Unqualified Offerings

The USA Today website has a story saying that the Saudis have finally frozen terrorist-connected financial assets. Or that they’ve agreed to. Or that the Gulf Cooperation Council has agreed to do so, and Saudi Arabia is a member. Or something. The story lacks even a single quote from an official Saudi source on the […]

conspiracy theory.
So Prince Abdullah wrote President Bush in August suggesting that “a time comes when peoples and nations part.” This site and others have kicked the Saudis around for quite awhile now, and folks ranging from the peacenik right to prowar types across the spectrum have suggested that the US should dump the ungrateful bastards. […]

which means that his columns not infrequently contain cheap shots and even, on occasion, spittle-flecked incoherence. But he frequently picks deserving targets. Today’s demolition job is on John McCain, who remains one of the scariest people in public life. I have long thought that, if you lacked the time to follow current events closely, you […]

Instapundit approvingly quotes Michael Barone approvingly quoting Orwell as follows, writing during World War II: “When you look a bit closer, the first question that strikes you is: Why is it worse to kill civilians than soldiers?” I have greatly admired Instapundit, Barone and Orwell. That makes the entire citation sequence too depressing for words.

A European peacenik on a music-related mailing list I subscribe to nevertheless writes: “I agree that the atrocious Taliban regime has to be taken down, on account of all the things you stated (and then some). I also agree that the Taliban don´t give a shit about civilians being killed…NATO´s goal is to take down […]

Mickey Kaus links to the Washington Post’s account of the last days of Afghan rebel Abdul Haq. Stuff That Should Not Be News to Anyone: Haq’s pre-capture reports make it clear that, as other sources have claimed, the bombing is galvanizing support for the Taliban and anger at the US among the Pashtuns in the […]

Cynthia McKinney says she’ll wear the scorn of her critics like a badge of honor. Last time I remember a politician using that phrase was Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debates. I didn’t like it then, either. Now, I was a partisan Democrat in 1988 and I’m a libertarian now, so maybe they […]

Instapundit made the reasonable and scientifically sound suggestion this morning that perhaps some of the anthrax traces they are finding in post offices and public buildings was there all the time. Anthrax is naturally occurring, in small enough quantities it doesn’t do anything, and we haven’t thought to look for it until recently. This is […]

The sorts of people who call Pacifica radio stations are more skeptical of the war than most Americans. No, really! So says Jonetta Rose Barras in a column in today’s Washington Post. Actually, what Barras says she’s writing about is the greater skepticism of African Americans than white ones, but her examples come mostly from […]

There was a second yesterday, the length of time to read a headline, when I was afraid I was going to agree with Ellen Goodman about something, thus blowing an unbroken streak stretching back to the seventies. Goodman’s column, “Evil and Blowback,” addresses the contending theories, or, if you want to get all postmodern, the […]

Worked much of the day at work (such are the pressures of employment in a dying industry), then a belated birthday dinner, and afterward, Mrs. Offering and I built a fire and watched (finally) The Matrix. (Strangely, I do not feel a compulsion to shoot up my high school.) Tomorrow, I hope to fish, […]

CNN.com has what it alleges to be a news story about the resignation of Bernadine Healy from the Red Cross:
“I think there were some differences of opinion,” Healy said, adding: “I think the board felt I was out ahead of them in some ways.”
And those ways are? You won’t find out from CNN’s article.
Healy said […]