Maggie's Farm

Bush faces choice between two kinds of bipartisanship. Newt at Opinion Journal

Note to bosses: close your door. And other advice, at Reasoned Audacity

Sarbanes-Oxley will be fixed. That is a good thing.

Citizenship tests. Too difficult? Let the whining begin! And look who's complaining, when they should be grateful as hell. (h/t, And Rightly So)

Pat Conroy: Confession of an American Coward, at Dem Project

Press lies about war, 1964. Neoneo. Yes, the press sure wanted to lose that one, too. Why?

Wealthy countries have more trees, and thus remove more evil evil CO2/ Worstall. Well, fine, but we don't accept that evil CO2 premise, not yet.

Payback to the unions. Good bye, Free Trade. Hello, higher prices. Samiz.

Bush immigration notions drove independents to Dems. Not rational, but just watch the border open up now. Ace. Heck, we all know it's about pandering to the Hispanic voters.

Give Mitt Romney a good look: Am Thinker

Good point, from Blue Crab:

Take a subject you are a genuine expert on and then read a newspaper report on the subject. All too often, you'll find that the paper has some, often many, things quite wrong. The human tendency is to shake your head, then go right back to reading the paper and believing their stories on other subjects.

Just asking: How does a young politican afford a $1.6 million house, and what's the deal with this Rezko guy? ESR 

Still waiting for the withering away of the state? Stumbling. Funny how often we forget that Lenin was a closet Libertarian. Modern liberal statists are worse: they just want state power to grow forever.

The two kinds of killing. I never understood this either. Tangled

LaShawn is fed up. A quote:

It’s disheartening to know that yet another generation of blacks is growing up with persecution complexes and prove-you’re-not-a-racist-by-giving-me-perks attitudes. For at least 25 years, lowered standards and expectations for blacks have been the status quo in public institutions. Whether blacks are attending schools they’re not qualified to attend because of race preferences and would fare better at schools better suited to their abilities (high on my list of possible explanations) or whether the collapse of the black family and a general apathy to education relegates black kids to the academic basement, I don’t know and I honestly don’t care. People make their own choices in this free country, and if parents don’t care about their own offspring, why am I worrying about them?

A black liberal once asked me how I could be so adamant in my views, how I could be sure that I’d always think conservatively. He was upset that I was publicly displaying conservative views and believed that one day, I’d change the way I saw the world. (The implication was that I’d return to liberalism.)

Wherever you are, “concerned” black liberal, you were right. My view of the world is slowly changing, but not the way you’d hoped. I am convinced that some blacks are afraid to be treated equally because they know they’ll never be academically competitive with whites. I am convinced that deep down, some blacks would rather accept lowered standards than face the embarrassment of a truly level playing field. They will use any means necessary – political, legal, psychological – to make sure the color of their skin always remains front and center, and at the same time, castigate people who can’t see past it.

The country has moved far beyond discrimination. In fact, people don't even make much of skin color, ethnicity, or religion any more (except for colleges, who keep down their Asian numbers, and try to raise their black numbers - they seem to think color is important for some reason, sort of like kids counting their Crayolas.)

Lazy Mom? Embroidered needlepoint Christmas stockings at Land's End. But you should make them yourself, or let Grandma make them. It means more, and they sure won't be thrown in the garbage when they get dirty, and you are dead.

Castro is terminal? Duh. AOL calls it "dire news." Are they nuts? It's called good news. The jerk was a totalitarian monster. Calling him a Stalinist would be a compliment: he has destroyed three generations of Cubans - and Cuba.

EU bureaucracy warns against referendums. Duh, again. They would throw them all out. The general rule is that elected pompous jackasses are preferable to unelected pompous jackasses.

Inside college admissions. Read it and weep: they actually have conventions!

Inside baseball re the Repub leadership, by Barnett

Fleeing Massachusetts. Many are doing so. NE Repub. Our opinion? Either MA needs a wall to keep 'em in, or NH needs a wall to keep 'em out. They are immigrants who want freedom, but are accustomed to freebies. Impossible people.

