Unqualified Offerings

In the New York Times, Stephen C. Pelletiere writes

. . . as the Central Intelligence Agency’s senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do […]

Earlier this week I wrote about a notorious picture of antisemitic protesters at the Davos Conference in Switzerland. A European reader writes

I think you’re partially wrong here.
I don’t know if it’s the same in the US, but over here in the Netherlands, the golden calf is a symbol of blind greed (the veneration of […]

With penetration, care and moral seriousness, Colby Cosh responds to Michael Fumento’s New Republic article attempting to debunk ADHD skepticism. I suspect that when most people think of Colby Cosh they think “Funny!” (or “Curling?!?!?!?!“) but this essay demonstrates how much more there is to him as a writer and thinker.
TalkLeft on the Richard Reid […]

AP reports that “A powerful bomb destroyed a bridge outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday, killing 18 people on a bus, a deputy police chief said.

[Deputy police chief] Jan said he believed Afghan soldiers were the target of the explosion, which went off barely half a mile from an Afghan army post. […]

and sometimes we get them damned fast. Bruce Baugh writes:

Dude, the first 10 issues of Zot! were published in color. I assure of this, as I have some of them. It was after the hiatus that followed that he switched to black and white.

My considered response to Bruce’s claim: Oh!
Um, forget what I said earlier. […]

Like all the other libertarian bloggers, I’m going to link David Boaz’s essay on how to be “pro-choice” for real - because it just rocks.
Speaking of other libertarian bloggers, Julian Sanchez has great analysis of the Presiden’t State of the Union address and Jesse Walker has a concise “Neoconservatism for Dummies” overview. And that’s all […]

Patrick Nielsen Hayden says he would like an excuse to be less paranoid. He doesn’t have one.

from the USA Today: “U.S. Coast Guard sending forces to the Gulf.” The US coasts themselves are staying put.

Mrs. Offering called me at work today to find out if it was me who had purchased “Hardcore Movies” via Paypal ($5 - such a deal!) or if someone had hacked my account. (My password is - doh!)
Questioned, she allowed that what it actually said was “Hardcore Mo,” then the field cut off. Turns out […]

but sometimes we protect the letter-writers by not bringing names into it:

Jim –
>From your quote of Independent –
“…when 1,500 American troops spent eight days trying to winkle out hundreds of Taliban …”
To winkle them out? How does one winkle? Are we about to winkle Iraq? Is it fun? Can we play […]

A question I don’t know the answer to but would like to:
Say we had hydrogen-powered cars. Spewing steam out of their tailpipes. In a major metro area. At rush hour. In high summer.
What would this mean for local humidity? An insignificant effect? Significant? Sounds like a job for a physics blogger. Or a meteorology blogger? […]

Rock Scissors Blog, the group blog featuring Bruce Baugh and other gaming pros, has some interesting stuff on it already, like “Moulin Rouge, Anti-Naturalism, Puppetland and Victoriana.” I wish they hadn’t picked one of the ugliest available blogger.com templates (an undeservedly popular one at that). And I wish they edited their template so that author […]

Hopefully DNS has finally propagated to the lands of all loyal readers. I was still getting the old UO at work as recently as lunchtime yesterday and I got e-mails from a couple of people having similar problems.
One downside of the move is that the stat reports are not so useful. Particularly I haven’t found […]

More action in Afghanistan, per the Independent:

American officials told reporters that the fighting in hills near the Pakistan border was their biggest engagement with armed opponents since “Operation Anaconda”, when 1,500 American troops spent eight days trying to winkle out hundreds of Taliban and al-Qa’ida fighters from mountain caves in eastern Afghanistan.
The battle yesterday saw […]

This one you can play alone. After your spouse leaves you, you’ll have no choice. Rules are simple:
1. Every time a hawkish blogger uses a variant on the word “appeasement,” drink.
2. There is no rule number two.
If you don’t drink, try
Warblogger Mad Libs - In every article referring to “appeasement,” the allies, and Hitler, substitute […]

I’ve had a nice, questioning e-mail from Godless Capitalist of Gene Expression in my in-box since November. It seemed like a good excuse for reviewing my reasons for opposing the military conquest of Iraq. So I wrote a long “back to first principles” piece and posted it to Stand Down, where I invite you to […]

Gene Healy has a suggestion for the hawks:

I understand people who argue for war with Iraq because they want to (1) liberate Iraqis; and/or (2) help Israel; and/or (3) spread democracy. I think those are illegitimate reasons in a constitutional republic whose governing document speaks of the “common defence” of the United States, and not […]

Right-Wing Voter Effect wins again:

The projections gave Sharon a much greater victory than had been predicted in recent opinion polls, which had foreseen a Likud showing of some 31 seats. With 56 percent of the vote counted, the Likud was on 38 seats, Labor on 20, Shinui on 15, and Shas had 10 seats. Final […]

Ha’aretz has a somewhat confusing report about possible Jordanian rule of Iraq on a “temporary” basis. The article reads a little like it went through the Babelfish Hebrew-to-English module - in particular, I’m having trouble quite following this sequence:

According to the estimates of sources in Davos involved in preparations for the war in Iraq, the […]

Okay, cheap pun. But an old pal of mine, Gregor “Pedro” Gross, has started a blog called “So It Goes.” It’s in German, and if you’d ever read Pedro’s english you’d know why. The blog is largely about . . . stuff in German. German makes me nervous, ever since I searched far and wide […]

Your Talking Dog e-mails:

I must say I am in shock and awe at the “operation” by that name. I can only suggest that since Operation “Infinite Justice” was deemed too offensive to the God-fearing Taliban and Al-Qaeda members whom we were bombing the crap out of in Afghanistan, perhaps we can […]

I’ve become an unwitting pawn in a titanic struggle between Dirk Deppey and Franklin Harris.

Welcome evidence that the Bush Administration is giving some serious thought to the coming Bioterror Age. Per the London Times

“There is going to be an attack. Whether it is in western Europe, the US, Africa, Asia or wherever, you have got to anticipate that there is going to be a bioterrorism attack and the only […]

NYT article on tensions between ANSWER/Worker’s World Party and the rest of us.

In an interview today, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a spokeswoman for Answer, said questions raised about the group’s role were “classic McCarthy-era Red-baiting.”
“When you select out the Socialists or Marxists,” she said, “the point is to demonize and divide and diminish a massive, growing […]