Dreams Into Lightning

Jane Novak in the New York Times

I'm very pleased to report that Jane Novak, Commander in Chief of the blog Armies of Liberation, has just gotten a write-up in the New York Times. Go check out the article, and don't forget to sign the petition!

Hollywood Ex-Liberal

From Jeremayakovka, here's a post from Ex-Liberal in Hollywood: What's in a name?

I was born into the lower-middle class neighborhood of Pacoima, California in 1957. My mom was an undocumented immigrant from Porto Alegre, Brazil; my Dad was a mechanic from Ohio. I grew up hearing stories of LAPD brutality and racism during the 60s. I always loathed bullies and heard that change was in the wind during the early 1970s. I wanted to be part of the new LAPD.

I joined the Marine Corps in 1975 to prepare myself for the Academy. I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976.

By 1978, I was a sergeant working at the US Embassy in El Salvador, a country where the military junta committed as many as 100 murders, kidnappings and torture of local dissidents each month. "Death Squads" seemed to act with impunity while then-Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher oversaw Latin American affairs. ...

Read the rest of his fascinating story at the link.

Of Tuscan whole milk and other things.

Zoe at A.E. Brain: Tuscan Whole Milk reviewed.

New to Blogroll: IrshadManji.com

Now with a spiffy new blog, lesbian Muslim activist Irshad Manji joins the updated Dreams Into Lightning blogroll. With an RSS feed now, she'll be easier to follow than ever. Irshad's latest post on Mitt Romney and Ann Hutchinson reminds us that the struggle for liberal faith against the bonds of fundamentalism is not confined to any one region, religion, or generation:

Hutchinson, a midwife, came to America with her husband and eleven children in 1634. She began hosting salons in which she’d propose her own interpretation of the Bible and encouraged others to do the same. Pissed off that a highly literate layperson (and a woman, to boot) would show the moxy to challenge their power, Puritan ministers ordered her to stop. She didn’t, choosing instead to argue in court.

Listen to the “charges” laid on her by then-Governor John Winthrop:

“Mrs. Hutchinson, you are called here as one of those that have troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the churches here; you are known to be a woman that hath had a great share in the promoting and divulging of those opinions that are causes of this trouble… you have spoken diverse things as we have been informed very prejudicial to the honour of the churches and ministers thereof.” ...

Irshad takes Romney to task for invoking Hutchinson's name in the fight against islamist extremism. Irshad concludes:

The story of Anne Hutchinson reminds us that America was born as a theocracy ironically set up by those who suffered religious oppression in their homelands. It’s only through doubters like Hutchinson, and later Jefferson, that freedom of worship became a guarantee.

To proclaim “God bless America” is, ultimately, to celebrate those who bust the monopoly of the God Squad.

Read the whole thing at the link, and don't forget to bookmark IrshadManji.com on your browser.

Metric is for sissies ...

... so please welcome Five Feet of Fury to the blogroll. Here's Kathy from Canuckistan on the Canadian Islamic Congress' threat against Mark Steyn:

An excerpt of America Alone that appeared in Macleans supposedly "subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt."

I dunno: I thought they were doing fine in that department without Steyn's help. ...

What more needs to be said? Go read the rest at the link.

Oh, and this is just bad. Heh.

Bruce Bawer Blogs

Via Jeremayakovka, I'm pleased to announce Bruce Bawer's blog, Memo from Europe. Here's a quote from Bruce's latest (November 19) post:

Ideologues like this constantly insist that critics of Islamism are preoccupied with “us” and “them.” On the contrary, they're the ones who are obsessed with “us” and “them.” It’s “their business.” It’s “their country.” It’s “their decision.” If they want to execute their children for being gay, hey, that’s up to them.

Bingo. Go to Memo from Europe for actual examples of this leftist "thought" process in action.

Random randoms.

Math crack.

Blog years.

Because I'm between jobs ...

... here's a few links I couldn't resist sharing.

The invaluable MJ at Friday Fishwrap has a roundup of enlightening and edifying links to improve your life. Go to the post to find out how to do DC on $85 a day, why C sometimes means F, some of the most disturbing toys (from Japan and elsewhere) ... and much more.

And do not miss her music roundup!

Speaking of Japan, Zoe at A. E. Brain gives us an awesome photo of the Earth from the Japanese moon probe Kaguya.

From the LiveJournal cohorts:

Israel-based cabal plans world domination!

Rabbits. And more rabbits.

New to blogroll ...

