You may remember Paul Chambers. He's the poor sod tried and convicted for tweeting:
"Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week... otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"
The context? He was trying to visit his girlfriend in Northern Ireland. It was January. There was snow. Nottingham airport was closed. This was frustrating. So he tweeted this - evidently ill-advised - joke. And was arrested under the terms of the Terrorist Act and subsequently prosecuted - and shamefully, convicted - under Section 127 of the Communications Act for sending an "indecent, obscene or menacing"message....
As Iain Martin notes, it didn't take Labour long to welcome the news that the Irish economy shrank by 1.2% last quarter*. Welcome isn't quite how they put it but since Irish economic pain is a weapon with which the opposition can attack the coalition, Irish misery is a price worth paying so Ed Balls can feel vindicated.
At least those who think fiscal restraint is needed at times such as these and who were perhaps too quick to welcome last quarter's healthy growth in Ireland can say they want to see Ireland do well.
Rounding-up some reactions to the new Bob Woodward tome, James Joyner asks a good, if disturbing, question: what happened to civilian control?
Bernard Finel, a professor at the National War College and Atlantic Council contributing editor, goes further: "President Obama seems to be in over his head in trying to deal with national security. He has not been able to control the process. He’s been manipulated by his generals. He’s been frustrated in his efforts to put his own stamp on Afghanistan policy. Instead of setting policy, he’s been cast in the role of fighting
A pretty good ad produced by Citizens for the Republic:
By good, I mean of course, effective and a nice echo of Reagan's famous Morning in America ad. Don't expect a GOP-controlled Congress to do much better however. The GOP's Pledge to America basically amounts to "rolling back" non-defence, non-entitlement spending to, oh, 2007 levels. That may not amount to a pledge to do nothing but the rhetoric of the document is not, I think, matched...
I agree with Douthat and Larison. The case for presidential-nominee Palin rests upon the weakness of the field putatively lined up against her. (Assuming...
Bob Woodward is the best (and perhaps nastiest) blackmailer in Washington. Sure, you don't have to co-operate with him but you know what will happen if you don't. Those who talk to Woodward are always treated kindly by the great stenographer; those who decline his advances invariably become the villains.
Each time this happens it becomes easier for Woodward to persuade people to talk to him for his next book. And since his slabby books (really, like Thomas Friedman's works they merit being called "tomes") have become some kind of quasi-official instant history it's always necessary to work out who...
