From the New Criterion, “Lying For the Truth” (Nov 1993): The thirst for moral justification for one’s life in the world is one of our deepest needs, one of our most powerful and essentially human drives, ignored at our cost and peril. In his “Innocents’ Clubs,” Münzenberg provided two generations of people on the left with what we might call the forum of righteousness. More perhaps than any other person

…to Michael Kasun for the Zappa You Are What You Is CD. I plan on loading it onto my iPod later today and giving it a thorough going over. Before that, though, I have to go sweat my way through Kenpo in the hopes that someday I’ll be able to get my foot up near my head. Sure, it’s easier to put it in my mouth that way. But it’s

The DoJ has decertified Pinnacle’s Dragon Skin body armor, “a severe blow to Pinnacle’s campaign to have Dragon Skin fielded by the US Army,” notes Hot Air’s Byran Preston, “and put into service in combat”: Pinnacle had previously used NIJ certification as evidence that Dragon Skin is of sufficient quality to be used in combat. That line of argument is now taken away. For the record, NIJ certification standards and

From Anthony H. Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies: From my perspective, the US now has only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq. It cannot dictate Iraq’s future, only influence it, and this presents serious problems at a time when the Iraqi political process has failed to move forward in reaching either a new consensus or some form of peaceful coexistence. It is Iraqis that will shape Iraq’s ability

…to my post yesterday questioning her analysis of the Beauchamp saga. In her first post, remember, Young took the position that, by attributing to Foer and Beauchamp a certain intent, some right wing bloggers were betraying a kind of ludicrous paranoia (an argument echoed by Ross Douthat at the Atlantic blog). To which I responded that Young infantilizes Beauchamp as a writer, and provides Foer with intellectual cover for what

The head, it spins. From the New York Times: The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch. The term is hateful and deeply sexist, said Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, who has introduced a measure against the word, saying it

“Take it from this old KGB hand: The left is abetting America’s enemies with its intemperate attacks on President Bush.” Ion Mihai Pacepa, WSJ Opinion Journal: Sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism by discrediting the American president was one of the main tasks of the Soviet-bloc intelligence community during the years I worked at its top levels. This same strategy is at work today, but it is regarded as bad manners

So long as we’re going on about the importance of correcting the record, let’s just say were these “300” charged with fighting the Persian hordes at Thermopylae, Frank Miller wouldn’t have had much to work with. Unless he thought he could produce an interesting graphic novel about Xerxes strolling casually through Hell’s Gate in search of really bitchin’ gyro sandwich. Which he probably could. But that’s not really the point,