Explaining subtlety is an admission of failure. My blog on Jimmy Carter contained nine references, eight of which were examples of newspeak. One, AlJazeera, was an appeal to understanding and a rejection of categorical imperatives. The fault lies not in Jimmy Carter, but in the way we talk about and understand the "War on Terror".

I am going to make it easy this time, Osama bin Laden is the quintessential example of a "terrorist". The call to kill civilians in the fatwas of 1996 and 1999 fit the definition of terrorism. And so what does that imply?

In the current mindset, the solution is simple - kill him. And if you can't do that,  kill everyone who espouses him, kill everyone who shelters him, and if all else fails kill everything he says.

Mary is a candidate for Commissioner of Labor in the North Carolina primary May 6th. She is the daughter of Palmer and Sidney Fant and grew up in Grayson County. Mary has impeccable credentials and numerous endorsements including mine.

• News and Observer
• Campaign website

Update: The results from the North Carolina Board of Elections are as follows.

Polls open at 6:30 AM Tuesday. All means of registration have ended for this election.

A Washington DC group whose leaders have ties to the former Clinton administration and several of whom have made contributions to the Hillary Clinton campaign have been making bizarre calls to black North Carolina voters. At best a mistake, at worst a crime intended to suppress targeted voters from showing up on Tuesday.

If you run into irregularities, stay at the polling place and inform poll watchers of your concerns.

I found the NY Times review of Philip Bobbitt’s TERROR AND CONSENT more than just a little interesting. Bobbitt seems to offer a fresh look at the war on terror and international relations that challenges dogma on both the right and the left much in the same way that Thomas Friedman’s THE WORLD IS FLAT reframed the discussion of trade and economics.

While the Administration through its mouthpieces David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker make relative security in Iraq a function of the "surge", recent events suggest levels of violence are more dependent on the actions of one man than 40,000 US troops.

That man is Muqtada al-Sadr. al-Sadr had reason to celebrate the fall of Saddam. His grandfather was executed by the Saddam regime and his father and two of his family were murdered in 1999. al-Sadr's stronghold, popularly referred to as Sadr City, is home to perhaps two million Shia discriminated against by the Bathists and not faring all that well under Maliki. Plausibly as a matter of self defense, the Sadr organization formed several large militias, some in other localities including Basra. In desperate straights, the al-Sadr organization provides health, education and social services to an equally desperate population.

Today would have been Martin's 79th birthday. It will be celebrated on the third Monday in January - January 21st.

Us!

Two people sent me the same link to this New York Times article.

Do computers and electronics screw up?

Do programmers have an agenda?

Do vendors have an agenda (Diebold)?

Do local election workers care whether touch screen machines work properly?

Can they tell if they work properly?

If they did care, could they do anything about it?

We may not know who the real winner is but we know for certain who is the loser.

In the two most hotly contested races: