A Little Perspective

clipped from www.breitbart.com Nearing the end of an eight-day trip, Bush got a hero's reception in this desperately poor country, still struggling to recover from being cut off from the rest of the world for four decades under the harsh rule of dictator Enver Hoxha. Hoxha died in 1985, and Albania emerged from isolation in 1990 but still is one of Europe's most impoverished lands. Cannons boomed salutes from mountains overlooking the capital. Huge banners proclaimed "Proud to be Partners," and billboards read "President Bush in Albania Making History." At home, Bush's job approval rating stands at its all-time low. But here, Prime Minister Sali Berisha said Bush was Albania's "greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times." Throngs of people grasped Bush's hands, arms and fingers on the streets of Fushe Kruje, a small town near the airport where he stopped to chat in a cafe with business owners. Unused to such adoring crowds in America, Bush reveled in the attention.

Pillar's "Fool's Errand" Dissected

clipped from powerlineblog.com I have no idea how much weight President Bush gave to these intelligence reports. Maybe, by January 2003, he had given up on getting any meaningful input from agencies that were far more interested in protecting their own images and budgets, and perhaps in undermining an administration that did not share their overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic orientation, than in going out on a limb to give the President their best judgment. But, to the extent that President Bush heeded what the Intelligence Council told him in late 2002 and early 2003, it is simply false to say that he disregarded a warning that a war with Iraq would be a “fool’s errand.”

This one is a RTWT...

Spooked

clipped from www.technologyreview.com European scientists have broken a distance record for sending quantum information from one place to another, paving the way for a system that relies on the laws of physics to provide communications that can't be tapped. If they can extend the reach of their signal a little further, they'll be able to use satellites to send perfectly secure data around the world. To create the key, the team first had to create pairs of entangled photons. Entanglement, which Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance," means that the fate of one photon is tied up with the fate of the other. Measuring any quantum mechanical property of one photon automatically changes that same property in its entangled partner, no matter the distance between them.

Ambulance ... TV ... Whatever

clipped from instapundit.com THEY'VE ALREADY USED AMBULANCES, so why should anyone be surprised when Palestinian terrorists use a car labelled "TV" to stage an attack? It's all upside for them -- no significant outrage now, and maybe it'll lead the Israelis to accidentally shoot up a truck full of real reporters, which will then cause worldwide condemnation. Of the Israelis. UPDATE: TigerHawk comments: And when it happens that condemnation will be outrageous precisely because it is so predictable. Palestinian strategists understand the objective, which is to put the Israeli military in an impossible situation. Everybody else also understands the objective, and -- this is the big point -- everybody understands that the Palestinian strategists understand. It is one giant cesspool of known-knowns, so those who condemn Israel when it happens will be, yes, collaborators. That's why it's hard for me to even pretend to take moralizing in this area seriously.

You just RTWT.

Rethinking Carbon Offsets

clipped from www.tcsdaily.com So, far from "not counting," secular religions must be taken very seriously, and their implications understood, before we preach the benefits of godless society. The obvious examples of secularized religions are communism, socialism, and fascism, each of which generally involves worshipping government by slightly different rituals or for slightly different reasons. As these convictions faded, faith in the welfare state, and especially environmental protection, has risen to take their place for reasons government should be worshipped. Environmentalist devotees claim that we will experience the apocalypse disasters, for which some people are rebuilding Noah's Ark. These disasters can be prevented if we take the advice of prophets people who understand, like Al Gore. Of course, if we sin pollute a little too much, well, we can always buy indulgences carbon offsets.

Shawcross Redux And Iraq

clipped from powerlineblog.com Those of us who opposed the American war in Indochina should be extremely humble in the face of the appalling aftermath: a form of genocide in Cambodia and horrific tyranny in both Vietnam and Laos. Looking back on my own coverage for The Sunday Times...,I think I concentrated too easily on the corruption and incompetence of the South Vietnamese and their American allies, was too ignorant of the inhuman Hanoi regime, and far too willing to believe that a victory by the Communists would provide a better future. But after the Communist victory came the refugees to Thailand and the floods of boat people desperately seeking to escape the Cambodian killing fields and the Vietnamese gulags. Their eloquent testimony should have put paid to all illusions. As Jeff commented in a message to us last year: "Whatever else he may believe or advocate, Shawcross seems clearly to be a man of intellectual integrity. That makes his thoughts on the current crisis all the more valuable."

