COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Time For a Benediction? (Update)



Update: (Democracy rules at The Elephant. We do not cower under the dictates and whims of tyrants. We drink and talk and practice what we preach. The ship made a miraculous recovery. To you military analyst, pay close attention to the empty life boat, surely a metaphor to The Elephant. Votes were taken and the motley crew says: Onward, Forward, Damn the torpedoes, pass the chips.......)

Gentleman, Friends and Loyal Opponents. We embarked on this short voyage to establish a refuge when Wretchard the Petulant locked the doors and we were unsure of a place to meet and share our common interests. We were successful in so much as we scared him back to his senses. I am not a blogger. I run an international business enterprise and am actually quite a private man. It is clear to us all that our merry band has become to put it bluntly, sparse. Some of the less brave have returned to meekly sit at the feet of Wretchard, most recently morphed into a new form of feline. I have and continue to burn my bridges with the fellow. I once enjoyed the camaraderie of the BC, but after the lock-out saw a side to the man I do not care for. I was sorry to see the once noble Habu break ranks. I put it to a vote. Wherto from here?

2164th

104 comments:

  1. It's your house, and whit's.
    Blogging is a job.
    Of that there is no doubt.

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  2. I can understand your desire not to continue the blogging roll, you posts are great, though, and you could still be a contributor, even if you stopped, right?
    What about Whit?
    I'd be willing to do some admin tasks and occasional post when Whit is occupied w/something else.
    Maybe someone else would also?
    I guess we'll see what the rest want to do.

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  3. Has anyone seen a report of the Coup in Thailand being one of a MUSLIM General in a Buddist Land?

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  4. If doug will teach me some English, I guess I could contribute some ripped off material the Hebrews.

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  5. Have not seen any secterian reports from Thailand

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  6. *from* the Hebs.

    Doug, I'll traslitarate into the English and send youz the mp3 file to have it typed. :D

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  7. Doug, we'll start with astrology .

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  8. Proctology as performed by a Dentist.
    Specializing in Colonic Impaction Remediation.

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  9. How can we be sure you *speak* English?

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  10. Yeah, these things are works of Art, when a Fart would do for discussion purposes.

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  11. I share misgivings about the Habu/Honeysuckle matchup w/Sausage, but they are DIFFERENT misgivings.
    ---
    Even before this thread I was thinking you guys posted a weeks worth of material in 24hrs.

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  12. Agree w/the nonmutuality:
    Rarely are honest questions answered, help given, when that's what the webs all about in my experience.

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  13. Or teach Cropdusting to aspiring Stews.

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  14. How about Wretch on the trammelhorse and rings, and Deuce on the Guitar?

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  15. Habu chased off all the girls, then abandons ship!

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  16. Rat:
    We could have some threads where Sausage just posted and posted some more, with others just popping in now and then to squeeze off a post.

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  17. You've sprung a leak in your fart suit, again?

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  18. This has been a shaky day, all around. Even little tiny things-- my kid droppered her Alexander graham Bell mobile and broke it before the teacher even saw it. After all that work I did. damn.

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  19. k. Here's a muse for the next blog entry:

    Syrian President Bashar Assad has agreed to allow troops on the Lebanese side of border to enforce an arms embargo along the border between his country and his country.

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  20. Damn, that's nice of Assad, dontcha think? Hope it's ok with him if i step outside and water the chinaberry tree.

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  21. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  22. nice Mexico link, SS. Fox is trying to do a few things, it just gets lost in the general uproar. i feel for the guy, turning over a country primed for every nasty thing in the Lenin playbook.

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  23. Ya got a Mulberry too? Those things are Good.
    ---
    We know next to nothin about what MATT thinks about it!
    Maybe he should post on it!
    ---
    The Cat's on the wagon:
    http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/09/20/arts/20cat_337.jpg
    9 Lives and Counting: Cat Power Sobers Up
    After climbing out of a dark pit, Chan Marshall is receiving critical praise for her concerts but still needs antidepressants to get by.

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  24. Rufus,
    He had a great interview with a guy that knows the Pope well too.
    Wish he would put that transcript up.

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  25. I think we need to talk with Assad on how he manages Syria's tightly controlled borders and airports without such foreign troops.

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  26. The Administration will not talk to Doc Assad, Ms Rice says he knows what we want, and that's that.
    Only Mr Chirac talks to the Doc, him and Abracadabra.
    Does US a lot of good, having Chirac be the go between.

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  27. Maybe what's needed is less chitchat and more a collaborative effort.

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  28. I watched as much of the Achminejad speech as Fox shewed. 5 minutes worth. He does weave alternate realities, a little hitler-fabulist if ever there wuz one.

    His mock today about USA lacking the will to establish order in Iraq was especially galling.

