First they came for the smokers...

...and I said nothing because I wasn't a smoker.

I return to note the return of a blogger far greater than I

More insightful stuff later this week, I hope. For now, though, I'm just delighted that Michael Berube, last seen on the internets immediately prior to the manifestation of the Giant Nuclear Fireball, has resurfaced at Crooked Timber, thus making that already awesome website even more awesome.

So why are you still here, exactly? I even linked to it and everything...

It's Official

Italy is worse than useless as an ally. Not content to pay multi-million dollar ransoms and assist in smuggling terrorists/insurgents to secure the release of photogenic aid workers in Iraq, the Italian government has now released Taliban fighters in order to secure the release of a journalist in Afghanistan. The Italians have made fairly useless military contributions to Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, when their base got shelled, they ran away. No, really - they got in their vehicles and ran like screaming girls to the Americans. In Afghanistan, they embody the pathetic European reluctance to actually fight the Taliban (honourable exceptions: British, Dutch, Romanians). But to actually release dangerous fighters to buy your way out of a politically difficult situation is surely a new low. They know that these men might well kill the soldiers of their allies. But they don't care. Their shameful tradition of appeasement and protection payments to terrorists continues. The only certainty is that more of their countrymen will be targeted in the sure knowledge of more concessions - money for arms, prisoners for fighting, whatever. The Italians have always cut a pretty disgraceful figure on the battlefield, but if they're going to go around undermining their allies' war effort, maybe it would be better just to send them back to their lattes and girly football dives. Make me some gelato, Massimo! At least you'll be doing something worthwhile.

I haven't completely forgotten about this place

I doubt that anyone is still checking this, given the assiduousness with which Ian and I post, but regardless...

I have had cause many times to complain about the fact that people seem to want everything without having to pay for it - often in the context of health care, etc. Well, it turns out that students are no less inclined than anyone else to vote against measures that would actually enable improvement and investment in their communities - ironically enough, even if the tax increase, in this case a $10 per course levy, wouldn't have kicked in until 2009. Dalhousie students, it turns out, just rejected an attempt to raise money for a new student centre and renovations to current spaces. Well, we suck. And we have only ourselves to blame when the physical plant at Dalhousie goes right on sucking like a whore in Babylon.