Thursday, May 20, 2004

"Left Behind" is the "Harry Potter" for Christian Fundamentalists

The Wrath of the Troop Math
Between frayed nerves and lack of gear, up to one-third of the US Army in Iraq is unprepared to fight.
It is an irony of war, especially the kind being waged in Iraq, that fighting does not necessarily make you stronger. Units like the 101st train for years to attain peak form — every soldier a strong marksman, every chopper ready to fly — then watch skills fall victim to long hours of waiting and watching for the enemy's next move, living in dust and sand, feeling the triggers of their guns jam and their truck tires wear thin.

But All the Sikh Geeks Love It Just to See One of Us Make It Two decades after hideous pan-India rioting brutally killed over 3,000 Sikhs, Manmohan Singh is set to take over as India's first Sikh prime minister. Manmohan had functioned as economic minster since 1991 and jump-started India's economy while earning a reputation an honest politician in a climate of corruption. Even more bewildering than a Sikh PM in India is the fact that he took the title after an Italian-born Roman Catholic turned it down.

From the "It's About Fucking Time!" Dept. We've finally stopped giving $340,000 a month to the hated man of cats, Ahmad Chalabi. What was the tipping point? When Chalabi, the man convicted of bank fraud, boasted to the press that we were "useful idiots" who bought false information from him and used it to invade Iraq under misguided pretenses?

Willing Slaves
A Wired interview with Jeffrey Rosen about his new book "The Naked Crowd" which "explores the willingness of Americans to abandon privacy for perceived security."

Who Knew A Presidential Campaign Had Need of Drunken Chicks Dancing on Tables?

-The Sikh Geek