Many readers disagreed with this earlier post in which I argued that the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, and the use of lethal force against the al-Qaida leader, was justified by the principles of just war and supported by U.N. resolutions and international law. The general sense of this disagreement — correct me if I’m mischaracterizing this — is that such a military raid, being far more likely to result in bin Laden’s death than in his capture, is... Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 379-386 Buck walks back to his hotel to find Tsion Ben-Judah parked out front. The rabbi invites him to lunch. I’m paraphrasing there. This actually takes up two pages with Buck walking into the hotel, getting a message from the front desk clerk, walking to his room before reading the message from TB-J inviting him to lunch, calling the desk clerk to call him a cab, having the desk clerk put through a call to Tsion, agreeing... Read more
“Killing Osama bin Laden Is Legal,” Matthew Yglesias notes: … What went down is fine in both international and domestic law. … The use of military force is plainly authorized by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1368 … and this has all been reaffirmed since bin Laden’s death by the Security Council and the secretary-general of the United Nations. The raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad was carried out unilaterally, but it occurred with the full consent and sanction of... Read more
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn … “Naked,” Avril Lavigne “Naked Puppets,” Moxy Fruvous “Nan You’re a Window Shopper,” Lily Allen “Nao Esperando,” Kirsty MacColl “The Narrow,” Matt Jones “The National Anthem,” Radiohead “Natural,” Howard Jones “Natural Blues,” Moby “Natural Gift,” The Kinks “Nature Boy,” Nat King Cole Kind of a narrow range there, alphabetically, but it produced an irresistible title for the post. The Lily Allen/Kirsty MacColl juxtaposition seems apt. And seeing Howard Jones in the same list as... Read more
The Economist: “America’s transport infrastructure: Life in the slow lane” America’s dependence on its cars is reinforced by a shortage of alternative forms of transport. Europe’s large economies and Japan routinely spend more than America on rail investments, in absolute not just relative terms, despite much smaller populations and land areas. America spends more building airports than Europe but its underdeveloped rail network shunts more short-haul traffic onto planes, leaving many of its airports perpetually overburdened. Plans to upgrade air-traffic-control... Read more
It seems every media outlet other than Vanity Fair did a story on Vanity Fair’s interview with Katy Perry. Most of these described the pop star as “slamming” or “blasting” her strict sectarian upbringing. I thought she was actually pretty gentle in her criticism, considering. I know many people who grew up in the kind of morally fraught subcultural bubble that Perry was raised in and most of them are nowhere near as generous as Perry is in that Vanity... Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 375-379 Chapter 17 begins with almost the archetypal Jerry Jenkins sentence: Rayford Steele sat in a phone booth at Ben Gurion Airport. Airport. Phone. Hero just sitting there. Check, check, check. The Great Tribulation has just “officially” begun, evil has been enthroned, Israel has been set up for betrayal and destruction, and the wrath of God is about to be poured out on the world like all the plagues of Egypt. So Rayford calls his daughter back... Read more
Amanda Marcotte describes what the past 24 hours have felt like for me, too: Relief, elation, concern about the future, urge to make dark jokes, rush of memories of 9/11, glee, concern about myself for being so bloodthirsty, telling myself that it doesn’t count when the person killed was such a horrible piece of s—, a resurgence of grief about 9/11, more dark jokes, annoyance at people scolding those making jokes on Twitter for not seeing that humor has its... Read more
When we consider the rights of workers in relation to the “indirect employer”, that is to say, all the agents at the national and international level that are responsible for the whole orientation of labour policy, we must first direct our attention to a fundamental issue: the question of finding work, or, in other words, the issue of suitable employment for all who are capable of it. The opposite of a just and right situation in this field is unemployment,... Read more
For the same reason that everyone asks for their own check at the restaurant. That’s my answer to Atrios’ recent question, “Why Does Everybody Own Their Own Lawnmower?” I know there is a fairly obvious answer to this question. There’s a cost of organizing and coordination. But, yet, in the aggregate an immense amount of money is likely wasted because of this coordination failure. Surely there could be just one lawnmower for every 10 households (I just made that number... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In