Strother sets a trap...and then falls in it

Really? How? By reporting what Mel allegedly said? And how does that make them goons?

No, by attempting to create some faux cover-up story based on the fact that the Sheriff's Department didn't feel the need to trumpet Gibson's anti-Semitic ranting (or any of the rest of it for that matter) in a world-wide press conference. And they're goons for making a tempest out of a teapot and not noting that the Sheriff was (refreshingly) treating Gibson as he would any other DUI.

If Mel were Tommy Lee, would you respond in the same manner, Steve?

If the situation was the same, of course I would. But the situation wouldn't be the same, would it, Strother? Because Tommy Lee is a self-absorbed, wife-beating lump of dog crap who wouldn't publicly make a profuse and believable apology and who wouldn't admit that he had a problem with alcohol. You see, Strother, that's the difference between a human being and a walking, talking turd. Furthermore, we would never have seen this story had it involved Tommy Lee because it would have been nothing unusual for him. That and he gets a pass from the Hollyweird press for whatever he does, seemingly.

But that's why you posted this in the first place, wasn't it, Strother? You wanted to get the exact reaction you got so you could make some bleeding-heart appeal to equal treatment. You wanted to make the case that Gibson gets treated differently here because he's not one of the Hollyweird elite.

Sorry to disappoint you. You want a hand up out of that hole you dug yourself into?

I don't suppose it occurred to you or your peers at TMZ that every third drunk that the Sheriff's deputies pull over launches into some kind of tirade and that their treatment of Gibson was just business as usual. He screwed up, he admitted it, he apologized and said he'll take the consequences. Somehow, I just don't picture Tommy Lee being enough of a human being to do that, but if he had, I would have said exactly the same thing about him.

Mel Gibson: The Mug Shot

Guess Who is Heaping Honors on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez?

Fox News

Peas in a Pod?

Iran has bestowed its highest state honor — the Islamic Republic Medal — on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the award shows Iran's gratitude for the Venezuelan strongman's support, especially his opposition to international sanctions on Iran's nuclear program.

At the medal ceremony in Tehran, Chavez took the opportunity to voice solidarity with Iran in another way — condemning Israel for what he called the "terrorism" and "madness" of its attacks in Lebanon, and urging the world to rise up and defeat the U.S.

Cuban President Fidel Castro Temporarily Gives Brother Power Due to Illness

HAVANA — Fidel Castro temporarily relinquished his presidential powers to his brother Raul on Monday night and told Cubans he underwent surgery.

The Cuban leader said he had suffered gastrointestinal bleeding, apparently due to stress from recent public appearances in Argentina and Cuba, according to the letter read live on television by his secretary, Carlos Valenciaga.

RE: RE: Gibson's Anti-Semitic Tirade: Alleged Cover Up

It would appear the goons at TMZ are trying to invent news...

Really? How? By reporting what Mel allegedly said? And how does that make them goons? If Mel were Tommy Lee, would you respond in the same manner, Steve?

From TMZ.com:

Initially, a Sheriff's official told TMZ the arrest occurred "without incident." On Friday night, Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore told TMZ: "The L.A. County Sheriff's Department investigation into the arrest of Mr. Gibson on suspicion of driving under the influence will be complete and will contain every factual piece of evidence. Nothing will be sanitized. There was absolutely no favoritism shown to this suspect or any other. When this file is presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney, it will contain everything. Nothing will be left out."

Well, we'll see, won't we?

It now appears that Gibson was not acting like a crazy man in his film 'Conspiracy Theory.' He may have actually been crazy. Poor guy. He needs serious help. Alcohol may not make people say such things, but being nuts sure can.

Unfinished Business Must Await 2007

By John Hood

On a number of issues — fiscal responsibility, ethics and lobbying, tax reform, among them — lawmakers enacted only half-measures or worse in 2006.

Photos that damn Hezbollah

By Chris Link

THIS is the picture that damns Hezbollah. It is one of several, smuggled from behind Lebanon's battle lines, showing that Hezbollah is waging war amid suburbia.

RE: Gibson's Anti-Semitic Tirade: Alleged Cover Up

Haaretz with a slightly different take. It would appear the goons at TMZ are trying to invent news instead of reporting it.

In any case, Gibson is indeed a strange one. One would hope he manages to get his demons under control, whatever they might be.

Gibson's Anti-Semitic Tirade: Alleged Cover Up

From TMZ.com:

TMZ has learned that Mel Gibson went on a rampage when he was arrested Friday on suspicion of drunk driving, hurling religious epithets. TMZ has also learned that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department had the initial report doctored to keep the real story under wraps.
TMZ has four pages of the original report prepared by the arresting officer in the case, L.A. County Sheriff's Deputy James Mee. According to the report, Gibson became agitated after he was stopped on Pacific Coast Highway and told he was to be detained for drunk driving Friday morning in Malibu. The actor began swearing uncontrollably. Gibson repeatedly said, "My life is f****d." Law enforcement sources say the deputy, worried that Gibson might become violent, told the actor that he was supposed to cuff him but would not, as long as Gibson cooperated. As the two stood next to the hood of the patrol car, the deputy asked Gibson to get inside. Deputy Mee then walked over to the passenger door and opened it. The report says Gibson then said, "I'm not going to get in your car," and bolted to his car. The deputy quickly subdued Gibson, cuffed him and put him inside the patrol car.

And the weirdness continues — and escalates — from there. Make no bones about it: Mel contributes his fair share of weirdness to 'Hollyweird.'

Fukuyama's Second Thoughts

Since the end of the Cold War, no one has made a greater name for himself — save for Huntington himself — in sorting out the confusion than Francis Fukuyama. In his famous National Interest essay, “The End of History?” (and in the subsequent book The End of History and the Last Man), Fukuyama offered the first Big Explanation of Everything after the Berlin Wall fell. Breathing new life into Hegel — and by extension Marx — Fukuyama argued that history is purposive, and that over time the world must move in the direction of modernity and democracy, because modernity and democracy are the systems best equipped to satisfy the diverse longings of mankind. Fukuyama has deflected some subsequent criticism by arguing that he was not prescribing a blueprint for hastening the end of history, but rather saying that his thesis was misunderstood by conservative “Leninists” seeking to accelerate history by imposing democratic norms on less advanced societies. The End of History was about modernization and materialism, he insisted, not democracy and idealism. “What is initially universal,” he now writes, “is not the desire for liberal democracy but rather the desire to live in a modern society, with its technology, high standards of living, health care, and access to the wider world.”

Jonah Goldberg

Who's really riding the weaker horse?

The unavoidable challenge is this. In the same way that atheism provides no moral basis for an individual to resist evil, secular, religious-neutral government provides no practical foundation for opposing Islamic expansion. If Congress funds no mosques, neither can it prevent them from being constructed by militant Saudi Wahhabists. If the Supreme Court requires no one to pray towards Mecca, neither does it allow the banning of immigrants on the basis of a religious adherence to jihad. The range of options accessible to the leaders of the West are formidable; they are also irrelevant.

Bin Laden's statement about horses can perhaps be best understood thusly: Unlike its Christian predecessor, the secular West is structurally incapable of resisting an Islamic expansion due to its demographic disadvantages and philosophical weaknesses. If this is an accurate characterization, one can only conclude, unfortunately, that his statement is logically, historically and psychologically sound. Certainly the actions of the West's leaders, especially those of the Bush administration, have done nothing to disprove the assertion, the establishment of a modern-day Kingdom of Acre in Iraq notwithstanding.

None of this means that Islam cannot be turned back a third time; it does, however, suggest that the concept of Western secularism is doomed to failure one way or another. Secularism does not inspire, it enervates. The spirit which led to the sapping of British spirit and the decline of the Raj has been at work in America for decades, it should surprise no one that the lion's heir is following the mighty tracks of its predecessor.

Vox Day

FERRY RIDE: The buck stops with the captains of the ship

By Paul O'Connor
Winston-Salem Journal

RALEIGH - Gov. Mike Easley came out with guns blazing Monday, criticizing three officials for the infamous ferry joy ride early this month in Beaufort.

Easley blasted Carl Stewart, the chairman of the State Ports Authority Board of Directors, Tom Eagar, the authority's CEO, and Lyndo Tippett, the secretary of transportation.

All involved in the event - everyone from the organizers to the invited guests - should now feel significantly disciplined, except maybe one person: Easley. He's pretty much skated by without as much as a slapped wrist.

Easley did not take the ferry ride. He didn't plan it. His staff says he didn't even know about it. So why should he be chided?

For one, because he's the captain of the ship, so to speak, that ran aground. For two, his response is misleading.

Astronaut Kills Himself...

BY JOHN CHAPPELL

Astronaut Charles E. Brady, formerly of Robbins, is dead at 54.

His home town is in mourning over the loss of one of its most illustrious sons: an Eagle Scout, an athlete, a doctor, a Blue Angel, and a space traveler. A huge mural depicting Brady and the Space Shuttle Columbia overlooks the railroad across from the Old Elise Depot and the town hall.

Now the town is puzzled and saddened by reports of the circumstances of his death.

According to Chuck McCarty, a dispatcher with the Sheriff's Office in San Juan County, Wash., Brady died of apparently self-inflicted wounds.

Shutting Down Spaghetti Ads

Fox News

Ads for fish fries, spaghetti dinners, and elementary school carnivals in Vermillion County, Indiana, have been banned by the Department of Homeland Security. The reason?

