Miscellaneous

Here's some of the other notable stuff from the last few, blog-free weeks:

* You've no doubt heard of the case of an American soldier stalking, raping, killing, and burning a young Iraqi woman girl, befoe wiping out three other family members. Here's a profile of the accused soldier, Steven D. Green.

* So it's alleged that the US has been habitually taking hostages in Iraq. What sheer nonsense. "Our boys" would never do that.

* John Murtha runs down the classic lesson of guns vs. butter, pointing out the obvious, but nonetheless neglected, fact that the money being flushed down the toilet in Iraq could be going to much more useful ends.

* Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker article deals with the push-back the Crazies are getting from the US military on their plans to bomb Iran.

* Tom Crumpacker details Bushist efforts to gear up for regime change in Cuba.

* According to Ron Suskind, the CIA concluded that Bin Laden issued one of his periodic videotaped messages in late October 2004 in order to boost Bush's re-election hopes.

* Yet another fraudulent "terror plot" has been foiled. I'm sensing a pattern here.

* What is Karl Rove's secret to success? Ira Chernus says that Bush's "architect" knows well that Americans like voting for fairy tales, and exploits this tendency like mad.

* In Harper's, Kevin Baker excavates the history of the "stab in the back" narrative that uber-nationalists like to break out to explain policy failures, deflect blame, and identify scapegoats.

* Paul Street implores liberals and Democrats to look beyond Big Bad Bush -- fully realizing, however, that they can't and won't.

* The lynching of Ward Churchill is continuing apace. You may disagree with some of his comments, but to see him driven out of town with pitchforks and torches is absolutely disgraceful.

* The Laffer curve lives! All hail Bush! (Just don't read the fine print.)

* Thus far, 2006 has been the warmest year in history for the US.

* Famed historian of "whiteness," David Roediger, notes the retreat of race and class from social discourse.

* What the hell happened to Matt Taibbi?