on the NIE ...

"Both the Democrats and the President are wrong ...
We as Americans need to get beyond not just Iraq but also beyond the September 11 retaliation era so that we can look at our adversaries and our potential enemies with a clearer eye, with some openness, and some compassion.
A lot more is needed today than getting out of Iraq.
If the Democrats had their way, and the 'war' against terrorism were just accelerated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, my guess is that 'it' would become the new 'cause celebre.' The 'war' against terrorism is the problem at this point, as is our simplistic view of ourselves and what we are fighting."
--William M. Arkin (complete article)

home

View from my hotel room balcony in Lincoln City, Oregon.

Whale sighting in Depoe Bay (back, then tail). The whale-watching cruise was amazing! It was a big migration day.

the chance of ultimate possibility

"The chance of ultimate possibility kept repeating itself in his head, a mad little chant that would not stop, nor did he want it to ... Everything is chance, and chance is everything ... Most people refused to believe that, because chanced frightened them. But that was only ignorance. Chance contained every possibility. Of course, some of it might be bad--that was what the ignorant dwelled on, and it was what frightened them--but a heartbeat away from what might be bad, unthinkably bad, was what might be unthinkably great, a bliss that even the gods would envy."
--Harry Crews, Celebration

no doubt

"If there is one class of person I have never quite trusted, it is a man who knows no doubt."
--Geraldine Brooks, March

the great middlemarch

"Don't take my word about Middlemarch. Take Virginia Woolf's. When I urge my friends to read Middlemarch, as I do all the time, I often explain that the reason I re-read it several summers ago was because I'd found, in Virginia Woolf's essay on George Eliot, her description of Middlemarch as 'the magnificent book which, with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people'" (more)
--Francine Prose, You Must Read This (NPR)

the fallacy in the question

Joss Whedon, genius creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Serenity, answers the question he gets over and over again: "Why do you create these strong women characters?"

"Recognizing somebody else's power does not diminish your own."
--Joss Whedon

veronica

Weevil: Uh, yeah, can we stay focused here? 'Cause if we're seen together by the wrong people, that would be bad.
Veronica: So, this is sneaking? I've got a pantomine-horse disguise you could use. Do either of you have any experience being a horse's ass?
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Lamb: Still picking winners, huh, Veronica?
Veronica: I told you, when I start picking losers, it's all you.
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Keith: I'm thinking about getting you some sort of... giant hamster ball, so you can roll everywhere in this protective sphere.
Veronica: It'd just draw attention to me. Nobody likes a blonde in a hamster ball.
--Veronica Mars

it's just showbiz

Today, Morgan Spurlock introduced a new regular segment on the CBS evening news.