'kin A.

Ditto to PB's inimitable turn of phrase. Okay, I've been scarce but I've been rolling on the floor in stitches, considering the notion of warblogging debates. I agree; what rules? These are blogs. I express myself. Fuck the rules. And everything else you mention. Yep, it's good to have you back in the trenches, Shell. Em, no I didn't mean... ah, stuff it. Fly high... and keep telling it like it is.

[Jonathon must be insufferable as a person. I use the word 'elegant' to describe him and you opt for 'honor' and similar superlatives. Big J, are you really real :)?]

Cut that out, Mike! Jonathon is a gentleman. And what are you, sir?

(There. Was that good flamebait? I'll try again if it wasn't!)

Bb, for what it's worth, I have spent much too much of my life screwing up in ways as bad or worse than what you've been talking about. You've got so many more tough points than I do that it's hardly worth doing the comparison -- yet I have survived. I hope that at least hints that you'll make it, too.

Gary, you do have a way with words.

Mike, I had hoped to have a good dialog, but I'm finding that the tactic with the warbloggers is to copy your posts to their weblogs, in which case the warbloggers can then comment there rather than here. And, the warbloggers link to themselves and say things such as 'scroll down and follow the links to find the whole story', as demonstrated by Glenn Reynolds -- if they can't control everything, they don't want to play. Unimpressive. Sad.

As for Jonathon, Jonathon is Jonathon.

Dorothea, your flamebait was too friendly. Besides, Mike's saving his ire for the warbloggers and Bush.

Something I just read ... the libertarian party is anti-war on Iraq: http://www.lp.org/press/archive.php?function=view&record=598

InstaPundit ain't no libertarian.

Yeah, 'specially if you append a 'sir' to that mild-steel hook, Dorothea. It makes me look insufferably honorable and elegant as well :). I know Big J's a gentleman - I try to emulate him but find it extremely difficult to keep up.

I agree on the debating issue, Shell, it's a no go. Warbloggers cannot seem to get it into their thick skulls that people might have valid grounds for opposing Bush's policies [and Sharon's, for that matter]. This gets to the 'rules' of debate. I don't debate on the blogs because I tried it with my good friend Mike and he had Mossad attack my house with tanks and mortars. One of the rabbits was killed. I've forgiven Mike but I think he felt guilty and took his own life. Readers' Digest now does his blog for him [the shame, you know]. I therefore use my blog to sound off. That's what it's there for. I'm not a journalist [like my new friend and employee, Geitner] and am not subject to anybody's code of ethics. I've not exchanged a word with this 'Glenn Reynolds' chappie and so know nothing of him besides all the dirty stuff I see on his blog [and what Geitner tells me, of course - but Nick's looking into that]. So there's nothing personal in my slagging these guys off - in fact, I find some help me interrogate my own beliefs [very occasionally].

I've put myself in George's shoes a couple of times as well and have done so again today, without referring to any sources - thinking aloud as it were. If I *were* in his shoes, surrounded by those guys with guns, I might well choose the same course of action as he has done [after sitting on the plans so that I could make a quick killing on the markets while bin Laden makes quick killings elsewhere - after all, one has to cover oneself these days and buy forward, using the information at one's disposal].

That said, I'm not in his shoes. I might be wearing a pair of Iraqi sandals and, from where I now stand, George's world view sucks. He's a politician and a pragmatist - he will milk September 11, 2002 for all it's worth and conclude he's done well at the cost of fewer than 3,000 dead [for reasons I blog]. As an Iraqi, I'm not overly keen on all this rhetoric about invasions and "regime changes", especially if it involves thermobaric pressure bombs being dropped on my head.

Politicians are strange people; I've known many. We elect them to do the things for which we've no stomach but they are also astute and their appreciation of reality is very different to ours. Their reasons for doing things are not immediately apparent and it is up to us to find out what they're doing and if we don't like their long-term goals, we have to do what we can to stop them.

Warbloggers do not do this. They are filled with fear and hate. They are also dumb [no need to flame back here - I say all these things on my blog and you can argue differently there]. They react to what they see (media, right-wing tracts, KKK, anti-Semitic literature, etc.) and act out their inner frustrations on their blogs - definitely not healthy stuff. They want to see lots of dead people, if only because of nebulous feelings such as "They deserve it."

I served two years in the military as a conscript and have lived through a low-intensity civil war. I go with Jonathon on people calling for war to state their military credentials or experience of such situations. I believe few former military personnel would volunteer for this ludicrous venture. Those in the military might - it's their job. But former soldiers who are aware of the politics behind it, no. War is hell. Period. It's something decent people are forced into as a last resort, and there are absolutely no good or morally justifiable grounds for starting a war with Iraq.

I will continue to sound off, but I hope that, while doing so, I give good, sound, and logical reasons for feeling as I do. Somebody with a gun might just be listening and they'd need good reason to put it down.

I tried to give a debate, but the participant picked up his marbles and goes home. And I don't know if its because my arguments are weak, strong, or if he'd rather debate with Jonathon and Alan because their guys, and I'm a woman. I don't know.

As for addressing comments to Jonathon, you all should consider doing this in his comments, not here. There's no guarantee he reads my comments.

Oh yes I do. I carefully peruse every word in my elegant, honorable, gentlemanly, insufferable way.

And no, Shelley. Olsen seems to have lost interest in debating with Alan and myself -- although it's questionable whether he has any interest in "debating" (as the term is commonly understood) with anyone.