Still Silent On Spring

clipped from www.nytimes.com She cited scary figures showing a recent rise in deaths from cancer, but she didn’t consider one of the chief causes: fewer people were dying at young ages from other diseases (including the malaria that persisted in the American South until DDT). When that longevity factor as well as the impact of smoking are removed, the cancer death rate was falling in the decade before “Silent Spring,” and it kept falling in the rest of the century. Why weren’t all of the new poisons killing people? An important clue emerged in the 1980s when the biochemist Bruce Ames tested thousands of chemicals and found that natural compounds were as likely to be carcinogenic as synthetic ones. Dr. Ames found that 99.99 percent of the carcinogens in our diet were natural, But scientists like him were no match for Ms. Carson’s rhetoric. DDT became taboo even though there wasn’t evidence that it was carcinogenic (and subsequent studies repeatedly failed to prove harm to humans).

Active Measures: A History Lesson

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What Problem?

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com

Not Even Engaged

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com Here's a populist version of that insight expressed rather crudely. But you get the point. However, Europe and America will have to do more than raise the shields. They have to find ways to empower the Third World to overthrow their corrupt elites and establish functioning civil societies. The Middle East, Latin America and Africa are too important to be left, unchallenged to gangs and radical Islam. But today's stand-off Western development institutions and tiny militaries are far too detached to effectively engage.

Death By Skybox

clipped from www.windsofchange.net From the theorists in the universities to the pundits in Canary Wharf, the intellectuals weren't interested in the working class and the working class wasn't interested in the intellectuals. You could not have found a more lethal way to kill left-wing politics if you had tried.

Sincerity Shortage

clipped from www.instapundit.com Al Gore has been hectoring Americans to pare back their lifestyles to fight global warming. But if Mr. Gore wants us to rethink our priorities in the face of this mother of all environmental threats, surely he has convinced his fellow greens to rethink theirs, right? Wrong. If their opposition to the Klamath hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest is any indication, the greens, it appears, are just as unwilling to sacrifice their pet causes as a Texas rancher is to sacrifice his pickup truck. If anything, the radicalization of the environmental movement is the bigger obstacle to addressing global warming than the allegedly gluttonous American way of life. . . . Kind of makes you doubt their sincerity. If global warming is the crisis they say, then all the other stuff is secondary. If all the other stuff isn't secondary, then do they really believe it's the crisis they say? It's just a Laurie David of a different color.

Even Better Than Fred!

clipped from iowahawk.typepad.com My Fellow Americans: Today, our nation stands at a crossroads. The direction we take from this point forward is critical for us, and for future generations. Some of the roads we can take may now look like scenic shortcuts, but may lead to long term peril. Other roads may seem covered in potholes, but may in fact lead us to the bright promise of a roadside Stuckey's with clean, well-lit restrooms. The stakes are high, and it is important that we have the right leadership behind the wheel to avoid the geopolitical speed traps and navigate our way to a delicious future of pecan logs for all. That is why I have taken the first step towards announcing my candidacy for the 2008 presidential campaign. I have officially formed an exploratory committee to advise me on this important decision. This blue ribbon panel includes a number of distinguished public service veterans, including Chuck Helbertson, Supervisor of the Cedar County Pool Maintenance Department,

Deep Shiite

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com This is quite an interesting development. For one thing, the Taliban and Iran considered each other enemies until the US expelled Mullah Omar's gang from Afghanistan. If NATO has this correct, it shows that radical Islamist impulses have outweighed the traditional Sunni/Shi'ite divide in Islam. Both types of Islamist lunatics may have decided that their war against the West outweighs their internal differences. Secondarily, it confirms Iranian mischief outside of areas in US control. While we're obviously the driving force behind the NATO mission in Afghanistan, NATO's imprimatur means that Europe can no longer treat Iranian involvement in both Afghanistan and Iraq as an American cover story. Nations that have opposed our get-tough efforts against Iran will have to realize that Iran presents a threat to their own troops - and one they will need to address quickly.

There You Have It

clipped from powerlineblog.com They had Iran mixed up with Azerbaijan. From today's New York Times corrections section: A map of Central Asia with an article on Saturday about the construction of a bridge linking Tajikistan and Afghanistan misidentified the country shown in the lower left. It is Iran, not Azerbaijan. But, hey, we trust them to critique the nuances of the administration's Iran policy.

