Was it a twelve-step program? The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in

Where’s the rage? While performing at the inaugural ball honoring America’s military veterans, some wounded vets are reported to have walked out on funk Musician George Clinton over a perceived on stage insult to George W. Bush. The Washington Times is reporting that during the Heroes Red, White and Blue Inaugural Ball a white towel with the word “[Expletive] GEORGE” spelled out on it was displayed by band members of

from Day One: If the Obama campaign represented a sleek, new iPhone kind of future, the first day of the Obama administration looked more like the rotary-dial past. Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts. What

As many of you know, my son Aidan suffers from Childhood Onset Schizophrenia. It’s nice that there are interest groups who will defend his right to have his psychosis express itself: On June 20, 2006, William Bruce approached his mother as she worked at her desk at home and struck killing blows to her head with a hatchet. Two months earlier, William, a 24-year-old schizophrenic, had been released from Riverview

This morning, while returning after dropping Aidan at school, I was treated to the following op-ed on Vermont Public Radio: (HOST) President Obama is setting a new agenda for the nation, and veteran ABC News correspondent and commentator Bill Seamans is wondering if one particular item of old business will be included. (SEAMANS) It was an inauguration that will stand above most of the others since 1789, when George Washington

David Thompson is in fine fettle today, writing of John Pilger, who’s been let go from the staff of the New Statesman, to the tune of Steam’s hit. A lefty blogress by the name of Sunny Hundal thinks that losing such a voice of conscience is a blow to the left, and David picks up the ball from there: Wild imaginings are, of course, a signature of Mr Pilger’s rhetoric,

Over at the PW pub, Andrew has put up a post that I think speaks for many of us. On Bush and the “Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye” thing: You just had to, didn’t you? You couldn’t just enjoy your victory, couldn’t just let the man slip away beneath the radar of your Profound and Righteous Contempt. You had to channel your inner adolescent and flip him

I’ve let this go, till now, because even The One is not responsible for the racist idiocy that this invited ninny spewed. But impassioned benediction? Dumbass drunk best man stupid commentary is more like it: ….help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when

Steve Benen: AN ERA OF MATURITY…. Adam Serwer had an interesting take on Obama’s inaugural address, arguing that the speech was, at its core, about maturity. “We remain a young nation,” Obama said, “but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.” After September 11, 2001 there was a lot of commentary to the effect that America had “entered adulthood” as we were introduced

Just saw it at FauxNewz. Nothing on their website yet. Update: now, of course, there is something