Humanity 1, Bush 0. It’s yet another White House flip-flop, but at least it’s hypocrisy in the right direction. From The Washington Post: The White House and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reached agreement today on a measure that would ban torture and limit interrogation tactics in U.S. detention facilities, a provision that the Bush administration had strongly resisted but that received broad support in Congress. The agreement, announced after President Bush met with McCain and Sen. John...

Over at The Reaction, Grace Miao expresses deep revulsion at the interference of U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins in the Canadian election campaign. (Plus, see the comments.) Truly and utterly inappropriate.

Bryan Curtis has an interesting piece on Frank Rich — “The Butcher of the Beltway” — at Slate. Curtis makes a valid case against Rich, however much he may like his politics, and I would tend to agree that Rich operates very much within “a kind of airtight ideological bunker” that offers “reaffirmation” and “the issuance of a crisp verdict” to New York’s disgruntled liberal elite. In short, “it’s possible to cheer on Rich’s...

In case you missed it, Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen is quite the Bush critic.

Popular Iraqi blog Iraq the Model reports here on the early stages of voting in Iraq’s parliamentary elections. ITM is characteristically optimistic. ********** A new opinion poll “suggests Iraqis are generally optimistic about their lives, in spite of the violence that has plagued Iraq since the US-led invasion,” according to the BBC. However, “security fears still dominate most Iraqis’ thoughts. Their priority for the coming year would be the restoration of security...

May I write a post that is entirely self-interested? (Although some of my critics among you may find all of my posts self-interested!) I don’t write much about myself either here or at The Reaction. I prefer to let my posts speak for themselves. But allow me to mention that today is my birthday, my first as a blogger. And, as always, the last few lines of Pink Floyd’s “Time” come to mind: Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time, Plans that either come...

Last week, I mentioned that I have a new co-blogger at The Reaction, Grace Miao, who is writing extensively about the upcoming Canadian federal election. Grace’s latest post — an astute dissection of the advertising campaigns of the two major parties, the ruling Liberal Party and the opposition Conservative Party — is here. ********** I have another new co-clogger based in Britain, James Stickings (yes, my brother — such are the joys of nepotism), who will be writing occasional...

Coverage of the French riots was all the rage, at least until the riots died down and the story became, well, a non-story. But now there’s a new and similar story coming out of Australia, where riots are engulfing parts of Sydney and other areas of New South Wales: Violence triggered by race tensions has hit Sydney for a second night, with youths damaging cars and shops. A reporter in the suburb of Cronulla, where dozens were arrested after riots on Sunday, described scenes of “chaos”. Police...

Yet another Sign of the Apocalypse is Heidi Fleiss’s plan for an all-male bordello (for women only) in Nevada. Isn’t it great that she’s back in the news?

A must-read in Newsweek: “Bush in the Bubble” by Evan Thomas and Michael Wolffe. (I’ve got some reaction here.)

A couple of days ago, I mentioned an upcoming piece in The New York Times by Michael Crowley on the power and influence of the conservative blogosphere. My initial post, with a link to an interesting take by Atrios, is here. Crowley’s (rather short) piece is here. Here’s some of what Crowley has to say: “Liberals use the Web to air ideas and vent grievances with one another, often ripping into Democratic leaders. (Hillary Clinton, for instance, is routinely vilified on liberal...

According to The New York Times, Mel “Lethal Weapon” Gibson “has a new project under way: a nonfiction miniseries about the Holocaust”. Does anybody else see a problem with this?

She’s been there before, but Mariah “Mimi” Carey is my Sign of the Apocalypse #26. Is there a reason? Do I need one? Okay, how about those eight Grammy nominations?

My new friend Marc Acriche alerts me to a perceptive post at his (highly recommended) blog State of the Day called “McCain’s Payoff for Kissing Ass” — click here to go right there (and then c’mon back). What is this ass-kissing, you ask? What is this payoff, you demand to know? Consider (if I may boil the arrangement down to its basics): The Bush crew, led by Dick the Veep, is pro-torture. They won’t say that — in fact, they’ll deny it vigorously —...

In an uncharacteristically transparent expression of verbal communication, Donald Rumsfeld has declared that he has “no plans to retire”. Damn.

This will be of much more interest to bloggers than to non-bloggers, but Atrios, one of the best and biggest of the blogosphere, has an excellent “Occasional Reminder” about links, traffic, and other blog-related matters here. Needless to say, it’s a must-read. (By the way, I enjoy getting e-mails from, and getting to know, fellow bloggers out there. But of course, The Reaction is much, much smaller than Eschaton!)

Same-sex marriage is legal in Canada, but that hasn’t stopped Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper from resurrecting it as a wedge issue in the current federal election campaign. Grace Miao has more on this issue/story over at The Reaction.

The Economist says we’re “cool,” but is it true that we’re also politically dysfunctional? I have some reaction, along with some continued election coverage, at, well, The Reaction — click, read, and let me know what you think of us (are we cool? are we dysfunctional?).

I have a great new co-blogger at The Reaction, Grace Miao, and her first post is a moving remembrance of the horrible events of Dec. 6, 1989, when a man killed 14 women at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique. It’s now known as The Montreal Massacre. I encourage you to read Grace’s excellent post, to learn more about what happened, and to think about the larger issue of violence against women.

Were rats somehow involved in the demise of Easter Island? Well, rats and Europeans? The accepted wisdom has been this: The natives deforested the land in order to transport the 10-ton stone statues for which the island is renowned. This deforestation brought about erosion and the destruction of farmland. Then the natives destroyed themselves in a cannibalistic civil war in the 17th century. But now there’s a new theory — and it’s quite fascinating.

From the BBC: “David Cameron has been elected as the new Conservative leader by a margin of more than two to one over David Davis. The 39-year-old beat Mr Davis by 134,446 votes to 64,398 in a postal ballot of Tory members across the UK.” I’ll have more on this, including analysis of what Cameron’s victory means for the Conservative Party and the future of British politics, in the coming days. Check back for updates.

Here’s some disturbing news from Kansas: A professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he sent e-mails deriding Christian conservatives was hospitalized Monday after what appeared to be a roadside beating. University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki said that the two men who beat him made references to the class that was to be offered for the first time this spring. Originally called “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent...

A former student of mine at the University of Toronto, Hajera Khaja, writes a blog called Finding Neverland. She describes it as “[t]he nonsensical ramblings of a self-defined slightly crazy, slightly delusional Muslim”. Maybe, maybe not. I’ll let you decide. But if you want a break from the political arena that I tend to inhabit, if you want to explore the poetic possibilities of blogging, and if you want to be challenged to consider the deeper, more spiritual facets of your humanity,...

Yet more lies and damned lies at the Pentagon. Yes, democracy is messy, but does it need to be so blatantly phony?

Isn’t it truly a wonderful thing? Now we can get on with our lives…