Unqualified Offerings

Richard Holbrooke wants a job! The good news is, he seems to think that the way to get it is to identify “enduring faith in the value of military force” and lack of belief in negotiations as constituting a “tragic failure,” and to declare that “the lessons of Vietnam are still relevant.” My not merely [...]

Joseph Epstein has been a successful academic and a respected essayist, which makes him just the person to shit all over his own milieu in the name of the conservative assault on intellectual achievement. Western conservatives have long been obsessed with what they call the "treason of the intellectuals," the tendency for academics, artists and [...]

Matt Yglesias makes the essential point about Bill Kristol’s desire to send the Marines pirate-hunting:
One might further note that the whole situation is a big unintended consequence of the Christmas 2006 Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. Something that was done with full US support and loudly cheered by The Weekly Standard. But thought he consequence was [...]

By Thoreau
Jon Swift makes a compelling case for why George Bush should pardon the people who trampled a WalMart employee to death: If going shopping is the only way to defeat the terrorists, how can we justify imprisoning those who made the maximum effort in their patriotic duty? It is always a tragedy [...]

By Thoreau
This post is intended as an intellectual exploration of libertarianism and regulation of commerce. It is not intended as an apology for any sort of malfeasance by anybody in the public sector, private sector, think-tank sector, etc. If you wish to interpret it as such and get up in my face about [...]

Pretty amusing memoir of the 1950s intelligence world from John LeCarre. Via War and Piece.