Michael Totten introduced me to a new centrist blog project called Donklephant, which debuts today with an essay I wrote in the aftermath of the London attacks: Driving.
Donklephant's mission is to appeal to people who are weary of the partisan divide. In time, we'll see what crowd that attracts, but I thought it was a worthy project. I'll be posting there twice a month as a modest professional gig, along with Michael and other contributors such as Callimachus, Jeff Thompson, and humorist J. Thomas Duffy. Donklephant is edited by Justin Gardner.
Wish us luck -- things are still raw there. Life is good here on Winds of Change -- a lot of the bugs have been thwacked, and I'm still a Winds team member and Marshal.
Oh, and I designed the Donklephant mascot. Truly, a freak of nature.
Thought your blog can pick these links as good things to reports and work on
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050712-5.html
http://www.nysun.com/article/16897
Supercena:
"All"? Probably not. But the recent terrorist acts include acts that appear to have been in planning for several years--longer than the Coalition has been in Iraq. To pick a single item: I don't think Theo van Gogh's seven-bullets-and-a-throat-cutting death had anything to do with Iraq.
Economists talk about "the broken window"--there are hidden costs in every eventuality. So it's kind of hard to calculate. As for the rest of your heartfelt sentiment:
I must have missed the part where the US Government chops off people's hands, cuts out their tongues, and brands Xs on their foreheads.
If someone rescued me from that, flowers wouldn't be nearly enough.
/s/
Nortius
There's a blog out there called The LEO Test, which might be useful on Donklephant, as it explodes at least some of the partisan rhetoric we see by looking at their underlying ideologial axes (and, perhaps, making it a bit more clear under the table why we need all of them)... hold on, hunting for an url... here we go:
http://theleotest.typepad.com/the_leo_test/2005/06/prolegomena.html
I second Russ's suggestion about "theleotest". I can't speak for where the author goes with it, but it's a worthy attempt to examine aspects of government and groups of similar thinking.
The provocative chart is roughly as follows (apologies for the poor formatting):
Person's
Emphasis: less extreme more extreme
--------------------------
Liberty -- libertarian -- anarchist
Equality -- liberal -- communist
Order -- conservative -- fascist
I'd have picked "Stability" instead of "Order", but that is probably a quibble.
#5 Supercena:
You just "moved the goalposts". I agree that Saudi laws are draconian and cruel. I do not agree that Saddam was merely that cruel--he was worse.
And I am sure you know the answer to your question includes that Saudi Arabia hasn't invaded Kuwait lately, or shot at US planes enforcing UN sanctions, and, most importantly, that one needs to choose one's fights carefully.
Even if the US is the "world's policeman", it's a principle based in fact that the police can't be everywhere. And do not take my saying that as evidence that I believe the US is, or ought to be, such police.