Eat My Shorts

Long, artfully constructed posts not only have a lot of words but also you have to read them all, and I have to write them all (which is a lot harder), so I thought I’d make you slackers do some work for a change and put-up a number of short posts (collectively entitled Eat My Shorts) and see if you can make sense out of them, so I don't have to (as much).

The New Strategy for Victory In Iraq
“An important part of the American strategy against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been to drive wedges between the group, other insurgent groups and the Sunni population…”
[NY Times 7-19-07]

…by talking trash about everyone I assume? Is it the ‘Poisoning Hearts and Minds’ strategy? Given that none of the Americans seem to speak Arabic, I suspect something’s going to get lost in translation. Still, I’ll give them an ‘F’ for “eFFort”


And You Thought; “At Least Canadians Aren’t Batshit Insane!”
“I adjust and stiffly greet the first man I see. He is a judge, with the craggy self-important charm that slowly consumes any judge. He is from Canada, he declares, and is the founding president of "Canadians Against Suicide Bombing".
Would there be many members of "Canadians For Suicide Bombing?" I ask.
Dismayed, he suggests that yes, there would.”
[Johann Hari reporting from the neocon National Review annual ‘Meet the Crazies’ Cruise] (Recommended reading!)
(Hat-tip to RedTory for this beauty.)

The 'Canadians For Suicide Bombing' don’t have a website probably because they are hiding in a cave in Waziristan and being liberal hippies they are too busy adding suede fringes to their knitted-hemp suicide vests to even have their own blog.
But the Canadians Against Suicide Bombing do have a website and thanks to them there hasn’t been a single Canadian Suicide Bombing since....since... everything changed after 9-11!


And When I Say Our Economy Is Strong, I Mean Strong Like A Wet Paper Bag
“All in all these bloated spending bills will increase government spending by $81.4 billion more than needed. These increases could very well drive up the deficit, increase taxes and ultimately cripple America’s surging economy.”
[John Carter (R-TexAss), taking a dump on The Hill blog, 7-19-07]

Absolutely right, John! It’s only thanks to the hard-work and sacrifices of Big Oil and George Bush alone that spending over $500-billion on a war we still don't need, didn’t cripple our surging economy!


Mother Of Parliaments Gives Birth: Newborn To Be Christened "Democracy"
[UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown] launched a cross-party debate on a new bill of rights that could for the first time enshrine the rights and responsibilities of the citizen. The age of voting could also be reduced to 16 and elections held on Sundays.
Mr. Brown announced his government was surrendering or limiting the executive’s powers over the right to declare war..
There could also be limits on the executive’s power to ratify international treaties, grant pardons and make key public appointments.
[The Guardian]

I can think of thirteen former colonies who might start rethinking that old “give me liberty or give me death” independence thingy.
Now don't you go upsetting yourelf, ducks..here...just sit yourself down and 'ave a nice cup o'tea!

National Stupidity Estimate

‘The White House, anticipating that it would be accused of choreographing the release of the [National Intelligence Estimate] estimate today to bolster support for its Iraq policy as the Senate debates the war, dismissed the idea today. “We don’t keep it on the shelf and say, ‘Let’s look for a convenient time," Tony Snow the chief White House spokesman, told reporters this morning.’

--writes David Stout of The New York Times who is apparently not intelligent enough to note that the 2004 and 2006 mid-year National Intelligence Estimates which both reported major increases in terrorism and terrorist recruitment were mysteriously not released until after the respective November elections when the GOP ran specifically on its awesome “War on Terrah!” record.

The major thrust of this NIE, according to the keen mind and cut-and-paste skills of ace reporter Stout (and dozens of other Right-clicking reporters) is that:

‘The United States will face “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat” over the next three years, as Al Qaeda continues to plot attacks comparable in scale to those of Sept. 11, 2001’

So let me get this straight:

For the past 4 years we’ve been 'fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here', we were winning the war in Iraq for a couple of those years, we’ve been making progress (that has been “good”, “tremendous”, “steady” “remarkable”—according to Bush, Rice, Cheney etc.) every year, and the world is a safer place without Saddam Hussein and YET…AQ is now bigger and badder-than-ever and planning to unleash another 9-11 in the US in the next three years.