Hispanic family breakdown,  at home and now in the US. Heather MacDonald at City Journal. This is not good news.

Was abandoning "real conservatism" the Repub problem? Nyhan doubts it.

What is sloe gin? Mr. Free Market makes his own - out of sloes. I don't think we have sloes in America, but we do have plums. Wonder whether you could make this from Beach Plums.

Heavy, dude. Giant meteor craters underseas. Global warming is nothing, compared to the next hit.

Anchoress takes on scientific utilitarianism. A quote:

Birth control was supposed to free women (mostly it freed men) and abortion was supposed to make “every child a wanted child.” Now, if your child is not the right sort of child, it doesn’t matter if you want it or not, you should not have it. If you (or your growing baby) are not fit to be perfectly productive, then you owe it to society to either kill the baby or die yourself, rather than inflict such vulgar weaknesses upon the rest of us. Society has nothing to learn from you, and you have nothing to teach it. Better to die and, as old Scrooge noted, “decrease the surplus population”.

All these decades later, the “enlightened” boomers have learned nothing about The Holiness of Be-ing, even though they have had some great instruction put before them.

As we watch this seemingly inexorable march toward the elimination of imperfect or sickly people for the good of humankind, I wonder, sometimes, if the Michael J Fox’s of the world realize that they are advocating the sorts of people and policies that will one day tell him that if he really cared about being a good citizen in the world, he’d take himself out.

Canada takes a step forward towards permitting smoking in schools. Blue Crab. Teacher, I can't think without my cigarettes, due to my inherited tobacco deficiency disorder.

From Boortz (h/t, Instap):

It is clear that something is terribly wrong in Washington right now.  We just went through an election where principles of individual liberty and limited government were not even on the table.  I am hard-pressed to name one leading Republican or Democrat who still extols the virtues of freedom, individualism, free markets and limited government. 

Churchill had ADHD and Alan Turing had Aspergers. Tangled Web. Yes - you can have such difficulties and be smart, and successful, as hell.

We knew, thanks to Powerline, that Rep Ellison was a closeted jihad sympathizer, but did we know that Conyers probably is too? Singleton.

Carnival of Capitalists, at Casey's Software this week. Cool.

Feminism alive and well, quoted from Augean Stables:

...the Jerusalem Post reported that an all-women’s cell of Islamic Jihad terrorists was discovered and apprehended. The women were handlers of several terror cells in the areas of Jerusalem and Judea. Among other activities, they were involved in the transferring of funds from Syria to be used for the families of suicide terrorists, and for the funding of terror attacks. One of the arrested women also oversaw the building of an explosives laboratory. The less capable women have been relegated to the position of acting as human shields for terrorists - but hey, it’s a job.

A re-post of this piece about Hamid, the ex-jihadist (thanks for the reminder, Asst. Village Idiot): 

He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism.

"Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."

Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic.

He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.

Whole thing here.

Some years we can have roses in bloom in the garden on Thanksgiving, in Yankeeland, especially if they are well-protected by a house, wall, or protection from cold wind. These sent in by a reader in CT, photos taken yesterday. Blooms among the falling leaves - there's a metaphor hiding in there.

A few Steyn quotes from Interview #3 by Hawkins:

On statism:

...this idea that it's normal for the state to be as big as it is in advanced social democratic societies is something that would have seemed incredible to anyone a hundred years ago. I mean, I remember being struck by - on September 11th - and I was writing a column a couple of days afterwards and, you know, we're all done with our initial reaction, so you're trying to think a couple of days ahead and find a new angle on it, and I happen to just notice that it was more or less (a hundred years after the) assassination of President McKinley. I was thinking, well, maybe I could tie these two things together, these two big traumatizing events and, you know, bookending the century, whatever - you know, just peck, peck, peck - we journalists always are going to peck.

