If you are one of the myriad fans of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, you will be heartened to learn that events are moving forward toward the creation of a two movie series based on the original book, “The Hobbit.” This week we learned that Sir Ian McKellen has signed on to reprise his role as Gandalf and that Peter Jackson will definitely be involved. As was expected, Ian McKellen has agreed to be a part of the two-film Hobbit project, according to Empire magazine. McKellen had...

The Washington Post has further information on an unfolding story regarding several “land swap” deals endorsed by presidential hopeful Senator John McCain, at least one of which seems to be producing a financial windfall for one of the Arizona Senator’s largest fundraisers. PRESCOTT, Ariz. — Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready...

U.S. military officials are now saying that yesterday’s reports of the capture of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, were somewhat premature. U.S. military officials were surprised about the report of Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s capture — first reported by Iraqi media and picked up by The Associated Press. And intelligence officials said they were skeptical, even though Iraqi officials said al-Masri was already in U.S. military custody. Al-Masri (“the Egyptian”),...

Today I was reading a wonderful piece of snark from Oliver Willis, who provides the following dire warning to the Democratic Party should they be foolish enough to award the nomination to Senator Obama. More people are voting for Sen. Obama and that’s a huge problem in the fall. If we extrapolate this trend, it’s possible that he could, in the general election, have more votes than any other presidential candidate in history! The nomination process will be a mockery of the highest order if Howard...

For all the talk regarding the necessity of winning the “blue collar” vote, our presidential candidates continue to show a puzzling lack of understanding when it comes to working class America. During a stop yesterday in Charlotte, North Carolina, John McCain took a question from the audience which was purportedly on immigration. Several audience members questioned McCain about his stance on immigration, though their perspectives ranged from complaining about immigrants returning to the...

Writing for the Times of London, Andrew Sullivan seems to think it’s time to breath some life into the corpse. He lists a number of factors which, in theory, make it a sensible choice. Among these are the historical parallels, such as the unlikely alliance of J.F.K and Johnson or Lincoln’s policy of forming a cabinet composed of his enemies. There are also a number of national demographic and party infighting headaches which such an alliance could ameliorate. However he also notes that...

Former GOP Congressman from Georgia Bob Barr seems, at least for the moment, to be steamrolling his way to becoming the Libertarian Party candidate for the presidency in 2008. Insiders are now hinting that he may be a declared candidate within a week. The conventional wisdom has thus far been that he would draw the majority of his support from conservatives and Republicans, potentially dashing the hopes of Senator John McCain. George Will went so far as to describe a Barr run as being potentially...

An interesting story comes to us from Wes Smith of The Weekly Standard. It seems that the Swiss government commissioned a blue ribbon ethics panel to look at the dignity of plants. The resulting report, titled “The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants,” comes off pretty much like it sounds – that plants, as living beings, have certain inalienable rights and we humans need to be more ethical in how we treat them. (NOTE: There is no “satire” tag on this column.)...

My wife and I went out last night to celebrate the birthday of our friend Jon. We met up with him and his fiancee, Stacey, along with our friends Tim and Carl at a local pub. Since I was there, the conversation around the billiards table quickly turned to politics. I had my pocket recorder going just in case the conversation got good. “So,” I put out to the assembled crowd, “what did you think about all that stuff with Jeremiah Wright?” I was met with a collection of blank...

Among many great political resources from the left, right and center, one always high quality read is The American Thinker. Ever a source of insightful, varied commentary and analysis, the Thinker combines the talents of many writers, including the always provocative Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse. Now The American Thinker is working on expansions to the services they provide and are asking for the help of readers to do so. American Thinker today launches its first-ever appeal to readers for financial...

Helen Hayes once said, “All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar.” On this May Day I find myself appreciating such thoughts. One can handle only so much politics without a bit of a break. The poisonous nature of political bloodsport really takes a toll on you if you spend too long soaking in it. That’s why this week I decided to turn off CNN for a while and...

Much ado has been made of the so-called John McCain “flip flop” regarding his position on the fifty or one hundred year war in Iraq. Josh Marshall made quite a case about this, hinging on the fact that McCain was apparently “against having U.S. troops remaining in Iraq before he was for the idea.” As was pointed out by Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey, McCain’s position may have evolved in light of facts on the ground and, he proposes, people should consider the fact that...

During a season when most all readings of tea leaves and chicken entrails have spoken of gloom and doom for the Republican party (none of which explain how John McCain seems to be doing so well) yet another factoid is being dumped on the log jam of bad news. There seems to be a generation gap in younger, up and coming voters which shows them skewing heavily toward the Democratic party. the gap between Dem and GOP party identification is greater today than at any point since the vanguard of the Reagan...

