Archive for 2011
May 7, 2011
BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: “Rosie O’Donnell Wonders Why Osama Wasn’t Given Hague-Style Trial.”
Does this mean that Rosie now thinks that OBL was involved with 9/11?
OUR TRUSTED ALLIES IN THE GWOT: “Pakistan breaches trust, names local CIA boss.”
THE TOP 10 DIMINISHING SPORTING EVENTS: The Kentucky Derby and the World Series top this Yahoo list, and while the Super Bowl isn’t on it, it seems like both the players and the owners seem like they’re doing their damnedest this off-season to diminish the NFL’s reputation as well.
WALKING ON ANOTHER WORLD: This makes me sad.
ILLINOIS TEA PARTY NEWS: “Palatine, IL Tea Party begins to boil: Failed Priorities of IL Senate Republicans…When we saw this red hot critique coming from the Palatine Tea Party we weren’t surprised at all. Watch for this kind of outrage to grow if Illinois Republicans continue to play with the Democrats in Springfield. “
I, FOR ONE, WILL GIVE GENEROUSLY TO OUR NEW ROBOTIC OVERLORDS: Are robots the future of charity fundraising?
DIDN’T YOU PEOPLE EVER WATCH THE SHOW?: Robots evolve to look out for their own. But that’s always how it starts, isn’t it? (H/T Emily Jones, UVA.)
WHERE IS HAROLD KOH WATCH, CONT.: Lawfare’s Ben Wittes, after referencing an earlier post of mine at Volokh on UN special rapporteurs asking the US to justify its targeting of OBL, posts the following exchange between press questioner and State Department spokesman Mark C. Toner:
QUESTION: But did it abide by international laws?
MR. TONER: Again, I’m not going to get into a discussion here. That’s – that can be debated elsewhere.
If not the Department of State, then where?
AT AMAZON, today’s deals in Automotive.
Plus, markdowns on jumpstarters and emergency power supplies.
LEE SMITH on bin Laden’s death and the Islamic way of burial: “To fret over bin Laden’s end, to lament the killing of an American enemy, identifies you as something other than a friend of the United States.”
And by the way, his book, The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations
GOODNIGHT MOON: As read by Mankiw, Dingman, Ager. Funny, I would have figured that if Professor Mankiw were going to read a children’s book aloud, surely it would be … If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
BREAKING NEWS FROM 1996: “Are we suffering from Gingrich Fatigue?”
IN THE MAIL: Say Her Name, Francisco Goldman’s moving novelistic tribute to his deceased young wife. Frank is an old friend, one of the marvelously gifted writers of his generation, and this book merits the many glowing reviews. Bittersweet, it’s an offbeat but good Mother’s Day gift.
“JUDGE GIVES IMMIGRANT IN SAME SEX-MARRIAGE a Reprieve From Deportation” after … the Obama administration sends “an unusual signal.”
THE LAST WILL OF OSAMA BIN LADEN: Michael Yon has the text, and adds via email:
It’s a doozy…
“Allah attests that the love for Jihad and death in the cause of Allah has taken over my life and the Sword Verses have penetrated every cell of my heart, “and kill all the polytheists [infidels] as they fight all of you”. And how many times I wake from my sleep and find myself reciting this holy verse. If every Muslim would ask himself why did our Ummah reach to where she is [in a state of] humiliation and defeat, his instinctual response would be, because she has clung to the pleasures of life and tossed the book of Allah [Koran] behind its back and it is the only source that has the cure and success in the here and now and the hereafter. The Jews and Christians have tempted us with the pleasures of life and its cheap delights and they invaded us with their monitory values before invading us with their armies. And we were, like women, did not react, because the love for death in the cause of Allah has departed the hearts.”
THE WAGES OF WEAKNESS: Why Pakistan knew it could hide OBL and get away with it.
RENTING VERSUS BUYING AS HOUSING POLICY: “A new academic article in Real Estate Economics turns this conventional wisdom on its head. Using data from 1979 to 2009, the authors demonstrate that renting was the superior investment strategy for most of the past 30 years… Unless someone possesses the cash necessary to buy a residence, he or she will be renting one way or another. The choice is between renting the property directly or instead renting the capital necessary to buy the property.” I defer to Megan McArdle as to the argument in the article.
VAMPIRES BEFORE TWILIGHT, BEFORE BUFFY, BEFORE BRAM STOKER: Toby Lichtig in the Times Literary Supplement reviews scholarship on how and when vampires entered the European imagination. “By 1741 the term was commonly used as a synonym for a “cruel exactor or extortioner”. In keeping with the characteristics of the creature it signifies, the etymology of the word is harder to pin down, “vampire” having been variously attributed to the Chuvash word väpär, meaning “bad ghost”; the Tatar ubyr (“witch”); and, perhaps more tenuously, to the ancient Greek king Amphiaraus.”
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Will the Muslim Brotherhood succeed where Osama bin Laden failed? The gradualists–not moderates, but gradualists–in the Brotherhood do have a greater chance of success. Unlike the vicious psychotics of Al Qaeda in Iraq, they won’t alienate their soft supporters until it’s too late.
“SHE WANTS TO HONDLE over a pissant little amount.” The problems of a shopkeeper… and the consequences for a restauranteur.
HOLDER VS. HOLDER: An AG divided against himself cannot stand!
INSIDE THE BELLY OF THE BEAST: Video of Andrew Breitbart’s CBS interview yesterday.
SIGH: Kenneth Pollack thinks escalation in Libya is inevitable. How about we just kill Qaddafi and wrap it up instead of declaring him untouchable and dragging this out? That’s easier said than done, of course, but it looks like we’re not even trying.