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Archive: Dec 2007

Dickens on the Common Business of Humankind

“It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes…

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It Happened in New Hampshire

A number of my readers in New England are miffed. “You spend too much time looking at Justice Department criminality south of the Mason-Dixon line,” writes one. “But there’s plenty…

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A Christmas Proposal

Few human activities are more popular than war, and yet the negative consequences of actual battle, with its inevitable atrocities, often are very high. Therefore when the philosopher William James…

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Roosevelt on Human Rights in the Small Places

Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.…

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Siegelman Accuser Released

The nation’s highest profile political prosecution just got a little smellier–as if that were possible. U.S. Attorney Leura Canary and her chief prosecutor, Louis Franklin, built their case against Siegelman…

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When Does an FBI Investigation Look Like Omertà?

In Italy’s Mezzogiorno, haven since the Renaissance to well-organized criminal gangs with their own elaborate social structure, there is a code of conduct known as “omertà.” Letizia Paoli defines it,…

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Vladimir Putin: Person of the Year

A little earlier this year, an American Bar Association publication announced it was tapping Alberto Gonzales as its “Lawyer of the Year.” The selection produced a torrent of derisive comment.…

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Klopstock’s No Wars of Aggression!

Kein Eroberungskrieg! So scholl das heilige Wort einst, Das ihr uns gabt, verehret, als nie verehret ein Volk ward; Und (so deucht’ es uns) Stimmen Unsterblicher wiederholten: Künftig nicht mehr…

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Voltaire on the Danger of Being Right When Those in Authority Are Wrong

En 1686, il fit l’allégorie de Miro et d’Énégu; c’est Rome et Genève. Cette plaisanterie si connue, jointe à l’Histoire des oracles, excita depuis contre lui une persécution. Il en…

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Just Another Day for the Department of Justice

Wednesday, December 19, 2007. The House Judiciary Committee convenes a hearing to look into the Justice Department’s handling of allegations of crime involving contractors in Iraq. It started with the…

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Austen: When a Woman Must Conceal Her Knowledge

Catherine assented — and a very warm panegyric from her on that lady’s merits closed the subject. The Tilneys were soon engaged in another on which she had nothing to…

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The Apocalypse PAC: Congressman McCotter leads crusade against Islam, Commies, and Democrats

The apocalypse is nigh and though you might not be able to save yourself, you can get to heaven by giving, generously, to Congressman Thaddeus G. McCotter’s newly established Champions…

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What the Jamie Leigh Jones Case Teaches Us

I testified today at the Judiciary Committee’s hearings on the KBR rape case. The Department of Justice declined to send a representative to the hearing–“an absolute disgrace,” in the words…

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Blake’s ‘Proverbs of Hell’

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. The road of excess leads to the palace…

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Blake on Knowledge Through Experience

As the true method of knowledge is experiment, the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty which experiences. This faculty I treat of. —William Blake, All Religions Are One,…

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Bush Investigations Overload

Under normal circumstances, a criminal investigation of a Cabinet Secretary would be a big deal. But with all the political scandals now swirling about, there’s been virtually no media attention…

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On the Hunt: Bush backer seeks $1 billion for Peru project

Beginning tomorrow and over the next few weeks, the World Bank and other lenders will be voting, apparently in favor, on a package worth more than $1 billion to support…

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Obligations Ignored

This morning we pick up the newspaper or turn on the broadcast news and hear a mixture of seasonal human-interest stories. Then the “real” news drum starts. Jacko has made…

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Jonas on the Duty to Subsequent Generations

Da spätere Menschen auf jeden Fall da sein werden, gibt ihnen, wenn es so weit ist, ihr unerbetenes Dasein das Recht, uns Frühere als Urheber ihres Unglücks zu verklagen, wenn…

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Weekly Review

An American cattleman. Members of a North African faction of Al Qaeda detonated bombs at the U.N. complex in Algeria and at the country’s Supreme Court, killing at least 26…

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Karl Rove, William Canary, and the Siegelman Case

A trio of reporters at Raw Story has just published further details relating to the involvement of Karl Rove in the campaign of Alabama Governor Bob Riley and in the…

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Another Milestone on the Road to Serfdom

Very rarely, I read a press account and see the footprint of a new world—there it is, lurking amidst the smudged black ink in the thin column. Sometimes it is…

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How Much American Support for Turkish Air Strike?

“Turkey yesterday launched the biggest attack on Iraq since the US invasion in 2003, sending more than 50 warplanes to bomb suspected Kurdish insurgent bases inside Iraqi territory,” the Guardian…

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Stevens’s ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’

I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.…

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James and the World of Creation

To live in the world of creation—to get into it and stay in it—to frequent it and haunt it—to think intensely and fruitfully—to woo combinations and inspirations into being by…

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Bush Assails the JAG Corps

One of the myths of the Bush Administration regards its relation with the military. The facts are very stark. This Administration consists largely of men and women who evaded military…

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A Question of Impeachment

Culture Project brings crucial and timely concerns to the fore once again with a new, unique series that gathers some of the most brilliant and visionary minds of our time…

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