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PS: On Monday, I going to be putting out a list of racist Democratic/liberal quotes. If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments section.

"If you could meet and have a deep conversation with any five people on earth, living or dead, from any time period, who would they be and why?" -- Good_Ol_Boy

First of all, there are two people I'd like to talk to for practical reasons...

Jesus Christ: I'm a Christian, so this is a pretty obvious one.

James Madison: I'd love to talk to the "Father of the Constitution" about some of the Constitutional issues of the day.

Here are some others I think it would be particularly interesting to converse with (I'm going to limit myself to 15):

American Heroes

Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Tom Paine
George Patton
Ronald Reagan
George Washington

Influential Figures

Rush Limbaugh
Ayn Rand
Tony Robbins

World Leaders

Julius Caesar
Winston Churchill
Genghis Khan
Leonidas (Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie)
Machiavelli
Margaret Thatcher

Chuck Blasdel is in a dogfight with Democrat Charlie Wilson for a seat currently held by Democrat Ted Strickland. Blasdel is in a tightly split district that went for Bush 51%-49%, in 2004.

Yesterday, I did a short interview with Chuck, who is a Rightroots endorsed candidate in Ohio's 6th District. Here's an edited transcript of our conversation.

John Hawkins: If a voter from your district walked up to you and said, "Give me three differences between you and Charlie Wilson that would convince me to vote for you," what would you say?

Chuck Blasdel: ...I would say that the first thing Charlie Wilson is going to do is try to elect Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House. ...The direction that Nancy Pelsoi would take this country in is not in the best interests of the constituents in the sixth district.

Secondly, ...we've both been in the State House for a number of years and if you look at my track record versus his, he's been putting in time and cashing a paycheck (while) I've been getting things done.

...Thirdly, on some of the things at the Statehouse, there are the different positions we've taken. I supported comprehensive tax reform, cutting income taxes 21% across the board, and (wanted to remove) the tax on capital and net worth in the state of Ohio. He voted against it.

I voted to reform our worker's compensation system. He voted against it. I voted for tort reform, medical malpractice and comprehensive tort reform. He voted against it. Those are some very clear differences between myself and Charlie.

John Hawkins: Now, I understand (that Charlie Wilson) had to do a write in campaign because he failed to get 50 legitimate signatures to get on the ballot in the primary. Tell us a little bit about that.

Chuck Blasdel: In Ohio, it's unlike many other states where it requires a significant number of signatures to run for Congress. All you have to have is 50 signatures.

...Number one, he doesn't live in the district. ...You don't have to in Ohio. So, he lives right outside the district and he got most of his signatures out of two counties that are only partially within the district. When he turned them in, I think he turned in ninety-some signatures and of those, only 48 were even in the district, and only 45 or 46 of those were valid. The interesting thing about that is it's the third time he's done it...

John Hawkins: (Laughs) What? The Third time? Good grief...

Chuck Blasdel: In 1994, ...there was a petition problem and he was thrown off the ballot. He took it all the way to the Supreme Court and lost. He never ended up on the ballot...Then again, I think it was in 2000, he was running for the State House and had a petition problem. He contested that and ended up being on the ballot. But, it's the third time he has had some sort of petition snafu.

John Hawkins: That would speak to his competence level, wouldn't it?

Chuck Blasdel: That's for the voters to decide, I guess.

John Hawkins: (Laughs) You sound pretty strong on tax issues. There are a lot of readers out there who are going to be wondering, "Ok, if this guy gets into Congress, what would he be like?" What could (conservatives) expect from you on issues beyond taxes?

Chuck Blasdel: I very consistently support pro-life positions. ...I supported the Constitutional Amendment to outlaw gay marriage in Ohio. ...I think tax issues are important, but I think one of the biggest challenges we face in Ohio is that our regulatory agencies are completely out of control. I have a very strong track record of standing up against the EPA, some of the bureaucrats in Columbus... some of our regulatory agencies. I even put in writing to the Governor of Ohio that I thought the EPA in Ohio was engaged in...legalized extortion against the business community.

John Hawkins: Now, you're fighting to pick up a seat held by Ted Strickland, a Democrat. How do you think you're doing so far and do you think you're one of Republicans that has the best chance to pick-up a Democratic seat in 2006?

Chuck Blasdel: When you look at what's happening in our race over the last year, ...it speaks volumes (about)...the #1 opportunity for a pick-up. ...Cheney has been here. Boehner has been here. (Dennis) Hastert has been here. We've been getting significant national attention and more (big name guests) are being lined up to come in as we go through our campaign. ...It looks like the NRCC (has made a big) buy here as well.

John Hawkins: Chuck, I appreciate the time. Take care!

If you'd like to make a contribution to Chuck Blasdel's campaign, you can do so here, through Rightroots.

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Question: "Who are your top-ten favorite authors?" -- Good_Ol_Boy

Answer: In order,

10) Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman: I was a huge fan of the Dragonlance Chronicles.

9) Fritz Leiber: His Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser novels were great, but, I didn't like his other work.

8) RA Salvatore: I find him impressive because unlike the other authors in the Fantasy genre on the list, he managed to create two series that revolved around very compelling and yet also very different main characters: Cadderly Bonaduce & Drizzt Do'Urden.

7) Robert Leckie: He writes really long books about history, but they're all informative and never dry. He's not as political as Hanson, but he's a phenomenal writer whose respect for the men fighting the battles really comes through.

6) Ayn Rand: Not necessarily the most skilled writer in the world, but she had a knack for getting across ideas in her fiction that no one else has matched.

5) Victor Davis Hanson: Nobody makes history come alive like VDH.

4) Stephen King: Nobody does horror better -- or more accurately -- nobody did it better since King's work has gotten really uneven over the years. Most of what he did from the mid-nineties on back is great...

3) Michael Moorcock: The Elric Series was a masterpiece that's only a step behind the original Conan novels, but I could never really get into any of his other work.

2) Ann Coulter: Whether you like her or hate her, every book Coulter has ever written except High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton has been a real page turner.

1) Robert Howard: The Conan books he wrote were better fantasy than anything that has been done since in my opinion.

Update #1: On some of the authors mentioned in the comments section...

Douglas Adams: Funny, but not as hilariously funny as some people make him out to be.

Clive Barker: He's probably my second favorite horror writer behind King, although I haven't read him in a good, long, while.

Robert Heinlein: I've read a couple of his books and he's good, just not one of my faves.

Dean Koontz: He's good, but there's a certain sameness to his work. I've also read a couple of stinkers that kind of turned me off to him a bit.

HP Lovecraft: He's readable, has a great concept, and has a surprising number of decent B horror movies out that are based on his work, but he's never quite done it for me for some reason.

Terry Goodkind: A read a couple of his books. They were OK, but didn't blow me away.

Robert Jordan: I read 9 books in the Wheel of Time series and loved it at first, but it got much more drawn out and dull after the mid-point in the series -- and they were long, long, books.

Steven Pressfield: I've only read two of his books, but they were both superb. If I read a third that's in the same ballpark as the first two, he'll make the list. (Gates of Fire is must read material.)

JRR Tolkien: I know he's a big favorite, but I always thought he was highly overrated.

PS: Yes, I have read an enormous number of books in life. Why do you ask? =D

At 10:05 PM EST today, I'm scheduled to be on the Tom Marr show to talk about global warming. You can hear it by going here and clicking on the listen live button.

Update #1: We went for about 25 minutes, minus the commercial breaks, all on global warming, and I think it went very well. Thanks to Tom Marr for having me on!

Question: "What's with the ice cream hippies pushing federal education spending in your blogads right? I understand taking their money, but who the heck matched that ad with your site? BTW, I clicked on the ad and read their spiel. Hilarious." -- Bull_Moose

Answer: I'm not sure why Ben and Jerry's bought an ad on RWN and some other conservative blogs.

Maybe they figure that liberals already support buying health care for children that we nuke or not nuking children's education facilities to begin with, or whatever it is that they're trying to get across, and so they thought they should go where the fish were.

Either way, they make great ice cream and in my book, it's better to have them spending their money at Right Wing News than with Michael Moore or Kos.

PS: Their Peanut Butter Cup™ Ice Cream? Mmmmmmm...

Question: "Is the democrat party leadership now guilty of treason? While they may not have undertaken any direct acts of sabotage to our military nor provided demonstrably substantive material support to this nation's enemies, comments by many of the current party leadership now surpass levels of treasonous speech Tokyo Rose was guilty of. Howard Dean increasingly reminds me of the Irish-American traitor Lord Haw-Haw." -- Cartman

Answer: People have a right to strongly and publicly disagree with the government's policies, domestic or foreign.

Does it mean they're always right to do so? No.

Can their criticism sometimes embolden our enemies? Yes.

Is it fair to say that some of these people leveling these criticisms are very helpful to people who want to kill American troops and civilians? Yes.

But, unless they actually take the side of our enemies and actively try to help them defeat us, like Jane Fonda, John Walker, or the Rosenbergs, it's a mistake to toss around the, "T word."

Accusing people of treason is serious business since someone convicted of treason can be jailed or preferably, put to death. So, accusing someone of treason, is serious business.

So, Howard Dean, John Kerry, John Murtha, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Nancy Pelosi, etc.? I don't think much of the way they've conducted themselves during this war, but they certainly haven't committed treason.

Question: "What do you think of the thought that Hezbollah got exactly what they wanted out of this whole war? That this is what they hoped to happen from the beginning? Their re-construction of Southern Lebanon has started so quickly that it almost looks like they were planning it all along. Plus with all the slanted news reporting that they're getting, it just makes them look even more like the good guys.

