I hate to require two items in a single day, but this is the most sober analysis you’re likely to see on the abuse scandal.

Warts and all.

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As always, Jim Dunnigan catches the most interesting angle on the Big Story:

Shias and Kurds have been watching with interest as the Arab world gets indignant over charges that American soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners. Shias and Kurds recognize that the vast majority of these prisoners are Sunni Arabs arrested for attacking, or supporting attacks, on Shias, Kurds and coalition troops. The pictures of abused prisoners bring feelings of satisfaction, not disgust, to Shia and Kurds who have lost so many family members to decades of Sunni terror. Al Jazeera

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Speaking of the Oil-for-Food scandal, why isn’t the White House saying anything at all?

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Tcobb writes:

Are there any leftists out there who advocate judging Koffi Annan by the same standards that they insist Rumfeld should be held to? The UN scam-for-oil situation is pretty repulsive.

Indeed.

To clear things up, Oil-for-Food involved billions of dollars of oil, millions of dollars in kickbacks, to help a murderous regime survive and prosper. The abuse scandal looks to be one of the uglier chapters in American military history — but so far, it doesn’t involve anyone lining their pockets to prop up a dictator in palaces and steal food from the starving.

Surely, Kofi must go, yes?

UPDATE: *crickets chirping*

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For those who are without a clue, here’s what “outrage” means, and why we won’t see it.

Outrage means playing the beheading story with the same intensity as the abuse story, and for just as long. Fair and balanced, as they say.

Outrage means calling for the swift and terrible punishment of those who murdered an American, with as much force as we demand the punishment of those abusive soliers.

Outrage means that the murder of a civilian should steel our courage, even more than the abuse of detainees detracts from it.

Outrage means demanding the dispatch of the killers — without all the snide Washington-insider slipperiness of those calling for Donald Rumsfeld to get canned.

Outrage means there’s no excusing the murderers as “just savages,” (with all the racism that implies) while holding us to a higher standard. There’s one standard, period: decent behavior. Abuse is bad. Murder is worse.

We clear?

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Bill Quick has an interesting observation on gay marriage, Kansas, and California.

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Ed Lambert sent me this, so you know it’s click-worthy.

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For those new to this blog, thanks to Instapundit‘s kind linking today, let’s get one thing clear: I am not in any way excusing the horrible behavior and criminal acts of some of our soldiers in Iraq. From a post from last week:

We know how to deal with them [the abusive soldiers]

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I like Teresa Heinz Kerry. She

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George Will:

Americans must not flinch from absorbing the photographs of what some Americans did in that prison. And they should not flinch from this fact: That pornography is, almost inevitably, part of what empire looks like. It does not always look like that, and does not only look like that. But empire is always about domination. Domination for self-defense, perhaps. Domination for the good of the dominated, arguably. But domination.

And some people will be corrupted by dominating.

Read the whole thing already.

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Where’s the outrage over this story?

CAIRO, Egypt – A video posted Tuesday on an Islamic militant Web site appeared to show a group affiliated with al-Qaida beheading an American in Iraq (news – web sites), saying the death was revenge for the prisoner-abuse scandal.

The video showed five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks, standing over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit who identified himself as an American from Philadelphia.

After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and cutting off his head with a large knife. They then held the head out before the camera.

I guess the American wasn’t naked.

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The HELOC went through. Back to regular blogging just as soon as I’ve caught up with the news.

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. . .but just a pictorial reminder of why I do so love the Summer Games.

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Don’t let my wife see the granite window seat — or I’ll be out another couple grand.

That, and she might sneak off to Minneapolis and sneak back with Jasper.

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Are you, dear lefty, a real patriot?

Take a little quiz and find out for sure.

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Frustrating day.

We’re in one of those no-fun-news cycles, which is hell on a guy who likes a happy cocktail with his evening reading. Well, that and Melissa and I have been trying to get a home equity line of credit from The First National Bank of Bending You Over Without Even Buying You A Nice Dinner.

I mean, it’s not like we were eyeing the lobster tank next to the maitre d’ stand or anything. A six dollar burger would have been fine

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Funniest thing I’ve read since the last time Jeff G posted something.

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Is the EU ready to do something sensible? Read and judge:

A European Union offer to stop subsidising farm exports was hailed this afternoon as a boost for the world

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Payback is a bitch, PETA.

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Here’s a story to watch:

U.K. Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said there are signs that photographs the Daily Mirror published purporting to show British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners may be fake.

