Today’s edition of quick hits.
* John McCain is still taking some heat for appearing at an event in Seattle tomorrow, co-sponsored by the Discovery Institute, the nation’s largest advocate of intelligent-design creationism. (For those who want some background on the group, I wrote a piece on the Discovery Institute in 2002.)
* Remember Ahmed Chalabi? The WSJ reports, “In a new post created earlier this year, Mr. Chalabi will serve as an intermediary between Baghdad residents and the Iraqi and U.S. security forces mounting an aggressive counterinsurgency campaign across the city. The position is meant to help Iraqis arrange reimbursement for damage to their cars and homes caused by the security sweeps in the hope of maintaining public support for the strategy.” What could possibly go wrong?
* Let me get this straight. The Iraqi government, with all of its cataclysmic problems, is willing to spend $5.8 million on a DC mansion with “bright skylights, inset lighting fixtures, a top-floor kitchenette with a built-in espresso machine, new hardwood floors and soft pistachio carpeting up the winding stairs… heated floors, a firefighting system, speakers for music throughout the building, and spacious bathrooms, one with a Jacuzzi.”
* Is it possibly true that Tony Blair’s administration hired “psychics” to help with counter-terrorism?
* Those College Republicans are a classy bunch, aren’t they? ABC News reports on a CR-sponsored “Find the Illegal Immigrant” game at NYU this week. (Jesus’ General adds, in a letter to the College Republicans, “Perhaps you should consider adding a new twist to liven it up a bit. After you’ve tazered and beaten your immigrant, you should drag him down to the local military recruiting office and force him to sign up to defend your way of life. That’d add an element of realism we haven’t seen in previous immigrant hunts. “)
* It’s one thing for the Washington Times to regurgitate Republican Party talking points, but does the conservative Times really have to publish the party’s talking points, too?
* Bush’s foreign policy towards Syria: “Apparently the Bush administration view is not that making concessions would be too big a reward for Syria’s bad behavior. It’s not even that talks would be too big a reward. Nor is it that talks with the Israelis — no Americans involved! — would be too big a reward. No, the American position is that even exploratory talks would be a bridge too far.” Wow.
* The New Republic has been sold, and will now publish bi-weekly.
* “A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 – half the federal poverty line – was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year. The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That’s 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period.”
* Greg Sargent found 10 unequivocal examples of Joe Lieberman “swearing up and down to the voters of Connecticut that he’d stay with the Dems.” If he breaks his word now, his word will be meaningless forevermore.
* Prosecutor Purge #8: U.S. Attorney Margaret Chiara of Michigan’s Western District. U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell said Chiara said that Chiara was an “exemplary” U.S. Attorney in “every sense of the word” and “one of the best USAs we’ve ever had here.” Her resignation, he said, certainly raised questions about whether it was tied into the other firings.
* Putting a minimum-wage initiative on the ballot seems to increase voters’ interest and motivation in heading to the polls. Good to know.
* And, finally, be sure to check out this great chart, by way of reader AYM, depicting how the president responds to various scenarios with regards to Iraq. As Homer Simpson likes to say, “It’s funny because it’s true.”
If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.