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The Huffington Post has learned that, in a move bound to create controversy, the New York Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will become a weekly columnist in 2008.

This is EXACTLY what the New York Times needs, a second Jewish faux conservative to provide balance to the Jewish liberal, the other Jewish liberal, the other other Jewish liberal, the black liberal and the woman liberal. Which makes me wonder, where’s the Hispanic liberal and the gay liberal needed to complete the set? Instead of a credibility-challenged neocon, you’d think they could have found a gay Judeo-Hispanic liberal woman and killed five birds with one hire.

It’s most amusing to see all the neocons being forced to react to the increasing probability that the man with the means, motive and opportunity to murder Bhutto was responsible for her death. Someone better get an Osama tape together, stat!

Benazir Bhutto died from a skull fracture suffered when her head slammed against her car during a suicide attack—not from bullet wounds, the government said Friday. Pakistan’s interior minister blamed al-Qaida and the Taliban for Thursday’s assassination and said another key opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, is also under threat of militant attack….

Authorities on Thursday said Bhutto died from bullet wounds fired by a young man who then blew himself up, killing 20 other people. A surgeon who treated her said Friday she died from the impact of shrapnel on her skull.

But later Friday, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said all three shots missed her as she greeted supporters through the sunroof of her vehicle, which was bulletproof and bombproof. He also denied that shrapnel caused her death, saying Bhutto was killed when she tried to duck back into the vehicle, and the shock waves from the blast knocked her head into a lever attached to the sunroof, fracturing her skull.

I’m just surprised they didn’t call it a suicide by sun roof.

This is what it looks like when you have been metaphorically castrated. In public:

Bill told me I could take off the final week of the season, go 0-for-whatever and still beat him even if he picked every game correctly. I looked up the records and, sure enough, I’m leading him by 17 wins with 16 games remaining. I thought this was really funny and demanded to write his “picks” column this week. He agreed, although he probably loved the chance to skip writing so he could spend time on more important stuff, like watching NBA games that happened in 1985, or sending taunting e-mails about his latest League of Dorks championship.

If Spacebunny ever beat me at a networked FPS, military strategy game, or on the bench press, I think I’d have to commit seppuku with a Thrustmaster. I can’t even imagine what the Sports Guy is going through now. Our thoughts and prayers are with him.

As the OC often says, some battles are vicious only because the stakes are so very small:

In Vox’s case, I don’t feel he should be surprised when people he’s chosen to shake up and outrage have chosen to remain shaken and outraged, and yet from time to time, he is. Underneath that brassy exterior there is a very intelligent and thoughtful man, who once in a while comes up with an idea he really would like to see discussed soberly, calmly, and dispassionately, and on those occasions he seems genuinely taken aback to find that the people he would like to discuss his idea with are still holding a grudge over something he wrote years ago.

One of the most basic flaws in human character is the assumption that other people are essentially like us at heart. While I learned long ago that the most reliably self-defeating thing I could do was to assume that everyone was perfectly capable of understanding what I was doing or talking about, I still get caught off-guard from time to time in other areas. One of these is the concept of holding grudges, particularly intellectual ones. I’m simply not interested enough in most people to keep track of those I don’t like and don’t respect. This is why my friends are so amused when I’m accused of hating or being obsessed with someone for whom I’ve demonstrated complete contempt; as the White Buffalo once told a girl who was convinced that I had it in for her during our college days: “he doesn’t hate you, he has no idea who you are.”

In fact, the concept of disliking people simply because I disagree with them has never made sense to me, probably because my views are unusual enough that everyone, including Spacebunny, disagrees with at least a few of them. Sometimes I can win people over to seeing things somewhat my way, sometimes I can’t, but regardless of the result, it seldom affects the way I feel about them. Ideas are not character and individuals are far more than the sum of their ideas. Of course, they’re also less interesting than ideas, for the most part, but that’s neither here nor there. I suppose that the fact I don’t care what most people think on the basis of their relative retardation also makes it easier for me to separate the incredibly idiotic idea from the perfectly pleasant individual who happens to possess it.

So, it’s easy for me to forget that many people don’t think this way, and that the mere fact of disagreement, let alone criticism, to say nothing at all of open contempt for their ideas, is enough to stamp you with “THE ENEMY” for life. That’s why I got caught off-guard in the recent discussion at Mr. Stross’s blog, when the fat old women of the SFWA preferred to wax hysterical about my skeptical view of women suffrage – but NOT actually debate it, of course – rather than stick to the subject of the SFWA’s governance. I had no idea that their thick woolen granny pants were still knotted over a three-year old column on the incontrovertible fact that women prefer writing vampire sex novels and strong independent woman in space romances to hard science fiction; other than John Scalzi, Charles Stross and that hapless old hag Hayden, I couldn’t tell you who was involved in the original discussion if you paid me.