“There are strong indications that the vehicle in which the photographs were taken was not in Iraq during the relevant period,” Hoon told members of Parliament in London. The photos showed troops urinating on an Iraqi in the back of a truck.

The comment casts doubt on accusations that British troops tortured Iraqis. Polls show those charges have hurt the approval rating of Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said accusations of abuse by U.K. troops are still being investigated.

More details as I find them.

UPDATE: The Mirror stands by its story and photos.

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Like the music of David Hasselhoff, it seems Germans just can’t get enough Noam Chomsky!

Medienkritik has the full story.

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From StrategyPage:

Israel is apparently preparing to conduct a long range bombing mission to destroy Iranian nuclear weapons development facilities. Iran has denied trying to build nuclear weapons, but journalists and international nuclear weapons inspectors have found otherwise. It is thought that Iran might assemble its first working nuclear weapon as early as this year. The Islamic conservatives who dominate the Iranian government, and run the nuclear weapons program, loudly and regularly proclaim that Israel and the United States are the greatest enemies of Islam and must be destroyed. Israel made a similar raid on an Iraqi nuclear facility in 1981. The targets are 1600-2500 kilometers away. Getting through Jordanian air space is not a major problem, as the use of surprise and electronic warfare techniques can disable Jordanian air defenses temporarily. Getting through Iraqi air space is not a problem either, although there will probably be an “understanding” that American jets and anti-aircraft missiles in the area will not fire on the Israelis.

I’m posting this story now, just so that certain idiots will have the chance to denounce the Israelis before they do the right thing.

Go on and click on the Drinks, idiot — you know you want to.

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Michael Fumento on oil:

What about the future? According to a just-released Energy Information Administration report oil production will continue to steadily increase until the last year of the projection, which is 2025.

But oil consumption will continue to increase. This will be partly from population growth, albeit growth that’s leveling, and partly from worldwide improvements in living standards. Even so, if consumption continues to increase at an average rate of 1.4 percent a year and not a single new drop is found, we still won’t exhaust proved reserves until 2056 according to a 2003 National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) report.

Further, the “nice aspect” of high oil prices, if those driving around in gas-slurping SUVs will forgive the term, is that they are the greatest motivator for discovering and exploiting new reserves.

This includes Canada’s oil sands, containing a tar-like substance convertible to oil. These hold an estimated 1.7 trillion barrels of petroleum, of which 255 billion barrels is currently considered recoverable. Oil sands worldwide could provide more than 500 years of oil at current usage rates, calculates the writer of the NCPA report, David Deming. He’s a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Oklahoma.

Maybe the sky isn’t falling so fast, after all.

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I beg everybody’s pardon for this brief exercise in self-indulgence.

Today Lileks mentions a book he’s just finished on the building of Rockefeller Center in New York. Along the way, he notes that

the guy who did the interiors for Radio City Music Hall is dead, very dead

… and no doubt that’s correct. However, the guy who did all the original lighting for Radio City is not only very much alive (at age 97), he’s also my wife’s grandfather. Dudley Chambers designed and oversaw the installation of what was then the most advanced indoor lighting system in the world when Radio City was built in the early 1930′s. His system stayed in constant use for 67 years, until 1999, when it was overhauled and updated. The Radio City powers-that-be invited Dudley in for the grand re-opening, in recognition of his original work.

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. . . most people hit the snooze button.

But that’s not the point. The point is, what the hell is a professional pollster doing calling the election six months early? Read:

I have made a career of taking bungee jumps in my election calls. Sometimes I haven

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We have a winner to the latest caption contest.

In third place is Dan, with “I decided against eating the popcorn before I ate it.’

Second place goes to Eric Akawie, for “Jonas never talked about his time in the popcorn mines of Bratislava, but you could see it in his eyes.” (So sue me — I like the goofy ones.)

And the winner is. . .

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One Briton already knows which way he’ll vote on the EU Constitution referendum:

The decision over the Constitution is probably the most important Britain has faced since World War II. I will vote against it for several reasons. Most important, a genuinely democratic constitution, like that of the United States, defines the limits of power of the state over the individual. Yet the draft European Constitution is almost entirely about amassing power for a superstate. It is antidemocratic, dangerous and throughly out of date.

What’s shocking here isn’t Anthony Beevor’s opinion of the EU charter. What’s shocking is, his piece was published in today’s New York Times.

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