Roy Silvernail (Rant Central) muses on his addiction:

What would be intrinsically wrong with Nicotine Tic-Tacs?

I think it’s because they wouldn’t kill you.

Why “we” went to war, version 7 or so: Rummy says

You do not defeat Al Qaeda until you stabilize the Middle East, and that’s not possible as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.

(Cited, for other reasons, by Tom Parmenter (Desperado).)

Conservatives by definition have an exaggerated regard for stability, but this is a strange kind of stabilizing; things settle down sooner, in my experience, if kept away from explosions. Anyway, wasn’t Saddam’s state tolerably stable over the previous twenty years?

At Brainwash, Sara Hinson analyzes the frontier ethic represented by Mal Reynolds of Firefly.

(Only 33 days to go!)

Got a spam this evening, titled abridge, whose entire content is the word ammunition.

Pillow, the kitten, has evidently decided that being picked up and carried by the Big Animals ain’t so bad; he even makes a game of it: runs away and then lies down, sometimes repeatedly.

I hope you’re not too dismayed at finding this column dominated by drivel about cats. It’s because my present assignment has a longer commute than most, plus my insomnia has been acting up a bit.

Spiegel Interview with African Economics Expert

If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

(Cited by FFF in the daily for July 18.)

Pillow is adding to his repertoire: after a month largely spent crawling under things, in the past day or two I’ve seen him for the first time climbing onto things: a stool, a chair, a coffee-table, my bed. He seems a bit dazed at the novelty.