    I almost wish hysterical Al "Earth" Gore was prez--he might take a hissy and flatten the little persian rugrat.

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  29. Doctor accused of giving stripper a hand

    NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (AP) -- A doctor has pleaded not guilty to stealing a hand from a New Jersey medical school cadaver and giving it to an exotic dancer, authorities said.

    Ahmed Rashed, a 2005 graduate of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, was charged Monday after voluntarily returning from Los Angeles, California, where he is in a residency program, said his lawyer, Hassen Abdellah.
    Rashed, 26, is free on $1,000 bail.

    The dancer, Linda Kay, kept the hand in a jar of formaldehyde in her bedroom. Friends have said she called the hand "Freddy."

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  30. This quote hits home, for even the Iraqi of Mosul believe it is the case, per Mr Yon's tale from there.

    ... Ahmadinejad claimed that numerous terrorists apprehended by the Iraqi government were "let loose under various pretexts by the occupiers."

    "It seems that intensification of hostilities and terrorism serves as a pretext for the continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq," he said. ..."


    Another perspective of
    "Catch & Release"

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  31. Buddy,
    I thought there was a 15 minute limit:
    Seemed like a half hour.
    Got REALLY Bad toward the end.
    Repetituous Too.

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  32. So, rufus, we are not going to "flip the Doc" as so many felt was the "Plan", nor even try. Instead we have Mr Chirac saying the Securiry Coouncil should step back on the Iranian issue, as his troops enter the Lebanonese impact area.

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  33. We just keep adding to the mix till a thousand word poem is finally pictorialized.

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  34. Use a whiteboard that will allow audio visual type collaboration. Distributed creativity.

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  35. fucking with who?
    Powell, McCain, the dems...

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  36. between mathusela and sausage and doug, we have a good deal of the DMV IV demonstrated.

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  37. Wonder if McCain has some OTHER plan than the GOP nomination?
    Don't think he'll get it now.

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  38. that's DSM IV. ha--who crazy, now, mus be me, whoowee, whoowee.

    I'm w/ you rufus--batshit crazy wouldn't be at all hard to understand.

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  39. I'm sure he's thinking, pretty much 24/7 by now, how nice it'd be to just hang round the ranch, doin a little fishing, lolling in the autumn shade.

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  40. As you said, doug, there is no avoiding the coming collision. There was a window of opportunity for a real, low cost, preemptive action, but it has shut.

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  41. DC is a fucking disgusting cesspool, and the rest of the world is worse.

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  42. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

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  43. What collision, 'Rat?
    Abra sounded real peaceful at the UN.

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  44. We should require Allen to post 3 times a day min.

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  45. I'm ready for the 12th Imam to emerge from my flushable well and transubstantiate me.

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  46. Jimmah Carter Elected hisself World Arbiter after the Presidency.

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  47. doug said...
    Just wanted to thank Wretchard for an excellent posting, especially as 'rasqual' said, for his false tolerance summation.

    I have regrettably(and I hope it's just my innate pessimism), come to the conclusion that the conflict with 'militant' Islam is a slow-motion train wreck. The train has already hit that bad section of track, but now time is in s-l-o-w s-p-e-e-d , wherein it is hard to see that the disaster is already upon us.

    I don't think the eventual conflict can be avoided, now. If the conflict is both 'ideological'(Islamic Supremecism) and 'structural'( a dysfunctional and decayed Middle-East, that simply keeps producing nothing but rage), what events could happen that could alter the dynamic already in place? I just don't see any likely candidates.

    Now it seems to be merely a question of waiting for the other shoe to drop, or maybe more accurately, for the curtain to open after the introductory music.

    9/19/2006 07:44:48 PM

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  48. Compadres,

    Please allow me to explain my lack of participation, variously characterized as "chasing off all the girls and then abandoning ship", believe that was Doug.
    And of course the description of the once noble Habu breaking ranks in the initial thread by our host.

