Is that a bottle in your vagina, Rep. Pete Stark?

…because, good Sir, you are the star of your own dirty shame today.

I guess if you’re going to hang yourself, your own spine is as good a noose as any. Slithering up to the podium like a worm, apologizing for:

Blackwater goes on the offensive - this time after actually being attacked…

There’s good news and bad news about Blackwater. Which would you like first?

Lingering bad aftertaste from Clinton’s Iran vote

Though it’s been almost three weeks, Hillary Clinton’s vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment still sours the stomach. In Sunday’s New York Times Week in Review, Helene Cooper terms it “more hawkish than even most of the Bush administration has been willing to venture so far.” The bill, of course, branded Iran’s 125,000-member Revolutionary Guard Corps [...]

Medals of honor, wars of no honor (part 2)

(Part 1 is here.)
Neglecting decorated members of the military who served in Iraq might strike a progressive or pacifist as a sign of opposition to our presence there. But the national indifference with which we treat Congressional Medal of Honor winners in general is actually a sign of a deep-seated malaise that, on the contrary, [...]

Democracy Death Match results: Limbaugh & Clear Channel defeat Fairness & Public Interest

Once upon a time in America there was a thing called the “public interest.” The airwaves were a publicly owned resource, and broadcasters profiting from their use were obliged to serve “the public interest, convenience and necessity.” These principles were codified in 1927 and 1934 legislation and were accepted (if not universally loved) for decades. [...]

Iraq war surtax is DOA

Yesterday, Democratic representatives David Obey (Wi), John Murtha (PA), and Jim McGovern (MA) proposed a 2% surtax for low and middle income taxpayers and 12-15% for upper income taxpayers in order to pay for the $150 billion costs of the Iraq occupation in 2008. The response, both by the Democratic leadership and the Republicans [...]

Blackwater: gettin’ rich while the troops try dyin’

As you know, Blackwater killed a bunch of Iraqi civilians a short time ago. They didn’t apologize - that’s a sign of weakness, as Captain Nathan Brittles tells his young officer corps in John Ford’s classic paean to American arrogance and “manifest destiny” She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, even though the Iraqi “government” tried [...]

9/12: The view from Italy on 9/11

Six years ago, I learned about the attacks on New York and Washington a day late, on September 12. Ensconced in the Umbrian countryside, intentionally cut off from all electronic contact with the world, I was oblivious for 24 hours to the events that (as everyone insisted) changed the world.
In fact, the world did not [...]

9/11: Living without fear

This is going to be a slightly different 9/11 recollection. I’m not going to start by telling you where I was and what I was doing that day. Because 9/11 isn’t about me, really. Or you, or any one single person. It’s about something deeper, something that touches every person, everywhere.
It’s [...]

A South African’s experience of September 11th, 2001

I had been running the Western Cape branch of Business Beat, a Deloitte-sponsored business development initiative, for two years.  In 2001 it was decided that I needed a board.
The board’s first meeting was early afternoon on 11 September 2001.  The senior partner of Deloitte had been talking generally and introducing us to the expected oversight [...]

The S&R list of banned phrases, vol. 1

We all have pet peeves when it comes to language - terms or phrases that grate on our nerves, common misuses that drive us bonkers, etc. But past the mere annoyances there’s a more corrosive category of terminology that does actual damage to the culture. Words and expressions that, when we hear them, signal that [...]

Olbermann: Bush caught in lie, playing the troops….

Quotabull

Q: The Lower 9th Ward is one of the most impoverished areas of the region. Many residents who lived there before felt neglected. What do you say if they today now feel that way, that, well, they’re not back up to snuff, whereas everybody else is much further ahead?
CHAIRMAN POWELL: I say to those people [...]

George W Bush is a liberal, and other oddities

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” Sir Winston Churchill.
Aside from a few odd social experiments, such as Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela, or Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe (identical except for the fact that Chavez can maintain his worker’s paradise through [...]

The inaugural Scholars and Rogues Interview (and our newest Scrogue): Graham Parker

The mid-1970s were a wonderful time for music lovers. For starters, exciting and innovative new music was popping up all over the place. And when it did, it actually got played on the radio.
The UK was especially fertile ground during this period, as scores of punk and New Wave acts emerged (many from the “pub [...]