Why, immediately destroy the connection by leaking its existence it to Fox News, of course.

Just hours after “two senior officials” in the White House received the info, somebody chose the forgettable 24-hour partisan advantage of saying, whee, lookee what we got! over the obvious national security interest in keeping this backchannel surveillance of Al-Qaeda, which required years to set up, secret and functioning. There are children with better long-term judgment.

My appall-o-gland was exhausted long ago, but this made it twitch like it was 1999 again.  Oh, to be young again and not living under the thrall of these idiots.

Once again, as if it bears repeating for the 237th time: to this bunch, their own political advancement trumps national security, your safety, or any other concern.

If you’ve read Prisoner of Trebekistan, you may remember my final nemesis, Michael Daunt, winner of the Jeopardy! 1997 International Tournament of Champions, at one time arguably the best player in the world.

Michael was the last (of several) players to beat me over the years, but he’s a great, funny, brilliant guy, and we’ve stayed in fairly frequent touch ever since. Turns out he and some friends are just in the formative stages of launching a new online magazine called Quiblit, itself host to a series of ten other blogs (roll over "Hosted Blogs" for a list), none of which are nearly so hard to spell.

Worth a look. In a quick glance, "Man Bites Blog" looks particularly promising.

One warning: when Quiblit’s writers all refer to Thanksgiving as something that just happened, they’re not time-warped, they’re Canadian. The only time-warping involved entails living in a country where wars aren’t rushed into, health care and education are truly considered public issues of real import, and the environment is more than just a place to get and put junk.

I’m hoping that’s ten years in America’s future. Not part of some distant imaginary 1970s past.

First, if you haven’t read the full text of Barack Obama’s October 2, 2002 speech in opposition to the Iraq war — given nearly six months before the invasion began, while most of the country’s leaders in both parties were still in full smoke-’em-out mode — go take three minutes and read it.  Seriously.  Go.  You’ll see it wasn’t based on a knee-jerk opposition to war on principle, but because of the specific facts of the situation, plainly visible in advance.

You may be blown away by how clearly, accurately, and wisely an American politician can actually speak, at least when he’s not yet particularly well-known.  (Lately, not quite so much.  Obama not even showing up to vote against the Kyl-Lieberman Iran amendment was disappointing.)

In retrospect, Obama (in 2002, at least) displayed both foresight and political courage.  How do you discredit that?

Simple — by bizarrely equating factual correctness with weakness, as Fred Barnes did on Fox News over the weekend.  (Hat tip Media Matters, Atrios, and TPM.)

If knowing the facts = weakness, then the contrapositive case — not being weak = not knowing the facts — is the logical equivalent.  Compare and contrast:

Of course, this may have just been a slip of the tongue.  I mean, the ruling party in 1984 constantly preached against sex, saw perpetual war as an inherently stabilizing force, engaged in torture in a series of secret prisons, and were completely obsessed with domestic surveillance.  Um.  Hmm.

Maybe I should get this out of the way while I can:  Do it to Julia!  Do it to Julia!

OK, there.  We’re cool.

Go watch some actual footage of a live pudu birth. (Click on "Nacimiento Pudú" and enjoy.)

I have to warn you first, though — there are three stages in witnessing pudu mulitplication:

Now that you’re warned — and maybe putting away whatever you’re eating for a while — go for it.

The footage is the work of Fauna Andina, a private organization that works for the conservation and protection of Chilean wildlife, with reproduction and rescue centers tending to all manner of beasties. I gotta go visit these people someday.

By the way, the cheesy elevator music? Not their fault. All pudus naturally give birth with a soundtrack of cheesy elevator music. It helps keep predators at bay during this vulnerable time. Some big cat wanders up, smelling dinner, and next thing you know, it’s running away, holding its ears.

So every time you see a predator looking a little confused, like it’s trying to get a song out of its head? Somewhere a new pudu has been born.

From 1948, during his early fame, when he described himself as a "bleeding liberal":

This was before his film career petered out, he sold his soul to GE to keep the money flowing, and then spent the rest of his life reciting the facile maxims he first learned to repeat as G.E.’s hired shill.

Jarring thing to listen to.  (Hat tip the Red State Son.)

That would be like, I dunno, hearing Bush decry the idea of using the military in nation-building, warning against overextending the army because it hurts morale, and insisting that the exit strategy should always be obvious.

Oh, wait.  Right.