe he should ask some of the refugees.
comment posted at 5:55 PM on Mar-22-04

One year later "It's easy to send soldiers off to war. It's a lot harder to face them when they come home"
comment posted at 2:51 PM on Mar-21-04