... and long overdue, here's a link to Contentious Centrist, out of Canada. And the accent is definitely on the "contentious". Don't fall for stereotypes about mild-mannered political moderates (or Canadians); CC takes no prisoners. They're our kind of people.

Trembling Before Scotland

Norm Geras can appreciate nature without the help of religion, thank you very much.

New to Blogroll: Rabbi Baruch Melman

I'm pleased to add the blog of a great rabbi and personal friend, Rabbi Baruch Melman. You can read his latest post, a commentary on Parashat Devarim: How do you say eleven?

Usually in Hebrew we say either echad asar or achat esreh. In parshat Devarim we say yet another variation:

"(Deut 1:3) VAYEHI BE-ARBAIM SHANA BE-ASHTEI ASAR CHODESH"

"...AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THE FORTIETH YEAR IN THE ELEVENTH MONTH..."

"ASHTEI ASAR CHODESH" - the eleventh month.

This is a unique usage. Why doesn't the Torah use standard Hebrew for the word eleven? Because it may likely be a clue for our generation, the generation which saw (and possibly squandered) the miracle of the redemption in our day. The number "eleven" is intended to stand out, as it was to be related in perpetuity to the challenge confronting our civilization in the Age of Redemption. ...

Go to the link for the rest, and don't forget to bookmark Sefer Chabibi.

Afternoon Roundup

Neo on a fake "justice".

Greenberg’s summary of the position of apologists for the Reign of Terror is well worth reading, and is relevant today when thinking of the many Leftists in the West who have become apologists for a different form of terror—the Islamist totalitarian variety:

How did intelligent, cultivated people, then and later, come to excuse these abominations which ordinary simplicity sees for what they are? One answer, of course partial, seems to be the deep shift, anticipated by Rousseau, of moral feeling away from concern for liberty to concern for social justice.

For “social justice” please substitute any of the following: social equality, racial equality (or “justice”), ethnic equality (or “justice”), cultural equality (or “justice”), and economic equality (or “justice”) and you have the motivation behind much of Leftist thought and action. The fact that such equality is a fake “justice,” the fact that it cannot actually be attained by human society, and the fact that all efforts towards it achieving it end up profoundly compromising liberty are ignored by its champions, who have as much difficulty now giving up their Utopian dream as they did then.

Perhaps more.

The Standard's Goldfarb fisks TNR's "Shock Troops". We join the fisking, now in progress. 'I think it's interesting that many of our informed readers have more trouble with the Bradley story [in which a Bradley driver allegedly ran down a dog with the vehicle] than anything else--perhaps because it is the most easily debunked element of the story given the milblog communities intimate knowledge of the vehicle. We also had our pal Stuart Koehl write in yesterday ( you can read his comment beneath the original post) to say that there is simply no way that a driver would be able to see a dog off to the right of the vehicle, and further, that the vehicle would not be able to pivot as the author, "Thomas", describes.'

BFT on the Deathly Hallows. Paula Gaon - artist, educator, and star of the Jerusalem Quidditch team - weighs in. 'The seventh and final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows goes on sale this Saturday, 21 July 2007. After more than a few traumas in the past six years, including the loss of two beloved elders--as far as we know, Harry enters adulthood and begins his quest to find out what really happened when he was a babe in arms, an event that will possibly determine whether he lives or dies. I've read all six books at least twice, and each time have discovered more and more depth to the story. J K Rowling, the author of the series, is truly a genius. She has tapped into the mythologies of world literature and written a timeless story of fantasy and magic that feels so real we can touch it, but still tells the universal, timeless and all too human story of Coming Of Age and Dealing With The Past.'

BHG picks a bone with Prager. 'I normally like what he has to say, but he just made a comment on his radio, just afer 12:30 p.m. my time, which I found to be (for lack of a better word) idiotic. He was talking about the Michael Vike situation, and said, in not so many words, that human suffering concerns more than animal suffering because humans can suffer while animals can only experience pain. Really? Has he ever seen a dog react to an upraised hand? It demonstrates fear. ... Post script: Prager just redeemed himself somewhat by making the correct point that when people are cruel to animals, it is generally a good indicator that someone will be cruel to other people. The converse, as he notes, is not necessarily true. There is no connection between being kind to animals and being kind to people. After all, the Nazis loved their pets....'

Remarks. I haven't been following the "Shock Troops" debate closely, but it would scarcely surprise me to learn that a liberal magazine ran a derogatory story about the military, while either not knowing or not caring that part or all of the story was materially untrue.

