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Archive: Oct 2009

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Yet now, he says, it is clear the American experiment has been “a failure.” It was all for nothing. Soon the country will be ranked “somewhere between Brazil and Argentina,…

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Justice Department Officials Refuse to Testify Under Oath

A meeting of the House Intelligence Committee abruptly terminated this morning when Justice Department officials called to testify about their review of an internal CIA report on the 2001 shootdown…

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When Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction

Barry Eisler’s novel Fault Line opens with a U.S. government hit team taking out an Iranian nuclear scientist on a visit to Istanbul. Eisler, a former covert operative for the…

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Then there is the fact that it is difficult. I got quite a good degree, a long time ago admittedly, in classics and philosophy, and thought I could understand Plato’s…

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Twittering in the First Degree

International summitry has attracted over the past few years an array of protesters. Some are peaceful, out to make a point about the lack of accountability of the international system…

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U.S. Most Admired Nation, Poll Finds

What a difference an election makes. The National Brand Index, a ranking of countries on the basis of their perceived position in culture, governance, people, exports, tourism, landscape and education,…

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There is a dark irony to the faintly racist idea that Afghans are unprincipled mercenaries available to the highest bidders, especially given the rampant panic in Washington at the inescapable…

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Six Questions for Joe Berlinger about Crude

Ted Trautman contributed reporting for this interview. Joe Berlinger is the director and producer of the new movie “Crude: The Real Price of Oil,” which tells the story of an…

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Enlighten Us, Please

We’ve just gone through the era of “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in which any social question was put through a test against scripture, as interpreted by the likes of…

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Weekly Review

Caught in the Web, 1860. The International Monetary Fund said that the global economy was improving and that banks would probably have to absorb another $1.5 trillion in losses in…

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An appeal to the Golden Rule increases opposition to torture among every subgroup of white evangelicals. For example, only about one third (34%) of white evangelicals who attend worship services…

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Philosophers Rumble Over Van Gogh’s Shoes

Cologne’s Wallraf Richartz Museum has launched an impressive new exhibition entitled “Vincent van Gogh: Shoes,” built around a celebrated painting by the Dutch master from 1886. Some might wonder how…

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The People v. The Torture Team: Six Questions for Law & Order’s René Balcer

“It is not disloyal to hold our officials to the highest standards of conduct.” That statement comes from a prosecutor near the end of the trial of a group of…

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From the Department of Self-Parody

Writing at Belief.net, Rod Dreher highlights a new initiative on the religious right: the Conservative Bible Project. The effort aims to rewrite the Bible to remove its notorious liberal bias…

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Stiffed by Obama: Dalai Lama told to take a number

From the Washington Post: In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until…

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Obama Helps Oversee Vote Fraud in Afghanistan

Imagine if the Bush Administration were helping cover up the vote farce in Afghanistan? How much bloviating would be emanating from the liberal blogosphere at this point? From Peter Galbraith:…

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Arnold’s To a Friend

Who prop, thou ask’st in these bad days, my mind?– He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen, And Tmolus hill,…

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Forster–What the Great Minds Tell Us in Sad Times

After letting myself go lately on the depressing subject of military tattoos and tainted investments, I thought, as I often do, of a line of Matthew Arnold’s: “Who prop, thou…

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The Case of Fouad al-Rabiah: Airline manager or terrorist?

It’s worth diving into one of those 38 habeas cases to get a taste of the arguments that are being made. One decided late last week by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly,…

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The Worst of the Worst?

For seven years, the Bush Administration told us that the prisoners held at Guantánamo were the “worst of the worst.” These are the kind of people who would chew through…

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With so many questionable loans on the books (the FBI estimates that mortgage fraud increased 10-fold from 2001 to 2007), it’s no wonder that our current housing market has been…

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It sounds like a communist utopia, but a basic income program pioneered by German aid workers has helped alleviate poverty in a Nambian village. Crime is down and children can…

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The Generals vs. The Cheneys

“I came to the conclusion very soon that this probably wasn’t the right way to go. Probably before I left Guantanamo, I was of the opinion it needed to go…

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The Trouble with Smart Advisors

Confronted with a choice between the recommendations of two advocates, one smart and one seemingly less smart, on what basis does one choose that of the less smart one? Without…

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Senator Max Baucus is on PhRMA

From the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics: From January 2007 through June 2009, Senator Max Baucus collected contributions from 37 outside lobbyists representing PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s…

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War: Bipartisanship Republicans can get behind

Up until now President Obama has been unable to round up any Republican backing for his major initiatives. Finally, though, it appears that Obama’s call for bipartisanship has paid off.…

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