It must never reach the stars...

"Will their pea brains melt?" Sorry, but it was truly irresistable...

Finally time for Le Monde to switch sides? Pinch me.

Bells are tolling -- and the choices are stark.

VDH a poppin':

So here we are a year later. We fuss about the WMD "myth"; enemies scramble over its reality. We talk of our theft of third-world resources — and pay more for gas than ever before while the price of Iraq's national treasure soars. We worry that we are too involved abroad; those in Europe, Afghanistan, and Iraq claim there are not enough of us over there. And we scream at each other that we are not liked, even as those overseas express new respect for us.

No wonder, when asked for specific follow-ups about his general criticisms of the Iraqi war in a recent Time magazine interview, a resolute Kerry variously prevaricated, "I didn't say that," "I can't tell you," "It's possible," "It's not a certainty," "If I had known," "No, I think you can still — wait, no. You can't — that's not a fair question and I'll tell you why," — employing the entire idiom and vocabulary of those who are angry about Bush's removal of Saddam, but neither know quite why nor what they would do differently.

Lileks:

Spain doesn’t have the luxury of 200 years of Constitutional rule. Young adults sitting around the dinner table look at parents who grew up under Franco; they might value freedom more than we do. We cannot possibly imagine losing it. They have heard stories of how quickly it can be lost.

But what do I know? I know nothing. It’s ten o’clock on a cold night in a warm house in a nice town in the middle of North America. Could be ETA. Could be AQ. Could be, as some have said, that this was the opening of the the Islamacist’s front in Europe.

But it's all a front. If there’s a man sitting on a park bench reading about Buddhism: it’s a front. If there’s a woman at the mall with her head uncovered, it’s a front. If there’s a little girl in a school learning about the periodic table, it’s a front. If there’s two women in a park holding hands and sneaking a smooch, it’s a front. If there’s a guy in a room posting to his website his arguments for atheism, it’s a front. If you’re reading your child a story whose hero is a clever pig, you’re living on the edge of the front. If the appointed hour comes and the call to prayer doesn’t drift from the spiky towers, it’s a front.

So what do I hope I'll tell my child? Simple. It's over. We won.

And an affront. Period.