The ads were run on electronic emergency message boards designed to warn residents of a terrorist attack or natural disaster — boards the DHS bought for $300,000. DHS says the ads violate federal rules and could dull the public's attention to important messages. But County Commission President Tim Wilson says, "We make decisions to run the county on what's best for us."

Race Factor

Fox News

Controversial Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney looks to be in serious trouble in her Democratic run-off against challenger Hank Johnson. A New Insider Advantage poll shows Johnson leading McKinney by 25 points — 46-21 among likely DeKalb county voters.

Pollster Matt Towery says Johnson and McKinney, both of whom are black, split the African-American vote, but an overwhelming number of white voters prefer Johnson. What's more, with Republicans eligible to vote in the run-off next month, Towery says many plan to go to the polls to defeat McKinney.

Let Israel Win the War

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?

What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities -- every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians -- and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?

Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world -- governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats -- has completely lost its moral bearings.

Who Was Israel Really Targeting When it Struck Those U.N. Observers?

Fox News

A retired Canadian General says one of the four U.N. observers killed when Israeli shells smashed into their position in southern Lebanon told him just days before that "Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them."

General Lewis MacKenzie tells the Canadian Broadcasting Company that terrorist groups often "use the U.N. as shields knowing they can't be punished." What's more, U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) press releases confirm that Hezbollah is using U.N. cover to attack Israel, including yesterday, when UNIFIL reports.

Meanwhile, a U.N. spokesman says Secretary General Kofi Annan is standing by his accusation that Israel appeared to deliberately target U.N. personnel.

It's been widely argued that the U.N. force in southern Lebanon has done so little in the region because it was established merely to observe Israel's withdrawal from the region. But the U.N. resolution establishing UNIFIL back in 1978 tasked it with more than just an observer's role — establishing the "Interim force" for the purpose of "confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area."

Reverse Discrimination?

Fox News

Ever wonder what might happen if homosexuals were a majority, not a minority? Heterosexuals in the overwhelmingly gay resort town of Provincetown, Massachusetts, have found out, and they say they're being discriminated against by residents of what's often called the "unofficial gay capital of New England."

The controversy erupted when a Web site published the names of 43 townspeople who signed a petition supporting a ban on gay marriage. Since then, police have responded to a shouting match between a straight woman who signed the petition and a gay man, who angrily called her a bigot and heterosexual tourists have complained about being derisively called "breeders" by gay residents.

True friends of Israel cannot let the Dems take power

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

The global condemnation of Israel is simply illustrative of the low esteem attached to Jewish blood in this world where anti-Semitism comes disguised as morality and a commitment to peace.

Support Israel

Good commentary by Newt Gingrich...

Dump Condi: Bush allies in revolt over Mideast policy

Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration’s national security and foreign policy agenda.

The conservatives, who include Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and leading current and former members of the Pentagon and National Security Council, have urged the president to transfer Miss Rice out of the State Department and to an advisory role. They said Miss Rice, stemming from her lack of understanding of the Middle East, has misled the president on Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Maybe we need John Bolton as Secretary of State... I wonder if George Shultz would consider coming back to State. :-) Seriously, things are so out of hand in Washington that I believe everybody up there should be fired so we can start fresh.

UPDATE: Contrary to a published report, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is not plotting to have Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice transferred out of the State Department.

Pro-Israel Groups Pro-Bolton

Fox News

Pro-Israel groups are pressuring New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton to abandon the Democrats' filibuster of U.N. ambassador John Bolton, who now has the firm support of the Jewish community. Both senators voted to block Bolton's confirmation last year, and Democratic leaders have refused to rule out another filibuster when his nomination is brought before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee again Thursday.

But the American Jewish Congress, which is behind Bolton, says the war in the Middle East should trump party politics. And the president of the Zionist Organization of America tells the New York Sun he believes Schumer and Clinton are "seriously reconsidering" their opposition.

Anti-Semitic Sentiment?

Fox News

If you doubt there is a real strain of anti-Semitism in European opinion, consider this. One of Norway's largest newspapers has published a cartoon comparing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to an infamous Nazi death camp commander who indiscriminately murdered Jews by firing on them from his balcony.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Dutch Socialist party, the country's third largest, has compared Islamic terrorists to anti-Nazi resistors, saying, "During World War II, Dutch people thwarted Nazi Germany's destruction machine by blowing up town halls. ...Things are not all that different in the Middle East. Islamic fundamentalism, including the terrorist wing, is a reaction to Israel's occupation of Palestine."

Ethics plan takes a twist

Decisions on gifts would rest with 'reasonable person'

By David Ingram
Winston-Salem Journal

RALEIGH

A "reasonable person" could soon be the one who determines which meals, concert tickets and other gifts lobbyists can give to state legislators.

Under compromise ethics legislation announced yesterday, legislators would be allowed to accept unlimited gifts without having to disclose them as long as a "reasonable person" wouldn't connect the gifts to lobbying.

Legislators and lobbyists would be able to decide for themselves whether a particular gift meets the standard. And ethics officials would investigate only if they get a complaint.

Rep. Joe Hackney, D-Orange, the House majority leader, said that the standard is the result of negotiations between the House and Senate, which have voted for different versions of the legislation in the past two months.

Happy Belated Birthday To Mick Jagger

Yesterday was Mick's birthday... He turned 63.

RE: Hillary, Busted

That bust of Hillary has the possibility of ruining her presidential run before it officially starts... That is one ugly bust. :-)

Howie Dean...

Steve opines: "I always find myself wondering if people like Dean actually believe some of the things they say."

I do believe Dean believes what he says... I'm sure he's a likeable guy, but when he gets in front of a crowd of people, something snaps in his head. One thing is for sure: He does provide entertainment for us political junkies. :-)

More of John Kerry's retroactive campaign promises

On Sunday, John Kerry said of Israel's war against Hezbollah, "If I was president, this wouldn't have happened," adding, "we have to destroy Hezbollah."

But wait a minute -- Hezbollah didn't attack us on 9/11! Wouldn't fighting Hezbollah distract us from the urgent task of finding Osama bin Laden?

Democrats can't come out and admit that they refuse to fight any war in defense of America, so they utter the "Where's Osama?" incantation to pretend that they'd be doing something. To wit: dedicating the entire resources of the U.S. military to locating Osama bin Laden.

Ann Coulter

RE: Howard Dean Calls for End to Divisiveness

Dean also attacked the president on national defense, health care, education and Social Security.

"He is bankrupting the middle-class," Dean said.

I always find myself wondering if people like Dean actually believe some of the things they say.

The Democrats have a 60 year history of bankrupting the middle-class, who they always tend to portray as "rich." Dean himself spews rhetoric that Democrats need to return to their core values. We can only assume that means escalation of their redistributionist ways.

Does Dean get up in the morning and ask himself what stupid, hypocritical thing he is going to say in public today? I doubt it. Sadly, Dean's best customer for the poison he's selling is himself.

BACK TO BAGHDAD

THE NEW STRUGGLE IN IRAQ

By Ralph Peters

July 27, 2006 -- WHEN I visited Baghdad in March, there was no civil war. There is no civil war in Iraq today. But it's beginning to look as if there might be one tomorrow.

Something vital has changed. In Baghdad.

Howard Dean Calls for End to Divisiveness

By BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press Writer

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Down with divisiveness was the message Wednesday delivered by Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean as he told a group of Florida business leaders that Republican policies of deceit and finger-pointing are tearing American apart.

Dean called President Bush "the most divisive president probably in our history."

"He's always talking about those people. It's always somebody else's fault. It's the gays' fault. It's the immigrants' fault. It's the liberals' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. It's Hollywood people," Dean said. "Americans are sick of that. Even if you win elections doing that, you drag down our country."

Dean should do stand-up comedy... How anybody could take this man seriously is beyond me. :-)

Howard Dean compares Katherine Harris to Stalin during stop in WPB

By Josh Hafenbrack
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

West Palm Beach -- Democrat leader Howard Dean called the Iraqi prime minister an "anti-Semite" during an address before party loyalists on Wednesday, drawing a swift rebuke from Republicans. The Democratic National Committee chairman also called Republican Senate candidate Katherine Harris a "crook" and compared her to Stalin.

Gosh, I wish Dean was the Democrat nominee in '04... I honestly believe he would have suffered a mental breakdown during one of the debates. :-)

Politicians Insult Our Intelligence On Immigration

Just when it looked like the Senate Republicans had finally gotten the message that the American people in general, and their own supporters in particular, are outraged over amnesty for illegal aliens, some Republican Senators have come up with yet another disguise for amnesty -- and gotten bipartisan support, including Ted Kennedy and John McCain.

Under this new plan, its advocates claim, illegal immigrants would "have to leave the country" and re-apply to come back in legally and get on a path toward citizenship. It sounds good but on closer examination it turns out to be a fraud.

How long would the illegal immigrants have to leave the country? According to the Senate bill they "may exit the United States and immediately re-enter." In other words, do a U-turn and come right back. How is that for "tough" border control?

Thomas Sowell

Smearing Education Choice

By John Stossel

This month, papers all around America reported that according to the U.S. Department of Education, "children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools."

The New York Times put the study on its front page, along with a quote from teachers' union president Reg Weaver, who claimed it showed "public schools were doing an outstanding job."

Please.

