Scroll down to "In a one-party state, the other group seems to be flexing its muscle." Keep reading up to (and through) "10 very good reasons why we shouldn't take out Saddam."

There was a shoot-out in Duluth, and the bad guy bought it at the finish. Hooray for the forces of good. Strangely, and this might just be my particular senstitivity, the Journal-Constitution says Gwinett SWAT officers never used their guns. Why not? If these particular police officers want to parade about in their paramilitary gear, festoon themselves with high-powered weaponry, and stencil "ARMED THUG" on their Kevlar vests, why aren't they running into the house to shoot the bad guy? If they aren't going to put themselves in harm's way, then why are they SWAT? What makes them more special than the regular police?

Arrrrgh!!!!!1! <FX: syringe makes another appearance>

A victory for transparency in those groups tasked with watching us: White House Appeals Wiretap Ruling. I spend enough time frothing at the mouth over the lack of accountability and reciprocity of the thugs who seem to comprise the majority of our police services, and it does my tiny black heart good to see the courts agreeing with me.

A trio of Palestinians dressed themselves as Israeli soldiers and tried to shoot up an IDF outpost in Gaza. The IDF returned fire and killed two of them. I'd like to congratulate the Palestinians for having the <whatever>-itude to actually fire at armed soldiers instead of just exploding a bomb in the midst of civilians.

Note, however, that the PA had asked the populace not to attack Israelis while a settlement is being negotiated. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade responded by opening fire. Tell me again how Arafat is helping the process?

Sure the FBI is incompetent and politically motivated, but they make up for it by doing their best to obstruct Congress, damn their eyes.

Arrrgh!!!!!1! <FX: huge syringe appears in-frame to administer a sedative>

Once again, America leads the world in irony and in-your-face-itude: Bill of Rights - Security Edition

We are a first-world country. We get accused daily of trampling on human right, oppressing the innocent, and otherwise being jerks. Surely we can do something to stop this from happening again! What's the point of being the global hegemon if we can't make the real aesthetic blight vanish?

BWA-hahahahahaha! The Problem Is Lack Of Understanding. I only wish I could think of this stuff.

Holy crap! The New York Times accidentally says something not entirely negative about the Enron investigation. It's madness! Chaos! Cats and dogs living together!

I think this shows real progress in the right direction for U.S. trade policy. Unfortunately, it's probably also going to encourage the EU to whine about all the things they don't like about us.

Given how expansive commercial copyright infringement really is, doesn't it seem strange that RIAA wants to sue individual U.S. citizens who might have swapped an MP3 sample of an Eminem single?

Doh! Why didn't we think of that? Those damned French are so clever! No wonder they lead the world in calls for International Law!

I only wish we had a coherent policy of trying to isolate Mugabe and remove him. Unfortunately, I don't think the U.S. is actually pursuing regime change here. Furthermore, I don't think we should be pursuing it here; we must stay on-message that the Middle East is much more critical to our national security, and that is where our efforts must be directed.

As would be obvious to anybody, Disney Corporation is fully committed to protecting copyright and trademark ownership rights for everybody. Everybody named "Disney," apparently.

For the last remaining people who imagined that television ever actually serves up a balanced debate, may I present Henry Jenkins, the director of MIT's comparative media studies program. He was invited to appear on "Donahue" to talk about videogame violence and its effects on children. He didn't exactly get the debate he was expecting.

Apple may be missing a real target here by trying to get people to switch to MacOS X from Windows, when they ought to be targeting Linux refugees. Unix people need a desktop too, you know.

A little smackdown: those who sponsor and support terrorism should be killed where they stand. Hear hear. My sympathy glands have long since exhausted their meager stores.

Eugene Volokh details his objections to deterrence as a means of dealing with Iraq. His position seems to be fairly well thought out, although since I agree with him I'm a poor judge of his ability to convince.

Steven den Beste writes long essays as a matter of course. Even for me, however, his current exposition on fault tolerant distributed computing is a monster. It starts off talking about cell phones, then wends its way through the Space Shuttle, distributed computing, and finally tails off into political analysis. I have enough trouble staying on-message for 1000 words, and here he goes demonstrating his godlike ability to remember where he's going while following many many many tangents. I wonder if that's a learnable skill.

Brink Lindsey makes the case that we should invade Iraq. Amazingly enough, other people disagree. Who knew?

Matt Welch says "Rise up, America, and support the freedom-loving seals!"

Lawrence Lessig clarifies his point from OSCON, that we collectively have done nothing politically to stop the steady erosion of our power by Big Media. It's mostly in the form of a letter to Dave Winer, but it's generally applicable. I must admit to being similarly guilty, in that I spend more watching movies than I do supporting the groups that oppose the movie makers.

What's worse is I'm still a resident of Washington, and consequently not even registered to vote here in Georgia so I can't even call my Congressman to register my displeasure. I am a loser.

The CounterRevolutionary says "it was really us" while snickering behind a raised hand. They posit their alternative theory of what happened at the Iraqi Embassy in Germany thusly: according to a New York Sun editorial, the Iraqi Embassy is the center of the Iraqi Secret Police, and the whole thing was a cover for Western intelligence pros to go photoduplicate the incriminating papers. It might even be true.

I'm almost but not entirely sure this isn't actually a joke, but maybe it is. On the other hand, it might be serious as a heart attack. Either way, I'm giggling.