Dang! That makes Bush and the GOP look like assholes, doesn’t it?

Not according to Republican John Boehner who “said that the new intelligence estimate confirms that the administration’s policies have weakened terrorist capabilities” (as per Stout’s article). After all, according to the report;

“We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the Homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11. These measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11."

BUT…according to the NIE:

"We are concerned, however, that this level of international cooperation may wane as
9/11 becomes a more distant memory and perceptions of the threat diverge."

Of course!
Typical fucking worldwide counterterrorism efforts and international cooperationalists!

They’ll be all like: “ 9-what, dude?”
and we’ll be all: “ -11 man! 9-fucking11! Don’t you remember?”
and they’ll go: “that’s sooo 2001 bro, where you at?!”
And we’ll be all in their grill with:
“Hey! It’s not like you got attacked an’ shit, oh-Kaaay?!” and they’ll be like “Whatevuh!” and totally spaz and throw our cell phone into the bushes and then start making-out with the hot foreign chick who totally wanted me to liberate her sweet crude!

Sorry…let me back-up a second.

So it has been “worldwide counterterrorism efforts” that have “constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again” and that “these measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11” has it?

Well that’s mighty interesting, seeing as the “known plots” against the US over the last five-and-a-half years have been a complete joke (there’s a pretty comprehensive compendium here)
But more interesting is the assessment that “international cooperation may wane”.

Why? Presumably because the ‘international cooperationalists’ prefer mind-destroying surrender-cheese to ginko kenoba, so 9-11 will become “a more distant memory and [their] perceptions of the threat diverge.”

I don’t suppose that the assumed reduction in international cooperation would have anything to do with all the attacks that have been conducted around the world against US allies that are directly attributable to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and the allies’ involvement in same, would they?
And just maybe protecting the US from another AQ attack is slightly less important than their protecting their own countries, especially as the US has a tendency to completely blow their intelligence operations for the sake of publicity and then claim the credit for thwarted plots whilst doing absolutely nothing to reciprocate and actually making the situation worse.

But never mind!

The US don’t need no stinking international cooperationalists, not now we have a one-and-a-half-page super-extra-detailed analysis of the 6-year long GWOT written by top experts in 14-point Georgia font WITH bullets points to explain to us how, after hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives spent making progress, we are still going to be attacked in the next three years because Al Qaeda is not only “proficient with conventional small arms” but they also plan to “continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them”---just like Saddam Hussein, who we killed to protect our freedoms, crush terrorism, spread democracy and make the world and especially the US a safer place by fighting them over there!

And that’s the National Stupidity Estimate.

Go To Hell

''Do not our hearts cry out, most especially, when our young people are subjected to debased or false expressions of love which ridicule the God-given dignity of every human person and undermine family interests?'' (Pope Benedict--January 24 2007) .

"Unless of course you are a Catholic priest who likes fucking children, in which case forget what I just said."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I apologise to anyone who has been offended, who has been abused. It should not have happened, and it will not happen again”

So said Los Angeles Cardinal Mahony following a $660-million settlement that if approved will excuse the Cardinal from having to testify how the Church dealt with the pedophile sexual abuse of a number of its clergy over the course of several decades.

The Boston Archdiocese managed a similar deal in 2002, paying $157 million, also promising that such things would never happen again. Several European dioceses have made similar arrangements in recent years and similar announcements that such things will never happen again.

The Catholic Church sits in judgment on the morality not only of its parishioners, but on those of other faiths and on those of no faith. When it comes to its own actions however, none may fully judge but themselves and no matter the crime, secular or moral, they have the power of absolution and “forgiveness”—a ‘Get-Out of Jail and Eternal Damnation- card’ which they print themselves whenever the spirit and necessity moves them.

Across the world the Catholic Church has obstructed every investigation into the moral and secular crimes of its officers, given them sanctuary and maintained themin comfortable seclusion. If I recall correctly only two priests (in the US) in the last ten years have actually gone to jail—after being stoutly defended by the Church with not just full knowledge of their crimes but with significant culpability in them.

Whilst the actions of the individuals may be considered aberrant the actions of the Catholic Church are not. In every case they intimidate victims and witnesses, obstruct secular investigation and never even punish their own. When finally forced they make “amends” by bargaining with money---money they have acquired over the course at least 15 centuries that has been founded in moral and political blackmail. There is no corporation, publicly subscribed-to but privately held, that has been longer established than the Catholic Church.

