A late '90s Chevy Cavalier doesn't really look all that similar to a Saturn L-Series. One conspicuous difference is the large Chevrolet logo on the rear trunk. And, of course, my neighbor's car doesn't have a bright yellow Philadelphia parking permit sticker on the rear windshield. But both cars are sedans and both are the same shade of beige (GM calls it "medium gold") and they're close enough, in a dark parking lot, to cause a momentary flutter, a rush... Read more
I get quite a few hits via Google for this post on Left Behind. The post is titled "Pretrib Porno." Just got another Google-induced hit but, in what may be a first, this person was actually searching for the term "Pretrib." It's likely this searcher found the post more helpful than most of the others did. Read more
Sen. John McCain said several things last night on CNN's Larry King Live that bear repeating: … if we, somehow, excuse this behavior on the grounds that they were bad people, they killed Americans, all that kind of stuff, then we put ourselves on the same moral … plane that they are. We cannot do that. The reason why we are there is to give them a different life from the kind of treatment that they got from Saddam Hussein.... Read more
Mother Jones has a fun piece spoofing the rugged individualist outlook of the libertarian with the independent streak. Ian Frazier describes "His Own Private Kingdom": I am an independent guy. I take a lot of pride in doing for myself, like my dad and my granddad before me, and I don't need any bloated, out-of-control government holding my hand. When I found our local public schools to be less than satisfactory, I said the heck with them, and began schooling... Read more
Like the pope, I opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq because, among other reasons, I found it impossible to defend according to the jus ad bellum criteria of the just war tradition. Specifically, I was far from convinced that we had reached the necessity of last resort; I believe that “preventive” or “pre-emptive” wars require a far greater burden of proof than the advocates of this war were willing to meet; I was troubled by the Bush administration’s sneering disregard... Read more
Matthew Yglesias finds himself lately thinking about the following bit of dialogue from Apocalypse Now: Kurtz: "What did they tell you?" Willard: "They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound." Kurtz: "Are my methods unsound?" Willard: "I don't see any method, at all, sir." The passage that echoes for me is from the original, Conrad's Heart of Darkness: This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn... Read more
Officials at the Defense Department are also said to be "livid," and well aware of the damage that has been done by the incident, according to NBC News' Pentagon reporter Jim Miklaszewski. Speaking on the Imus in the Morning radio/MSNBC program Tuesday , Mr. Miklaszewski said he asked a Pentagon contact about the soldiers alleged to be involved, to which the Pentagon official replied, "You mean the six morons who lost the war?" That's from Tom Regan in The Christian... Read more
Payday lenders provide a necessary service, the argument goes. Poor and working-class people need access to capital, and without the payday loansharks they would be shut out completely. People like me and George Bailey, therefore, who want to overturn Marquette and reinstate meaningful usury laws, would only end up hurting the poor by eliminating their only resource for credit. That's the argument in favor of payday lenders, and I hope I've expressed it fairly. But it is wrong. Wrong on... Read more
ACORN has a new ally in the battle against predatory lending: the Pentagon. Paul Fain reports in Mother Jones: Military leaders are starting to wage a war on the home front, and the enemy is right outside the gates of some of the nation's largest bases. There, amid the fast-food joints and the tattoo parlors, are the payday loan offices with neon signs that offer instant cash and easy money. Soldiers and sailors, often struggling to make ends meet, go... Read more
Timothy Burke, just up the road at Swarthmore, lets loose a primal scream. (You could hear the echoes hear in Media, but I got the link via Brad DeLong.) It's worth quoting at length: "Stop with the hindsight," says one writer. "Be patient," says another. Oh, no, let's not stop with the hindsight. Not when so many remain so profoundly, dangerously, incomprehensibly unable to acknowledge that the hindsight shows many people of good faith and reasonable mien predicting what has... Read more
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