IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 909-09 November 19, 2009 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Spc. Joseph M. Lewis, 26, of Terrell, Texas died on Nov. 17 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised [...]

Gawker reports on a dogwhistle code passing around the Internet for extremist paraphernalia wishing death upon the president. An out-of-context piece of a sacred text is cited as justification. If this were a different religion, the individuals responsible would the subject of massive government surveillance and possible prosecution. The Qu’ran would be cited as a [...]

Was on a conference call with the Pennsylvania Senator that ended half an hour ago and here’s what he said: On a blogger conference call this afternoon, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) announced he can’t support a potential addition of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. “We ought not to add troops in Afghanistan,” Specter said, adding that [...]

So. What can explain this: Among Republicans… only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% — an outright majority — saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%. Only two things. They’re not mutually [...]

The harmony of the Internet Food Association was interrupted last year by Thanksgiving discord, as Yglesias and I took the proper anti-turkey position and Miller good-naturedly but mistakenly defended tradition. Choire Sicha’s instructions for barbecuing a turkey — reminiscent as they are of Kriston Capps’ penchant for smoking the bird — are almost enough to [...]

I really ought to link to my friend Annie Lowrey more, as here she suffers through Going Rogue in search of anything resembling a take on foreign affairs. Alas: The book, as one might have predicted, provides little evidence of any awareness of foreign policy, let alone serious thought about the world and America’s place [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 906-09 November 18, 2009 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Staff Sgt. Ryan L. Zorn, 35, of Upton, Wyo., died Nov.16 in Tal Afar, Iraq, of injuries sustained during a vehicle roll-over. He was assigned to the [...]

I’m taking my girlfriend to Brooklyn to meet my mother this weekend. And that means excavating the wreckage that years of neighborhood rebranding is doing to the borough. For instance, this exchange just occurred: Attackerlady 10:41 [My friend] apparently lives pretty close to your mother’s and is asking if we have time to meet up. [...]

The only reason Andy McCarthy is ever listened to at all is because he happened to be a federal prosecutor in New York when the Justice Department indicted the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman. Since then, McCarthy has engaged in such careful works of scholarship as co-signing for the fever-dream that Bill Ayers wrote Barack [...]

Dawn Teo at Huffington Post: Lexicographers at the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected teabagger as one of the runner-ups to unfriend for 2009 Word of the Year. That is because of one man and one man alone: Dave Weigel, who took the immortal photograph that revealed the clownish obliviousness of tens of thousands of [...]