According to the Catholics sex out of wedlock, abortion, and even prevention of pregnancy are all sins and what’s more should be publicly legislated as crimes in their view. But child-fucking by Catholic priests is apparently neither a sin nor a crime.

In the mortal world of secular law, child-fucking is a crime, as is the harboring of criminals, accessory to criminal acts and obstruction of justice. What’s more the institutionalization of such criminal acts is also a crime. The Catholic Church, in this regard, is a criminal organization.

And yet neither the Catholic Church as a whole, nor its criminal officers are held to proper account because of some kind of nebulous special status afforded to them.

The Catholic Church should be recognized for what it is; a political corporation that should be subject to the full range of secular laws and held fully accountable for their repeated violations.
And the whole fucking lot of them, including their adherents who attend Mass and buy their place in Heaven with their tithes and devotion and apologies should all go to Hell—not in the hereafter, but in the present, in prison.

Sympathy For The Devil?

The pithily titled Midwest Towns Sour on War as Their Toll Mounts provides some brief but intimate portraits of small-town folks coming to grips with the fact that the scion’s of their communities are coming home dead from an adventure they supported and even encouraged.

Retired electrician Bob Peck voted twice for Bush […] Peck would not vote for him again, even if he could.
Woody Marshall, a Vietnam War-era Navy veteran, described his own evolution as he trained his gaze on an elegantly stitched tapestry of a smiling Aaron Sissel in a VFW corridor. At first, he was "thrilled" that U.S.-led troops toppled Saddam Hussein and his tyrannical government.

(snip)

Like so many Tipton residents who saw the war delivered like an unwelcome package when the cortege passed, Pelzer realized that it took her son's death for her to focus on the war.

So where’s the counterpoint in this article, the “balance” we expect?

Where, for instance, is GOP representative Ann Coulter’s typical grief-counselor perspective? Strangely absent it seems.

How about a quote from the most famous war-widow in the US, Cindy Sheehan? Or the next-most famous, Mrs. Tillman?
There’s no mention of any effort to contact them for their view—perhaps the apparent reticence is due the intimate focus of the article and to introduce such “celebrities” into the story might detract from its essential tale.

The six weeks since have been a fog, she [Dixie Pelzer] said, an initiation into a parallel world occupied by the families of the 3,611 U.S. troops who have died in Iraq.

How about some quotes from those parents of the 3,611 who were actually opposed to the war-- not just from fear for their own sons and daughters lives but also from fear of the larger meaning and consequences of Bush’s and the Republican’s rabid and predictably destructive policies?

There is no time or column inches for them apparently; perhaps they aren’t victims the way these grieving staunch, twice-voting, moral, god-fearing family-values Republicans are.

No, there’s no sympathy for the anti-family, pro-abortion, homosexual-loving, tree-hugging, liberal, Democrat, immoral god-haters who opposed the war from the beginning and were branded traitors and lunatics by those who now bury their blind, bloodied and ignorant faith in the ground and weep over the bitter harvest they have sown.

Our sympathies should be with them for their personal loss, and they always have been from the beginning. But from them, to those liberal Democrat strangers who feared for others lives and railed in opposition of their likely waste have been called traitors and ghouls delighting in death by the champions of war and yet it seems no sympathy for the victimization of sage oppnents even now. is worthy of record.

Even now it seems there’s still no sympathy for the humanistic, altruistic, liberal “Devil”.

NOTE: I appreciate there are technical editorial contsraints on any story, but has anyone yet seen an MSM article or report anywhere that sympathetically adresses the pains of those who have lost their sons and daughters for a cause they knew was false but suffered the same sacrifice (or perhaps worse), despite their vehement oppostion?

Bush Budget

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/budget/2008/

"My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire." —George W. Bush, radio address, Feb. 24, 2001

In 2001 the US had a $128-billion surplus. Bush’s super-fast national debt reduction plan turned that into a $157-billion deficit by 2002. In other words he spent $285 billion to give me and millions like me a $300 refund (or about 85-cents a day extra).

