Unqualified Offerings

BruceR on secret intelligence and public . . . brains.
Monsieur IOZ on Jennifer Roback Morse, the fourth-grade pirate of libertarianism.
Jonathan Schwarz on stupidity’s Patient Zero.

Watching the end of the Steeler season, two things are clear:
1. Santonio Holmes, phooey! I wasn’t happy when the moved up to get a short receiver with character issues. I’m even less happy that he can’t hang on to the football. Fumbley funbley!
2. Najeh Davenport, yay! What a great pickup. He has a fighting chance [...]

Taibbi:
Because Bush and the rest of that crew sent young men to die for something they believed in, fucked-up as their reasoning might be and have been. But these shitheads in the political middle who are flip-flopping right now sentenced teenagers to death for the cause of expediency and careerism. There are young men coming [...]

The Commonwealth Coalition points to polling indicating a “statistical dead heat” for Virginia’s fantastically broad and misnamed “pro-marriage” referendum, with the most recent Mason-Dixon poll showing voters favoring it 49-45, just at the edge of the 4% margin of error. In itself that doesn’t impress me; however, the trend over time is against the amendment [...]

The only thing you can say about the Cowboys-Redskins game is that the ways of the Football Gods are not ours to understand.

Answer: The United States Government woulda thunkit, and did.
In its “Desert Crossing” games, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials assumed the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.
The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by the George Washington [...]

It’s death!
I’m not opposed to trying tyrants for their atrocities. I oppose the death penalty, but for everybody – I have no special soft spot for sparing the lives of murderous rulers. But the Dujail case is bullshit in a couple of ways: First, it’s Saddam Hussein reacting to an attack in time of war [...]