Unqualified Offerings

Harry Whittington’s case shows what happens when you wait for the threat to become imminent.

All over America, neolibertarian heads explode.

He probably beats James K. Glassman on points in their Townhall.com back-and-forth on the Dubai Ports World deal. Glassman uses twice as many words, most of which are mummery of one kind or another, especially the implication that we should approve the DPW deal because, he all but says, “Dubai’s got hookers!” (Which appears to […]

Frank Gaffney has a blog.
Somehow, someone, some way has to arrange for Hugo Chavez to become a comment troll there.

Insight Magazine reports that the Veep will be off the reviewing stand by the time of the 2007 May Day Parade. The article itself is thinly sourced and probably best appreciated as fodder for political conspiracy theories. Who has the knives out? The author drops one clue:
Mr. Bush, the sources said, has rejected the advice […]

Franklin Foer takes over the editorship of The Non-Republic, as former editor Peter Beinart leaves “to sit and wish really really hard for success in Iraq.”
Okay, that’s not a real quote. But this is. Foer:
“The New Republic deserves its self-seriousness . . . ”
He goes on to give a couple of reasons that amount to, […]

David Wrong’s “Top Ten Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed.”
Via Stefanescu.
My list is, instead:
10. Rogue Moon, based on Algis J. Budrys’ hardboiled character study of a trio of very damaged people probing an alien artifact on the far side of Luna. This one begins with the zonked explorer intoning his first words, “An dark, an nowhere […]

Julian Sanchez hoists contemporary conservatism on its own petard. It’s a good piece. It’s stuff I used to say around here three and four years ago, but Julian says it more systematically.
During the vain (in every sense) process, of trying to argue Repubs and neolibertarians into applying their own theories about Sowell’s “constrained vision” and […]

Kelly Jane Torrance spots a possible new outrage to keep people occupied until War-on-Christmas Season rolls around again:
But perhaps some secularization has gone too far. IHOP is now advertising its “National Pancake Day Celebration.” National Pancake Day? That’s a new one. But wait, National Pancake Day is this Tuesday… Which just happens to be Shrove […]

The specter of libertarianism.
Like they could do worse.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?
Fvck you, Richard Fvcking Cohen!
(Via Crooked Fvcking Timber.)

Gregory Djerejian at Belgravia Dispatch argues for what he frankly calls “the CW” on Iraq, that we need to stay there to prevent the place from collapsing (or “getting worse” or whatever) and that if we stay we will - or at least, can - prevent it from collapsing. His argument rests heavily on the […]

They have the energy to read Victor Davis Hanson, let alone refute him. Me, I clicked through to the first paragraph to learn . . .
The insurgency in Iraq has no military capability either to drive the United States military from Iraq or to stop the American training of Iraqi police and security forces […]

As NCAA basketball tournament time approaches, I’d like to respectfully request that everyone refrain from any variation on the phrase “Big Dance” and the words “dance” and “dancing” in conjunction with tournament reporting or comment. This is very, very important.
Thank you.

Christopher Allbritton also reports that things in Iraq seem to be calming down for now. This is a very good thing. There’s talk of Sunni negotiators returning to the talks on forming a cabinet. Let’s hope the new calm is a trend and not just a lull.
UPDATE: Oops! As Norbizness points out in comments, two […]

Agence-France Presse quotes Iraq’s construction minister on the scope of the Samarra shrine bombing:
Jaafar, who toured the devastated thousand-year-old shrine on Thursday a day after the bombing which brought down its golden dome, said “holes were dug into the mausoleum’s four main pillars and packed with explosives.”
“Then the charges were connected together and linked to […]

Lawrence F. Kaplan has a long Non-Republic piece this week arguing that the US needs to stay in Iraq. The syllogism boils down to
1. I’ve seen with my own eyes how Iraq has been falling apart under three years of American occupation.
2. [Forthcoming.]
3. Profit!
Kaplan’s indirect argument is that the unit in charge of Tall Afar […]

Outraged Moderate got hold of Steven Cambone’s handwritten notes of his meeting with Donald Rumsfeld from the afternoon of September 11, 2001. The notes confirm CBS News’ report of September 4, 2002 that, at that meeting, Rumsfeld was already thinking of using the atrocities as an excuse to go to war with Iraq. It’s important […]

It was only while reading an ‘Aqoul comment thread that it sank in that: the Samarra shrine bombing appears not to have, itself, caused any casualties.
No group claimed responsibility for the early morning attack on the Askariya shrine in this city 60 miles north of Baghdad, but suspicion fell on Sunni extremist groups such as […]

ABQAIQ, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Al Qaeda claimed responsibility on Saturday for an attack on a Saudi oil facility at Abqaiq, when security forces fired at suicide bombers trying to storm the world’s biggest oil processing plant.
per Wired News.
If you’re one of the “heighten the contradictions” Neo-Leninists running and cheering so much of our recent […]

Gallup has a new poll in which Iran wins the “greatest enemy” award, but I’m not inclined to make too much of it.
The poll conducted inside the United States by telephone between February 6 and 9 from a selection of 1,002 national adults aged 18 and older had a three percent maximum margin of error.
Thirty […]

Dear Ronald Moore:
All is forgiven.
Best,
Jim
P.S. Spoilers in comments. Beware!

Radical isolationist General Mark Kimmit, according to a German news agency, speaking to reporters Tuesday:
Washington - The United States does not plan to leave military bases behind in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries in the Middle East, but rather will turn over the ‘long war’ against al- Qaeda to governments in the region, a key […]