Now, it’s important not to put too much weight on the OC’s statement about my liking for rhetoric. He’s only talking about the part that’s used to push the emotional triggers of the brainless, not the core ideas. To give a recent example, look at the personal views of Steyn expressed in an article written about the Canadian human rights tribunals. If you read carefully, you’ll see that I don’t dislike Steyn at all, but my choice of the loaded words “overrated” and “overexposed” pushed the buttons that made his defenders overreact. Thank you, obedient bitches! But I fully hold to all of the controversial positions which I am defending with the occasional rhetorical provocation. Granted, the way in which I use sarcasm without the usual “WARNING: SARCASM AHEAD” signs can occasionally lead to confusion, but then, this blog is a two-way street and one has only to ask in order to receive clarification.

I should also mention that I cannot fathom why anyone who looks upon me favorably would EVER even THINK about the possibility of attacking the OC for being insufficiently enthusiastic about anything I’ve said, written or done. I expect my friends to freely disagree with me; their opinions and criticisms are the only ones I take seriously. Praise is nice, but honest, intelligent and constructive criticism is to be treasured.

Joe Carter notes that it can be a bit of a shock to finally recognize that many Republicans and so-called “conservatives” are every bit the mindless herd animals that their Democratic and so-called “liberals” regularly demonstrate themselves to be:

I have to confess that I’d always associated sheeplishness with the Left. Liberals, according to my stereotype, are more prone to collectivism and–despite what they might claim–invariably not a part of the “reality-based community.” Conservatives, I foolishly believed, were different. We relied on facts and based our opinions on sound arguments. We did our own homework and didn’t rely on other people to do our thinking for us.

I know, I know, it’s a silly delusion. Had I given it even a moment’s thought I’d have recognized the fallacy of my own bias. But until recently, I didn’t give it much thought. It was only after the pundits started repeating erroneous claims about a topic I knew something about that I realized that they really were, as their liberal critics often claimed, regurgitating the same talking points.

Most pundits are deeply clueless. You have to keep in mind that they are the sort of people who think they know all about Europe from a semester in London plus a two-week trip to Rome five years ago. Interviewing a general makes them experts in all things military and having once heard of something means they “know” about it. They’re NEVER held to account for being wrong; one thing I’d like to do someday is start a Pundit Prediction Percentage site tracking predictions and providing accuracy ratings for every significant commentator. Todd Seavey’s little summary of our new friend David Frum’s prophetic acumen indicates why such a site would be not only desirable, but downright useful.

…while Frum is very smart and writes well, if you take his advice on how to rebuild the GOP, you’re taking advice from the same guy who declared Bush The Right Man in 2003, ten years after he pronounced the conservative movement electorally dead in his 1993 book Dead Right — one year before the GOP took over Congress)

If history is any guide, Frum’s new book Comeback should represent the final nail in the GOP’s coffin for a generation. Anyhow, if this is a concept that happens to interest you, email me with PPP in the subject and tell me which pundit you’d be interested in tracking. I haven’t worked out the precise formula yet, but the inevitable New Year’s predictions coming up should prove to be somewhat useful.

While I’m enjoying my Christmas books, it can be a little depressing when you realize that in our arrogant ignorance, America is simply repeating a number of well-known errors of the past. In the very first chapter of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I noticed the following gems:

“The Emperor, greatly moved by the signs of the displeasure of Heaven, issued an edict asking his ministers for an explanation of the calamaties and marvels. A certain Ts’ai Yung replied bluntly that showers of insects and changes of fowls’ sexes were brought about by feminine interference in State affairs.”

I think I’d prefer showers of insects to a growing Nanny state, declining real per capita income and eight hundred thousand children sacrificed annually to the sacred cause of women receiving pieces of paper declaring their competence in Political Geography, Sociology and/or Vagina Gazing. And better to learn that the chickens are changing sexes instead of those sad psychological wrecks who think to find happiness in the surgical denial of their chromosomal inheritance.

“Tho’ fierce as tigers soldiers be,
Battles are won by strategy.”

The Eastern sages have known for centuries a basic truth that continues to escape the war cheerleaders in the commentariat. America’s soldiers can win every single clash of arms and America not only can, but almost certainly will, lose this war because its martial strategy, to the extent that it even exists, is entirely incoherent.

From Little Green Footballs: “Ron Paul blames the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on the “interventionist” policy of the United States”

From Mark Steyn, earlier that same day:“The State Department geniuses thought they had it all figured out. They’d arranged a shotgun marriage between the Bhutto and Sharif factions as a “united” “democratic” “movement” and were pushing Musharraf to reach a deal with them.”

So, the U.S. State Department’s clever policy was to send Bhutto back to Pakistan to inaugurate a shining new democratic era there despite her extreme unpopularity with the two major Pakistani political forces, which, unsurprisingly led to her getting killed. This assassination, amazingly enough, was quite likely at the behest of the man that the State Department was trying to push out of power on her behalf. (Motive, means, opportunity….) But, according to the very little, very immature minds at LGF, to blame her predictable assassination on the State Department’s intervention, or even describe that intervention in the politics of a sovereign nation as “interventionist”, well, that’s just crazy talk!

