BUSH IRAQ SPEECH PREVIEW

Pajamas Media military affairs expert Austin Bay previews tonight’s speech by President Bush on Iraq. The speech calls for an additional 21,500 troops for the war. Bay just participated in a blogger conference call with White House press secretary Tony Snow on the troop “surge”and the new strategy.

The "Don Quixote Kids" of Paris

In France today the only heroes are the homeless, the new Pet Rocks of Paris and its prime time media.

by Nidra Poller, PJM’s Paris Editor

One hundred days from the presidential elections, what is on the mind of an aspiring world power like France? The nuclear threat from Iran? The Hizballah putsch fomenting in Lebanon? War between Fatah and Hamas? The defeat of Islamists in Somalia?

Werewolves of Wellpoint

By Catherine Seipp

I was happy to learn that Blue Cross, California’s largest private health insurer, has to pay a $200,000 fine for improperly voiding sick subscribers’ policies - in many cases years after the subscribers had applied for coverage. But my pleasure in this was mitigated by the knowledge that to Blue Cross and its parent company WellPoint, $200,000 is basically just chump change.

America’s Boots on the Ground in Somalia

How the United States has covertly aided Ethiopia’s fight against the Islamic Courts Union.
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross for Pajamas Media

The al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic Courts Union’s (ICU) rapid retreat in the face of Ethiopia’s military campaign in Somalia has puzzled many observers. How could the Ethiopians roll up the jihadists so quickly? Pajamas Media has learned that one significant factor is that U.S. air and ground forces covertly aided the Ethiopian military since its intervention began on Christmas day.

Film: Babel and The Pursuit of Happyness

Rinko Kikuchi

A continuing series of “out of school” Oscar reviews by Motion Picture Academy Member Roger L. Simon

Two of this year’s notable films – Babel and The Pursuit of Happyness – share a theme of concern for children. I don’t know whether that constitutes a trend. But it’s certainly in the air. And who could deny this theme’s importance or its drama?

Why Ethiopia is Winning in Somalia

The keys to a surprising military campaign.
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross for Pajamas Media
Edited by Richard Miniter

The startlingly rapid retreat of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a Taliban-like group linked to Osama bin Laden, surprised military intelligence officers who less than a week ago were predicting a total route of Somalia’s secular transitional federal government.

The Berger Dossier: Pajamas Media makes the Inspector General's Official Report Public

Sandy Berger (Right)

PJM is making public on this website for the first time the report by the Inspector General’s office regarding Sandy Berger and his theft and destruction of classified national security documents — named in the report as, “The ‘W’ Intelligence Files.” This document was obtained for review by Pajamas Media.

Afghanistan Again: Somalia Falling to Al Qaeda

by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
A Pajamas Media Exclusive

Al Qaeda’s allies in Somalia are on the verge of seizing the secular government’s last stronghold - opening the possibility of a “new Afghanistan” to shelter America’s enemies.

"Old Farts" vs. Bloggers

By Catherine Seipp

The Michael Richards n-word incident continues to take its toll, especially in media circles. I just noticed, for instance, that former Los Angeles Timesman Bob Baker’s attempt at “satirizing” Richards’ recent comedy club implosion used the n-word 23 times and therefore got him in trouble with a “reporter/friend,” (presumably nonwhite, otherwise I suspect Baker would have tried to come up with some sort of argument.) But the sometime L.A. Times writing coach quickly backed off from his Lenny Bruce-inspired parody regretfully and fully.

Film: The Lives of Others

Ulrich Mühe as Weisler

A continuing series of “out of school” Oscar reviews by Motion Picture Academy Member Roger L. Simon

My friend novelist David Freeman said the German movie The Lives of Others would remind blasé me why I was once interested in working in the movies and he was right. Thirty-three year old Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s first film about life under the Stasi (East German State Security) is a masterpiece of political cinema with the depth and lingering impact of a serious novel, an extreme rarity in movies these days. It is also a riveting theatrical experience. The film won Best Picture at the European Film Awards (after being astonishingly rejected by the Berlin and Cannes Festivals – more on this below) and should contend for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

I Want My EnemyTV!

Somewhere in Syria...

