Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

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Reader Interactions

257Comments

  1. 1.

    Dog Dawg

    What does it even mean to “secure” a neighborhood? Are there Muslim even Muslim areas in the US that are out of control?

    PURE-T Filth.

  2. 2.

    Hal

    Sarah Palin can’t hold a single coherent thought in her head. It’s insulting to compare her to Judge Judy.

    Also off topic, watching Heartbeat. One of those new spangled medical dramas featuring a brilliant surgeon who breaks all the rules! It’s terrible.

  4. 4.

    Some Guy

    Fanning the flames of fascism isn’t just overheated rhetorical labeling m, it is, in fact, GOP policy

  5. 5.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Compare and contrast:

    Ted Ellis ‏@chiefted 32m32 minutes ago

    Ted Ellis Retweeted Elayne (laynie)

    Dear GOP; You really need to take notes. Start with this.

    Ted Ellis added,

    Elayne (laynie) @laynier
    Obama to ESPN on decision to attend ball game post Brussels “the whole premise of terrorism is trying to disrupt people’s ordinary lives.”

    14 retweets 17 likes

    President Obama is always the only adult in the room, and fearlessly leads us through the darkness, while the Republicans wet their diapers.

  7. 7.

    The Dangerman

    What does it even mean to “secure” a neighborhood?

    Doesn’t mean shit; it just sounds tough for his barely brachiating supporters.

  11. 11.

    draftmama

    @Hal: Just FYI Warm Springs is Montana’s State Mental Hospital. Methinks she would be better incarcerated there. Too funny. Somebody is messing with the dumb media.

  12. 12.

    The Other Bob

    Why wouldn’t a terrorist organization attack the US right before the election?

  13. 13.

    sdhays

    What shit TV station would portray Sarah F*cking Palin as a judge? TLC? What sick and demented mind even came up with that? Palin isn’t even a lawyer, let alone ever been a judge. Was Gary Busey busy?

  16. 16.

    redshirt

    And seriously, Newtown is scoffed at by Republicans. Some of them believe it was a liberal staged event.

    They’re monsters. We all know that, right?

  17. 17.

    raven

    “It’s always a challenge when you have a terrorist attack anywhere in the world, particularly in this age of 24-7 news coverage,” Obama explained in his live mid-game interview with ESPN. “You want to be respectful and understand the gravity of the situation. But the whole premise of terrorism is to try to disrupt people’s ordinary lives.”

    Obama went on to cite Red Sox star David Ortiz’s April 2013 on-field, pregame speech, during which — just days after the Boston Marathon bombing — he raised the microphone to his lips and slowly uttered the words, “This is our fucking city,” to the roar of the Boston crowd.

  20. 20.

    Peale

    @The Dangerman: I think he’s playing to whatshisname’s base. The ones who believe that Muslims in this country frequently practice honor killings of their daughters and believe that liberals have allowed Muslims to set up separate shariah courts and to police themselves. I thiink that’s Farrah’s spiel, although I can’t remember. He might be the “Nazis were all gay” guy. It’s hard to tell them apart.

  21. 21.

    catclub

    @The Other Bob: For the same reason they have not sent sniper teams like John Allen Muhammed and Boyd Malvo. They do not understand us very well, and they do not have the resources.

  22. 22.

    Comrade Jake

    Cruz is just lucky that Trump is running this cycle, otherwise a lot more people would be talking about just how batshit crazy his ideas are.

  25. 25.

    Karen

    And the terrorists win. Every piece of paranoid xenophobic bigotry means the terrorists win. They’ve managed to turn us against peace loving Muslims because we can’t tell the difference.

  28. 28.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    MSNBC reporter in Nogales (sp?) AZ expresses surprise that the Brussels attacks have not changed the thinking of locals about border security.

    Sometimes my cynicism about my fellow citizens is too strong, I’m happy to say. WRT the media, what Lily Tomlin said.

    ETA: The Palin news is some welcome comic relief. Thanks again, Senator McCain, now please give us your Very Serious Elder Statesman take on how the road to Malbeek leads through Raqqa.

  30. 30.

    p.a.

    @Comrade Jake:

    22
    Comrade Jake says:
    Cruz is just lucky that Trump is running this cycle, otherwise a lot more people would be talking about just how batshit crazy his ideas are.

    Like the press? Oh, ummm…

    love my iPad air but it’s ‘copy’ function is not (this) user-friendly

  31. 31.

    pseudonymous in nc

    So, I had the misfortune to be stuck in a car shop today with Faux News playing in the waiting area, and a few wingnuts watching it loudly complained that Obama was at a baseball game in Cuba while Muslims were terroring in Belgium, and also too their tax refund got eaten up by Obamacare when before they didn’t have no insurance.

    I’m sure they voted for El Trumpador. (Fox News is poison: the ‘well, what about refugees?’ thing was a constant drumbeat.)

  32. 32.

    Mike in NC

    George Zimmermann is about to fax his resume to Ted Cruz. He really wants to head up the Muslim Patrol.

  34. 34.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Karen: They’re trying but I don’t believe they’ll succeed. Too many of us have Muslim family or friends. We know the average American Muslim is not our enemy.

  36. 36.

    Patricia Kayden

    @efgoldman: Sarah has to eat, you know. She’ll play a Judge on tv for $$$. Grifters gotta grift. I’m sure she’ll quit after a few months and move on to the next hustle.

  37. 37.

    OGLiberal

    Would Ted have been ok with the Feds “securing” Raf Sr’s hood during the Cuban Missile Crisis? I mean, yeah, he was a “good” Cuban but still one who fought on Castro’s side just a few years before…very suspicious!

  39. 39.

    MomSense

    I have a bad feeling about the trajectory the Republicans are on right now. The locals up my way are feeling very free to say racist things without any worry about how they will be received.

  40. 40.

