"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
Katherine R This post by Juan Cole is somehow more heartening to me than any amount of celebratory gunfire. When Iraq has its Onion, then we’ll have really succeeded. Ash-Sharq al-Awsat says the following is making the rounds in Baghdad: ‘Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, the former Information Ministry spokesman [known in the West as Baghdad Bob], was reached … Read more
Someone tried to assassinate Pervez Musharraf today: “A bomb exploded moments after Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s motorcade passed a bridge near the capital Sunday, at least the second attempt on his life since he enraged hard-liners in 2001 by backing the U.S.-led war on terror in Afghanistan. No one was hurt. ” Full story … Read more
Wampum is taking nominations for the 2003 Koufax Awards, for the best of the left-of-center blogosphere, here and here. (There is also a category for “best right-of-center blogger”). I assume Yankee fans are welcome to vote despite the title; I leave it to conservatives whether they should or not….in any case don’t miss last year’s … Read more
Not much to add to this.
This ad is, to put it bluntly, crap. How on earth are we going to respond as a party to the inevitable Democratic-nominee-into-Hussein-and-bin-Laden ad when we’ve got Kerry and Gephardt campaign officials doing this? If they wanted to stop Dean because they think he’d be a terrible candidate, or because he lacks experience on defense, … Read more
Okay, we haven’t gotten an entry for our caption contest for a few days now, so I’m going to do some unfair, unbalanced judging. (It’s for our fuzzy little mascot on the top left; I am not competent enough to re-post the full sized picture.)
The winner is….
via Instapundit (I know, I know), we have a several-day-old-article about a new poll counting the number of Baghdad residents Saddam Hussein murdered. The estimate they come up with is 61,000, in Baghdad alone.
This was higher than previous estimates, but it does not really surprise me. I never doubted him to be a thug and a murderer and whatever invective I could come up with–though every time you’re confronted with the numbers again you wonder how the Iraqi people could possibly be worse off when all this is over, no matter how much we screw it up.
But what I’m really interested in, for the purposes of this post, is the methodology:
“The survey obtained Monday, which the polling firm planned to release on Tuesday, asked 1,178 Baghdad residents in August and September whether a member of their household had been executed by Saddam’s regime. According to Gallup, 6.6 percent said yes.
The polling firm took metropolitan Baghdad’s population — 6.39 million — and average household size — 6.9 people — to calculate that 61,000 people were executed during Saddam’s rule. Past estimates were in the low tens of thousands. Most are believed to have been buried in mass graves.”
I’ve never heard of this casualty-count-by-poll before. Do we have any statisticians or social scientists reading this? Is this a decent method of counting casualties? How does it differ from the use of press reports or anecdotal evidence, or mass graves, or the various other methods that are used?
I have no idea if it’s even remotely accurate. But if it is, we should consider using it to figure out how many civilians (or for that matter soldiers) were killed in the U.S. invasion, and its aftermath.
(continued, and please read the whole thing before commenting.)
Moe and I are apparently in good company.
Idea stolen from von. I had a hard time limiting it to 20, so I decided to just put in the extras. I think I may have too many opinions.
These are not in any sort of order.
I don’t do much writing about legal issues, I know. Winter term, when I am taking a class on Terrorism in The 21st Century (presumably focusing on the legalities), and spring term, when I am finally taking Constitutional Law, will probably give more opportunities. My subjects this term are of less general interest. Unless you … Read more
This isn’t cool. The Michigan Republican Party has asked its members to turn over holiday card lists — complete with their analysis of the political and religious affiliations of their friends and family and their positions on issues such as abortion and gun control. Didn’t phone companies used to ask you to do this? I … Read more
I already like this guy. This guy could not annoy me more if he tried.
Blogging of the President is having its first “Blog Burst” tomorrow, on the topic: “the Internet and Politics, what does it mean?‘ ” Here’s my contribution, one day early: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” –A.J. Liebling Suddenly, all of us–or at least, many more of us–do own a … Read more
Via Matt Yglesias, I give you the surreal website of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani. Okay, fine it’s not quite a blog. It actually reminds me an awful lot of the site my old boss (the one who couldn’t use a mouse and thought google was run by tiny monsters living inside my computer) … Read more
Yeah, I know, that headline’s been done to death. But according to this Daily News article, New York is 49th in the country for per capita homeland security spending. (Wyoming comes in first.) Is this accurate? The Daily News is not exactly infallible, and I’m sure they’re relying heavily on NYC sources (especially the police … Read more
No, not Krugman. Kristof. He meanders for a few hundred words about the possible hereditary and environmental factors in homosexuality (including an aside about “lesbian seagulls”), and then he hits you with this: The bottom line is that same-sex love is a mystery far more subtle than just a matter of Biblical injunction — just … Read more
1. Chad Pennington threatens to make a real football fan out of me. This is probably a bad idea in the long run, the Jets being the Jets. 2. I saw two movies over Thanksgiving. “Master and Commander” gets a big thumbs up, despite an expendable subplot or two; I’m now resolved to read those … Read more
There’s a long, but very important article about House redistricting in this week’s New Yorker. Some quotations: “The framers of the Constitution created the House of Representatives to be the branch of government most responsive to changes in the public mood, but gerrymandered districts mean that most of the four hundred and thirty-five members of … Read more
From the NY Times, via Harley in comments: Tom DeLay wants Republican delegates to the 2004 convention to stay in an enormous cruise ship safely away from the dirty, dirty city. Excerpts: “Our floating hotel will provide members an opportunity to stay in one place, in a secure fashion,” said a spokesman for Mr. DeLay, … Read more
I’m several days out of date on this Kristof column but it made me so angry that I had to post anyway. Excerpts: “Here in El Salvador, church leaders in 1998 helped ban abortions even when necessary to save the life of a woman, and, much worse, helped pass a law, which took effect last … Read more
I’m in Brooklyn with my in-laws today. This is the first Thanksgiving I’ve ever spent without my mother and sisters. But it’s appropriate that it be in New York for this holiday, because while two years ago I resolved never again to take for granted my family, my friends, this country or the city I’d like to consider my hometown (I was born in Chelsea but grew up elsewhere)–for whatever reason I’m far better at keeping that resolution when it comes to New York City than anything else.