“Tomorrow I'm going to talk about the size of the deficit. I'm not going to guess what that will be, but I can predict it's going to be substantially lower than it was three years ago.” ---George Bush July 12, 2007. Ohio.

Three years ago the deficit was 412 billion against a $100-billion drop in federal receipts since 2001.
From 2004 to 2005 the deficit dropped significantly from $412-billion to $318-billion. From 2005 to 2006 it dropped to $248-billion.
For 2007 the deficit is estimated to be $244-billion.
By 2012 George insists that the US will have a surplus again, of $61-billion

UPDATE: These figures of ACTUAL deficits and surplus from Page 13
http://www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.pdf
for the benefit of anyone who thinks I might use invented statistics to make my arguments.

Now this is all very complicated stuff, I’m no economist and George Bush is a complete clod BUT….

From 2001 to 2003 we went from a surplus of $128-billion to a deficit of $377-billion (total $505-billion). Of that we can assume say $100-billion for Iraq and Afghanistan and $285-billion for tax-cuts which are the extraordinary expenditures of the period. That leaves $120-billion of “miscellaneous expenses” (assuming national debt repayment didn’t change).

Now Bush’s Budget mid-session review says (emphasis added):

“This Budget improves the timeliness and specificity of the information provided to Congress and the American public about the cost of the war"

No it doesn’t; in as much as I couldn’t find anything that referred specifically to Afghanistan or Iraq.

“It shows the full cost of the war through the rest of the President’s term –and also provides detailed justifications.”

Again, no it doesn’t (as far as I could tell) though it does project increasing the DoD budget from it’s current $485-billion (-ish) to over $600-billion by 2012. (Oh, and we’ve heard all the justifications for war and they have been and are, all bullshit).

Given that there is zero chance that oil prices will [edit-only continue to rise-edit] drop (especially as the US continues to drag its feet on energy efficiency) it makes sense that Government expenditures will rise. But so will consumer costs, yet Bush somehow expects ‘reciepts’ ( otherwise known as income taxes) to rise without raising taxes—which he is totally agin’. He also has no plans to increase the tax “burden” on big business, so how will “receipts” rise? By the public paying more for taxed goods and services I assume.

And let’s not forget that Bush originally asked for something like $70 billion to get the Iraq War over and done with in one year with Iraqi oil revenues and a new free-market economy there expected to pay for the peaceful reconstruction.
These “supplemental” requests have increased each year (with every “success”) and now he’s asking for around $130-billion! Part of this increase has to do with the doubling of oil prices that his invasion has triggered and the occupation has sustained!

Add to this the assertion that “It shows the full cost of the war through the rest of the President’s term” which means he has no intention of bringing US forces home before he leaves office (but we all know that anyway). So for 2008 he’ll be asking for probably another $150-billion whilst the ‘receipts’ continue to decrease because the cost of living will continue to increase and the corporate world will maintain profits by passing increased costs to consumers and cut jobs whilst retaining their rebates and tax advantages—as long as Bush remains in power.

So where will the savings come from to drive down the deficit? Bush’s ass and our hides I reckon.

Harry Potter and the Enormous Pile of Political Cash

At the railway station of national politics there appear to be just two trains one can catch---the Republican Zephyr and the Democrat Local.

But unknown to the regular muggle passengers (many of whom seem to pick the wrong train, no matter what) there is another, invisible platform where sits a train waiting patiently to transport those with the gift to see it, to a place of mystery and wonder.

I am of course talking about the Hogwash Express which leaves Platform 9-3/4 % every four years, destination: The Third-Party School Of Magical Politics.

Every four years the school spontaneously burns to the ground and then, Phoenix-like rises from the ashes, re-invigorated, and sets out to challenge political reality with spells and incantations and promises of a new broomstick that will sweep away the cobwebs and dust-bunnies of complacency and banish the soul-stealing status quo to some prison tower, never to be released again.

But rather than increase enrollment with the usual parlor tricks, this semester The Third-Party School Of Magical Politics has created a muggle version of the Mirror of Erised with a new website mysteriously named Unity08 (I’m pretty sure if you jumble the letters and numbers you get to see a unicorn or something).

At this mystic portal ordinary muggles can “vote” for a presidential “ticket” compromising one Democrat and one Republican that will form their desired “dream team” for unity, one destined to confound the traditional party system and usher in a new era where for once politics won’t give you a pounding headache.

As Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post reports, the founders of Unity08 don’t want to create a “Third Party” but instead want to “force Democrats and Republicans to revamp themselves by becoming more issue-focused, responsive and candid.”

"What we are trying to do is to create a forum for people who are in the middle who have been left out of politics."

To accomplish these goals Untity08 is inviting disaffected ‘centrist’ voters, especially the “young”, to bypass the traditional party structures and selection process and choose their own Presidential and Vice-Presidential ticket via an internet ‘ballot’ with the only nod to reality being that one should be a Democrat and one a Republican.

Their theory is that most Americans are fed up with both parties, a belief backed by recent polling data, and are eager to shake up the political process if they can find an outlet.

Noting that about 85 percent of Americans use the Internet, Rafshoon [a Unity08 founder] said that "they can't all be extremists. There has got to be room out there for us."

These old political consultants running Unity08 can’t be this stupid and clueless about how presidential elections actually work.

I think they are just cynically trying to siphon- off cash from what will be a record season for public discontent and political spending. They only need to persuade 2-3% of the electorate to donate to score a few million dollars for themselves.

The Harry Potter fantasy is an original work of entertainment that has provided an unexpected and broad benefit.

The fantasy these Unity08 jokers are offering appears to me to be an unoriginal exploitation of reality with absolutely no benefit to anyone except its founders.

Check out their site here and judge for yourselves.

Patriot Games

It seems there is a surge of patriotism (or what passes for it these days) in various state legislatures and Minnesota in particular, which has just passed a bill requiring local government to officially use only US-sourced Stars and Stripes instead of imported ones.

“The biggest honor that you can give the flag is that it be made by American workers in the United States of America. Nothing is more embarrassing to me than a plastic flag made in China. This replica of freedom we so respect should be made in this country."

So said Minnesota House Democrat, Tom Rukavina, the bill’s sponsor.

Republican Rep. Dan Severson didn’t agree, arguing:

“That flag should be made throughout the world because it is our message to the world that there is hope for freedom and justice.”

Looking-out for American workers is a major plank of the Democratic Party platform whilst sheer jingoism and a sense of manifest destiny has become a Republican trademark so these representatives’ positions seem consistent with their party politics and policies.

Yet they still appear to be reversed from the “norm”--after all it’s the Democrat slighting the Chinese “plastic” flags and the Republican expressing a more “nuanced” global view (though on the other hand the Republican by implication is supporting outsourcing).

Regardless of the real and imagined ramifications of their respective positions on this new legislation, I’d say that beneath it all they do share a common perspective seemingly apropos to a nation that bears the word United in its name”--they are both united in a fantasy where nostalgic symbolism trumps reality.

Restoring the manufacture of the flag to its country of origin is nothing compared to restoring its original meaning, and no amount of arbitrary local legislation can do that.

Independence Day?

231 years ago, Americans rose up to claim freedom from the tyranny of a dictator wielding a massive military and a government oblivious to the rights of the common man.

No longer would they tolerate the appointed monarch, George, financing imperial ambitions in far-off lands from American taxes, nor suffer the intrusions of government agents and arbitrary rulings of George and his representatives, nor permit the promotion of politically and religiously connected cronies to act and govern in their own self-interest.

My, how far we have come since then!!

In Which I May Well Be a Jolly Good “Fellow”

To quote the Brookings Institution:

"For policy-makers and the media, Brookings scholars provide the highest quality research, policy recommendations, and analysis on the full range of public policy issues.
More than 140 resident and nonresident scholars research issues; write books, papers, articles, and opinion pieces; testify before congressional committees; and participate in dozens of public events each year. Over 200 research assistants and support staff contribute to the Institution's research, publishing, communications, fundraising, and information technology operations."

Bully for them! Sounds to me like it is a highly organized and well-financed cadre of dedicated and disciplined intellectuals bent on illuminating really important stuff and whatnot (and indeed it is).

I. on the other-hand, am one of those foul mouthed dirty f**king hippie bloggers that such luminaries as WashPo Ombudsman Deborah Howell and syndicated talking heads Richard Cohen, Bill O’Reilly, Charles Krauthammer and their ilk consider a threat to intelligent discourse on Subjects That Really Matter; like being respectful of privileged morons who get paid handsomely to shape public opinion and influence policy without accountability.