    Elizabelle

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: What DID Lily Tomlin say? All I remember is the phone company, and a little kid in a big, big chair.

    Also, wondering how Satby’s exchange girls’ days went today. They were in my thoughts.

  42. 42.

    WarMunchkin

    @MomSense:

    The locals up my way are feeling very free to say racist things without any worry about how they will be received.

    Neatly illustrates what Republicans mean when they say that they want freedom of speech.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle: “No matter how cynical you get, you can’t keep up”. from IIRC The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life In the Universe.

  45. 45.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    Wrong thread I know (sorry JC), but can anyone help me with what’s going on in Arizona?

    It looks to me like the Secretary of State in Arizona has authority over the elections out there. Her web page says that what’s happening today isn’t even a Primary (that’s later), but we’ll ignore that now. It says there that they consolidated voting locations.

    J is furious that the Democratic Party has messed up out there, that DWS is throwing the election to Hillary, that people standing in line for 4 hours in the heat and leaving is some sign of dirty tricks on Hillary’s part.

    It looks to me like the result of typical Republican local government cost cutting, with an extra helping of confusion caused by masses of independents demanding ballots (that won’t be counted because they’re not registered members of the 3 parties on the ballot).

    Can anyone help me talk her down? :-(

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  46. 46.

    Pogonip

    @Hal: After 12 years of Mash, that poor old dead horse should have been left in peace.

    My dad noted that if Hawkeye had been THAT good he would have been assigned to some general, not wasted on reassembling guys no one important cared about.

  47. 47.

    Smiling Mortician

    @JPL: Trump tweeted:

    Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!

  49. 49.

    burnspbesq

    Disgusting.

    And utterly predictable. Pathetic, too.

    Since when the fuck did the most powerful nation the world has ever known start to wet its pants every time some asshole with a rusty AK and a crackpot interpretation of the Qa’ran jumps up and says “Boo?”

  51. 51.

    Pogonip

    @Patricia Kayden: Since Muslims are only 2-3% of the U.S. population, it’s mathematically impossible for a majority of us to know a Muslim well.

    I don’t know any, period. What about the rest of you?

  56. 56.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman:

    Holding two completely opposite views (or two completely opposite emotional reactions) in one brain at the same time is a hallmark of the RWNJ TeaHadi Republiklown hive mind. It’s how Obama can be a fascist and a communist; an evil mastermind and without a clue; a devout Sharia Muslim and an atheist evil genius, etc all at the same time.

    Well said.

    When your opponent is beyond logic or reason or facts, I’m not sure how many options are open.

  57. 57.

    NickM

    I kind of wish the Trumpies would get what they’re asking for good and hard. The US would cease to be the global leader within four years and the economy would collapse quicker than it did under Bush. The rich would get their tax breaks anyway. They’d have the strongman they always wanted and have to see him flail around because strong means shit when you don’t have a brain directing your power. The schadenfreude of their humiliation would be delicious. But (1) the rest of us don’t deserve it and (2) i guess they’d still be grimly satisfied as long as the blacks and browns didn’t have a sparrow or a curtain rod to roast it on.

  58. 58.

    patroclus

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Why bother? Debbie Wasserman Schulz simply isn’t that powerful. But don’t let me get in the way of some really good conspiracy-mongering – maybe DWS is in league with ISIS and planned the whole Brussels attack just to mess with the Bernistas. The amount of complaining about DWS is just mind-boggling. It kind of reminds me how the entire media monster just leaped all over Roland Burris when he was appointed to fill out Obama’s Senate term.

  59. 59.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Frank Conniff
    ‏@FrankConniff

    I feel much safer with Obama at a Cuban ball game than I would with Trump or Cruz in the White House Situation Room.

    AMEN.

    /Obot

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    Everything “Too Early to Call.”

    Which translates to “We know darn well who will be dubbed projected winner but won’t put our butts on the line until certain key precincts report in.”

  63. 63.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @NotMax: Supposedly there’s no exit polling, so they actually, you know, have to count the ballots to figure out who won. Novel concept, isn’t it? What on Earth will the TV talking heads do?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne

    @Pogonip:

    Depends on what area of the country you live in. Here in the greater Los Angeles area, there’s a good-sized Muslim population, in part because we have a large Iranian (Persian) exile community. I see women in headscarves at least every couple of days.

    ETA: Also, IIRC Patricia is African-American and there are a lot of AA’s who are Muslim, like Rep. Keith Ellison.

  67. 67.

    LAO

    And Cruz responds

    Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you’re more of a coward than I thought. #classless

    Classy!

  70. 70.

    Chris

    @Patricia Kayden:

    They’re trying but I don’t believe they’ll succeed. Too many of us have Muslim family or friends. We know the average American Muslim is not our enemy.

    We do. You and I do.

    The average Joe? Not so sure. They’re really not a big population, and tend to be concentrated in areas that are already blue. Besides which, there’s always been a bunch of people happy to delude themselves that “well, we just need to give our cops the tools to do the job – I’m sure if they’ve done nothing, they have nothing to fear!” See also the people who convince themselves that every black man shot by the police, no matter the evidence in the video, must’ve had it coming.

  73. 73.

    patroclus

    A bunch of Muslims live near my neighborhood in Chi-town. But it’s not like I blame them for ISIS (I think DWS deserves the blame for that). I’m a Presbyterian, but if some crazed Christianist did some sort of mass terror bombing or killed a doctor or something, I sure wouldn’t think I deserved the blame for that. That’s just nonsensical.

  74. 74.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @p.a.:

    love my iPad air but it’s ‘copy’ function is not (this) user-friendly

    Mostly I don’t have trouble selecting/blocking/copying on the iPad Air, but every now and then, for no apparent reason, it gets all balky.