So, Israel destroys a bunch of Lebanon (completely the fault of Hezbollah, but no one seems to want to remember that), the world press makes Israel look like a bunch of baby killers, Hezbollah doesn't get destroyed (because the UN and the US want the fighting stopped) and then Hezbollah looks like heroes because they've so quickly started re-building Southern Lebanon. (Again, ignoring the fact that it's all their fault and that they did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to protect the civilians in the first place.)

With the complicit world press that does everything in it's power to show Israel in as bad a light as possible, this could have been what Hezbollah planned all along..." -- GEBIV

Answer: My guess, which might or might not be wrong, is that Hezbollah dramatically underestimated the scope of Israel's reaction to the kidnappings.

As far as Hezbollah declaring "victory" goes, it doesn't matter how badly Israel's foes get beaten down, they always declare "victory" afterwards. It's just what they do.

The slanted news coverage? When is Israel ever given fair news coverage? Although I do have to admit that slamming Israel's response as "disproportionate" throughout the fighting and then declaring Hezbollah the victors as soon as the fighting ends does set a new standard for bias.

The reconstruction? It's good that Hezbollah got started so early because they're going to be working on it for years, maybe even a decade or more.

If Hezbollah knew Israel was going to do so much damage to them and that the conflict would end with a UN Resolution that demands Hezbollah move out of the South while the Lebanese Army and a 15,000 strong UN force moved in, I sincerely doubt if they would have kidnapped those soldiers in the first place.

That being said, I'm still of the opinion that since Hezbollah is flagrantly violating the ceasefire by refusing to disarm or go North and since the international force is starting to fall apart before it gets started (Thank you, France), Israel should start bombing again.

Question: "Can you tell my "why" little JBR's murder case is such "great television?" Aren't there murders that occur every day in this country that don't get this coverage?

So can you tell my why the media picked up on and keeps running with this story?" -- HM_Phobe

Answer: Well, obviously there is an enormous number of murders, kidnappings, and disappearances that happen every year, but very few that catch and hold the attention of the public.

In general, when you combine attractive people with strange circumstances and/or big names, then the potential is there for the story to get really big (See Nicole Simpson, Elizabeth Smart, Natalee Holloway, Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, Bonny Lee Bakley)

In this case, there were definitely some hooks to catch the public interest:

1) JonBenet was a cute kid.

There were also lots of strange circumstances:

2) The whole child beauty pageant thing struck people as weird.
3) JonBenet was killed in her own home.
4) There was an odd ransom note.
5) Everyone suspected that the parents were involved, but it couldn't be proven.

Maybe it's not fair that people are fascinated with this case and don't care about hundreds of other similar cases that don't make for compelling Cable TV, but unfortunately, that's just how it goes.

Question: "John: if you could move UN HQ from Turtle Bay to any place in the world, where would that be???" -- Cartman

Answer: Does it have to be this world? How about we put the UN HQ on the moon right before Frank J. from IMAO is made President and implements his stunning plan for world peace?

I'm just kidding. After all, Frank J. couldn't win the Presidency...

Pakistani Woman Carrying Suspicious Liquid Found At W.Va. Airport

Expert: 'Do We Have A Wack-Job Or A Murderer?' (Wack Job)

John Douglas, A Former FBI Profiler Who Worked On The Jonbenet Murder Discusses The Case Against John Karr

A Federal Judge Ruled Thursday That The Government's Warrantless Wiretapping Program Is Unconstitutional And Ordered An Immediate Halt To It

President Bush signs new pension bill

Mel Gibson Gets 3 Years Probation

Orrin Hatch: "Terrorists Are Waiting For The Democrats Here To Take Control, Let Things Cool Off And Then Strike Again." (Sounds About Right)

Lebanese Deployment A 1st Step In Truce

Iran Suspected of Attempts to Rearm Hezbollah Since Cease-Fire

Ditch US In Terror War, Say 80% Of Britons (America And Britain's "Special Relationship" Seems To Be Nearing An End)

Shut Up, Chinese Diplomat Tells US

N. Korea Appears To Be Preparing For Underground Nuclear Test

Strategic Vision Poll: Robert Menendez 42%. Rightroots Endorsed Candidate, Tom Kean, Jr. 40%

Strategic Vision Poll: Casey 47% Vs. Santorum 41% Vs. Romanelli 4%

Rasmussen: Debbie Stabenow 49% Vs. Mike Bouchard 44%

The Katherine Harris Campaign Touts U.S. House Members As Endorsing Her. They Didn't Then, Or Don't Now.

Charles Krauthammer: A Moment To Be Seized In Lebanon

Tom Bevan: Deconstructing Giuliani

Tom Bevan: Is Iraq a Lost Cause?

Victor Davis Hanson: Excuse After Excuse

A Recap Of The Governor's Races

Nicole Kidman & 84 Other Hollywood Stars Take Out An Ad Condemning Terrorism

Volcano Wipes Out 3 Villages in Ecuador (Free WAPO Reg Req)

India: TV Crews 'Aided' Suicide To Get Footage

Exhibit Eyes Record for 2-Headed Animals

Video: Live From The Bridge To Nowhere

Website Of The Day: CrabApple

Today is Q&A Friday #47 at RWN.

So, if there's a subject you've been wanting me to tackle or an issue you want to hear my opinion on, just ask your question in the comments section. Your question can be about politics, ideology, history, blogging, RWN, from a liberal, conservative, or libertarian perspective; heck, it can even be about movies, music, literature, or TV. Then later today, I'll select some of the more interesting questions and answer them.

Ask away!

Take a gander at the new AIDS treatment being touted by the government of the most advanced nation in Africa:

"South Africa's drive to promote garlic, lemon and beetroot as AIDS treatments has fanned anger at home as activists accuse the government of misleading public opinion at a global conference on the epidemic.

South Africa's exhibit at the Toronto AIDS conference -- featuring displays of garlic and other natural foods along with anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs -- was stormed by supporters of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), South Africa's most vocal AIDS activist group, local news reports said on Thursday.

"We feel that the display of garlic and lemon is ... an insult to the South African AIDS crisis," TAC General Secretary Sipho Mthathi told SABC radio from Toronto.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has made nutrition and natural remedies a cornerstone of her AIDS policy, infuriating the TAC and other activist groups who say ARVs are the only way South Africa can hope to treat the country's estimated five million HIV-positive people."

If you want to know why Africa stays mired in misery, poverty, and sickness, you don't need to look any farther than the culture and the people running the governments across the continent.

You want to "fix" Africa? Well, you can't. Westerners can ship medicine, food, and treasure to Africa in order to help alleviate the suffering, but we're not capable of turning things around. Only Africa can fix Africa, one nation at a time, through democracy, capitalism, the rule of law, a free press, education, and a change in the culture.

Update #1: Apparently the same gang of South African idiots were pushing a slightly different formula last year as a magical AIDS prevention tonic. From May 7, 2005 Times Online:

"THE South African Health Minister has reignited the country’s fierce debate over Aids by attacking the World Health Organisation (WHO) and again emphasising the benefits of olive oil, garlic and beetroot in fighting the condition.

“Raw garlic and skin of a lemon — not only do they give you a beautiful face, but they also protect you from the disease,” Manto Tshabala-Msimang told a parliamentary committee."

The folks over at One Jerusalem set up a conference call with Uri Lubrani to discuss Iran. Lubrani's "posts have included Head of Mission to Iran, Government Coordinator for Lebanese Affairs, Coordinator of the Rescue of Ethiopian Jews, chief negotiator for the release of Israeli hostages, and Ambassador to several countries including Ethiopia and Uganda."

Lubrani is a very sharp guy, who could probably be said to be Israel's number one expert on Iran. What you'll read below are the notes that I took while Lubrani was speaking (These are not quotations).

Iran prepares its school children to fight the West, America in particular and it presents itself as the champion of non-Western nations in the struggle against Western hegemony. The Iranians portray the West, with America at its head, as evil. They teach children from 6 years and up to prepare for Jihad and martyrdom. They teach their kids that Israel is the, "Little Satan," and that America is the, "Big Satan." The bright side is that a lot of Iranian youth ignores this, look up to the US, and view the US as a potential ally.

The Iranian regime is out to start a conflict between Iran and the West because they believe they're doing God's work by doing so. A war with Iran is coming, one way or the other. The only question is whether it's on our terms or their terms and whether or not they have nuclear weapons when it starts.

Lubrani looks at the border between Israel and Lebanon as the border between Israel and Iran. Iran has soldiers there, they send missiles there, and the Hezbollah arsenal the Israelis faced was assembled by Iran to be used against Israel.

The only way to deal with it is to make sure Iran doesn't get nukes. He doesn't think we should bomb them or that we can talk them out of trying to get nukes, because they believe building nuclear weapons is Allah's work. The solution is getting the Iranian people to overthrow the government.

Iran's official unemployment rate is 20%, but Lubrani thinks it's actually more like 35%. The inflation rate is skyrocketing. Their economic situation is extremely bad. That can be used as part of a wedge to overthrow them. He wishes the US would help overthrow the government. What's the alternative? To talk with an Imam who believes the hidden Mahdi is standing over his shoulder, whispering instructions in his ear? By funding Hezbollah, Iran has basically bought Lebanon for peanuts. So, despite their economic problems, they will keep funding Hezbollah.

Iran is out to subvert US efforts in Iraq. They don't want the US to be able to pull our troops out of Iraq or leave a stable country behind when we leave.

Despite the fact that Iran has lots of oil, they don't have enough refinery capacity to provide gasoline for their population. This is an enormous weak point that the West can exploit through sanctions.

Also see,

Gateway Pundit
Israpundit
Westbankblog

It's still very early in the game, but you've already got to wonder if this confession in the JonBenet Ramsey case is going to hold up.

