Lies

"On Election Night, Republican candidates backed by President Bush won a resounding victory across the country. Facing a transformed political landscape, with a newly invigorated president and a war with Iraq looming, it's time to ask a crucial question: Will the media finally hold the president and his staff accountable for their repeated evasions and dissembling?"

In this great column on spinsanity.com, Brendan Nyhand debunks some of the lies President Bush has been telling, especially about the war with Iraq, and asks if the mainstream media is prepared to do anything about it.

Read the whole column here.

posted by Michael Curry at 10:12 PM

Another victory in the war on terror

"A celebrated Canadian author, Rohinton Mistry, has cancelled the second half of his US book tour because of racial profiling at US airports. Mr Mistry - the Indian-born author short-listed for the Booker Prize this year - was 'extremely unhappy' about the treatment he received, Canada's Globe and Mail reported."

I'm sure all of America's travelers can feel a little safer now that airport security has harrassed a famous Canadian author into cancelling part of his book tour.

Read the full story here.

posted by Michael Curry at 7:46 PM

Catching up on comics

In case you missed them, be sure to check out this This Modern World and this Boondocks.

posted by Michael Curry at 7:36 PM

American death squad

"As you probably know, the CIA engineered the murder of a man and five companions in Yemen. A missile fired from one of our drones killed them. If indeed they were al-Qaida operatives, I have no sympathy for them. They have chosen to wage a campaign against us, and they are now casualties of that war. At the same time, I don't approve of the method used. The problem is that they are described as 'suspected' al-Qaida. To execute suspects is to use the method of the death squad. It appeals to our childish sense of adventure, to our desire for quick and simple justice, but, unfortunately, it erodes the moral values of the United States."

An eloquent piece about how the assassination of "suspected" criminals is not something the U.S. should do (or sanction). Illustrating the fact that it cost us some of our moral high ground, here's a story about how the U.S. says it still opposes Israel's policy of assassinations, despite the fact that we did exactly the same thing in Yemen. I guess it's a case of do as we say, not as we do.

posted by Michael Curry at 7:27 PM

Self-defeating

"What happened on November 5, 2002 was the culmination of a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party that began more than a decade ago under the leadership of a group of conservatives, corporadoes, and con men who convinced their political colleagues that the salvation of the party lay in destroying its purpose."

Back on Tuesday the American people (by which I mean the pitifully low number who could actually be bothered to vote) decided that, despite the fact that the Bush administration is doing its best to ignore the crumbling economy (the issue many polls claimed voters were most concerned with), they'd give the Republicans control of Congress. Didn't someone once say that democracy was they only system of government where the majority of the people get exactly what they deserve?

Anyway, Sam Smith, of Progressive Review fame, had an excellent piece called "The Party's Over" in last Wednesday's edition of Undernews. In it he basically blamed the Democrats for their own problems, and went into some detail about why he thinks the Democratic Party has declined over the last decade or two. I think he hit the nail right on the head with this one, and I strongly urge everyone to read it.

Read the whole thing here [and if that link has stopped working, you can find it here].

posted by Michael Curry at 9:49 PM

The face behind the mask

"I think of the G.O.P. as the costume party. It wears a sunny mask, which conceals a reality that is far more ideological, far more extreme, than most Americans realize."

Bob Herbert has a good op-ed piece in today's New York Times about just how extreme some of the views held by major members of the Republican Party are. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Read the whole article here [registration required].

posted by Michael Curry at 8:55 PM

Back to the blog

I just realized that I haven't posted anything to this blog in nearly two weeks, despite there being a plethora of things to talk about. Hopefully I'll be able to get myself back on track, starting this evening.

posted by Michael Curry at 8:50 PM