Month: August 2006

I Do Not Avoid Women, Mandrake …

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by hilzoy Jessica at Feministing is right: this is the funniest anti-feminist article ever. It starts out predictably enough: feminist harridans spooked men into thinking that they had to turn into craven, querulous wimps who never talked back and tried desperately to understand the alien concept of ‘feelings’; but “now, over a decade later, women … Read more

Geek-Fu

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Because someone noted we haven’t had an open thread in some time, and because I wanted to point out that someone stole my post title. The ObWings legal team is busy examining our options. Please remain calm. Because this isn’t just another deep space [blog] franchise. We stand for something.

Ney’s Replacement: Yikes!

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by hilzoy JP, in comments, points to this astonishing story about the person Bob Ney has asked to run for Congress in Ohio in his place: “This year’s most extraordinary example of slimeball politics involves the former hostage Terry Anderson, who is running for state senator in a district in southern Ohio. His opponent, Joy … Read more

Wages Of Sin Watch

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by hilzoy To my great delight, Rep. Bob Ney, aka “Representative #1” (from Jack Abramoff’s plea agreement(pdf)), has decided not to seek re-election: “Ultimately,” he said, “this decision came down to my family. I must think of them first, and I can no longer put them through this ordeal.” Good. It’s important that present and … Read more

Baghdad!=Stalingrad

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by Andrew Having enjoyed a little ‘Leon Time,’ I thought I’d take a look at one of the issues hilzoy raised last week: the vulnerability of the U.S. Army in Iraq to having its supplies cut off. In particular I’ll be looking at Billmon’s Losing an Army and Patrick Lang’s piece on U.S. supply lines … Read more

Ewwwwww

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by hilzoy This LATimes profile of Joe Francis, the guy who makes the ‘Girls Gone Wild’ videos, is really worth reading, though in a way that made me want to take a shower afterwards. — I started out trying to explain exactly why I found this story so disturbing, but failed miserably. So just a … Read more

“I Thought The Iraqis Were Muslims!”

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by hilzoy From Raw Story, via Billmon: “Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned. (…) A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the … Read more

Cashout

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by von WELL, WELL, WELL, WELL: TALKING TO SYRIA….There are still plenty of nay-sayers, but the chorus calling for Syrian involvement in crafting a Lebanon ceasefire solution now includes Richard Armitage, Warren Christopher, and Mr. Flat World himself, Tom Friedman. Let me be the first to say that any drunk fool coulda seen this one … Read more

How Does US Health Care Stack Up? Some Data

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by hilzoy

One of the nice things about the debate over universal health insurance is that we’re not talking about some bold new policy initiative that would go where no nation has gone before, but about an approach that has been adopted, in different ways, by most other industrialized countries. Thus, rather than having to rely on a priori arguments, we can use actual information about how our health care system stacks up to those of other countries. In what follows, I’ll try to provide some basic data. I’ve tried to rely on well accepted and unbiased sources from either organizations like OECD or the peer-reviewed literature.

I’ve put some of the charts in clickable form, since testing revealed that they did not translate well when resized. Also, a lot of the links to studies require subscriptions.

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We Get Mail

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by von How do you know that you’ve arrived?  You get mail like this: Thank you for your perceptive comment! I accept on behalf of the entire ObWi crew:  each and every one of us "fags, fag sympathizers, and/or feminazis" thanks you for your contribution.  Indeed, the care that you put into your short note, … Read more

Different Ways Of Looking At It

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by hilzoy “As we work to resolve this current crisis, we must recognize that Lebanon is the latest flashpoint in a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region. For decades, American policy sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by promoting stability in the Middle East, yet these policies … Read more

Universal Health Care

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by Andrew [In which I throw out ideas guaranteed to bring down the wrath of the ObWi comment horde down upon me.] Health care is a growing problem in the United States. Ironically, the problem is a result of health care’s great successes of the 20th century. Life expectancy and quality of life shot upwards … Read more

Exceptionally Meritorious Service

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by hilzoy

From the NYT:

“Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who commanded detention operations at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and helped organize the interrogation process at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, retired from the military on Monday, Pentagon officials said. (…)

At his retirement ceremony Monday, General Miller received the Distinguished Service Medal, which is awarded for exceptionally commendable service in a position of great responsibility, Army officials said.”

From the Code of Federal Regulations:

“The Distinguished Service Medal, established by Act of Congress on July 9, 1918, is awarded to any person who, while serving in any capacity with the Army of the United States, shall have distinguished himself or herself by exceptionally meritorious service to the Government in a duty of great responsibility (Fig. 1). The performance must be such as to merit recognition for service which is clearly exceptional. Superior performance of normal duty will not alone justify an award of this decoration.”

From Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws, on the corruption of the principle of monarchy, which is honour:

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Signing Statements: The Last Word (I Think)

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by hilzoy Just a quick note to say that if you haven’t read the post on signing statements written by eight lawyers who used to work in the Office of Legal Counsel, you should. The basic argument is: there is no reason to think that a President should always (as opposed to: almost always) enforce … Read more

Falling Into The Doughnut Hole

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by hilzoy While thinking about Medicare Part D (the prescription drug plan), Mark Kleiman has had what he calls “a blinding flash of the obvious”. Many Medicare Part D plans are set up in the following way: You pay the first $250 Then the drug company pays 75% and you pay 25% until total spending … Read more

The Associates of Pacha Khan

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by Katherine

(11th in a series. Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.)

During at least six different CSRT hearings at Guantanamo, the prisoner is accused of associating with a man named Pacha Khan. The allegations describe Khan as “a renegade Pashtun Commander,” who “has been conducting military operations against the Afghan Transitional Administration (ATA) and coalition forces.”

Four of the prisoners were captured together on January 21, 2002: Mohammad Gul, Abib Sarajuddin, Gul Zaman, and Khan Zaman. They all say that Khan was fighting on the Americans’ side, against the Taliban.  In the words of Mohammad Gul, who is accused of being the son of a recruiter for Pacha Khan:

My father did not work for Pacha Khan directly…Pacha Khan came to the village elder, Nazim, to gather and rise up against the Taliban. The village elder told my father to go and tell the other villages close to our village to get together and that we needed to united against the Taliban. Whatever he did, it might have been indirectly for Pacha Khan but Pacha Khan was working with the Americans and he was in the government at that time.

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As far as I can tell this is true. As of December 2001, Pacha Khan Zadran could pick up is cell phone and call in a U.S. airstrike.  He is accused of calling in two strikes that killed approximately 150 civilians during that month.

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A Question I Can Answer

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Over at QandO (link below the fold may not be work friendly so you might want to go to the website directly and scroll down), I see that Dale and his wife were in Balboa Park at the time of the Gay Pride Festival.  I didn’t know he lived in San Diego.  As it is … Read more

Interesting Development; Significance Unclear

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by hilzoy From the Miami Herald: “In a stunning development, Cuban leader Fidel Castro temporarily ceded his presidential power to brother Rául Castro late Monday due to “an intestinal crisis” that requires “complicated surgery,” according to a letter read on Cuban national television. The letter, reportedly signed by the Cuban leader and read by Carlos … Read more