Number one, according to his ex-wife, this guy didn't live in Colorado at the time of the killing.

"Karr's ex-wife, Lara Karr, told KGO-TV in California that she was with her former husband in Alabama at the time of JonBenet's killing and she does not believe her former husband was involved in the homicide."

Number two, no one has explained as of yet how this guy knew the Ramseys so intimately -- and he would have almost had to have known the Ramseys intimately if he was guilty because the ransom note asked for $118,000, the amount John Ramsey had just received in a bonus (per Roger Depue in Good and Evil)

Number three, this guy has been obsessed with the Ramsey case for years. According to his father,

"His son's troubles can be traced back to a decision while he was still in college to write a school paper about the JonBenét Ramsey murder case several years ago, Wexford Karr said.

John Karr's college professor was so impressed with the paper that he encouraged him to write a book about JonBenét's case, his father said. "He researched everything he could about her," Wexford Karr said."

There's more:

"A University of Colorado spokesman, Barrie Hartman, said journalism professor Michael Tracey communicated with Karr over several months and contacted police. The university spokesman said he didn't know what prompted Tracey to become suspicious of Karr.

Tracey produced a documentary in 2004 called "Who Killed JonBenet?" A woman who answered the phone at a number under his name said he didn't live there anymore; his office phone mailbox was full."

When you see that he's done this kind of research, then it seems possible that he may have gleaned supposedly "unreleased" bits of info about the case in the process.

Does that mean that I think the guy is innocent? No, but something doesn't seem quite right. Maybe more info will come out that explains it -- or maybe this is a kook who confessed to a crime that he didn't commit. That does happen. At the moment, let's just say that the jury's still out on this one and it may be worth waiting until a little more evidence comes in before deciding that the case is solved after all these years.

PS: Yes, I know that Karr is one creepy looking pedophile, but still...

Update #1: From MSNBC on TV, Karr says he drugged JonBenet. Trip Demuth, a former district attorney says the autopsy showed JonBenet wasn't drugged.

Update #2: This is from Karr's brother, via Drudge, in an interview with Greta Van Susteren:

VAN SUSTEREN: Do you know if your brother, John, ever lived in Boulder, Colorado?

KARR: To my knowledge, he never lived in Boulder, Colorado, and I don't think that he was ever there, to be honest with you. He may have been through there in transit at one point when he was moving to California maybe four years ago, but to my knowledge, that's the only time he would have ever been in Boulder, Colorado.

...VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Now, the JonBenet Ramsey murder case occurred 10 years ago. Did your brother live in Alabama up until four years ago? Is that what you said?

KARR: Yes. Yes. To the best of my knowledge, he did reside in Alabama up until four or five years ago, when he moved to California, yes. He actually lived in a family home that we owned there that had belonged to our grandparents. And we had constant, you know, communication with him. They would come to our house in Atlanta for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And that's one of the points of contention maybe we talk about -- and maybe we talk to you tomorrow night -- is there's a possibility that we believe he could have been even here in Atlanta with us when this horrible tragedy occurred to little JonBenet Ramsey. And we don't know that for sure. We have to check our photo album and get the dates right.

...VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Do you know if he knew the Ramsey family?

KARR: To my knowledge, he did not know the Ramsey family, never had any contact with the Ramsey family directly, no. Even though we all did live in Atlanta, we were not affiliated in any way to the Ramseys.

Update #3: Apparently, the DNA test is still in the works. For the moment at least, I think you can put it in the "deeply skeptical" category on this guy's guilt although I could be easily turned around if there's a DNA match and an explanation of some of these details that don't seem to jibe.

Update #4: From the Rocky Mountain News:

But investigators in Thailand have told the Associated Press that Karr has made several other statements to them, including claims that he picked JonBenet up from school the day she was killed and that he drugged her. JonBenet was on Christmas vacation at the time, so school was not in session...

...So far, there is no paper trail of Karr being in Colorado. Police in Boulder said today that they have no record of ever having contact with him.

What's the next level beyond, "deeply skeptical?" How about, I'm now 95% certain that this guy's confession is bunk...

Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, running as an independent, gets 53 percent of likely voters, with 41 percent for Democratic primary winner Ned Lamont and 4 percent for Republican Alan Schlesinger, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Update #1: Just to toot my own horn a little here, from Quinnipiac:

"In this latest survey, Lieberman leads 75 - 13 - 10 percent among likely Republican voters, and 58 - 36 - 3 percent among likely independent voters, while likely Democratic voters back Lamont 63 - 35 percent. Two percent are undecided, but 28 percent of those who name a candidate might change their mind before Election Day."

Now from RWN, on August 10th:

"If Joe Lieberman gets 60% of the Independent vote, which seems entirely plausible given Joe's popularity with them and the fact that he'll be running as an independent, that's 25.8% of the electorate for him and 17.2% of the electorate for Lamont.

If Lieberman gets 75% of the Republican vote, which seems entirely plausible given that Joe is fairly well liked among Republicans and Lamont is very liberal, that's another 17.2% of the electorate for Joe, which brings him up to 43% of the electorate. Let's assume the rest goes to Libertarians, third party candidates, Schlesinger (if he stays in), etc. Now, we're up to 43% of the electorate for Joe and 17.2% for Lamont.

If Joe Lieberman can get 24% of the Democratic Vote, which seems entirely plausible given that he got 48% in the primary and only 1 in 5 Lieberman supporters thought he shouldn't pursue an independent run, that would give Joe another 8.2% of the electorate while Lamont would capture another 26.0% of the electorate.

Final tally? Lieberman 51.2% and 43.2% for Lamont. Are those plausible numbers? You bet. Will it work out that way? Well, that's why we have elections, instead of just relying on number crunching. But, from where I'm sitting, Lieberman is still in the catbird's seat for the general election."

The Independent and Republican numbers match up extremely well. The only difference, for the moment, is Joe's Democratic support which will probably continue to drop as big name Democrats campaign for Lamont and pound away at Lieberman. The big problem that the Democrats have is that there is little they can do to influence Republican voters and the harder they work to pull Democrats into the fold, the more they'll probably turn off independents. Moreover, it seems to me that Lamont, who has been campaigning as the "real Democrat," in the race is going to have a lot of trouble turning right around and beating a viable Independent candidate like Joe Lieberman, with Independent voters.

That doesn't mean Joe has this thing sewed up yet, but again, Lamont has a real uphill climb here to try to catch up unless, perhaps, Schlesinger drops out and a more viable Republican candidate gets in. Would the CT. Republicans be dumb enough to run a more prominent candidate without being sure that he could be competitive (And so far, no one like that appears to be on the horizon)? At the moment, it doesn't look like it -- and that's the right way to go. An Independent Joe Lieberman isn't as good as putting a Republican into office, but he is certainly still preferable to Ned Lamont.

According to the latest Zogby Poll, Bush's approval rating has plunged again and weak Republican support has a lot to do with it:

"President Bush’s job approval rating dipped two points in the last three weeks, despite the foiling of an airline terror plot and the adoption of a cease–fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

The survey was conducted Aug. 11–15, 2006, included 1,018 respondents, and carries a margin of error of +/– 3.1 percentage points.

The numbers continue to reflect erosion in the President’s political base – just 62 percent of Republicans give him positive marks for his job performance, while 38 percent give him negative marks."

The conventional wisdom you seem to hear for politicians always seems to be, "When in doubt, move to the middle!" Yet, a big part of the reason that Bush and the GOP are in trouble this year is because they're following exactly that advice.

Just look at Bush's approval ratings among Republicans and you'll see what I mean.

In 2004, Republicans, like Democrats, were responsible for 37% of the electorate. In this Zogby poll, Bush is at 62% approval and 38% disapproval among Republicans. That's an enormous drop from the 93% approval and 6% disapproval that Bush got from the GOP during the 2004 elections.

So, let's do some very rough math. If Bush has lost about 1/3 of his support from Republicans and the GOP were to again make up about 37% of the electorate, then that drop would be responsible for about 12 points that have been shaved off his approval rating. If you were to add 12 points on to Bush's ratings, that would push Bush up to a 46% approval rating. That's still not great, but at that level, Bush wouldn't be a drag on the ticket in most parts of the country either.

So, why has Bush's approval rating dropped so much among Republicans? You could blame it on war weariness, high gas prices, bad press after Katrina, the Dubai Port deal, Harriet Miers, refusing to cut spending, Bush's immigration stance, and Bush's refusal to fight back against the Democrats' non-stop attacks on him.

But, if you look at all the damage that has been done to Bush's rep with conservatives, you'll note that much of it has been self-inflicted. Bush chose to back the Dubai Port Deal publicly even after the base perceived it to be a monumental screw up. He pushed Harriet Miers, a candidate that was so unacceptable to conservatives that they rallied to defeat her. And illegal immigration and spending? Those are the number one and two issues that conservatives have been complaining about.

Which brings us back to the conventional wisdom. Given that the public is very displeased with the performance of the Democrats as well, had Bush and the Republicans in the Senate done nothing but try to please the Republican base on all the issues listed above, they would have much more Republican support right now and certainly wouldn't have to worry about losing the House. In fact, the GOP would have probably been in position to break even this year or perhaps gain seats.

Moreover, other than the war, there's not a single issue where the GOP is paying a significant price for sticking to conservative principles. Heck, to tell you the truth, I'm not even sure that Iraq is a significant minus given that a lot of Republicans are making their support for the war, and the war on terrorism in general, the centerpiece of their campaigns (And no, I don't think stopping the minimum wage or stem cells are going to have a significant impact in November).

