Neocons and fear
Every now and then I see comments here made by people who assume that my post-9/11 change was quick, and was prompted by fear at the event itself. The comments tend to be on the order of “You cowardly idiot, … Continue reading →
neo
Mispronunciation by accident or by design
As a follow-up to my nu-ku-lar post, see this from Dean Esmay, on mispronouncing words as a sign of intelligence. Dean is speaking especially of words a person has only read rather than heard–certainly not the case for Bush and … Continue reading →
WMDs once again
I thought this comment by Paul Snively, which appeared on the recent thread about lying and WMDs, was well-put, and worth highlighting: Brief logic lesson: You cannot prove the negation of an existential quantifier in first-order logic given the open-world … Continue reading →
Books into movies
Norm Geras and Clive Davis both discuss the fact that most movies based on books seem to be not nearly as good as the books from which they’re taken. They cite some rare exceptions, though; movies that equal the original … Continue reading →
Deconstructing “nukular”
At his ever-interesting blog Done With Mirrors, Callimachus offers the definitive explanation of why George W. Bush says “nukular” for “nuclear,” (as opposed to GW’s own father, who pronounces the word conventionally). Apparently, GW is just following precedent for many … Continue reading →
Lies and the lying liars who hear them
It’s said all the time on the left, and even by many liberals: Bush lied. Bush lied through his teeth, especially about WMDs in Saddam’s Iraq. I don’t even have to provide the links; we all know what a recurrent … Continue reading →
Another intelligence leak–of a different sort
I was surprised to see this story in Wednesday’s Guardian. It’s about another intelligence leak–they seem to be quite popular nowadays, don’t they? But this one, unlike the others, isn’t about a failure of the Bush or Blair administrations, and … Continue reading →
More about the reporting of the Munich Massacre of 1972
In my previous post, I recalled hearing the “good news, bad news” reports of the Munich Massacre: Those of you who, like me, are of a certain age, may recall that when the shootout and botched rescue attempt occurred at … Continue reading →
Getting the story straight: misreporting on the miners (and the Munich Massacre)
The sad news of the deaths of the trapped miners is the most important part of this story, not the media problems inherent in its reporting. My heart goes out to the families and friends of the miners. Mining (like … Continue reading →
Sharon has massive cerebral hemorrhage
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has suffered an extremely massive cerebral hemorrhage. It sounds as though it might not be survivable, or, if it is, he is likely to be profoundly disabled. The AP article describes the stroke as the … Continue reading →
Life imitates art: “The Mikado” comes to India
In a public park in the small town of Meerut in northern India (named, ironically enough, after Gandhi, famous advocate of nonviolence) the police went on a rampage against–of all things–necking couples, for what in my youth used to call … Continue reading →
Cat call
This Boston Globe AP article tells a story that would have been hard to believe, even if it had been about a dog. But a cat, making a 9/11 call to save its owner? And yet that seems to have … Continue reading →