So does Al Qaeda have a grand plan? According to a piece in the German newspaper Der Spiegel (which is German for "we write more serious stuff than you see in many American newspapers")the terrorist group not only has a grand plan but it's in 7 steps — culminating in the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate by 2020. The article says the info is in a book by Jordanian … [Read more...] about Al Qaeda’s Grand Terrorist Plan

....at quite a remarkable undertaking: LeftyBlogs.com. It's a news aggregator but almost breathtaking in its Internet and political concept. The underlying idea is to put a lasting informational compenent into the progressive movement's infrastructure. How to do it? By scanning 600 progresssive blogs — broken down into states so readers can find them quickly — … [Read more...] about Take A Peek….

Ann Althouse was invited to take an all expenses-paid trip to see "Justice Sunday"--the Christian Right's bashing of Judicial Activism (Lawrence, Roe), Judicial Restraint (Kelo), gays (Lawrence again), and non-Christians (Engel). In actuality, it's probably a good thing the good Professor turned them down--she thought it was pretty awful (stunning, I know). I'm sorry, but when … [Read more...] about My Invite Must Have Gotten Lost In The Mail

Great. After all my happy chirping about how Roberts wasn't that bad a pick, it turns out he may be a radical after all. … [Read more...] about I Hate It When Kos Might Be Right

The long awaited Broadway musical "Lennon" debuted in New York...a musical in which his widow Yoko Ono reportedly had a (heavy) hand in the production. So how did it do? Let's just say it was panned so much it could supply a Home Shopping Network infomercial with enough cooking ware to sell for a full year. From all accounts, the musical celebrates the courage, wisdom, … [Read more...] about Lennon Musical: They Don’t Love You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah…

Perhaps before those who enjoy the full benefits of freedom of expression in the United States cry that there is a "hostile" environment towards Christianity in the United States, they should take a lesson from the Chinese. … [Read more...] about Teachers that need to be taught?

The next time you get in an airplane try to erase THIS from your memory. … [Read more...] about Here’s Something Else To Worry About In Air Travel

Questions continue to surface in the killing by London police of an innocent Brazalian man suspected of being a bomber. … [Read more...] about The Killing Of A Terrorist Suspect

The potential multi-faceted perils of airline travel are hammered home with the news that the 121 who perished in a Cyprus air disaster may have been dead when the jet slammed into a mountain --frozen to death in the air. Various news reports paint a harrowing portrait of a plane where some kind of mechanical failure dropped the temperature so low that the pilot's face was … [Read more...] about Greek Jet Crash: The Pilot Was “Turning Blue”

As some of you may know, Maher Arar -- the Syrian-born Canadian who was detained by U.S. immigration officials at New York's JFK airport on suspicion of being a member of al Qaeda and then subsequently deported (more accurately, "rendered") to Syria, where he was held and tortured for a year before finally signing a false confession -- is finally having his say in a New York … [Read more...] about Rendition to torture: The case of Maher Arar

Some are poignant, some ironic, some moronic — the famous last words of celebrities. You can read them here. TMV's will be: "I'll have a full order of spaghetti and meatballs — to go! Not ready? I'll WAIT!" … [Read more...] about Famous Last Words

The Washington Post has a piece telling all of us to get ready for a major change in how the White House frames expectations for the Iraq war — which means yet another case in which this administration blithely casts previous assertions aside as if they never were made at all. None of this will help the administration's growing credibility problems here and abroad. In … [Read more...] about U.S. Discarding Original Iraq Expectations

I'm on vacation this week in Prince Edward Island (home of Anne of Green Gables), in Canada's Maritimes, but I just had to take time out to post on a truly disturbing development in the world of body modification (and the existential crisis of which it is a key symptom). A while back, I wrote about the recent surge in breast augmentation surgeries. Now, according to my guest … [Read more...] about Saline, silicone, and designer vaginas

...outside of politics, there have been recent developments showing how lasers are still tripping the light fantastic. In other realms outside of politics can be found photos from a day-trip to Lucerne, Switzerland. After that breather, we now return you to your regularly scheduled political firestorm du jour. … [Read more...] about In the rest of the world…

The animal rights drive has shifted into a new gear in Scotland where a drive is underway to try and protect lobsters and people who live in condomiums crabs:An animal rights group is calling on the Scottish Executive to introduce legal protection for the country's crabs and lobsters. Advocates for Animals has launched a report that it hopes will hasten the end of the “cruel … [Read more...] about Animal Rights Drive To Protect Shell-Clad Beings

A reader emailed asking why we never run any mouth-watering recipies on this site. So here are a few of our favorites. … [Read more...] about Recipes To Brighten Your Week

Cross-posted from Digial Dissent I derive a certain amount of satisfaction from this:Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Friday he was astonished at the unanimity of a call by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog for Iran to halt enrichment activities, calling it a cruel decision. In a resolution on Thursday, the governing board of the International Atomic Energy … [Read more...] about Iran Shocked Over Nuke Opposition

Well, then read this. … [Read more...] about So You Think American Courts Are Screwed Up?

I'm guessing Joe didn't see the comments at the post he linked on a new GOP congresswoman allegedly on the cusp of sponsoring anti-blogger legislation. Commenters at AmericaBlog, not content to disagree with this unconfirmed news, have started throwing the worst insults at the new congresswoman. Such as "Tell that C*** to read the Constitution" (the asterisks really helped), … [Read more...] about When you can’t disagree enough, just get mean

Cross posted at The Smoking Room Wesley J. Smith points to some very interesting results from the latest Pew poll on attitudes toward life issues: assisted suicide, stem cell research, and for some, the raison d'etre for the Supreme Court, abortion. Smith notes that support for assisted suicide is far below estimates from its leading proponents - 44% with the neutral poll … [Read more...] about Pew poll results show Americans moving away from abortion, and toward gays