I came across a blog post about the trend of criminalzing teenagers for being teenagers.  (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan , who also points the way to a must-read Economist editorial on this subject.) As a mother of a young son, this trend scares the hell out of me.  The graph, from Classically Liberal’s site (linked above), tells the story. Obviously, the graph isn’t sourced.  But the story it tells is poignant.  It looks to me that 14 year olds are the most dangerous people in the country, as it applies to sex offenses.

Is it the job of Gen. Stanley McChrystal to tell the POTUS what the military strategy should be in Afghanistan and threaten to resign if the President does not comply? Or is it rather Gen. McChrystal’s job to recommend a change in military strategy, wait for the President’s decision, and then carry out that decision as ordered? I am certainly no military expert, but I had always understood it to be the latter, not the former. To hear the wingers talk , though, you’d think the top commander in Afghanistan outranks the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S.

Via Sullivan and Yglesias , I see that various talking heads of the right seem to have initiated the age old dance of cannibalism , “I don’t rally people and haven’t since the first year of my radio show,” he wrote to POLITICO. “At that time, all local talk hosts were attempting to prove their worth by getting people to cut up gasoline credit cards, call Washington, etc. I thought it was cheap and disingenuous.

I had intended since I read it last week to post a link to Andrew Sullivan’s electrifying open letter to President Bush, and now I feel a little self-conscious about it since he linked to me just yesterday. His letter pertains to the systematic torture of prisoners sanctioned by the Bush Administration, and is obligatory reading for every conservative — and especially every conservative Christian — who supported what has been falsely characterized as tough but legal treatment of prisoners.

The Millions: The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far): An Introduction Ah, 1999… We laughed along with Chandler and Phoebe, invested our surplus Benjamins with Lehman Brothers, danced a national macarena. Those days seem like the distant past now, and in many ways, the first decade of the 21st Century has been quite different from the giddy future we might have projected. In one way, though, the new millennium has delivered: we’ve gotten great fiction, often from unexpected quarters.

DB – Sharpe Inducted Into Ring of Fame – Broncos TV DB – Week 3 – Mon: McDaniels – Broncos TV DB – Flipping the Switch – Gray Caldwell The decision to move to a 3-4 defense was an easy one for Josh McDaniels and Co. DB – Putting the “D” Back in Denver – Mike Rice CBS4 – Elway Says Brandon Marshall Should Be Careful – Jesse Sarles CSG – Altered state of consciousness directs Dawkins on field – Frank Schwab IDT – Key’s in the ignition for Broncos bandwagon – Hunter Ansley

Sorry, I missed putting in the link to Andrew Sulliva n in my previous post, so here it is . And here’s a comment and an article from Malou Innocent of Cato, who took a long trip through Pakistan and Afghanistan last year. The Register will have an editorial tomorrow. UPDATE: Couldn’t override the ‘here it is’ link so the link to Andrew Sullivan’s piece is on his name. Post from: Orange Punch