Iraqi Insurgents Launch 24-Hour Television Station — A PJM Exclusive — Al-Qaeda leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri has “big plans” for new propaganda vehicle.

by Daveed Gartenstein Ross & Nick Grace

Broadcasting from a secret location in Syria, Al-Qaeda and its allies now have their own 24-hour television station, Pajamas Media has learned.

IRAQI INSURGENTS LAUNCH 24-HOUR TELEVISION STATION

Somewhere in Syria...

Broadcasting from a secret location in Syria, Al-Qaeda and its allies now have their own 24-hour television station, Pajamas Media has learned. Known as Al-Zawraa, Arabic for “first channel,” the station broadcasts enemy propaganda and rebroadcasts of Western anti-war material, including Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. It is not connected with Al-Jazeera.

EN GARDE! Belien vs. Peters on the Fate of Europe's Muslims, Round 2

Paul Belien, editor of The Brussels Journal, sharply criticized a column by Ralph Peters published in the New York Post last week. Mr. Peters responded to Belien’s article with an extended comment here on Pajamas Media. Here Mr. Belien replies to Mr. Peters’ objections.

Kramerology 101: Of the N-Word and Smarm

"Was it something I said?

By PJM’s Media Correspondent Catherine Seipp

My sympathy for Michael Richards (a.k.a. Seinfeld’s “Kramer” who erupted in a racist tirade at two black hecklers last week at a LA comedy club), was quite limited to begin with. It shrank even further when Richards appeared on David Letterman the next day to apologize for his obscene outbursts.

EN GARDE! Belien vs. Peters

When we read Ralph Peters’ NY Post column last Sunday - The ‘Eurabia’ Myth: Muslims Take Over Europe? Sorry, There’s No Chance - we at Pajamas Media thought Peters’ ideas were a good subject for debate. And we could think of no one better to do it than Paul Belien of The Brussels Journal. Belien accepted our invitation and he did such a good job we decided his riposte would be the start of a series of such responses on PJM. EN GARDE, Mr. Peters!

Careers Always, Readers Never

Soft Writing and Hard Times at the LA Times

By Catherine Seipp

I’ve been struck by the odd notion - reportedly run up the flagpole by David Geffen, a possible Los Angeles Times buyer - that the way to improve my favorite paper is to lure Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich and Alex Witchel from the New York Times out to Spring Street. Now that’s just crazy, because why should they go, when everything about them is so essentially New York?

ONLY CONNECT: Reconsidering Jewish-Muslim History

Maimonides

“Jewish-Muslim reconciliation is an imperative in and of itself…. It is an imperative as well for global peace, for an end to Muslim terrorism and the war against Muslim terrorism, and for ending a history over-burdened with recriminations, each side denying the other’s capacity to be fully human, with neither recognizing the other as oneself.”

by Salim Mansur

Election '06 - Voting My Ticket

Despite being an evil Republican, I suppose I voted mostly like a Democrat on the California state propositions and Los Angeles city measures today… But I’m a Republican mostly because I’m a neocon (there, I said it!) foreign policy hawk, not a traditional values conservative. And unlike the left, the right doesn’t peevishly evict you if you fail to toe even one section of the party line.

by Catherine Seipp

Election '06 -- The Goldstein Retort:

Protein Wisdom’s Jeff Goldstein handicaps the “Most Important Election Since The Last Election.”

Burning Buses: “She was black but she looked white, her skin was peeled."

“Facts pop up once in a while like fish bubbles on a quiet lake—hundreds of cars burned on a relatively calm night, at least a hundred every night all year long, 2500 policemen injured since January 2006—and disappear without consequences.”

SUICIDE SUPERPOWER: Martyrdom as a Weapon of Mass Destruction

Last summer, Lebanon, wearing Hezbollah as a bomb belt, became the world’s first suicide state.

"SECOND TIME AS FARCE:" THE AL DURA VERDICT ON THE MORNING AFTER

by PJM’s Paris Editor Nidra Poller. Paris 26 October 2006.

He who laughs last… yeah, sure, right… but to be she who laughs first isn’t bad either.

France Prepares 50,000 Riot Police for Muslim Attacks

EXCLUSIVE TO PJM By Paul Belien from Brussels Journal

As America prepares for Halloween, France is girding for a wave of attacks from Muslim youths—a reprise of the deadly French riots of last year.

Ten Kilotons and the Port of Long Beach

“60,000 killed instantly. The blast and subsequent fires might completely destroy the entire infrastructure and all ships in the Port of Long Beach and the adjoining Port of Los Angeles. Six million people might try to evacuate the Los Angeles region. Two to three million people might need relocation because fallout will have contaminated a 500 square kilometer area….

By Josh Manchester
In the wake of North Korea’s unconfirmed nuclear test, one tends to focus the mind once again on the awesome destructiveness of nuclear weapons and the terrible logic that prevented their use for so many decades in the Cold War.

AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War

“Even in the hands of untrained children who have no idea how to maintain or aim the crude weapon, the AK keeps banging away, and when a bullet hits flesh, there’s a good chance someone will not get up.” Author and war correspondent Michael Yon evaluates a new book on an old rifle that still finds favor over all others in combat.

Al-Dura: The Verdict (Part Four)

"What to do?"

Nidra Poller on the disappointing conclusion to the French state media’s prosecution of a man accused of “insulting” the press by suggesting that they report the truth.

Heads on Platters at the LA Times

By Catherine Seipp, Special Correspondent to PJM, Media

I have no idea whether the Los Angeles Times should cut even more staff positions or not. On the one hand is the odd notion that a 20% profit margin is somehow not enough. On the other hand is Times features columnist Al Martinez’s tirade the other week when he discovered blogs… and his remaining readers discovered that Martinez himself is still mysteriously occupying one of those coveted staff positions.

There's a Pierre Cardin fake, but a Ben Cardin fake?

Original (?) Pierre Cardin watch

According to Pajamas Medias’ Washington Editor Richard Miniter, Democratic senatorial candidate from Maryland Benjamin Cardin has been playing fast and loose with the “fine art” of political advertising. A supposedly verité Cardin commercial purporting to show “average Joes and Janes” across his state supporting the Cardin candidacy is actually populated by his own campaign workers playing roles. (Note to campaign workers: sign a Screen Actors Guild contract and you will get residuals.)

The Spies Who Couldn’t Think Straight:

How Lawyers Hobble the CIA and Damage the War Effort
By Richard Miniter, Pajamas Media Washington Editor

Launching Tuesday, October 16, a new book will reveal fresh details alleging that the Bush Administration knowingly allowed the torture and abduction of terrorist suspects.

Interior Dialogue: An Investigative Report

When PJM learned last week that certain web sites were being blocked at the US Department of the Interior, we asked Baron Bodissey to take an up-close and personal look at what was going on. What he found does not increase trust in the transparency of big government —

Frogs to Princes: Homeless

“Let the provocateur tremble, Le Monde is serene and the editorial ends with a smooth-talking copout: Freedom of speech? Yes of course. But…only within the limits of respect for other.”

Was North Korea’s Blast a Suitcase Nuke? Not Likely.

X-ray of bomb in suitcase

As a jittery world fumbles to respond to the North Korean “atomic” test, Pajamas Media’s Washington Editor and terrorism expert Richard Miniter examines a subject not far from everybody’s mind - the suitcase nuclear bomb.

The Mullahs' Massacre on the Road to Qom

Armed demonstrators west of Tehran

News filtered out of Iran this Sunday of demonstrations protesting the arrest of supporters of Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeini Boroujerdi, an Iranian cleric fighting against the “Political Religion” that has dominated his country since Khomeini. Rumors also spread that these demonstrations have become violent with fatalities reported. This is when Pajamas Media turns to the American who is more associated with the Iranian freedom movement than any we can think of … Michael Ledeen… for an inside report:

Rhode Island's "Independent Man"

Foghorn Leghorn as Rhode Island Red

Every year PJM Middle East editor Allison Kaplan Sommer leaves the Israel’s politically charged environment for the cool crisp breezes, peaceful atmosphere, and fall foliage of her native Rhode Island. But this year, she arrived to find her home state hotter than usual, as the race between Lincoln Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse is a critical factor in this year’s contest to control the Senate.

"Fair and Balancing" -- Fox News is 10

Catherine Seipp looks back on the first 10 years of FOX, years that reshaped the cable news business: “I remember once I was at a media party here in L.A., and some guy from the lefty KPFK radio station, overhearing me mention the words “Fox News” in conversation with someone else, remarked: ‘I like you already!’ Why? ‘Because it’s great to hear someone slam Fox News.’”

Khaled Al-Masri: The Unluckiest Innocent Man in Germany?

Khaled Al-Masri

John Rosenthal of Transatlantic Intelligencer reports on the curious adventure of Khaled Al-Masri. Suspected of terrorism by the US Government, arrested and held prisoner by the CIA, and ultimately returned to Germany as a free man. Learn the real story behind the public face of false-imprisonment in America’s “extraordinary renditions” program.

Frogs to Princes: Paris to Washington, DC

In Paris, just getting to the airport is the adventure. “Two policemen in glass cages, and two lines: one for Muslims, one for infidels. You think I’m kidding? Two lines. One, slow line for miscellaneous others. One fast track for a party of about twenty escorted by a high ranking border police officer and a female underling, both speaking Arabic, who usher them through the checkpoint with VIP attention.”

The Brief Dutch Sharia Eruption

— Or — How political expediency has replaced political correctness in the Netherlands

Pieter Dorsman reports on the issue of Sharia law replacing the constitution in the Netherlands: “If a situation could arise where a majority could agree to shred a constitution in favor of religious law – and one from the Middle Ages at that - than doesn’t a democracy have an obligation to devise mechanism whereby such choices could be neutralized?”

When Ayaan Hirsi Ali published her autobiography, entitled “My Freedom”, last week she commented that immigration and integration issues in The Netherlands were far from being solved; that more confrontations by opposing sides in the debate were likely. It is therefore remarkable that the key players in the Dutch election campaign so far have stayed away from this particular hot button and focused on more mundane issues such as universal childcare and retirement benefits.

Witchdoctor Medicine

HPV: Pretty and pretty lethal.

Catherine Seipp’s daughter is starting college. After some motherly advice, Seipp observes that when it comes to life-saving medicine and vaccines, the far Right boasts as big a nut bowl as the far Left.

Autumn of the Partisans

The base may still nominate but in an era when it doesn’t elect does the hyperpartisan still get to serve? William Bradley says California provides a clue.

In this era in which hyperpartisans — on both far sides of the aisle — have become adept at screaming their mantras and building their straw men, frequently dominating what passes for “debate,” something very interesting is happening in California.

The partisans are beginning to evaporate.

Hail to the Coif:

The Manolo (He of “The Manolo Loves The Shoes”) Opines on the Fabulousness and the Not-So-Fabulousness of the Political Combovers, the Plugs, the Mullet and the Mop Top.

Manolo says, recently the Manolo has been thinking about the hairstyles of the Presidents.

For the example, the current president, George the W. Bush, has the mostly non-descript hair; the sort of the short, no-nonsense, cut-by-the-elderly-barber-named-Mory hair. This type of the hair, it is neither especially inspirational, nor particularly dismaying, and because of this it is part of that broad and undistinguished middle ground, where the majority of the Presidential coiffure may be found. The Bush the Elder, the Harry Truman, the Coolidge, the Wilson, the Harding, the Hoover, and the many, many others presidents of this past century and the half have had this same hair.

SEMI-DIVERSITY U: My First Day of College by Maia Lazar

Maia Lazar

As millions of students enter college for the first time, some find that higher education has a few low points already built into the curriculum.

Green Tech Vs. The Empire:

In California, A Proposition to Tax Big Oil is Popular. But Is It Popular Enough?

by William Bradley

Oil companies are unpopular, alternative fuels are well thought of, there is major concern about climate change, and there is an initiative on California’s November ballot that addresses all those concerns. It’s ahead in the polls. Yet its fate remains very uncertain. It is called Proposition 87.

Benedict and Islam: A Supernatural Gambit?

"Take this cup."

The Anchoress meditates on the Pope’s speech and proposes that, when it comes to the Church, there is always more there than meets the eye:“While governments ‘think as human beings,’ Benedict, the Bishop of Rome, the man who sits on the Throne of Peter (whom Jesus advised to ‘think as God does,’) is perhaps uniquely qualified to deliver to these supernaturally-focused people something they cannot fail to understand, a supernatural challenge.”

by The Anchoress

Catholics who attended mass on Sunday, September 17 heard a reading from the Gospel in which Jesus admonishes St. Peter, “you are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

It was an interesting admonishment in light of Pope Benedict’s Regensburg speech and the swift conflagration it ignited within an Islamic world that seems increasingly more tinderbox than spiritual refuge.

