From page 272: . . . Tony Lake’s report so worried me, in fact, that I knew we could no longer use half measures in dealing with the North Koreans.  It was time to get tough.  I called Warren Christopher in.  I remember it distinctly, because I usually didn’t like to deal with Warren face to face—he left a smell of mothballs behind him wherever he went.  Warren came in,

Note: I’m wont to review some of my past writings. The following is from my 9/11 post of this year; however, with the upcoming election and the recent discussions on war and why/how/should we fight, I want to share my post here. nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. ~~Omar Khayyam Before

…so much to Edward H for the J.A. Henckels knives.  At long last, our feasts of animal flesh will be sliced, not torn.  Just like the Angus beef cows would have wanted it.

A Navy SEAL sacrificed his life to save his comrades by throwing himself on top of a grenade Iraqi insurgents tossed into their sniper hideout, fellow members of the elite force said. […] “He never took his eye off the grenade, his only movement was down toward it,” said a 28-year-old lieutenant who sustained shrapnel wounds to both legs that day. “He undoubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs’ lives,

For what are you willing to die? I know that I’m crazy as hell, and there are a lot of people eager to tell me so, but I am willing to die for you.  For this conversation that we’ve been having since time immemorial, you and I and they. Will you die for me?  Check your pulse and decide. I am sorry to have become a fanatic.  It is not

h/t my blog colleague paul ilc at Bloody Scott: In an interview at The Independent, Salman Rushdie discloses certain hithertofore secretive initiation rites of the Islamists– Within this Talibanist morality, there is room for great slabs of delusion and hypocrisy. In Shalimar the Clown, Rushdie shows sparingly how the jihadi fighters of Afghanistan have sex with adolescent boys, and the next day chop to pieces men they have dubbed “homosexual”.

In response to McGehee’s earlier thread, I’d like to try to figure out exactly how bad it will get. Frankly, I think a Dem win in the mid-terms will cement a Republican presidency in 2008, but will it really? In addition to the promised attempt at impeachment, and the utterly stupid screwing up of a great economy, we can also expect: 1. A precipitate withdrawal from Iraq as Bush loses

Over at AJ Strata.  Hugh Hewitt is doing yeoman service as well. It appears, despite what our visitor david may have said to the contrary, that Reid sold the land to the LLC for his initial investment of 400k, took that money and invested in a money market fund, and yet retained an interest in the LLC even as he claimed in his disclosures to be the outright owner of

Ban Ki-moon, South Korea’s foreign minister, is Kofi Annan’s much-awaited successor.  Clicking around some online backgrounders, I found this bit of trivia from far back in his past…

BOSTON – Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday at Boston Medical Center, a hospital official said. He was 69. Studds, a liberal Democrat who spent more than 20 years in Congress, was censured by the House in the 1980s for having sex with a 17-year-old male page. He was re-elected for several more terms. All of your jokes (or social