So I sort of rummaged around the clippings of President McKinley's assassination and realized that while people were upset about it, they essentially regarded it as the removal of a remote figure who played a peripheral part in their lives. To that point for most people in most parts of the U.S. the federal government did not impinge on their life in any way.

On immigration:

That's the beginning and end of it - and so, in effect, I would say again, to make a point that I make in the book, immigration has its merits. I live in northern New Hampshire and I would certainly value it if there were a kind of a better of a range of Thai restaurants in this part of the world. So if I know a restaurateur in Thailand and I say, "Hey, there's an empty building on Main Street. You could come run a great Thai restaurant there," I mean, that's fine and dandy - but when you become dependent on immigration as Europe is and Canada is, then that's a sign of structural weakness.

On Islam in Europe:

If Islam is incompatible with democracy, that's not a problem for Iraq, it's a problem for Belgium, you know, because Iraq until, you know, a few months back had no democracy to lose. They can easily adjust to the way it's always been.

For Belgium or for Denmark or for the Netherlands, they've got real democracies and they are likely to lose and as you see, I think that is really the issue here, that when these contradictions are pointed out, Europeans essentially refuse to acknowledge them. Yet at the same time they're making capitulations to the most naked form of political bullying --and that's when Islam is officially a minority of, you know, 10% or so. In those cities it's a lot higher already. What happens when it's 30%? I mean, this is a question they never, ever ask themselves and you're right, they do take a dim view. I think at some level there's something else going on there, too, that a lot of these countries, you know, -- we talk about the Middle East, democratize the Middle East - we forget Spain was a dictatorship 30 years ago, Portugal, a little over 30 years ago, Greece, same 30 years ago.

Italy and Germany and France, you've got to go back half a century, but in essence the idea of living under non-democratic regimes is not foreign to these people and I think they think of themselves, their identities less as Europeans are less bound up with ideas of liberty than it is for the U.S. You know, the U.S. is an ideological project in a way that Italy isn't and so I do think that also accounts for part of the way they look at it.

The whole interview is here.

Kaminer on the academic disease of intolerance and the new authoritarianism. One quote:

Kaminer’s description of a free university, where challenging and even confrontational ideas are batted between and among teachers and students, sounds very appealing – but all too often today, the reality is quite different. She says: ‘There are still a lot of very good schools and very good teachers, who try to stimulate their students and expose them to different ideas.’ No doubt that is true. But in some universities there is also a creeping culture of conformism, a sense that certain ideas are beyond the pale and thus must be crushed by the long arm of the censor (often, these days, a university-appointed ethics committee or a self-righteous students’ union).

From Rick Moran:

The Iranians don’t only want us defeated. They want the US humiliated. Any negotiations with the mullahs will be long, drawn out, and designed to show the world how powerless we are to affect events in the region. In the meantime, our soldiers will continue to die, the Iraqi government will continue to dither, and the body count of civilians will spiral upwards.

Phased withdrawal my ass. If we have decided to bug out, let’s leave as quickly as possible. If victory is not to be had at any price then it is immoral to keep our men and women in harms way simply to appease domestic sensibilities. Yes Iraq will devolve into madness and chaos. We can deal with that situation in the context of the War on Terror. Asking someone to put their life on the line for no reason save assuaging the consciences of politicians is stupid.

If we’re not going to stay until the situation is stabilized leave now. Leave as quickly as we went in. The Saudis, the Iranians and the Syrians all helped sow the wind. Now let them reap the whirlwind.

Intellectuals love defeat. Hey, aren't we intellectuals?...Maybe not.

Benjamin Franklin Unmasked, at Moderate Voice

Libraries in the sand: 13th century texts in Timbuktu

Barbados invaded by giant ,man-eating snails

The F-35 Lightning and pilotless jets

Hezbollah has re-armed. 30,000 rockets, says Belmont Club, ready to go.

Why don't the Brits love Americans? RWN ponders it.