AL-DURA: THE TRIAL (PART THREE)

Philippe Karsenty- founder of Media-Ratings

Nidra Poller concludes her coverage … for now … of the Al-Dura Trial in Paris with a blow-by-blow account of the trial with analysis of the proceedings.
Paris 18 September 2006

Disclosure: I make no pretense to objectivity in my reports on this trial. Philippe Karsenty is a friend and colleague; we have often discussed this case that was brought against him but aimed at all of us who share a commitment to destroying the al-Dura blood libel.

STUDIO 60: "If I Ran the Zoo, er, Studio, er, World..."

Studio 60: The West Wing with Punchlines

Catherine Seipp finds that NBC’s Sorkinesque “Studio 60” is a drama about about a comedy about “Characters of proper liberal moral clarity making rousing speeches to each other while the swelling soundtrack tells viewers what to feel.” No laughtrack.

Conventional wisdom has it that Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” was a liberal fantasy about what the White House might have been with Martin Sheen’s fictional president in charge rather than Bill Clinton. But after watching “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” Sorkin’s new NBC drama about a “Saturday Night Live”-like comedy series, I suspect “The West Wing” was actually an Aaron Sorkin fantasy about the White House with Sorkin in charge rather than of Bill Clinton.

ORIANA by Michael Ledeen

Oriana Fallaci at the Brooklyn Bridge

[Michael Ledeen remembers his friend Oriana Fallaci.]

Yeah, we knew she was sick, we’d known it for a long time, but we somehow figured she’d overwhelm it, that the combination of cigarettes and her own abundant bile would drive out the “alien,” just as she overwhelmed Khomeini, Kissinger, Qadaffi and Carillo. So it was a shock to hear she’d left.

AL-DURA: THE TRIAL (PART TWO)

Nidra Poller with a breaking report from the Al-Dura Trial
Paris 13 September 2006

Flash:
Here are my first impressions of the trial. A proper account will follow tomorrow.
The trial was beautiful, the Palais de Justice is beautiful with its aspiring architecture and gilded gates, it was a beautiful late summer evening in mid-September as we walked out of the Courthouse at 8:30 PM, exhausted and relieved. Richard Landes and I danced out of there singing Vive la France.

AL-DURA: THE TRIAL (PART ONE)

Zola - "J'accuse"

Starting September 14, three Frenchmen go on trial in Paris for questioning the veracity of the 2000 videotape of the putative murder of Palestinian child Mohammed Al-Dura by Israeli soldiers. This tape - promulgated by the French state-run channel France 2 - is often credited with helping instigate the so-called “Al-Aqsa Intifada”. Now, six years later, in the shadow of revelations about media manipulation and “fauxtography” by Reuters and others, these trials take on extraordinary unexpected resonance. Not since the days of Alfred Dreyfus and Emile Zola has the French legal system been put to such a test on basic issues of racism and freedom of expression.

While the mainstream media largely ingnores this event, Pajamas Media is proud to present extensive coverage. We begin here with a stage-setting report from our Paris Editor Nidra Poller who will be attending the trials on our behalf.-ed.

FROGS TO PRINCES

Nidra Poller

BY Nidra Poller, PJM Paris Editor
Paris 12 September 2006

[first of a weekly column - ed..]

You’ve got complaints against the mainstream media? Even Fox News is somewhat of a disappointment sometimes? Maybe you live in the shadow of the BBC? You’re traveling and there’s nothing but CNN International to get on your nerves? Hold on, and take a look at the French media. You won’t believe my eyes and ears. When I tell you what the French media are telling the citoyennes and citoyens, you’ll wonder why no one ever thought to use it to put the French to shame. It’s so easy!

Over the coming months, I’ll give you insights, résumés, excerpts, transcripts…and for now, here’s a hot item.

A Scent of Dreyfus: A Trail of Jihad

September 12, 2006
Ellen W. Horowitz

We wander over to place de la République, perhaps the most schizophrenic of all of Paris’s major places.
-The Paris Free Voice Magazine, June 1999
——

If Place de la Republique was schizophrenic back in the summer of 1999, then by the autumn of 2000 it was overtly psychopathic.

You would think that the bronze lady of of the republic would have felt a bit violated by the keffiyahs, swastikas, and hatred gracing her foundation - but she didn’t protest too much.