While national attention continues to focus on the blood feud between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I’ve been watching Ladies Logic for updates on Al Franken’s bid for the Senate in the Midwest. One question leaps to mind. In a year when Democrats should be running unbound like some sort of Politicians Gone Wild video, how did Franken become the frontrunner in this race? The fallout continues for Team Franken. Friday and Saturday saw stories in the Star Tribune on the Franken tax...

Since you are reading this, you’re clearly already in front of a computer with a browser window open. Let’s play a quick game this Sunday, shall we? Open up three new tabs or windows as you prefer, and pull up a Google News Search in each one. In the first one, obtain the search results on the quoted phrase “Will McCain Denounce” and see what you get. Let’s see… The Arizona Senator will have a busy week denouncing Floyd Brown, Rod Parsley, Jerry Falwell and Rush...

In today’s Washington Post, Chris Cillizza has some advice for John McCain, regarding how best to spend this luxurious period of time when the media is focused on Clinton and Obama, leaving him largely at peace. He lists ten items, all of which may have merit, but one action in particular might be good advice for not only McCain, but all three of the remaining contenders. Retire From the Senate: Running for president from the Senate is a bad idea. First, there’s the history of it —...

Pennsylvania had the possibility of turning a corner in one direction or another, but it didn’t happen. Things might have really gotten interesting if Clinton had surged ahead and grabbed a large number of delegates. Yet not only did that fail to happen, but Obama failed to deliver a knockout punch. Why? I was reading one possible explanation at The Lady Logician which gives us a clue. As we have seen in the last 10 days, Senator Obama has bought into the “Obamassiah” meme –...

As a heads up, if you would like to listen to (and even participate in) a “new media” interview in the political arena, today is yet another chance. At 1:00 pm Eastern, 10:00 am Pacific on Mid Stream Radio we will be interviewing Jeff Merkley, a Democrat who is running for Gordon Smith’s Senate seat in Oregon. If you would like to submit questions via the web chat you’ll need to register for a free user account and grab a nickname ahead of time at the BTR homepage. You can...

A smart person once said we all get the government we deserve. This applies not only to western, democratic nations who hold elections, but even to tyrannies. If a tyrant is truly hated by his subjects, they will eventually rise up behind a populist leader and either depose him or force the government to bend to their will. If they fail to do so, then it is in their nature to be so ruled. The case is more clear in democracies. If you are led by dishonest people of poor quality, those are the sort...

Tomorrow is The Big Day! Or at least the latest in a series of roughly one half dozen Big Days we have been promised in this primary campaign season. During this long, torturous pause since the last caucus we have been promised that this was going to be vital. Words such as decisive, critical, and crucial have been bandied about. One pundit on the Sunday morning chat festivals even referred to it as the “showdown in Pennsylvania.” It sounded as if Clinton and Obama had ridden their old...

During a time when calm and diplomacy may have never been more important in the war torn country of Iraq, when the window of political opportunity provided by the surge is closing, Secretary of State Condi Rice made some rather remarkable comments about Muqtada al-Sadr. In fact, she came close to calling him a coward. “I know he’s sitting in Iran,” Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr’s latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces....

In the classic gangster movie “Goodfellas” the character Tommy (Joe Pesci) is in Henry Hill’s bar when “made” Gangster Billy Batts begins telling a story of how Tommy used to make money shining shoes. This angers Tommy quite a bit, and Batts winds up telling him to “go home and get your f***ing shinebox.” Tommy flies into a rage and rushes out, only to come back later and beat Batts into a bloody pulp on the floor. The elder mafioso is later stabbed, shot...

This is a topic we’ve covered on our radio show a couple of times, but there is a video available over at Town Hall with an open forum for comments where the debate over the drinking age continues. I’ll share a few of my own observations, but first some of the early comments from readers for you to consider. First, jfb1138 is squarely against it. The problem is that young adults (17-20) alcohol cars is a deadly equation. Every spring, papers across the country are filled with the stories...

Via Think Progress, we find a rather unusual tidbit from a recent John McCain interview. When the topic turns to the economy in general and gas prices in specific, Senator McCain is proposing a summer vacation from gas taxes to help out Americans. Strangely, though, he doesn’t seem to think it’s really going to change much. I’m very concerned about it, Neil. And obviously the way it’s been going up is just terrible. But I think psychologically — and a lot of our problems today,...

Say what you will about the current crop of political candidates, but they have opened anew some old debates regarding our diverse society and how we view each other. The Democrats have restarted old dialogues on America’s views on race relations and equality for women. Even John McCain is spurring discussions about aging as average lifespans continue to increase. Hollywood has long been a prism – and often an uncomfortable or embarrassing one – through which we view our culture,...