A couple of weeks ago I was watching "Cold Case" with my girlfriend Georgianne. It was the episode where a female Iraq War vet is found drowned. As soon as the TV showed a dedicated, patriotic soldier giving his medal to the woman (whose body would later be found in the river), I turned to Georgianne and said, "He's the one who did it." How did I know? Well, it wasn't that hard.

Here's a comment on a military spouses' forum on that same show (the episode was titled "The War At Home"):

I just wanted to add two more cents about Army Wives. I've read lots of complaints that the show isn't realistic enough for one reason or another. Some of it is valid: the "soldiers don't want their wives to work" bit should've raised warning flags for everyone, and heinously untrue statements like that make us all look bad. But some of the other complaints seem to lean toward the nitpicky. I read a lot of guff about the citation the LeBlancs got for their grass being too long. Granted, it probably wouldn't happen on the day you move in, but maybe she show just wanted to find a way to let viewers know how much control the military has over our on-post lives and how even the tiniest things are considered a reflection of you as a soldier. Maybe? I'd like to think they at least put that much thought into writing the show.

Big problems we should worry about. Little quirks -- yeah, the LTC's collar bugged the heck out of me too -- shouldn't turn you off from watching the show completely. If we worried about every little detail of every show, we couldn't watch anything! You wouldn't refuse to watch House because Cuban boat refugees could never afford to go to the greatest medical specialist in the world, right?

Plus, it could always be worse. Did anyone else watch the rerun of Cold Case the other day?

It was an episode called "The War at Home" about an OIF veteran who was murdered. The errors in that show were so glaring that I had to laugh out loud. You want to talk about stereotypes? The husband's cheating on his wife with another lady in the FRG. How about the Marine who hates women and beats his wife?. And the cop and the Marine both saying that women don't belong in the service. The cop made a comment about how all women in the military were like Lynndie England! How many more bad things about the military could we include? Oh, and then there were the little details, like the made-up "Medal of Valour" that she received, some hunk of gold hanging from a red, white, and blue ribbon. Or the absolutely absurd gaff when the Marine says, "You don't belong in the miltary," and the soldier says, "I'm a soldier, same as you." Ha, imagine calling a Marine a soldier to his face!

Yeah, that was the part that just left me shaking my head. You'll want to go to the link for comments on the prosthesis shown in the show.

In other words, it wasn't a television program about the American military. It was a television program about the fantasy image of the American military that's conjured up from the imaginations of a bunch of sheltered liberals. And I've got a suspicion that's what we're looking at in the TNR piece, too.

Of Food, Family, Sex, and Christopher Hitchens

Venomous Kate at Electric Venom shares eight things. Find out what she's allergic to, but eats anyway. But it can't compare with another dish that's "smoky, and with a texture that's hard to find." Yum!

What is Jeanne Faulkner's blog about?

Currently that is the work of letting go. Letting adult daughters go out in the world without hovering. Letting worry about their safety balance with security of knowing we raised them well. Remembering how much fun it was to be young adults and wishing I'd had the same kind of support to jump off the ledge that my children have. Raised in different times by different parents, my own launch was more jumping ship than a send off. ...

Read the rest at the link.

Nancy Rommelmann goes below the belt. And somehow, through the mysterious processes of life, Christopher Hitchens fits into it all.

New Friends

I neglected to mention in my earlier post that I got to meet some new friends during the visit with Michael and Judith. Please welcome Jeanne Faulkner, Nancy Rommelmann, and Cathy Young to the Dreams Into Lightning blogroll.

Also pay a visit to Reason, a very fine magazine which I've added to my news reader. I plan to subscribe just as soon as I get a new permanent address.

New to Blogroll

Please welcome my screen pal George M. Roper to the DiL blogroll.

Here and there.

The good old days. Cinnamon Stillwell: "Turns out terrorists don't govern very effectively - who knew?"

Patay o Bangkay. Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club tells it as only he can: "The full enormity of what was on offer hit home with all the force of a D-11 bulldozer dropped from from 20,000 feet." The American flag stickers on the briefcases were a nice touch, too.

I think there's a lesson in here somewhere.

A musical note (or two) and much more!

Welcome, Cathy Young, to the Dreams Into Lightning blogroll!

Ahmadinejad's having a bad day.

On a mellower note, Friday Fishwrap brings us k. d. lang covering Leonard Cohen. Hallelujah, indeed!