Milking the Dry Cow: The Present Politics of Italy

Berlusconi

[When Mario Sechi, Deputy Managing Edtior of Italy’s Il Giornale thinks of Italy today, he thinks “of a farmer milking a cow. What does the farmer do when the cow has no more milk? In Italy’s case, the State is the cow and the farmer are the Italians. And the cow is dry.”—- Editor ]

After five years of Berlusconism, Italy switched channels last April. Italian politics is no longer the visionary adventure of the media mogul Silvio Berlusconi: now the bobble-headed Romano Prodi plays a major part too.

9/11

1 of 2,996

by Michael Ledeen

It seems at least a decade ago, and I am still angry, maybe even angrier. 9/11/01 was the day they killed Barbara Olson, one of Barbara Ledeen’s closest friends, and we have yet to take proper vengeance. The terrible details of her doom still seem quite incredible. She delayed her departure for California by a day so that she could wish her husband happy birthday before racing for the airport. This act of love delivered her to the hands of the killers, perhaps the ultimate example of “no good deed goes unpunished.”

The Chics of the Dictators

Every day is the Friday 'Casual'

[ Wherein our Special Pajamas Correspondent … that scion of the superfabulous, that crosschecker of chic … The Manolo (He of “The Manolo Loves The Shoes”) deigns to glance at the wardrobe Iran’s Man of the Moment… and finds it is not to die for.—- Editor ]
 
Manolo says, one of the Manolo’s many internet friends has asked the Manolo to comment upon the clothing of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the koo-koo-nutty president of Iran.

The Long War: Dispatch 4 -- On the Terrorists’ Turf

“History will show that nation-building is a fool’s errand unless you annihilate the enemy and are not trying to build a nation at the same time. We assumed that we could put 800 years of Anglo-American culture on a CDRom and give it to Chalabi and Karzai and tell them, ‘Ok, boys, you’ve got 6 months.’” — Michael Scheuer

“Our enemies have learned to fight above our level of conventional confidence. We are fighting in an area which is Muslim, which is culturally different, which has different values and expectations, which does not see us as liberators … [to them] we are crusaders, we are occupiers, we are imperialists … above all we are not Muslims.” — Dr. Anthony Cordesman

The Defense Forum continues in Washington, DC today … Josh Manchester of The Adventures of Chester reporting.

The Long War: Dispatch 3 -- The Unfolding Wars of the Littorals

“The nation’s most menacing future challenges are in the littorals. For most of the audience here today, your fight will be in the littorals.” — Brigadier General Michael R. Regner, USMC

The Defense Forum continues in Washington, DC today … Josh Manchester of The Adventures of Chester reporting.

Thomas Ricks, Senior Pentagon Correspondent, The Washington Post; author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, was the lunchtime speaker at today’s Defense Forum in Washington, DC.

The Long War: Dispatch 2 -- Progress Reports and American Primacy

“We can incinerate any other nation on the face of the globe … It is no surprise that our enemies have moved out of that quadrant into quadrants where they can survive: irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive.” — Dr. David J. Kilcullen

The Defense Forum continues in Washington, DC today … Josh Manchester of The Adventures of Chester reporting.

The USS Couric's Maiden Voyage: New Anchor. Same Titanic.

"Obviously, we can't sugarcoat what's going on in the world...."

[ For media critic Catherine Seipp, Katie Couric can be more, much more than just another perky face. In the short and long run, it makes no difference. —- Editor ]

I don’t normally watch TV news, because when I do I can practically feel myself getting dumber. Presenting information out of context, combining superficially similar things in specious and misleading ways - it all just seems like an inane whirlwind of murder, freakish animal attacks, and lotto results.

Secret Iraq WMD Report: Partially Unclassified & Available Here

This now unclassified portion of the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) report on pre-1991 Iraqi Chemical Weapons Recovered in Iraq reveals some chilling points concerning weapons not recovered but assessed to exist.
* Munitions recovered - 500.
* Some contained degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.
* Pre-Gulf War munitions are assessed to still exist outside of coalition control.

Time for Some Primary Democracy

No more shall Iowa and New Hampshire decide the fate of candidates.

