Liberal Talk Radio

Juan Cole writes about al Qaeda’s general absence from direct confrontation with Israel:
…Bin Laden always avoided investing in an area where there was already an active insurgency. He also could not join in with heretical Shiites like Hizbulah.
Ayman al Zawahiri today made a change in both policies. He wants al Qaeda to pile on in [...]

A ship carrying 5,000 new cars is about to flip over in the North Pacific. Creepy. Rescue efforts have been, um, error-prone:
Earlier Monday, a Coast Guard plane dropped three life rafts, but roiling waters pushed the rafts underneath the dipping port side of the ship, AP reported.
Doh!
Rescuers tossed an additional raft along the [...]

This s**t is getting Brechtian:
Sources close to the White House said Monday that Fox anchor Tony Snow is likely to accept the job as White House press secretary, succeeding Scott McClellan.
The sources said they expect him to announce his decision within the next few days.
A source familiar with the discussions said Monday that newly appointed [...]

From the administration that brought us “we can’t see the WMD, but we g*ddamn know they’re there and you’re a pinko commie p*ssy if you don’t believe us” comes another salvo in the escalating War o’ Words with our good buddy and pal, Iran.
“Tehran has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality [...]

Everyone is talking about the big Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Contest — can’t wait to see the results of that one!
But hey, why can’t we match them comic for comic? A comic showdown. The best illustrators of the West vs. the best illustrators in Persia. It’s knock down. It’s drag out. It’s . . . comics! [...]

On Friday we asked who benefited from — and most likely was behind — the UBL truce tape. Today we have an answer:
A Brooklyn-born writer said yesterday he had “no problem” being quoted by Osama bin Laden in his latest diatribe and added he shares the arch-terrorist’s opposition to American foreign policy.
“I wasn’t upset at [...]

You’ve got to be concerned when the New York Times shows how cutting taxes actually works towards fulfilling positive societal changes:
After years of losing population, the downtown region, known as Center City, is booming, with developments going up and old buildings being transformed into lofts and condominiums.
The construction, fueled by tax breaks, has succeeded [...]

I would love to believe that the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is entirely fought on the battlefields, or in dank, dusty alleys by guys as cool as George Clooney. For example, I share Peggy Noonan’s desire for a suitably dramatic version of the apprehension of UBL, complete with a Paul Simon soundtrack, but I [...]

Some free advice for Al Qaeda and other terrorists — instead of counterproductive “mega-attacks” and gruesome executions that probably turn off the very folks you’re trying to convert, why not take a page from the Commies and start fomenting social unrest vis-à-vis riots? Provided you’re not already doing that, of course, in which case, hey [...]

On the anniversary of Theo van Gogh’s vile, disgusting dismemberment and murder, the suburbs of Paris are burning:
“My brother paid the price of zero tolerance with his life,” Adel Benna, brother of one of the dead youths, said in an interview, referring to Sarkozy’s anti-crime mantra.
According to Benna, his brother and two other friends had [...]