Does that mean that conservative politicians, Bush included, are always making a mistake by moving to the center? No, but they are doing it way, way too often. So often, in fact, that they're significantly eroding conservative support for the GOP. This year, unless something radically changes, Republicans can only hope to contain the damage at the ballot box. But, if Bush and the rest of the GOP are going to actually turn things around, they are going to have to do a better job of representing the Republicans that are voting them into office in the first place.

When George Allen said that he didn't know exactly what "Macaca" (as opposed to Macaque, a racial slur), the nickname he publicly used for a James Webb staffer, meant, a lot of people didn't believe him. They thought that the claim that it was simply a corruption of "mohawk" didn't quite seem sufficient.

However, there's now a good explanation for the nickname floating around, albeit one that still isn't particularly flattering to Allen:

"Three Virginia Republicans confirmed to the Hotline that several Allen campaign aides and advisers are telling allies that the word was a made-up, off-the-cuff neologism that these aides occasionally used to refer to tracker S.R. Sidarth well before last Saturday's videotaped encounter.

According to two Republicans who heard the word used, "macaca" was a mash-up of "Mohawk," referring to Sidarth's distinctive hair, and "caca," Spanish slang for excrement, or "sh*t."

Said one Republican close to the campaign: "In other words, he was a sh*t-head, an annoyance."

We're talking about anonymous sources here, but the explanation rings true. Either Allen heard a staffer use that word in reference to Webb's aide and just repeated it without catching on to what the "caca" portion was in reference to or he knew what "caca" meant and was trying to be cute, but didn't realize that "macaca" was actually a real word and that it had the potential to get him in trouble.

Either way, Allen should have known better. Unfortunately, in the dog days of August, when Congress isn't in session, any little sack of nothing like this can be blown up and magnified to 100 times its real importance (See Cindy Sheehan last year for a perfect example) and that has resulted in Allen getting an inordinate amount of bad press for a fairly unimportant incident.

PS: Just as an interesting side note, if you look at the staggering list of ethnic slurs on Wikipedia, many of which are extremely obscure, you will not find the word "macaca." You will however find:

Makak:(Belgium & the Netherlands) a Moroccan; derived from macaque.

Setting aside the fact that this isn't Belgium, the Netherlands, or Morocco, Allen didn't say the word "Makak" or "macaque," he said something that sounded like "Macaca." So, at best, Macaca is one of most seldom used racial slurs on the planet and at worst, the whole slur angle was drummed up out of nothing from the very beginning.

An Official In The Prime Minister's Office Warned On Tuesday That The IDF Would Have To Resume Operations In Lebanon If Hizbullah Is Not Disarmed (Free Jerusalem Post Reg Req)

IDF To Withdraw Despite Plans To Leave Hizbullah Armed (Free Jerusalem Post Reg Req -- Yes, I Know This Says Exactly The Opposite Thing As The First Article, But They're Both Out There)

Israel Pullout To Stop If Lebanon Army Does Not Deploy

Hezbollah Balks At Withdrawal From the South (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Hundreds Of Lebanese Sign Up For Hezbollah Aid

France Uneasy About Mandate

British Deputy PM John Prescott: Bush Is Crap

Colorado Authorities Make Arrest in JonBenet Ramsey Case

More Tapes From Sept. 11: ‘They Have Exits In There? (Free New York Times Reg Req)

John McCain: If I Were President, "I would close Guantanamo Bay.” (He Has Such Terrible Judgment)

Seattle Terminal Evacuated After Dogs Detect Possible Explosives; None Found

Stabenow (D) 49% Bouchard (R) 44%

Dem Angst Over Lieberman Escalates

A New Explanation For "Macaca?"

Ann Coulter: Terrorists Win -- Deodorant Banned From Airplanes

Strategy Page: The Real Winner in Lebanon

Chad Dotson: The Manufactured Macaca Controversy

Robert Novak: This Week In Politics

US Space Commander Predicts Satellite Attacks

Mexican Fishermen Found After 11 Months At Sea

Man Killed In Wood Chipper Accident -- Feet First

'Hybrid Mutant' Found Dead in Maine

Website Of The Day: RightWingRocker

Once again this summer, the number of global warming alarmists has risen with the temperatures. These environmental extremists blame heatwaves, droughts, hurricanes, floods, hot days, and just about any and every other weather related phenomenon you can imagine on global warming. Then, if you try to point out how hysterical they're getting, they tell you that you have no right to express a contrary opinion if you're not a scientist. Well, granted, I'm not a scientist. But, then again, neither is Al Gore. So, let me introduce a few counterpoints to the sort of unhinged doom mongering the former veep and his acolytes on the left have been spreading far and wide of late.

First of all, although you'd never get this impression from reading the coverage of global warming in the mainstream media, we don't have a very good understanding of how our global climate really works or what the long term weather trends are going to be across the planet. If you need proof of that, just look back to the mid-seventies when people were panicking over global COOLING. For example:

Newsweek agreed ("The Cooling World," April 28, 1975) that meteorologists "are almost unanimous" that catastrophic famines might result from the global cooling that the New York Times (Sept. 14, 1975) said "may mark the return to another ice age."

Why did they come to that conclusion? Because, from roughly 1940 to 1970, the earth was getting colder. On the other hand, why have we been hearing so much about global warming lately? Because the earth got warmer from roughly 1970 through 1998. What's that? You didn't know that the earth hasn't gotten any warmer over the last 8 years? It's true.

"Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero)."

So, does that mean the planet is about to start cooling again? Is it going to continue getting warmer? Are we going to stay in place for a while? Is this something that man is doing somehow? We have no idea, folks. The earth has been getting warmer and colder for millions of years and not only do we not know exactly why that is, we have no effective way of differentiating between the earth's natural cooling and heating cycles and any temperature changes caused by man.

That's why, despite what you may have heard, there is no scientific consensus on global warming. To the contrary, "17,100 basic and applied American scientists," including "2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental
scientists" have all signed a petition stating the following:

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

But, let's set those dissenting scientists aside for a moment. Let's say that we all agree that man is responsible for global warming and that we need to do something about it. Great, now what exactly would that "something" be?

The stock answer would probably be, "Well, we could sign on to the Kyoto Protocol." So, let's talk about that option. First of all, even most environmentalists will admit that Kyoto is supposed to be a tiny, "first step". As Reuters pointed out:

"Even before the United States, which produces a quarter of the man-made emissions blamed for causing global warming, pulled out, it was clear that Kyoto's aim to reduce greenhouse gas output by 5.2 percent of 1990 levels was just a first step.

Scientists say an emissions cut of at least 60 percent is needed to prevent catastrophic impacts of climate change this century, including rising sea levels, the spread of deserts and even worse weather-related disasters."

So, the Kyoto Protocol is just a drop in the bucket. Yet, even in socialistic, environmentally conscious Europe, they're not coming close to meeting their targets under Kyoto:

"...(H)ow about the 15 western European countries that were Kyoto's original members? Sorry, for the second year in a row, according to figures released in late June, emissions rose for the EU-15.

...To look at it another way, from 2000 to 2004, U.S. emissions increased by 1.3 percent; in the EU-15, they increased 1 percent. In both places, the only time since 2000 that emissions actually fell (2002 in the EU, 2001 in the US) have been recession years."

When push comes to shove, the reality is that few countries are going to damage their economies today by slashing emissions in order to stave off a hypothetical disaster that might or might not occur in 100 years.

Moreover, even if the United States and a few European countries were run by the most hard core, tree-hugging, frog-licking, granola-eating environmentalists ever to walk the earth, it wouldn't change the fact that the majority of the world still isn't going to dramatically cut their
greenhouse gas emissions. So, what then? What happens when huge, developing nations like China and India keep right on producing greenhouse gases at an ever expanding clip? Are they going to be hit with sanctions? Are we going to go to war with them to stop them from efficiently increasing the size of their economies? Of course not. What that means is there is no "Kyoto Protocol 2" coming down the pike that is going to be the solution to this problem, if there is indeed a problem that needs to be solved in the first place.

So, does this mean we should do nothing? Not at all. We should continue researching the climate, global warming, and new clean-burning fuel technologies. We should also consider putting more resources into emissions reducing energy sources that have already been proven to be cost effective and efficient, like nuclear energy. But, those are suggestions based on logic and science -- not hysteria, unworkable international treaties, and political agendas disguised as scholarship -- so that common sense approach will probably be given little heed by the environmental extremists and the members of the mainstream media that are aiding and abetting their cause.

Rightroots could use a little help with our graphics. The ones that we have already look OK.

But, we could use some more smaller graphics -- particularly button sized images. Also, although I do love the blood red, tentacled, death elephant, we probably need something less, ah...what are the words I'm looking for -- oh, I got it: scary looking. We want something that isn't as scary looking. So, how about a green leafy elephant with roots that are actually in the soil? Something like that?

If you have some graphics skills, how about coming up with something for us? We can't give you anything but a "thank you" in return, but it would be much appreciated if you wanted to help out. On the other hand, if you aren't good with graphics, nothing says, "I want to help," like plain old fashioned money donated to our candidates at the Rightroots page.

The story you're about to read will blow your mind. Here, in the United States of America, we have children who are literally doing nothing but memorizing the Koran all day long:

"The children, ages 7 to 14, are full-time students, in class 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, even in the summer. But they are not studying math, science or English. Instead, they are memorizing all 6,200 verses in the Koran, a task that usually takes two to three years.

It would hardly be an unusual scene in Pakistan, Afghanistan or elsewhere in the Muslim world, where religious schools devoted to memorization of the Koran and Islamic studies are common. But this class meets in the prayer room of a small mosque in Flushing, Queens, that caters mostly to South Asian immigrants and their children.

