Posts

The governor of Mosul, Mashaan al-Juburi, was just assassinated. This follows massive car bombings in Mosul a couple of weeks ago. Mosul is a key city because it’s a key point of friction between the Kurds and the Sunnis. Juburi’s appointment was not without controversy and violence, to say the least; his early speeches resulted in a demonstration during which US troops fired on demonstraters. The details of the event are unclear: the US claimed that the demonstrations were violent and the demonstraters claimed they weren’t, which is as you’d expect in any case for both sides of the story. ...

Warner Brothers is allowing us, the plebes, to vote on which classic movies they’ll release on DVD next (original). Kinda fun, even if there’s no information about how the voting works. Me, I liked All Fall Down, Ice Station Zebra, Kansas City Bomber, King Solomon’s Mines, and Party Girl.

If Kevin Drum can do it, I can do it. My cultural preferences follow; the preferred choice is enboldened. Sometimes I don’t answer because I don’t have enough experience, and sometimes I don’t answer because I don’t care. More the former, sadly.

The anonymous TPB, Esq. presents this compelling explanation of the proper interpretation of the word “shall” in New Jersey’s election law. It is compelling because he provides examples to support his argument; take careful note, oh pundits of all stripes. This is why I like most lawblogs.

Newsweek reports (original) that the Department of Homeland Security is looking into ways to postpone the November Presidential election in the case of an Al Qaeda attack. But the success of March’s Madrid railway bombings in influencing the Spanish elections—as well as intercepted “chatter” among Qaeda operatives—has led analysts to conclude “they want to interfere with the elections,” says one official. Forcing a delay in elections is every bit as much interference, if not more so, as an attack which causes people to change their vote. This is so obvious that I have trouble believing that it’s escaped the Bush administration. ...

Billy the Kid to Rio: “Will you keep your eyes open? Will you look right at me as I do it?” I more or less randomly watched The Outlaw today; it was on this set of Western classics (original) I picked up last weekend on Jack Gulick’s advice. Fifty movies for thirty bucks was too good a deal to pass up. When I cracked open the box, I noticed The Outlaw. I like Howard Hughes, or at least his legend, so I popped it in. I only expected a cheesy Western with a lot of Jane Russell. Imagine my surprise when I got a Billy the Kid played by a guy who looks like a fey Johnny Depp and more subtext than you can shake Lucy Lawless at. ...

The Good Eats kitchen is up for sale, sort of. You get the kitchen, but not the utensils or the pots or pans or anything. But, you know, the stove is nice. And the house seems nice. It’s completely wired for Ethernet. You also get a meal cooked by Alton Brown. I think the best line in the listing is this: “For the ultimate birthday or holiday gift just buy the home for the dinner and resell afterward!”

So that’s settled, then; my pal Chris and I are venturing up to the Great White North (in the form of Montreal) the last weekend of this month to partake in movies. My schedule is basically the same one I outlined earlier, plus Saving Private Tootsie (original). I chose Hillside Strangler and Into the Mirror over my alternative choices in the end. I have tickets and I have a hotel reservation. If anyone happens to be in Montreal that weekend, lemme know and we’ll have beer or coffee or something. My free time will be sparse for obvious reasons, but I imagine… maybe I should say “we’ll have popcorn.” ...

Gosh, that’s unfortunate. Some of Bush’s service records were destroyed in 1996 and 1997. By accident. This should be easy enough to resolve; since Bush wasn’t the only guy whose records were lost, one assumes that there’d be an official record of the accident. Perhaps even a postmortem. Memos. That sort of thing. Except that I can’t help noticing that Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett said, in February of this year, that members of George Bush’s staff purged the National Guard files in 1997. Damned confluence of dates. Now, the records that Burkett says were destroyed were not the records that the Defense Department just admitted to destroying accidentally, so this is not exactly a smoking gun. I think the time period is still suggestive, however. If you believe Burkett, it’s not a stretch to suspect that the Texas Air National Guard was not the only organization willing to clean up Bush’s records. ...

Then, in Rwanda. Now, in Sudan. This is pretty much for me so that I don’t forget to read these regularly. On a semi-detached, attempting dispassionate note, the Rwanda blog is a new twist on the Pepys and Sei Shonagon blogs: historical events retold in the blog — dare I say it? — medium. I think it works.