Unqualified Offerings

Cue Lee Greenwood – TalkLeft picks up an ABC News report that, well, this:

According to Time, activities leading toward release of the 140 prisoners have accelerated since the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. It said U.S. officials had concluded some detainees were kidnapped for reward money offered for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Whoops! [...]

Weekly Fitness Blog Item – 161 pounds, 32.5″ waist. Strangely for a holiday week, that’s three pounds below last Sunday, but like I said, the actual number has been bouncing around within a four-pound range. There was a typo in last week’s waist figure too – it should have read “32.75,” not 34.75.
Goal for the [...]

with the graphic novel, as in ready to set it aside? Not remotely. As I suspected, I had to start writing it to figure out what I had. Now I know. I know where it’s going and, more or less, how it will get there. Bill intends to have thumbnail sketches of the first chapter [...]

Metrics System Redux – Here’s a measurement I missed until now on Chief Wiggles’ blog – size of the “green zone.”

I was relieved to see the green zone expanded back to its original size as the 14th of July Bridge was closed again, after being opened for only a few weeks. The two bombings of [...]

Our Man Deeds – Have just discovered the newish Deeds blog by a CPA employee in Iraq. I highly recommend it. I will confess to reading quite a bit of it “against the grain” – I think it needs to be – but it’s a useful addition to your “perspectives collection” and it has some [...]

Shorter Jim Henley: Term limits, phooey. Longer Jim Henley: “The Term Limits Illusion?” at Liberty & Power.

Time’s Up – There’s been sufficient time spent appreciating the President’s gesture in visiting a group of American troops in Baghdad yesterday. Analysis may commence. Juan Cole is a good place to start. Excerpt:

Instead, the President had to sneak in and out of Iraq for a quick and dirty photo op, clearly in fear of [...]

The President Went to Iraq and All I Got was this peevish resentment that it upstaged Hillary Clinton. Criminy, Hesiod, give it a rest. It’s a holiday!
By the way, you might want to look into President Clinton’s 1999 trip to Greece. Actually, all Democratic partisans prone to romanticize the Clinton Administration’s “multilateral” diplomatic success might [...]

Trypto-fanned – A transfer of stuffing has been effected. I am zonked. The usual wonderful holiday dinner with my sister’s family, and the kids unusually behaved. Thankful for:
La Familia Offering, ESPECIALLY Mrs. Offering.
Certain physical constants which, if their values fell outside a narrow range, would preempt life as we know it.
Particles and fields of force.
The [...]

Hear Hear – Kudos to President Bush for making a risky landing at Baghdad International Airport to spend Thanksgiving with some of our troops in theater. There’s a lot more one can say about the trip as reported, but the first thing to be said – Good for you, Mr. President – deserves to stand [...]