In a recent article on the group blog Obsidian Wings, Moe Lane’s article Verify first. Then we’ll see about trust. stirred up some little comment storm followed by apologies all around. In the post Moe criticizes legendary journalist Seymour Hersh’s use of anonymous sources in his recent article The Gray Zone
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Last Friday my wife dropped Qila and Mira off at the vet’s for boarding, packed up the car, and she, Tally, Jenny, and I went to the Quad Cities for the weekend. The Quad Cities—Moline and Rock Island, Illinois, Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa—are an easy three hour drive from Chicago so going there on Mother’s Day weekend for the annual two day agility competition is no great hardship. We left about 2:30 in the afternoon and arrived just after 5:30.

Finding accommodations when travelling with dogs is always an adventure so it’s best to plan ahead. For the last four years we’ve stayed with Bob and Nancy Varner, proprietors of Varner’s Caboose. Bob and Nancy live in what was once the railway station for the tiny town of Montepelier, Iowa, just a few miles downriver from Davenport which they’ve refurbished into a spacious and comfortable home.

The Caboose, is, well, a caboose—a retired Rock Island caboose. When the railroad liquidated their old stock of cabooses (cabeese?), Bob and Nancy bought one, had tracks laid behind their home, had the caboose placed on the tracks, and refurbished the caboose into a one-bedroom suite with bathroom, shower, and kitchenette which they rent out as a B&B in the spring, summer, and fall. The Caboose sleeps four—there are two beds in the cupola of the caboose so a family of four can stay there cozily.
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Venomous Kate of Electric Venom has some genuinely insights on the murder of Nick Berg in Iraq:

Thus, the point was not so much to portray the death of an American but, rather, the desecration of a body. In other words, the video intentionally showed the desecration of Nick Berg’s body, the defiling of his corpse serving as an expression of contempt for him as a proxy for all Americans, and contempt for the way bin Laden tries to portray himself as aligned with ancient authorities on Islam.

To put it another way, the video was yet another tool al-Zarqawi is using to create sectarian conflict between Muslims, the goal he declared in what is now called the “al-Zarqawi letter.”

As they say, read the whole thing.

The Religious Policeman has re-surfaced!

After reading Glenn Reynold’s recent article on Tech Central Station I wrote the following note:

Dear Glenn:

I just finished reading your Tech Central Station article Ready or Not? and you do make some good points. The federal government can take care of only so much. State governments, local governments, and individuals are better positioned to handle many dangers both natural and manmade.

Next time you write an article in Tech Central Station, please look up and read the banner above your head: “Where Free Markets Meet Technology”.

The Market can make us safer. And we’ve been going 180 degrees the
other way.
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This post began its life as a comment in this post on one of the consistently most entertaining blogs in the blogosphere Electric Venom. The subject of the post is blogging advice and since I was just beginning to seek out advice on making my blog better I found it and the link chain from it extremely useful. Perhaps the most useful link was Kate’s own.

There are a variety of different styles and different skills that different bloggers bring to the party. Both Kate and Dean Esmay’s posts on the subject refer to the “thinker” and “linker” blog styles. Steven Den Beste also writes about “writers” vs. “editors”. I think there’s another way of looking at this same subject: talkers and listeners.
What I hope to do in my own blogging is not merely soliloquizing (although I do quite a bit of that) or lurking (who doesn’t do a lot of that?) but engaging in a conversation. And in a good conversation everyone plays both roles: they talk and they listen.

Although temporarily obscured by the outrage over the maltreatment of detainees in Abu Ghraib prison by members of the U. S. military, the revelations of widespread corruption in the U. N.-administered Oil-for-Food program continue to gain momentum. It becomes clearer with every passing day that, rather than purchasing food and medicine for the Iraqi people, Saddam Hussein used the proceeds from the plan not only to purchase luxury cars and mansions (the “Oil-for-Palaces” program) but to purchase influence in the U. N. and both Arab and western nations (UNSCAM) particularly in France and Russia.

Roger L. Simon has probably done more than anyone in the blogosphere to keep this story alive. To read his thoughts on the subject and to gain a good general background in the legitimate press on the story see his posts here, here, here, here, here, and here. Follow the links. These are only Roger’s most recent posts on the subject. Search his archives for more.
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I just finished listening to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the maltreatment by the U. S. military of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison. I felt that he said what was necessary. He acknowledged the facts and took responsibility but did not abase himself.

Mr. Rumsfeld has, in fact, committed the one of the most egregious offenses possible for a presidential cabinet officer: he has subjected the president to embarrassment and criticism as the result of activities within his department. But so long as he retains the president’s confidence which, apparently, he does, he should remain in office.
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Do not miss Meryl Yourish’s recent post here.

An extremely affecting piece of writing.