Here Comes Photosynth

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The List Goes On...

clipped from www.michaeltotten.com Take the simple issue of the Golan Heights. It is commonplace to say that Syria wants back the Golan Heights. But one need merely ask the simple question: what happens if Syria gets it back? If Syria’s regime made peace with Israel it has no excuse for having a big military, a dictatorship, and a terrible economy. The day after the deal the Syrian people will start demanding change. Or economic reform. Again, many in the West take it for granted that the regime wants to take steps to improve the economy. But it would prefer to keep a tight hold on the economy rather than open it up and face enriched Sunni Muslim Arabs who hate the regime both due to their class status and their religious community. The list goes on. Yet few of these points figure into the debate over Syria where statements like “engagement,” “a common interest in Iraq,” “getting Syria away from Iran,” “the benefits of peace with Israel,” and the reasonableness of Bashar al-Asad get repeated like mantras.

Still Coming

clipped from www.michaeltotten.com Last summer in the wake of the July War between Israel and Hezbollah I wrote War is coming again, and it’s coming like Christmas. I may have been off by six months. The Lebanese Army reports that Syria is sending weapons and terrorist/guerilla reinforcements to the war of the camps in Lebanon. At the same time, Syrian MP Mohammad Habash confirms (if he isn’t bluffing, and maybe he is) that Syria is preparing for a conventional war against the Israel Defense Forces this summer.

But Cowardice

clipped from victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com In this larger nether world of the Left, Chinese annexation and absorption of Tibet is a misdemeanor compared to Israelis on the West Bank. Global warming does not seem to involve India and China. Sudan seems not connected to Darfur, at least in the sense the West wrongly sleeps while millions are killed, while China most surely does not sleep—but grabs all the oil it can. A cynic would offer not hypocrisy as the common denominator, but cowardice—no Israeli will cut off your oil or hijack your plane if you slur his religion or country, in the manner that George Bush won’t Putinize you if you speak up.

The "Nightmare Scenario"

clipped from www.scrappleface.com 2007-06-04) — Editors at The New York Times are reportedly concerned that the nation’s “paper of record” may run out of ways to undercut the U.S. war effort in Iraq before the November 2008 presidential elections, and perhaps much sooner. In what some insiders call “the nightmare scenario,” the Times would exhaust its supply of demoralizing stories based on leaked information even before the end of the 2007 calendar year.

Freeman Dyson Gets Warmed Up

clipped from www.classicalvalues.com Here are a couple of Youtube videos with Freeman Dyson talking about Global Warming mania. He starts out in the first video (on the left) talking about vegetation. He says you can't do good science without good data. He notes that the data on vegetation is sparse (as in almost totally non-existant). The money went into computer models instead of data gathering. It figures. Computers are sexy. Electronic wind vanes and anemometers are not. He also notes that the carbon in vegetation dwarfs the carbon in the atmosphere. In the second video he says the real problem is not CO2 induced global warming, but CO2 induced stratosphere cooling which may lead to bigger ozone holes. He ends with the fact that the lowest cost way to control CO2 in the atmosphere is not by controlling energy production and use, but by planting or cutting down plants. He suggests more irrigation.

Short A Yacht

clipped from www.classicalvalues.com So why does the sight of wind farms bother Senator Kennedy? When told that most of the time the turbines - which would generating enough energy to power Cape Cod during peak usage times - would be either invisible or barely visible from the Kennedy Compound, Ted reportedly replied, "But don't you realize, that's where I sail." Being a sailor myself I'm all for sailing. I'm currently short a yacht at this time. If some one wanted to rectify that I'd be eternally grateful.

W Is For Woodrow

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com One commenter at Tigerhawk responded by adding: "your point is driven home today with Joe Biden's latest OP-Ed in the WSJ (either this weekend or today - I read them on a plane this morning.) As you read his commentary it is apparent that he is trying to talk tough on those States that would provide nuclear arms to terrorists, but only after one has been detonated on our soil." Something else is going on here. Current society has become risk and failure averse. It wants instant results and will settle for nothing less. Osama Bin Laden understands this and it is part of his strategic calculation. And I'm bound to say, the man's right.

