More good news.

The U.S. military said today that the number of attacks by militants in the last week dropped to a level not seen in Iraq since March 2004.

About 300 violent incidents were recorded in the seven-day period ending Friday, down from a weekly high of nearly 1,600 in mid-June last year, according to a chart provided by the military.

300? That probably beats the hell out of New York City.

Meanwhile, the US casualty count this month speaks for itself. Like Malkin says in the link above, the level of violence still isn't "acceptable"; however, I would add that in the political sense, the goal of quelling the violence is much less important than ensuring that Iraqis can, at long last, deal with it themselves. So in that sense, this is even better news, because what violence there is in Iraq isn't getting U.S. troops killed.

Justice Scalia reveals a truth that contradicts a fundamental understanding of politics by Internet commentators, particularly the nutroots: just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're stupid or evil. They just have a different perspective on the best way to make the world a better place.

I think Joe Biden, interrogating John Roberts, said two years ago:

"I have grave misgivings about the fullness of your spirit."

The New York Times to John McCain, yesterday:

"Ditto."

Just when everything was going so well for him, McCain gives a shocking, unasked-for reminder to Republicans of why they hate him.

Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain accused North Carolina's Republican Party of being "out of touch with reality" over its refusal to pull an advertisement criticizing Democrat Barack Obama.

Of course, this isn't just a difference of opinion. If it were, he would have stopped commenting on it days ago. This is a point he's making. Basically, McCain is declaring that he doesn't intend to join together with his prospective allies, not even now. Shitting on allies and shaking hands with enemies is what John McCain is all about.

The mildness of the ad (Rev. Wright is extreme. No, nothing else, that's it, that's the punchline) drives home how far across the partisan channel John McCain is willing to reach, and how much conservative goodwill he's wiling to sacrifice for it.

I had firmly intended to vote for John McCain, and I probably still will, but the fact that I'm reconsidering suggests that many people who see these little "reminders" will also reconsider...and a good number of them will stay undecided.

UPDATE: Why, you ask, does he do it? Here's why.

UPDATE: Good griefing gravy.

McCain's new campaign slogan.

"Who needs the white working class? They vote Republican anyway!"

I swear, they just keep serving these things up every week, like 60 mph fastballs, and the Clintons just keep going yard on them. BJ:

"And today her opponent's campaign strategist said, 'well we don't really need these working class people to win, half the time they vote for Republicans anyways. And I will tell you something, America needs you to win and therefore Hillary wants your support and I hope you will help her in this primary in North Carolina," continued the former president.

Coach, get out there. Your young gun needs the hook.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's anyone grown up enough in the Obama campaign to qualify for the moniker "coach."

Anyone else think it's hilarious how many leftists are angrily shrieking "nine percent!" every time someone mentions that Hillary won by ten percent? Ah, if they could but hear themselves ten years hence.

Speaking of the leftosphere, John Hawkins had a great roundup of the reaction to PA at Daily Kos:

What the right-wing pundits and the Clintoneske politicos seem not to have considered:

Louis Farrakhan is going to be popular as never before in the African-American community and will become a player of unprecedented proportions.

Whoa. First of all, "unprecedented proportions?" I hope you mean unprecedented for Louis Farrakhan, which would still be a trick, rather than unprecedented for a black leader.

With some ninety percent of Black Americans supporting Obama does anyone think that the Black community is going to blame Barack Obama for a loss?

I'm a college senior, but a rather grounded one, I think. So it's always fascinating to me to read screeds from people my age that are so adamantly built on insane presumptions. Of course black supporters aren't going to blame Obama for a loss. Who blames favored candidates for losing? I mean, I know the Democrats blamed Kerry, but they didn't blame Gore. Of course, they did blame Dukakis...and Mondale...and Carter...and McGovern. OK, maybe some people do blame candidates for losses, but not us "right-wing pundits and the Clintoneske politicos".

