Check out David Brooks' column in the NYT. He explains what the 'oil spot' strategy is, and why it conflicts with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's view of how 21st century wars should be fought.

According to a report in The Observer, the top official in the foreign secretary's office told Prime Minister Tony Blair's office in 2004 that the Iraq war was fueling Muslim extremism.

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Alt.country superstar Steve Earle was at Camp Casey in the past week, and he had this to say about Cindy Sheehan:

"... The Vietnam War didn't end because I opposed it. It ended because my father came to oppose it. And we have Cindy Sheehan to thank for the beginnings of what I think is a mainstream movement against this war."

You can see a few clips of him and folk legend Joan Baez performing at truthout.org.

I loved this quote from Earle in a 2004 Mother Jones interview:

"Artists have always been the consciences of their societies. And I don't sing good enough to be an entertainer."

Why? No particular reason, except that he seems to have crawled up the ass of one W. Kinsella and started gnawing on said W.'s haemorrhoids by writing critically about Fury's Hour, Kinsella's new book about punk rock, triggering a rather frenzied response.

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A university paper in Illinois had spent a year chronicling the thoughts of a motherless eight-year-old whose father was serving in Iraq.

But there was an itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy problem with the story. And you, my devoted readership, have been given some broad hints as to what that is.

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As usual, Frank Rich gets it right.

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Why is that the anti-Sheehan protesters see being against the war as being against U.S. troops?

I would think most Americans don't raise their sons and daughters to needlessly die in cynical, mendacious, military misadventures. As a result, why support a such a war that has killed almost 1,800 U.S. servicemen and women so far, and maimed thousands more? How is being against the wasting of their lives being against them?

Why was one guy holding a sign saying "Liberals and terrorists are against the war"?

The worldwide incidence of terrorist attacks has shot up since the March 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. Personally, I think the terrorists are for it.

Actually, I tripped over this, which gives me some insight into the patriot mindset.

And here's another such insight.