by Charli Carpenter | 24 Sep 2008 |
Complex Terrain Lab is hosting a series of blog posts on the Salim Hamdan trial by Professor Bryan Glyn Williams this week. Williams acted as an expert witness for the defence of Bin Laden's driver, and has chronicled his insights about the US military commissions process:In this five-part series, running each day this week, Brian Williams describes how he became involved in Hamdan’s legal defence. This was a journey of discovery and revelation...
by Dan Nexon | 22 Sep 2008 |
With an enormous bomb nearly decapitating the Pakistani state and the Pakistani military shooting at US troops, I think it's safe to say that the situation is "not good."
by Dan Nexon | 22 Sep 2008 |
Bailing out Bear Stearns: $29,000,000,000.A government stake in AIG: $85,000,000,000.Creating near consensus among academic and pundit bloggers: $700,000,000,000. Demonstrating that the correct translation of "deserving poor" is "Wall Street"? Priceless.Update: Good.
by Charli Carpenter | 20 Sep 2008 |
International Talk Like a Pirate Day ends at midnight, and once again pirate lovers around the world are gleefully splicing the mainbrace with their mateys and poking fun at the bilge rats who don't get that it's, well, Talk Like a Pirate Day. (Pirate Dictionary here for the uninitiated; a superior and more scholarly resource is George Choundas’ A Pirate Primer.)While that's all in good fun, the time seems right to remind ourselves that...
by Peter | 19 Sep 2008 |
Charles Krauthammer is wrong, and I think Matt misses the point as to just how wrong Krauthammer is.Shorter Krauthammer: Bush is like Truman. Unpopular at the end of his term but history will vindicate him as a pretty good president.The fundamental flaw with this argument is that it overlooks the actual history of why this is so. Truman was unpopular largely due to the Korean War, which, by the end of his term, was not going well. Ike won, in...
by Peter | 17 Sep 2008 |
One of my favorite Cleveland sports columnists often does a column of brief observations and insights after a game or big event. I don't scribble, and I lack a notebook, but watching the AIG bailout has me thinking about a few things:Wow, that's a lot of money. To put this in perspective, recall the 2004 Presidential Election, when Kerry was rolled for being for the $87 billion before he was against it. That was a yearly supplemental...
by Peter | 17 Sep 2008 |
The NY Times has a very interesting article out today reporting that the influence of the US Supreme Court is waning--internationally. While the Court holds no jurisdiction beyond the US borders, for a long time it served as an intellectual leader in world judicial opinion. Other nations looking to develop a strong judicial system looked to the US Supreme Court as a model, and looked to the Court's opinions as cutting-edge legal thought that...
by Dan Nexon | 17 Sep 2008 |
If you're on the internets right now, you know that the US government has just effectively nationalized AIG. It seems that the risk of a total meltdown of the global economy outweighed concerns about moral hazard.Correspondents say AIG's demise would have a far greater impact on the world's financial markets than Lehman's.Many banks and investment funds in the US and around the world would lose their insurance cover at a time when defaults on...
by Dan Nexon | 17 Sep 2008 |
Oh, goody. Another celebrity interview.Bored now.
by Dan Nexon | 15 Sep 2008 |
Bolivia remains on the brink of falling apart.... and the Ukrainian government collapses. Can't say that I'm surprised.
by Dan Nexon | 15 Sep 2008 |
After the start of the Great Depression, the US government adopted a number of regulations, institutions, and safety-net policies designed to prevent a recurrence of an event that nearly destroyed capitalism and liberal democracy. In the 1980s and 1990s, many of those regulations, institutions, and safety-net policies were eliminated or curtailed. Some call this the triumph of capitalism and freedom over excessive government regulations, others...
by Dan Nexon | 14 Sep 2008 |
The 2004 September 13-15 CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll had George Bush over John Kerry by 14 points. George Bush won the election by around 2.5 points. Current polls give John McCain a -1 to +3 lead over Barack Obama. This election could go in any direction between today and November 4.