The Rest of the Story - After Andrew Olmsted linked to “Late Night Thoughts of a Defeatist,” Andrea Harris accused me, in his comments section, of inflating “one incident” - the probable drowning of Iraqi blogger Zeyad’s cousin by American troops - into some kind of generalized pattern of abuse and mistreatment. This was surprising, […]

Bargain Wins - Kelly Jane Torrance considers remainders, and links to Terry Teachout describing his emotions on learning of the remaindering of a recent book of his own. “He seems much more philosophical about it than I imagine I would be,” she writes.
Harlan Ellison always said he couldn’t wait until his books went out of […]

Helpful Pointer - You know how, sometimes, Flit is kind of quiet? Not today, boy. What’ve we got in the way of indispensible bloggery for you from our military correspondent north of the border? Let’s see.
Item. You know the big Iraqi flag controversy this week? Here’s a twist for you:
The new flag is the work […]

Even Homer Nods Dept. - The normally excellent Andrew David Chamberlain tries to get all counterintuitive on us regarding taxi medallions, as libertarians and economists are wont to do. I hesitate to quarrel with my betters in these matters, but I think he makes some errors.
His goal is to leave aside the justice of the […]

Big City Rackets - The “best” ones are run by the governments. See Radley Balko on New York’s scandalous taxi medallion auction - a government-mandated cab scarcity program that benefits large (campaign-contributing) companies and penalizes both riders and would-be independent operators. Commenter Peter has some great info about just how the existing policy punishes the […]

make is between prose and verse, which is just writing in lines. Prose is what goes all the way to the end of the page.
I’m not sure we can get to a definition of “poetry,” distinct from verse, that is not normative at bottom. Certainly the distinctions Aaron draws between his Williams example and the […]

Hey, What’s Out of that Bottle? - Oh. The genie:
The increase in the estimate would underscore the strides North Korea has made in the past year as the Bush administration struggled to respond diplomatically while waging a war against Iraq in an unsuccessful effort to search for such weapons there.
Via Kevin Drum. Kevin makes an […]

The Rhythm of the Week - Blah blah blah gaming night tomorrow, blah blah blah, usual midweek slowdown, blah blah blah. I ain’t saying there will be no blogging until Thursday - there will be. Just nothing heavy, most likely.
I apologize to people whose e-mail I’m sitting on. I’m getting through it as well as […]

he was in. But since I got over the Myth of the Omnicompetent Mossad years ago, I figure the Israeli government just got lucky.
Oddly amusing part of the article:
The restrictions include a ban on leaving Israel for a full year, a prohibition against speaking to foreign nationals unless granted prior permission, restrictions on where Vanunu […]

TANSTAAFL Alert - I hope I’ve conveyed a certain skepticism about the wisdom and propriety of our decision to take over Mesopotamia by force. I try to be clear. Still, I shake my head at the latest from Massoud Barzani, momentary president of the Iraqi Governing Council, who complains in the Herald:
MASSOUD Barzani, Iraq’s governing […]

Adventures in Pictorial Biography - Kevin Michael Grace gives us the life of Mark Steyn.

Thinking Outside the Box - Hesiod suggests that we ought to be worried that Al Qaeda might assassinate Baby Sadr. It’s actually a pretty good point.

Peninsula Woes - The Korea section of last week’s Grand Strategy item, revisited. Note that I have already recanted my enthusiasm for promiscuously nuking the place.
Korea is hard.
In some ways it’s not. On basic non-interventionist grounds, it’s simple: leave the DPRK alone. Its mere existence threatens no US core interest. It poses the biggest threat […]

A Fanboy’s Ditto - Rather than write all kinds of stuff about the delight that is Superman:Secret Identity 4 of 4, I’ll just point you to Johanna Draper Carlson’s appreciation and urge you to buy it. And also note that the miniseries as a whole is a great example of the “literature of ethics.” If […]

Less, But Still Somewhat, Grand Strategies - Matthew Barganier weighs in with a UO-like program, which is not surprising. He wisely steers clear of saying anything about Korea.
Tonight I’ll start in with responses to the reactions to specific topics of my original item. I figure on handling these largely piecemeal: Korea tonight and maybe Israel; […]