Krugman’s challenge

OK, Paul, take this economic news and spin it if you can: WASHINGTON (AP) — The economy grew at a 4.4 percent annual rate in the first quarter of this year, slightly faster than previously thought and fresh evidence that the recovery possessed good momentum as it headed into the current quarter. Via Jane Galt

OK, Paul, take this economic news and spin it if you can:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The economy grew at a 4.4 percent annual rate in the first quarter of this year, slightly faster than previously thought and fresh evidence that the recovery possessed good momentum as it headed into the current quarter.

Via Jane Galt

Things to do in Oregon

If you’re a wack-job: NEW YORK – Abu Hamza al-Masri, the fiery Muslim cleric whose shuttered London mosque was linked to Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe bomber Richard Reid, was arrested Thursday in Britain, accused in a U.S. indictment of trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon and providing aid to al-Qaida, officials said. … Continue reading “Things to do in Oregon”

If you’re a wack-job:

NEW YORK – Abu Hamza al-Masri, the fiery Muslim cleric whose shuttered London mosque was linked to Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe bomber Richard Reid, was arrested Thursday in Britain, accused in a U.S. indictment of trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon and providing aid to al-Qaida, officials said.

Or you could just go the Portland Farmers’ Market and look at the chickens.

The skanks on Capitol Hill

Michelle Malkin on Wonkette, Washingtonienne, and their fifteen minutes: …give The Washington Post two vain, young, trash-mouthed skanks who couldn’t care less about what their parents think of their sex-drenched infamy, and the newspaper can’t wait to help make them full-fledged members of the media elite. Sounds about right. And behind this wonderful story, we … Continue reading “The skanks on Capitol Hill”

Michelle Malkin on Wonkette, Washingtonienne, and their fifteen minutes:

…give The Washington Post two vain, young, trash-mouthed skanks who couldn’t care less about what their parents think of their sex-drenched infamy, and the newspaper can’t wait to help make them full-fledged members of the media elite.

Sounds about right. And behind this wonderful story, we have Wonkette’s sponsor, Nick Denton.

Aren’t blogs great?

via Ben Domenich.

We need more nuclear power

James Lovelock points out that any rational response to the threat of global warming has to embrace nuclear power: Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media. These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the … Continue reading “We need more nuclear power”

James Lovelock points out that any rational response to the threat of global warming has to embrace nuclear power:

Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media. These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen. If we fail to concentrate our minds on the real danger, which is global warming, we may die even sooner, as did more than 20,000 unfortunates from overheating in Europe last summer.

So who’s really to blame for the low priority we’ve placed on nukes here in the US, the filthy corporations or the scruffy hippies? I think we all know the answer to that.

Via Dan Gillmor.

Talking us into defeat

Turns out Mort Kondracke said it already: In this respect, there is a real danger that Iraq could become like Vietnam – a self-inflicted defeat. Public support for the war is down, and even conservative columnists such as David Brooks and George Will are implying that Bush’s aims are unachievable. Just as we lost Vietnam … Continue reading “Talking us into defeat”

Turns out Mort Kondracke said it already:

In this respect, there is a real danger that Iraq could become like Vietnam – a self-inflicted defeat. Public support for the war is down, and even conservative columnists such as David Brooks and George Will are implying that Bush’s aims are unachievable.

Just as we lost Vietnam in the newsrooms and not on the battlefield, Iraq will be quagmire or success depending on America’s attention span.

Via Matt Welch.

Bush Says U.S. Will Persevere in Iraq

Yahoo! News – Bush Says U.S. Will Persevere in Iraq “There are difficult days ahead and the way forward may sometimes appear chaotic,” he said. “The terrorists and Saddam loyalists would rather see many Iraqis die than have any live in freedom. But terrorists will not determine the future of Iraq.” Unfortunately, the terrorists and … Continue reading “Bush Says U.S. Will Persevere in Iraq”

Yahoo! News – Bush Says U.S. Will Persevere in Iraq

“There are difficult days ahead and the way forward may sometimes appear chaotic,” he said. “The terrorists and Saddam loyalists would rather see many Iraqis die than have any live in freedom. But terrorists will not determine the future of Iraq.”

Unfortunately, the terrorists and Saddam loyalists aren’t the only threats to the success of a free Iraq — we also face partisans in the American political system and media establishment who’d rather keep the Iraqi people in chains than allow a Republican president to share their victory. We all know who they are – those who would rather obsess about Iraqi prisoners with panties on their heads than talk about the Iraqis whose heads and hands were amputated by Saddam’s torture goons, those who would assert equivalence between the Bush administration and the Saddam regime, those who still celebrate the defeat of the US and the Vietnamese people in the war that ended with a communist bloodbath that took 200,000 lives in less than a month, those who are so impressed by John Kerry’s war record they forgive his totally lackluster career in the Senate and his buddying up to the rapists of Chappaquiddick and Chappaqua.

I don’t think the American people are as vain and self-centered as these critics believe, but we’ll see in November.

WordPress 1.2 Released

From the WordPress Development Blog: I am very proud to announce the immediate availability of the much-anticipated 1.2 “Mingus” release of WordPress. You can download it through the usual methods, though it usually takes a few hours for the SourceForge mirrors to catch up with everything. There are so many new features it’s almost too … Continue reading “WordPress 1.2 Released”

From the WordPress Development Blog:

I am very proud to announce the immediate availability of the much-anticipated 1.2 “Mingus” release of WordPress. You can download it through the usual methods, though it usually takes a few hours for the SourceForge mirrors to catch up with everything. There are so many new features it’s almost too much for this post, but I’ll squeeze them in. You can view the full changelog on the wiki.

There you are – real progress.

The Sarin non-story, part 2

Citizen Smash – The Indepundit explains it all: The artillery shell discovered earlier this week, according to General Kimmitt, contained a “mix-in-flight” binary chemical warhead. This type of warhead, as noted above, was not used in the Iran-Iraq war, and was not included by Saddam in any of his weapons declarations. Keyword = new. Any … Continue reading “The Sarin non-story, part 2”

Citizen Smash – The Indepundit explains it all:

The artillery shell discovered earlier this week, according to General Kimmitt, contained a “mix-in-flight” binary chemical warhead. This type of warhead, as noted above, was not used in the Iran-Iraq war, and was not included by Saddam in any of his weapons declarations.

Keyword = new.

Any questions?

Denton’s Folly

Business 2.0 is no more impressed with Kinja than we were: After only a few months in the lab, the Kinja team scrapped the marketing-tool angle. The project persisted as a kind of Google for blogs, and at launch, to no one’s surprise, the New York Times ran a piece about it. But so far, … Continue reading “Denton’s Folly”

Business 2.0 is no more impressed with Kinja than we were:

After only a few months in the lab, the Kinja team scrapped the marketing-tool angle. The project persisted as a kind of Google for blogs, and at launch, to no one’s surprise, the New York Times ran a piece about it. But so far, the thing has turned out to be an overhyped bust on par with “push technology.” Hourihan quit the day of its launch. Power bloggers eschew it as a weaker version of the programs they already use, the blog-gathering RSS applications, which keep tabs on hundreds of blogs at once. People new to the blogging world, of course, don’t look at it at all.

Denton’s genius is his uncanny ability to exploit bright but emotionally-disturbed young women, a formula from which he departed in the case of Kinja. Perhaps he’s learned something.