    I have noticed a weird thing I do, using my fingers on the touchscreen: Whenever I copy a text passage, but before I paste it, I have this very strange sensation that the material resides in whatever fingertip I used to give the “copy” command, and that (a) I can’t do anything else with that finger, even scratch my nose or anything, until I’ve performed the “paste” command, and (b) I must use that finger, and that finger only, to touch the screen when I paste. Otherwise, who knows what might show up, right?

  75. 75.

    NotMax

    @Pogonip

    Undoubtedly yes, but I have never given a fig about any religion nor about anyone’s religion and it never comes up in face to face friendly conversations.

  77. 77.

    Anoniminous

    @Pogonip:

    Wife’s best friend since they were toddlers is Muslim. Knew and hung around with Muslims when I was living in SoCal. Was involved with a project in Iowa that had Muslim participants. (Fact: oldest mosque in the US is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.) We regularly go to a Muslim grocery store in Albuquerque and talk to the owners, wouldn’t say we’re friends, exactly, but we’ve been customers for 15 years so we’re friendly.

  79. 79.

    jl

    @srv: His name is America! The mother is Lady Liberty. And Ted loves both of them (big smarmy grin). Or is it a trick question: the baby is Ted himself!!?? dum dum DUM!

  83. 83.

    RaflW

    @Dog Dawg: What does it even mean to “secure” a neighborhood?

    For example, what sort of neighborhood did the San Bernardino attackers live in? How would Cruz have secured that community so that it wouldn’t have happened? If journalists aren’t asking these sort of questions, then why do we have journalists?

    Yeah, I know.

  84. 84.

    jl

    @Pogonip: First grad school, and then in academics with docs and engineers, and all, I know quite a few Muslims. From Ghana, Nigeria, South Asia, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey.

    I remember a bunch of us in grad school out for dinner asking a Saudi Arabian class mate if he ever beat his wife, since, like, he could if he wanted to, right? Makes me embarrassed now. He was taken aback but recovered and said yes, he could by Saudi law, but no, he would never do that, and most people in his circle back home would never do that.

    And I almost forgot my Yemeni neighbors down the street. The ‘patriarch’ was out shooting the breeze, sipping on a can of Fosters, talking about how too much religion makes people crazy (that is why he is in the US), and a guy like him was the really good Muslim. I remember him introducing me to his daughter who was visiting a while ago from college back east. He waved to her and pointed to her as she came down the street, beautiful and smoking hot (sorry if I am not PC about that) , in a tank top and cut-offs. She is very smart and getting all As he said, and he is very proud.

    So, that is my report.

  86. 86.

    catclub

    @Pogonip:

    it’s mathematically impossible for a majority of us to know a Muslim well.

    Not at all, I feel like I know Kareem and Barack Obama really well. ;)

  88. 88.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: That must have made for interesting holidays. Though little can top, to my mind, the Reform/Catholic mixed marriage where the boys went to both Sunday schools.

    The youngest announced, during this season, at about age 6, that in the Catholic version they’d learned that Jesus died, somehow a cross was involved in a fashion that was unclear, and his body was put in a cave. Then, after 3 days, the Easter bunny saw his shadow and Christ was risen. It’s kind of my favorite version of the story.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    J. Peter DonaldVerified account
    ‏@ JPeterDonald
    Hey, @ tedcruz are our nearly 1k Muslim officers a “threat” too? It’s hard to imagine a more incendiary, foolish statement

    JPD is the spokesman for the NYPDNews. I don’t know if that’s an official affiliation with the PD, but that’s a pretty strong statement

  90. 90.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Smiling Mortician:

    And once again, I really truly think that Trump does not want to be President. He wants the rush and the glory of winning primaries and delegates, but I would bet good cash money that he’ll find some reason (a “reason” that, in his view, makes him look good) to withdraw from the race. He may not (probably does not) even recognize this himself. I know he’s someone we’ve never seen before in American politics, but seriously, nobody does that kind of stuff if they genuinely intend to win the nomination and the presidency.

  95. 95.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door last weekend.

    IN CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE HOA’S PROHIBITION ON SOLICITATION.

    It’s like every religion has gone totally lawless.

  96. 96.

    Chris

    @Pogonip:

    I don’t know any, period. What about the rest of you?

    Yes, quite a few, from high school to college to grad school, but as my field is Middle Eastern Studies that’s not completely unexpected. But even just counting the Americans, yeah. That’s one of the main reasons this prejudice pisses me off, and has since I was a thirteen year old watching the country go post-9/11.

  97. 97.

    japa21

    Ever since 9/11 I have been urging a change in the national anthem. At least where Republicans and some Dems are concerned, the last clause should be dropped.

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @The Other Bob: The same reason they don’t attack any other time. Its not that easy. There is a reason that terrorism is a very low N event in functioning states and societies. Even open ones with permissive immigration and freedom of movement and the ability to purchase just about anything you want.

    Logistics are hard. So is the planning and the ability to both do preoperational setup and work and go operational effectively. The places with the most terrorism are the places that are either failed or failing, are in the midst of internal conflict, or, in some cases – and somewhat counterintuitively – have overdeveloped security states. Because trying to protect everything means you’re not really protecting anything of value.

  103. 103.

    p.a.

    @SiubhanDuinne: You may have a whole blog library in your fingertips! May need cataloguing to know what’s where.
    “Are you flipping me off?”
    “No it’s an ‘Omnes’ comment.”

  106. 106.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: Cat Stevens–that reminds of the last funny thing that Dennis Miller ever said: when Yusuf Islam f/k/a Cat Stevens announced his support for the jihad against Salman Rushdie, Miller said “So much for all that ‘Peace Trap’ crap, eh?” And it was all downhill from there.

  107. 107.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Everybody fucking hates Ted Cruz, because he’s a smarmy psychopath. Full stop. And Trump is having some kind of psychotic break on twitter about Ted’s wife. That’s the State of the Current GOP.

  108. 108.

    Elmo

    @Pogonip: There are several working in my office. I’m surprised you don’t know any – I thought you were in my neck of the woods, in SoMD. There are LOTS of Muslims right over the river in NoVA.

