Unqualified Offerings

In the New York Times, Stephen C. Pelletiere writes

. . . as the Central Intelligence Agency’s senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do [...]

Earlier this week I wrote about a notorious picture of antisemitic protesters at the Davos Conference in Switzerland. A European reader writes

I think you’re partially wrong here.
I don’t know if it’s the same in the US, but over here in the Netherlands, the golden calf is a symbol of blind greed (the veneration of [...]

With penetration, care and moral seriousness, Colby Cosh responds to Michael Fumento’s New Republic article attempting to debunk ADHD skepticism. I suspect that when most people think of Colby Cosh they think “Funny!” (or “Curling?!?!?!?!“) but this essay demonstrates how much more there is to him as a writer and thinker.
TalkLeft on the Richard Reid [...]

AP reports that “A powerful bomb destroyed a bridge outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday, killing 18 people on a bus, a deputy police chief said.

[Deputy police chief] Jan said he believed Afghan soldiers were the target of the explosion, which went off barely half a mile from an Afghan army post. [...]

and sometimes we get them damned fast. Bruce Baugh writes:

Dude, the first 10 issues of Zot! were published in color. I assure of this, as I have some of them. It was after the hiatus that followed that he switched to black and white.

My considered response to Bruce’s claim: Oh!
Um, forget what I said earlier. [...]

Like all the other libertarian bloggers, I’m going to link David Boaz’s essay on how to be “pro-choice” for real – because it just rocks.
Speaking of other libertarian bloggers, Julian Sanchez has great analysis of the Presiden’t State of the Union address and Jesse Walker has a concise “Neoconservatism for Dummies” overview. And that’s all [...]

Patrick Nielsen Hayden says he would like an excuse to be less paranoid. He doesn’t have one.

from the USA Today: “U.S. Coast Guard sending forces to the Gulf.” The US coasts themselves are staying put.

Mrs. Offering called me at work today to find out if it was me who had purchased “Hardcore Movies” via Paypal ($5 – such a deal!) or if someone had hacked my account. (My password is – doh!)
Questioned, she allowed that what it actually said was “Hardcore Mo,” then the field cut off. Turns out [...]

but sometimes we protect the letter-writers by not bringing names into it:

Jim –
>From your quote of Independent –
“…when 1,500 American troops spent eight days trying to winkle out hundreds of Taliban …”
To winkle them out? How does one winkle? Are we about to winkle Iraq? Is it fun? Can we play [...]