Seems General Betray Us managed to overcome the Democratic Congressional / true conservative “mandate” to bring the troops home now! The new center, it won’t be happy about this. No sir. I expect additional purges. Physics tells us, after all, that the center simply cannot hold when there are so many pro-Petraeus centrists gumming up the works and pulling the unified narrative apart like so much string cheese. The answer?

In western diplomatic circles, this isn’t called capitulation. It’s called flexibility. From Reuters: Six years after the September 11 attacks, a few cautious voices are beginning to suggest the unthinkable — maybe it is time to consider talking to al Qaeda. The idea will revolt some people and raises obvious questions — through what channels could such a dialogue take place and what would there be to negotiate? But proponents

“Confirmed: NYT gave MoveOn almost two-thirds off on ‘Betray Us’ ad”: The New York Times dramatically slashed its normal rates for a full-page advertisement for MoveOn.org’s ad questioning the integrity of Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Headlined “Cooking the Books for the White House,” the ad which ran in Monday’s Times says Petraeus is “a military man constantly at war with the facts” and concluded

— Which means that it’s quite possible bin Laden is dead as a boot — and that my theory about the CIA using Ron Silver with beard extensions as a bin Laden stand in is still very much in play. Advantage: protein wisdom. **** See also, LGF, Ace, and STACLU

Oh, throw down your plow and hoe, Rest not to lock your homes. And while you’re at it, be careful you don’t fall and break a hip making your way up the arena stairs. It’s been a while, after all…

…but in only four of which have I been able to find the interlocutive, “excuse me, miss, but would you mind terribly removing your breasts from my ear?” — though for what it’s worth, I haven’t updated to the newest build of the search software. So, you know, don’t go quoting me or anything.

Quickly, now! Somebody get it a towel or something before Whitey starts lashin’ at it with a bullwhip…!

In the thread to yesterday’s post linking to Bill Ardolino’s interview with a Fallujan translator “Leo”, commenter Gabriel Frye (who, I should note, has proven himself to be a valuable addition to the pw commentariat, representing what I would call a left-centrist, anti-war perspective, but doing so in a way that is seldom preemptively dismissive) writes: […] the left isn’t saying only “stop it’s already too expensive,” we’re saying “these

Via Hot Air and the Radio Equalizer, here’s Mass Gov Deval Patrick on the message of 911: Among many other things, 9/11 was a failure of human understanding […] It was a mean and nasty and bitter attack on the United States. But it was also a failure of human beings to understand each other, to learn to love each other. Well, okay. But in fairness to those 3000 people

From Consumer Reports: Not so long ago you could count on most washers to get your clothes very clean. Not anymore. Our latest tests found huge performance differences among machines. Some left our stain-soaked swatches nearly as dirty as they were before washing. For best results, you’ll have to spend $900 or more. What happened? As of January, the U.S. Department of Energy has required washers to use 21 percent