Re this little Pledge of Allegiance story in California, I think it's a tempest in a teapot.

Why? Because these are kids. Like many (non-Asian) kids, they try to find their own way to stand out and be noticed, and being a young rebel is one way. (Of course, being good at something, achieving something, and getting decent grades in challenging courses, might be a bit more mature.)

On the other hand, getting your name in the paper about the Pledge could be the best way for an otherwise-undistinguished white boy with average grades to get into the University of Michigan Law School.

In my experience, campus radicals are the guys who secretly, or even unwittingly, wish they could have been on a team - preferably the ultra-hip Lacrosse team. Name me one guy who didn't want to be on the Lacrosse team.  Or at least the football... or any sports team. I know - I wasn't.

The "radical" girls were just dogs with an attitude, as I recall. Hated their mothers, or something like that. Nice. Wonder what they are doing today? Probably on play dates with other moms, or, at worse, valiant single mothers by guys who just wanted to get laid... or maybe working at Vogue. But there was a basic lesson for guys: don't get involved with gals who hate their mothers, because they will hate you, too, in time.

There was a line somewhere in The Strawberry Statement where someone - maybe the author James Kunin - confessed that he was attracted to radicalism to get dates, which he had trouble getting. That "statement" stood out as one truly human and humane statement in that book about that silly period. Kunin was nobody's fool and. like most Lefties, a closet capitalist - he sold a ton of books, and got a movie deal.

The Che t-shirts? Means no more than James Dean t-shirts used to mean. Which is: "I wish I were a tough SOB with an edgy, pointless mission in life instead of Mom and Dad's pampered college student with a BMW and a C+ in Rocks for Jocks, in comfy, decadent, free America."

Someday, these kids' kids will look at these old photos say laugh and say "Dad - I can't believe that was you!"

For some kids, being obnoxiously irreverent is good sport, and can turn a nobody into a somebody. It's tough, as a young person, to accept that we are all nobodys.

Does irreverence towards the things that I hold most dear piss me off? Of course. But I knew such kids in college: it is designed to have that effect. Let's not react like Moslems to foolish kids, or like our parents - or grandparents - did to the great Elvis! Or, God forbid, the Beatles. "Turn that crap down!"

The thing that cracks me up most about such stories is when the grown-ups admire them. That is a sure sign of arrested development, but many college faculty never fully grow up, due to insulation from hard knocks and ordinary reality in the ivory towers.

Not that I do not, in some ways, envy those who can devote their life to the world of ideas... Nice gig, but too political for me.

WW1 Vets. There are a few still around. Driscoll

The Jihadists do follow American politics. Heck, they try to cocntrol it. Sister Toldjah. How naive can you be? People who want to kill you, watch you.

Dobson says Repubs abandoned "values voters." I wish this good guy would learn to shut his big political mouth, and just keep doing what he is good at. h/t, News for Christians

The UK: rules for cats, while country slides into Bedlam. Melanie Phillips.

Creating alcoholic moms, one mom at a time? NYT

57 million blogs? Roger Simon. Glad to have you reading us!

Another thing wierd about the election. Anchoress

Gay Patriot says the election is Reagan's vindication. Could be.

Bush can now get his illegal amnesty plan through congress. Nice. Habla espanol?

Jack Murtha is getting deep into his own quagmire. Is this guy OK?

Howler of the day: George McGovern is back. He blames the "insurgency" on Amerika. Natch. First time I read it, I thought it was a satire. But, come to think of it, I guess he is an expert on quitting and losing.

Cross Ball State U off the list. Michelle. Just another school that does not tolerate diversity.

Frito-Lay's new healthy snax: One quote from the release:

PLANO, TX—With the recent trend of wholesome snack foods reaching "truly ridiculous proportions," Frito-Lay announced Monday that it would, against its better judgment, roll out a new line of healthy fruit-and-vegetable-based chips next February.

