Politics

Pretty good argument for Kerry picking John Edwards as his running mate. However, according to the article, it looks like Kerry is leaning towards Dick Gephardt or Tom Vilsack, which I don’t quite understand. I don’t know much about Governor Vilsack (Iowa), but I do know that Gephardt has a record of not being able to deliver in elections, aside from his home district. Why would a man who struggles with the charisma/connection thing select Gephardt, who has an even worse time connecting, as his VP choice? ...

Interesting article on the confusion concerning the numbers of al-Qaeda terrorists around the world, brought to us by Spiked. It doesn’t seem it is possible to talk about al-Qaeda without bringing up a question that just puzzles me. For a terrorist group with supposedly well-established political aims and members all over the world, doesn’t al-Qaeda seem far more murderous than strategic? In other words, do they really have a plan of how any of their horrific acts are going to accomplish what they say they want? For instance: ...

As has been blogged about quite a bit since it happened, SCOTUS has ruled in a 5-4 decision that people are required to give their names if asked by a police officer. (With the caveat that there must be a law on the books that requires you to do so, which isn’t necessarily true in every state.) I find it interesting that the Court ruled that you had no Constitutional right to withhold your name, but didn’t necessarily rule on producing your identification papers. It provokes the idea you could simply give a false name, but, if arrested, differing from one’s physical ID would probably lead to being charged with giving a false statement. ...

As you may have noticed if you’ve been alive and in the US the past week, our 40th President passed away recently. I think there was some sort of requirement that if you blogged, you talked about/beatified/criticized/cussed about Reagan at least once this week, which is probably as good an indicator as any what a personal impact his Presidency had on us.

While I heard the arguments that the Iraq war caused Libya’s leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to renounce terrorism, I’m really hoping not that many people bought it. Do old dictators reform that easily? Has assassination fallen by the wayside as a means of continuing policy (or just grudges)? Sounds like it’s alive and well… ( NY Times link, registration required) Anyway, I seem to remember not too long ago we were once again debating the efficacy of assassination as a tool of our own foreign policy. ...

I know, it’s really soon after his death, but the Bush/Zombie Reagan ticket is hard to pass up. Link courtesy of Boing Boing.