So in that spirit, and because it’s easier to write about places than people….
I’m going to NYC in about 45 minutes for a job interview and Thanksgiving, and when I return I will be in finals heck until December 17 or so. So blogging will be light to non-existent (depending on how bad a procrastinator I’m being) until then–but I trust Moe and Von will keep this place … Read more
In a post that strongly (and convincingly) rejects the idea of breaking Iraq into three countries, Juan Cole says: The alternative is to build into the new Iraq guarantees against a tyranny of the Shiite majority. Have a bicameral legislature that over-represents the Sunnis slightly. Have a bill of rights. Have elected provincial governors and … Read more
from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer: At a New Hampshire candidates’ forum, he was queried about first ladies,and the Cleveland Democratic congressman didn’t waste his chance to drop the proverbial handkerchief. “As a bachelor, I get a chance to fantasize about my first lady,” the twice-divorced Kucinich replied. “And you know, maybe Fox will want to sponsor … Read more
From a Washington Post article on Chalabi, via Atrios : “Nobody knows how the president will finally come down on Chalabi. Right now Bush reportedly remains unconvinced that Chalabi is the one to lead Iraq into a democratic future. Jordan’s King Abdullah didn’t help matters: When he met with Bush recently, he is said to … Read more
if you’ve read about the horrible events in Mosul, you’ll need it. So, here you go, from Aunty Beeb: “Mr Blair, who is said to be a big fan of the show, recorded his dialogue in April for an episode in which Homer Simpson meets him in London. Actor Sir Ian McKellen and Harry Potter … Read more
According to today’s Boston Globe, “Massachusetts residents, by a solid margin, said they supported the Supreme Judicial Court’s landmark decision legalizing gay marriage, according to a Boston Globe/WBZ-TV poll. The poll of 400 people, the first survey of Bay State residents since the court’s historic ruling, indicated that 50 percent agreed with the justices’ decision, … Read more
A lot has been written about the Republican ads in Iowa in New Hampshire, which begin, “some are now attacking the President for attacking the terrorists.” I don’t really have much to add about that line; I think you all can guess what my reaction was. But this line, via Maureen Dowd’s column today, was new to me:
” ‘It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known,” Mr. Bush says, in a State of the Union clip.”
I don’t usually have much patience for Dowd, but she has it right. This is fear-mongering for no good purpose. Experts generally agree that biological and chemical weapons kill people in horrible ways but are not any better than conventional weapons at killing large numbers of people (if it’s not done right, they’re probably worse). So one vial or one canister would not be very likely to bring a worse day of horror than 9/11. Nuclear weapons are a different story, but there was no serious nuclear threat from Iraq in the short or medium term, and we knew it.
And of course, it seems increasingly clear that Iraq had no biological or chemical weapons either.
They have a history of this sort of thing.
I’ll start with some Red Sox haiku, via this week’s New Yorker:
Hey, wait till next year:
Every eighty-six years
Like clockwork. Go Sox
Buckner or Little
It doesn’t really matter
Someone will f*ck up
Thabo Mbeki seems to have finally, and dramatically, reversed his heretofore disastrous AIDS policy. South Africa is going to begin providing free anti-retrovirals. Bill Clinton apparently helped negotiate it. Funny that he’ll have done more for Africa as an ex-President than as President, but either way, I’ll take it. I wrote my college thesis on … Read more
It’s after midnight. So, as we know from the parade of TV specials this week, John F. Kennedy was killed forty years ago tomorrow. Obviously, I was not alive. It had a profound effect on my parents, especially my mother, the liberal Irish Catholic college freshman. My father went through a (fortunately brief)* Goldwater phase … Read more
I thought I’d continue the tradition of bloodthirsty late night posts, in this case combined with junior high journalism class: WHO: Tom Daschle of South Dakota WHAT: should resign as majority leader, or be voted out WHEN: at his earliest convenience WHERE: in the Capitol building WHY: 1. Because with the exception of Jeffords’ party … Read more
China is about to impose more stringent fuel economy standards for new cars, and especially for light trucks, minivans, and SUVs, than the United States. This is good news, but the contrast makes metaphorical smoke come out of my ears. We have abdicated, so completely. The world has given up on us, and decided that … Read more
They unveiled the eight finalists today. Lots of gardens, reflecting pools, named inscribed on walls, light effects. Here’s an AP story with a brief description of each. The NY Times has a slide show on its main page, which I can’t figure out how to link directly. And the Lower Manhattan Development Corp has more … Read more