"Here," said Frito-Lay CEO Al Carey as he disgustedly tossed a bag of the company's new Flat Earth-brand snack crisps onto the lectern during a meeting with shareholders and members of the press. "Here's some shit that's made from beets. I hope you're all happy now that you have your precious beet chips with the recommended daily serving of fruit, or vegetables, or whatever the hell a 'beet' is."

From state icon to pest: the gator resurgence in FL. Don't they call them swimming handbags?

New Hampshire needs a border fence. On the southern end. Wizbang

Classical Values reflects on the election:

Whether the Republicans are viewed from a libertarian perspective, an economic conservative perspective, or a social conservative perspective, they failed.

I mean, the best I could come up with was "Hold your nose and vote Republican!"

While that can hardly be called a winning slogan, as it turned out, I had such a terrible cold that I didn't need to hold my nose.

Under the leadership of the New York Times, as quoted at Dem Project:

"During the last 50 years, New York State’s share of U.S. income has declined 37%, while Minnesota’s remained constant, and New Hampshire’s increased 67%. New York State now ranks 45th among the 50 states in population and income growth, and percent of the adult population employed. Although NYS spends the most per pupil for education, our state has the 44th lowest graduation rate. Four out of ten students do not graduate from high school in New York State.

"Our state has the highest per-capita tax burden of the 50 states, a burden that is 53% over the national average. Per-capita state and local government debt is 76% above the national average. Per-capita state and local government spending is 46% over the national average. State spending increased 13% this year, far faster than revenue growth, and four times the inflation rate. From 2000-2004, New York lost over one million residents to other states, 300,000 more than any other state."

More agenda-driven fear-mongering from The Lancet. This time it's evil chemicals. We are getting well past the point of taking that once-venerable mag seriously. Worstall

A good word for Oprah, at Slower Pace

Why do we use the word "just," especially in prayer? Middlebrow

Live for today? From Viking:

A quarter of Americans plan to eat cat food in retirement – From Dayton Business Journal: “While most people know that Social Security and company-provided pensions might not be available when they hit retirement, many still plan to rely on them. In the survey, a phone poll of 1,000 nonretired people throughout the United States, 23 percent say they intend to use Social Security as their primary income source in retirement.” The primary source of income! Good luck with that.

An opinion, from Shape of Days. I tend to think he just wants the world to stop turning, but I'm sure others share his feeling, which I suspect comes from too much negatively-slanted news. A quote:

But ours is not a happy or healthy nation. Confidence in the American way is as low as I’ve ever known it to be. Optimism, long endangered, seems to have become extinct.

I’d use the word “malaise” here, but the irony would be too much to bear.

I think the first step toward restoring confidence in America — at least in my own heart, if not in the minds of the American people as a group — is for government to just slow down for a while. September 11, two wars overseas, a natural disaster at home, the Patriot Act (which has done more good than harm), the Military Commissions Act (which merely by existing does far more harm than it could ever do good) … there’s just been too much change in the past six years.

The real winners and losers of the election. Funny. Neal Boortz

What would Jesus tax? (h/t, Asst Village Idiot)

Kim du Toit knows what the Repubs need to stand for.

Yes, I did miss this grim story. Protein

Unemployment: We have only seen these numbers five times in the past 50 years. It's the Bush Economic Miracle. And more self-employed people than ever: that has to be a good trend.

New Dem senators support border defense and de-fence. PoliPundit

Abandoning Iraq. Everyone would love to. But would it be wise? Quote from a David Warren piece:

But in trying to build a secular democracy over the ruin of Saddam’s regime, the Americans tried something they had not the stomach for. From the outset, they imposed upon themselves restrictions that would make that fight unwinnable. As in Vietnam, they adopted a purely defensive posture.

So far as President Bush can be blamed, it should be for showing insufficient ruthlessness in a task that could not be accomplished by half-measures. Alternatively, for failing to grasp that America was psychologically unprepared for real war, not only by the memory of Vietnam, but by the grim advance of "liberal" decadence in domestic life over the generation since.