What Problem?

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com A new survey of British Muslims by Channel 4 shows that nearly 60% believe that Muslims were not responsible for the 7/7 London bombings—and nearly a quarter believe the UK government was behind them. LGF operative Kasper has a disturbing 8-minute clip on the survey, featuring one interview after another with Muslims who deny and come up with conspiracy theories.

Sadr In Summary

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Sadr is not simply an outlaw; he represents Iran’s project in Iraq just like Hamas and Nasrallah represent it in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. These are the three arms of Iran in the Middle East that have worked consistently to ruin every emerging democratic project. And these arms must be cut off sooner rather than later.

Modesty Disappointed

clipped from instapundit.com I really didn't think that the new Democratic Congress would -- could! -- turn out to be worse than the Republicans. But this is just another case of my political expectations, despite their modesty, being disappointed.

Where That Last Came From...

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com Michael Ledeen's Darfur post from yesterday has stuck in my mind all day. It's one of the saddest things I've read on this site, and it's entirely correct: The killers largely operate from helicopters and small fixed wing aircraft. We could destroy them all in an hour or so. But that would be "wrong," because it would violate the current hymnal. Go tell the victims. Explain why sanctions are better, because it makes the Western politicians feel pious. Recently I interviewed Don Cheadle, who starred in that marvelous film Hotel Rwanda a year or two back. He's now written a book about Darfur. Very nice fellow. But he doesn't seem to appreciate that the big lesson of Rwanda is that the thugs understand very clearly that whenever the west starts working through the UN it sends the message: We're not serious.

Just in case you didn't go figure it out. Now you know you should have...

The Gloomy Spectacle

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com It's not only Darfur. Everybody wants to save Darfur but no one will do the obvious thing. Everyone bemoans what's happening to Zimbabwe but no one will touch Mugabe. Everyone knows what Iran is up to, but heaven forfend we should do anything serious about it. Everyone sees that Putin is finlandizing Europe—I mean, he just said "I will nuke you if you try to defend yourselves against Iran"—but he's an honored guest at the big banquets. etcetera, etcetera. You wrote a fine book about the destiny of the West, let's hope that Sarkozy and the next American president shake us out of this deep sleep. And maybe someone could reset Olmert's alarm clock too while we're at it. Cause it's a gloomy spectacle, to be sure.

The Missing Smoke Filled Room

clipped from hnn.us Telling the public the truth about Iran would require a call for action. Hence, silence. Remember the media covered up the Nazi holocaust too and for the same reason. All this would be less disconcerting if we had reason to believe that somewhere in a smoke filled room somebody responsible has a realistic grasp on the unvarnished reality and will be able to make decisions on the best information available. Alas, we do not. Somebody will roll the dice and if he/she is wrong there will be another holocaust to pay. On the plus side, the US government did what it should have done months ago, it told American citizens to stay out of Iran.

Anyone who has read Anthony Cave Brown's "Bodyguard of Lies" can only be aghast at what appears to be stunning fecklessness and incompetence by all parties but the Islamofascists. And the irony is that the enemy also shows enough incompetence -- ruthless thugs are by definition incompetent as Brown's account also makes clear -- to convince the small number of thoughtful Dems that the problem isn't big enough to get serious about. Until the one bomb state turns up missing one day (soon).

Ruined?

clipped from instapundit.com Having brought to you the continuing bad news about the security situation in Iraq, I did also want to remind you that, when asked, more Iraqis than not say that life is better today than it was under Saddam Hussein. This always amazes me because, if you ask around, you'll find that almost every opponent of the invasion of Iraq believes that we have simply ruined a stable country that, as bad it was, was nevertheless much better than what it has become. But as I have noted before, if you ask the Iraqi people themselves (who should know), they disagree. . . . That tells you something that is largely missing from discussions about Iraq. What's missing is an assessment of what things were like in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. The media was not interested in that, so they did not fill in the blanks for you. No, they were busy actively covering up problems in Iraq so as to maintain "access" under Saddam. Read the whole thing.

Compared to what?

Play Time Returns?

clipped from instapundit.com Who knew at the time (not we children, certainly, growing up more than 30 years ago in small-town Minnesota) that playing and getting hurt would come to be regarded later on as exotic, threatened activities sorely in need of a cultural revival led by concerned adults?