Reasonable

The Bald-Headed Geek has some reasonable requests from Adam Gadahn, aka Adam Pearlman, via Laura Mansfield:

A message from the mujahid brother Adam Yehiye Gadahn (Azzam) This is not a call for negotiations. We don’t negotiate with baby killers and war criminals like you. No, these are legitimate demands which must be met. All praise is due to Allah creator of the heavens and the earth and prayers and peace be upon the messenger of Allah, and his companions, family, and followers until the day of judgement. Bush. You thought you would be remembered by history as the President who waged a series of successful Crusades against the Muslims. Instead, you will go down in history not only as the president who embroiled his nation in a series of unwinnable and bloody conflicts in the Islamic world but as the President who sent the United States off on its death march towards breakdown and disintegration.

Doesn't this make you just yearn for a productive dialog with this fellow? Yeah, me too. Don't forget to blogroll The Bald-Headed Geek.

New to Blogroll

Exit Zero.

Afternoon Roundup

Things have been a little too quiet on this site lately, perhaps owing to an eventful personal life. Anyway, I don't want to leave you hanging, so here's a roundup of some good stuff ....

Saudi Stepford Wife buys local. SSW:

I’m being teased mercilessly and getting called “Nakhlawiyya” (farm-girl) by my in-laws because of my choice in laundry baskets. Instead of buying one of gazillions of plastic laundry baskets, I went and ordered a traditional, woven basket to be made for me by one of the dying breed of basket weavers here in the city. It’s actually used for hauling dates around but I saw its value for hauling clothes around. Nowadays most of these baskets are woven from plastic so I had to order one made for me of old-fashioned, undyed palm leaves.

Um Ahmed is the lady who managed to solicit our patronage…and these are some aggressive saleswomen! They’re located at the Thursday Market in back of the Central fruit market every Thursday morning till noon prayer. Yes, I mean the now notorious fruit market which is in back of the Flirty-Go-Round (the Baladiyya-City Hall). ...

Go to the link and take a look at Um Ahmed's work. And don't forget to blogroll Saudi Stepford Wife.

SGIME on consciousness-raising. SSW's Saudi neighbor reflects on the role of consciousness-raising groups: 'I love reading the blogs of other women who are questioning the status quo – especially here in Saudi. I love eavesdropping as they share their thoughts about the political problems they see all around them. ...' Go read it all.

Irshad: Faith without fear. Go over to Irshad Manji's site right now and see some of the reactions to her PBS documentary "Faith Without Fear":

I never felt relieved as I am right now. I thought I was the only person in the world that wants to change the way Islam is being instructed and followed nowadays. In Tunis we have moderate Islam, but the extremism is gaining space and that is what worries me the most. I just wish to have you travel all around the Arabic Muslim countries and debate their way of adopting Islam. I cannot imagine how someone living in the 21st century adopts the 7th century standards.

There should be someone to bring the bright and warm side of Islam to the world. ...

Lots more at the link.

Ocean Guy: Spot the error. From his vantage point on A1A, OceanGuy takes on Matthew Parris: 'The fact is that Western multi-culturalism, especially as practiced in the UK, has rendered the west impotent against the Islamist threat. We in the west are paralyzed by those "enlightened" folk among us who see America as the enemy for daring to stand for freedom for all people in all places. Standing up for our ideals is audacious, dangerous, and "Imperialistic"... the most serious sin. Witness Parris telling us that, "We are overlooking the fractures and potential fractures within [Islam]." while not mentioning the fractures within western liberal democracies that are even greater. He worries "the American empire may lurch dangerously around for decades to come," while being blind to the damage his multi-cultural appeasers are doing to our civilization. But Parris' most egregious insult is in coupling the United States with the Islamists, labeling them both "dysfunctional beasts." And, predictably of course, he calls for "containment not confrontation, [as] the wisest policy." Simply put, he tells us to "appease the Islamists, they are not a threat, it is America that we should really worry about." Where are the Brits with backbone?'

Tammy: What's up with those French youths?

I really have no idea why France thought it would be okay to let all those Swedish Lutherans immigrate into France in the first place. And when those Swedish youths get mad, it's obvious they have no self-control. it must be related to growing up knowing that the most beautiful Swedish women. like Ann-Margret and Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo, all left Sweden for other countries. That alone could provoke later generations into wanting to destroy France. Yeah, that must be it.

Or the newly euphemistically dubbed "anti-Sarkozy protestors" could actually be unassimilated ignorant Islamic thugs who have been throwing acid at police and setting cars on fire...

D'ya think, maybe?