Democratic Generosity

So we've reached the point where the far left is supporting a former Republican millionaire who owns Halliburton stock, while the party's superstar is stumping for a man who's accused of cozying up to a GOP president. Where can one find irony like this? Only in the Democratic Party, where the hits just keep on coming.

Lisa Fabrizio

Wednesday Funnies :-)

David Letterman: "Top Signs There's Trouble at The New York Times": Extensive coverage of recent fighting between the Israelis and the lesbians; Pages 2 through 20 are corrections of previous edition; Every sentence begins, "So, like"; TV listings only for Zorro; Weather forecast reads "Look outside, dumbass"; Multiple references to "President Gore"; Obituary includes list of people they wish were dead; Headlines fold over to create surprise Mad magazine-type hidden message; Restaurant critic recently gave IHOP four stars.

Jay Leno: President Bush says he's personally working on a solution to global warming. He says thanks to Republicans, soon every American will receive a voucher for a free popsicle. ... White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said when President Bush was told that he was recorded saying a four letter word, he rolled his eyes and laughed it off. Which is ironic. Bush is now reacting to himself the way everyone else does. ... Vice President Dick Cheney said today when it comes to war, Americans need to know where he stands. Forget the war—I want to know where he stands when he goes on a hunting trip. ... More rockets were fired into Israel today. Israel responded by bombing more targets inside Lebanon. Now there's talk the U.S. might send some troops over there to help with border security. That's when you know the people over there are in trouble—when they start asking our advice on border security. ... We have 25,000 English-speaking people in Lebanon. That's more than there are in L.A. ... Democratic Congressman Lincoln Davis from Tennessee said that we should outlaw adultery and make it a felony. You know what you call a Democrat who comes out against adultery? A Republican. ... And you thought a lot of congressmen went to jail for bribery. How overcrowded it is going to be now? ... John Kerry said today that if he were president the current conflict in the Middle East wouldn't be happening. And then his wife Teresa said, "Yes dear, I know. Now will you take the garbage out?"

Raising Daughters

By John Derbyshire

I have a friend, a very busy, worldly & successful guy, who is a great dispenser of advice, mostly good. His advice on raising a daughter: "Sure, education, orthodontistry, moral training, all that is good stuff. It's secondary, though. You must concentrate above all else on this one great objective: DON'T LET HER MARRY A LOSER. Corollary: Don't let her date any losers."

Steele Admits He Criticized GOP in Interview

Unnamed Candidate Said Being Republican Was Like Wearing 'Scarlet Letter'

By John Wagner and Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writers

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's Senate campaign acknowledged yesterday that he was the anonymous candidate quoted by a Washington Post political reporter as saying that being a Republican was like wearing a "scarlet letter" and that he did not want President Bush to campaign for him this fall.

Hillary, Busted

Senator Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Bust To Be Unveiled at the Museum of Sex

A presidential bust of Hillary Clinton is set to be unveiled at the Museum of Sex on August 9, 2006 at 10 am. Accentuating her sexual power and bolstered by the presidential seal, The Presidential Bust of Hillary Rodham Clinton: The First Woman President of the United States of America will be officially open for public viewing on August 9 for a limited six week run.

Why is Rice a Republican? Can she be reprogrammed?

It has always mystified me that Condoleezza Rice is a Republican. She's black, she's a woman, she's smart. (OK, I hear all you Republicans snorting and getting ready to e-mail. I will grudgingly allow there are other bright right-wingers -- but few black women Republicans, and who would sign up after the disasterous Bush White House response to Hurricane Katrina?)

It seems today was bigoted idiot coming out day at the Chicago Sun-Times. The author, Jennifer Hunter, appears to have felt the need to come out flamboyantly.

It seems so counterintuitive that Rice, a woman raised in the racially charged atmosphere of Birmingham, Ala., in the 1950s, who knew two of the girls who were killed in the church bombing there in 1963, who had to overcome latent prejudice in academia, both as a woman and as an African American, should be a parrot for George W. Bush, a man so out of touch. What has she been smoking?

Well, let's see, Jennifer. Could it be that Southern Democrats were the ones responsible for the "racially charged atmosphere" and Rice, by all accounts a reasonably intelligent person, knows that? Could it be that she knows nothing has changed and Democrats are still racists, they just sell it better?

In fact, Rice was a bona fide Democrat until 1980, when she had an epiphany after overhearing a remark by President Jimmy Carter. He said he was shocked by the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Rice, a scholar of Russian politics, was "shocked that anybody would be shocked by that," explained Nicholas Lemann in a profile of Rice for the New Yorker. Two years later she flipped to the GOP.

So what, exactly, is a bona fide Democrat? Is there a secret handshake? Do they have special tattoos they only show each other at secret meetings? Do they all get decoder rings so they can decipher the secret messages?

There's only so much fun you can have with a brain-dead twit like Miss Hunter.

Rice is not a liberal in the twenty-first century American context. She is a neo-con. That means she isn't a conservative in that same context as well. Economically, she appears to be pretty Marxist, but with sympathies toward modified free markets. That puts her in the mainstream of Democrat thought along economic lines. Socially, she appears to be moderate to slightly conservative. She is pro-abortion, but she is not sympathetic to the homosexual agenda. Along the lines of her views on the role of government, she and Bush are ideological twins. She favors affirmative action, government health care subsidies, federal involvement in education, and a whole host of other interventionist government programs. I have heard her use the term, "Social justice" on more than one occasion, so we can safely assume she favors some form of government redistribution of wealth.

At one time, I wondered why Rice was a Republican, myself. However, the transformation of the GOP is now complete and Rice represents the Republican archetype. And for the record, Jennifer dear, snotty, condescending libs like you who post their snarky little screeds for the world to see are one of the main reasons Rice and people like her are no longer Democrats.

Not So Peaceful

Fox News

Nobel laureate Betty Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize 30 years ago for her campaign to end violence in her native Northern Ireland, told a group of Australian school children that she has a "very hard time with this word 'non-violence,' because I don't believe that I am non-violent."

For example, she said, "Right now, I would love to kill George Bush." Williams added, "I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief."

For the record, our sister publication "The Australian" led its story as follows: "Nobel peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit."

Political Addicts?

Fox News

A Maryland candidate for Senate paid a Baltimore drug-treatment center to drive recovering addicts to a debate last week, where they held up signs supporting his campaign.

A consultant to Democrat Josh Rales' campaign paid the I Can't, We Can drug counseling center to transport the 20 patients to the event... where they were supposed to help post signs. But the addicts — who pay about $350 a month for treatment, and some of whom have criminal records — ended up holding the signs themselves.

Rales campaign manager tells the Washington Times that the addicts were recruited without the campaign's knowledge, and the contractor called paying the center for volunteers, "a real error in judgment."

What Hezbollah's Leader Says He Didn't Expect After Kidnapping Israeli Soldiers

Fox News

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah says he told Lebanese officials that the only way to win the release of prisoners in Israeli jails was to abduct Israeli soldiers — days before Hezbollah captured two IDF troops.

The Middle East Media Research Institute reports Nasrallah told Al Jazeera last week, "I said that we would abduct Israeli soldiers in meetings with some of the main political leaders in the country," adding that those leaders supported the plan when he guaranteed it would hasten the prisoners' release.

Nasrallah says he was surprised the tactic backfired, saying he never expected Israel to launch a war over just two soldiers.

Know When to Hold Them

The American Spectator

Senior Bush adviser and GOP political evil genius Karl Rove spent time in Minnesota late last week, fundraising for Republican Michele Bachmann running to hold Rep. Mark Kennedy's 6th Congressional District. Bachmann is running against Democrat Patty Wetterling, an anti-war type who has failed in previous bids for Congress.

The Symbol and the Substance

By John Hood

Political insiders get special treatment all the time. So what is the big deal with the “booze cruise”? Is it fundamentally different? Not really, no.

Stokes OKs health pact

CenterPoint is to continue managing mental-health plans

By Sherry Youngquist
Winston-Salem Journal

DANBURY

Stokes County commissioners approved last night a new performance agreement with CenterPoint, which administers the county's mental-health program, and stipulated that the company must correct any deficiencies that are detected throughout the year or risk having the county's monthly payment withheld.

County officials say they just want the services rendered for the money that's being spent.

Stokes appropriated $398,830 to CenterPoint for fiscal year 2006-07.

Hayek on Knowledge

The growth of knowledge and the growth of civilization are only the same if we interpret knowledge to include all human adaptations to environment in which past experience has been incorporated. Not all knowledge in this sense is part of our intellect, nor is our intellect the whole of our knowledge. Our habits and skills, our emotional attitudes, our tools, and our institutions -- all are in this sense adaptations to past experience which have grown up by elimination of less suitable conduct. They are as much an indispensable foundation of successful action as is our conscious knowledge.

F. A. Hayek

Secret Bible Verse Foretells Housing Crash, Spawns New Diet Craze and Scares a Porn Star Straight

An op-ed from Joel Stein for the LA Times:

I kind of lied. About the secret Bible thing. And the housing crash. And the diet. The porn star I can probably dig up. I'm guessing a lot of Bible verses are secret to them.
It's just that these are desperate times. Newspaper ads are disappearing, people get their news online and bloggers do what I do for free. To secure my job, I had to get on the "most e-mailed" list on latimes.com. And last week's experiment with e-mailing myself 200 times was ineffectual. Though that column got funnier every time.
To find out how to create the most popular story possible, I called Richard Rushfield, a senior editor at The Times website. He told me to focus on the "most e-mailed" instead of "most viewed" list, because the latter is updated every hour and changes rapidly. A "most e-mailed" article, which is updated daily, can stay on the charts for up to three weeks and enter the national consciousness. Entering the national consciousness is the biggest dream of any columnist. Other than a deal with a Sunday morning news show.