[PJM Special Correspondent Bill Bradley reports that the era of Iowa and New Hampshire wielding disproportionate power over Democratic Presidential nominations is now a mere nostalgic footnote. —- Editor ]

The Divided Dutch Right: Or how an opportunity to effect change is being squandered

[Native Netherlander Pieter Dorsman of Peaktalk looks at the recent traffic patterns of Dutch politics and finds jams, backups, wrecks and no real right turn in the offing. —- Editor ]

It was in the beginning of this year that The New Republic jumped on the bandwagon of classifying everything that happened in The Netherlands since the Fortuyn and Van Gogh murders as solid evidence of the small nation abandoning its left-liberal tolerance and ‘turning right’.

The Manolo Is in the House... Of the Politics?

John Kerry: "The jacket of my Nehru is seared, SEARED!, into my memory."

The PJM Correspondent of the Special, The Manolo, is searching for the fashion in politics. “Do not worry, the Manolo he has become neither the right winged nut, nor the leftist bat of the moon, and indeed his legendary indifference to the normal flow of the politics it has remained unshaken.”

Manolo says, the Manolo writing at the Politics Central? Ayyyyyyyy! The Manolo has the politics? Who could suspect such the thing! He seemed so nice!

A Reason to Believe

[“Neither Israel nor the West at large can long resist radical Islam without some sustaining faith of its own, a faith it will not find unless it makes up its mind to look for it.” — Essayist Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club looks at the religious aspect of the Terrorist War and finds a critical difference in the nature and intensity of the faiths now in conflict around the world. —- Editor ]

The battles in Lebanon against the Hezbollah have been described as Israel’s first non-Arab war. Andrew Sullivan calls it a religious war, driven by ” the divine mandate that the Islamists believe they are following … where the Jews must be destroyed as a people and as

A Man From the Provinces. The Opposition is Rising in Venezuela

Aleksander Boyd, a London-based Venezuelan citizen and editor of Vcrisis.com, watches a dark horse candidate emerge into the light in Caracas.

London 24.08.06 | The conventional wisdom of the international community regarding Venezuela is this: Hugo Chavez is a highly destabilizing figure but his opposition is so atomized, so utterly divided, so lacking in unity of purpose that the man may as well stay in power until 2031, as he has pledged many times. The take-away from this conclusions is a shrug. Since little can be done from within Venezuela, less can be done from a foreign perspective.

"River Rose All Day. River Rose All Night." Spike Lee's HBO Flood Conspiracy Flick

“Listening to Lee at the HBO press conference reminded me of an afternoon I once spent with an elderly aunt….”At a press conference for Spike Lee’s new documentary, Catherine Seipp wonders if he is a brilliant filmmaker, a deft promoter of himself, a conspiracy nut, or perhaps all three.

I was standing around with a French journalist friend of mine after HBO’s press conference this summer for Spike Lee, whose new film is “When the Levees Broke,” an HBO documentary about the Katrina devastation that premieres in two parts Aug 21 and 22, then runs as a single four-hour movie Aug. 29, Katrina’s anniversary. Another French journalist at this press conference, who writes for Le Monde, ran up to tell my friend about a “scoop” she’d just gotten from the director.

Taxi! -- How Net Neutrality Imitates New York Cabs

Mike Godwin

Mike Godwin of “Godwin’s Law observes that you might not be interested in “Net Neutrality,” but “Net Neutrality” is interested in you.

If you’ve heard the phrase “net neutrality” (or “network neutrality”) in the news lately, and you haven’t immediately passed out from boredom, good for you — the term itself is pretty yawn-inducing.

The policy question itself, though, ought to interest you. The public debate about net neutrality is at its heart a debate about whether we want to keep the Internet growing and expanding and contributing to our cultural growth as it has been, or whether we instead want to turn it into something as static and predictable as telephone service or TV.

This is Media Central

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” -or- “Who watches the watchmen?”

The reality of elections in the 21st century is that our media form the hub around which the wheel of our political lives revolves. While it may be possible to run for office without involving the media, it is almost impossible to win one.

Whether it is the “legacy” media of newspapers, magazines, and network television, or the new media of cable news, talk radio, the web, podcasts and the blogs, media is a major player in our politics. At Media Central we intend to gather a host of keen observers and commenters to keep their eyes on the way in which the media shapes and influences the key races of 2006.

MEDIA CENTRAL will be one of the watchmen of the watchmen. We hope you will enjoy watching and participating with us.