Agreed, You cannot fight a long, slow "nice" war for "hearts and minds." You can only fight hard, and do the hearts and minds thing afterwards. Same lesson as Vietnam.

Many have already read Dick Armey's End of the Revolution at Opinion Journal, but, if not, it's recommended. I do not know whether Dick, or our Barrister (below) are correct, but it's all good food for thought. A quote from Dick Armey's critique of Repub performance:

I've always wondered why Republicans insist on acting like Democrats in hopes of retaining political power, while Democrats act like us in order to win.

I've also wondered why Republicans let their fears and insecurities get in the way of important reforms. They missed the opportunity of a lifetime by failing to embrace retirement security based on personal ownership. Instead, from both parties we heard about "saving Social Security"--to the extent we heard anything at all. Republicans should be for reforms that free individuals and their families from failed government programs. We should not be for "saving" failed government programs. When we took on welfare reform in 1995, we knew we were taking on a Goliath. Once we threw the first rock, we knew we had to finish the job. Otherwise, the worst claims of our opponents would have stuck with us in future elections. With legislative success, the horrible accusations of our opponents were replaced with reduced welfare roles, and the individual dignity and self-sufficiency that naturally followed.

I see Repubs just lost Montana. Montana? And I see Rummy is stepping down. I enjoyed the man's brain, but six years is enough for anyone.

The skelaton to the right is what's left of the Gingrich Revolution. Sad, but recently deserved. However, the country is no less conservative now. Things come and go.

The six worst cars ever.

Did you hear that Frank Sinatra parody of Strangers on my Flight that was going around last year? If not, here 'tis.

Bird's brains have more power than we thought. Live Science

Superb war post, at Eject Eject. No, it's really a meandering, thoughtful essay. One quote:

People like Michael Moore and Bill Maher and Keith Olberman would not be able to figure out how to close the canopy on an F-102. These people would be weeping with fear when those afterburners light up and you barrel down that runway hoping that engine doesn’t flame out and roll you inverted into the asphalt, or when you’re rocketing through the soup at 300mph watching two little needles chase each other, praying the next thing you see out the window is a runway and not a mountain goat.

George W. Bush is not stupid. It’s not possible to be a moron and fly a supersonic jet fighter, and everyone knows it.

What George W. Bush is, however, is inarticulate. English is his second language. From what I can see he does not have a first language. Abraham Lincoln spoke in simple frontier language in an age of rhetorical flourish. Like Bush, he was considered a bumpkin and an idiot, and like Bush, he realized that there were times when having people misunderestimate you repeatedly was a real advantage. That’s goal-oriented. That’s playing the deep game. That’s cunning.

I personally have gotten to the point where Bush’s malapropisms cause me to look at the floor and shake my head with an affectionate smile, in much the same way supporters of his predecessor used to do with every new revelation of coerced sex from former employees. He is what he is. But he is a damn sight more intelligent than the graphic designer in the Mini Cooper with the Village Idiot sticker. Me, personally, I look at the man’s entire catalog of flaws in the same way Lincoln looked at Grant and his drinking: I can’t spare this man. He fights.

So to me, anyway, given the above information I feel that anyone calling President Bush a moron and an idiot comes off sounding like…well…a moron and an idiot.

Take a couple of minutes and read the whole thing. Yes, it has pictures too.

As we await the results of the Virginia and Montana senatorial races, we note with pleasure that the only candidate in the elections who was supported by Maggie's Farm - Joe Lieberman - won. We are also impressed by the levels of voting across the country.

We feel bad about Michael Steele, though. He does have a political future, doing something. He has good vibes.

No pontificating about the elections here - this was a normal and predictable swing of sentiment and energy at this point in a Presidential administration but, still, each individual election has to be understood in its own local context.

Gandelman at A Moderate Voice has a nice selection of opinions.