Gaza groups ready to deal on cease-fire, release of Shalit

By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent

All groups in Gaza, including Hamas, would now accept a cease-fire deal with Israel which would include releasing Gilad Shalit, according to the Palestinian Agriculture Minister, who also heads the coordinating committee of Palestinian organizations there.

Remembering the Gipper

"Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy 'accommodation.' And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy one, but a simple one—if you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right... [E]very lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face."

Ronald Reagan

RE: Opinion: Community should bear its share

What a sad state of affairs we would find in our community if all parties were to adopt this ideology! If that were followed universally, such things as schools, recreation and economic incentives would be seriously compromised.

I long for the day when such a state of "compromised" government "services" is reached. I spend a considerable amount of mental effort trying to come up with a way to accelerate progress toward that end.

Is the health of its most vulnerable citizens - and by extension all of its citizens - any less important?

Sell it somewhere else, weasel-boy. You can't demonstrate that the lack of any government program represents a health risk to anyone. You can't even demonstrate that government programs aren't actually harmful to the health of the most "vulnerable citizens." Furthermore, your faux altruism gives me gas. While Baptist Hospital has many fine physicians and staff, the management spends way too much time figuring out how to relieve people of their earnings. To that end, they have figured out the government is one of the softest patsies around. It's simple, create some phony "need" or "crisis," add a dash of hyped statistics, and eureka, instant government funding.

What I want to know, Len, is how many of my tax dollars have gone to make your next boat payment?

Democrats pledge to fight Bolton nod

The Washington Times

Senate Democrats have promised a "bruising fight" over the administration's nomination of John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Bolton is quickly becoming my favorite Bush Administration official. He's the right man for the job at the U.N..

Kerry knocks Bush on handling of Mideast conflict

Valerie Olander / The Detroit News

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass., who was in town Sunday to help Gov. Jennifer Granholm campaign for her re-election bid, took time to take a jab at the Bush administration for its lack of leadership in the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.

"If I was president, this wouldn't have happened," said Kerry during a noon stop at Honest John's bar and grill in Detroit's Cass Corridor.

Kerry is so full of himself...

Opinion: Community should bear its share

From an opinion column in today's Winston-Salem Journal by Len B. Preslar Jr., the president and CEO of N.C. Baptist Hospital:

One rationale expressed by the commissioners for not financing the (Winston-Salem Downtown Health) plaza is that the county should finance only initiatives or services that are legally mandated as county responsibility. What a sad state of affairs we would find in our community if all parties were to adopt this ideology! If that were followed universally, such things as schools, recreation and economic incentives would be seriously compromised. Is the health of its most vulnerable citizens - and by extension all of its citizens - any less important?

Militant turns beliefs into career Hezbollah leader a respected politician

Hasan Nasrallah is exactly where he always wanted to be.

"Ever since I was 9 years old, I had plans for the day when I would start doing this," the Hezbollah chief reflected on his leadership quest, when I visited him in the southern slums of Beirut not long ago.

"When I was 10 or 11, my grandmother had a scarf. It was black, but a long one. I used to wrap it around my head and say to them that I'm a cleric, you need to pray behind me."

Nasrallah is a man of God, gun and government, a cross between Ayatollah Khomeini and Che Guevera, an Islamic populist as well as a charismatic guerrilla tactician.

The black head wrap -- signifying his descent from the prophet Mohammed -- is now his trademark, and he is Lebanon's best known politician. Lines from his speeches are popular ring tones on cell phones. His face is a common computer screensaver. Wall posters, key rings and even phone cards bear his image. Taxis play his speeches instead of music.

At 46, Nasrallah is also the most controversial leader in the Arab world, at the center of the most vicious new confrontation between Israel and its neighbors in a quarter-century. Yet he is not the prototypical militant.

His career has straddled the complex line between Islamic extremist and secular politician.

Robin Wright

Well, well, well. Here we have a nifty little piece of agit-prop with some blatant historical revisionism thrown in for good measure. The anti-Israel crowd in the Left isn't even waiting until the actual events are over before attempting to re-cast the mold in their own image. Miss Wright appears to inhabit an alternate universe in which Hizbollah has all the gravitas of an actual state and its armed incursion into Israel for the purpose of killing and kidnapping Israeli soldiers, as well as its rocket attacks on Israeli towns along the border somehow constitute "cross-border acts of war by Israel."

Chavez tour piques US interest

By Greg Morsbach for BBC News Caracas:

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is currently on a world tour that is likely to widen the rift with the United States - but may win him further support for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. He arrived in Belarus on Sunday, from where he will continue to Russia, Qatar, Iran, Vietnam and Mali.
Mr Chavez is due to return to Venezuela on 2 August after nearly two weeks on the road. What will interest diplomats at the US state department most is President Chavez's visits to Moscow and Tehran. He is hoping to sign an arms deal with President Vladimir Putin worth around $1bn (£542m), including 24 Sukhoi Su-30 fighter bomber aircraft and 30 Russian helicopters.

Failure to solve Palestinian question empowers Iran

But Saudi-Egyptian-Jordanian opportunism on Palestine has caught up with them: It's finally dawned on them that a strategy of consciously avoiding resolution of the "Palestinian question" has helped deliver Gaza, and Lebanon and Syria, into the hands of a regime that's a far bigger threat to the Arab world than the Zionist Entity. Cairo and Co. grew so accustomed to whining about the Palestinian pseudo-crisis decade in decade out that it never occurred to them that they might face a real crisis one day: a Middle East dominated by an apocalyptic Iran and its local enforcers, in which Arab self-rule turns out to have been a mere interlude between the Ottoman sultans and the eternal eclipse of a Persian nuclear umbrella. The Zionists got out of Gaza and it's now Talibanistan redux. The Zionists got out of Lebanon and the most powerful force in the country (with an ever-growing demographic advantage) are Iran's Shia enforcers. There haven't been any Zionists anywhere near Damascus in 60 years and Syria is in effect Iran's first Sunni Arab prison bitch. For the other regimes in the region, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria are dead states that have risen as vampires.

Mark Steyn

The myth of the coathanger

It is intriguing to learn that even now, some educated and intelligent individuals worry that restricted access to abortion will lead to a large number of women dying as the result of illegal abortions. Indeed, the coathanger remains a favored icon of feminists, who brandish it as a symbol of anti-abortion activists' purported indifference to women's lives.

What is so amusing about this is that abortionettes might as reasonably brandish a narwhal's horn for fear of the unicorns that will inevitably reappear when abortion is banned. And it will eventually be banned, of this you can be sure, as the demographics curve begins to threaten age- and income-based transfer payments, as Third World migration pressure increases and as sex selection technology becomes cheaper and more reliable.

For as we have already seen in India and the United Kingdom, the realities of prenatal sex selection technology are capable of overwhelming the enthusiasm for abortion of even the most die-hard women's rights advocate.

But those concerned about the consequences of the coming abortion bans need not trouble themselves about the theoretical problem of women surreptitiously scraping out their insides with coathangers. Not only is there no evidence of numerous American women having died from self-inflicted abortions in the past, there is no evidence of women who live in countries where abortion is currently banned dying from them either.

Vox Day

Lieberman Going Down in Connecticut

By John McIntyre

It was August 7, 2000 when Al Gore picked Joe Lieberman to be his running mate. In a little under three weeks on August 8, 2006, Joe Lieberman's 35-year political career as a Democrat is likely going to come to an end. That is an amazing fall from grace for someone who was just hundreds of votes shy from becoming Vice President of the United States - and who in all likelihood would be prepping his run for President next year - and is now fighting for his political existence. Lieberman is not only likely to lose his primary match up against anti-war insurgent Ned Lamont, but it is increasingly likely that his fallback position to win in the general as an independent is far from the sure thing he thought it was only 4-6 weeks ago.

Cease-Fire in the Middle East?

By Bill O'Reilly

Should there be a cease-fire in the Middle East? The pope wants one. French President Chirac wants one. The Lebanese prime minister, the Russians, they all want Israel and Hezbollah to stop fighting.

So let's examine this in a fair and balanced way.

Pacifists versus peace

One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.

"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Thomas Sowell

This is simply an extension of the old saying that, "an armed society is a polite society." It would indeed be a wonderful thing if we could all "just get along." However, that is not the nature of humanity and evil ever prods men toward action. The Essenes of the first centuries before and after Christ were supreme examples of this. They adopted a stance of pacifism before the Romans and their reward was extinction. Even Switzerland, with its militant stance of neutrality is armed to the teeth. They understand that the only peace is peace maintained from a position of strength.

RE: Bush vetoes bill as vowed

So... whodunnit?

I don't know what that means or what question it is asking.

The only salient point here is that the government has no business funding scientific research of any description, but especially any research of debatable merit such as this.

This pure political football. The morality and ethics of the question are unimportant to the pols involved, including George Bush.

