Unqualified Offerings

I just posted a few observations on the ever-dicier British situation on Stand Down.

I adore Avedon Carol, but this adventure in wishful thinking reminded me of a column I read in 1980 by George Will or William Buckley or someone like that, in Jimmy Carter’s voice, in which, for the good of the country, he laid out all the reasons why he was withdrawing from the Presidential race […]

In his No to War post, Arthur Silber reminds us that most legislators voted for the USA-PATRIOT Act without having read it. Similar stories have appeared about legislators not knowing the details of what was in the McCain-Feingold bill either. It’s an open secret that our legislators actually read relatively few of the bills they […]

like Jonathan Edelstein and others jumping off the war bus now. Arthur Silber says “Not This War, Not This Way.” Excerpt:

So, to go back to the beginning, this is where I stand now: protect the lives and the rights of U.S. citizens. Take quick strikes against our enemies when and where you must. Avoid long-term […]

Jonathan “Head Heeb” Edelstein traces the subcontracting of torture by the US government back farther than Al Qaeda and beyond antiterrorism:

A running theme throughout these comments is that subcontracting torture is something new to the terror war - a “canary in the coal mine” indicating a trend toward repressiveness in the United States. The truth […]

is the item where Eve Tushnet starts her powerful, eloquent and thrilling response to the question of torture. One of the finest adventures in the felt thought (and examined principle) that I can remember reading. Read down from the link provided. I would quote - oh how I would quote - but superb as the […]

Joseph Stromberg offers a biography of those famous twins, Shock and Awe.

So the IAEA says, as you’ve probably already read on your more punctilious blogs, that “A key piece of evidence linking Iraq to a nuclear weapons program appears to have been fabricated . . .

Documents that purportedly showed Iraqi officials shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago were deemed “not authentic” after careful scrutiny […]

Weight 187. Waist unchanged from last week. It appears to be the case that you can lose fat and build muscle combining diet with slow-cadence weight training, just as Ken Hutchins and Diana Moon said you could. It hasn’t cured my blood pressure, but maybe no exercise program would.
Quick exercise stuff. It turns out there […]

This subject actually depressed me too much to write about it much more. So some links: Radley adds some more to his argument. Gene Healy has questions for both of us. I answered his question for me by e-mail. If I get undepressed I’ll publish the answers here. Two pieces I commend to your attention […]

Lest any liberal readers feel too smug about The Torturer Bush of the Republican Party, note this passage in Radley’s item about a time torture “worked”:

In 1995, we captured an al-Qaeda operative in California (San Diego, I think). We, er, “exported” him to the Phillipines — who are happy to employ creative methods of […]

Reader Kevin Maroney e-mails:

“Italy can survive the loss of Aldo Moro. It would not survive the introduction of torture.”
–General Carlo Alberto Della Chiesa, head of the investigation into the kidnapping (later murder) of Prime Minister Aldo Moro, 1978

What broke my heart yesterday was when Radley Balko, whom I admire tremendously, came out […]