Unqualified Offerings

I highly recommend the pseudonymous Prof. Strauss’s “Incoherent Hegemon: US Strategy At The Crossroads,” about the Bush Administration’s determination to work strenuously toward no fewer than five mutually incompatible goals simultaneously, without prioritization. Hard as I’ve been on the Administration for its decisions surrounding the “War on Terror,” their least explicable (and forgivable) offensive may [...]

So, during the Al Aqsa Intifada in 2002-2003, there were bombings from every few days to a couple of times a month. I don’t recall the “good news” crowd urging us not to overemphasize the violence then, even though surely there were new-painted schools somewhere in Israel and people went to work every day. My [...]

George Mason University in the Final Four. Helps me regard the smoking ruin that used to be my first-ever pool brackets with a measure of serenity.
Fucking Duke. They make mock of my every endeavor. They outpace Maryland’s basketball team pretty much every year and then tank on me when I pick them to go all [...]

Three American Senators get high-handed with an audience of Chinese students. Stupendously high-handed. Stupefyingly:
Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) told the students that, post-9/11, Americans are committed to taking on whatever battles seem imperative – China’s cheap currency, along with al-Qaeda.
The students don’t cotton to it. Matthew Barganier spikes the ball home:
That Chuck Schumer, the most insufferable [...]

The drip of Iraqi documents continues. Some of it makes for interesting historical trivia, assuming the documents are authentic and accurately translated, but none of it so far retrospectively shows Iraq to be a threat to the US necessitating war.
Camels of Mass Destruction. This may have been a marketing ploy by Happy Tree Friends. I [...]

The big news is a Pentagon report that captured Iraqi documents indicate that Russian intelligence passed military information to Saddam Hussein’s government in the early days of Gulf War Phase III (the invasion of Iraq in Spring 2003). I smell a rat: according to the Independent’s report, most of the information was bogus and, indeed,
In [...]

Buck Owens is dead. Fact: I was a huge Hee-Haw fan in the early 1970s, so I saw lots of Owens then. And he still got radio play back then.
James Joyner has a good set of links.
The official site has a couple of videos and live performances in the Music Vault section.
Salon did a Brilliant [...]

In response to Enrak’s comments downthread regarding the “obscurity” of Martin van Creveld, according to Brent Bozell:
I guess I am stupid for not having heard of Van Creveld, which I suppose is in my DNA. Glad you could clear that up IOZ. I’m also glad that you addressed the topic at hand, rather than just [...]

So while I dealt with life there was a Big Scandal involving the Washington Post and blogger Ben Domenech. I agree that he needed to resign, but I also think his farewell statement shows a becoming dignity. Excerpt:
And as I leave, let me say, that is an example I think all of us should remember. [...]

Sometimes the Know-Nothing Party DNA in the GOP carries all the way to the phenotype:
Paul Begala, who bows toward Chappaqua on a prayer mat about as often as Klein, spouted his new enthusiasm for an obscure professor named Martin Van Creveld, whom he called “one of the most esteemed military historians in the world.”
I, [...]