From politics (moderates who lean to the right) to Pogo (drools during poker stare) to rants (Whatcha expect from savvy, sassy sexagenarians?) to raves (Have you had your kudo today?) -- we never take ourselves too seriously.
We do, however, reserve the right to slaughter an occasional sacred cow. And in case we fail to mention it -- we will never forget....
"Rice made a surprise visit to Lebanon on Monday while en route to Israel to launch diplomatic efforts aimed at ending 13 days of warfare as Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into the country in heavy fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas.
Rice arrived in Beirut in the afternoon and was to meet with Prime Minister Fuad Saniora in the previously unannounced stopover before she heads to Israel, Saniora's office said.
Rice plans meetings in Jerusalem and the West Bank with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In addition, she will go to Rome for sessions with representatives of European and moderate Arab governments that are meant to shore up the weak democratic government in Lebanon." --------- AP Wire Story
... to Don Singleton for this post: "Bulgarian border guards seized a British lorry on its way to make a delivery to the Iranian military - after discovering it was packed with radioactive material that could be used to build a dirty bomb."
Actually, the lorry was legally transporting soil-testing equipment -- from which radioactive material COULD be extracted -- for making a "dirty bomb" -- if that were the intent ... Observers speculate that Iran already has the makings for "dirty bombs."
Doesn't make me feel any safer that Iranians could have had more -- or that the delivery was to have been made to the Iranian military.
... to Israel for NOT wanting the United Nations involved in (future) peace-keeping patrols on the Israel-Lebanese border, pursuant to a cease-fire with the Hezbollah.
Instead, Israel has requested that NATO be involved -- an organization of 26 North Atlantic-European nations: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United States, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Members of the League of Arab Nations have expressed a willingness to assist: Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Palestine, Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.
for making this work? Two words.
Condi Rice.
She will lay the cornerstone for peace in the Middle East and for a united front against terrorism.
And George Bush will give her free rein.
If any individual can unify an International peace-keeping network to both secure the Israeli-Lebanon border AND hold terrorists (Hezbollah, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas, et al) accountable for their actions -- it will be Condi Rice.
Perish the Thought (that would be us) appreciates the recognition!
Now I'm gonna rush off to create another batch of tags (for this post), ping the magic pinger, call the family (nahhh -- they read this anyway), relish the 15-minutes-or-so of fame and enjoy a second cup of coffee!
Thanks, Blogdrive, for the recognition, the quality service AND the features you offer ---- makes blogging even more enjoyable!
It's one of those Meg Kearney mornings ..... yanno?
Creed
I believe the chicken before the egg though I believe in the egg. I believe eating is a form of touch carried to the bitter end; I believe chocolate is good for you; I believe I'm a lefty in a right-handed world, which does not make me gauche, or abnormal, or sinister. I believe "normal" is just a cycle on the washing machine; I believe the touch of hands has the power to heal, though nothing will ever fill this immeasurable hole in the center of my chest. I believe in kissing; I believe in mail; I believe in salt over the shoulder, a watched pot never boils, and if I sit by my mailbox waiting for the letter I want it will never arrive—not because of superstition, but because that's not how life works. I believe in work: phone calls, typing, multiplying, black coffee, write write write, dig dig dig, sweep sweep. I believe in a slow, tortuous sweep of tongue down the lover's belly; I believe I've been swept off my feet more than once and it's a good idea not to name names. Digging for names is part of my work, but that's a different poem. I believe there's a difference between men and women and I thank God for it. I believe in God, and if you hold the door and carry my books, I'll be sure to ask for your name. What is your name? Do you believe in ghosts? I believe the morning my father died I heard him whistling "Danny Boy" in the bathroom, and a week later saw him standing in the living room with a suitcase in his hand. We never got to say good-bye, he said, and I said I don't believe in good-byes. I believe that's why I have this hole in my chest; sometimes it's rabid; sometimes it's incoherent. I believe I'll survive. I believe that "early to bed and early to rise" is a boring way to live. I believe good poets borrow, great poets steal, and if only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time. I believe time doesn't heal all wounds; I believe in getting flowers for no reason; I believe "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute," "Reading is Fundamental," Yankee Stadium belongs in the Bronx, and the best bagels in New York are boiled and baked on the corner of First and 21st. I believe in Santa Claus, Jimmy Stewart, ZuZu's petals, Arbor Day, and that ugly baby I keep dreaming about—she lives inside me opening and closing her wide mouth. I believe she will never taste her mother's milk; she will never be beautiful; she will always wonder what it's like to be born; and if you hold your hand right here—touch me right here, as if this is all that matters, this is all you ever wanted, I believe something might move inside me, and it would be more than I could stand.
One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.
Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.
Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed Germany.
There is a reason why General Sherman said "war is hell" more than a century ago. But he helped end the Civil War with his devastating march through Georgia -- not by cease fires or bowing to "world opinion" and there were no corrupt busybodies like the United Nations to demand replacing military force with diplomacy.
There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.
"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.
That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places -- but who looks at track records?
Remember the Falkland Islands war, when Argentina sent troops into the Falklands to capture this little British colony in the South Atlantic?
Argentina had been claiming to be the rightful owner of those islands for more than a century. Why didn't it attack these little islands before? At no time did the British have enough troops there to defend them.
Before there were "peace" movements and the U.N., sending troops into those islands could easily have meant finding British troops or bombs in Buenos Aires. Now "world opinion" condemned the British just for sending armed forces into the South Atlantic to take back their islands.
