Thanksgiving dinner: “Say, isn’t there a football game on TV somewhere –?” Me: “– DIE, YAM CASSEROLE!”

…almost as much as I love eczema or ringworm.  But no matter.  I’m watching it for you.

Rose Kennedy:  “Caroline, honey?  Be a dear and lift your uncle Teddy’s face out of the gravy boat, would you?  I’m afraid he’s had another one of his gin spells.”

Me: “So.  You wanna maybe, y’know…” new rimless glasses: “I thought you’d never ask.”

While perusing Richard Clarke’s Against all Enemies, Tigerhawk ran across this eye-opening passage: Snatches, or more properly “extraordinary renditions,” were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgement of the host government…. The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had

For immediate release: In an effort to bring New Media sensibilities to bear on our growing lineup of original content, Pajamas Media™ is pleased to announce its newest venture, “Pajamas Media After Dark,” set to debut Jan 21, 2006 (10 PM EST) This live webcast, streamed from our very own PJM portal, will feature Pajamas Media editorial board members and webcast hosts Michael Barone and David Corn* lounging in their

I wanted to highlight a couple of comments from yesterday’s mostly civil thread on the importance of narrowly defining “torture,” because taken together I think they best capture what I’ve been arguing. First, here’s Jeff Medcalf, who addresses the (to be expected, I suppose) drift of the thread, and draws a series of important distinctions:

…to officially question their patriotism. —Unless, of course, by some wild contortion of the concept the peddling of demonstrably false information—oppo research, in fact –in the service of weakening your country during a time of war is now considered patriotic.  Which I rather doubt. Up is down.  Black is white.  Brooks is Dunn.

Me: “You make me look downright sexy, new rimless glasses.” new rimless glasses: “Thanks.  But I’m nothing without you, fella.”

Given the impromptu discussion over torture that broke out in the comments of my last WP post, I thought now might be a good time to devote a dedicated post to the subject.  To begin, here’s Thomas Sowell, from “Tortured Reasoning”: Some people seem to see nothing between zero and infinity. Things are either categorically all right or they are categorically off-limits. This kind of reasoning—if it can be called