Schools like this one at the Muslim Center of New York are rare in the United States, but are emerging, especially among South Asians, as the Muslim American population becomes more established.

...Because the task is so difficult, most of the children at the Muslim Center study only the Koran while they are enrolled in the class. Some parents try to tutor their children in other subjects on the side. But for the most part, it is after the children finish that they work to catch up in other subjects in preparation for going back to regular school.

By not offering instruction in other subjects, the school may be inadvertently running afoul of state law, according to city and state education officials. Private religious schools like the Muslim Center’s program are required to provide “substantially equivalent” instruction to that offered in public schools, they said. But tracking every school-age child who leaves the public school system can be difficult.

...(N)ext year, the school plans to introduce two hours of instruction in math, science, English and social studies, said Mohammad Tariq Sherwani, director of the Muslim Center. The additional classes mean it will take longer for students to finish memorizing. “But it is worth it,” he said.

Students at the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens, for instance, spend the last two hours of their day studying more traditional subjects.

...Mrs. Sherwani confessed that she sometimes questioned whether she was doing the right thing with her son, fretting that Thaha, who would have been entering the sixth grade this year if he had stayed in regular school, does not know his multiplication tables, for example."

I couldn't care less if there are kids who are trying to memorize the Koran, or for that matter, any other religious text. However, it is -- and should be -- illegal for a school to ignore or barely teach reading, writing, and arithmetic during the school year so that their students can spend all day memorizing the Koran. If they want to do it on their own time? Fine. If they want to do it during summer school, when they normally wouldn't be in school, fine. But, it is unconscionable for the state of New York to stand aside while kids like Thaha spend all day memorizing the Koran when they don't even know basic math.

These schools that are teaching kids to memorize the Koran with minimal or no coverage of other subjects, during the normal school year, should be immediately and unceremoniously shut down until they're willing and capable of giving students in their care a full and proper education.

Hat tip to Althouse for the story.

As per usual with any significant UN led endeavor, the Israeli/Lebanese ceasefire agreement is quickly turning into a complete debacle.

Of course, from the beginning, Hezbollah wasn't required to turn over the kidnapped soldiers and they've only slowed down their attacks, not stopped.

Moreover, Hezbullah isn't planning to turn over their weapons:

"Hizbullah will not hand over its weapons to the Lebanese government but rather refrain from exhibiting them publicly..."

Nor have they withdrawn from the South:

"Hezbollah refused to disarm and withdraw its fighters from the battle-scarred hills along the border with Israel on Tuesday, threatening to delay deployment of the Lebanese army and endangering a fragile cease-fire.

The makings of a compromise emerged from all-day meetings in Beirut, according to senior officials involved in the negotiations, and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora scheduled a cabinet session Wednesday for what he hoped would be formal approval of the deal. Hezbollah indicated it would be willing to pull back its fighters and weapons in exchange for a promise from the army not to probe too carefully for underground bunkers and weapons caches, the officials said."

Of course, the only surprise here is that Hezbollah is so openly breaking the ceasefire agreement this early on in the process and risking another major Israeli incursion:

"Israel will resume operations in Lebanon if a United Nations force being assembled to deploy in the south of that country does not disarm Hezbollah guerrillas, the Jerusalem Post daily reported Wednesday, quoting 'an official in the prime minister's office.'

The Israeli warning comes in reaction to reports in the Israeli media that Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Sinora reached a deal with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah allowing the guerrilla group to retain its weapons but to refrain from exhibiting them in public.

....'The resolution is clear that Hizbullah needs to be removed from the border area, embargoed and dismantled,' the Israeli official said.

The resolution calls for implementation of all previous resolutions which require 'the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon' and states that the area between the Israeli border and the Litani River must be 'free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon' and the United Nations force."

This ceasefire hasn't been particularly popular and there are a lot of people, myself included, who'd like nothing better than for Israel to declare it a failure and go back to bombing Lebanon (and, cross your fingers, Syria) in order to force a resolution that's more to their liking. Will that happen? We don't know yet, but given the unpopularity of this ceasefire in Israel, the terrorist claims of "victory," and Hezbollah's immediate and flagrant violations of the terms of the agreement, it's looking more likely every day that this ceasefire won't last.

Let's hope that's the case. The more destruction in Southern Lebanon and the more dead Hezbollah fighters, the better things will go for Israel in the long run.

Besides, if the Israelis, and for that matter the Bush Administration, roll over and accept a ceasefire when Hezbollah isn't even pretending to go along with it, what does that do to their credibility? We're talking about a ceasefire that most people seem to think was a bad deal for Israel in the first place and a win for Hezbollah. If Hezbollah is allowed to break the agreement with impunity before it really gets started, then that would seem to indicate that Israel and the Bush Administration aren't really serious about dealing with the situation.

From The People's Cube via Michelle Malkin.

Earlier this week, I contacted Joe Lieberman's campaign and asked about doing an interview. Granted, Joe's way off to my left, but I figured the left-wing bloggers would get so angry if I interviewed him that their eyeballs would pop out of their sockets. So, for the entertainment value alone, it would have been worth it -- plus, of course, it would have gotten a lot of attention, especially with the sort of questions I intended to ask.

Sample question: "Joe, I've been amazed at the vitriol aimed at you by some of these extremist bloggers. For example, Jane Hamsher, a blogger close to the Ned Lamont campaign, called you 'Rape Gurney Joe' and put a photoshopped pic of you up in blackface. Were you surprised at how nasty and vulgar some of the attacks on you were from Lamont's supporters in the blogosphere?"

Well yesterday, a very nice lady from Joe's campaign called back and said that while they appreciated my request for an interview, Joe would be too busy to meet with me for the next few months. That's like the political equivalent of, "I'm sorry, but I can't go on a date with you this Saturday because I'll be washing my hair."

Too funny!

PS: Yes, I still support Joe over Lamont and getting the brush off for an interview is no big deal. It happens all the time, but most of them just blow me off entirely or agree to do the interview and then never follow through. At least Joe's people gave me something: an unintentionally funny line. Plus, who knows? I'm going to ask again and maybe they'll change their minds.

"First, we're about 92 percent complete on the targeted 188,000 MOI forces that we're working to train and equip. If you break that down into its major segments relative to the Iraqi police, we're about 90 percent trained and 83 percent are equipped. And in particular, when you look at the nine key cities that we have been working with, they are also at about 99 percent equipped at this time.

From the standpoint of the National Police, used to be the Special Police, they're 98 percent trained and 92 percent equipped.

And then, finally, from the standpoint of the Department of Border Enforcement, we're about 92 percent trained and 56 percent equipped. And the reason why they're a little lower than everybody else is because we did prioritize the resourcing of our contested areas in particular, so that took away from a more balanced approach towards the DBE first.

So, with regard to Iraqi police and police services, and also the National Police, you can see that they're doing very well right now.

Slide and chart, please.

One of the key things that a lot of people don't understand is our strategy for building police capacity. On the chart you can see here on the left-hand side is really what I was talking about here relative to equipping and training. It's what we are doing from the standpoint of the institution itself. We've got 12 academies here in Iraq.

About 80 percent of the platform instructors now are Iraqi, and by the end of this year, all of the academies will be handed over to the Iraqis to run and administer." -- Major General Joe Peterson

Hizbullah Likely To Retain Weapons (Israel Should Bomb Them Until They Change Their Minds)

Iran, Syria Praise Hezbollah, Mock U.S.

Iran Says Won't Back Down Over Atomic Rights

Gallup: Bush Approval At 37%

Quinnipiac Poll: Casey 48% vs. Santorum 42%

Survey USA Poll: McCaskill 47% Vs. Talent 46%

New Lieberman Retooling Race as Independent (Free New York Times Reg Req)

Maryland: Cardin Promises Cancer Cure. Senate Candidate Pitches Health Credentials, Plan To Beat Disease By 2015 (Good Grief)

Rick Santorum Talks To Town Hall

Minuteman Finances A Secret

Obama Warns of Gas Guzzling Cars in Town Hall Meeting And Then Leaves In SUV

Michael Nazir-Ali: Multiculturalism Is To Blame For Perverting Young Muslims

John Gizzi: PA-12: Irey vs. Murtha

Bridget Johnson: GOP Owes Partisans A Great '08 Candidate (I Got A Mention In This)

John Henke: George Allen’s Macaca Moment

Jonah Goldberg: Terrorism Stories May Fade, But The Threat Never Does

McKinney Criticizes Electronic Voting

New Euphemism For Terrorism: "Pressure"

Mammoths May Roam Again After 27,000 Years

Tim Blair Humiliating Phillip Adams -- Again

Website Of The Day: RealClearPolitics

A lot of conservatives are very pessimistic about the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel. They figure, quite correctly, that the UN troops will be a joke and that Hezbollah will probably start rearming soon.

However, there's another factor that I think a lot of people aren't giving proper weight to yet and it's why I am not as down on the whole arrangement as a lot of other hawkish, pro-Israeli conservatives. Here's Thomas Friedman speculating about what's going to happen once the fighting finally stops:

"On the morning after the morning after, Lebanese war refugees, who had real jobs and homes, will start streaming back by the hundreds of thousands, many of them Shiites. Tragically, they will find their homes or businesses badly damaged or obliterated. Yes, they will curse Israel. But they and other Arabs will also start asking Nasrallah publicly what many are already asking privately:

“What was this war all about? What did we get from this and at what price? Israel has some roofs to repair and some dead to bury. But its economy and state are fully intact, and it will recover quickly. We Lebanese have been set back by a decade. Our economy and our democracy lie in ruins, like our homes. For what? For a one-week boost in ‘Arab honor?’ So that Iran could distract the world’s attention from its nuclear program? You did all this to us for another country?”

