Archive for April 2009

An Iraq of Lights, Tunnels and Oncoming Trains

“Oh boy, this is gonna get worse before it gets better.” – Chief Wiggum Getting out of Iraq was never going to be easy and the last couple of weeks have shown us a hint of what’s in store as the stated American withdrawal date inches ever closer.  The most pressing date is the June [...]

It’s So Obvious

“Tomorrow we were gonna find out who the dish ran away with.” – Bart Simpson “The spoon, Bart.” – Lisa Simpson “Of course!” – Bart Simpson As the American torture story continues to metastasize like the foul cancer that it is, no one seems quite sure what to do when it comes to the thorny [...]

Books Are Different

“Finally a copy of Ethan Frome to call my own.” – Lisa Simpson This article about xkcd releasing an old fashioned book in Monday’s New York Times got me to thinking about something that’s been rattling around my head since that Ars Technica piece about the history of e-books I wrote about a couple of [...]

A Good Day

“Bailiffs, place the mayor under arrest.” – Judge Snyder “What?  Oh yes, all that stuff I did.” – Sideshow Bob It was a good week for America.  The release of four odious torture memos on Thursday was an important step towards healing one of the most severe of the many wounds Bush the Younger inflicted [...]

Unarmed and (Not Immediately) Dangerous

“You don’t even have a trigger on that thing.” – Homer Simpson “Yeah, I had to sell the trigger and most of the handle to feed my family.  C’mon, gimme the dough, I can throw this pretty hard.” – Clancy Wiggum North Korea has been back in the news the last couple of weeks.  The [...]

The Last Redoubt

“Damn long hairs never learn, chief.” – Eddie Amidst the many dreams that have been given hope by the election and subsequent enthroning of Barack Obama is the idea that the foolhardy war on drugs may finally begin releasing its deadly grip on government policy.  Mostly this takes the form of eminently reasonable objections to [...]

A Really Bad (NATO) Idea

“What do we care?  We live in the United States.” – Fry “The United States is part of the world.” – Leela “Wow, I have been gone a long time.” – Fry On Monday Armchair Generalist had a link to an Andrew Bacevich op-ed that ran in last Thursday’s Los Angeles Times.  Bacevich’s piece advocated [...]

Setup to Fail

“You know, I gotta be honest with you.  I only have another week and a half here and I have completely checked out.” – Job Placement Center Employee “Oh.” – Peter Griffin “Yeah.” – Job Placement Center Employee Benjamin Netanyahu became the Prime Minister of Israel for the second time this week.  Two and a [...]

This Country Deserves a Better Class of Criminal

“Surely you knew as you were writing your own name in forty-foot high letters on the field that you would be caught.” – Principal Skinner There has been much comment recently about the popular anger over Wall Street bailouts, executive bonuses, and financial fraud.  Particularly galling is the image of our freshly elected president seemingly [...]

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