Daily Roundup

Sex is a private matter unless you're a democrat. There's a bit of snark there. I happen to agree that the Senator should resign. His acts were criminal and made him subject to blackmail. Not to mention I happen to believe that people of low character in one area of their life do not confine their perfidity there. If you are willing to lie to your wife about infidelity, you're much more likely to use your Senatorial position to enrich yourself illegally or at least game the system to skirt the law.

Rod Dreher is losing his religion. I confess that I too, stood on that precipice and looked into the abyss. Ultimately after a great deal of soul searching I stayed but it was, by no means, an easy decision.

In other news, here's the paleocon view on how to end the war successfully.

Should there be a Jihad Sedition law
. I find this argument not only persuasive but compelling. Advocating sharia is no different than any other form of theocracy. I would add that to the list. Any preacher of any stripe that openly calls for a theocratic state by overthrow (presumably violent) of our current government is seditious.

Hitchens skewers Galloway yet again and this time, Galloway cannot bluster his way through. Somewhere, Norm Coleman is laughing.

Here's compilation of UK MOD recruiting videos I find it very interesting. Note some of the imagery used. Also note that not once, is patriotism or country mentioned.

Business news: Is Blackstone going private? This will be of interest to no one except me but it's interesting so read it anyway. I surmise the author is correct but they'll wait for a further dip of 200 or so basis points.

Biden screws himself again. He really can't help himself.



Here's a tough question for Democrats. Note some people actually posit the theory that Bush has low poll numbers for involvement in Iraq and Congress's poll numbers are due to their refusal to quit and go home immediately leave Iraq. There's no evidence for this mind you so the reverse might well be true. Bush's numbers are low because he refuses to prosecute the war fully and the Democrat Congress numbers are low because they want to quit.

One blogger has his perspective of the Dem. Youtube debates. As I haven't seen them, I cannot comment.

Are there terrorism dry runs taking place around the nation? The upside of this is that the screeners found this stuff in the luggage.

Republicans always said the Leftists, despite their posturing, don't actually support the troops. They just say that because to admit otherwise would just be too odious.

They're finally admitting they don't support the troops. Flatly stated, they don't. I think they've been edging themselves out on this ledge further and further until they're there now and ready to jump. Kos is backpedaling like crazy and deleting those posts but it's too late. Screengrabs exist. There's more here

How is the surge going? This article:

"While the terrorists make a big deal out of every American killed, they know that most of their attacks were not only failures, but got a lot of their buddies killed. On average, 10-20 terrorists die for every American killed. This has been going on for years, and an increasing number of Iraqi fighters are demoralized and quitting. Many either become informers, or surrender and speak freely. This is resulting in fresher intelligence, and raids that are catching terrorist cells preparing for operations, and in possession of weapons, bombs and incriminating documents.

Independent reporter Michael Totten writes:

“Most of what we’re doing doesn’t get reported in the media,” he said. “We’re not fighting a war here anymore, not in this area. We’ve moved way beyond that stage. We built a soccer field for the kids, bought all kinds of equipment, bought them school books and even chalk. Soon we’re installing 1,500 solar street lamps so they have light at night and can take some of the load off the power grid. The media only covers the gruesome stuff. We go to the sheiks and say hey man, what kind of projects do you want in this area? They give us a list and we submit the paperwork. When the projects get approved, we give them the money and help them buy stuff.”

Not everything they do is humanitarian work, unless you consider counter-terrorism humanitarian work. In my view, you should. Few Westerners think of personal security as a human right, but if you show up in Baghdad I’ll bet you will. Personal security may, in fact, be the most important human right. Without it the others mean little. People aren’t free if they have to hide in their homes from death squads and car bombs.

(snip)

“We have tight relationships with some of the people whose sons are detainees,” Lieutenant Colonel Wilson A. Shoffner had told me earlier. “They don’t approve of their children joining Al Qaeda or the Mahdi Army. The support for these groups really isn’t that high.”

There's more here

Unions hire scabs to protest for them surprising no one.


Will GPS solve air delays? Let's hope so.

Life is a musical thing


Gonzales won't answer a simple question.


This one made me bonkers. His flat refusal to answer a simple question makes him a weasel. For all the complaining about the parsing bullshit word games Clinton played when he was deposed, this is no better. It's a very simple question: Who asked you to go? The answer "on behalf of" isn't an answer. To think that he had to go back and check if he can answer is crap. He's the AG! He damn well knows if he can answer. I didn't know anything about the man when he was appointed so I didn't see what the fuss was about. He was (and is) well qualified but he's a purely partisan political animal putting party and President ahead of law. This clip alone has me gravely concerned.