  109. 109.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steve in the ATL: When I was in the army in Germany, JHers visited a friend of mine in a Saturday morning. You should understand that when he drank he had vicious hangovers. So the JHers rang his doorbell – he assumed that it was me and some of his other friends coming to get him to go to lunch. He buzzed them in and met them at the door wearing only boxers. He bought many copies of the “Wachturm” to make them go away. He somehow blamed the rest of us.

  111. 111.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And it seems like our notorious homegrown “Islamic” terrorists mostly act like good ol’ American mass murderers. The San Bernardino murders were a workplace shooting with a thin veneer of “Islam” pulled over it. The Tsarnaevs struck on a local holiday that the rest of the country barely knew existed. John Allan Muhammad was acting on grievances far beyond any religious ones. Even Ft. Hood could probably be classified as a workplace shooting.

  114. 114.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @p.a.: And it’s much more fun. Plus it weaves the whole spring festival thing right back back in with the echo of the groundhog. Kids!

  115. 115.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Radical Jehovism

    I can relate. I belong to a radical Episcopalian sect. Every fourth Wednesday, we drink blended whiskey. One of members even drives an American car. Obviously, we don’t give him any mulligans on the links.

  120. 120.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @scav:

    I’ve probably known more Muslims than Mormons.

    Likewise. In fact, I’m trying to think of a single Mormon I’ve ever known, and I don’t think I’ve ever even met one. Closest is those guys on bicycles wearing perfectly pressed white shirts, black trousers, and backpacks, who show up at my apartment complex in Atlanta every summer. One year they tried to engage me in conversation and I (politely) told them I wasn’t interested goodbye.

    OTOH, I know at least a dozen Muslims, women and men, some of them quite well.

  126. 126.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The American car is a Jeep, isn’t it?

    There are no Fords or Chevys in the Episcopal Church. That’s what Baptist and Methodist churches are for.

  129. 129.

    schrodinger's cat

    @SiubhanDuinne: Same here. I don’t know any Mormons personally but know quite a few Muslims. American, from the subcontinent, Turkish, Saudi, Jordanian, Iranian. Classmates, at work, students, physicians, professors, restaurant owners, the list goes on.
    My housemate was from Turkey and he was a great cook.

  130. 130.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Peale: Honestly, if Idaho ceased to exist tomorrow I don’t think many people east of the Mississippi would even notice.

  133. 133.

    catclub

    @Anoniminous: Looking at the NYT results page:
    Trump 47%, Cruz 21% kasich 10% that adds up to 78%

    Clinton 60% Sanders 37% that adds up to 97%

    Where is the missing 22% of GOP votes?

  136. 136.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dmsilev: Its been publicly reported that she suffered from serious depression after they moved to Texas. Whether that’s what Trump’s on about or its something else, who knows.

  139. 139.

    dmsilev

    @catclub: Rubio, probably. Arizona has a lot of people doing early voting, so they may have sent in their ballots before Rubio imploded last week.

  140. 140.

    Anoniminous

    @Peale:

    Ditto AP. Exit polls I saw said Clinton won older women by a huge percentage and turn-out skewed old, both favorable for her. Arizona has a closed primary. It would be interesting to know how many Republican women switched parties so they could vote for her. We’ll never know, tho.

  141. 141.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @catclub: Arizona can vote for almost a month before election day. Candidates dropped out in that time.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  144. 144.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Just checked MSNBC to see if any results were in, and Brian Williams was calling Kasich’s mewling that Obama should’ve staged some theatrics in response to a terrorist attack in another country, “high presidential” to a bobble head that I think belonged to Hugh Hewitt.

    What moments I’ve seen of MSNBC today have been all about Jonny K.

  145. 145.

    different-church-lady

    @Anoniminous:

    Clinton won older women by a huge percentage and turn-out skewed old

    HOW LONG ARE THEY GOING TO LET PEOPLE WHO DON’T MATTER VOTE?!?

  146. 146.

    Adam L Silverman

    @RaflW: They lived in a non-Muslim majority neighborhood. If you recall the interviews almost all the neighbors were white. One indicated she thought something might be hinky, but decided not to say anything because if she was wrong, she didn’t want to seem prejudiced. Donald Trump jumped all over this as a sign of political correctness leading to American deaths.

  148. 148.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes. Its the new(ish) formulation: clear, hold, build, transition. The four components to Phase IV/Counterinsurgency Operations.

  149. 149.

    redshirt

    @catclub: I’m from Maine, right? Far away from NYC and DC.

    And here are my weird connections to 9/11:

    My uncle and family were there on 9/8 for their first ever visit to NYC. This is a BIG DEAL for this family in and of itself – to go to NYC just for fun? Hedonistic! But 3 days prior? Weird.

    I met a guy I knew from High School two weeks before 9/11 for the first time in a long time in Brookline MA, who died his 2nd day on the job at the WTC.

    I knew a girl supposed to be on the flight(she says) from Boston to LA, she rescheduled a day prior, did not die.

    I used to work at a pizza place in South Portland Maine and just outside this pizza place the mastermind of 9/11 took out money from the ATM there. He used the very same ATM I had used many years earlier. I assume this money was used for some nefarious purpose. Weird right? He walked in my steps. He touched buttons I had touched years earlier. We crossed Light Cones. And one of his buddies too, if I recall.

    I wonder sometimes if I am responsible for 9/11 by thinking it, maybe?

  153. 153.

    divF

    @Anoniminous: Early voting is right. There are over 300K votes counted on the Democratic side in AZ, with only one precinct reporting in the entire state.

  154. 154.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Most of my Muslim friends are from Africa — Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali — and are either former colleagues or spouses/friends of said colleagues. Some are still in Atlanta, some moved to Canada, one couple returned to Africa. But I see a few of them semi-regularly, and stay in touch with everyone via FB.