Election. By the sixth year of an administration, one must expect some attrition, and plain voter fatigue. Whatever the country wants, it will get. I always vote for the least bad person: I vote for freedom, not for my (empty) pocketbook. If the Dems do take the House, however, watch the voters say, next year, "WFT? Did I vote for these jokers?" No, you did not. Seniority goes to those with the safest, most uncompetitive seats; to those who are in there for life.

US out of Vietnam, says our buddy Bruce at Dem. Project. Bruce: it's called realpolitik. Saving the world is out of fashion this year.

Dem leaders refuse to comment on terrorists' endorsement.

91% of Australians want renewable energy. My guess is 91% of Australians want pie in the sky, too. Try nuclear, Aussies.

Canadian identity: At Dust my Broom, "Canada is a place to hang out until something better comes along."

A newspaper endorsement that has to make you laugh: Blue Crab

And more newspaper idiocy: Cheney is hunting quail in South Dakota tomorrow? I doubt it. There are no quail within 1000 miles of South Dakota. But I'd love to join him for some pheasant hunting - call me, Dick, and send Air Force 2 over here to pick me up after work.

Brit docs want euthanasia. I'd be inclined towards euthanasia for those Brit docs, because their consciences are defective.

Lebanon: A fun place for guys. Wow. Even I could get a girl there, I think.

Don't we already have baloney degrees in the US? Inside Higher Ed

Is there an election coming up? What's the deal? Nobody told me. I've been away hunting all weekend, enjoying guns, dogs, friends, beer, and wild America. What a great country. We encountered more woodcock than grouse this weekend, but it will all be dinner tonight. Woodcock liver-brandy sauce for the woodcock breasts, on toast, is the first course. Second course is rare Ruffed Grouse breast on lentils with a gibier sauce. Dessert? Home-made apple pie with ice cream. Guys cook: the gals are our guests, but appropriate gratitude is expected.

Who to blame for the difficulties in Iraq? Anybody, and everybody? Balloon Juice. They aren't even fighting the Americans now as much as they are fighting eachother. I suspect many of them just enjoy fighting. It's a multicultural thing, ya know? Some cultures are just naturally imperialistic.

You read this all already: Ramsey Clark is a mockery. Michelle. Of course, the moonbats are upset about Saddam's conviction. Including those at the LA Times. Now, why is that? How soon before we see Free Saddam bumperstickers?

Charlie Rangel's friends. Moonbattery.

Steve Harrigan gets the gold star for reporting.

A simple statement of faith. LaShawn

Giuliani's stump speech, if you are interested. Dino. Giuliani is OK, but a New York City Italian guy will not be the presidential candidate in 2008.

Is Massachusetts the canary in the coal mine? Lots of folks are quoting this, but I saw it at Powerline first.

Funny how the Dems are hiding their most powerful folks this week: Pelosi, Kennedy, Reid, Murtha, Kerry, Gore etc. are all on vacation, or in hiding.

The benefits of napping. Betsy

What the Dems want to do, maybe...because they won't say. View from 1776

The NYT thought that they were damaging the Repubs with their WMD piece, but all they did was to prove that Saddam had nukes on the way.

And today's other NYT story - they lied about Kerry's screw-up. LGF

The closely-held secret: we have a booming economy. There is no-one in America who will work, who is not working and not contributing.

Black Dems growing tired of being taken for granted? In MD, yes. Michelle

Christian self-immolation? Lifson at Am Thinker

LaShawn talked about the Haggard story. I prefer the post at Instapundit, in which he quoted a passage from a Neal Stephenson book:

"That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code," Major Napier said, working it through, "does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code."

Egyptians think that the US is their enemy. Huh? Big Pharaoh

"The deal so good they had to make it mandatory." Social Security and the AARP. Viking

Hawkins extracts the best quotes from Mark Steyn's America Alone. One of them:

All dominant powers are hated -- Britain was, and Rome -- but they're usually hated for the right reasons. America is hated for every reason. The fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lap-dancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too godless, America is George Orwell's Room 101: whatever your bugbear you will find it therein; whatever you're against, America is the prime example of it. -- P.xxiii

Blogs make it more difficult for journalists to do their job, complains the NYT. Am Thinker

College students want someone else to pay their tuition for them. Part-time Pundit. And I want someone else to pay my bills, too.

