I meant to mention this at the time but I forgot. On December 10, New York Times reporter and neoconservative stenographer Judith Miller was part of a panel (scroll down to December 10) discussing the ethics of wartime reporting.

Miller, as the Times resident expert on weapons of mass destruction, was responsible for . . . → Read More: The Extreme Sport of Unconscious Irony

I’ve spent the past few days installing and learning how to use, more or less, Microsoft’s current SQL server. The experience has imbued me with empathy for Paul Wolfowitz (who empathizes with Ahmed Chalabi, who also empathizes with Ahmed Chalabi). Like Paul, I have a grand vision and no real clue how to get . . . → Read More: Topless in Gaza

This is another in a series of thoroughly demented Iraq apologias from Brooks, according to whom, “… ours is the one revolution that worked, and it did precisely because our founders were epistemologically modest too, and didn’t pretend to know what is the good life, only that people should be free to figure it . . . → Read More: David Brooks: “The last thing we needed was a plan.”

A few posts downstream I implied that John Ashcroft’s justice department, or at least John Ashcroft, has little interest in pursuing administration-related hijinks such as the identity of those who blew the cover of Lisa Kudrow look-alike and undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Well, not so fast. The Washington Post has an update . . . → Read More: Maybe John Ashcroft really is Javert.

Moscow Times columnist Boris Kagarlitsky says the entertainment industry is “filling the niche once controlled by the Soviet Communist Party’s propaganda wing.” It’s a familiar genre of lament but the particular comparison is a bit startling, and it does come from a fellow who should know.

So long as we’re in Russia, check out . . . → Read More: Meet the New Boss …

Bubble Boy made a bunch of recess appointments today, including that of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security. Inspectors general are the people who root out waste and fraud and other crimes perpetrated by government agencies against the taxpayers. Independence and integrity and some sense of moral purpose are ideal qualities for . . . → Read More: Incest is Best

It’s fun and easy to play. Just pick one among Afghanistan’s unique collection of brutal warlords and Google him once a week or so. My personal pick is Rashid Dostum; if something’s going wrong over there, his name almost invariably pops up. Other good bets are former US sweetheart Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who got irritated . . . → Read More: My Favorite Warlord: The Home Edition

The federal appeals court in Washington has suspended the implementation of the Bush Administration’s giveaway to polluters, or at least part of it. WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal court on Wednesday halted a Bush administration plan to allow power plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities to make upgrades to aging plants without installing . . . → Read More: Merry Christmas, Dirtbags.

Russia’s English-language dailies, The Moscow Times and The St. Petersburg Times, appear to have ended their prohibitively expensive flirtations with online subscription fees. One of the benefits, along with the opportunity to check in on the country whenever one feels like it, is that both papers carry “Global Eye” columnist Chris Floyd, whose acerbic . . . → Read More: I Spy With My Global Eye …

The American Enterprise institute has a compilation of polling (PDF document) done on terror- and Iraq-related subjects conducted between September 2001 and now. The most surprising thing about the effort is that according to the AEI website, it was last updated on December 26, 2003. Now, if they can only work on going in . . . → Read More: Time-traveling Neocons Service Poll Junkies