This is the official new home for BTC News. On behalf of Betty and all her friends, no matter the species, I bid you Aloha. We’re still doing some finish work but it’s habitable at last.
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While titans of the business such as the New York Times are going to war against bloggers (and by extension, their own readers), the News & Record has decided to harness the horsepower of blogs for the good of all mankind, or at least the part of it living in Greensboro.

One of the commenters at PressThink noted the undoctored version of this photo and kindly posted the link. It’s apparently the brainchild of Clear Channel’s Orlando office, who are using it to fill unrented billboard space. I took the liberty of correcting the egregious misspelling of “Dear.”
Can we think of any other countries where enormous [...]

The Guardian’s web guy, Simon Waldman, proprietor of the best news web site on the web, has a piece up on PressThink regarding the importance of being earnest permanent. He writes more from the production side than the consumer one, but the theme of institutional memory is dear to my heart; amnesiac reporters just can’t [...]

Fred Kaplan, one of the few Slate writers for whom I have pretty much unbridled admiration, has a short piece today about Condi Rice’s apparent triumph, as represented by her selection of someone other than Freddy Krueger or John Bolton to be her deputy at the State Department, over the administration’s headbangers.
He may well [...]

Larry Diamond has joined the ranks of vocally “disgruntled” ex-Bush administration employees, a parade memorably kicked off (although not led) by John DiIulio almost exactly two years ago.
The reason Diamond is turning up in the news on the eve of elections in Iraq is this September 2004 essay in Foreign Affairs magazine, the house organ [...]

An elegantly worded “story” entitled, The Myth of the UN’s Moral Authority, appeared in the New York Sun today courtesy of David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush and co-author with Richard Perle of “An End to Evil: How To Win the War on Terror.” Needless to say, the opinion piece (which curiously appeared [...]

Hi Publius here, from the Third Estate. First I just want to thank BTC News for inviting me to post here. It’s a real treat. Now to business.
On Saturday Nicholas Kristoff in the NYT Editorial Page suggested that we return to spraying DDT in order to combat malaria in the Third World. We [...]

Michael Chertoff is in many ways the perfect Homeland Security nominee for this administration. He began his Washington career in 1994 with a two-year stint investigating phantom crimes and phantom criminals as special counsel to the senate Whitewater committee, and resumed it in 2001 as the head of the criminal division at the Ashcroft Justice [...]

One of the first subjects I wrote extensively on was gerrymandering. It is a gigantic political problem which has gotten a lot of attention in liberal circles with Scwarzeneggar’s proposal to reform the re-districting process, so after some delay I am chiming in.
The prerequisite to real reform is to remove the redistricting process from the [...]

The US has perhaps six months to get Iraq’s electricity supply up to at least the levels enjoyed by Iraqis just prior to the US invasion.
In a press release issued by the Pentagon, Army Corps of Engineers commander Thomas Bostwick acknowledged that although the electrical generation capacity in Iraq now amounts to about 5,500 kilowatts, [...]

Slate’s Chris Suellentrop offers up the latest in a long series of commentary speculating that maybe the second Bush term won’t be so bad. Soon after, the president himself notes that Suellentrop is delusional.
Liberals may have more reason for hope on domestic policy. Bush doesn’t embrace what Slate’s William Saletan has dubbed “Reagan’s Law,” the [...]

One of the few nuggets of wisdom which has remained with me since university was drummed into my head by an eminent if slightly boring professor called Geoffrey Hosking. His golden rule for any would-be revolutionary was that without control of the army you have no chance of success.
This gem comes back to me repeatedly [...]

“By August, it was taking me two weeks to negotiate my dubious safety for a mere 80-mile journey outside Baghdad.”

George Will is one of my favorite conservative columnists. When he isn’t being arrogant or hypocritical, he is just being stupid. Today, however, he has handed Democrats a real gift. A gift that we need to show everyone in the press.
In the Washington Post this morning, Will admits that there is no crisis in [...]

What is the sound of one hand slapping you silly?

This is sick. Be sure to check out the disaster maze while you’re there.
Thanks to Adam Masin for the tip.

Guys songs must meet certain requirements. Sensitivity is frowned upon, as is humility. Bouffant hairdos are an automatic disqualification. Blues is the medium of choice.

Lots of people thought the Bush inaugural speech was “great.” It wasn’t, of course; it wasn’t even “very good.” It came fairly close to not even being a speech. Throw in some bald kids with tambourines and it would have been a mildly complicated chant.
Some of the people who thought the speech was great are [...]

The New York Times has an article today that should be heart-warming. Unfortunately, it’s giving me heartburn.
Apparently the religious right is demanding that the President put as much effort into passing a ban on gay marriage as he is in abolishing Social Security. Fundamentalist groups are threatening to withhold support. On the surface this [...]

Doug Feith, undersecretary of defense for destroying the department’s integrity, asuuming it had some, is off to spend more time with the family. Don Rumsfeld had this to say:
Commenting on Mr. Feith’s planned departure, Secretary Rumsfeld said, “Doug Feith has contributed to the security of the country. He is creative, well organized, and [...]

“I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns over the air. That was before I became a critic of the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who have seized control of the US government.”

The many faces of George W. Bush.

SBC, one of the mutant Baby Bells, is paying Ma back for kicking it out of the nest. One may expect the executive ranks at the AT&T units to be appreciably thinned, although no doubt most of the victims at that level will come in for a soft landing.
The news of the acquisition, which gives [...]