Point is, you can almost see this kid's fantasy construct world, with its black underclass seething with Muslim-esque rage and looking for someone to "blame" and exact horrific vengeance upon after a routine American presidential election doesn't go their way.

What an Obama loss will make clear to Black folks is that Clinton or McCain won due to the racist garbage they threw at Obama.

Black people have been blaming their problems on racist garbage - rightfully so for long stretches - for a hundred and fifty years. Leaving aside the history lesson and the fact that charging McCain with racializing is complete horseshit, how would Obama's defeat fundamentally change black people's reaction to "racist garbage"? This is like insisting that The South will Rise Again now that McCain beat Huckabee.

We're going to have a Black population that voted as a block for a black candidate who was conciliatory to white Americans without looking like an Uncle Tom. Yet still...

Ah-hahahahaha! The black population voted in a bloc for the Democrat? Really? As opposed to all the other elections when they voted merely 85% for the Democrat? And America yet-and-still won't heed their message of recon(socialism)ciliation? Good heavens, those louts.

The message white America will deliver to Black America is that they are not interested in reconciliation.

Wow! That's crazy, because inasmuch as there is a "white America" and a "black America," the message the former would want to deliver to the latter is that they are not, in fact, interested in reconciliation. In fact, I find it hard to believe that anyone who would identify with "white America" would want to reconcile with "black America". But good luck to them. I hope they resolve their differences. The rest of us are moving on.

...Twelve percent of America under the influence of Louis Farrakhan.

What a base insult to the intelligence of blacks! Oh, that's right, liberals can't insult blacks, not even when they insinuate that blacks are stupid apes who would take to the streets under the banner of a nut. In fact, to even suggest such a thing as a racist liberal is de facto rightwing distortion; even when the liberal is suggesting that most blacks would riot like animals in support of someone who believes Jews control the planet and that he was abducted by aliens.

Game Over.

It sounds like he's projecting Steyn's predictions of Europe on America, substituting blacks for muslims and socialist revolution for demographic creep.

Someone's game will certainly be over when Obama loses.

Idiots:

8:41 p.m. | Uh-Oh, Left Out: One other tidbit from Pa. elections officials: They say a lot of people who are independents have been showing up, thinking they could vote in the Democratic contest. Too bad they weren’t paying attention earlier. As Caucus readers know, you have to be registered as a Democrat to vote in the party’s primary. That shuts off a stream of voters who have been helpful to Mr. Obama in other states. Their absence tonight could obviously hurt him.

"Mah vote didn count!"

At any rate, it looks like Hillary has a comfortable lead, so I won't have to eat my words.

Still, it probably won't be the 20 point win I envisioned, but a month and a half of harping by Democrats upon the voterbase that they have a patriotic duty to vote for Obama and end the primary will take that kind of toll.

Second wave feminists, meet Internet.

Mullah sez: global time, based in the GMT zone, should be replaced with The Holy Mighty City of Muhammad (PBUH), Mecca, Center of the Earth Time.

Personally, this issue makes me angry; I think it's ridiculous that people are still allowed to schedule things outside of American Eastern Time. I don't have a problem with you people using your parochial time for minor local concerns, but noteworthy events should reference the time zone that actually matters.

And now Islam wants to muck things up even more by bringing their religion into things? Screw that.

This is the shining city that my fellow collegiates and assorted airheads want to model our health system after:

The EU Commission on Monday rejected claims that producing biofuels is a "crime against humanity" that threatens food supplies, and vowed to stick to its goals as part of a climate change package...
"You can't change a political objective without risking a debate on all the other objectives," which could see the EU landmark climate change and energy package disintegrate, an EU official said...
UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told German radio Monday that the production of biofuels is "a crime against humanity" because of its impact on global food prices.

Political objectives paramount? Check. Fighting modish boogeymen? Check. Concern for real, palpable suffering revealed as poser-compassion? Check.