In Spain, anti-Semitism is new leftist trend

Spanish Jews knew there were hard times ahead. Prime Minister Zapatero has not disappointed them

Ignacio Russell Cano

Madrid: Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Prime Minister of Spain and Secretary General of the Socialist Party, arrived to power at a time nobody expected, not even inside the Party.

Keen on populist tirades against the United States "Dickhead Bush" and "Ketchup Queen Kerry", his whole campaign did not bring much attention until the moment Al-Qaeda decided to blow up Madrid trains, killing almost 200 people and bringing to an end Spain's membership of the West.

From that moment on, everybody knew nothing would be the same, and Spanish Jews knew there were hard times ahead. Prime Minister Zapatero has not disappointed them.

Investigating Israel?

Fox News

The U.N.'s human rights chief is looking into whether Israel's attacks on Lebanon and Gaza constitute war crimes. Louise Arbour called the "indiscriminate shelling" of cities and civilian sites unacceptable — and says the scale of the killings in the region "could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved."

Meanwhile, EU foreign policy head Javier Solana says there is insufficient data to determine whether Hezbollah can be listed as a terror organization, calling it a legal, not an ethical issue.

Hamas and Hezbollah Find Support in an Unexpected Place

Fox News

With even the Arab League blaming Hezbollah and Hamas for the violence in the Middle East, it seems the terrorist organizations' last bastions of support are Iran, Syria — and parts of California. Left-wing protesters chanting their support for the two groups in front of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco had to be separated from pro-Israel demonstrators by police the other day. Many protesters waved Palestinian flags, while some mask-wearing demonstrators wore t-shirts advocating violence against Jews.

And in a Los Angeles Times op-ed today, UCLA literature professor Saree Makdisi says Israel, not Hezbollah, is the true terrorist group, writing that the country has killed "whole families," and is engaged in "collective punishment of the entire Lebanese population."

Deal or Dud?: Restaurant.com

Fox 8 News

Would you like to get out of the house and try a new restaurant, but the cost has you stuck in a rut? Now there's a way to explore at a discount. FOX8 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Melissa Painter took a look at a Web site called Restaurant.com. ...

'Hello Sooty' :-)

RE: 'Gift from God'

It is not clear how many evangelicals believe literally in those type of prophecies.

They are called premillenialists and of true evangelicals my wild guess would be that about 80% of them believe in the modern literal interpretations of eschatological scripture. Unfortunately, much of what they believe is non-scriptural and the result of quite a bit of extrapolation.

...And for the record, apocalypse simply means "hidden truth." What Tanya and Strother are actually talking about is hard to pin down. Sometimes it is called Armageddon, but that is a place-name reference from the Apocalypse of John (a.k.a the Revelation). Probably the most accurate name for it would be the cusp of the Millenium, but that's pretty wonkish. In any case, it refers to the last battle between Satan and the forces of Heaven. There are some groups who believe said battle has already occured and we are living in the period of time when the Beast is loosed on the Earth again "for a season" after his initial defeat at the hands of the archangel Michael. There is convincing scriptural evidence for that belief. There are others who believe the events of the Book of Daniel as well as John's Apocalypse exist outside the man-made construct of time (and space), and relative to humanity they have occurred, are occurring, will occur. I could go into that one for pages, but...

Bush vetoes bill as vowed

From today's WSJ:

Bush and his allies say that frozen embryos are tantamount to humans and therefore are no more appropriate for medical research than are death-row inmates. "If this bill were to become law," Bush said yesterday, "American taxpayers would for the first time in our history be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos."
Others reject that view, saying that it would make killers of every couple who produce an ultimately unused embryo in pursuit of a baby, and of every employee and official who allows fertility clinics to produce and store such embryos.

So... whodunnit?

Introducing Mr. I Want To Get All Particular About Everything

Tanya: Ok mister I want to get all particular about everything...

Well, which is it? Are we just shooting the sh!t about one nation destroying another one, or are we serious? If we're serious, then I find that getting 'all particular about everything' can dramatically improve the intelligence of a debate.

...it is a bad idea for any GROUP OR NATION to go up against Israel. Is that better?

Sure.

As I said yesterday, you can't stop people for wanting to fight about one thing or another, and you have to defend yourself. But in doing that, I believe that justly defending yourself means to strike with equal force to deter future attacks. Greater or excessive force should only be used after a conflict's attacks continue, whether by the group or by any contributors to the original attack.

For Israel, the destruction of the Hezbollah party should the first, and hopefully last, goal in this conflict. This alone could send a clear message to many neighbors of Israel — just leave us alone. Control your own people, and don’t make us do it for you. This all can be accomplished while using realistic amounts of force, and Israel — as well as its allies — will be best off when they use it.

All the signs point and say that the apocalypse is beginning, you can be in denial all you want but remember that things that begin must also end. It is a harsh reality to think about, but it is going to happen.

You think so? Well, okay. Do you want to hop the bullet train to The Apocalypse? I think you may find it less than enjoyable.

Yes, there are some "innocent victims", but… So you tell me what possible good could come out of a place that is so evil?

How about some of those innocent victims you mentioned?

Oh oil I guess?

Hey — you like it and I like it, right?

Do you really mean to be so harsh? You like hype, huh?

'Gift from God'

From 'Evangelical Christians plead for Israel,' an article by Richard Allen Greene for BBC News Washington:

John Hagee is the pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, and a long-time fervent supporter of Israel. In common with many American evangelicals, he believes that God gave the land to the Jewish people and that Christians have a Biblical duty to support it and the Jews.
His latest book, 'Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World,' interprets the Bible to predict that Russian and Arab armies will invade Israel and be destroyed by God. This will set up a confrontation over Israel between China and the West, led by the anti-Christ, who will be the head of the European Union, Pastor Hagee writes. That final battle between East and West — at Armageddon, an actual place in Israel — will precipitate the second coming of Christ, he concludes.
It is not clear how many evangelicals believe literally in those type of prophecies.

RE: RE: Liberals: Born to run

Hezbollah is an out-of-control, radical Islamic political party full of terrorists who have no problem using acts of aggression to further its cause. It is not a nation. Secondly, some people are truly obsessed with apocalypticism, aren't they?

Ok mister I want to get all particular about everything... it is a bad idea for any GROUP OR NATION to go up against Israel. Is that better?

All the signs point and say that the apocalypse is beginning, you can be in denial all you want but remember that things that begin must also end. It is a harsh reality to think about, but it is going to happen.

Wow — your apparent lack of benevolence is breathtaking. Israel choosing to 'destroy' any nation — going any further than defending itself with focused might toward its aggressors — would reduce them to a nation of terrorists. I don't think any sensible person would be in favor of that, and Coulter's opinion on the subject is proof. By the way, does the term 'innocent victims' mean anything to you?

If you would open your eyes and stop focusing on the humanitarian aspects you might actually see the reality of all the Middle East Countries. Yes, there are some "innocent victims", but the majority of the people are involved in some sort of militant group. Most of the Middle East support terrorist activity and fund it. So you tell me what possible good could come out of a place that is so evil? Oh oil I guess?

RE: Liberals: Born to run

...Born To Run — the best album from the Boss. But I digress.

What's the topic? Oh, yeah — the Hezbollah/Israeli conflict.

Tanya: 'Remember that any nation that goes up against Israel will fall and to go up againt Israel is like saying I'm ready for the apocalypse to begin.'

Hezbollah is an out-of-control, radical Islamic political party full of terrorists who have no problem using acts of aggression to further its cause. It is not a nation. Secondly, some people are truly obsessed with apocalypticism, aren't they?

'I agree Israel needs to destroy Southern Lebanon, hey go far all of Lebanon why not... Like I said before the Middle East does nothing but breed terrorist so the more cities Israel can take down the better.'

Wow — your apparent lack of benevolence is breathtaking. Israel choosing to 'destroy' any nation — going any further than defending itself with focused might toward its aggressors — would reduce them to a nation of terrorists. I don't think any sensible person would be in favor of that, and Coulter's opinion on the subject is proof. By the way, does the term 'innocent victims' mean anything to you?

Liberals: Born to run

I knew the events in the Middle East were big when The New York Times devoted nearly as much space to them as it did to a New York court ruling last week rejecting gay marriage.

Some have argued that Israel's response is disproportionate, which is actually correct: It wasn't nearly strong enough. I know this because there are parts of South Lebanon still standing.

Ann Coulter


I could not agree more with Ann, this article hits the nail on the head. I agree Israel needs to destroy Southern Lebanon, hey go far all of Lebanon why not, I'm sure there are terrorist there somewhere that are waiting for Hezbollah to fall so they can take up power. Remember that any nation that goes up against Israel will fall and to go up againt Israel is like saying I'm ready for the apocalypse to begin. Like I said before the Middle East does nothing but breed terrorist so the more cities Israel can take down the better.

Scientists Capture Whale 'Fart' on Film

RE: Bush Serves Up Some Kool-Aid

Steve responds: "Give me a break, Andy. Do you mean the same Bush who chastised Clinton for using US troops for nation-building? Or was it the same Bush who campaigned on smaller government and less spending? Or maybe it was the George Bush who said senior citizens and farmers needed to be more self-sufficient."

"How is it that he suddenly gets credit for political consistency now? That's pure Kool-Aid, Andy..."

"...As were a lot of us, but that doesn't make his action any less one of pandering, and a blatantly transparent one at that."

Hey, when I agree with him on something, I'll give him kudos for it. I personally don't believe he was pandering on this since the social conservatives on Capital Hill were split. I honestly believe he was against this on moral grounds.