Neo likes Sarko. 'I first wrote about Sarkozy here, during the riots in France. He seemed a fascinating character then, and even more so now, a breath of fresh air in a France that has been stagnating for quite some time. Sarkozy represents the desire for change ...' Read it all at the link.

Not for them the joys of Muslim matrimony. Jeremayakovka links to a singles service for ex-Muslims. Follow JMK's link to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali interview.

Cinnamon Stillwell at Campus Watch

Cinnamon Stillwell joins Campus Watch with this post on a Lebanon conference at UCLA:

A conference on media coverage of the Israeli/Hezbollah conflict being held tomorrow (April 3) at the University of California, Los Angeles, looks to be yet another opportunity for anti-Israel invective. Titled "Covering Lebanon," the conference is co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies.

Conference speakers include UCLA history professor Gabriel Piterberg, who specializes on the Near and Middle East. Piterberg is best known for teaching a course extolling the virtues of the father of anti-Orientalism, Edward Said, and another that examines "the dispossession of the Palestinians by the state of Israel during and after the 1948 war, the meaning and use of the Holocaust, and the extent to which the term ‘a Jewish democratic state' is sustainable."

Appearing at a "speak-out" held by the Muslim Student Association in 2000, Piterberg went so far as to oppose a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict. As he put it, "You can't have a Palestinian state with its own rights, when you have 150,000 Jewish extremists sitting in the middle."

Other highlights of his career include signing a 2003 petition calling for UC divestment from Israel, canceling a class to attend a student anti-war protest, and fashioning himself the imagined "victim" of Campus Watch. Considering his background, there is little doubt what Piterberg will contribute to the UCLA conference. ...

You gotta go read the post for the rest - and the links. Kudos to Cinnamon for this painstakingly researched piece.

Happy blogiversary Jeremayakovka!

One of my favorite bloggers, Jeremayakovka has been at it for one year now.

Here's a JMK post from last April, inspired by Norman Mailer and a painting by Richard Mercham:

With "Last 4th" intending "last quarter" (i.e., 1976-2000), we're looking at the baby boomer generation that has had to grow up - or not - as it has grown older. With "Last 4th" intending "last July 4th", the painting vies to be our definitive parting glance at the "American century".

The brushwork holds up, too. Those overrun lines are like lipstick smears tracing some drunken heavy petting from last night's party (with someone else's spouse or, at any rate, not with one's original date). The blue base in the shadows evokes the veins that press to the surface, eventually, in even the firmest and whitest of flesh.

She is one of the women Norman Mailer never managed to seduce. Is it because she simply said, "No (never)!"? Or that he never fastened on Jewish women to begin with? Either way, for the record - just in case Norman never noticed - she has outlived Marilyn.

One of JMK's ongoing themes is his struggle to shake off the demons of a leftist youth. Here's an excerpt from his excellent recent post on Communist Cuba:

The New Left of the early 60s backed the revolution there from the get-go. Soft liberals -- as well as many Cuban Communists -- were taken in by Castro's pledge to institute democracy. Lee Oswald used the "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" as a cover to pose as a wacky leftist in order to assassinate John Kennedy. (In the opinion of many Republicans Kennedy was the last remotely honorable Democratic president -- to whom Richard Nixon and the Republican Party prudently ceded the 1960 presidential election despite having sufficient reason to contest and/or remain bitter about the results.) Personally, I was raised on career Communist Kulturkampfer Pete Seeger's recordings of the Cuban nationalist tune "Guantanamera" -- a non-Communist, patriotic song long exploited in the service of la lucha. In fact I attended the same summer camp in the 1980s which Pete Seeger had attended in the 1930s -- something of which I used to be proud. ...

Go read the rest here. And remember to blogroll Jeremayakovka.

Let's blogroll!

Sand Gets In My Eyes has an eye-opening experience on a commercial flight:

Flying is, after all, an equal rights activity: I pay for my little part of the plane, you pay for yours, and as long as your stuff doesn’t encroach on my space or visa-versa, we’re hunky-dory.

That’s the way it should work. But these days, that’s not exactly the reality.

Case in point: My husband and I recently flew to Australia and back. It’s a grueling trip, so we upgraded to business class – more room, better meals, more choices in seating. I like the aisle since I tend to move around on long flights more than my husband does; and my husband doesn’t like the bulkhead area, so that’s the way the tickets were booked – me on the aisle, him on my immediate left and both of us several rows away from the bulkhead.

But, when we arrived at our seats, a young, fully covered Muslim woman arrogantly informed my husband that he could not sit in his assigned seat – the seat on her immediate right- because it was “against her religion” to have a strange man sit next to her! ...

