I’ve got a few more bits of Obama Derangement Syndrome to report. Phase One: The Obama Invasion Something called the We The People Foundation (which is definitely going on the ODS watch list) is planning to run an ad in Monday’s Chicago Tribune (and again on Wednesday) that is an open letter to President-Elect Barack Obama, asking him to produce evidence that he is a natural born citizen. They describe it this way: The Open Letter to Mr. Obama is a formal Petition for a Redress (Remedy) for

by hilzoy From the NYT: “When President-elect Barack Obama introduces his national security team on Monday, it will include two veteran cold warriors and a political rival whose records are all more hawkish than that of the new president who will face them in the White House Situation Room. Yet all three of his choices — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the rival turned secretary of state; Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander, as national security adviser, and Robert M. Gates, t

Baitullah Mehsud, the most powerful man in the Tehrik-i-Taliban and the one who has created a literal terror state in the North West Frontier Province, and whose organization was outlawed approximately three months ago, was declared a patriot by the Pakistan Army. All main militant groups fighting in Fata, from South Waziristan to Bajaur and from Mohmand to the Khyber Agency, have contacted the government through different sources after the Mumbai bombings and have offered a ceasefire if the P

More on Mumbai AttacksRelations between India and Pakistan were on a knife edge last night amid fears that Delhi’s response to the Mumbai attacks could undermine the Pakistani army’s campaign against Islamic militants on the frontier with Afghanistan. Officials and analysts in the region believe that last week’s atrocities were designed to provoke a crisis, or even a war, between the nuclear-armed neighbours, diverting Islamabad’s attention from extremism in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan

Earlier this evening, I reported that an anonymous group claiming to be comprised of Conservative Party of Canada members from across the country has a launched a new website to mobilize national support for a campaign to draft Ontario Conservative MP John Baird to lead the Conservative party. Treachery doesn’t rest, not even on a Sunday. Grassroots Conservative Party members have apparently also launched a campaign to draft Jim Prentice for the same job. The website for Conservatives for Pren

It is entirely possible that I was the last gamer on Earth who had not played Munchkin.  As a break from our regular weekly World of Darkness game,  the group I’m in played Munchkin Bites, which is a stand-alone version of the Munchkin game that parodies the World of Darkness and its tropes and stereotypes. It’s a fun, fast-faced card game that worked well as a respite from our regular campaign. In the Munchkin games, your goal is to be the first player whose character reached Level 10. You ga

The Lakewood Playhouse has galvanized local merchants into providing an enjoyable evening of theatre mixed with pre-Christmas treats to a group of families who Have had little chance of availing themselves of a theatrical experience. Marcus Walker, Managing Artistic Director of the Lakewood Playhouse, asked Lynn Geyer if she would again coordinate the theatre’s “Christmas Stocking” event which has been so successful the past five years; she willingly agreed. Walker was pleased that Geyer w

Aside from the usual Blog Rankings, a way to gauge the progress of your blog’s path to success is through its marketing effectiveness. Marketing effectiveness is the quality of how marketers go to market with the goal of optimizing their spending to achieve good results for both the short-term and long-term. Wikipedia In blogging, the principle is almost the same. The marketers are the readers/searchers. The market is the blogosphere. Their goal is to optimize their time to find the exact i

Asif Ali Zardari has appealed to India not to punish his country for last week’s attacks in Mumbai, saying militants have the power to precipitate a war in the region, the Financial Times reported on Monday. Zardari, warned that provocation by rogue “non-state actors” posed the danger of a return to war between the nuclear-armed neighbors. “Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, who do you think we are fighting?” asked Zardari in an interview with the Financial Times. “We live

Slander Gene? I’m frequently appalled at what passes for analysis on the left, so I guess Neal Gabler’s unbelievably vapid analysis at the Los Angeles Times, claiming that conservatism was really started by Joe McCarthy, and that what we’re seeing from conservatism is a “McCarthyism Gene,” is no real suprise. As political science, Gabler’s article is simply incoherent. He liberally switches between “republican” and “conservative” in his descriptions of his targets, but really means neither;