    To Doug's comment. The girls I read on this blog couldn't have been chased away by Attila the Hun, much less by me. That I may have challenged their positions is the character of blogging, unless we choose to call it choir practice, in which case what's the point?
    To 2164..how dare you call me noble! I've spent the better part of a lifetime being cunning and secretive. You men know more about my life than do the very few friends I have as far as thoughts on subjects of import. But thank you for the kind characterization.
    I believe I have posted twice in the past two week (perhaps less) on the BC. Once was today and it was a short reference to H.L. Menchen and press reporting.
    I have on more than one occasion alluded to the fact that while blogging with such informed, witty, and acccomplished men and women was fun ,it does occupy vast amounts of time. This in fact is the nexus of this thread, 2164's time and how it's allocated.
    My philosphy has been for many years that the brevity of life allows us only so much time to pursue a cornacopia of activities and interests. I can't to that riveted in this chair all day.
    In order to be a vital and positive contributor to any blog also means you've got to do your homework, another time consuming thing that I have already spent 35 plus years doing, all prior to the acendency of the blog world. I had given it up and moved on to other endeavors when the blogworld materialized. I jumped in with my "nuke'em, kill, destroy & firebomb our enemies daily homily"
    There is also the matter of administering four estates, no small task.
    I enjoy the comaraderie, the witticism, the knowledge and insight into topics to which I could not contribute much, but there are only so many hours in the day and each of us take our own roads. We are fortunate to be Americans and be able to do that.
    For me it became time to saddle up and take the fork in the road.
    For those who have heard me allude to this previously none of this should be a surprise. I truly respect and even find affection for this group. 2164 stepped up but is now confronted with time constraints and is at his own fork in the road, for many of the same reasons.
    So there it is. No animis toward anyone,not much of anything except the Big Muddy keeps roll'in and we all do too. If the blog survives I'll drop in from time to time for a free stoogie and a Wild Turkey but at this moment in time I've reduced airspeed,dropped flaps to 45 degress, wheels down and three green and will be out of the sphere more often than in it. I see I have a fork-in-the-road-saddle-up-aircraft-landing mixed metaphor going here, sorry.
    So I won't say good bye, just see you down the line.
    Best to all,
    Habu

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  49. I'll be Trip Sitter for the first EB Space traveler.
    ---
    DMT is a powerful psychoactive substance. If DMT is smoked, injected, or orally ingested with an MAOI, it can produce powerful entheogenic experiences including true hallucinations (perceived extensions of reality). A trip sitter is often employed to assist the drug user in staying physically and mentally healthy, and, in the case of smoked DMT, to catch the pipe when the user loses awareness of it.

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  50. I've needed a beer catcher before.

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  51. we'll miss your steady supply of belly-laffs, habu.

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  52. Ok. So we learned about Dimitri. But what did we learn about Vlad?

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  53. the prayer, doug, is up on the Hewitt site-tufus has a link upstream. It's pretty wild. A call for "justice". i think he means more hanging children.

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  54. Maybe them lawyers have him in a Four-Estate Funk.

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  55. I hate to read about those hallucininoginocins. I start seeing blue spots all over the divan.

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  56. ?
    "Bestow upon humanity that thirst for justice, the perfect Superfacehugger being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers among those who strive for his return and his cause."

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  57. anyway, habu, BC had the taqiyaa usher keilland rolling his oily phrases over BC today and it needed your H.L Mencken quote.

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  58. Senior Syrian government official have accused the US of being behind Tuesday's assault on its own embassy in downtown Damascus.

    A Baath party official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told WorldNetDaily, "We in the government are 100 percent sure America was behind this attack, which is not the same as other attacks by Islamic groups."

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  59. Long lost Mr K.
    Figured the Coast had been cleared.

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  60. unctuous, supercilious, sanctimony, the stock in trade.

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  61. Apologies to David Schenker
    Monday, September 18, 2006

    My apologies to David Schenker. Several days ago I wrote: "David Schenker of WINEP and Tony Badran of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies are pushing [a] conspiracy theory.” The conspiracy theory I was referring to is the notion that the Syrian government was behind the terrorist attack on the American embassy.

    In fact, Tony Badran argues that Syria was behind the attack, not David Schenker. I incorrectly lumped the two together because this is what Guy Darst of the Boston Herald did in his misleading article, cited as the source of my remarks.

    I have since communicated with David Schenker. He sent me two articles about the embassy bombing, one of which Darst borrowed from. By taking Schenker's remark out of its original context and plopping it in with Badran's more serious accusations, Schenker was done an injustice and I compounded it.

    The two articles that give a full account of David Schenker's argument about the Damascus bombing make clear that he stops short of arguing that the government set up the bombers. Eli Lake of the New York Sun, quotes Schenker as follows:

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  62. Assad knows his home audience well. kept at the intellectual level of a camel turd, they'll believe anything. and kill on it.

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  63. Pubs have 6 times the dough of the dems.

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  64. you're right. The Pope will have to fade the heat all alone for awhile.

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  65. I think it's deeper than that, Buddy. Usually when they accuse someone of something you can be damn sure that they are guilty of whatever they accuse the other of doing. I'm confident this was a Syrian staged event. Maybe the Syrian really want to talk. Maybe they realized all the Iranian ducks are lined in place? They're also started making more positive noises on the Israeli captured in Gaza after first giving the thumbs down.

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  66. My thought was the Embassy attack was a warning to fade out the Hariri thing. but you make sense.

    hey, thanks, ruin.

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  67. BYW, that's a rather spectacular handle, ruins.

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  68. So do we want to talk? Is it useful to us? What is it that the Syrians can really deliver?

