Excellent, excellent piece by Hitchens...but I can't help feeling that he -- and Mark Daily -- used their considerable intellects to justify a bad decision.

What exactly is cool about the "spiders on drugs" video. It's fake, pretty racist (with the crack drive-bys etc.) and pushes the myth that marijuana leads to crack. I hope you meant it's cool as an example of a stupid anti-drug message that's bound to fail.

Here are few more "Quite Interesting bits" about spiders including a bit about the effects of drugs on spiders. (Not Satire)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22THkoKtTY0
(from the British Tv series, QI)

Corney would have been a better word.

I wish more of the pro-war advocates would have the same sense of moral obligation to the ones they so readily sent off to fight for their errors as Hitchens expresses in this article. I think every Democrat running for president who voted for the "resolution" to invade Iraq should read this, should apologize to the families of soldiers they helped get killed and express to the nation their remorse for enabling this mad rush into a phony and corrupt war for profit and lies.

Hitchens seems to admit that while his intentions may have been for the best, his words helped give credence to the ideas of madmen that should never have been allowed to commit this atrocity. It doesn't appear he is against the idea of the war yet but he seems to have at least learned that it is a terrible situation that doesn't merit the lives of good men like Daily or thousands, if not millions of lives that have been lost like his. Wouldn't it be nice if the rest of the media and the politicians who drove us into war had the same strength of character to say as much?

A heart-rending article by Hitchens. I have long been of the opinion, that of all the advocates for war, Hitchens was the most eloquent - totally wrong, but eloquent. I'll also give him some credit for at least giving the consequences of his position serious consideration, even as he still seems unable to give serious consideration to those who opposed the war from the outset. I wonder when, if ever, we will hear Hitchens' final mea culpa on Iraq.

The Mearsheimer and Walt interview was also excellent - great stuff today Norm!

One of the most striking points made in the interview came with the discussion of the war in Lebanon and with the differences of the way it was discussed in the US and in Israel. Clearly, there has been more government-level debate on Israeli policy even within Israel than there has been within the US government. These guys are extremely reasonable and evenhanded in discussing the Israel lobby.

Here is the myspace of Daily for anyone interested:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=46348938

Rearguarding Archimedes, it seems an internal rot, dark ages started in the Mediterranean when the naked-truth Greeks were eclipsed by pompous Rome, Inc. The Cross-religion was just a desperate overcorrection, 5 centuries too late. What a symbolic overwriting. The faint letters shine through from another dimension. Into the twilight zone that is our default zone. We substitute doing for thinking, and still survive, sort of, enigmatized. German, American, Roman engineering, all were or are, awesome, but still...

Look at Blackwater, how Roman is that? All they need to do is start crucifying evil-doers by the way and we'll visibly be the Fourth-Reich/Beast incarnate. Fascist Fisters,... on the same subject,

How 'bout them rugose rockers? Rugose individualists, cor-rugated Rock of ages. Anglo-American decadence for an Indian-summery century.

Holy she/it.