Posts tagged as "9/11" - Chris Hardie

Quick reviews of three books I've taken in lately: Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to al-Qaeda by Wallace, Melton and Schleshinger Fascinating, scary, and geeky. With great diagrams and photographs explaining how spy devices were constructed and worked, and with interesting stories about various successes and failures, all told from the perspective of the "techs" working behind the scenes to support operations. For someone interested in geopolitical history,...

If you read political thrillers or action novels for their ability to transport you away from the concerns of current events into a fantasy that seems realistic but is purely fictional, then Steve Alten's book The Shell Game is probably not for you. And I wouldn't blame you; most folks probably don't want anxieties about their real lives and the future of our society to be a central part of the escapist action and adventure reading that we do on the beach. But after I heard that the book takes...

The tail end of the trip I just returned from took place in Nashville, TN and was charged with readings and viewings about the occupation of Iraq and the current political trends in Washington: I finished reading Nashville resident Al Gore's book The Assault on Reason and then later the same day, saw the new documentary film No End In Sight. The two tie together nicely, and so I have a review of them both here. No End In Sight is pitched as an insider's tale of the reckless decision-making...

I always look forward to seeing the speakers that my alma mater, Earlham College, brings to Richmond, Indiana because they often bring perspective, insight, and experience that you just can't otherwise get living in a small Midwestern town. Tonight's event was no different: William Kristol (neo-conservative pundit, editor of the Weekly Standard, Bush/Quayle advisor, and member of the American Enterprise Institute) would be giving a talk entitled "America's Foreign Policy After 9-11" on campus free...

The Drudge Report had a subtle series of links Monday about the apparently "misspoken" remark that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made in Iraq this weekend, where he mentioned that the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11 was shot down. Of course, the Pentagon has now quickly corrected that, and I'm sure if the administration has anything to do with it, that'll be the last we hear of it in mainstream media. I have no interest in perpetuating conspiracy theories (which is obviously...