Shamefully, our own government was one of those that opposed the British use of force. But fortunately British prime minister Margaret Thatcher ignored "world opinion" and took back the Falklands.
The most catastrophic result of "peace" movements was World War II. While Hitler was arming Germany to the teeth, "peace" movements in Britain were advocating that their own country disarm "as an example to others."
British Labor Party Members of Parliament voted consistently against military spending and British college students publicly pledged never to fight for their country. If "peace" movements brought peace, there would never have been World War II.
Not only did that war lead to tens of millions of deaths, it came dangerously close to a crushing victory for the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese empire in Asia. And we now know that the United States was on Hitler's timetable after that.
For the first two years of that war, the Western democracies lost virtually every battle, all over the world, because pre-war "peace" movements had left them with inadequate military equipment and much of it obsolete. The Nazis and the Japanese knew that. That is why they launched the war.
A few lefties surmise that the silence is due to the complexity of the issue -- that it's a "quagmire" which has not been (and may never be) resolved.
Complex issues never stopped moonbats before. Can you say h-o-m-o-s-e-x-u-a-l-i-t-y? A-b-o-r-t-i-o-n? D-e-a-t-h P-e-n-a-l-t-y? R-e-l-i-g-i-o-n? I-m-m-i-g-r-a-t-i-o-n? W-a-r O-n T-e-r-r-o-r-i-s-m? G-E-O-R-G-E B-U-S-H?
So why is the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict any different? Eh?
Come on. Blog it. Dare you. Coward.
Does the reluctance to blog have anything to do with the reality that demo-god Bill Clinton "worked" on a Middle East peace plan for seven (repeat, 7) years and achieved zilch?
Does it have anything to do with the inability to say t-e-r-r-o-r-i-s-t?
Are you afraid that if you "tackle [THIS] tough truth," you might be perceived as anti-Israel? Anti-Jewish? Pro-terrorist? Pro- Hezbollah? Pro-Bush?
Mug-wumps.
Other liberals suggest that the topic is too volatile, one that divides even liberal bloggers.
So? What's a little disagreement among friends, eh?
Differences of opinion have never stopped moderates and conservatives from blogging.
Hasn't cost them an election in a while, either. But I digress.
Liberal blogger Josh Marshall summarizes, "... it may be particularly hard for ... peers to stake out nuanced positions on a complex issue that does not cleave along a liberal-conservative axis."
Huh? Since when do liberals have claims to "nuanced positions?" Cleave? CLEAVE????? So what's it take to get a mug-wump off his axis?
More cleavage? [sometimes I slay me]
"I 'touched off the fireworks' in saying that 'Israel has a right to respond strongly when they have a border incursion over the Lebanese border,' Marshall said. 'Some readers think that because I'm critical of our policy in Iraq... I'm going to be reflexively critical of what's going on now, which I'm not.'"
Hey -- being a Fourth of July kinda gal, I loveeeeee fireworks! I also have this reflexively critical need to respond strongly when someone incurses my borders.
So, wanna do lunch sometime?
"Marshall — who was raised in a secular Jewish home and considers himself 'in some ways a critic of Israel, but still a Zionist and a supporter of Israel' — said he is uncomfortable with the strange bedfellows he sometimes wins by raising concerns about Israel's conduct."
John Kerry had a similar problem, I recall. "First I did, then I didn't; then I did, but I didn't mean it."
Bill Clinton had a "bedfellow" problem, but it lacked nuance. If you know what I mean.
As for being uncomfortable -- did you hear Teddy Kennedy showing his pro-Israeli side? "I-support-Israel's-right-to-defend-itself-but ...."
Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry: poster boyz for wimpy moonbat mug-wumps.
Liberal blogger Max Drum opined: "Most conservatives simply take the uncomplicated stance that Palestinians are terrorists and that Israel should always respond to provocation in the maximal possible way," Drum wrote. "Liberals don't really have a similarly undemanding position for the quick-hit nature of blogging."
Undemanding position??? Quick-hit blogging??? And here I thought blogging required a quick-wit .... and that "most" quick-witted bloggers (including liberal bloggers) were readily cognizant that not all "Palestinians are terrorists" .... Oh, well.
And if Mr. Drum's assessment(s) of liberal bloggers were to be even remotely accurate -- God help us.
Especially help those arrogant, self-assuming, snooty, priggish, uppity, presumptuous quick-hitting moonbat mug-wump bloggers who lack the wit to take a position on a complex subject.
"Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of the The New Republic and a general critic of bloggers, rejected the 'complexity' explanation.
'Why would you expect complexity from bloggers, left, right, or Martian?' Wieseltier wrote in an email to the Forward.
'They [liberal bloggers] are not in the complexity business on any issue.
Maybe the problem is not complexity but complication — the way in which sympathy with Israel's campaign against Hezbollah, and therefore with the use of force, might complicate their lives in progressiveland, where they live.'"
Thanks, Mr. Wieseltier.
You've confirmed what one moderate-who-leans-to-the-right blogger has felt about this "silence of the shams" and the whereabouts of those
There they are .... cleaving to their nuanced positions, waiting for some quick-wit to de-complexify a complicated issue -- so they don't have to risk a quick-hit to their axis.
:::::: and there, but for the grace of God, go I :::::::::
... to Michelle Malkin's 
It's one of those 