Category Archives: National news

In what’s sure to be the first of many “victories” for the President, the Homeland Security bill has passed, with an amendment to strip a few odious favors to GOP benefactors being defeated on a mostly party-line vote, 52-47. Three … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A couple of interesting stories in the NYT about wildlife proliferation. First, this story about how an explosion in the white tailed deer population is wreaking havoc on ecosystems in the East and Midwest. Humans are pretty much the main … Continue reading → Continue reading →

President Bush says the economy is just peachy despite precipitous declines in the stock market and more people giving up the search for jobs: The Bush administration […] issued an upbeat report yesterday on the economy, proclaiming that despite lost … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A KFC employee has been arrested after giving a customer a bag of marijuana as a side dish to his order. I am, as they say, Not Making This Up: The customer who visited a KFC in this San Francisco … Continue reading → Continue reading →

At a campaign event for Katherine Harris, Dick Armey took a moment to educate the world about the two types of Jews in America: “I always see two Jewish communities in America: one of deep intellect and one of shallow, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Yet another story about how yet another alternative to the good ol’ dollar bill – the gold Sacagawea coin – is a big flop. Counting the Susan B. Anthony coin and the two-dollar bill, that’s three failed attempts to convince … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Via Josh Marshall comes this NYT article which talks about how little we know about the collapse of the Twin Towers. Of course the country had to understand what went wrong. One of the largest structures ever built had failed, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The following is from an email my father sent to family members on September 30, 2001: Our father and Grandfather, Charles A Kuffner, badge 9647, was one of those special men who entered the ranks of the Fire Department during … Continue reading → Continue reading →

We just observed a moment of silence here in our building to commemorate the terrorist attacks of a year ago. I didn’t need to be asked to be silent – I was in the middle of reading Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The best suggestion I’ve heard for a WTC Memorial in New York comes courtesy of my friend Ben on the Roundtable list: Replacement towers of some sort. The only thing I specifically want is the following component: 1. Excavate. 2. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’ve tried to find a reason to praise Dick Armey for his recent apostasy on Republican red-meat issues. Really I have. I just can’t quite bring myself to do it. It’s not that I’m unhappy with what Armey has done. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

That new git-tuff-on-corporate-crime bill that Dubya signed and is shamelessly claiming cedit for despite opposing it every step of the way? It was supposed to contain full protection for corporate whistle-blowers, the people who will call attention to the future … Continue reading → Continue reading →

You’re the President of the most powerful nation in the world. You’re being blamed for the current economic turmoil, while your Treasury Secretary is busy making a fool of himself. Your business experience, a cornerstone of your campaign, is being … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Charles Dodgson does some pundit watching, and it’s not pretty: In the conservative Weekly Standard, two scholars from the American Enterprise Institute argue that the prospect of further regulation, such as the bill that recently passed through Congress on stiffening … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I haven’t made up my mind yet about whether proposed national standards for getting a driver’s license are a good thing or a step down the slippery slope. I just wanted to point out that this picture of Tom Ridge … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Vice President Dick Cheney was in town to deny allegations of wrongdoing during his tenure as CEO of Halliburton, to support notorious judicial activist Priscilla Owen, and oh yeah, to campaign for John Cornyn in his Senate race against Ron … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Fly the locked-and-loaded skies I’m somewhat of an agnostic on the issue of allowing airline pilots to carry guns as a deterrent to hijacking. I don’t oppose the idea, since it’s rather hard to make the case that the events … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Brian Linse quotes Maureen Dowd as follows: Can a Bush – born on third base but thinking he hit a triple – ever really understand the problems of the guys in the bleachers? That’s a great line. It was also … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In case you were wondering, the July 4 shooting spree at LAX by a terrorist disgruntled ex-employee nutball dirtbag was actually Tom Daschle’s fault. You just can’t make up stuff like this. Via Atrios. Continue reading →

This op-ed piece in the Sunday Chron makes an interesting point about school vouchers and their promise to improve schools, namely that the better schools, usually located in suburbs, have resisted and will resist efforts to take away their autonomy. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Larry sends an open letter to Larry Flynt regarding the woman in Florida who insists on covering her face for her driver’s license photo. It got me wondering – When do you think Playboy will feature its first Muslim/Arab Playmate? … Continue reading → Continue reading →

More on the gender gap numbers Atrios notes that one of his commenters has pointed out that the real driver behind the college gender gap is the larger discrepancy among nonwhite students. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make very much difference. If … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The college gender gap Fritz Schranck finds Instant Man’s reaction to this article about the gender gap in American universities surprising. I confess that I’ve never been all that impressed with Reynolds, so I’m not that surprised. Is Reynolds unaware … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Airport security I was fairly impressed with the security at SeaTac Airport. They frequently repeated the instruction to relieve yourself of anything electionic or metallic when passing through the metal detector, which was apparently set to a pretty sensitive setting, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Al Gore was twice pulled aside for random security checks while flying Midwest Airlines between Washington and Milwaukee. Gore apparently took the indignity with good patience. Via my buddy Drew on the RoundTable list. I saw him drop a hint … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A somber tribute to our fallen brothers and sisters at Ground Zero, as the cleanup work finishes up. We will never forget. May your families and friends find solace, and may we never have cause for this kind of ceremony … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Crisis over! is the headline of this Slate piece, in which Tim Noah continues his fine dissecting of all the dire-yet-vague terrorism warnings that came out right after the revelations that Team Bush had quite a few facts at its … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Matt Yglesias has been discussing a brouhaha at Harvard concerning a student who will be speaking at the commencement ceremony on “American Jihad” which “will challenge seniors to apply the concept of the jihad to their lives after graduation”. (See … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Public Nuisance and Unqualified Offerings have some useful things to say about unconnected dots. There’s plenty of responsibility to go around, but the more I read the less impressed I am by Team Bush’s response, and I wasn’t all that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The remains of Chandra Levy have been found in a park in northwestern Washington, DC. One of the ways that some people used to measure how much America was “back” from 9/11 was a return to interest in and gossip … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Today I spent the better part of the morning downtown doing battle with a piece of software. (I think I won, but the French and Russian judges are still quibbling over the score.) The building I visited is one I’ve … Continue reading → Continue reading →

We had a great time at the Schlitterbahn. It’s amazing what a stress-free weekend, plus a full day of activity, will do for your ability to sleep. Even though I’m now squarely behind the commentary curve, it felt good to … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’ve taken conservatives to task several times in this space for whining about liberal media bias. One of the reasons why this is such a hot-button issue for me is that here in Houston you have to go out of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Via File13 we get this amusing story about how a professional comedian called attendees of the American Teleservices convention in their hotel rooms early in the morning. Now don’t you wish you’d thought of that? Continue reading →