OpinionJournal - Featured Article: "The alternative offered by the American left of turning things over to the U.N. is simply a global version of the State Department's 1787 illusion. The Baathist remnants aren't killing GIs because they prefer a 'multilateral' transition to democracy. They want to return to power to tyrannize other Iraqis. They are hardly making distinctions now between Americans or Italians, or for that matter Iraqis who are helping us."

An interesting piece, raises several points I haven't considered.

U.S. Troops Kill Seven Suspected Iraqi Insurgents (washingtonpost.com)

I think this marks a real shift in coverage of the Iraqi war. This headline states the number of Iraqi's killed, and only in the third paragraph does it mention 2 American soldiers were killed in a seperate incident, as opposed to previously, when all we would have gotten would have been the number of dead Americans.

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: "'Despite the fact that the Senate has confirmed 168 of his nominees, the right wing is hopping mad that we've blocked just 4 of the most hard-core ideologues,' says an e-mail we received yesterday from the Angry Left outfit MoveOn.org.
Well, how about this: We'll stop calling the Democrats obstructionists when these guys stop complaining about Iraq. President Bush has invaded only two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which were ruled by ideologues even harder-core than Priscilla Owen. That means there are 189 countries Bush hasn't invaded. He should get to invade at least two or three more before anyone calls him an imperialist or war monger."

Priceless.

Howard Dean for President, Dean for President Bears Candidate Collectible

You've GOT to be kidding me.

PETA: The Meatrix

My favorite is the line "12 Million pounds of excrement." Yeah, without which your organic farms wouldn't have any fertilizer, you muckadoos.

Never Love a Stranger: "And in 2008, as Jeb Bush and Condi Rice fight out their G.O.P. primaries, Hillary will be tanned, rested and ready."

God willing.

Fortune.com - Costco, The Only Company Wal-Mart Fears

Can't we all just get along? I don't want my two favorite stores a fussin' and a feudin'!

Matrix fan site .com - Screensavers

Even if you were as disappointed by the second two movies as I was, these are pretty cool...

Soros's Deep Pockets vs. Bush (washingtonpost.com): "Soros's contributions are filling a gap in Democratic Party finances that opened after the restrictions in the 2002 McCain-Feingold law took effect. In the past, political parties paid a large share of television and get-out-the-vote costs with unregulated 'soft money' contributions from corporations, unions and rich individuals. The parties are now barred from accepting such money. But non-party groups in both camps are stepping in, accepting soft money and taking over voter mobilization."

Oh yes, perfect. "Filling a gap." He's a freedom fighter, trying to equalize the playing field after the McCain-Feingold law canted it towards the Republicans. That must be what's going on.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Girl Scouts in Alaska Trap, Skin Beavers: "Let other Girl Scouts make bird feeders out of Clorox bottles and glue together little birch-bark canoes -- Troop 34 in Alaska is learning to trap and skin beavers."

Awesome! Even the Girl Scouts of America are against PETA.

FT.com / World

All of Al Gore's hard work inventing the internet might be for nought, as the UN tries to steal it from the US. Those jerks. Man how I hate those blue-helmeted jerks.

OpinionJournal - The Western Front: "Virtually every attack on American soldiers has drawn a response from coalition forces. The world is seeing that now--after the downing of three American helicopters, including a Black Hawk--with the strikes by F-16s with precision guided 500-pound bombs. Iraq hasn't been the scene of such massive American firepower since April. The enemy is being made to pay a hefty price for each and every attack."

I do and I don't agree with Mr. Miniter. To some extent, I have been wondering why we never hear about what's done after each of these attacks to prevent the next one. At the same time, however, look at Israel's retaliatory attacks on the Palestinians. Despite the fact that every one of these is in response to a specific palestinian attack, the Israeli's are portrayed as murderers every time. Perhaps the Press is more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Iraqi's opposed to the occupation, but by how much? Are we willing to push them to cover these strikes at the risk that they might be held as over-the-top?

Re: My agreeing with the Reverend Sharpton
From today's Political Journal (subs only):Oops, on Friday his campaign issued a "clarification," saying Mr. Sharpton had actually meant to say Senate Democrats should "do everything within their means to prevent" the Brown appointment. The statement added that the sensible and accomplished California judge "poses a serious threat to the progress we have made in civil rights."

Looks like I didn't agree with him on something after all. Whew! What a relief! I was beginning to think that the eclipse and all of these sunstorms on top of my agreeing with Sharpton signaled the end of the Earth.

OpinionJournal - Who Is George Soros?

Just noticed that this is appearing opposite Dean's piece in the WSJ today, and makes my below point much more effectively. Kudos to the Opinion Journal board for taking this advantage to stick it to Dean by juxtaposing some reality next to Dean's vacuous rhetoric.

I also just decided to start my own campaign to raise money for W, and you can all help. We're all non-super-wealthy Republicans (or so it seems). So my idea is for us to start getting everyone we know to sign onto Bush's donation site, here and make a $50 donation. The effects of this will be two-fold: it will increase his donor numbers and decrease the average contribution size. If I can create a serious mobilization of less-wealthy Bush supporters to get behind this effort, then maybe Bush can hold up a stat in the general election that says "I have as many small-money contributors as Dr. Dean, and my average donation is only higher because I also have more donors over-all." Wouldn't that be a feather in his cap?

WSJ.com - We the People (Who Write Small Checks): "declining the matching funds means walking away from almost $19 million in January"

Sorry, subscribers only, but this is Howard Dean's attempt to explain his decision to opt out of federal matching funds. I have to say, this sentence in particular is BS. He may be "walking away" from a guaranteed 19 million, and taking a bit of a risk that he'll receive enough in private donations to overcome that 19. But he will overcome it, and that's the entire point. Maybe he did put it to a vote with his supporters, but just the same, this is not some altruistic gesture on his part--it's what he has to do to stay competitive. And, as many have rightly pointed out, his constant reference to W is more proof that every time the left (i.e. John McCain) comes up with a new way to "purify" (sorry James, I know you hate scare quotes) financing of elections, they just add a measure to protect incumbency. Why don't they just do what they want to do, stop dancing around the issue, and pass a measure that says Republicans can't contribute to campaigns?