The Houston Chronicle reports:
Eight detainees were transferred from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the custody of Afghanistan and Middle Eastern governments, a Pentagon spokesman said today.
Six detainees were transferred to Afghanistan, and one each to Libya and Yemen, said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman. Their identities were not released. (more…)
Whenever I am asked about Dutch movies I answer without hesitation that the best one ever made was Soldier of Orange (1977). It was at the time the most expensive movie production ever made and it launched the international careers of both Rutger Hauer and Paul Verhoeven. With this movie Verhoeven – who went on to achieve Hollywood fame with ‘Basic Instinct’ – brought his unique brand of realism to a larger and international audience.| MORE ›
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 “baby bond” from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home.
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The New York senator did not offer any estimate of the total cost of such a program of how she would pay for it.
No, I expect that Ms. Clinton did not bother to explain that.| MORE ›
In reference to American para-military contractors in Iraq, Paul Krugman at the NY Times writes: “mercenaries, whom Machiavelli described as ‘useless and dangerous’ more than four centuries ago”, saying that mercenaries are back in vogue once more. More:
As far as I can tell, America has never fought a war in which mercenaries made up a large part of the armed force.| MORE ›
Amanda at ThinkProgress writes that:
During last night’s post-Democratic presidential debate analysis, MSNBC host Chris Matthews was hung up on the fact there is a woman running for president. After questioning Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) position on entitlement reforms, he then asked Dodd, “Do you find it difficult to debate a woman?” Dodd, not surprisingly, said, “[N]ot at all.”
The question gets dismissed by Rachel over at HuffPo:| MORE ›
Review Of Charlie LeDuff’s US Guys: The True And Twisted Mind Of The American Man
Copyright © by Dan Schneider, 9/28/07
If there is one thing more depressing than bad writers, it is bad critics, who are clueless as to what constitutes bad writing. As example, how many blurbs for books have you read that basically state:| MORE ›
Mark Steyn writes that a proposed city bylaw in Vancouver, Canada would exempt Muslim “hookah lounges” from the no-smoking ordinance:
In Vancouver, infidels can’t smoke but Muslims can:| MORE ›
It is difficult to review a work that one not only knows is unfinished, but also one that reads that way. Such has never been a stronger case than with Irene Nemirovsky’s ‘novel’ Suite Française. The book has been marketed as a novel when really it is two unfinished novellas, and according to the appendix in the back of the book, Nemirovsky was intending to make the final book contain five parts but unfortunately she was sent to die in the Auschwitz death camp in 1942 before she was able to finish it.| MORE ›
CNBC is reporting,
A $25 billion takeover of SLM Corp., commonly known as Sallie Mae, was on the verge of collapse on Wednesday after the student lender said a consortium does not expect to complete its planned acquisition on the agreed terms.If the deal fails, it would be the latest casualty among a series of proposed leveraged buyouts to falter following the meltdown in credit markets over the last couple of months.| MORE ›
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