Another great round-up by Jules Crittenden… good news, bad news, odd news, it’s all news.

Mick LaSalle published chapter 15 of The Event. Go and read it!

Cernig points out this article in the Guardian, accompanied by the words ‘Hooooo boy, things are getting “interestingâ€? – as in the old Chinese curse style of “interestingâ€?.’ What’s so interesting? Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has warned Turkey not to attack the PKK in Iraq. Any incursion would be met by a “united Iraqâ€?: “Iraq is a sovereign country and Turkey or any other country has no right to enter Iraq, but if this...

The Jerusalem Post reports that “former PA foreign minister Mahmoud A-Zahar of Hamas said Friday that recognizing Israel contradicts the Koran.” In an interview with a Hamas-affiliated Web site, Zahar also said that “Hamas had not given up on the principle that all of Palestine is Muslim land.” Or to put it more bluntly: the Jews have got to go, according to this man of peace. Lastly, he claimed that Fatah is “building a new army and training operatives in various Arab...

Byron York on Alberto Gonzales‘ performance yesterday: Judging by his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, there are three questions about the U.S. attorneys mess that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wants answered: What did I know? When did I know it? And why did I fire those U.S. attorneys? As the day dragged on, it became clear — painfully clear to anyone who supports Gonzales — that the attorney general didn’t know the answers. Much of the time,...

Nancy A. Youssef writes for McClatchy that “military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.” Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said. No change has been announced,...

Three people working at a Bible publisher in the Turkish province of Malatya were murdered yesterday. Attackers slit their throats. Interior Minister Abdülkadir Aksu immediately condemned the murders saying, “No matter what the reason is, we hatefully condemn this savagery.” He called the murder an “attempt to deal a blow to the atmosphere of peace, stability and tolerance,” which indicates that he suspects that the murder was committed for religious reasons. An injured...

Bad news for Rudy Giuliani: his lead in the polls is shrinking quite dramatically. The main cause seems to be… (growing) support for Fred Thompson – who still has to announce his candidacy. Where, in February, “44 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents preferred” him for the nomination, “that figure is [now] down to 33 percent.” McCain, meanwhile, holds steady at 21 percent, Fred Thompson “ran third in this poll, with 9 percent, tying...

There is a problem in Europe these days. The continent suffered two big wars in the last century – so many different countries, with different cultures, with different interests always causes tensions to arrise. We are used to Germany starting and causing our wars, but… today it seems that a new, devastating war, could be caused by… Belgium. Belgium’s Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt is angry that the Dutch city of Maastricht has decided to move its ‘coffeeshops’...

A court ruled in 2005 that the Virginia Tech Killer, Seung-hui Cho, was mentally ill and potentially dangerous. “Then let him go.â€? Cho also sent a package to NBC – containing videos and photos. It is all very shocking I have to say, should NBC have aired this? Please click here to read more.

The following post was published at my own blog. I wanted to cross post it here, but then saw that Holly had already posted about it. However, after talking to Joe, I have decided (with Joe actually) to publish my post on this anyway. For an interesting discussion be sure to check Holly’s post – she was on top of this news when it broke. Mark Sherman reports for the AP (via Yahoo) that the U.S. Supreme Court “pheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday,...

Jules Crittenden, who is rapidly evolving into one of the best round-up’ers in the blogosphere, has another great round-up up, linking to articles and blogposts about the shooting at Virginia Tech, gun restriction laws, etc. Jules own thoughts, I tend to agree with his view: “A quick take on all of the above: I don’t have one… More gun control may prevent or limit some cases of murder or mass murder, but it won’t stop either. Less gun control may prevent or limit...

Mary Ann Akers reports that “Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the most liberal of the Democratic presidential candidates in the primary field, declared in a letter sent to his Democratic House colleagues this morning that he plans to file articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. Please click here to read more.

An interesting post by Toby Harnden, written shortly after he returned from “from Room 2020 of Harper Hall at Virginia Tech”, where he talked “to one of Cho Seung-Hui’s roommates”, who had “seen Cho rise – expressionless – at 5am on Monday, two hours before his murder spree began.” Toby raises some questions that need to be answered.

A, in my opinion, great post at Black Shards about the Virginia Tech shooting and, more generally, the way children are raised these days… Few children in earlier generations would have even acknowledged the idea of assaulting their parents or grandparents. This is a modern problem, one that’s been created in the eras of “peace, love, and understandingâ€? and the aftermath. Whether the V.T. murderer Cho Seung-hui was one of the children this country has failed to raise correctly...

For several years now, the West has tried to contain Iran. Iran, the country ruled by Muslim extremists dedicated to destroy Israel and cause a global jihad followed by Armageddon, meanwhile, has been able to resists this pressure because, yes, other countries, such as Russia and China support it just about blindly: even when they vote for sanctions (in the UN) these countries simply ignore these sanctions (that they voted for themselves), and continue to make it possible for the Mullahs to remain...

If so you should consider helping Delara Darabi (and other women): a twenty year old young woman, and artist, currently on death row in Iran. You can get involved by contacting Ali Eteraz. I have sent Ali an e-mail already, please consider doing the same.

Quite an interesting article in the New York Times: A wave of research shows that increasing percentages of Hispanics are abandoning church, suggesting to researchers that along with assimilation comes a measure of secularization. Several studies show that Hispanics are just as likely as other Americans to identify themselves as having “no religion,� and to not affiliate with a church. Those who describe themselves as secular are, without question, a small minority among Hispanics —...

Eclectics Anonymous has quite an interesting post up about the war in Iraq. Well, war? If you want to extract America from the failed neo-con experiment in the Middle East, there is something very simple. You can do it today, tomorrow, until the boys and girls come home: stop calling it a war! The ‘war’ in Iraq simply wasn’t. What started as an invasion quickly changed into a messed-up mop-up, a wrecked reconstruction and finally morphed into a moral morass best termed occupation. Be...

It seems more and more that Barack Obama will truly be able to put up a fight: not just regarding support of voters, but also regarding the big bucks. As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks to reassemble the Democratic money machine her husband built, some of its major fund-raisers have already signed on with Senator Barack Obama. Among the biggest fund-raisers for Mr. Obama’s campaign are as many as a half-dozen former guests of the Clinton White House. At least two are close enough to...