Dispatches

Unless It's Value-Added, Religion's a Non-Starter These Days
03.23.2006 06:04 | RUSS WELLEN
Once upon a time people went to church to worship (and to make children restless and bore husbands). Now, however, traditional religions like the Protestant denominations of Lutheranism, Methodism, and Episcopalianism are dwindling. It seems worshippers a...

Full-Court Press on the Free Press
03.20.2006 10:02 | RUSS WELLEN
In her April Vanity Fair article, "Lies and Consequences," Marie Brenner chronicles the consequences of the "Sixteen Words That Changed the World" -- President Bush's claim in the 2003 State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium fro...

Mutual Funds Have Turned into Mutual Admiration Societies for Their Managers
03.16.2006 05:05 | RUSS WELLEN
In The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism (Yale University Press, 2005), mutual fund innovator John Bogle echoes what former International Petroleum Exchange manager Chris Cook asserted in a previous Dispatch. Bogle writes that: ". . . a gradual move...

On a (Honor) Roll
03.13.2006 05:33 | RUSS WELLEN
Today we'd like to cite progressive portals and thank them for the work they do (including linking to Freezerbox articles). Cursor: Conscientiously constructed and creatively linked introductions to articles. Remains the most prestigious of portals....

It's Not Only Middle-Eastern Terrorists Who Cut Throats
03.09.2006 06:22 | RUSS WELLEN
Bet you've never heard this before. Former director of the British International Petroleum Exchange Chris Cook: "There has been a growing realisation on the part of major oil producers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia that oil is not priced in dollars but r...

Looks Like a Storm's a Comin', Mr. President
03.06.2006 05:58 | RUSS WELLEN
Slate's John Dickerson commenting on the Bush-Brown Katrina video: "[The] president's question-free briefing is more than a momentary bad piece of public relations. It's a blow to a key Bush myth [which is that the] Bush management philos...

Must Security and the Economy Be at Loggerheads?
03.03.2006 05:51 | RUSS WELLEN
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on the UAE deal: "We have to balance the paramount urgency of security against the fact that we still want to have a robust global trading system." Point taken. But if nuclear materials are smuggled through...

Can't Get Enough of That Pound of Flesh
02.28.2006 06:00 | RUSS WELLEN
As stated in a previous Dispatch, in spite of poll results to the contrary, this correspondent remains unconvinced that the majority of Americans object to torture. Neither, he suspects, are they receptive to findings it's an ineffective approach to elici...

Finally, Evidence to Put 9/11 Conspiracy Theories to Rest (or Is It?)
02.25.2006 11:25 | RUSS WELLEN
The 9/ll Truth Movement would have us believe that the administration either LI- or MIHOPped* 9/11 to provide a pretext for its own twin towers: international and domestic policy. That's intervention and surveillance, respectively. We've all heard the...

Netting Dolphins Along with Tuna
02.21.2006 06:26 | RUSS WELLEN
A Zogby poll taken in early January revealed that 52% of Americans would like to see Congress weigh impeaching President Bush for authorizing NSA spying without a warrant. Like all polls, it comes with a margin of error, in this case, plus or minus 2.9...

Bush & Co.: A Steady Stream of Grist for the Humor Mill
02.17.2006 05:56 | RUSS WELLEN
In 1968 politics was the most exciting game in town. With the Vietnam War as a backdrop, the Democratic Convention was held in the midst of running riots. Mayor Richard Daley of host Chicago provided an object lesson in how to turn young Americans off to...

Bull in China Shop to Get Commemorative Plate?
02.13.2006 06:13 | RUSS WELLEN
According to Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder, State Department officials appointed by President Bush have replaced career experts on WMD and arms control with political appointees. "Among those who have left is the State Department's top authority on t...

How Are You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the (Nuclear-Free) Farm?
02.10.2006 05:21 | RUSS WELLEN
Who are we to express outrage that Iran has procured designs and documents for constructing an atomic warhead on the nuclear black market? After all, wasn't it the US that underfunded securing loose Russian nukes while Al Qaeda may have been busy buying t...

Terror Tunnel
02.06.2006 06:06 | RUSS WELLEN
"Senior U.S. intelligence officers are concerned that the sophisticated 1.4 mile tunnel, complete with ventilation, electrical, and water systems, as well as cement flooring, that connects two warehouses on each side of the border, could have been used to...

When Corruption Was King
02.02.2006 06:10 | RUSS WELLEN
Oh, that would be now. "The scale of the scandals now coming to light, of which the Abramoff affair is just a part, dwarfs anything in living memory." -- From "A False Balance" by Paul Krugman, January 30 Squandered billions in Iraq, where, as post...

Climate Change: What Did We Know and When?
01.30.2006 05:39 | ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK
"Climate change is the only thing [with] the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it, and make a lot of the other efforts that we're making irrelevant and impossible." --Bill Clinton in Davos last week No shit, Matlock. This...

Filibuster or Bust
01.26.2006 07:28 | RUSS WELLEN
"Democrats break silence on Alito: Filibuster unlikely, frustration high" reads the title of a Raw Story article by John Byrne. "One aide said part of the problem is that Democratic senators haven't felt a groundswell of opposition from constituents. ....

They've Got to Do Something, Don't They?
01.24.2006 08:04 | RUSS WELLEN
The creator of the earth-as-Gaia theory, is reading us the riot act again: ". . . climate centres. . . which are the equivalent of the pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth's physical condition. . . . [It's] soon to pass into a morbid fe...

Give Me a Military Coup Any Day
01.20.2006 06:53 | RUSS WELLEN
On Thursday, January 19, The New York Times and The Washington Post published bookend columns. For the Times, James Webb, Reagan's Secretary of the Navy, weighed in [no link provided since op-ed page is subscribers only]; for the Post, columnist E.J. Dion...

Maybe We're Not as Violent as We Think We Are
01.17.2006 08:05 | RUSS WELLEN
First, just how war-like are Americans? Listen to Howard Zinn in his recent article, "After the War," in The Progressive: "There is a persistent argument. . . We will never do away with war because it comes out of human nature. The most compelling coun...