Again, like Hillary’s announcement, this is no surprise. The details… Barack Obama announced his bid for president Saturday, a black man evoking Abraham Lincoln’s ability to unite a nation and a Democrat portraying himself as a fresh face capable of leading a new generation. “Let us transform this nation,” he told thousands shivering in the [...]

In a “Political Memo,” the New York Times complains that Rudy Giuliani’s website emphasizes the positives and ignores the negatives (e.g., his two divorces). A sample: As many political analysts have frequently pointed out, his record and conduct before the terrorist attack is not well known to those beyond the borders of New York City, [...]

Get this…Turner Broadcasting made the head of Cartoon Network resign because Boston officials couldn’t control their misplaced rage. Amazing… Jim Samples, general manger of Cartoon Network, Friday resigned under pressure following a promotional fiasco that snarled traffic in Boston and cost parent Turner Broadcasting $2 million to settle. A Turner spokeswoman declined to comment on [...]

From a purely narrative point-of-view, Anna Nicole Smith has suffered the perfect end. A tabloid death to punctuate a tabloid life. Cue the music for True Hollywood Stories, we have a great American tale here. More so than any other modern celebrity, Anna Nicole epitomized the commoditization of fame. With no discernable talent, man-made D-cups [...]

Did the administration’s hand-picked intelligence massager cherry pick and spin the facts in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq? Yep. Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included “reporting of dubious quality or reliability” that supported the political views of senior administration [...]

First there was the Starkist stock deal. Then there was “Obama in a madrassa.” Now the latest non-scandal dreamed up by Republicans is “Pelosi One.” At issue is what kind of aircraft the House speaker â€â€? second in line to the presidency â€â€? should use to get around the country. For years, speakers flew commercial [...]

American politics is about to become even dirtier and more trivial, thanks to the blogosphere, the efforts of candidates to harness it, and the ambitions of extreme, foul-mouthed bloggers, be they left-wing or right wing. We had foretastes of this in 2004 and again in 2006. With the enormous growth of the blogosphere since the [...]

Romney’s new either/or proposition on taxes is just the politics of division, plain and simple. As if you only have the choices of a European tax system or adopt the Reagan trickle-down model…please… After refusing to endorse President Bush’s tax cuts when he was governor, Mitt Romney has now made them a central part of [...]

Wow, this is incredibly cool technology. Science fiction no longer… One note, the video is 3:30 long, but try and watch the whole thing because there’s some interesting stuff at the end. (by the way, I switched to the YouTube version so it doesn’t automatically load every time. h/t to Psychobilly Democrat for the heads [...]

One of the most prominent arguments of the many congressional Democrats and fewer congressional Republicans who oppose Bush’s “surge” is that the larger the number of American troops in Iraq, the smaller is the need and the incentive for the Iraqi government to make the political compromises required to tame sectarian violence. They aver that [...]

Earlier today, I published my first post at Donklephant. It should have been preceded by a thank-you to Justin Gardner for inviting me to post here and by providing some background about myself, my blog (americanfuture.net), and why I decided to accept Justin’s invitation. So, to begin, here’s a brief bio. If I were a [...]

From an article by by Abbas William Samii (an analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses) at The Weekly Standard: The Iranian cabinet decided in mid-January that it would try to reduce consumption by introducing gasoline rationing, and reports from the provinces reveal that rationing is already taking place. The measure will not be popular [...]

I thought this was pretty funny: The leader of a Grenada police band that performed Taiwan’s national anthem at the inauguration of a China-financed cricket stadium was temporarily relieved of his music duties. Inspector Bryan Hurst will not lead the Royal Grenada Police Band while investigators determine how his ensemble came to play the anthem [...]

I get a little tired, sometimes, being so down about Iraq. I occasionally wonder if maybe the problem is my perspective. Am I just not seeing things properly? Is the grass really greener on the pro-war side of the fence, where victory is just a step or two away and all we have to do [...]

The first one is out, and the details are basically mandated health care (shades of Massachusetts), combine with government subsidies for those who can’t afford their own and a system that forces insurers to cover people regardless of their medical condition. All in all, not bad from first glance. Here’s more… But that’s not the [...]

Guerrillas have taken hold of Boston’s sense of humor.

Somehow, I don’t think this is what Bush meant… WASHINGTON – People once again spent everything they made and then some last year, pushing the personal savings rate to the lowest level since the Great Depression more than seven decades ago. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the savings rate for all of 2006 was [...]

Dems worked with Repubs and got the job done. Bravo. From the AP: WASHINGTON – The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to boost the federal minimum wage by $2.10 to $7.25 an hour over two years, but packaged the increase with controversial tax cuts for small businesses and higher taxes for many $1 million-plus executives. [...] [...]

Two guys were putting up guerilla marketing Lite-Brite signs around the country for Cartoon Network’s show Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but after a few people in Boston thought they were bombs and freaked out…the two are now faced with imprisonment? Brilliant. Take note of the last couple paragraphs in this… CHARLESTOWN, Massachusetts (CNN) — Two [...]

Who’s Daveed Gartenstein-Ross (DGR)…apart from a man with the one of the longest hyphenated last names in history? Well, he’s also a frequent Weekly Standard contributor who has written a new book, and it sounds fascinating. From Amazon.com: Gartenstein-Ross reveals how widening doctrinal tensions are dividing twenty-first-century expressions of Islam in this memoir of his [...]