Unqualified Offerings

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?
Fvck you, Richard Fvcking Cohen!
(Via Crooked Fvcking Timber.)

Gregory Djerejian at Belgravia Dispatch argues for what he frankly calls “the CW” on Iraq, that we need to stay there to prevent the place from collapsing (or “getting worse” or whatever) and that if we stay we will – or at least, can – prevent it from collapsing. His argument rests heavily on the [...]

They have the energy to read Victor Davis Hanson, let alone refute him. Me, I clicked through to the first paragraph to learn . . .
The insurgency in Iraq has no military capability either to drive the United States military from Iraq or to stop the American training of Iraqi police and security forces [...]

As NCAA basketball tournament time approaches, I’d like to respectfully request that everyone refrain from any variation on the phrase “Big Dance” and the words “dance” and “dancing” in conjunction with tournament reporting or comment. This is very, very important.
Thank you.

Christopher Allbritton also reports that things in Iraq seem to be calming down for now. This is a very good thing. There’s talk of Sunni negotiators returning to the talks on forming a cabinet. Let’s hope the new calm is a trend and not just a lull.
UPDATE: Oops! As Norbizness points out in comments, two [...]

Agence-France Presse quotes Iraq’s construction minister on the scope of the Samarra shrine bombing:
Jaafar, who toured the devastated thousand-year-old shrine on Thursday a day after the bombing which brought down its golden dome, said “holes were dug into the mausoleum’s four main pillars and packed with explosives.”
“Then the charges were connected together and linked to [...]

Lawrence F. Kaplan has a long Non-Republic piece this week arguing that the US needs to stay in Iraq. The syllogism boils down to
1. I’ve seen with my own eyes how Iraq has been falling apart under three years of American occupation.
2. [Forthcoming.]
3. Profit!
Kaplan’s indirect argument is that the unit in charge of Tall Afar [...]

Outraged Moderate got hold of Steven Cambone’s handwritten notes of his meeting with Donald Rumsfeld from the afternoon of September 11, 2001. The notes confirm CBS News’ report of September 4, 2002 that, at that meeting, Rumsfeld was already thinking of using the atrocities as an excuse to go to war with Iraq. It’s important [...]

It was only while reading an ‘Aqoul comment thread that it sank in that: the Samarra shrine bombing appears not to have, itself, caused any casualties.
No group claimed responsibility for the early morning attack on the Askariya shrine in this city 60 miles north of Baghdad, but suspicion fell on Sunni extremist groups such as [...]

ABQAIQ, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Al Qaeda claimed responsibility on Saturday for an attack on a Saudi oil facility at Abqaiq, when security forces fired at suicide bombers trying to storm the world’s biggest oil processing plant.
per Wired News.
If you’re one of the “heighten the contradictions” Neo-Leninists running and cheering so much of our recent [...]