I’m increasingly coming to believe that Democrats are stupid, and Republicans are insane. Both conditions result in the advocacy of that which will inevitably lead to evil. In fact, that will be my explanation the next time someone asks me why I am a libertarian. I am a libertarian because Democrats are stupid and Republicans are insane.

There is no shortage of evidence to support this hypothesis.

UPDATE – this comment at LGF tells you all you need to know about the attachment of LGF and media “conservatives” to human liberty:

“I’d vote for Hillary before I would Ron Paul.”

Yeah, we’d sort of figured that one out already. And why wouldn’t they prefer Hillary Clinton to Ron Paul, given that their favored candidates share at least 75 percent of Clinton’s policy positions?

Or is that, the weasel lawyers? It’s really synonymous, isn’t it? Despite much bobbing, ducking, weaving and trying to point out that America’s free speech rights are not absolute, the Canadian lawyer never quite gets around to directly answering my point:

Finally, if Mr. Day is to characterize my mention that Canada does, in fact, have constitutional protection for freedom of expression as “pulling a fast one,” I am wondering how he anticipates readers might view his erroneous suggestion that Canada does not?

I shall repeat my post for the benefit of Mr. Wise and anyone else incapable of understanding how the nebulous terms of the limits on Canadian free speech “rights” negate them entirely:

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

The reason Mr. Wise still refuses to post this part of the text despite having posted the following section from it is because doing so would lead to the inevitable demonstration that the “reasonable limits” currently being applied to Mr. Steyn’s speech have been repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada. Moreover, Mr. Wise conflates civil and criminal law in his attempt to demonstrate that American free speech rights little different than Canada’s so-called “rights” while skipping over the fact that the truth is an absolute defense in the case of perjury, slander, libel and so forth while it is manifestly not in the case before the various Canadian human rights tribunals. As for national security and other exceptions, they are overt VIOLATIONS of unalienable American rights by the U.S. federal government, they are not proof that the rights never existed in the first place.

So what, precisely, are those “reasonable limits”? And are the tribunals legally empowered to define them in the absence of any specific legal definitions? Inquiring Americans would like to know.

Can you find the factual errors? There are four objective ones – plus an additional five if you’re willing to get subjective, but reasonable – in this one paragraph alone:

Many of you are doubtless unfamiliar with Ted “Theodore” Beale, better known as completely insane person Vox Day. Foxy Voxy is a Christian Dominionist libertarian, a pairing that makes no earthly sense, as it’s impossible to force people to worship Jesus while still preserving personal liberty. Vox has written some horrible, horrible works of fiction, and his dad is a notorious tax cheat who fled the country rather than go to jail for tax evasion. But Vox is most famous for his personal blog and his column at WorldNetDaily (purchased, I must note, by his father, who was one of the principal founders of the site). In that blog, Vox generally attacks women and minorities, and both if he has his mojo working. But Vox doesn’t just attack women — he despises them. Vox makes MRAs move away, slowly, while muttering about his needing to calm down about the ladies. Vox, in short, is just a cavalcade of evil, and I’ve been tracking him off and on for some time now.

Good times, good times. The comments are particularly amusing; the level of mental acumen of the women there, unsurprisingly, is such that they actually think the above passage constitutes a “takedown”. Hey, this one’s new: It boggles my mind that any self-respecting (or not!) woman would sleep with this guy.. Of course no “self-respecting” woman would, since the proper translation of the feminist term “self-respecting” is “fat, ugly, and unpleasant”. I prefer my women to be hot, slender and blonde, as God intended them to be.

I particularly enjoyed the irony of how one woman claims I “stalked” her – I have no idea who she is but apparently I linked to her post about one of MY columns – in light of Feckles statement about “tracking” me. I hate to disappoint dear Mr. Fecke, but I’m afraid he’ll have to battle Michael Medved for my favors.

This time, they got her. Are we actually supposed to be surprised by this? To me, it was inevitable and the only real question is who got her? It might have been the jihadists, or as some of her supporters obviously believe, it could have been the current military regime which was basically handed carte blanche to get rid of a rival while blaming it on the jihadists after her return to Pakistan.

Shrieking headlines notwithstanding, I don’t see it being of much global significance one way or another as she wasn’t popular enough to return to power anyhow. Unless the neocons were seriously thinking of invading Pakistan and installing her as a puppet like Hamid Karzai – and let’s face it, they’re crazy enough to have considered it – I don’t see this as being either unexpected or internationally problematic.

UPDATE – I haven’t been paying any attention whatsoever to Pakistan, so it’s interesting to learn that according to Bhutto’s former neighbor, Mark Steyn, (!?!), the postulated neocon craziness I mentioned was, apparently, part of the grand plan for World Democratic Revolution:

The State Department geniuses thought they had it all figured out. They’d arranged a shotgun marriage between the Bhutto and Sharif factions as a “united” “democratic” “movement” and were pushing Musharraf to reach a deal with them.