The "Bewildered" Ruthless

clipped from powerlineblog.com Earlier today, Iran's President Ahmadinejad delivered a speech to foreign dignitaries in Teheran, marking the 18th anniversary of the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini, in which he said that the countdown to Israel's destruction has begun, and that Israel will cease to exist in the "near future:" Iranian officials have expressed bewilderment over the uproar caused by [Ahmadinejad's] comments [about Israel], saying he was merely restating one of Khomeini's central beliefs that the Jewish state was doomed to destruction. No doubt experts at the State Department are poring over Ahmadinejad's latest pronouncements, in an effort to discern what he was really trying to say.

Berman's Finale

clipped from docs.google.com During the Rushdie affair, courage was saluted. Today it is likened to fascism. How did this happen? The equanimity on the part of some well-known intellectuals and journalists in the face of Islamist death threats so numerous as to constitute a campaign; the equanimity in regard to stoning women to death; the journalistic inability even to acknowledge that women's rights have been at stake in the debates over Islamism; the inability to recall the problems faced by Muslim women in European hospitals; the inability to acknowledge how large has been the role of a revived anti-Semitism; the striking number of errors of understanding and even of fact that have entered into the journalistic presentations of Tariq Ramadan and his ideas; the refusal to discuss with any frankness the role of Ramadan's family over the years; Two developments account for it. The first development is the unimaginable rise of Islamism since the time of the Rushdie fatwa. The second is terrorism.

A whole lot of misogyny going on, no?

Dwarfs?

clipped from washingtontimes.com In Gaza, Islamic Jihad plans to send waves of female suicide bombers into action against the Zionist Entity. Asked by an Israeli reporter whether self-detonating ladies enjoy the same 72-virgin deal as the lads, an Arab scholar explained that no, but the gals will be served in Paradise by "dwarfs." Snow White got seven dwarfs, but it's unclear whether Blow White will get the full 72: Sleepy, Grumpy, Bashful, etc, all the way down to Incendiary, Non-Alcoholic and Anti-Zionist.

Dementia is a harsh mistress.

The Growing Beating

clipped from powerlineblog.com Unidentified gunmen shot dead a local Al-Qaeda leader in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Saturday, police said, as fighting between rival Sunni factions undermined the insurgency. The apparent assassination of the militant kingpin came as the US military announced that marines and Iraqi security forces had killed seven Al-Qaeda fighters during an assault on a truck bomb factory. Both incidents appeared to be linked to increased cooperation between Sunni factions, once sympathetic to the Iraqi resistance, and the US military, which is encouraging nationalist factions to fight Al-Qaeda. Fallujah is the focus of a large-scale security operation in which Iraqi police and tribal levies, backed by US forces, are trying to drive out Al-Qaeda Islamist militants. Saturday's killing came after the Anbar Salvation Council, the armed wing of the province's tribal coalition, announced that it was sending plainclothes "secret police" to Baghdad to kill Al-Qaeda leaders.

Speaking Of Misogyny ...

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com All throughout the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Pakistan’s impoverished western border with Afghanistan, lie the ruins of barbershops and music and video stores – symbols of Western-oriented life that religious extremists have destroyed in a growing wave of violence. Now Islamist militants have a new target, and if they are successful, observers say their campaign could be disastrous for Pakistan’s future. In what appears to be an escalating spree over the last year, extremists have bombed at least four girls’ schools and circulated violent threats warning girls to stay at home.

... Libs seem to be deathly silent about unfolding disasters like this. Too busy attacking W I guess. I'm sorry, but misplaced priorities doesn't explain this. It's something far worse.

Raymond calls it suicidalism. Dr. Sanity is harsher. They're both right unfortunately.

Lurch's Legacy

clipped from neoneocon.com Our abandonment of South Vietnam in 1974/1975 was driven by ideas such as Kerry’s that the war there was both a moral error and unwinnable. Note the last paragraph of Kerry’s 1971 statement, in which he imagines that people thirty years into the future might look back on American’s part in the Vietnam War as a “filthy obscene memory,” and that a pullout would be the way to reverse that tide. …during [1973-1975, when US combat forces had withdrawn], South Vietnam held its own courageously and respectably against a better-bankrolled enemy. Peace talks continued between the North and the South until the day in 1975 when Congress cut off U.S. funding. The Communists walked out of the talks and never returned. Without U.S. funding, South Vietnam was quickly overrun. We saved a mere $297 million a year and in the process doomed South Vietnam, which had been ably fighting the war without our troops since 1973….