  156. 156.

    Jeffro

    @efgoldman: you know what’s funny? I have been reading 1984 this week (since I only read the Cliffs Notes, and quite quickly at that, in high school) and…this holding of two completely opposing thoughts and believing in both of them, in order to serve The Party and The Leader…

    …wow.

    I used to think “It Can’t Happen Here” was the best forewarning of what American Fascism would look like, and perhaps that’s still true. But “1984” is the best glimpse of the thought processes of Trump supporters (or should I just say, half of all Republicans): not just willing to believe in anything, or believe in nothing, but even both at once, as long as the lies – and the Leader – are served.

  157. 157.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Sanders outspent Clinton by more than 2×1 in AZ, got crushed. CLAP HARDER

  158. 158.

    redshirt

    @Jeffro: I’ve been saying this for awhile.
    1984 is the must read book of the times. Read it now if it’s been decades since the last time your read it.
    Read it now if you’ve never read it.
    Read it again even if you read it a few years ago.

    It’s terrifying and prophetic.

  160. 160.

    Prescott Cactus

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    but can anyone help me with what’s going on in Arizona?

    Tuesday’s presidential preference election in Arizona is not a primary election.

    The election will merely clarify for whom delegates to the Republican and Democratic national conventions will vote.

    It’s a preliminary, nonbinding election, and the winner will not necessarily appear on the state’s November general election ballot, said Chris Roads, Pima County deputy recorder and registrar of voters.

    Arizona Daily Star

  163. 163.

    Peale

    @Mnemosyne: I think that’s kind of right. It’s kind of snobby, but our homegrown terrorists are what you get when you’ve got disgruntled middle class people with college degrees and workplace grievances. iSIS itself is what we’d get if we suddenly opened the doors of maximum security prisons and told the ex inmates to start a country. Lots of petty crime, gangster justice, looting and a concern with access to women, sure…but also a Lot of sex crimes and child molesting.

  165. 165.

    Chris

    @Jeffro:

    I’ve had doublethink pegged as integral to the conservative mindset at least since the rise of the teabaggers.

    Another Orwellism they’re very good at: Two Minutes Hate. That’s what Fox News and its various online blog equivalents are, giving them their daily fix.

  169. 169.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: I’m pretty sure the John Allen Muhammed spree shootings were more about his real and imagined (objective and subjective) grievances, than Islam. The San Bernadino shooting seems, to me, to basically be two self radicalized Muslims who decided they had to do something and when confronted with an obnoxious co-worker went operational because they just couldn’t take anymore. Not to speak ill of the dead, but had he not been such a vocal bigot and generally vociferously and publicly obnoxious about his politics and religion, they would have still likely gone operational, but against a different target.

    The Ft. Hood shooter is a bit different. I wrote the preliminary report for the US Army Office of the Provost Marshal General and its subordinate command US Army Corrections Command on Soldiers who commit mass shootings. I’ve gone through every example, including those who’ve committed other types of mass murder – the NCO in Iraq that fragged his fellow Soldiers with a grenade, the junior NCO who shot another Soldier, the Soldier’s wife, and a civilian because he was messed up in a drug ring. I’ve also been through every known case example of civilian mass shootings, which is a mass murder involving a minimum of four killings using a firearm and not counting the perpetrator. So I’m speaking from a bit of an informed observer position here. I think MAJ Hassan is one of those both examples. While the second and third stages of the research I had outlined for Army Corrections Command never happened (sequester cuts and the SES who wanted it done rotated out, but mostly sequester cuts to the discretionary budget), which would have had me do a much deeper dive into all of the Soldiers who had committed mass shooting mass murders, from everything I did read it was clear that MAJ Hassan had some serious, untreated mental health issues. It is also clear that he was self radicalizing. What is unclear is if the latter was a result of the former or independent of it. As in: had his work place issues been dealt with properly and he been assessed as a result and gotten treatment, would he still have self radicalized? That I can’t answer on the basis of the research I did do. But I think there is enough evidence for the MAJ Hassan’s actions to be placed in both categories.

    BTW: I think this is similar to how I view the UNABomber. Kazinski clearly had untreated, severe mental illness which drove him to committing his acts. At the same time he had developed an elaborate set of socio-political justification, around saving the environment, in support of his actions. The untreated mental illness portion of his crimes is much closer to those of David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, and would make him a serial killer. The latter justifications and rationalizations place him in the terrorism category. I think it could go either way.

  171. 171.

    PurpleGirl

    @Pogonip: For a few years the non-profit I worked at had a Muslim convert working in IT. We became friendly and often talked about how lucky she was to work there because everyone was so welcoming. When she first joined us I and a friend who also worked there were concerned that in the heat of summer she might have problems with her hijab. We had the office get her a fan for her work area (the AC was only in the outer wall offices with windows; we worked in a large single room). There was also a Muslim man who lived in my Co-Op who was friendly and we always exchanged greetings.

  172. 172.

    Anoniminous

    @Jeffro:

    Eric Blair in 1984 simply reported what he experienced in Spain fighting in the POUM militia and upon his return when he tried to tell what was actually happening. Those were the days when W. H. Auden could write “The conscious acceptance of guilt in the necessary murder” in a poem. (Auden was embarrassed by that when his brain started working again.) Homage to Catalonia is a Must Read and a warning for anyone involved in politics.

  178. 178.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @efgoldman: I’m going to break my own rule against using brain disorders as punch lines. If I’d married Ted Cruz I hope someone would have made sure I was placed into inpatient psych treatment. And of course I’d be depressed if I had to move to Texas.

  179. 179.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I was tracking on your original meaning. Given that we turned most of the FA guys into planners for Iraq and Afghanistan, they handled it pretty well.

  184. 184.