Bush Serves Up Some Kool-Aid

Bush has been speaking out against this since the early months of his presidency.

Give me a break, Andy. Do you mean the same Bush who chastised Clinton for using US troops for nation-building? Or was it the same Bush who campaigned on smaller government and less spending? Or maybe it was the George Bush who said senior citizens and farmers needed to be more self-sufficient.

How is it that he suddenly gets credit for political consistency now? That's pure Kool-Aid, Andy.

I was against the federal funding aspect of the bill.

As were a lot of us, but that doesn't make his action any less one of pandering, and a blatantly transparent one at that.

RE: Bush Vetoes Stem Cell Bill As Promised

Steve opines: "Let's see. Bush won't veto a whole laundry list of reprehensible crap, but he chooses this point to draw his line in the sand? This pure pandering. It is an attempt to win back the good opinion of the religious right. As Neal Boortz said, it is a good veto, but for the wrong reason. Bush is a fool and as of now, he is probably setting the bar for how bad an American President can be in the twenty-first century. He's lucky he's serving now. Ten years earlier and he would be giving ol' Smilin' Jimmy a run for his money."

Maybe Bush vetoed the bill because he was against it... Bush has been speaking out against this since the early months of his presidency. Personally, I'm glad he vetoed it, even though his reasons for being against it are probably different than mine. I was against the federal funding aspect of the bill.

Where there is crisis and there is opportunity

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- There is crisis and there is opportunity. Amid the general wringing of hands over the seemingly endless and escalating Israel-Hezbollah fighting, everyone asks: Where will it end?

The answer, blindingly clear, begins with understanding that this crisis represents a rare, perhaps irreproducible, opportunity.

Chameleon John Edwards Tries Out New Campaign

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator whose movie-star looks overshadowed his merely workmanlike performance as John Kerry's vice-presidential running mate two years ago, has been carefully fashioning a presidential run of his own for 2008.

Owners of Chimney Rock Park putting 1,000-acre park up for sale

The Associated Press

Chimney Rock Park, the popular private park set in the cliffs overlooking Lake Lure in western North Carolina, is being offered for private sale, with an asking price of $55 million, owner Todd Morse said Tuesday.

More analysis on the Cohen article...

This is from a blog called Kesher Talk...

Rolling Stones' Keith Richards Likely to Be Pardoned for Reckless Driving in Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The state of Arkansas is prepared to pardon Keith Richards for being a reckless driver, 31 years later.

The state Parole Board on July 3 approved an application for clemency submitted on behalf of Richards, guitarist for the Rolling Stones, by Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee has until 30 days from Tuesday to sign it, clearing Richards' record.

Bush Vetoes Stem Cell Bill As Promised

President Bush used the first veto of his presidency Wednesday to stop legislation easing limits on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

The president spoke about the issue this afternoon in the White House East Room, surrounded by 18 families who "adopted" frozen embryos that were not used by other couples, and then used those leftover embryos to have children.

While both the GOP-run House and Senate defied Bush in passing the measure to expand federally funded embryonic stem research, supporters do not appear to have the two-thirds vote margin needed to override such a veto.

Pleadings from celebrities, a former first lady and fellow Republicans did not move Bush from his determination to reject the bill. However, lawmakers planned to try as soon as Bush issues the veto.

Mary Dalrymple

Let's see. Bush won't veto a whole laundry list of reprehensible crap, but he chooses this point to draw his line in the sand? This pure pandering. It is an attempt to win back the good opinion of the religious right. As Neal Boortz said, it is a good veto, but for the wrong reason. Bush is a fool and as of now, he is probably setting the bar for how bad an American President can be in the twenty-first century. He's lucky he's serving now. Ten years earlier and he would be giving ol' Smilin' Jimmy a run for his money.

RE: Hunkering Down, etc.

Does he say elsewhere that Israel shouldn't fight back?

I'm not sure what you think "exercise restraint" and "hunker down" mean. His clear intention is that Israel should quietly just accept the incoming rockets and suicide bombers. There is no other way to read it.

To me, it sounds like he's written an article saying there's no peace for Israel in sight.

That may have been one of his points, but his main emphasis was to say that Israel's troubles are their own fault for existing and that they should just smile and nod as the bombs fall. You can't fix this. The guy is an ivory tower idiot.

My opinion: You can't stop people for wanting to fight about one thing or another, and you have to defend yourself. That, and you can't go back and change history. You can only decide what to do next.

Good summary.

How 'Bout Relocating Israel to Mexico?

An old but timely blog entry by Ken Layne for FOXNews.com:

Dear Ariel Sharon and Vicente Fox,
Thomas Friedman keeps squeezing New York Times columns from his "open letter" gimmick, so I figured I'd type a note to both of you guys.
Here's the deal: that whole Israel/Arab thing is getting very ugly and a lot more people will die before Israel wins. Sure, Israel always wins, but what about the hassle? What about the lives lost, and the economic mess, and the general bummer of living in a Death Zone?
Does Israel really want to be the only functioning democracy in the Maniac Middle East, forever? And endlessly have to haggle and fight with the poor, backward dictatorships surrounding it? Hell, Israel doesn't even have oil. Other than the historical thing, there's not much to the Holy Land beyond desert, suicide bombers and some nice beaches...
That's why I'm asking you both to consider my big idea of moving Israel to the lovely and sparsely populated Mexican state of Baja California Sur. Presidente Fox, you're the first democratically elected leader of Mexico, and most Mexican Jews voted for you. Prime Minister Sharon, you're an old warrior who needs a vacation and a bucket of Corona beer on the beach. Israel has money and smarts. Mexico has a bright future but could use a few hundred billion in foreign investment.

RE: President to Address NAACP Tomorrow

It does make you wonder why, after six years of avoiding the NAACP, he's finally decided to do this. Maybe he doesn't want to be forever mentioned alongside Warren G. Harding?

Hunkering Down, etc.

He's another appeasement idiot who thinks nations and cultures should simply bow to the forces of might makes right.

He stated, 'There is, though, a point in cautioning Israel to exercise restraint -- not for the sake of its enemies but for itself.' Does he say elsewhere that Israel shouldn't fight back? To me, it sounds like he's written an article saying there's no peace for Israel in sight. That, and if Israel was somewhere else other than where it is, the grand scale of this particular problem wouldn't exist for them. Stating the obvious isn't much help, though — it just makes for another column, I guess.

You were very careful not to offer an opinion, Strother. What say you?

Not careful. It just didn't come up. My opinion: You can't stop people for wanting to fight about one thing or another, and you have to defend yourself. That, and you can't go back and change history. You can only decide what to do next.

A 'cycle' on nonsense

Dr. Sowell answers Cohen a priori and bolsters my argument. I am humbled.

A few tidbits (hopefully Strother and others will read the entire article):

For reasons unknown, some people seem to regard verbal equivalence as moral equivalence -- and the latter as some kind of badge of broadmindedness, if not intellectual superiority.

Centuries ago, Thomas Hobbes said that words are wise men's counters but that they are the money of fools.

During all the years when Arab countries controlled the land now proposed for a Palestinian homeland, there was no talk about any such homeland. Only after Israel took control of that territory as a result of the 1967 war was it suddenly sacred as a Palestinian homeland.

I might also add that in 1947, when England was carving out the state of Israel, a self-ruled homeland was offered to and declined by Arab Palestinians (keep in mind, as well, that the original Palestinians were Jews).

Of all the Western democracies, only two have no choice but to depend on their own military forces for their survival -- the United States and Israel. The rest have for more than half a century had the luxury of depending on American military forces in general and the American nuclear deterrent in particular.

People who have long been sheltered from mortal dangers can indulge themselves in the belief that there are no mortal dangers. Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran or North Korea -- and, through them, in the hands of hate-filled terrorists -- may be all that will finally wake up such people. But that may be tragically too late.

RE: Hunker Down With History

I read Cohen's article and I believe Fox News did a good job in summarizing it... In a nutshell, Cohen blames the creation and existence of Israel for the problems in the Middle East.

RE: Hunker Down With History

Ok, I read it. Fox News was being kind to him. My comments stand and I'll add an exclamation point.

He's another appeasement idiot who thinks nations and cultures should simply bow to the forces of might makes right. I sometimes don't know who is worse, the barbarians at the gate or the appeasers who want the gates pulled down.

And I reiterate, Cohen is an ivory tower liberal idiot. It's easy for him to make his grand pronouncements in the glow of his computer monitor. If he was forced to "hunker down" and live with the bombs going off around him, he would have a very different view.

Furthermore, the entire premise of his article, that Israel itself is a mistake, is a sterling example of the shallowness of thought and lack of mental acuity that is the hallmark of Western liberals. Every nation on Earth is the result of a displacement of one form or another. All of Western Civilization is the result of migrations and conflicts. Cohen lives in and reaps the benefits of the result of one of the largest migrations and displacements in the history of the world. Of course, he and his ilk love to condemn that as well. If the Inuits, Apaches, Algonquins, and Cherokees rose up and started throwing bombs at us and threatening to "push America into the sea," I expect Cohen would advise us to "hunker down." That is, until the bombs and rockets started exploding around his neatly coiffured head.

You were very careful not to offer an opinion, Strother. What say you?

