Dueling Lines of the Day

OK, maybe they're not really dueling, since one was from yesterday...

From Needlenose, I came across the VERY well-written "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It" (I recommend bookmarking, as opposed to trying to type the entire URL). Anyway, there are any number of lines worth quoting in this post about Afghanistan--the entire piece is well worth reading (and, as a bonus, there are some wonderfully captioned photos). But the one that got me was near the end:

A soldier beats a prisoner from his country to death for, supposedly, spitting at him, and Karzai has to pretend that’s sufficient. It’s the puppet thing taken to the next level: instead of speaking while Bush drinks a glass of water, he has to speak while eating whatever shit is handed to him.

However, from Eschaton and Surburban Guerrilla, Mark Kleiman offers his opinion of esteemed Justice Clarence Thomas:

If a state law called for shoving a red-hot poker up the defendant's rectum immediately after indictment, Thomas (George Bush's ideal Justice) would point out that the precedent of Edward II showed that such a practice was not "unusual," and that in any case it wasn't covered by the Eighth Amendment because it was pre-conviction and therefore not "punishment," which by definition comes after conviction and sentence. That's just the sort of guy he is.

Either one could take the blue ribbon, if you ask me.