I have never read the Harry Potter books nor seen the movies, but I thought that this debate between Mrs. du Toit and James Hudnall over Harry Potter vs. The Lord of the Rings was very interesting.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:36 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Joe Beyrle is a Hero. For both sides.

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Ray Bradbury is pissed that Michael Moore used Fahrenheit 451 to name his movie. Anders has translated the details.

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OK, even those of you who don't like rap have to go listen to this. It's footage from Michael Tucker's movie, in which a Soldier raps about life in Iraq. It's a huge download, but I hope everyone can see it. That's pure talent.

(Thanks, Blackfive.)

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Best Friend says my husband swears more than anyone he knows. He's obviously never met these folks. They need a good ol'fashioned mouth washed out with soap...

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I meant to link to this the other day, but I said I wasn't blogging, even though I really was blogging, but saying I wasn't blogging was cure enough for what ailed me, so in my pseudo-not-blogging I didn't point this out. Whatever.

Amritas points to an article about some Holocaust survivors who lived in a cave in Ukraine for a year.

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Just found this old article: Soldier - and That's With a Capital 'S'
From now on I will make a conscious effort to use this spelling change.

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A couple of military links this morning:

1. If you can't get rank and unit structure right, what else are you getting wrong?

2. Check out the photo album of Smiles from Iraq.

3. Smash's contact says no way it was a wedding party.

4. And, John Kerry, this one is for you...

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Wow. Paris airports authority remove all mention of collapsed 2E.
I guess they threw it down the Memory Hole. Scary.

(Thanks, Merde in France.)

UPDATE:

Seb says it's not true.

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An Iraqi who was in prison under Saddam Hussein weighs in on Abu Ghraib:

Ibrahim Idrissi has mixed feelings about the recent uproar caused by the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib under the US occupation. "As a humanitarian organization, we oppose this," he says. "But these are soldiers who have come to Iraq to fight, not to be prison guards. It was to be expected. Of course, if there are innocent people in there ... it is possible, I guess, that some of them are innocent."

If Idrissi seems a bit callous about the fate of the Iraqis in US-run jails, he has probably earned the right to differ. He recalls a day in 1982, at the General Security prison in Baghdad:

"They called all the prisoners out to the courtyard for what they called a 'celebration.' We all knew what they meant by 'celebration.' All the prisoners were chained to a pipe that ran the length of the courtyard wall. One prisoner, Amer al-Tikriti, was called out. They said if he didn't tell them everything they wanted to know, they would show him torture like he had never seen. He merely told them he would show them patience like they had never seen."

"This is when they brought out his wife, who was five months pregnant. One of the guards said that if he refused to talk he would get 12 guards to rape his wife until she lost the baby. Amer said nothing. So they did. We were forced to watch. Whenever one of us cast down his eyes, they would beat us."

"Amer's wife didn't lose the baby. So the guard took a knife, cut her belly open and took the baby out with his hands. The woman and child died minutes later. Then the guard used the same knife to cut Amer's throat." There is a moment of silence. Then Idrissi says: "What we have seen about the recent abuse at Abu Ghraib is a joke to us."

(Thanks, Hud.)

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Amritas pointed out a great interview. I don't even know who Jon Schaffer -- or Iced Earth -- is, but I really like him.

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Oda Mae always shoots me good stuff in the morning:
Doctorow's Malpractice: Hofstra students use boos responsibly

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If you didn't see Iraq Now's comparison of misleading media quotes on Instapundit, you should read it.

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It has been a while since I first read the Americans Anonymous webpage, but thanks to Amritas I returned to it this evening. What a great site.

(Oh and yes, despite what I said before about using my French to read things in the original, I'd give anything to not speak French today so I wouldn't be able to understand this magazine cover.)

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Look, we may not get Tim's research and voice for much longer, so if you're not spending a few minutes every day scrolling through everything he unearths, you're missing out.

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Wanna feel your heart pound? Read this soldier's story, via Belmont Club.

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1 Thanks for linking to this tale of a horrible waste of life in the mess that is Iraq. A military fiasco if there ever was one. The REAL military hero of the day is General Anthony Zinni, who has come out to reveal how senior officials at the Pentagon are guilty of dereliction of duty -- and that the time has come for heads to roll.

Posted by: florian at May 24, 2004 09:13 AM (v5x9Y)

2 Ah, Florian. I love to read your comments. What do you call this alternative universe of yours? Where black is white, and EVERYONE finds a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Oh, to have such naive certainty. Let me guess, you probably believe that the American gov't had CIA Arab agents fly planes into the WTC to get us involved in the Middle East?

Posted by: Oda Mae at May 24, 2004 12:15 PM (kNDty)

3 If listening to Gen.Zinni and Gen.Taguba when they report on the disaster that is the Iraqi occupation is "naive certainty", I will take my chances. By the way another American miliary hero, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey, has further elaborated on the war crimes and massacres of civilians he participated in. Click on the name. It is the whistleblowers and those soldiers speaking the truth that have the real guts.

Posted by: florian at May 24, 2004 02:02 PM (vcCTr)

4 "EVERYONE finds a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow." Everyone, Oda Mae? Not Bush. No rainbows for dictators!

Posted by: Amritas at May 25, 2004 04:55 PM (otoZW)

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No wedding party. Thanks, Oda Mae.

(No time to blog: I have been slacking majorly this morning and still have 11 final papers to read.)

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(Via Hud) No one really cares about the WMDs after all.

(For those who get rap references, there's a WMDeezNuts joke out there somewhere...)

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The newest installment in my segment called Dead Horse Beating is from James Hudnall; he says everything that I learned this morning about prison scandals in one succinct post.

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And here I thought we couldn't blame anything else on President Bush...

(Thanks, Dave.)

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