Read the rest at the link.

Captain's Quarters says Israel should have listened to France, and yes, you read that correctly. Check this out:

At the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, France sent word through secret channels that it would support Israel in the war if Ehud Olmert attacked Syria and deposed Bashar Assad. Chirac wanted Israel to attack the root of the problem in Lebanon and eliminate Hezbollah's lines of support ...

Go to the post to find out what Michael Ledeen said.

Finally, Baron Bodissey covers the counter-protest in Washington with some great photographs. Go check it out.

Let's blogroll!

Not PC, just common decency is what should make you think twice about using certain kinds of insults, says Tuomas at Creative Destruction. Hear, hear. And also from the estimable CD, Ampersand - no bushbot he - insists that, contra Rolling Stone, the Ohio election wasn't stolen ... but "fair" is another matter, and Amp raises some questions about Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.

Patti at White Pebble links to an inspiring coming-out story.

Alcibiades at Kesher Talk asks some important technical questions but forgets one: Is the damn thing pronounced "rooter" or "rowter"?

"The tide of the war in the Pacific was turned in the time it took a few squadrons of American dive bombers to make their runs on this day 64 years ago." From a thought-provoking post at Winds of Change on the aptly-named Midway battle; and go check out the photo of the ill-fated Yorktown.

Let's blogroll!

Immigration debate: Gay Patriot is the site of a friendly debate on immigration. Average Gay Joe says he'll march on Monday: 'I have many Latino friends that are immigrants and a number of them called me all day expressing fear over being kicked out. Some of this is irrational probably stirred up from political opportunists, rumors, and perhaps bad experiences with the governments in their native countries. I say this because some of my friends I know are here legally with valid work visas, yet they too seem to have caught the “fear bug” going around. These folks, mainly from El Salvador, were granted permission to work in the U.S. and have been here for many years. They have married, had kids, bought homes, and in all respects that I’ve seen are the kind of people we want to have in our country. ...' Go to the link for the rest, including AGJ's suggestions for a "hard/soft" approach to immigration. Bruce, the original GayPatriot, responds: 'AGJ outlined some good reasons and also articulated the right immigration policy and on those points I completely agree. But I have to disagree with him marching as he will in effect be lending credence to those who wish not to IMMIGRATE but to INVADE. The groups organizing these marches are not interested in becoming Americans, but well-paid Mexican workers in a place that happens to be called America. ...' Full post at the link.

Fulla fun. Samantha Burns reports on Syria's newest role model for young girls: 'For me, it's good to know that a somewhat similar version of Barbie exists. It's depressing to see girls miss out on all the learning they could be doing with their Barbies because they are too busy escaping into the mind numbing, pathetic video game drone.'

We are amused. Well, sort of. Tigerhawk, guest of the Belmont Club, reacts to the "Two Bushes" comedy routine. On a more serious note, Tigerhawk summarizes a year's worth of analysis in this lengthy post on winning the Long War.

Whose 'true agenda'? Pamela at Atlas Shrugs scrutinizes CAIR's kvetching about the Sudan Freedom Walk. Meanwhile, Judith at Kesher Talk reports that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is being evicted: 'Back home in the Hague, she is being evicted by her neighbors because the fact that Islamists have targeted her for assassination, and therefore requires 24-hr. guard, makes them nervous.'

Uncomfortably numb. Also from Kesher Talk, Judith has a roundup of United 93 posts, and this: 'It was interesting that many spoke of being numbed by the movie (as in temporarily emotionally overwhelmed) or un-numbed by the movie (as in emotional catharsis renewing one's focus and resolve). ... [But there is another kind of numbness:] This isn't the same kind of numbness as described by the bloggers above. They are temporarily numb from allowing the drama in the film to deeply penetrate their souls and inform their choices, which is one of the functions of art. The numbness Chesterton describes, which is similar to the reaction I gave examples of in the Mars and Venus post, comes from experiencing the same emotions, but keeping their meaning at bay. The reviewers I quoted are trying desperately to keep Flight 93 from mattering, to themselves or anyone else.'

Imshin has a post about nothing. And a parable.

Marian at Eight Drunken Immortals reflects on the movies, and tries to keep her mind off that whack job Tom Cruise. Roger Simon reports that Chirac and de Villepin have missed an opportunity to keep quiet and possibly slandered Sarkozy ... and it may bite them in the derriere.

Link farm at Creative Destruction. Patti's in Boulder. Neo's slacking. Tammy's not. Beth talks marriage.