As Michael Young, opinion editor of The Beirut Daily Star, put it an article in Slate: “Hezbollah’s ... test will be to rapidly alleviate the suffering in its own community and, therefore, avoid losing its base. The party still has substantial backing among its coreligionists, and it is not about to see this disappear. But soon the fate of the hundreds of thousands of Shiites now living in schools, tent cities, and even public parks will be an overriding concern for Nasrallah. Many have fled areas partly or wholly destroyed, to which they might not return for months or years. ... Hezbollah will have to provide funding for reconstruction and rehabilitation that is likely to run into the billions of dollars. ... The party will have a monumental task to revive not only Shiite morale but confidence that Hezbollah can take care of its own. ... Even the party’s most optimistic interpretation of the current war--that it is a heroic achievement--will not spare it having to tiptoe very carefully through Shiite trauma.”

Hezbollah can crow about their "great victory" all they like. But, that doesn't change the fact that Nasrallah will spend the rest of his life in hiding, huge sections of Southern Lebanon have been bombed to rubble, and Hezbollah's capacity to fight has been severely degraded. We live in a "what have you done for me lately" world and a few weeks from now, the Hezbollah supporters living in tents and wondering when their houses will be rebuilt aren't going to be happy with Hezbollah or anxious to go another round with Israel. That's why it's possible that the long term political ramifications of this fighting will be a severe restraint on Hezbollah for years to come....or maybe not.

Time will tell.

PS: Don't get the wrong idea, because I am not a fan of the ceasefire. I would have preferred to see fighting continue for a few more weeks and I would have liked to have seen Israel go into Syria. Still, I don't think this whole shooting war was the total failure a lot of conservatives are making it out to be. In fact, I think it has the potential at least to be highly beneficial to Israel. We'll see how it plays out.

These comments by Bill Clinton, about Joe Lieberman, have been getting some attention:

"Lieberman has characterized his loss - and the need for his subsequent independent run - as liberals in the party purging those with the Lieberman-Clinton position of progressiveness in domestic politics and strong national security credentials.

"Well, if I were Joe and I was running as an independent, that's what I'd say, too," Clinton said.

"But that's not quite right. That is, there were almost no Democrats who agreed with his position, which was, 'I want to attack Iraq whether or not they have weapons of mass destruction.'"

"His position is the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld position, which was, 'Does it matter if they have weapons? None of this matters. ... This is a big, important priority, and 9/11 gives us the way of attacking and deposing Saddam.'"

First of all, it's interesting to hear Clinton admit this, because it's exactly the opposite of what liberals have been saying for years. At first, when it looked like we weren't going to find any WMDs in Iraq, everyone on the left proclaimed, retroactively, that Bush told America it was only about the WMDs. Conservatives responded that yes, Bush had discussed WMDs extensively, but it wasn't just about the WMDs. It was about WMDS AND Saddam's hostility to America, his connections to Al-Qaeda, his support of terrorism, the danger he posed to the region, and spreading democracy -- among other things. But now, after it has been revealed that yes, we did find more than 500 pre-Gulf War WMDS in Iraq, I guess Clinton thinks that meme no longer works. So, now it's time to go in a different direction.

Of course, the real problem the Democrats have with Joe Lieberman has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. The real problem is that Joe Lieberman is one of the last of a dying breed: Democrats, at the national level, who are serious about national security.

The overwhelming majority of Democrats up on Capitol Hill are knee jerk, pacifistic internationalists, who aren't inclined to support defending America unless they get permission from Kofi Annan and Company. That's why, in most cases, when you see a Democrat taking a hawkish position these days, you start looking for the political angle because they're sure not taking a tough stand on national security out of conviction.

Joe Lieberman isn't cut out of that mold. He's more like Scoop Jackson, John Kennedy, Zell Miller, and Harry Truman on defense. Whatever his other faults may be, when Joe Lieberman talks about going after the enemies of America, he means it in the same way that Republicans do. This is why the Kos crowd can forgive other ostensibly "pro-war" Democrats, but they can't stand Joe. Joe doesn't blame America first, he doesn't sit around wondering why the terrorists hate us, he doesn't compare the terrorists to the "Minutemen," and he believes we should use force to defend ourselves if necessary. To have that attitude -- and mean it -- is becoming an unforgivable sin in today's Democratic Party -- and that's bad for the country.

There have been a lot of changes over the last two and a half weeks and it's time to reevaluate the Senate races although it's still early and these rankings will change between now and the election. The higher the rating is, the greater the chance is that the seat might change parties.

Dark Horse Races

15) Ben Nelson* (D) vs. Pete Ricketts (R)
14) Jon Kyl* (R) vs. Jim Pederson (D)
13) George Allen* (R) vs. James Webb (D)

Competitive

12) Debbie Stabenow* (D) vs. Mike Bouchard (R)
11) Bob Corker (R) vs. Harold Ford (D) (Rep Seat)
10) Michael Steele (R.) vs. The winner Of Ben Cardin (D.) & Kweisi Mfume (D.) (Dem Seat)
9) Robert Menendez* (D) vs. Tom Kean (R)
8) Mark Kennedy (R) vs. Amy Klobuchar (D) (Dem Seat)

Dogfights

7) Maria Cantwell* (D) vs. Mike McGavick (R)
6) Conrad Burns* (R) vs. John Tester (D)
5) Jim Talent* (R) vs. Claire McCaskill (D)

Danger Zone

4) Rick Santorum* (R) vs. Bob Casey (D)
3) Mike DeWine* (R) vs. Sherrod Brown (D)
2) Joe Lieberman* (I) vs. Ned Lamont (D) vs. Alan Schlesinger (R)
1) Lincoln Chafee* (R) or Steven Laffey (R) vs. Sheldon Whitehouse (D)

PS: Lieberman's seat would flip if he won, since he is running as an independent.

PS #2: The Dems need six seats to take control of the Senate. While there are 5 Republican seats that are rated at "dogfights" or higher, the 6th one is all the way down at #11. That means the Dems will probably gain ground, but unless there is a major shift, gaining control of the Senate appears to be out of their reach.

Also see,

The Most Competitive Senate Races For 2006 (First edition)

Nobody in the blogosphere or MSM consistently gets more pictures from anti-war rallies than Zombie. Granted, he does live in San Francisco, a place where freaky liberal behavior isn't exactly in short supply, but still, he makes the most of it.

Here are some Zombie pics from a recent San Francisco "Stop the U.S.-Israeli War" rally. Notice how you have...

Left-wing peaceniks...

Hezbollah supporters (I hope they're tapping her phone)...

and anti-semites... (Warning: racist pic after the jump)

The left side of the blogosphere is up in arms because George Allen apparently, accidentally, referred to someone as a city in South Africa:

"Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) apologized Monday for what his opponent's campaign said were demeaning and insensitive comments the senator made to a 20-year-old volunteer of Indian descent.

At a campaign rally in southwest Virginia on Friday, Allen repeatedly called a volunteer for Democrat James Webb "macaca." During the speech in Breaks, near the Kentucky border, Allen began by saying that he was "going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas" and then pointed at S.R. Sidarth in the crowd.

"This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great," Allen said, as his supporters began to laugh. After saying that Webb was raising money in California with a "bunch of Hollywood movie moguls," Allen said, "Let's give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." Allen then began talking about the "war on terror."

Depending on how it is spelled, the word macaca could mean either a monkey that inhabits the Eastern Hemisphere or a town in South Africa. In some European cultures, macaca is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants, according to several Web sites that track ethnic slurs.

...Reached Monday evening, Allen said that the word had no derogatory meaning for him and that he was sorry. "I would never want to demean him as an individual. I do apologize if he's offended by that. That was no way the point."

Asked what macaca means, Allen said: "I don't know what it means." He said the word sounds similar to "mohawk," a term that his campaign staff had nicknamed Sidarth because of his haircut. Sidarth said his hairstyle is a mullet -- tight on top, long in the back.

Allen said that by the comment welcoming him to America, he meant: "Just to the real world. Get outside the Beltway and get to the real world."

How silly! Allen was just ribbing some clown the Webb campaign sent to follow him around with the campaign's in house nickname for him, and you have hyper-sensitive lefties trying to turn it into some kind of racial slur.

But, as the article noted, he could just as well have been saying Makaka, a South African town, which probably meant about as much to him (i.e. nothing) as macaca. Moreover, even the word "macaca" is supposed to be an ethnic slur against North Africans in some "European cultures." But, we're not in Europe, which explains why almost no one has ever heard of that word being used as a racial insult, and Webb's campaign worker isn't North African.

Again, it's just silly.

But, you almost have to admire the perverse way that these lefties operate. They take a guy like Allen, a man who was actually the co-sponsor of a Senate resolution apologizing for lynching, and they create a little imaginary racist history for him by going crackers over imaginary racial slights over and over.

In Allen's case, he wore a confederate flag pin when he was a teenager, once had a flag collection that included a confederate flag, and had a noose in his law office that was part of Western motif that featured, wagon wheels, chaps, and lassos.

In and of themselves, all of these incidents are meaningless. However, the lefties exaggerate and distort all of these non-events, get hysterical over them, and then try to use their string of freak-outs as evidence that Allen has a problem, when in actuality, these libs are just such hyper-sensitive crybabies that they'd probably accuse someone of being racist for knocking the 8-ball in the pocket with a white cue ball during a game of pool.

Of course, a lot of liberals hold Southerners as a whole in contempt and accuse them of being racist at the drop of a hat. So, it's really no surprise that a prominent Virginian like Allen is being used as a hate object, in place of the rest of the South, by the left. It's just how they do business.

