Obama may have declared the war over. Unfortunately, al-Qaeda has not. Which gives new meaning to the term “asymmetric warfare.” [...]
More jarring still were Obama’s references to the terrorist as a “suspect” who “allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device.” You can hear the echo of FDR: “Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — Japanese naval and air force suspects allegedly bombed Pearl Harbor.” [...]
This is all quite mad even in Obama’s terms. He sends 30,000 troops to fight terror overseas, yet if any terrorists come to attack us here, they are magically transformed from enemy into defendant.
The logic is perverse. If we find Abdulmutallab in an al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen, where he is merely preparing for a terror attack, we snuff him out with a Predator — no judge, no jury, no qualms. But if we catch him in the United States in the very act of mass murder, he instantly acquires protection not just from execution by drone but even from interrogation. [...]
Any government can through laxity let someone slip through the cracks. But a government that refuses to admit that we are at war, indeed, refuses even to name the enemy — jihadist is a word banished from the Obama lexicon — turns laxity into a governing philosophy.
Really, what must the average American think of an administration that facilitates non-collection of information? When the Obama administration lashes out at a former VP or insists that they are being true to our “values,” it is entirely at odds with the American people. The voters are coming to the realization that their government isn’t doing what is needed to keep us safe. And they seem to value their own safety above some distorted notion that enemy combatants are entitled to be treated like common criminals.It's not about the information, though whatever we get will have accuracy issues because how its obtained. It's also not about being "tough," since WW2 and current interrogators have gotten more through being smart, such as "Matthew Alexander." It's that TORTURE DOES NOT MAKE US SAFER. It cannot make us safer. If the President feels someone has to be tortured because of an imminent attack, then the President should be willing to unergo a possible impeachment. If not, there is no immediate threat and no need. Besides, this logic throws the Geneva convention out the window.
Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?
"The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport," said Sela.
The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?
"Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
[...]
The freeze is an edict that the public cannot tolerate. It is not democratic, nor is it humane. It hits hard at the pockets of law-abiding citizens and embitters their lives. But at its foundation, either intentionally or by accident, is pure and basic apartheid - it is forbidden for Jews to live in certain places. It is forbidden to build. It is forbidden to develop. And it doesn't matter what the reasons are.Riiiiiiiiight. Show me a Right of Return, and then I'll listen to you about not being able to build settlements. No, thank you? Can't say I'm surprised.
Republicans have wasted no time in attacking Democrats on intelligence and screening failures leading up to the failed Christmas Day bombing of Flight 253 — a significant departure from the calibrated, less partisan responses that have followed other recent terrorist activity. [..]
“In the past six weeks, you’ve had the Fort Hood attack, the D.C. Five and now the attempted attack on the plane in Detroit … and they all underscored the clear philosophical difference between the administration and us,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.Talk about nonsense. 9/11 wasn't Bush's "fault," and it wasn't Clinton's "fault," just as these attacks (or attempts) aren't Obama's fault. The executive still bears responsibility, but to suggest any sort of culpability is just dumb. When we politicize terror, and turn such incidents into political footballs, we bring the ignorant terrorists exactly what they seek: attention. Secure against them and then, ignore them.
Williams students get real with new TV show - By REBECCA DRAVIS
"The Mountains" premiered Dec. 17 at the college before beginning a six-week run on WilliNet on Jan. 4 (check willinet.org for show times). And indeed, the students appeared to be having fun making the show, even though it wasn't what Lane had in mind when she first created the film class.
Lane said she thought the class would focus more on traditional live television, utilizing the equipment and studio the college already had, but the students changed direction.
"It became really obvious they were more interested in a reality TV format," she said. "Television is changing, and they wanted to represent what contemporary television is all about."
Let me advance a proposition for you. It's going to be a controversial one. Ready?Rest the rest. I think Silver's right, but I take issue with his conclusion that politics isn't changed in anything but appearance. I think the media has changed politics and polarization - the past partnership won't work now that media is so changed, and that it's time to update the politics to take advantage of new media.
The proposition is this: the Internet is really important!
OK, so I'm joking -- sort of. That tagline sounds so ... 2006. But I think people may nevertheless be overlooking the importance of the Internet in shaping the political landscape that we have today. In other words, a lot of the things that feel "new" about politics circa 2009 are in fact new, but have a lot more to do with information technology than is generally acknowledged.
The genre of the right-wing pro-torture thriller is on a roll, propelled by Beck and Limbaugh. Jason Zengerle has a terrific piece in the new TNR on the phenomenon:As much as I don't care for the polarizing, ridiculous commentary, I'm glad to live in a country that tolerates its own citizens calling each other evil. I will continue to work against such calls and feelings, but it will be with a smile on my face, and thankfulness that even the most crazy must be convinced (or ignored) and not arrested.
With Chapter 50 of Pursuit of Honor, Flynn appears to be angling for a new level of conservative street cred. The chapter finds Rapp sitting in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has asked him to explain his torture of a Saudi terrorism suspect. After being scolded for his “immoral techniques” by Carol Ogden--a California Democrat (and thinly veiled send-up of Barbara Boxer) who “moved in the elite circles of her party, listening to the trial lawyers, academics, and the nuttiest of the crazy special-interest groups”--it’s Rapp’s turn to address the committee. “[W]hat do you think is more morally reprehensible,” he asks, “dislocating the arm of a terrorist … or sticking a steel spike into the brain of an eight-and-a-half-month-old fetus and then sucking his brains out[?]”
On other flights, no luggage is allowed beneath the seat in front of you. On still others, no one is allowed to have any reading material for the last hour of the flight. Blankets and pillows? If you can find one, just don't keep it in your lap. All of this is in response to an incompetent would-be terrorist who lit portions of his private parts on fire while on final approach to Detroit on Christmas day.That these ridiculous rules could attain power is my first presentation of why we need process reform.
Yet, like so many of his like-minded pious comrades, Rove seems far better at preaching the virtues of "traditional marriage" to others and exploiting them for political gain than he does adhering to those principles in his own life:The logical outcome of such articles is going to be forcing prominent social conservatives to stay in unhappy marriages, and that's just dumb. If someone feels that they should limit someone else's civil rights, then you push that argument back in the civil arena. If they believe something as a part of their religion, it should, generally, stay out of the public sphere. There's no need for such personal attacks - they may feel good, but they accomplish nothing.
One of the jobs the media does is deciding what true things count as news and what true things do not count as news. That should be easy, but since newspapers need to sell copies and cable programs need to secure viewers, there's a tension with the fact that some news is boring, while some not-news is really interesting. Palin sneaks onto the front page because she seems to square that circle: Her utterances seem like news (former vice presidential candidate and 2012 hopeful Sarah Palin says ...) but actually aren't. The continuing irony of all this is that for all the enmity between Palin and the press, no one has a closer and more mutually beneficial relationship than Palin has with the media, and no equivalently powerless political figure receives anything near the free coverage that the media lavishes on her.
