“A European Union proposal to tax goods and services delivered digitally over the Internet would impose new burdens on U.S. sellers, the Bush administration said Friday.” The Washington Post reports that EU finance ministers are expected next week to consider a plan that would require U.S. sellers to register in Europe and charge the value-added tax on digitally delivered products that applies in the consumer’s home country. Deputy Treasury Secretary

According to the official North Korean News Agency (just smacks of objectivity, don’t it?), North Korea has dubbed the U.S. “empire of the devil,” the BBC reports. KCNA also claims that “Bush was using the threat supposedly posed by North Korea as a pretext for a huge increase in defence spending.” Pretext for spending? Naw — those hijacked planes crashing into our buildings did the trick as far as a

‘Cause it sure seems like the spirit of Jeffrey Dahmer is moldering in this guy, Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, whose trial for allegations of sexually molesting young boys begins this week, The Washington Post reports: Prosecutors have agreed not to bring up Bar-Jonah’s convictions for kidnapping and molesting other boys in Massachusetts. They will not mention his two years in prison and 11 years in a mental hospital there after one attack,

Here’s The National Review’s Rich Lowry explaining the Bush administration’s “shift” on the status of Gitmo detainees: As far as I can tell from chatting with Geneva guru and Yale/Johns Hopkins law professor Ruth Wedgwood, the administration’s position comes down to this: If the Taliban were to wage a lawful war, wearing uniforms, with a neighboring country, say over a border dispute, they would qualify for Geneva protection. Of course

A reader linked me to this 1992 interview of Noam Chomsky by John Pilger, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus on it. Until, that is, I re-fashioned it a bit (courtesy of the Dialectizer)… J. “Elmer” Pilger: Noam Chomsky has been awmost impossibwe to pigeon-howe. He was against the manipuwations of bof sides in the Cowd Waw, bewieving that the supewpowews wewe actuawwy united in suppwessing the aspiwations and

The bright and fiesty Glenn Kinen responds to my earlier quip that TNR’s Peter Beinart may have overstated his case a bit when he called for stricter U.S. gas mileage regulations as one half of his two-pronged strategy (he also advocates helping the Russians shore up their nuclear material) to defeat the “axis of Evil.” Hey, Glenn– Still in the middle of grading papers, but I promise I’ll post a

Decrying the “rabid right-wing racists deconstructing my work,” Ted Rall takes to the Comics Journal message board to right perceived ideological wrongs — stomping out unfriendly critical discussion and making the world a safer place for…silly, crayon-based communism. Here’s his latest screed, broken down (and amplified) for your convenience: I have never apologized for Osama or Al Qaeda, though I have certainly made the point that many of their complaints

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,