Archive: Aug 2009

Today the Justice Department is required to release the “Rosetta Stone” of the torture issue, the massive report on an internal investigation conducted by John L. Helgerson. The release has…

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Musik: Atem der Statuen. Vielleicht: Stille der Bilder. Du Sprache wo Sprachen enden. Du Zeit die senkrecht steht auf der Richtung vergehender Herzen. Gefühle zu wem? O du der Gefühle…

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Wie die Bienen den Honig zusammentragen, so holen wir das Süßeste aus allem und bauen Ihn. Mit dem Geringen sogar, mit dem Unscheinbaren (wenn es nur aus Liebe geschieht) fangen…

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The watershed moment came last September, when the FDA approved a clinical trial on the use of LSD to treat anxiety in cancer patients. According to the Multidisciplinary Association for…

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A few years ago, when I was trying to fathom Karl Rove’s approach to politics, one of Rove’s Texas business associates pointed me to a strategy memo that Rove wrote…

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From Fox: > Police are looking for the people who stole the head of baby Jesus off a marble statue at a church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. > “Somewhere someone is…

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In “Inside the World of Dusty Foggo,” I puzzled over the Times’s failure to identify one of the CIA black sites that Foggo built for the CIA. As noted, it…

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Joe Klein, looking at the development of the health care debate, forms some judgments about the G.O.P. that Karl Rove built: To be sure, there are honorable conservatives, trying to…

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Skepticism about an excess of brains in government has persisted so long in large part due to the vividness of David Halberstam’s study of the McNamara cohort. His book played…

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Mark Mazzetti reports in the New York Times: The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program…

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From Haaretz: She believes Obama poses a threat to Israel not only because of his support of radical Islamic groups such as Hamas, but also because of his “radical socialist”…

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From The Onion: After months of committee meetings and hundreds of hours of heated debate, the United States Congress remained deadlocked this week over the best possible way to deny…

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From IPS: Afghanistan’s presidential election has long been viewed by U.S. officials as a key to conferring legitimacy on the Afghan government, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his powerful…

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From Harper’s:Findings From “Findings” in the August 2009 Harper’s. Scientists made graduate students provoke spitting cobras into attacking them, coordinated assaults on humans by mockingbirds, induced regret in monkeys, and…

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On July 23, Acting U.S. Attorney in New Jersey Ralph Marra grabbed the nation’s attention by stepping before the cameras to announce the fruits of a long political corruption investigation…

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From the St. Petersburg Times: On Aug. 1, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office responded to a home burglary. Among the stolen items — original records that purportedly showed illegal reimbursements…

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With only days to go before the election in Afghanistan, it looks like the fix is in. That’s what most Afghans have been saying all along. The danger now is…

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Great read from the New York Post (via Talkingpointsmemo): On Dec. 4, 2001, five members of a Las Vegas-based charter crew were detained by Russian authorities after they landed without…

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Movement conservatives in the legal profession avoid comparison with foreign legal systems and deride judges who look abroad to see what others do. Perhaps that’s because they know that if…

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From Foreign Policy: The release of John Yettaw to Senator Jim Webb illustrates just how tricky the engagement calculus is. Yettaw is the Missouri man who said a vision compelled…

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From ProPublica: >The United States has turned to the cheapest labor possible. About two-thirds of the 200,000 civilians working under federal contracts in the war zones are foreigners. Many come…

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The Obama Administration abandoned its quest for a public, government-run health-care option for the uninsured. Protesters waved signs that read “Death to Obama” and depicted the president with an Adolph…

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The first sound you hear is the high-pitched wheeze of 60 dentists’ drills buzzing inside of open mouths. Splayed out on a show floor generally reserved for millionaire athletes and…

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In the last several months, a political storm has brewed around a religious right group called the Family and its center of activities, a residential dwelling reported for tax purposes…

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Today, John Yoo returns to teach at Boalt Hall, the prestigious law school of the University of California at Berkeley. Alumni and students are marking the occasion with a protest.…

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Rick Perlstein provides the context and history: > It used to be different. You never heard the late Walter Cronkite taking time on the evening news to “debunk” claims that…

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Libera Nos, Domine.—Deliver us, O Lord, not only from British dependence, but also From a junto that labour with absolute power, Whose schemes disappointed have made them look sour, From…

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