Retreat and Defeat in Iraq.

A failure of temporal perspective.

“TIME has the utmost respect for our nation’s veterans and we well understand the power of the iconic image of the raising of the flag over Iwo Jima,” Daniel Kile, associate director of public relations at Time, said in an e-mail to BMI. “We believe this is a respectful use of this symbol of American valor and courage and serves to highlight another great challenge facing our nation.”

One of those "Anyone who would be offended by that is long dead, right?" moments. Ahh, the wages of postmodernism and Photoshop.

My favorite:

“While we’re on the issue of saving a tree — hey Time Mag, how about a more determined effort to print fewer paper editions? eh?”

That's different. Much different. That's a service provided to paying customers (many of whom are environmentalists) who want a print edition. Nothing like those corporate fat cats pouring smog into the atmosphere while counting their greenbacks.

LGF really needs to cut back on the Ron Paul baiting. Now is the time for healing!

My favorite line:

You are absolute morons if you believe for a second that the U.S. greenback is worth what wall street pretends it is and you knock the gold standard.

How is it that people who have such a strong grasp on old economic structures have never read Adam Smith? Gold, dollars, euros; everything has one value: what the buyer and seller agree it has.

We could be 10 years away from synthesizing gold in a nanotech laboratory, for all the Paulites know. Or from a deep-sea exploration drone's discovering a patch that doubles the world supply of gold. What will they do with their mountains of gold buried in the Paulville Vault when entire models of cars are being built out of the stuff?

My philosophy is thus: the United States will always bounce back, unless there's a large nuclear war; in which case, who cares whether you had your assets in cash or gold?

Hee-hee-hee.

I'm a Catholic - sort of - so with that almost irrelevant identity disclosure worthy of the Democratic campaign, I must say that His Holy Father is an idiot, globo-socio-econmically speaking.

Pope Benedict XVI warned diplomats at the United Nations on Friday that international cooperation needed to solve urgent problems is "in crisis" because decisions rest in the hands of a few powerful nations...

Urgent problems solvable by international cooperation? Such as?

Global Warming? China and India won't cooperate. Tibet, Darfur, and the dozen other minority cleansings in progress? Those would require war to ameliorate, Father. The international community doesn't want war. Neither do you. Starvation? Bush has tripled aid to Africa. The international community isn't cooperating. They're just stealing our money as it lands.

The pope said questions of security, development and protection of the environment require international leaders to work together in good faith,

Well, he's right there. These problems could be solved by good faith work by international leaders.

He'd also be right to say that ethnic strife could be simmered down by choirs of angels descending to relieve the blue helmets of their peacekeeping duties. I'm not holding my breath.

particularly when dealing with Africa and other underdeveloped areas vulnerable to "the negative effects of globalization."

You know the American Liberal Arts colleges truly rule the world when you hear their favorite platitudes coming from the Pope.

Not to say he's wrong. The West and other industrial powers are indirectly responsible for much of the chaos and misery in Africa, because the global economy has percolated dangerous Western materials to the Dark Continent, such as AK-47s and Marxism. But there's not a whole hell of a lot we - particularly we in America - can do about globalization and Africa, except fix our agricultural welfare system so Africans can grow their own food.

Benedict also insisted that the way to peace was by insuring respect for the dignity of human beings. "The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and increasing security," the pope said.

Great strategy, Father. Who could argue with a strategy like that?

Tactics, though? You might have a problem. The U.S. can respect others' dignity surprisingly well, even by leftist standards, but when we do that people have a tendency to slaughter each other by the hundreds of thousands.

He said the United Nations plays a key role in monitoring how well governments protect their citizens. "Indeed, this is coming to be recognized as the moral basis for a government's claim to authority," the pope said.

Well, at least it's clear that he's simply out of touch, rather than working lucidly on a Carterite 12-point plan.

Hosanna.

