During the months after the Haditha story broke, I became the target of bloggers, self proclaimed patriots, for supposedly dragging the fine reputation of the Marines through the mud. Nothing about this story made me feel good save for one thing: until TIME's investigation, one of the Marines — the squad leader, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich — was in line to receive a medal for heroism for what he did that terrible day. According to press reports, the recommendation says that Wuterich, 26, displayed "calm and confident decisiveness that day and doubtlessly prevented further injury or death to fellow Marines and innocent civilians." Today, Wuterich faces 13 counts of unpremeditated murder. None of his victims were armed; most were the elderly, women and children.

I'm glad Wuterich didn't get his medal for "heroism." It would have been a grotesque travesty of justice, and against everything my father taught me was clean and honorable about the Marine Corps.

Again and again and again, the treasonous Antique media rush into print with hugely damaging stories without so much as even a gesture toward checking facts. Swathes of anti-Bush, anti-military editorial follow, all enormously helpful to the enemy. The moral fibre of the populace is successfully eroded.

Adolf will not be surprised if within six months, like the Berlin Wall, the so called insurgency in Iraq is over and then ordinary people in the west will ask "How come it happened so quickly? The media told us all was lost."

Not me; I forget names, but I have a well-developed amygdala. Others not so much. A writer I know once forgot his ex-wife.
The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham once ran into a lady in Fortnum and Mason. While he did not recognise her, he vaguely recalled that he knew the lady’s sister and inquired after her health. Still no closer to establishing the identity of his companion, he asked: “And what’s she up to these days?” "Oh, you know, still Queen,” came the reply.

A study this year by Peter Stott at the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Change found that warming over the past 50 years could only be explained by climbing emissions of greenhouse gases. A 1C rise in the past five decades was only reproduced by climate models when human-induced greenhouse gas emissions were included.

Smith concluded that human beings were by their nature both self-regarding and other-regarding and that political economy should reflect both these concerns. Hayek also recognises the existence of both natures but concludes that one is primitive, and the other modern; that the primitive must yield to the modern; and that part of the the purpose of the market is to re-engineer primitive altruism out of the human condition altogether. Christian enthusiasts for the neoliberal agenda should reflect carefully on where Hayek may be taking them on this count.

No. 2 in a series

Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis. This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not “lose.”

Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist.