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"Oh boy...Lugia. Quite possibly the cheapest Pokémon since the Amnesia Mewtwo of the RBY days, Lugia is capable of taking out 2/3 of a rival trainer's team before they have time to realize what is happening. With a 358 Defense, a 406 Special Defense and the ability to Recover at will, Lugia is quite simply VERY hard to kill. Does it really matter what your offensive stats look like if you have all the time in the world to whittle your opponent down whilst they fruitlessly whale away at your well nigh impenetrable defenses?" Illus: Lugia Flies High, by Krystal Ishida.
Just a couple of quick observations on the Susan Sontag New York Times Magazine essay on the Abu Ghraib photos. She talks as if the photos were exclusively private pics that soldiers were passing around, and relates the activity to webcams, internet p0rn, school hazings, etc. Some of that's valid pop-sociological speculation, but it's also been reported that the picture-taking was officially encouraged, used to humiliate and blackmail the sexually prim Iraqis. ("What do you want from me?" "Ve vant...ze information. Do you want ze family to see zese pictures?") Her "soldiers running amuck with cameras" argument plays into the government propaganda that a few unsupervised crazies were behind the prison torture. Also, she talks about our "quite justified" invasion of Afghanistan, something lefties love to throw as a sop to the right to make complaints about Iraq seem reasonable. Justifed how? By not catching Bin Laden? By jumpstarting the heroin trade over there again? Killing and bombing for women's rights? That war wasn't the right response to 9/11 any more than Iraq was. It was just to make the majority of Americans feel better after the government failed them on 9/11, by bombing some Muslims.