It's like a Dairy-Queen brain freeze, thinking about how the people who harp on American schools' rank worldwide are the same people who foster "positive changes" such as this one.

Read the flavor links at the top of the piece, too, those are quite informative.

Listen, it's not too difficult: the top countries on the list are Pacific-Asians and countries with similar educational methods. Those countries don't cancel science class in favor of yoga and ban students from playing games that might hurt their self-esteem. They keep them in school til 5, give them a lot of homework, and worry them into suicide.

If that's what we want, I'm all for it (for the moment, since I'm out of school myself and I don't have a child of my own; when I do, you sweaty-palmed sock-wrenching maternal aunt social workers had better find somewhere to hide). If we don't, then fine, go with the yoga. But don't then start running election ads and getting in a huff for the sake of "America's children and their educational opportunities." The only thing we can do is give you money, and we've already given you more than enough to start your own Edu-nation.

For the price of ten million school lunches, we can build something that's totally awesome.

Not even much of a debate, is it?

Oh, Canada.

Jimmy Carter in Hamastan

Powerline:

Hamas proclaims that it wants to destroy the state of Israel and kill the Jews who live there. Israelis want to preserve their country and don't want to be murdered. These are not "different opinions."

On the contrary, they are quite different opinions. Opinions that are treated with similar consideration in the U.N. and most other international bodies.

The desire to murder and the desire to avoid being murdered are not on an equal footing, and cannot be reconciled through talk or through understanding.

This, too, is sadly not true. Hamas and the PA want to kill all Jews. Israel wants no Jews to be killed. They've been reconciling their differences and coming to a compromise for some time now.

Every once in awhile it's fun to read a piece that highlights the descent of The New York Times, once the stone tablet of our national news, into a local rag. No paper with any diversity of opinion would let this pass its editorial board:

It’s time to take a page from the conservative playbook, the one where they reframe the debate by changing the language — for instance, calling the “estate tax” a “death tax,” or making equal rights for same-sex partners a “protection of marriage” issue. I propose we stop saying “taxes” and start calling them “dues.”

Right. That'll work real well. Not only are you taking our money, but now you're insinuating that we owe it to you.

“Look,” I said to a conservative friend, “simply saying ‘hard earned’ every time you say ‘tax dollars’ doesn’t make bureaucrats think twice before spending. But spending other peoples’ dues, now that’s not so easy.” He muttered darkly.

So did I. And what is he talking about? As a semantic exercise, "dues" are infinitely more easy for a politician to crap away than "taxes." Pool clubs, unions, and The New York Times all spend the "dues" they collect for membership, and they pay not a thought to the interest of who paid them. Nor should they, since membership is voluntary and only unions pretend to be interested in the good of their dues-payers (emphasis on "pretend").

With a liberal friend, I mentioned a study showing that words like “social” and “contract” make people more willing to pay their share.

This would probably be a more convincing argument if the people paying taxes got something out of this mythical "social contract." The only wealth-producers that get anything out of the social contract are the ones that have jiggered the government into writing them into the "in need" column of the contract.

But we need language to remind us that this is our government,

Speak for yourself. And while you're at it, tell it to everyone who opposes the Iraq War. "Sorry, hippies and concerned Americans; this is our government, which means the government of people who agree with me, and that means we stay in Iraq until the last American soldier is dead." I'm sure that'll go over real well.

"and that we thrive because of the schools and transit systems and 10,000 other services that exist only because we have joined together."

Whoa. Whooooaaaa. First of all, "only"? Can you seriously believe that schools "only" exist because of the government?

Second, we thrive because of all these cornucopias of government waste? The only "government services" that cause me to "thrive" are the transit system (which I buy tickets for) and, probably, the FDA. These "10,000 other services" you neatly skip are tolerably superfluous at best (the Postal Service) and an active detriment to our "thriving" at worst (virtually every dollar spent in large cities that isn't paying for a badge or a fire helmet).