    RaflW

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, really, wouldn’t most US Muslims live in non-Muslim majority neighborhoods? Cruz is just being a reactionary idiot, of course. I mean, sure, there’s a few areas in Minneapolis (for example, since it’s what I know best) where one can spot some halal markets and coffee+hookah bars, but those neighborhoods also often have asian groceries & restaurants, and/or latino-oriented businesses.
    Cruz of course couldn’t really explain what ‘secure Muslim neighborhoods’ means if pressed. And I stand by my comment that the press will, by and large, not push him on it.

  185. 185.

    redshirt

    @Prescott Cactus: When Amazon literally pulled copies of 1984 from user’s Kindles in the middle of the night. From people who had legally purchased the book, but, because of a licensing disagreement between IP holders, apparently that was no longer valid.
    I read that and I said, NOPE. Never gonna rely on electronic books for shit. Got a paper backup at all times.

  187. 187.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: He, from what I’ve been informed, is a recurring troll problem. Managed to sneak in with a different name and email. Now taken care of.

  189. 189.

    Redshift

    @Pogonip:

    Since Muslims are only 2-3% of the U.S. population, it’s mathematically impossible for a majority of us to know a Muslim well.

    Mathematically impossible? Do you think they’re only allowed to have one non-Muslim friend?

    Unlikely perhaps because of geographic distribution, but not impossible.

    In any case, that’s about the same percentage of the population as LGBTQ, and there were enough of them to produce a “too many people personally know someone” effect in the past couple of decades, so it’s reasonable that the same could be true for Muslims.

    I know plenty of Muslims; they live in my neighborhood, I work with them, they’re on my local Democratic committee. I don’t know as many Mormons; most of the Mormons I know are relatives or family friends, my mother in law is Mormon. (It’s also possible that some people I know as generic white people are Mormon, since I don’t talk religion with most people I know.)

  193. 193.

    Anoniminous

    “I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.”
    ―from “The Words” by Jean-Paul Sartre

    Works for me.

  195. 195.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Miss Bianca: The then Chief of Strategic Planning at Office of Provost Marshal General was an old friend – as in I’d known her since she was a major and I was a year out from finishing my doctorate. She emailed me, explained what they wanted to study and why, that I was one of the few criminologists she knew and the only one on the Army’s payroll, and if I’d be interested. I said sure and we agreed to meet to discuss everything the following week when she was up in Carlisle for a conference. The next day the second Ft. Hood shooting took place…

    Originally I had laid out what would have been at least five years worth of research, along three separate lines of inquiry – the mass shooters was only one of them – for Corrections Command based on what the Director told me they really wanted to know and know about. Unfortunately between the sequester cuts to the discretionary budget and his rotating out, it just wasn’t meant to be.

  198. 198.

    Smiling Mortician

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’ve thought for quite some time that he’ll find a reason to bail. He’s actually starting to look sort of panicked. He doesn’t know what to do about his thug of a campaign manager. The interview with the WaPo editorial board was a complete disaster . . . and Hillary hasn’t even started in on him yet.

  200. 200.

    Adam L Silverman

    @RaflW: It’s hyperbolic rhetoric for the campaign. But it works because most Americans really don’t know too many Muslims and when they hear Muslim neighborhood they think, if they think about it at all, of Dearborn, Michigan. And since the extreme, Islamophobic right has made Dearborn into the caricature Dearbornistan, and also through the Clarion Foundation created another caricature out of the couple of Islamberg/Islamville communities, he’s got an audience primed for this crap.

  203. 203.

    Redshift

    @RaflW: His audience are the same idiots who can be convinced that European countries have abandoned areas of major cities to Muslim control, where the police are afraid to enter. Of course unthinkingly swallow the idea that Muslims live in “Muslim neighborhoods” here.

  204. 204.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Adam L Silverman: Holy shit–every time I fly to or from Detroit I have to drive right past Dearborn. How have I not been killed yet?!? I guess sometimes people beat seemingly impossible odds–like Hillary avoiding indictment for her many crimes.

  208. 208.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: You have no idea. And I wasn’t responsible – I didn’t turn them into planners. When I went out to Sill in 2014 to assist with the cultural and regional studies courses, the instructor cadre from the officer’s cohort were in full revolt. They made it very, very, very clear that as far as they were concerned FM 3-0/Operations stated that culture was PMESII and that’s all they needed and they were tired of being taught about things and taught and told to do things that weren’t primary FA functions. They were going to pull lanyards again and everyone else could piss off, thank you very much!

    I even tried to charm and schmooze the situation. I tried to get them all together, told them I’d pay for dinner, and we’d try to reconcile it a bit in a less formal setting where they could give me candid, anonymous, and constructive feedback that I could use with the FIRES leadership and the folks back at TRADOC. At the last minute they all cancelled on free steak dinners and drinks. I can’t fix something when the people with the problem make it clear they don’t want it fixed, they just want to stew in it.

    The warrant cohort were great. They really got it, really wanted more. The NCOs were hit and miss.

  210. 210.

    Miss Bianca

    @Steve in the ATL:

    “Where two or three are gathered…DRINK!”

    I keep thinking we’re a beleaguered minority. Am I wrong? Maybe it’s just the WASP in me, seeing persecuted minority status where it dwelleth not…

  211. 211.

    Prescott Cactus

    @benw:

    you remember the Fahrenheit 451 solution to backing up literature?

    Do tell !

    @redshirt:

    “… Never gonna rely on electronic books for shit…”

    Well I did say if you were a quick reader.

  214. 214.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I had not heard about MAJ Hassan possibly having mental health issues, but it makes sense. It often seems like the most “successful” (if you will) mass shooters have some kind of serious problem, like the Virginia Tech shooter or the Sandy Hook shooter.

    From what I’ve read about the San Bernardino shooters, it still sounds like a classic folie a deux situation, where two people feed off a shared delusion, like the Columbine killers. But I’m just an amateur with occasionally morbid interests.

