Uncategorized
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Great moments in Congressional debate
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank eviscerates a House committee for its absurd debate on the definition of torture: Confronted with one of the weightiest issues of the times — whether to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions’ torture prohibitions — the committee members quickly retreated to the familiar terrain of extraneous and off-point arguments. Rep. Jerry Nadler
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Offensive comparison watch: Rep. Steve King
From the Wall Street Journal — a lesson in inappropriate comparisons: What we have here is panicked Republicans engaging in pre-election theatrics as they seek to remind voters that they’re tough on the illegal immigration problem they’ve done nothing to actually solve. Here’s one example of how tough they are. Steve King of Iowa suggested
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Digg my column!
If you’re a Digg member, please go digg my Time.com column on the TAP controversy and the future of opinion journalism! And make sure to read down to the end of the post about the column below, which now includes multiple updates on comments and reaction. [Update: Digg link is fixed now.]
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The future of opinion journalism
I have a new column at Time.com [Update: link offline — see here] on The American Prospect’s attempt to limit my criticism of liberals on their blog (which caused me to quit) and its implications for the future of opinion journalism. Here’s how it begins: Not that long ago, many people thought the Internet would
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Bush straw man watch
WashingtonPost.com’s Dan Froomkin flags the latest entries in the endless string of straw-man arguments made by President Bush: Straw Man Watch Here’s an astonishing exchange from the Rose Garden on Friday: “Q Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of
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The author of Brainless responds
Last week, I criticized the title of the forthcoming William Morrow book Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter: That is one annoying and offensive title. Coulter is not “brainless” — she’s obviously very intelligent, and has successfully pandered her way to millions of dollars. In addition, “brainless” and “lunacy” implicitly reference cultural stereotypes
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My old boss is a genius
From 2001-2003, I worked for Benetech, a social entrepreneurial nonprofit that uses technology to address issues like disabilities and human rights. So I’m proud to say that Jim Fruchterman, Benetech’s CEO and founder (and my former boss), just won a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. Please help keep the ball rolling — check out
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Blackburn slurs Pelosi’s loyalty
The indefatigable Dana Milbank of the Washington Post notes the latest incident from “Treason Season”: The California Democrat has been the focus of the GOP attack since her remark last week that capturing Osama bin Laden wouldn’t make us safer… Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) stood next to a poster of Pelosi and her words about
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More wacky govt. kids mascots
Back in February, I mocked (here and here) the silly cartoon mascots of government websites for children, which included Rex the mountain lion from the Department of Homeland Security: Herman, the FEMA hermit spokescrab for disaster response: And the National Security Agency’s CryptoKids, including Crypto Cat and Decipher Dog: The new issue of the Washington
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Times correction watch: 2 for 3
My experiment in New York Times corrections is going well. Out of the three errors identified by me (here and here ) and FAIR, two have been corrected. First, the error FAIR caught was corrected on Sept. 12: An article that appeared on NYTimes.com for part of the day on Sept. 5 incorrectly described President