Vacationing in the Liberal Coalition, Part II

More places to visit, to escape the stresses and disappointments of life, to get reinvigorated and informed and even to laugh a little. Here are our current suggestions (our as in Echidne's Travel Agency, our motto being: SSSmooth as a SSSnake):

-Bushland: Here you can learn all about our president and his life. May I offer Tony Wright's enjoyable discussion on Bush and racism? or Wanda's interesting theories about why Bush dumbed down and holied up? (and no, Wanda, he won't suddenly turn all normal). Or something a little further in the wilderness? How about some time with Rush Limbaugh? Thomasblog gives us Rush as the ridiculer of people with Aspergen's Syndrome, and Mercury visits David Brock's new site to learn more about the horrible things that routinely slither out of Rush's mouth. For those who like ideas more than people, I recommend archy on how even in Italy evolution and schools don't mix that well all the time, or Bryan on how the right sees attacking business interests as a really cruel thing to do, or musing's musings on Christian spam (among other funny stuff).

-Women as torturers: A topic in the news for obvious reasons. Kick the Leftist tells how one right-winger argues that the news about detainee abuses in Iraq must be false, as everybody knows that women make inept torturers. Edwardpig doesn't doubt that women can be torturers but he's nevertheless disappointed in finding this to be possible. And he's disappointed in finding out about his own disappointment. I don't really know what to say here. Nobody should torture other creatures, but everybody has the potential of doing so, given the indoctrination and emotional stress that produces torturers out of otherwise fairly normal people. To assume that women are exempt from this is not that different from assuming that women as a group are exempt from things like intelligence. In other words, women are not mythological creatures (with the exception of yours truly).

-Other interesting destinations: Victoria has a good survey article on some of the issues that have to do with the current EU enlargement. American readers should read this one. Chris Brown has started a new series of interviews with 'ordinary' people (nobody is really ordinary), and the first one is very interesting. Rubber Hose has a fascinating glimpse into what it means to have visited a distant hard-to-reach-locale, and then to find it in the news (Siyu), and Invisible Library gives an excellent discussion on codes in human life. Finally, Rick Blaine reveals how he has dropped lawyering and taken up standup comicing and poker playing!