brendanm98's blog
In the 911 recording released Monday, caller Lucia Whalen tells police she saw two men pressing on the door of a home, but says she is unsure whether the men live there or if they were trying to break in. She said she saw two suitcases on the porch."I don't know if they live there and they just had a hard time with their key. But I did notice they used their shoulder to try to barge in and they got in. I don't know if they had a key or not cause I couldn't see from my angle," Whalen said.
Palau agreed to accept 17 Chinese Muslims who have languished in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay, indicating a resolution to one of the major obstacles to closing the U.S. prison camp.The announcement Wednesday by the Pacific archipelago, which would clear the last of the Uighurs from the camp in Cuba, was a major step toward the Obama administration's goal of finding new homes for detainees who have been cleared of wrongdoing but cannot go home for fear of ill-treatment.
Please also note the sourcing on this, it is not simply an IDF claim:
Palestinians reported some two dozen airstrikes in Gaza on Thursday. One militant was killed and 10 wounded in Gaza City, while an airstrike in northern Gaza killed three members of a rocket-launching cell, Palestinian medical officials said. The attack took place about 150 yards from a hospital and wounded 12 bystanders. The Israeli army has repeatedly said militants use civilian areas for cover.
Such tactics are simply standard practice, and unfortunately so is the Israeli response.
I enjoyed playing in a recent game of diplomacy with several Forvm regulars. Truth be told, I enjoyed it a lot more than political discussions these days; if you're also tired of the vitriol, the hypocrisy, and the mindless chanting of talking points, you should consider giving diplomacy a try... at least there you can get something concrete for misrepresenting what occurred and lying about the intentions of your team =)
Anyway, I thought I'd take the liberty of pointing out a few things that I learned in the course of the game. I'll just identify players by country, so they can claim the credit or correct me as they desire. And my apologies for not including France in this exercise; he was unfortunately eliminated before we had any direct encounters. Since I'm only a beginner, I'm probably getting this all wrong, but here's some of what I took away from this game. I'm Russia, the white pieces.
between a precipitous withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq that would plunge the region into chaos and ignite a bloody civil war, and the successful completion of a mission to restore stability to Iraq and leave it a free and independent nation?
Obama's dangerous plan of surrendering to al Qaeda:
Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – more than 7 years after the war began.
Because, you know, everyone else is talking about it.
I am beginning to dislike the McCain campaign, and here is an example of why. Over the weekend, Hillary supporter General Wesley Clark reiterated that McCain's service, while admirable, does not in and of itself convey the experience of being Commander in Chief. This is not a controversial position; in fact, I remember at Redstate whenever some lefty would trot out a survey or anecdote that showed troops disagreeing with Bush on something to do with Iraq, the standard response was that the troops on the ground were not in a position to judge the overall strategy, which is certainly accurate. It's also not in any way demeaning of McCain's service, anymore than the folks at Redstate were demeaning the troops when noting the limitations of their experiences. In fact, Clark went to some lengths to praise McCain's service: "I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war."
The faithful would be arriving soon, and I wanted to be ready. I straightened the picture of Him from the recent rally; surely they would be impressed by how close I had been to hear His words. The holy text was prominently displayed on our bookshelf, perhaps a bit worn from being read and reread. The table was spread with fruits and cakes, but his followers were not seeking earthly food. We were gathering to proclaim our loyalty to the Bringer of Hope, the Creator of Change, and to help make ready his ascension in the winter months.
A truly moving, heartfelt, and gracious speech. Senator Clinton opened with stories of her supporters who have given so much to promote her campaign, then passionately called for support of Obama and laid out the reasons we need a Democrat in the White House: for boosting the economy, for reforming health care, for responsibly ending the war in Iraq. Finally, she looked back at how far women in US politics have come, and how her candidacy has helped make the path easier in the future for a woman to become President.
It's been a long and at times bitter primary, but it's also been a historic campaign and I'm proud to be a member of a party that has put forward such qualified and groundbreaking candidates for President.
![]() |
Chess is an ancient game of mental skill between two players, with simple rules but great depth to the play. In art, chess is commonly used to symbolize either intellectual ability or challenge ("three moves ahead") from the perspective of the controlling player, or else role in the system ("just a pawn") from the perspective of a piece. There is a decent amount of art related to chess, from literature (e.g., Nabokov's The Defense) to poetry (e.g., Eliot's The Wasteland) to painting (e.g., Duchamp's "Portrait of Chess Players") to film (e.g., Searching for Bobby Fischer). There are also the great chess games themselves -- do they qualify as art? They certainly inspire with their beauty. Below the fold, some music, paintings, and games... |
Conservative
Liberal
Moderate/Mixed/Non-Partisan
Non-Political/Reference
Related Sites
Polisci Applied (Aaron)
Intrepid Liberal Journal (Intrepid Liberal)
Obsidian Wings (Bird Dog)
Open Hand/Open Eye (locutas)
Red State (Bird Dog)
Swords Crossed (brendanm98)
Wagster Speaks (Wagster)
WatchingAmerica (BlaiseP)
The Social Pathologist (TSP)
Foreign Affairs
Abu Aardvark
'Aqoul
American Footprints
Council on Foreign Relations
CSIS
Democracy Arsenal
Intel Dump
The Fourth Rail
War and Piece
Politics
Ace of Spades HQ
Andrew Sullivan
Balloon Juice
Belgravia Dispatch
Captain's Quarters
Crooked Timber
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical
Daily Kos
Democracy Arsenal
Eschaton
Firedoglake
Glenn Greenwald
Global Guerrillas
Hugh Hewitt
Instapundit
Jawa Report
Lawyers, Guns and Money
Liberals Against Terror
Matt Yglesias
Michael J. Totten
Michelle Malkin
Moon of Alabama
New America
OxBlog
Patterico
Political Animal
Political Wire
Publius Pundit
QandO
Reality Based Community
Talking Points Memo
The Agitator
The Belmont Club
The Corner
This Modern WorldTruman Project
Winds of Change.net
War
Counterterrorism Blog
Iraq the Model
Jihad Watch
Small Wars Journal Blog
Economics and Business
Angry Bear
Brad DeLong
Daniel Drezner
Mahalanobis
Marginal Revolution
Roubini Global Economics
The Big Picture
Science and Tech
Bad Astronomy
New Scientist
Real Climate
Science Blogs
Scientific American
The Panda's Thumb
Legal
Balkinization
Conglomerate
Ideoblog
Jurisdynamics
Law and Letters
Overlawyered
ProfessorBainbridge
ScotusBlog
Talk Left
The Becker-Posner Blog
Volokh Conspiracy
Sports
Baseball Crank
Baseball Musings
Baseball Reference.com
ESPN.com
NFL.com
Only Baseball Matters
The Sports Economist
Film and Music
They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
Internet Movie Database
All Music Guide
News and Aggregators
Asia Times
Boingboing
CNN
Digg
English Russia
Fark
Memeorandum
MSNBC
Politico
Poynteronline
Slashdot
Dead Tree Media
The New York Times
The Washington Post
Los Angeles Times
References

