From the conservative maverick St Andrew of the Trendy Hairshirt: Here’s one detail about Don Rumsfeld’s summer home that a historian found poignant: it was once a renowmed [sic] center for torturing slaves. Frederick Douglass was assaulted there—and escaped. Of course, those slaves weren’t actually tortured, as Alberto Gonzales would argue. They were merely subject to “coercive disciplinary techniques”. You know, I’d love to point out just how humiliated Sullivan

From the American Spectator, “SWIFT Deposits”: According to Treasury and Justice Department officials familiar with the briefings their senior leadership undertook with editors and reporters from the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, the media outlets were told that their reports on the SWIFT financial tracking system presented risks for three ongoing terrorism financing investigations. Despite this information, both papers chose to move forward with their stories. “We didn’t

From the August/September Reason, Charles Oliver, “Brickbats”: The government of Saudi Arabia has banned men from selling women’s lingerie.  The law also requires stores that sell such lingerie to conceal the section from the rest of their customers. Which, of course, provides women additional job opportunities, so from a feminist’s standpoint, treating women’s underwear as an embarrassment and appending to its display and sale certain cultural taboos can be considered

Happy 4th of July, you “sick, diseased, cancer, blight on the earth,” America! **** update:  More here.

From the WSJ, an few important points to remember in the wake of Hamdan: A single liberal retirement from the Court would thus put Hamdan‘s reasoning in jeopardy […] […] As a practical political matter, Hamdan tosses the debate over military commissions back to Congress. Our liberal friends keep assuring us that this is the key to restoring the “rule of law.” But there’s a reason the Founders gave Presidents

From CNN: North Korea would respond to a pre-emptive U.S. military attack with an “annihilating strike and a nuclear war,” the state-run media said Monday, heightening anti-U.S. rhetoric amid close scrutiny of its missile program. The Korean Central News Agency, citing an unidentified Rodong Sinmun newspaper “analyst,” accused the United States of increasing military pressure on the isolated communist state and basing new spy planes on the Korean Peninsula. The

On my way out for a walk with the tyke, but before I go, I figured I’d point you to this latest in a string of defensive NYT pieces attempting to justify the leaking of classified info they knew to be legal, subject to appropriate oversight, and, importantly, effective — information that, once divulged, the vast majority of Americans (the Dems are split evenly; perhaps Townhouse needs to expand its

1.  The New Editor wants to know, “Who’s Your Favorite ‘Chickenhawk’”?  I went with Ben Franklin, largely for the combination pot-bellied stove and bi-focals thing—though I was very close to going with John Jay, who anticipated Chuck Schumer, calling him “an insufferable prick” (Federalist #64).  Plus, legend has it he could drink like an Irish soccer hooligan. 2.  Dig yourself some free speech?  Then consider signing this letter supporting Oriana

On the shelf and waiting for me to spin them (in no particular order): 1) Syriana 2) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 3) The Culpepper Cattle Company 4) American Me 5) Naked 6) The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada 7) Cache (Hidden) 8) Freeze Frame 9) Stay 10) Songwriter If you’ve seen any of these and wish to post capsule reviews, have at it.  If you haven’t seen them, go ahead

There’s little doubt that the editors of the Times Travel section agonized over this—trust me, their souls are aching (particularly around the groin area) from the epic battle fought with their consciences—but in the end, the precise location and details about the security of the weekend homes of VP Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld needed to be divulged.  For freedom. OR ELSE THE TERRORISTS WILL HAVE WON! Jesus.  You think