Nothing to see here, but have a look at either of two threads I've joined in:

Matthew Yglesias criticizing Lileks for criticizing Salam Pax for writing this "Letter of Welcome to England" to George Bush:

I hate to wake you up from that dream you are having, the one in which you are a superhero bringing democracy and freedom to underdeveloped, oppressed countries. But you really need to check things out in one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom. Georgie, I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you don't seem to care that much. You might want it to appear as if things are going well and sign Iraq off as a job well done, but I am afraid this is not the case.

Listen, habibi, it is not over yet. Let me explain this in simple terms. You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up. I bet if someone had explained it to you like that you would have been less hasty going on our Rambo-in-Baghdad trip.

To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service.

To which Lileks replies:

Hey, Salam? Fuck you. I know you’re the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But there’s a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him.

With which I agree. With which Matt Yglesias and many of commenters there do not.

And then there's this thread on abolishing the legal institution of marriage, at Kevin Drum's site, in which I've already been called "incoherent" for comments such as this:

I don't think the government should have any say whatsoever in the legal definition of relationships formed by legal, consenting adults, including gay unions or polygamous ones.

And yes, that means doing away with a lot of default legal issues that are automatically put in place by a state-defined marriage. I'd prefer to have the state out of the marriage business altogether, and see documentation packages put together by lawyers that couples or groups can sign if they want to confer particular legal powers to each other (such as ownership of property, custody of children (the big ones), and ones you mentions, such as survivor benefits for Social Security).

Follow the links and enjoy.