Now that President George Bush has declared Hezbollah defeated by its acceptance of the terms of a U.N. cease fire in Lebanon, the United States today will press the Security Council to grant it a similar ‘victory’ over al Qaeda.

The U.S. proposal would call for “an end to the violence” between al Qaeda and its enemies around the world, including the U.S., and the creation of a 15-mile buffer zone, manned by U.N. troops, around every nation that al Qaeda chief Usama bin Laden wishes to destroy.

Like this week’s agreement that brought “a just and lasting peace” between Israel and Hezbollah, the ‘War on Terror Cease Fire’ proposal will allow al Qaeda to keep its weapons and supply channels intact, and to escape punishment for its previous acts of aggression and murder.

“This will teach the Islamic terrorists a lesson,” according to an unnamed State Department source who worked through the night crafting a resolution acceptable to both al Qaeda and its enemies. “If you attack us, kidnap our soldiers, blow up our towns and murder our people, you will pay a price. These cease fires will cause significant delays in the radical Muslims’ plan to rule the world. It’s a major hassle for them that sends a clear signal.”

This satire was used with the permission of Scrappleface.

Men Held In Michigan Suspected Of Plan To Attack Mackinac Bridge

All Missing Egyptian Students In Custody

President Bush Signs Mt Soledad Cross Bill

White House: Bird Flu Has Arrived in United States

Lebanese Army Can't Disarm Hezbollah Fighters

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: We'll Continue To Hunt Down Hezbollah Leaders

Bush Says Israel Defeated Hezbollah

Nasrallah Declares Victory for Hezbollah In Taped Speech (Hiding Somewhere Delivering Taped Speeches Doesn't Sound Like Much Of A Win)

Hezbollah Guerrillas Reportedly Fire 10 Rockets That Landed In Southern Lebanon

Assad: We’ll Liberate Golan Heights (His Mouth Is Writing Checks His Butt Can't Cash)

Netanyahu: Switch From Unilateral To Mutual Steps

IDF General: Troops Lacking Food Can Steal From Lebanese Stores

Terrorists Planning To Use Their Babies As Cover Sought In Britain

Two Fox News Journalists Kidnapped In Gaza

New Pictures Show Chavez Visiting Castro

Donors Say Lieberman Will Be Well-Funded

White House Vague on Conn. Senate Race

Internal Poll From The Acuri Campaign: Acuri Up 4 Over Rightroots Endorsed Candidate Ray Meier

Michael Gershon: A Former Bush Adviser On 9/11, Iraq And The Lessons Of Five Tumultuous Years—for The President And The Public (Excellent)

Saul Singer: The War We Forgot To Fight (Free Jerusalem Post Reg Req)

Rich Lowry: An Israeli Perspective On The Ceasefire

Tim Hames: If This Was A Defeat, The Israelis Must Be Praying For A Lot More Of Them

Michael Barone: London Plot Exposes Left

A Podcast Interview With Major General William McCoy, Commanding General of the Corps of Engineers, Iraq

John Leo Retires

The Huffington Post Reaction To Fox Reporters Being Kidnapped

A Funny Bear Joke

Humor: Updated Terrorist FAQ

Website Of the Day: Elections Blog '08

Tonight, I got in on a conference call with Rightroots endorsed candidate Mike McGavick, the Republican candidate for the Senate in Washington State. Bill Frist was there to introduce him to the bloggers, but McGavick did most of the talking.

McGavick is an interesting guy. He got his start creating his own public affairs consulting firm and did so well that he ended up running Safeco. He took Safeco from a point where they lost a billion dollars in a year's time to record profits four years later.

His line about this was that he, "ran out of problems to solve at Safeco, but the Federal Government will never run out of problems to solve."

Not bad.

We discussed fund raising a bit because McGavick has been lagging behind Cantwell, who has raised nearly 16 million dollars so far while McGavick has raised less than 5 million. The good news is that Cantwell has already spent more than half of that money and she only has a 4 point lead. Moreover, McGavick is going to put 2 million dollars of his own money into the campaign to make sure she doesn't leave him in the dust in the home stretch.

McGavick talked about a variety of issues, but what he said about the war on terrorism was really spot-on.

He said it's vitally important for us to give the Iraqi government an opportunity to defend itself. We're seeing a transition from our troops to their troops, but they need a little more time. If we do take off from Iraq, and leave a civil war in our wake, we're going to encourage the terrorists and give them a potential base to use against us. That would be a huge mistake.

Beating an incumbent Senator is always tough, but out of the 4-5 Republican challengers trying to unseat Democrats in the Senate this year, McGavick may be our best shot at a pick-up right now. Cantwell is vulnerable, there's an anti-incumbent mood out there, and popular Republican Dino Rossi, who may have been cheated out of the governorship, is campaigning relentlessly for him.

If you'd like to help Mike McGavick try to knock off Maria Cantwell, you can donate to his campaign at Rightroots.

Over at the most popular liberal blog on the planet, the Daily Kos, Darksyde cites a few statistics that show how unlikely it is that any particular American would die in a terrorist attack and then explains that he couldn't care less about stopping terrorism:

"Here's a message for both our homegrown Neoconservative, bloggy, gutless wonders and the Jihadi nutcases overseas: I grew up in the cold-war, my parents went through WW2 for crying out loud. We are not paralyzed with fear over Osama. Despite your best efforts, I'm not obsessed with terrorism. Sheesh, I barely even think about it. I face bigger statistical risks, in every way, every day, and on every scale, just driving across a set of railroad tracks and down the interstate smoking a cigarette in the rain, and I don't worry much about that either.

And if you want me to be afraid for my very nation's survival, Jebus H Christ, you damn well better be able to wave around a threat considerably more convincing than a rag-tag group of zealots who sh*t in caves and beg other people to put on suicide belts sporting a rip cord detonator."

You know why I love this? Because it's honest. Here's a liberal saying what Howard Dean, Ned Lamont, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats really think. This allows people to take a very clear, open eyed look at what conservatives and liberals really believe.

-- Conservatives believe we must do whatever it takes to stop another 9/11 from occurring on our soil.
-- Liberals, like Darksyde, don't think that's the case.

-- Conservatives believe WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists is a serious threat.
-- Liberals, like Darksyde, do not.

-- Conservatives think the British terrorism plot, that would have featured numerous planes being blown up in mid air, would have been a major disaster had it happened.
-- Liberals, like Darksyde, do not.

Boiled down to it's simplest level, conservatives believe terrorism is a serious threat and spend a lot of time thinking about how to combat it. Liberals like Darksyde, "barely even think about," terrorism and consider preventing terrorist attacks to be a low priority.

It's too bad that the other Democrats won't have the guts to be as honest about what they think as Darksyde, so that the American people can see exactly what both parties stand for when November rolls around.

Over at the ex-righty blog Balloon Juice, John Cole frowns on the new moniker that has started to catch on around the left side of the blogosphere, "people power," -- as in, "This is a victory for the people powered movement!"

Here's Cole:

"It is just so hokey, so faux-populist, so nauseatingly poll-tested. There has to be a better phrase/word."

He's right. The first thing you think of when you hear someone say they're part of a "people powered movement," is, what else would a political movement be powered by? Orange smoothies? Ferrets? Titanium alloys?

Of course, the lefties are trying to capture the whole, "We are proletariat fighting for you, against the bourgeois" meme without sounding like Commies. Unfortunately, they're not really succeeding.

But, the real problem that the left has is that they discredit and ruin every name that gets attached to them whether it's socialists, left-wingers, "the reality based community," or progressives. As soon as enough people figure out that it means "liberal," they have to come up with something else to keep people from figuring out what they're really all about. The "people powered" pap won't be any different in the long run.

Update #1: From the comments section:

"Let's give them credit: it's more credible than "reality based". At least the Kos guys are, technically speaking of course, "people." -- TranslationService

The New York Times is rambling on about the Bush Administration and the Geneva Convention today:

In January 2002, when the Bush administration created the camp at Guantánamo Bay for prisoners from the war in Afghanistan, President Bush said he would be “adhering to the spirit of the Geneva Convention” in handling the detainees.

Unfortunately, like many of the things the administration said about Guantánamo Bay, this was not true. The president did not intend to follow the Geneva Conventions, and in some vital respects, he still doesn’t, despite a Supreme Court ruling that the prisoners merit those protections.

To everyone’s relief, the White House is now working with Congress on one major violation of the conventions found by the court — the military tribunals Mr. Bush invented for Guantánamo Bay. But the president remains determined to have his way on the other big issue — how jailers treat prisoners.

He wants Congress to make the United States the first country to repudiate the language of the Geneva Conventions. The only discernible reason is to allow interrogators — intelligence agents and private contractors — to continue abusive practices plainly banned by the conventions and to make sure they cannot be held accountable.

...This standard has been followed for more than a half-century by almost 190 countries, including the United States. The War Crimes Act of 1996, passed by a Republican Congress, makes it a felony to violate the Geneva Conventions. But the Bush administration authorized techniques to handle and interrogate prisoners that clearly break the rules — like prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures, long periods in stress positions, strapping prisoners to metal contraptions and force-feeding them.

The rational response to the court’s decision would be to ban those practices and bring America in line with the rest of the civilized world. But that’s not how this administration works. It asked Congress to change the law — to amend the War Crimes Act to redefine the standards of Common Article 3."

This editorial by the Times just illustrates how ludicrous the debate over the war has gotten.

The Geneva Convention went into affect after World War 2 and the United States has never fought a country that has abided by them, nor are we likely to do so in the future.