Seems Clear Enough To Me...

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com The Swords of Truth issued the statement Friday in an e-mail to news organizations. “We will cut throats, and from vein to vein, if needed to protect the spirit and moral of this nation,” the statement said. The group also accused the women broadcasters of being “without any ... shame or morals.” Prior to the statement, some women broadcasters said they had received personal threats through their mobile phones. It was not clear if the threats were from the same group.

... where the threats came from. And "Swords of Truth" seems a clear enough self designation of dementia as well. But don't worry -- they were driven to their dementia by those nasty Israelis.

And don't forget that brutal Israeli occupation of Iran and Pakistan to explain their insanity problems as well. No, wait. ...

I seem to have gone nuttier than a cuckoo clock, haven't I?

The Church Of Relative Reality And Global Warming Caused By Man

clipped from pajamasmedia.com I looked at the couple who held their hastily signed copies of An Assault on Reason as close to their hearts as they did their hopes for their prophet and his mentor, Jimmy Carter. They’d just, with their purchases, sent about eight dollars straight into the pockets of a man who’d burn their tithe up in about three seconds of flight in his private jet. They were in a state of bliss just about the same as a couple that has a ‘come-to-Jesus moment,’ picks up the phone and gives money to a television evangelist. I wisely decided to say nothing about either Al or the man I considered to be the worst American president in history. It’s not polite to criticize another’s religion in America. I smiled and wished them well. I walked up the stairs and back out into the parking lot. I wished them no harm. I even understood their devotion. I had once been a liberal and feasted in the Church of Relative Reality and Global Warming caused by man.

OK. Still not as good as Iowahawk but too good not to post...

The Bees (Are Not On Their) Knees

clipped from www.straightdope.com Sixth, it's never a good idea to trust what the media are telling you. At least once in the present case the media got something completely wrong and created a huge mess: The story about cell phones was basically a misrepresentation of what one pair of reporters wrote about a study that they misinterpreted. In a nutshell, the original research didn't involve cell phones, and the researchers never said their research was related to honey bee colony die-offs. Even details like the alleged Einstein quote are dubious. No one has yet found proof that Einstein said anything about bees dying off – the earliest documented appearance of the "quote" is 1994 and, yes, Albert was dead at the time. If the same thing keeps happening every winter for another decade or so, then we might really start worrying. But for now, classifying this as a "problem with potentially severe economic impact should it persist" would be a more realistic assessment.

Never Mind

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com In the revolt of the Anbar tribes and the internecine fighting that has become a feature of any space where "militant" groups start to form, we see the strengths and weaknesses of the terrorist mode of warfare. As I argued in the Three Conjectures, once nuclear weapons become available to this battlefield an extremely unstable situation will arise because deterrence has no point of leverage. It will just go on and on. There is no stable plateau where an exchange of nuclear car bombs will level off. There is no one to even negotiate surrender with. Not even a sure way to know who is attacking who. The only thing left to do under those circumstances is to finish off anything which might remotely be a threat. And therefore -- therefore -- we should do everything possible to keep things from deteriorating to this point. Calling Mohammed El Baradei, Mohammed El Baradei. Never mind.

OK, I did forget that Wretchard wouldn't be intimidated

Skip To 7

clipped from iowahawk.typepad.com 6c. All Americans are concerned about Iraq and the ongoing War on Terror, and whether we are making sufficent progress against the terrorist threat both here and abroad. Thankfully, President Bush and his administration have remained steadfast and resolute, compared to the cut-and-run Congress who would rather negotiate with evil-doers than face them head on. Even today, administration envoys are coordinating with Iraq peace partners like the Madhi Army and the government of Iran to develop a steadfast, resolute plan to identify and confront the terror threat. Domestically, the new Department of Homeland Security has instituted tough random anti-terrorism rules, to give you the peace of mind of knowing that no passengers on your flight - regardless of ethnic, religious, or citizenship status - are carrying more than 3 ounces of liquids or gels. Did I mention the Adminstration's proposed New Mexico-Oklahoma fence?

It's going to be really hard to top Iowahawk this weekend...