Unqualified Offerings

By Mona
Jim, Thoreau, and ye shrill bloggers hither and yon, look who is reading us and promoting us to — wait for it –the American Enterprise Institute!
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Lieberman: ‘Bloggers Have Added Another Dimension of Vituperation Toxicity’ To Politics
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Yes, and speaking with Lieberman at AEI and rending his garments over the woeful […]

Not bad, but they can’t choreograph a fight scene for love nor money. The obvious plot hole that must be forgiven to enjoy the show is the idea that Future Hiro could hide out at Isaac’s old studio. Ventimiglia managed some gravitas behind the scar, which was nice. And that was a pretty good scar!
Obviously, […]

By Mona
Being a mercurial sort, I don’t feel like posting much lately (that will change in the twinkling of an eye). At the moment, I am rereading this, our former Defense Secretary’s 1995 attempt to cleanse his soul:

I expect in due course to have some observations relative to current events. For […]

…but he swears he has no recollection of ordering any of the firings:
BAGHDAD, April 29 — A department of the Iraqi prime minister’s office is playing a leading role in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi army and national police officers, some of whom had apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias, […]

Chris Difford on the Squeeze reunion tour.

comes, as so often, from Cernig. It is, frankly, another item in the, “No really, it’s leaving Iraq that gives the best hope for reconciliation” genre, but Cernig amasses impressive and new supportive detail.

Some good links this week!
First, the MatthewYglesias.com memorial link: NBA ref Dick Bavetta’s “I’m a Runner” interview from the current month’s Runner’s World. Bavetta does 8 miles a day, plus his games, which are another 6-8 miles of running.
Next, a really good account of this year’s Barkley Marathons (sic) from the Washington Post. Barkley is […]

Atrios writes about media inconsistency regarding who is and isn’t fair game when it comes to reporting on the private lives of public figures.
Years ago, Christopher Hitchens wrote that he went into journalism because he didn’t want to have to rely on the media to get the news. I’ve felt that way in conversations with […]

By Mona
Madame Deborah Jeane Palfrey, of Pamela Martin and Associates, ran a DC “high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior and did so without incident during its 13 year tenure.” Among those whom Mme. Palfrey plans to call […]

By Thoreau
In the past couple weeks I recall reading somewhere (sorry, can’t recall where, so I can’t give proper attribution) a comment that dictators don’t need to use ideological terrorists if they really want to do a surprise WMD attack on another country. They could always just tell their spies (who specialize in being […]

By Mona
The medieval Jewish rabbi, physician and philosopher, Moses Maimonides, once took to his bed for a year. He wrote that upon learning of the death of his brother, my emphasis:

On the day I received that terrible news I fell ill and remained in bed for about a year, suffering from a […]

IOZ has some words for the Senator. I would add that, my belief is that the immunity that Representatives and Senators enjoy for statements made from the floor of Congress in session probably extends to any charges the Administration might have tried to bring.

Hookers!
Alas, this country’s sex-scandal deficit remains depressing.
On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the “Pamela Martin and Associates” escort service “to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage.”
Tobias, who is married, said there had been “no sex,” and that recently he had been using another service […]

Today’s hot article, A failure in generalship, by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, is an intriguing mix of substance and nonsense. The most quoted parts are about what Yingling views as the dereliction of senior military leadership prior to and during the early years of what he still calls, publication lead times being what they are, […]

You were thinking, doesn’t there need to be a blog devoted exclusively to Offering World HQ’s two fine border collies? And you were right. But only Mrs. Offering had the ambition and talent to start that blog. Featuring adorable pictures of children and puppies!

Digby travels down memory lane with Ashleigh Banfield. I completely missed this controversy first time around. A depressing story.

Eric Martin reiterates a point I made a few weeks ago: the so-called “Iraqi government” is simply one more theater of “armed competition for the oldest motivations in the book: money, power and respect.” He concludes
It’s time to get out of Dodge.
I would only change that to “it’s well past time.” And when I say […]

The Washington Post writes a nice article on Taxi to the Dark Side, a documentary that will be shown soon at the Tribeca Film Festival. It chronicles our torture practices in Gitmo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The focus of the film is the death of an innocent Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, who was […]

Matt asks
Under the circumstances, it’s worth noting that given that we live in a country of 300 million, that one man has ridiculous opinions is hardly surprising. What is surprising is that he has this column on The Washington Post and makes frequent appearances on Meet The Press.
This has a lot to do with the […]

Everybody picks on poor Michelle Malkin for her fetish turn of the other day. My only regret is that, because the iron law of institutional self-perpetuation, Hawkery Rumpery doesn’t down tools and go buy themselves some Wiis - Malkin’s video clip packs everything her tendency has left to say into as efficient a vehicle as […]

Disclosure: While I never talk about my day job on the blog, for the purposes of this article you should probably know that I work for a company that uses a combination of domestic and overseas inbound call centers, and have, in the words of a classic Monster.com ad, “claw[ed] my way up to middle […]

By Thoreau
Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney, for lying and misrepresenting intelligence in order to lead us into war.
I whole-heartedly approve of this. First, while I’m aware that we have less than 2 years left with this thug, it is important to send a message to future administrations (hence the […]

By Thoreau
Yesterday, on the floor of the House, one of the few (the only? not sure) Iraq veterans in the House said:
“How many more suicide bombs must kill American soldiers before this president offers a timeline for our troops to come home?” asked Rep. Patrick J. Murphy (D-Pa.), a freshman Iraq war veteran who […]

Here’s the thing with John Edwards’ haircuts. Right now we’re at Level One Media Laziness. The bill happens to have fallen into journalist hands; some competitor spokesfolks have been willing to dish; and the bill fits nicely into the preexisting “pretty boy” overstory. It’s an easy paycheck if you’re a reporter. Indeed, they should be […]

By the way, Bill tells me that the proper response when Leonard Cohen’s is looking at one’s drawings and saying “You’re very talented” is, “well, you are too.”
Next time I’ll know. In my defense, it was Leonard Cohen and my brain sort of seized up.
Michael Arthur.
Via Costello-L.

If the Manolo were the gambling man, he would be willing to bet that other candidates are also spending many hundreds of dollars each month on their hair care.
Via Dynamist Blog.
You know, if we had reporters in this country, they could actually find out the hair-care costs for all the candidates rather than just assuming […]

Arthur Silber explains how the Justice Department figures that, if the government is stuck allowing lawyers for the accused at Gitmo, they can at least try to abridge that right into meaninglessness. His larger point is crucial, if somewhat implicit: merely swapping out the parties in control of the Executive Branch doesn’t fix the real […]