Well now.  From NRO’s Rich Lowry, an examination of reality-based nuance: A Hill source forwards along these quotes:  Sen Harry Reid (D-NV) : “…I don’t think anyone can find a war that this country was engaged in where the funds were cut off. No one is talking about cutting off the funds.” Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) : “I do not support cutting funding for American troops.” Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)

“…you know what I hate?  Those little paper umbrellas bartenders are always putting in my Planter’s Punches.  A MAN doesn’t need garnish.  Hell, I don’t even like my drinks in a bloody glass.  Were it up to me, I’d be sucking dark rum out of the blanched skull of someone like Sean Hannity—and those little paper umbrellas I’d turn into tiny, poison-tipped darts, which I’d then thrust with my tongue

Speaking of identity politics… Tman sends along a link to former Jemaah Islamiya member Tawfik Hamid’s “The Trouble With Islam,” published in today’s WSJ.  Writes Hamid: Not many years ago the brilliant Orientalist, Bernard Lewis, published a short history of the Islamic world’s decline, entitled “What Went Wrong?” Astonishingly, there was, among many Western “progressives,” a vocal dislike for the title. It is a false premise, these critics protested. They

It’s been out for a while now, but I just got around to reading Charlotte Allen’s piece on Deaf culture, “Identity Politics Gone Wild” (April 2 Weekly Standard).  It is a lengthy article, but it throws into high relief many of the machinations of identity politics discussed here in more traditionally politicized contexts.  In fact, regular readers of this site will find much that is familiar in the piece, a

From the Independent UK: A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines. Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.

From “Brickbats,” Reason, May 2007 (subscription only).  First, there’s this: Denver authorities gave Cynthia Roberson 24 hours to remove the snow from the sidewalk in front of her home or a face a $150 fine.  Roberson is 60 years old and disabled.  But what really galled her is that she had already paid someone to remove the snow.  City snow plows that cleared the street had piled more snow in