President to Address NAACP Tomorrow

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post

After six years in office, President Bush has agreed to address the NAACP at its annual national convention in Washington, the White House announced yesterday.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the president will appear before the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group tomorrow after years of trading rhetorical jabs with its leadership.

"I think the president wants to make the argument that he has had a career that reflects a strong commitment to civil rights," Snow said at a news conference.

Hunker Down With History

No offense guys, but I would prefer to actually read the column by Richard Cohen rather than read a critique of it by Fox News. So here it is, from the Washington Post. I would suggest that BP readers actually read it. "We Report, You Decide (TM)" isn't nearly as interesting as 'you read, you decide.' Just a thought, folks.

The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.

RE: Israel 'A Mistake'?

I wonder how Cohen managed to write an entire article with his head all the way up his ass.

Standard liberal, freakin' moron irony note:

If the rockets were falling all around his house, Cohen would be shrieking in girlie-like terror and wetting himself. As soon as he was able to start typing, he would be demanding that the Bush Administration level everything that even remotely looked Muslim immediately.

In keeping with my belief that there should be a cost for this kind of idiocy, the US Military should go pick Cohen up and take him with them to the Middle East. They can drop him off in Haifa and he can "hunker down" with the Israeli women and children who are on the receiving end of Hizbollah's rocket attacks.

Apparently the Post has a strong hire-the-handicapped program.

Israel 'A Mistake'?

Fox News

Liberal Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen writes today that the "greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake." Cohen blames the creation of Israel for a century of warfare in the Middle East, including the present conflict.

And while he says there's "no point in condemning Hezbollah... [or] Hamas," Cohen argues that Israel should exercise restraint — writing that retaking Lebanon and Gaza would lead to world condemnation of "the inevitable sins of an occupying power." His solution?

Cohen says Israel should pull back, withdraw from the West Bank, and accept terrorism and rocket attacks, while "waiting (and hoping) that history will get distracted and move on to something else," adding, "It is best for Israel to hunker down."

Pelosi Calls Out President Bush

Fox News

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is calling on the president to immediately declare that the U.S. will start bearing the costs of evacuating its citizens from Lebanon, instead of charging them, saying, "A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon."

But the president isn't authorized to reverse the policy — which requires citizens to pay commercial fare plus a dollar for government evacuation — since it's encoded in the 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act. That law was approved by the House and the Democratic controlled Senate in 2002. Pelosi herself voted for the measure.

Robinson among most successful fundraisers

Over 99 percent of donations from individuals

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

RALEIGH, N.C.

Vernon Robinson, a conservative Republican who has never held any office higher than city councilman, continues to rank among the nation's most successful congressional fundraisers after raking in more than $520,000 in the past 21/2 months.

Robinson's success, on par with that of some of the top members of Congress, relies on a mix of attack politics and modern communication. In one radio ad, for example, Robinson tells listeners that if his opponent had his way, "America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals."

"There are a lot of folks waiting for someone to take a stand on the issues," Robinson said. "I'm willing to do just that."

The Bully Pulpit, Guatemala Edition

One of them might be how amazing it is to me that any conservative ever thought that we were in Iraq to 'liberate' or help the Iraqi people.

Did you read the Jed Babbin article? If not, you might want to amend that to "some conservatives" after reading it. If you had polled "conservatives" on the day we invaded Iraq, you would have found most of them thought we were going into Iraq to shut Saddam's so-called WMD operations down. A smaller group of us knew that Bush was a neo-Wilsonian (or neo-Jacobin) and that his intentions were to spread whatever his vision of global happiness might be, by force if necessary. This "spreading democracy" garbage came along after the WMD thing blew up in their faces.

We could pay a bit more attention to and invest a bit more in our neighbors and not so much in countries that are nearly on the other side of the world.

Depending on what you mean by attention and investment, I pretty much agree. However, unless the Guatemalans ask for help with their "problem" it is really none of our business, regardless of what the BBC and Amnesty International say about it.

No, but why not? We're ready to swing our armies in elsewhere to meddle in business that is not ours.

So that must have been a rhetorical question. We certainly do seem to have problems acting on our status of sole superpower in an adult fashion.

And while you're at it, tell me all about your life in Guatemala, too.

You don't have time. Surprised? I have spent more time than I care to recall in Central and South American cesspools. When I commented on the extremity of the situation, I was doing so from firsthand experience. Those numbers are only remarkable in that they are being heard outside Guatemala. They may even be low.

So why aren't Americans outraged at the longstanding lack of justice for Guatemalan citizens, close neighbors of ours?

Well, for one thing, only liberals get outraged over subjective and mushy terms like "justice." Ergo, since most Americans aren't liberals, there is no outrage. This is supported by the fact that the only notable outrage seems to be generated by Amnesty International and the BBC, two organizations with deep associations on the Left.

For a short while, we were all fired up about fighting for the longstanding lack of justice and freedom for Iraqi citizens, people who don't live anywhere near us.

Freedom, maybe, but justice, hardly. Bush and his fellow neo-Wilsonians sold their plan in two flavors. The first was intended for people who were paying attention. It was based on the idea that spreading democracy in the Middle East would have some magical curative effect and the terrorists would wilt under it like so much crabgrass. The second flavor was for the touchy-feely types who went all warm and moist over the idea of Iraquis voting and getting MTV, and like, shopping malls and everything.

Hopefully, by now, most people are beginning to understand both flavors were horse manure and maybe that will help us to see through the haze next time. Who knows? Maybe it will even help prevent our doing something dumb in Guatemala.

Before the white man came? War

In reality, Pocahontas's fellow Algonquin Indians were preyed on by the Iroquois, "who took captives home to torture them before death," observes Nicholas Wade en passant. The Iroquois? Surely not. Only a year or two back, the ethnic grievance lobby managed to persuade Congress to pass a resolution that the United States Constitution was modelled on the principles of the Iroquois Confederation -- which would have been news to the dead white males who wrote it. With Disney movies, one assumes it's just the modishness of showbiz ignoramuses and whatever multiculti theorists they've put on the payroll as consultants. But professor Keeley and Steven LeBlanc of Harvard disclose almost as an aside that, in fact, their scientific colleagues were equally invested in the notion of the noble primitive living in peace with nature and his fellow man, even though no such creature appears to have existed. "Most archaeologists," says LeBlanc, "ignored the fortifications around Mayan cities and viewed the Mayan elite as peaceful priests. But over the last 20 years Mayan records have been deciphered. Contrary to archaeologists' wishful thinking, they show the allegedly peaceful elite was heavily into war, conquest and the sanguinary sacrifice of beaten opponents.... The large number of copper and bronze axes found in Late Neolithic and Bronze Age burials were held to be not battle axes but a form of money."

Mark Steyn

RE: RE: Guatemala urged to act on murders

So what's your point?

Oh, I could have a variety of points. One of them might be how amazing it is to me that any conservative ever thought that we were in Iraq to 'liberate' or help the Iraqi people. We generally don't have the time for that sort of crap unless we have some ulterior motive. (I'm not necessarily knocking all ulterior motives, so don't get mad.)

Are you saying we should interfere with the internal affairs of Guatemala?

No. We could pay a bit more attention to and invest a bit more in our neighbors and not so much in countries that are nearly on the other side of the world.

Are you saying we should swing our armies into action for every hysterical report that the idiots at Amnesty International and the BBC choose to trumpet across the news wires?

No, but why not? We're ready to swing our armies in elsewhere to meddle in business that is not ours. (But usually when that happens, the hysterical reports are from our own government.)

No doubt what is happening is terrible, but if you think this is new or even extreme for Central and South America, then you've been living a sheltered life, my boy.

Whatever — what American isn't sheltered, Steve? And while you're at it, tell me all about your life in Guatemala, too.

But you're right: murder is not new, but I'd say it's still pretty 'extreme' — especially these types of murders. From the article:

Amnesty's latest report cites police figures which show that 229 women and girls were killed in Guatemala in the first six months of 2006. Many of the murders were exceptionally brutal, with the victims suffering sexual violence, mutilation and dismemberment. Amnesty says that it knows of only two convictions out of 665 murders of women in 2005.

So why aren't Americans outraged at the longstanding lack of justice for Guatemalan citizens, close neighbors of ours? For a short while, we were all fired up about fighting for the longstanding lack of justice and freedom for Iraqi citizens, people who don't live anywhere near us. Of course I know what gives, but, for me, the still-existent BS doublestandards involved in the Iraq debate cast many other international issues in a different light these days.

RE: Guatemala urged to act on murders

Only Mexico separates us from this problem, yet we're spending billions to liberate Iraq. Amazing.

So what's your point? Are you saying we should interfere with the internal affairs of Guatemala? Are you saying we should swing our armies into action for every hysterical report that the idiots at Amnesty International and the BBC choose to trumpet across the news wires?

No doubt what is happening is terrible, but if you think this is new or even extreme for Central and South America, then you've been living a sheltered life, my boy.

RE: Endgame Conservatives, Chapter Two

Excellent article, as was chapter one.

