Newsweek on what life is like for women in Iraq in these days of the glorious surge:
The insurgents have been driven out of her southwest Baghdad neighborhood, but the 30-year-old shop assistant is still frightened. A year ago Al Qaeda in Iraq ruled the streets outside her home, and Mahdi Army militia units kept the […]

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Eric Alterman has an outstanding column in The Nation on how the media’s mean girls (of all genders) develop the narratives they use to bring down the presidential candidates they take a dislike to. With examples of what they did to Gore in 2000, and what they’re doing to Obama and Edwards right now.
Two of […]

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Stephen notices the Republicans’ rhetorical reliance on the word honor, and points out who else tends to use that word a lot.

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General Petraeus says that “victory” in Iraq will require 9-10 more years. I’m trying to imagine how ten more years of bloody occupation can possibly work out to a victory. More on that subject here.

A bill has been introduced in Venezuela to restrict baby names to a list of 100 approved choices. “The bill’s ambition, […]

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Scary stuff: There’s a lot of buzz and speculation that starting just after Labor Day, the Bush administration is going to be rolling out a major PR campaign to pave the way for war with Iran. See here and here for starters. Grand Moff Texan at DKos says the Bushies will be using the same […]

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A few video clips from the past week: First up, here’s a scary video compiled by documentarian Robert Greenwald showing how Fox “News” is beating the drum for war with Iran … watch them repeatedly engaging in the same kind of propaganda and scaremongering they used during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in […]

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Bush has suddenly decided that the Iraq occupation is kinda like Vietnam after all, but of course he’s careful to draw the wrong conclusions from the comparison. The article quotes American University historian Allan Lichtman as saying that Bush’s spin on the situation “is not revisionist history. It is fantasy history.”
On a related note, […]

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The new Crowded House album, Time on Earth, was released last week in the US and the week before in the UK. It’s available for download from iTunes (with bonus tracks!) and of course you can get the CD from Amazon.
The band will be touring through December (including their two shows here in Chicago, […]

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POLITICS: The Washington Post brings us the fascinating story of how Cheney’s quest to undermine environmental science for political purposes led to a humongous pile of rotting dead fish. “… Because of Cheney’s intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was […]

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From an essay entitled “The Middle of Nowhere,” by Edward N. Luttwak, which appears in the July 2007 issue of Harper’s, reprinted there from the May issue of Prospect:
Hardliners keep suggesting that with a bit of well-aimed violence (”the Arabs only understand force”) compliance will be obtained. Yet what happens every time is an increase […]

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George W. Bush’s approval rating (26%) is now officially lower than Jimmy Carter’s was at his nadir of popularity (28%), according to Newsweek.
What do you think are the odds that in a couple of decades GWB will be highly regarded as a diplomat, author, nobel peace prize winner, and humanitarian?
Other fun facts:
The war in […]

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Over at This Modern World, Jonathan Schwarz quotes a line from The Final Days by WoodwardandBernstein, taken from the phone calls with Nixon that Kissinger secretly taped and transcribed:
During another call, Kissinger mentioned the number of American casualties in a major battle in Vietnam. “Oh, screw ‘em,” said Nixon.
And as Schwarz observes:
An interesting thing about […]

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Sunday was always potluck day where I grew up, so I hereby present to you this glorious covered casserole of links I didn’t get around to posting this week. With a few fresh ones stirred in, just to keep you guessing.

Retired general compares Bush to a deserter: “By vetoing this bill and failing to […]

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