  215. 215.

    different-church-lady

    @Adam L Silverman: What kind of warped coders build a filter that takes out stuff like “shoes” but lets the n-word through?

    Oh, yeah: the ones that work for WordPress.

  219. 219.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Pogonip: Don’t know any of them personally either, but I figured they’d be good examples. I do know a number of Muslim Americans, both Sunni and Shi’a, and they are just people like the rest of us. The good ones are good and would be regardless of religion. And the one or two I don’t like, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t think highly of if they were Jewish or Catholic or Protestant or Hindu or Buddhist.

  220. 220.

    benw

    @NotMax: It would be fascinating to see how classic works like 1984 “drifted” in meaning if they were solely kept in human memory the way the Pledge was mangled in Omega Glory.

  222. 222.

    Mnemosyne

    @Redshift:

    Considering that’s exactly what they think about majority Black neighborhoods filled with native-born Americans, are you really surprised that they project the exact same ideas onto the latest group that they hate and fear?

  224. 224.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: A lot of the reporting focused on his work related problems. From what I’m recalling he developed significant emotional problems, some speculated either akin to Post Traumatic Stress or actual Post Traumatic Stress, from providing therapy and counseling to so many Soldiers who had come back with mental and emotional problems from their tours in OEF and OIF. There was speculation that this coupled with, and then enhanced, his own anxiety about his own upcoming deployment. Since my work didn’t call for me needing to read his medical file, I can only go by what was reported out in the news media.

  229. 229.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Miss Bianca: It is what it is. A lot of things got cut, scaled way back, etc. A lot of attempts to work around that was to use discretionary budgets or end of year money. Of course once the sequester kicked in it turned out that the only way to achieve the needed level of cuts was to cut discretionary spending and claw back end of year money.

    I’m not saying the Defense budget doesn’t have bloat. Nor am I saying it doesn’t have waste. But this type of bluntly, hacking away to hit an arbitrary target because we only do crisis budgeting these days is no way to run anything, let alone a superpower.

  230. 230.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steve in the ATL: Or just order online. I supervised (research) a Kuwaiti Lieutenant Colonel my last year at USAWC. He was constantly bringing me this stuff as a gift. I finally told him that if he didn’t stop I was going to have to have my suits made by the guy who builds the bedouin tents for the King of Saudi Arabia. He laughed and scaled the deliveries back to every other month…

  231. 231.

    benw

    @Prescott Cactus: ok. SPOILERS to the ending to Fahrenheit 451 (for all you high-school sophomores out there).

    So the ending of Fahrenheit 451 revealed that an underground group was preserving classic works of literature from burning by memorizing them. Their backup of vulnerable paper literature was human memory.

    The way @redshirt keeps a paper backup of literature instead of using electronic memory is an interesting reversal of that idea: in this case, paper is less vulnerable than our electronic copies of books like 1984.

  233. 233.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman:

    No, arbitrary hackery of budgetary or any kind with regard to research or any sort of effective government programming – like family literacy – has always enraged me…like those accounts that would inevitably get published of congresspeople jeering at research projects they wanted to cut – “can you believe it, they want to spend your hard-earned tax dollars on “how bees use their tongues, LOL, how STOOPID”.

    @O. Felix Culpa: DRINK!!

    @Steve in the ATL: ‘At’s a good one, boss…

  234. 234.

    benw

    @NotMax: you’re right that ‘E Pleb Neesta’ comes from the Preamble, but I always felt like the big “moment” in that episode comes when Kirk finishes the mangled version of the Pledge. But I could be remembering wrong… :)

  236. 236.

    reality-based (the original, not the troll)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I Lived in Salt Lake City for 14 years – then in the SF Bay Area for 14 years, in the technology field –

    So I know lots of both. They are oddly similar – uniformly polite, dedicated to education, huge investment in the notion of The Family.

    Now back in North Dakota – mostly populated by Trump Fans, but when a Somali immigrant family had it’s deli burned down in Grand Forks some months ago, the community rallied around big time to rebuild it.

    But then, that’s Eastern North Dakota/University of North Dakota/What passes for a big city in North Dakota – go 60 miles west of the Minnesota state line, the Only Muslims would be occasional immigrant doctors.

  237. 237.

    NotMax

    @benw

    Open question as to whether, in a few decades, any devices will even be able to read things in current digital formats.

    An example is raw data from some of the early digital (punch tape or even punch card) censuses. At one time in the 80s read that there was only one operable machine left on the planet that was capable of processing data from the ’64 census, the bulk of which could not yet be collated and released because of legal constraints on the time which must pass from when a census is taken.

  238. 238.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: Sorry, didn’t mean to loose you. Field Manual (FM) 3-0 is the primary doctrinal publication for Operations for the US Army. This is now Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 3-0/ Unified Land Operations:
    http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/adrp3_0.pdf
    Apparently FM was too hard to remember…

    Anyhow, PMESII are the Operational variables that have to be accounted for and, as a result, are actually a data categorization schema developed to allow one to identify each component within each system – P(olitical), M(ilitary), E(conomic), S(ocial), I(information), and I(nfrastructure) – and then use the information in each category to produce a system of systems report. It has, unfortunately, developed – and wrongly so – into its own analytical system, though I’ve yet to see any two people provide the same methodology, nor really make a good showing of explaining how it is an analytical tool. There are several US Army School of Advanced Military Studies masters’ theses that have clearly made the case that PMESII isn’t and shouldn’t be used as an analytical tool, but, unfortunately, that ship has sailed. In ADRP 3-0 P(hysical Environment) and T(ime) were added for PMESII-PT.

    What the Army did in FM 3-0, and ADRP 3-0 is equate them with culture. Culture hear should be read/interpreted in line with Tyler’s 19th Century understanding of the socio-cultural. In short: everything humans transmit from one generation to the next through (social) learning. So politics, religion, economics, language, concepts of time, gender, sexuality, warfare, peace, music, cuisine/food, sports and play, etc. Very, very broad definition.