The second school of thought I have labeled, "Endgame Conservatism." Those such as I say that history from Carthage to Vietnam teaches that if we fail to prosecute a war in a manner calculated to win it decisively, we will lose it inevitably. We believe that terrorism cannot threaten us significantly without the support of nations, and that those nations that are preeminent in their support for terrorists -- Iran and Syria -- must be forcibly disconnected from terrorism. We believe that waiting for Islam to reform itself is tantamount to accepting defeat and that radical Islam (an ideology, not a religion) must be defeated just as Soviet Communism and German Nazism were. We believe that our military's job is not to build nations but to defeat those that threaten America. Once they have done so, their job is finished and whatever the people of a nation do thereafter is their business, not ours, unless they choose to threaten America or its allies again. We assert that requiring democracy in Iraq before defeating the Syrian and Iranian regime enables the enemy to control the pace and direction of the war. And we believe that peace isn't about "processes." It's about winners and losers. Until you have each belligerent in one category or the other, the war isn't over.

I can't find anything to disagree with here. I guess that makes me an "endgame conservative."

Guatemala urged to act on murders

Only Mexico separates us from this problem, yet we're spending billions to liberate Iraq. Amazing.

Guatemala is still failing to take action over the high number of murders of women and girls in the country, according to Amnesty International. The rights group said there has been little progress since June 2005, when it called on the authorities to act.
Up to 70% of murders of women are not investigated and no arrests are made in 97% of cases, Amnesty says. It adds that some officials recognise how serious the problem is, but many still tend to blame the victims.

— BBC News

Surrender at Treasury and State

The American Spectator

It appears that any thoughts that new Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would be open to a staff that looks more like a Bush Administration than a Gore Administration should be forgotten.

Remembering the Gipper

"Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism upon a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment."

Ronald Reagan

Endgame Conservatives, Chapter Two

We have to face one simple fact: democracy depends on a separation of church and state that is impossible where Islamic law prevails. Democracy provides us with the freedoms we wish for everyone. But we cannot allow those who wish to destroy it to succeed because of our naive desire to impose it in their lands. It is still our choice to win decisively or lose inevitably. But soon that choice will no longer be ours to make.

Jed Babbin

The Left Blogs Close the Door on the Big Tent

I disagree with Glenn Reynolds. Not on everything, but on some things.

Support for the war in Iraq as an important battleground in the War on Terror? Ditto, Glenn. Unequivocal backing of the notion that Americans should have the right to pack heat? I’m with you. A general respect for the free market and the innovations, efficiency, and gifts it visits upon us? Yep, there again.

On the stem-cell debate and other social issues, I can’t say the same. And, the “I had an abortion” T-shirt is not a fashion choice I would have made.

But here’s the thing. If you were to ask me if he’s with me or against me-- if you were to say, politically speaking, “is he on your team?”-- I’d say yes. Yes, the politically hybrid, libertarianish law professor who threatens to vote Democrat if they’d only give him something to work with on national security is on my team.

I feel the same way about a long list of other libertarianish political hybrids who vocally disagree with me on social issues—folks like Ann Althouse and Jeff Goldstein, both of whose blogs I consider favorites. And, I think most of the Right blogosphere feels the same way, even though many right bloggers are more conservative than these three writers. Their traffic numbers certainly reflect acceptance and popularity among righty blog-readers.

Mary Katharine Ham

The Left's treatment of Joe Lieberman has had me wondering for a while on the topic of exclusionary and totalitarian behavior. One of the fine points we all should have received in our state-sponsored brainwashing was that only right-wingers are exclusionary bigots and that the Lovable Left wants us all to "just get along" so we can run off to that great kumbayah lovefest down by the river (or on the beach, pick your geography).

Mary Katherine has given us an interesting examination of the nature of that particular myth, at least as far as the blogosphere is concerned. You should jump over to Protein Wisdom and roll back to Dr. Frisch's comments. I can't think of a better recent tribute to Amerikun Edjukashun.

Gingrich Says World War III Has Begun

World War III has begun, and the nation's leadership is failing to deal with this reality, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich concludes.

Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press with Tim Russert Sunday, Gingrich explained that "today is not the fifth day of the war, it's the 58th year of the effort by those who want to destroy Israel. As Ahmadinejad, the head of Iran, says, he wants to defeat the Americans and eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. So we should not see this event in isolation. There is an ... Iran/Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas alliance trying to destroy Israel."

Truth, rhetoric, or both? Is this the second wave of the Islamic migration and occupation begun by the Ottoman Turks in the middle ages? Some say yes, and some say we are as ill-prepared to stave it off as were the Europeans of that time. Anyone reading histories of Rome and Byzantium would find alarming similarities. Will we be witness to whole sections of Europe and the Americas occupied and living under Islamic laws and customs?

'Great Men' have grating effect on Mideast

It's easy to fly in a guy in a suit to hold a meeting. Half the fellows inside the Beltway have Middle East "peace plans" named after them. Bush flew in himself a year or two back to announce his "road map." Before that it was Cheney, who flew in with the Cheney plan, which was a plan to open up a road map back to the last plan, which would get us back to "Tenet," which would get us back to "Mitchell," which would get us back to "Wye River," which would get us back to "Oslo," which would get us back to Kansas.

And none of these Great Men meeting with other Great Men gets us anywhere. Some of the Great Men can't speak for their peoples (Mubarak) or their legislatures (Abbas). And a lot of the Great Men can't even speak for themselves: From the late Yasser Arafat to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, they say one thing in meetings with Western emissaries and something entirely different to their compatriots. And some of the Great Men we send to negotiate aren't all that great: the wretched Mohammed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Authority, is, in fact, a patsy for the nuclear mullahs. To reprise one of my all-time favorite Iranian negotiating positions, let's recall the perfect distillation of what Great Man diplomacy boils down to in the Middle East, as reported in the New York Times exactly a year ago:

"Iran will resume uranium enrichment if the European Union does not recognize its right to do so, two Iranian nuclear negotiators said in an interview published Thursday."

If we don't let Iran go nuclear, they'll go nuclear. Negotiate that, Chuck Hagel.

Mark Steyn in top form.

The government of the United States is little more than a vaudeville show these days. I think they are trying to mimic those of Europe. On foreign policy, Bush and his crowd are, as Steyn would say, wretched, and then it gets worse from there.

Sesame Street helps army children

I wonder if Starling and I will soon see this episode during PBS's weekday airings of Sesame Street?

From the BBC:

US children's TV show Sesame Street is to be used to help American military families explain why a parent has to leave to serve overseas. A DVD featuring popular character Elmo and his parents who are preparing for Elmo's dad to be deployed, will be handed out for free in August.

Senate Sends Mixed Messages on Immigration Reform

By John Gibson

We're all preoccupied with the war in the Middle East, so it's probably not unusual that we've taken our eye off the immigration story. However, that is no excuse for the U.S. Senate to take back a promise on its immigration reform law.

The Senate promised to build a 370-mile fence on the border with Mexico as part of a plan to shore up the most porous sections of the 2,000-mile southern border. The 370-mile fence is about a fifth of what needs to be done, but the experts told the Senate it was enough for now. A good down payment.

So the Senate voted for it. As you know, immigration reform is now in the hands of a conference committee of the Senate and House — not big hopes there since the House is dead set against a Senate plan which is heavy on guest-worker programs and light on border enforcement.

Thursday's vote is going to make it worse. That's because even though the Senate voted for 370 miles of fence, Thursday it voted down a proposal to actually spend the money to build it.

Who is at fault?

In 1967, Israel acquired the ``occupied territories.'' In 1948, Israel acquired life. The fighting raging now in 2006 -- between Israel and the ``genocidal Islamism'' (to quote the writer Yossi Klein Halevi) of Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran behind them -- is about whether that life should and will continue to exist.

Charles Krauthammer

What European Nations Are Saying About the Situation In the Mideast

Fox News

European nations have called on Hezbollah to release the two Israeli soldiers whose kidnapping provoked Israel's military strikes on the terror group's home country of Lebanon, but they've saved their harshest words for Israel itself.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned Israel's attacks as "a disproportionate act of war," while Greece called on Israel to stop the use of "excessive and pointless force." And current European Union president Finland says the "imposition of an air and sea blockade on Lebanon cannot be justified," adding that Israel's "actions, which are contrary to international humanitarian law, can only aggravate the vicious circle of violence and retribution, and cannot serve anyone's legitimate security interests."

RE: Are Republicans Kidding Us?

Steve opines: "The Republicans get points for sheer huzpah, but not much else. Sadly, though, Joe Sixpack is still so terrified of the Democrats, he'll probably buy this vial of snake oil. Weep for the republic."

If Republicans keep control of Congress in the fall, it will be because the Democrats are not offering a serious alternative. I'll admit, thinking of Nancy Pelosi as speaker does give me chills because she is dumb as an ox (No offense to an ox.) And the thought of Charles Rangel and John Conyers heading key committees does worry me because they are Marxists.

DOT looking into use of ferry for tall-ships cruise for public officials

Taking vessel off its busy route delayed travel across Neuse

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

RALEIGH

The state Department of Transportation is looking into why a state ferry was taken off its busy route, and cleaned and painted so officials could party aboard it during a recent tall-ships festival.

Pennsylvania Senate Race

RealClearPolitics Election Analysis

At the age of 36, Rick Santorum rode the 1994 GOP surge to a 2-pt win over Harris Wofford, 49 - 47. In 2000, his outspoken social conservatism in the traditionally more moderate Northeast made him a prime target for Democrats, but unlike many other Class of '94 conservatives (Spencer Abraham, Rod Grams and John Ashcroft) Santorum defied the skeptics and won reelection with 52% of the vote.

This November it looks like the Democrats may be poised to accomplish what they couldn't get done six years ago.