U.S. News and World Report’s current “Washington Whispers” carries this nugget of speculation: You’ve heard the theory that September 11 was chosen for the terrorist attacks because the date, 9-11, is the emergency number. Now, terrorism experts fear that April 11, or 4-11, the information code, will be the next disaster day, possibly through a cyberattack. Also from “Washington Whispers,” Redford and Newman together again (Tagline for movie pitch: “Will

Great column from The Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby on Mid-East scholar Steven Emerson and The New McCarthyism. Blacklists, anyone? Why, look no further than NPR. [related: The Idler, “BIAS: A National Public Radio Cover-Up?”]

The New Republic’s Peter Beinart argues that to defeat the “axis of Evil,” the Bush administration must provide aid for nuclear security in the former USSR and (yawn) regulate for better gas mileage here at home. The first part I agree with. But c’mon, Pete. Anti-SUV arguments? You sound like Bill Maher. I thought we’d moved beyond such nonsense… So what, every time I drive to work in my Jeep,

David Brooks has an instructive column on the Olympics and patriotism in The Weekly Standard. Here’s a bit I particularly enjoyed: We are about to enter the Olympic season, and there are going to be a bunch of obnoxious stories about the overbearing patriotism of the host Americans. My point is first that all nations are overbearingly patriotic come Olympics time. And all nations should be. Patriotism, the love of

Via email: Underground cartoon sniper Jim Treacher follows up his editorial work on a typically sneering Rall scribble with a riposte to a typically sneering Teddy posting (‘tseems Teddy scans the message boards looking for references to himself, then responds!; how long before he discovers the job bloggers are doing on him…?). Jim writes: In a recent message board conversation , Mr. Rall indulged in his usual habit for labeling

“Dump the Saudis,” Rich Lowry counsels in today’s NRO. But first, topple Iraq and obviate the very need for the relationship of convenience we maintain with the House of Saud: […]a successful U.S. effort to topple Saddam and install a friendly regime in Baghdad would make the U.S.-Saudi alliance far less important. In many ways, Iraq seems a more natural candidate for friendship with the U.S. than does Saudi Arabia,

In his “Impromptus” column today, The National Review’s Jay Nordlinger writes: A story from Texas two days ago said that education secretary Rod Paige had returned home to Houston to ‘tout education spending increases’ in the administration

Christopher Caldwell of The Weekly Standard offers a scathing critique of the National Drug Control Policy’s SuperBowl advertisements. After noting that “We can leave aside the general question of whether government agencies ought to be spending the public’s money to — in effect — lobby that very same public to keep shelling out money for them,” Caldwell takes issue with one ad in particular, the 30-second spot in which the

Reader (and undergroundish cartoon sniper) Jim Treacher takes this typically nonsensical Rall scribble and turns it into something far more instructive: a dig at Teddy Boy his own silly, Bush-baitin’ self… [Hmm. Just had an idea: If Teddy hires Jim as his ghostwriter, a-and then gets somebody with a bit more artistic talent than himself to draw the pictures (like, say, any ten-year old hard up for a five spot)

The Weekly Standard’s Matt Labash offers this primer on prison speak — providing me with just enough verbal Lego to build this hard-ass insider’s primo slickwilly: “Yo, fish! Don’t make me no nevermind whether you’s a diaper sniper or a tree jumper, you gonna be tossin’ salad on this here skin beef muthaf**ker — family style and on the flip flop, cuz’ — else your june buggin, butterfly-ass gonna’ be