    What happened was that during OIF and OEF there was not a great deal of need for Field Artillery once we started doing Counterinsurgency, which the Army calls, or used to call, Phase IV Operations. Because Field Artillerists are trained in ascertaining/anticipating effects, and working backwards from the projected and desired effect to be achieved, a lot of them were turned into planners. One of the slang terms for Field Artillerists is lanyard pullers. So these company grade officers, who had seen their seniors at Brigade and Division and Corps turned into planners, and who had been turned into the same thing at the Battalion level or as assistants at Brigade and echelons above brigade, were revolting against this reality. They wanted to be Field Artillerists and they were going to hold that line.

  240. 240.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Smiling Mortician:

    Yes, this exactly. I can’t tell how much is conscious and deliberate, and how much is his uncontrollable subconscious running things, but the repeated thuggery, vulgarity, and ill-concealed panic do not combine to “winner.” And honestly, he doesn’t look at all healthy. I’m betting he’s out of the race before the convention.

  241. 241.

    Adam L Silverman

    @M. Bouffant: I think a lot of that is accurate. I remarked here, in comments to a post I did on immigration and terrorism and crime in the EU, that one of the problems I had when I did the study I cited in my post is that none of the EU countries seem to keep a centralized, accessible data repository for this information and if they do, they don’t share it with the EU. I was working with an EU funded, professional research/reference librarian at UF’s EU data repository and she couldn’t get anything. Had I not come across a British Home Office Study on comparative crime rates going back twenty years that I saw referenced in the Albuquerque newspaper when out at my family’s place in NM during winter break, that had the title of the study for me to track back online, I never would have had the data.

    And as for Belgium’s law enforcement and security and intel services being fragmented, and just in the Brussels metropolitan area – without a doubt. And austerity budgets just make it worse.

  242. 242.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Miss Bianca:

    “Where two or three are gathered…DRINK!”

    Whiskeypalians and Rum’n’Catholics.

    Wherever you find four Episcopalians, you’ll find a fifth.

  243. 243.

    Monala

    @Pogonip: I do think it depends on where you live. I grew up in Cleveland. A lot of my childhood classmates were Muslims. Some were children of Black Muslim converts, but others were children of Lebanese and Palestinian immigrants. One of my dad’s good friends from work was a Bosnian Muslim. He and his family would have us over for dinner occasionally, and vice versa.

    As an adult in th Boston area and the Seattle area, I’ve had quite a few Muslim neighbors and co- workers.

  244. 244.

    Prescott Cactus

    @benw:

    The way @redshirt keeps a paper backup of literature instead of using electronic memory is an interesting reversal of that idea: in this case, paper is less vulnerable than our electronic copies of books like 1984.

    Just grabbed 1984, a “Signet Classic” that went for 60 cents in it’s day. Inside was a piece of paper with some notes I had written. Unfortunatly, the font is too small. Luckily, We also have a hard cover. Support your local used book store. . . and yeah, Kindle.

    Have 4% left of Robert Kennedy And His Times by Schlesinger. When I finish, I’ll hit 1984.

  246. 246.

    benw

    @NotMax: backward-compatibility is a huge issue for electronics. IMO it’s because electronics can change very quickly in ways that make old versions not just old, but totally unreadable. That’s different that the last model, where old versions were confusing, but not just gone: for example, the switch from Olde Engifh, to modern English, which perplexses a lot of freshmen Lit Majors, versus everything on your old 5″ floppies.

  248. 248.

    Kropadope

    @scav: I’ve met a few Muslims, never a Mormon. I’ve only met one Native American and only met three latino/chicano folk before I went to California. The lunch counter at the layover in Texas tripled my lifetime encounter rate with (I assume primarily) Mexicans.

  249. 249.

    Divf

    @benw: sometimes technology can save you but you have to plan. I was on a review panel for the NASA Goddard computing facility in the early 1990s. One of the presentations was on the need to run an IBM 360 emulator in order to be able to read archived Voyager data.

  250. 250.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Thanks, that helped.

    @benw

    I incorrectly remembered where and when heard about the ’64 census. It was from a presentation in D.C. by an official from the Census Bureau in January of ’76.

  251. 251.

    Prescott Cactus

    @NotMax:

    Open question as to whether, in a few decades, any devices will even be able to read things in current digital formats.

    Google Books Library Project is scanning lots of old books, etc from paper to digital and Project Gutenberg has over 50,000 free e-books.

  253. 253.

    redshirt

    @Kropadope:

    I’ve met a few Muslims, never a Mormon. I’ve only met one Native American and only met three latino/chicano folk before I went to California. The lunch counter at the layover in Texas tripled my lifetime encounter rate with (I assume primarily) Mexicans.

    \Weird. So who did you talk too?

  255. 255.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Pogonip:

    Since Muslims are only 2-3% of the U.S. population, it’s mathematically impossible for a majority of us to know a Muslim well.

    This doesn’t follow. Though it’s actually an overestimate: Wikipedia, citing Pew Research, says that Muslims are 0.9% of the US population.

    But Jews are more like 2% of the US population, and a lot of us here probably know some Jews well, aside from the ones who are Jewish themselves. The fraction of Americans who identify as gay is about the same. If you know several hundred people (and you probably do), you probably know some.

  256. 256.

    Matt McIrvin

    Anyway, yes, I knew some Muslims (from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran) growing up in Virginia, and more (Iranian and Egyptian) going to graduate school in Massachusetts, and I’ve worked with some (Indian) since then. Most were first-generation immigrants; a few are second-generation.

  257. 257.

    Matt McIrvin

    …It’s interesting, though: we too often tend to equate Muslims and Arabs when talking about politics, but I think most of the Muslims I’ve known were not Arabs and most of the Arabs I’ve known were not Muslim.

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