Decent, God-fearing and insulated

Ever wondered where they actually like Bush in this country? Ever wondered where they really like him? Apparently the Wash Post did and it's (surprise) Utah!

In small-town quiet, she finishes her work. Somewhere out there are the sounds of chattering terrorists, and shivering homeless people, and helicopters ferrying soldiers, and a president rehearsing a vitally important speech. Here in 71.5 percent Utah, though, and 95.6 percent Randolph, and 100 percent Gator's, the only sound is of a believer explaining why, come Tuesday night, she doubts she will bother to listen.

"I don't think there's anything he could say that would make me dislike him," she says.

Well he does know how hard it is to put food on your family...

Searching for the spin

Yesterday, Bush attempted to leave his head in the sand and begged Abbas to stay in power, despite his party's crushing defeat. Today the administration takes a more concillatory tone, recognizing that a democratically elected Palestinian government is probably in line with his "freedom on the march" preachings. He just can't figure out if people should be free enough to elect suicide bombers.

The new math

-Tom Tomorrow

Are we even having this discussion?

Progress update on Democracy Exportation 2006 at WashPost. It seems the countries with regimes we have yet to overthrow are wondering what's taking us so long. Well they'll just have to understand we only want their democracy on our terms.

Some person must have set him up

Mr. Marion Berry has once again tested postive for cocaine last fall. Story breaks one week after he was mugged - by people who knew who he was! Oh and he forgot to pay his taxes for the last six years.
Somehow you still gotta love the guy.

Anonymous: Mr. Barry is reportedly robbed in his home by young men who first helped him bring groceries into his house. As I understand it, he then refuses to file a complaint so that the youths can be prosecuted. Now it turns out he's tested positive for cocaine use. Mr. Barry is certainly innocent until proven guilty of any crime, but it does not seem a leap of faith to see the possibility of this "robbery" being a drug deal gone bad, or at least the possibility that Barry did not want to pursue a criminal investigation since his drug use would be more publicized. He strikes me as an old, sick man who badly needs help much more than street creds.

Carol D. Leonnig: You raise a good question about Barry's recent account of being robbed, and of his press conference on the matter. There are a lot of people in the community who have their eyebrows raised about that incident, but at the moment, there are more questions than answers.

My thoughts on the smoking ban

DC finally did it and banned smoking.

Star Wars IV: A Very Unlikely Longshot

A very interesting documentary on the history of American Missle Defense systems, and how they fail to work properly or even exist, contains this exceptional quote from Joseph Cirincione:

These are people who believe that technology will solve every problem and who tend to not trust anyone else.

Cut to Richard Perle drawing his inevitable conclusion that someone is going to weaponize space so it might as well be America. Could these twits be anymore irrationally paranoid? Even Wolfowitz concedes that:

There's no question, if we build capable defenses against ballistic missiles, that's not the way people will attack us. They'll attack us with cruise missiles. They'll attack us through terrorists. We need to look at the whole thing in a balanced way.