Week of August 10, 2009

After years of praising Bush as a man of resolve, [Dick] Cheney now intimates that the former president turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end.

Tom Engelhardt

We're so past the Roman Empire by now that it's probably time to update the phrase"fiddling while Rome burns." What about, for instance,"writing fake letters ostensibly from real non-profit groups to weaken a climate-change bill while the planet burns"? It's true. According to the New York Times, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a coal industry and utilities trade group,"indirectly hired" a lobbying firm that did just that, sending piteous letters to congressional representatives from, for instance, the Albemarle-Charlottesville chapter of the N.A.A.C.P, claiming:"Many of our members are on tight budgets, and the sizes of their monthly utility bills are important expense items."

Juan Cole

[Headline:"Taliban Briefly Take Logar Capital Near Kabul"]

...For 12 or so fighters to occupy government offices in the capital of the province abutting Kabul directly to its south on the eve of a presidential election is sort of like al-Qaeda taking over Richmond, Virginia in late October in an election year. The guerrillas could only have succeeded because the Pul-i Alam police and military faded away rather than fight them. Only Afghan army and ISAF units from the capital were able to dislodge the guerrillas.

Daniel Bruno Sanz

A specter is haunting the United States: the specter of nuclear attack without nuclear war.