Finally, this line implies that the bulk of our "dues" and "taxes" are being spent on public "services" of any kind.

Finally, Instead of denouncing taxes, politicians would do better to appeal to the patriotic corners of our hearts that warm to phrases like “we the people.”

Politicians should, huh? Well, what separates a politician from a dead tree philosopher at a fast-contracting newspaper? Hmm. Oh yeah. "Elections." Those dastardly politicians are saying those bad things about taxes because they want to get "elected."

As you said, monsieur, it's our government.

Meanwhile, Obama - surprise - actually does take money from lobbyists.

This won't come as a shock to anyone who doesn't consider Keith Olbermann to be a centrist and doesn't enjoy the Huffington Post because it's thought-provoking and politically diverse. I'm just harping on it as a matter of personal knife-twisting, because I've had to watch this crap for the last month.

If anyone actually read this blog, I would assume ABC's Political Punch had been reading mine.

While the description of small town Pennsylvanians as "bitter" is certainly impolitic, many political analysts say it's what follows that adjective that is potentially so alienating -- the notion that small town folks "get bitter" after which "they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

But Obama allies are trying to focus on the "bitter" part alone.

The hammer falls, as Obama goes from +/- 0 to -20 in one PA poll.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, voters themselves say that Obama (and, more to the point, the HuffPo and CNN) is wrong. Plus, you figure a disproportionate number of that 56% is probably small town voters themselves and people who know them, meaning the damage is even worse than it looks.

All links in this post farmed lazily from Instapundit, btw.

This is just a disaster for Hillary and McCain. Obama's opponents need these scandals to space out a little for maximum effect.

But on Saturday Wright made his first extensive public remarks since the controversy began as he paid tribute to his friend, former appellate judge R. Eugene Pincham, a congregant at Trinity since 1987.

...Wright did take the opportunity to bash some of the critics of his controversial statements, including Fox News personalities Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.

And while Wright made no mention of terrorism, he did revisit the topic of America’s mistreatment of blacks, saying America’s founding fathers “planted slavery and white supremacy in the DNA of this republic”...

Incidentally, we're now going to have large segments of the public that believe Obama is a crypto-muslim, a radical bible-thumping black supremacist, and a Marxist atheist.

And that's not even counting people like me, who find compelling evidence for all three!

ABP hits it on the head. The print media is going to try and finesse Obama out of this gaffe (in spite of himself) by harping on the "bitter".

This, of course, is a load of premium fertilizer. Obama did not offend anyone by calling them "bitter." He's not even wrong to call them "bitter." Here's why: they, like most Americans, are bitter. Politically speaking. The entire political spectrum, excluding a very narrow slice of the center-right that doesn't follow the news and is financially secure (i.e. the last people in the universe not pissed off by George W. Bush) is bitter about some major issue or other.

The problem, and why this is a major gaffe for Obama (despite strenuous disagreement by, basically, the entire news media), isn't that he called people "bitter" but that he called a specific class of people bitter and chalked their entire culture (freedom and faith) up to this economic bitterness. He implicitly ascribed all their political beliefs to the same. Basically, he belittled everything that makes small-town Pennsylvanians different from his San Francisco billionaires, ironically while accusing those rednecks in PA of harboring "antipathy toward people who aren’t like them".

He would have gotten away with just saying that small-town Americans are "bitter". He might have taken some flack for calling them bitter about long-gone factories, as that implicitly reduces them to a bunch of hicks, but being Barack Obama, he would have skated through that. But calling people bitter, tying it into the past, then tying that whole construct into religion and self-resilience and then conflating those in with xenophobia and racism? Good luck, Husseinny. The Friday news cylce won't save you now, even if Monday was a national holiday.

Of course, that won't stop the journalists from giving it a go. The leftie blogosphere is establishing a meme, that 3/4 of his comments were just gravy for the main thrust about CFTA or American steel or whatever. The mainstream media is already running with it.