Meanwhile, we're wringing our hands over whether it's proper to make them do a few jumping jacks and/or make them sit in a cold room as an interrogation technique? Heck, the New York Times doesn't even want us force feeding the prisoners to keep them from starving to death during a hunger strike.

What benefit do we gain from handcuffing ourselves with these silly and archaic rules when we're fighting against enemies that follow no rules of warfare whatsoever? None! It's like a boxer continuing to follow Marquis of Queensbury rules when his opponent steps into the ring with a battle axe.

Dump the Geneva Convention and the sooner, the better! Then we can set up our own rules and standards based on the real world, not some pointless, antiquated document, that was obsolete the moment it went into force.

Hat tip to Don Surber for the story.

Last week, when Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj got busted posting photoshopped pics as if they were real, I speculated that he was just, "the tip of the mountain." Well, it looks like I was right.

Via Allah at Hot Air, a couple of posts at Lightstalkers, a website for photographers and media workers, have come to light. The posts in question are from Bryan Denton, a freelance photographer, in Lebanon right now, who has contributed to the New York Times among other places.

Here's some of what Denton had to say about what's going on in Lebanon:

i have been working in lebanon since all this started, and seeing the behavior of many of the lebanese wire service photographers has been a bit unsettling. while hajj has garnered a lot of attention for his doctoring of images digitally, whether guilty or not, i have been witness to the daily practice of directed shots, one case where a group of wire photogs were coreographing the unearthing of bodies, directing emergency workers here and there, asking them to position bodies just so, even remove bodies that have already been put in graves so that they can photograph them in peoples arms. these photographers have come away with powerful shots, that required no manipulation digitally, but instead, manipulation on a human level, and this itself is a bigger ethical problem.

whatever the case is—lack of training, a personal drive as a photographer to show what is happening to your country in as powerful a way as possible, or all out competitiveness, i think that the onus is on the wire services themselves, because they act as the employer/filter of their photogs work. standards should be in place or else the rest of us end up paying the price. and i’m not against the idea of local wire photographers, but after seeing it over and over for the past month, i think it is something that is worth addressing. while i walk away from a situation like that, one wire shooter sets up a situation, and the rest of them follow…....

Here's more from Denton in the same thread:

"sorry to have not been specific. just to make this clear. i was not in qana and am not referring to the massacre that took place there. i have been covering beirut, and it was at numerous protest, evacuations as well as the israeli strikes in chiyeh, which unfortunately did not get that much coverage in the media—where i saw this behavior occur. i have also heard from friends of mine in lebanon, respected photographers, that this was not an isolated incident.

unfortunately in each of these cases, it was the lebanese wire photographers that started these situations. that said, i am not trying to make generalizations. i know that there are a number of dedicated and brilliant lebanese photographers here who are putting themselves in extremely dangerous situations in order to document what is happening here in their country, and in hindsight, i realize it was irresponsible for me to post the previous statement because it was not specific enough. however, this has been something i’ve noticed happening here, more than any other place i’ve worked previously."

Note that he says the staging of photos in Lebanon is a, "daily practice." Moreover, he says that, "i have also heard from friends of mine in lebanon, respected photographers, that this was not an isolated incident."

If we have the press photoshopping and staging photos in Lebanon, what would make anyone think that reporting isn't slanted, too? And if we're getting a slanted, anti-Israeli view from the press in Lebanon, what makes anyone think we're not getting a slanted, anti-American view in similar situations, like Iraq? In both cases, we have foreign stringers that may be sympathetic to the bad guys providing information to the MSM which is at least semi-hostile to the good guys and looking for ways to embarrass them. It wouldn't be the least bit surprising if the sort of shenanigans that are going on in Lebanon have been going on in Iraq as well.

PS: I know you liberals may have trouble figuring out which side the "good guys" and "bad guys" are when you have Israel or the US facing off against terrorists. So, for all you lefties: the good guys are the US and Israel. The bad guys are the terrorists, militia members, and assorted scum fighting against them in the field.

Here is the mother of all bad political ideas for Republicans...

"Columnist, blogger, novelist, and Army Reserve Col. Austin Bay (has anyone else ever had those credentials?) calls for a McCain-Lieberman ticket in 2008.

A Republican McCain-Lieberman ticket. Is that a fantasy? It strikes me as less improbable than the Kerry-McCain ticket MainStream Media reporters touted in 2004. McCain and Lieberman are friends, with a more cordial relationship now than Lieberman probably has with all but a few of his Democratic colleagues, who are busy endorsing this week's primary winner Ned Lamont (as they pretty much have to do) and adding gratuitous comments (as Harry Reid and Charles Schumer did in their press release) about how Lieberman has been too cozy with George W. Bush. McCain and Lieberman have also been allies on important issues, on campaign finance regulation (cynically signed by Bush), on response to alleged climate change (where they stand opposite Bush), and on the war on terrorism and specifically the conflict in Iraq (on which they have been utterly steadfast).

...McCain-Lieberman would probably win easily. Pollster Scott Rasmussen has paired McCain and Rudy Giuliani against both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Al Gore in 26 states (subscription required).www.rasmussenreports.com I'm prohibited by membership agreement from disclosing the results, but I think I can say that both McCain and Giuliani run far ahead of both Clinton and Gore--and at a time when Republicans are not doing well in polling for 2006 races. McCain-Lieberman might run behind Bush-Cheney in the South, but that would still leave them ahead in most if not all of the region; they would probably run well ahead of Bush-Cheney on both coasts and would be competitive in many states where Bush-Cheney wasn't." -- Michael Barone

What could be a worse idea than taking the guy who represents most of what's wrong with the Republican Party and putting him together with a liberal Democrat Independent so that they can be the standard bearers for the GOP?

We keep seeing some Republicans demand that the GOP move to the middle. Yet, who's the most beloved Republican President of the last 50 years? Ronald Reagan, a guy who was 4 or 5 steps to George Bush's right. How did Republicans manage to retake the house in 1994? By running against Clinton, of course, and by running on an agenda of balancing the budget, term limits, welfare reform, tax credits, being tough on crime and other conservative issues.

Let's go another step further. Why is the GOP in trouble this year? As much as anything, it's because the base is demotivated by the refusal of the President and the Republican Senate to cut spending and put a stop to illegal immigration. Again, the problem isn't that the GOP in Washington has been too conservative, it's that they haven't been conservative enough.

So, why do people think that RINOs on the national ticket are the answer? Because they, incorrectly, believe that moderate candidates can draw in more independents and Democrats without paying a serious price with the base. What they forget is that by the time the liberal mainstream media spends half a year hammering away on the candidate, most of those Independents and Democrats will fall away. Moreover, like it or not, conservatives do believe in protest votes. There are a lot of conservatives that would rather lose in 2008 than have John McCain and Joe Lieberman represent the GOP to the American public for 4 to 8 years.

Additionally, this isn't pro-sports. The point of winning isn't just to wear your favorite team's jersey and take pride that your side won. The point of winning elections is to make it possible to get your agenda through. So, why in the world would conservatives want candidates who aren't even going to try to move the country to the right?

Here's a better idea for 2008: why don't we rally behind the most electable conservative candidate running and then help him make it to the White House? Then, that candidate can actually do his best to implement a conservative agenda, you know, like Reagan did. Republicans keep asking, "When is the next Reagan going to come along?" Well, if we want another Reagan in the White House, then we've got to try to elect another Reagan instead of being willing to settle for a McCain or a Giuliani because of the errant hope that they'll be easier to elect.

"WHEN will the Muslims of Britain stand up to be counted?

When will they declare, loud and clear, with no qualifications or quibbles about Britain's foreign policy, that Islamic terrorism is WRONG?

Most of all, when will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is THEIR problem? THEY own it. And it is THEIR duty to face it and eradicate it.

To stop the denial, endless fudging and constant wailing that somehow it is everyone else's problem and, if Islamic terrorism exists at all, they are somehow the main victims.

Because until that happens the problem will never be resolved. And there will be more 7/7s and, sometime in the future, another airplane plot will succeed with horrific loss of innocent life.

Equally important, those British politicians who have seemed obsessed with pandering to, and even encouraging, this state of denial, must throw off their politically-correct blinkers and recognise the same truth—that Muslim terrorism in Britain is the direct responsibility of British Muslims." -- Former Scotland Yard chief John Stevens

Britain: Suspected Terrorists Were Planning To Unleash A Wave Of "Apocalyptic" Attacks On Land And Air, Using An Arsenal Of Bombs And Weaponry, Including Firearms, Investigators Have Discovered.

Hezbollah Fires 250 Rockets Into Israel

Senior Source: IDF To Withdraw In Week Or Two

Hezbollah Torpedoes Lebanese Gov't Meeting On Disarmament

Israel Approves Truce, Continues Barrage

Pic Of Castro Holding The August 12 Commie Paper

Iraq Province 'Nearing' Handover

200 FBI Agents Currently Working On The British Terror Plot

Threat To U.K.-U.S. Flights Downgraded

What Exactly Has Condi Rice Accomplished At The State Department?

Woman Arrested For Carrying A Machete Outside The White House

Mark Steyn: Pan-Islamism Challenges Idea Of Nation State

Caroline Glick: Ceasefire Is Unmitigated Disaster (Free Jerusalem Post Reg Req)

Michael Béhé: The Lebanese Are The Most Hypocritical People On Earth (Excellent)

David Limbaugh: Dems -- Exactly Where We Want Them to Be

Jack Kelly: The Friends Of Ned Lamont

Lord Stevens: When Will The Muslims Of Britain Stand Up To Be Counted Against Terrorism?

Iranian President Launches Blog

China Bans 'Simpsons' From Prime Time TV

Website Of The Day: Rightwingsparkle