It seems to me that a lot of people blame all the tension in the Middle East on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The spin on that particular ball seems to be, if only the U.S. would throw Israel to the wolves already, tempers in the region would cool, neighboring states would graciously agree to sit down at the negotiating table and sincerely discuss real reform, and--most importantly--the "Arab Street" would no longer be driven to terror attacks out of frustration with the Imperial injustice...

NUM TREM PARA BUENOS AIRES ON A TRAIN TO BUENOS AIRES Numa cabine de trem, que ia para Buenos Aires, estavam um brasileiro, um argentino, uma linda mulher francesa e uma velha senhora alemã... A Brazilian man, an Argentinian man, a beautiful Frenchwoman and an old German woman were riding in the same cabin, on a train to Buenos Aires... Todos estavam bem comportados, quando o trem passou por um túnel e tudo ficou escuro. [i]They were all behaving themselves quite we...

NUM TREM PARA BUENOS AIRES ON A TRAIN TO BUENOS AIRES Numa cabine de trem, que ia para Buenos Aires, estavam um brasileiro, um argentino, uma linda mulher francesa e uma velha senhora alemã... A Brazilian man, an Argentinian man, a beautiful Frenchwoman and an old German woman were riding in the same cabin, on a train to Buenos Aires... Todos estavam bem comportados, quando o trem passou por um túnel e tudo ficou escuro. [i]They were all behaving themselves quite we...

Assume, for the sake of argument (heh), that I am a reasonable man. Assume that I am a reasonable man who--no-one knows why or how--holds an unreasonable opinion: that George W. Bush is, on balance, a good President. So here's my question for all you Bush-haters (and/or rational moderate sensible people) out there: if you were given the opportunity to present a single argument, a single concrete fact or line of reasoning, to change my mind on this, what would you choose? What evidence or...

You see it on TV all the time. The Police Detective meets the Murder Victim's Widow, and says, "ma'am, I know how you feel, but if you could just answer a few questions...". And the Widow turns on him, eyes red from weeping, and replies, "you don't know how I feel! Nobody knows how I feel! I just lost my husband! You can't understand my pain!" Etc. And to a certain extent, she's right. Her pain is special. Her experience is unique. But her emotions are common to all humanity. ...

So this morning on my way in to work, Air America made a big deal out of Bush's two-facedness, or split-tonguedness, or asshattery, or whatever. No, I don't remember which of their radio personalities it was. All I know is that it wasn't Al Franken, because Al Franken always sounds like he's drunk. Have you ever noticed that? Seriously. Unlike the rest of this post, I'm not going for a cheap liberal-bashing shot here. He really does enunciate like a drunk man, all the frickin' time. ...

This whole Jeff Gannon thing is nothing more than shenanigans perpetrated by Karl Rove. First, he planted Jeff Gannon in the White House press room. This was an amazingly stupid move, as Gannon couldn't possibly survive any kind of serious scrutiny. He was so obviously a fake, Rove must have known he would be found out soooner or later. Being a master of political timing, however, Rove was confident that he could manage the scandal to his own benefit. And he was right, as we shall see....

The way I see it, a Constitution should be short and sweet. It should enumerate a few fundamental principles. The fewer the better. Beyond that, a Constitution should do... nothing. It's for governments (ideally, democractically-elected governments) to set policy, within the bounds of the principles enumerated in their Constitution. Building policy into a Constitution is, to my mind, an surefire recipe for disaster. But if the European Union outlasts the United States of America, I...

Few things are as funny as monkeys, ninjas, or pants. Except maybe pirates. And zombies.