In another victory for political dialogue, splodeydopes get their point across through massacre and assassination: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in the wake of a suicide bombing that killed at least 14 of her supporters, doctors, a spokesman for her party and other officials said. Bhutto is helped from her vehicle following the October 18 suicide attack on her motorcade. 1 of 2 Bhutto suffered bullet

Via Memeorandum, I discovered that Andrew Sullivan is recommending the equally clueless Juan Cole’s “Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007”: I’ve learned to discount some of Cole’s gloom, but his current analysis is factually crammed with data and news that suggest what we are experiencing right now is not peace but a lull. Much of the evidence suggests a deepening of the sectarian divide, not a lessening, despite some local

Remember, intellectual sophistication and penetration is best indexed by the depth of perversity: The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that the paper shows that “the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals.” The next sentence delineates the particular goals that are realized in this manner: “In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military

The Chicago Tribune reports a bump on the road to excusing those who enter the United States illegally: Chicago’s immigrant rights movement was on the verge of making history, and Nicole Perez was ready to lend her voice when she was told, with an angry sneer, that she was not welcome. That was March 10, 2006. Perez and her lesbian partner, Xiomara Santana, had joined more than 100,000 demonstrators in the

The Internet’s most notorious sock-puppeteer left everybody some shiny new strawmen for Christmas: Mike Huckabee’s Christmas ad — like everything Huckabee does — provoked all sorts of vehement, angry, un-Christmas-like attacks from Republican pundits. The GOP establishment almost uniformly claimed that the edges of the bookshelf behind Huckabee formed the shape of a cross, which — along with Huckabee’s mention of the word “Christ” — rendered Huckabee guilty of making

Merry Christmas to all the regulars. And Merry Christmas to Jeff, even though he’s, you know, one of them.  Here’s a little blessing, as only the Irish can do it.  And to our leftard friends, don’t worry, you’re included in this blessing, too.  See if you can pick yourselves out. May those who love us, love us.  And those that don’t love us, may God turn their hearts.  And if he doesn’t

Hi all. Just a quick note to let you all know that Thailand is a marvelous place, and that the randy panzer rat and I are having a blast experiencing a highly-sexualized Other in its native habitat — even if the poor little fella did end up losing 2 toes on his right front leg thanks to a “misunderstanding” with some heavily-armed and surly opium farmers (and what we now

I shouldn’t joke about it.  Help me, please. Second Greatest Story Ever Told

Charlie Wilson’s War is one of several movies I saw over the weekend, and I am glad to say I can recommend it.  Directed Mike Nichols from a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, there were certainly reasons to be concerned that the ostensibly fact-based film would stray too far into the realm of liberal fantasy.  It does do this on occasion, but not so much as to interfere with enjoying the

A study of hyper-moronicity.  It seems that “researchers” have discovered that sexists (men, of course) who are exposed to humor that disparages women are less likely thereupon to donate money to women’s causes.  So this is evidence that sexist humor (against women, of course) tends to unrepress prejudicial behavior among sexists (men, of course). Why the study didn’t bother to consider the effects of humor disparaging to men on women