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June 26, 2006

An open letter to Glenn Greenwald

Dearest Glenn — I hear you’ve been demanding an apology from me.  Evidently, you believe I unfairly taunted you for your attempt to turn a story about a secret progressive message pipeline into a story about a single email that has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on Kos’s “suggestion” that an unflattering story be starved of oxygen (the implications of which I discussed here). Well, sorry.  But my independent spirit won’t

Scenes from the aftermath of a wasp attack on a two-year-old boy (resulting in several facial stings and a trip to the pediatric center)

boy: “Bee bad, Daddy.” me: “That’s right.  Though Daddy would have gone with ‘bees fucking suck, which is why I’m about to go genocidal on them with aerosalized chemical weapons, then dance on their twitching corpses until not even their immediate family members can identify them.’”

Information yearning to be Freeh!

Hmmm.  Wonder why the NYT isn’t all over this one?  From the WSJ, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, “Khobar Towers: The Clinton administration left many stones unturned”: […] The aftermath of the Khobar bombing is just one example of how successive U.S. governments have mishandled Iran. On June 25, 1996, President Clinton declared that “no stone would be left unturned” to find the bombers and bring them to “justice.” Within

The New York Times and the “public good” (NOW WITH TONY SNOW AND BILL KELLER!) – 6/29 UPDATE

…Which, for those of you who’ve been following Bill Keller’s sanctimonious and self-important grandstanding (condensed version here), is a very peculiar conception of the “public good,” especially insofar as it doesn’t really take into account the wishes of the public—nor is it particularly deferential to the way the public votes, or to the laws public representatives (elected by members of the public) have passed.  Like, say, laws against knowingly disclosing

The many adventures of Hermie, the super-clever carrier pigeon, 1

General Store owner: “Well, Hermie, I don’t see why ol’ Mr Tompkins would ask for a ‘shitload of worms, assorted insects, and yummy yummy bread crumbles,’ but if that’s what he wants, that’s what he’ll get.”

“After Londonistan”

From the NYT Magazine, a lengthy piece that outlines the practical dangers of a multiculturalist social philosophy that pays too little attention to assimilation, and that refuses to pass decisive judgment on the Other: Today, Britain has more than a million and a half Muslims. A million live in London, where they make up an eighth of the population. They are not just the refugees and tempest-tossed laborers of the