And who doesn’t love puppets!

“War is bad for children and other living things.  Except neocons—who make BILLIONS off of AMERICAN HEGEMONY and who I hope DIE IN LARGE NUMBERS” “At Least My Bush Can Pronounce ‘nuclear’!” “Bedraggled Wannabe Hippies for Peace” “Daddy Never Hugged Me.  So I Shot the Wretched Patriarch in His Nutsack” “Aerosmith: ‘Back in the Saddle Tour ‘84” “‘No Muff too Tough / We Dive at Five’ – The Bearded Clam

Annan:  “No doubt the Jews did this to us.  On purpose.  You all do realize that, I hope.”**

Gee, you say that like it’s a bad thing, Chris.  Perhaps we should just pretend every regime in the region is equal?  You know—do the whole “cycle of violence” dance while we stand back and assume the role of “referee” in a fight that is only really being waged by one side?  After all, that’s diplomacy—not taking sides even when your country’s entire foundational worldview dictates that you should be

From the Jerusalem Post: UN military personnel on the ground along the Israel-Lebanon border say the munitions that hit the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) position early Wednesday were precision-guided, a UN source told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. Furthermore, the source added, the strike came after repeated requests by UNTSO commanders to the IDF not to strike that specific position. The IDF spokesman told The Jerusalem Post that

In the comments to my previous post, Brian makes the following observation: The blogosphere looks like a grade school playground lately.  It doesn’t reflect well on the blogging community. In a way, he’s absolutely correct:  partisan tensions have grown increasingly palpable, and personal animus seems to be ascendent of late. But as I noted on Hoist the Black Flag yesterday, there is more at work here than simple playground bickering. 

…for a supposedly peaceable, “reality-based” community, they sure do have a thing for online puppet shows and overt thuggery, don’t they? Of course, in their defense, I suppose one can begin to get a bit cocky when one has had the intelligence bureaucracy and the press on one’s side for so very long.  Or, you know—so they think. So.  Are we finally reaching that partisan boiling point?  Because to me,

Can’t win an argument on the merits by using mutually agreed-upon criteria?  No problem.  Simply change the terms of the debate and declare yourself the victor. Or, you know—have one of your innumerable sycophants (real, imagined, or some strange ontological combination thereof) do it for you. Which, were we to use a cooking analogy, would be a lot like entering a chili cookoff, redefining “chili” in such a way that

At 3 PM EST.  Today’s guests are Patterico and Seixon.  Topics to include bad blogging behavior and other stuff of minimal interest to Rightalk’s core demographic. Listen in at Rightalk.  Call in number is 866-884-TALK.