So it was with great interest that, (thanks to a tip from Cernig of NewsHoggers-- a regular contributor to Crooks & Liars) I was apprised of this recently-posted article by three fellows of the prestigious Brookings Institution entitled Why the Iraq war won't engulf the Mideast, and I quote:

“Yet, the Saudis, Iranians, Jordanians, Syrians, and others are very unlikely to go to war either to protect their own sect or ethnic group or to prevent one country from gaining the upper hand in Iraq.
The reasons are fairly straightforward. First, Middle Eastern leaders, like politicians everywhere, are primarily interested in one thing: self-preservation. Committing forces to Iraq is an inherently risky proposition, which, if the conflict went badly, could threaten domestic political stability. Moreover, most Arab armies are geared toward regime protection rather than projecting power and thus have little capability for sending troops to Iraq.” ( emphasis added)

My interest was piqued not just because this was contrary to the continued promotion of the 'conventional wisdom' of the Bush administration and its cheerleaders—even though they’ve been dead wrong in every prognostication--but because I’d read something strikingly similar and thus corroborative before, and I quote:

“The essential problem with the Republican argument [that withdrawal from Iraq will lead to region-wide chaos] is that it assumes that the political and religious dynamics in the Middle East are monolithic—which they demonstrably are not.
In all the Middle East conflicts and radical political shifts in power since WWII each country has pursued its own particular interests above anything else. Alliances and opposition have shifted according to rational need more than emotional desire.”

Both these excerpted analyses posit the same basic argument; that history, observation and dispassionate logic strongly suggest that the right wing and the Republicans are most probably wrong (for the umpteenth time) in their public prognostications. The Middle East is not monolithic and it is not bent on a collective course. It is in fact the fractures within its arbitrary collective rather than its commonalities that determine its political course (as is the case in the US and Europe).

But here’s what is most interesting to me about this subject:

The first quoted analysis was authored by three fellows of a professional think-tank supported by a staff of several hundred salaried colleagues and researchers.

The second quoted analysis was authored by me, a foul-mouthed dirty f**king hippie degenerate uneducated narcissistic blogger (not sure who to attibute that to)…FIVE MONTHS before the Brookings Institution Fellows got around to reaching the same conclusion.

My particular effort took about 4 hours of unpaid and concerted research which I didn’t link-to or footnote because otherwise my post would have been essentially unreadable.

Now I don’t mean to criticize the Brookings Institution for being slow off-the-mark, our respective timing regarding addressing the same subject is not necessarily relevant. But I think I can reasonably point out that by this example that critical thinking, intellectual discipline and pertinent commentary is not the exclusive domain of a self-validating and elite club.

This “concurrence” of analysis and opinion proves nothing with regard to the complementary arguments that have been made—time may prove us wrong—but it does strongly suggest in this instance at least that public status and social elevation has nothing to do with the essential validity of an argument.

I may be a foul-mouthed dirty f**king hippie degenerate narcissistic blogger but I think I can reasonably claim to have kicked the well funded, highly-resourced and reasonalby-respected Brookings Institution in the ass on this particular subject by dint of reaching the same conclusions FIVE MONTHS earlier and certainly with no more effort (and likely less), FOR FREE!!!

I should ask them for a job.

Admittedly the qualification is slim, but look at how well those who have been consisently and significantly wrong are doing! I think I'd make a jolly good fellow!

Blogtopia

Blogs are like opinions; everyone is an asshole…no wait, that’s not right…let me blame an overzealous imaginary “staffer” for that little gaffe, and start again.

Err-hmmm….

I try to avoid ‘blog-roll bloat’. Not that there’s anything wrong with a really long blog-roll, I just prefer to keep mine pretty short so I’m slow to add to it (I can always use others longer blog-rolls). But I have just added a new entry, The Newshoggers, and I’d recommend my guests to visit.

It has four quite prodigious contributors, and a simple layout with a very handy 'Label' subject search . The posts are smart, concise, wide-ranging, engaging and pointedly referenced. I know at least two of the bloggers have been guests on Crooks & Liars more than once so that speaks volumes I think. So check it out.