Ralph Peters is fed up with the lack of a plan for Iraq:

My disillusionment with our Iraq endeavor began last summer, when I was invited to a high-level discussion with administration officials. I went into the meeting with one firm goal, to convince my hosts that they’d better have Plan B in case Iraq continued to disintegrate. I left the session convinced that the administration still didn’t have Plan A, only a blur of meandering policies and blind hopes. After more than three years, it was still “An Evening at the Improv.”

Peters surely knows that any war is improvised after the first 24 hours, but I think he is saying more than that. Piece at our buddy Dino.

It's time to clean up ye olde duck boat. Need to check the engine too, and it looks like a flat tire on the trailer. Having fun is a lot of work.

Seymour Hirsch does a Seymour Hirsh satire. Jawa

Why Hillary is smiling. Kerry fragged himself!

Whatever happened to all of the New Orleans FEMA trailers? Gay and Right. Meth labs?

Some of the Iraqis are totally nuts. Who anticipated this kind of BS? No-one. It is no wonder so many Americans want to say "Screw 'em." It's only nach'rul, but is it wise? Don't ask me - I'm a retarded, mean-spirited, uneducated, redneck, idiot conservative.

NYT covering for Kerry. Duh

Moonbat Dreams. What they want: Free everything. Blair. Are they adults (in the usual sense of the term)?

Chief  Clarence, of the Osoyoos Band, gets it right for all of us:

“If life sucks, it’s because you suck.”
“Quit your sniffling.”
“Join the real world. Go to school or get a job.”
“Get off welfare.”
“Get off your butt.”

Academic Groupthink.  How it works. RWN

Image: Yes, it is the lovely and charming Gwyneth: an antidote to Joe Lieberman's goofy mug below - who we support, mind you, because of national security, despite having to tolerate the rest of his whiney Lefty nonsense.

Hey gringo! Image from the Guard the Borders blogburst. Makes you almost want to say "Take New Mexico, and turn it onto a shithole like the one you came from." Better yet, fix your own country.

Kerry's "apology:"  just like the kind of apology a guy gives to a hysterical wife - "I'm sorry if you didn't understand what I meant." On the other hand, ABC news thinks Kerry had a good point. What?

Lonely? Most people are. But watch out for dating scams like this one.

Affirmative action for white males? It's about time! Everybody hates us! Inside Higher Ed

Good news: Red wine and longevity. Instapundit

Hunting for natural killers: The most dangerous game.

Georgetown tried to copy Columbia: Michelle

We posted on Michigan yesterday. A reader sent us this Detroit website, for those who miss the old Detroit.

France is becoming a war zone. No Pasaran

I am very upset. I missed World Vegan Day yesterday. Dang. I had a ham and swiss sandwich for lunch yesterday. Sorry, Mr. Pig - I would have had tofu and sprouts, just for one day - then splurged on dead animals today to compensate.

Besides having the typical liberal contempt for the proletarian troops, Kerry isn't very green either:

According to the Boston Herald, la famille Kerry owns eight cars (six of them SUVs), a motorcycle, two powerboats and a Gulfstream II jet. Kerry nonetheless told reporters last month that he doesn't own an SUV. ("The family has it; I don't have it.")

Whole piece at SF Gate (h/t. Jim Miller)

Do deadlines help procrastinators? Duh. Self-imposed deadlines don't work, either.

Islamofascists emboldened in the UK: threats become more open and extreme. Just lie back and enjoy it, Europe.

A GOP response ad: Why Vote Republican. (h/t, Never Yet melted)

Equality and Proposition 2 in Michigan. Althouse. Is equality a code-word for inequality?

What will would the Dems do in the House? Brewton