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  69. I like Ford, too. he's infinitely prefereable to the boilerplate Dem senators--that is, all the biggies.

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  70. Can they deliver Saddam's WMD? Can they point the finger at Russia, China, Pakistan? Is the US going to ask them to?

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  71. Ruins, you ain't, by a long shot--

    Yep, old Verc, the Sergeant Major of the North Woods--great writer. And Lab Rat, too, from those days. Outta Houston, was lab rat.

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  72. I think they can do ALL that, matt. Is it a matter of gold?

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  73. They want the Golan--you Haifans know that. Hey, if you're from Haifa, are you a Hyphen?

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  74. Wretch:
    "How has it happened that the most unlikely persons are speaking on what is apparently the most volatile of subjects?
    It is doubly surprising because there is a powerful reluctance within the organizational culture of Christian churches to voice any criticism of another religion. The statements by Pope Benedict XVI, Lord Carey and Cardinal Pell are really near-despairing expedients to fill the aching void left by Western cultural and political leaders -- a vacuum which has emboldened militant Islamic preachers to cross boundaries they would have respected until recently. This erasure of cultural borders caused by the near total desertion of the frontier by the so-called opinion-leaders has invited the most reckless elements of Islam across and raised the risk of real clash of civilizations.
    As Lord Carey put it: "We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times".
    It is a time made perilous not only by the absence of moderate voices within Islam but by the even more conspicuous absence of any leadership among Western politicians.
    It is a failure which will sooner or later lead to what military historians call a "meeting engagement" in which two forces, each possessed of its own momentum, blunder into each other with catastrophic results.
    A false kind of tolerance has abolished the fence between the piggery and mosque, the adult video store and the cathedral, the flaming match and the stick of dynamite and called it progress. It is no such thing. It is called stupidity."

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  75. I think it a matter of showing a little more seriousness on Iran. Assad will get to keep his toilet seat, if he plays nice. That's all.

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  76. AKA "postmodernism"-- the flattened, timeless endless gray moral landscape. Soon to be slanged "postmurdernism" as eventually the only thing the heart can believe in is murder, and the best hope is that it come quick.

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  77. yeh, me too--sandman again--every damn nite. be well, all--

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  78. seven weeks 'til the election, matt. the next milestone.

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  79. Rat should know the answer to that.

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  80. yes, I'd spell it for him but too many letters in Mohammmadan.

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  81. Rufus, better the meat of a tusked Eurasian.

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  82. well, as i say when i doze off and fall into the spaghetti, "Chow".

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  83. Hyphen? I thought I was a colon!

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  84. How Bad Is the Senate
    Intelligence Report?:

    And late last week, following the release of the Senate report, Barham Salih, deputy prime minister of Iraq, had this to say: "The alliance between the Baathists and jihadists which sustains al Qaeda in Iraq is not new, contrary to what you may have been told." Salih continued: "I know this at first hand."

    Some day there will be an authoritative and richly detailed history of the nature of the relationship between the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups. This latest product of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is unlikely to merit even a footnote in this history.

    Senate Intelligence Report

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  85. I hope this blog group finds a way to keep going. As an occasional poster and regular reader, i know of no other blog with the same high level quality of discourse among its contributors. I also find the freewheeling nature of it more interesting, nott less so, and prefer it to the "structured" approach that Wretchard seems to prefer (perhaps to get higher page rankings in the search engines and therefore higher ad prices for Pajamas Media sponsors). Perhaps a group blog might make more sense. I think one can be set up easily (and freely) on Wordpress.com. Just my $.02

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  86. ENEMIES - By Bill Gertz - THE WASHINGTON TIMES
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20060920-123737-3755r

    Bill Gertz, defense and national security reporter for The Washington Times, describes a growing threat posed by foreign agents and terrorists who exploit U.S. weaknesses in this second of three excerpt from his new book,
    "Enemies: How America's Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets -- And How We Let It Happen" (Crown Forum), out this week.
    Read Part 1 here
    and Part 2 here

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  87. The Confederacy Stands. In a unanimous vote, with a few absent, the "House of Words" has spoken, we go on.......Long Live The Elephant.

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  88. 2164th,

    Sorry for my absence. As you know, life has the nasty habit of intruding into the perfect meme.

    You have done us all a great service. Whit has been a worthy second. If you all can muster the strength, this place has real curb appeal.

    Whatever your decision, thanks again.

    Oh, I think I drove off all the girls. Let's hope some women arrive soon enough.

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  89. Please change the code so you links on th left side of the page open in a new window. Thanks.

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  90. stavr0s,
    Unless and until they do,
    you can always "Shift Click" to the same effect.
    (windows, Apple, you probably have to give up and Algore Global Warming Coupon)

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