Great post by rhetorician Gail Hapke at Scribal Terror, which I’m going to reprint here in its entirety: No debate can occur without agreement on the terms of that debate. That is a basic principle of human discourse. That is why we have specific words that mean specific things—so we can agree on what we are talking about. “A definition,” said Demosthenes, “is the beginning of knowlege.” I would add

Mark Levin, the Corner: Frankly, I am embarrassed by some of the nonsense I am reading here. Much of it isn’t even thoughtful, just knee-jerk. This is a massive tragedy. An entire city is under water. 100,000 people either didn’t or couldn’t leave. For the first 100 hours, access was almost impossible. The entire infrastructure was obliterated. The nation is rallying. Every available governmental resource has been or is being

Dressed now in the faded, bloodcaked fatigues he took off a National Guardsman he’d found beaten to death in the Treme St corridor, FOXNews’ Shepard Smith stands motionless before the listing skeletal remains of what was once a Best Western on Rampart St, his head shaved clean, jaw stiff, chin ticked slightly upward and pointing toward the on-camera spot his crew is using to augment the firelight from fifteen or

Presented in it’s entirety, without comment. Because really, what can I say that isn’t encapsulated by the very existence of the following post.  From John Aravosis’ AMERICAblog [all links and emphasis in the original]: “BREAKING: Sec of State Condi Rice caught buying several-thousand-dollar pair of shoes in NYC moments ago, spends last night at Broadway show!” by John in DC – 9/01/2005 01:12:00 PM Good God. From Gawker, moments ago:

A fantastic and genuinely informative debate here, between Bill Quick and his commenters—including Steven Den Beste, Ric Locke, Kim du Toit, Dean Douthat, Veeshir, and other smart folk—over progress (or lack thereof) in the GWOT.  Well worth reading all the way through (though it starts to get a bit personal toward the end). For the time being, I’ll leave it to you to guess where I stand on these matters. 

Me: “So let me guess:  the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina?  The result of the Bushies taking monies earmarked for New Orleans natural disaster preparedness and squandering it on a newly-minted Iraqi theocracy, am I right?” Hole: Me: “Fucking hole.” Hole: “Dude, are you ever gonna change your pants?” **** kind of related, if you’re willing to read my post a certain way, then strain an analogy.  At any rate,

Having changed into khaki shorts and a pith helmet, FOXNews’ Shepard Smith, after commandeering a plank of floating lumber from a pair of frightened pre-teen “refugees”, has commenced live, on-air excavations using his travel shoe horn and one of those little fold-out camping shovels he looted from an REI store. So far his search for “the forgotten and unmourned castaways of Hurricane Katrina” has yielded three corroded D batteries and

Louisiana native Karl Maher takes a look at the prospects for New Orleans’ future and concludes, “New Orleans doesn’t have a future”—though he does concede that a hubristic government will try to legislate one. Me, I’m not so sure.  There are enough risk takers in the US with expendable capital who will look at a rebuilt, 25’ levee system able to withstand a Category 4/5 hurricane—and the once-in-a-lifetime (they hope)

I fully acknowledge that shooting looters is an inappropriately disproportionate response if one views looting as mere larceny. But one doesn’t shoot looters to protect property, one does so to protect order. Somebody is going to suffer unjustly when society breaks down. I don’t understand why […] it preferable for the law-abiding citizens to be the cost-bearers. History has shown repeatedly that the way to stop an anarchic riot is

From where I sit, it looks like the same people who think you can lose weight without diet and exercise are now in charge of defining what a disaster is and what the response should be. —John Cole Amen to that. And while we’re on the subject, a note to FOXNews’ Shepard Smith:  That officer who ignored you yesterday while you chased him around with your microphone reminding him that