Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, for some reason, opted out of the North American missile defense program last weekend:

Sir George at Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has a find post about our old friend JF Kerry telling the world that he has “introduced the Strengthening America’s Armed Forces and Military Family Bill of Rights Act to permanently increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps.

Sir George did Google searches on the bills, and he came up with… nothing. The bills exists nowhere in Google’s database except the name coming from JF Kerry’s tongue.

I managed to track down a JF Kerry statement from the 15th of February in which he pledges to “fight to pass as much of my Military Family Bill of Rights as possible.” There are no specifics, and it reads like a campaign statement.

He’s still running.

John, the polls are closed.

Osama bin Laden has dropped a line to Iraqi kingpin Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

“There has been communication between bin Laden and Zarqawi, with bin Laden suggesting to Zarqawi the U.S. homeland as a target,” said the [U.S. counterterrorism] official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

These cats educe pathos. Zarqawi is being chased around Iraq, where he is deadly, to be sure, but painfully counterproductive. He seems to be uniting disparate groups against him and for a single, functioning Iraq.

The Russian news agency Interfax is reporting that European Integration Minister Giorgi Baramidze of the Republic of Georgia told reporters Monday that his country could be ready to join NATO by 2007, allowing his country to take care of its own defenses. This would lessen the sphere of influence of the Russian Federation. The agency also reported Monday that Georgia and the Ukraine are discussing alternative energy supplies for their countries.

This can be seen as a bad sign for both Russian and France. France has been very clear that New Europe is an immature child which should not be permitted into the big people’s organizations. With the former Soviet states on the ascendancy, France can only diminish. This jeopardizes the French vision of a multi-polar world France sitting square atop one of the poles.

Russia is showing her age and her past. But for a few rusty nukes and its vast oilfields, Russia also has little to offer.

In the 1980s, I loved the British music of the decade. I’m reminded now of a song, The Lebanon, by a synthpop band called The Human League:

Now he finds he is at war
Weren’t we supposed to keep the peace”

And who will have won
When the soldiers have gone
From the Lebanon
The Lebanon
The Lebanon
From the Lebanon

In 1984 when that song was written, they were talking about the Syrians, who had been in the tiny country since 1976. (In August of 1973, then-Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad declared that Syria and Lebanon were one country, much like then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein declared of his country and Kuwait some seventeen-years later.)

Lebanon’s pro-Damascus Prime Minister Omar Karami told the country’s parliament that he quit, prior to a parliamentary vote-of-confidence. Pro-Damascus Syrian President Emile Lahoud must now pick a new prime minister to select a new government, and it might be that Lahoud’s puppet-masters will be watched too closely to pull the strings.

Opposition leader Camille Chamoun: “The Syrian occupation forces and their security systems have to go back to Syria.

Things have changed since the Human League recorded their song, which is most certainly not a meaningful, intellectual examination of the travails of 1980s Lebanon, vis-à-vis the Syrian occupation. (The Taif Agreement had not yet been signed.) The two most important changes were the result of Republican Presidents in Washington.

The first, Syria is no longer a Soviet Puppet. I’ve heard Middle East experts aver that Bashar al-Assad does not even run Syria, with the power belonging to his deceased father’s agents in the military.

The second is that freedom and democracy, once unimaginable to the Lebanese, are now very obviously attainable and within reach.

Things are working out so far.

La Shawn Barber writes that “[i]gnorant and vulgar men are considered funny in some circles. Not mine.” Dean at Power Line writes that “[T]he Oscars represent another example of the left’s march through our institutions.”

I did not watch the Oscars, as I don’t care for Hollywood. This is not because of the “Hollywood lefty” stuff, either; rather, it is because Corinne Griffith should have received the 1929 Best Actress Oscar for The Divine Lady. They gave it to Mary Pickford for Coquette, but there’s no excuse for that other than Hollywood politics.

Seriously, the movies today are just not very good. They are poorly written star-power vehicles directed by unimaginative clods with performances by passionless pinups.

Chris Rock. They hired him to host, generated the same buzz which made people want to hear Ellen tell her friends that she was gay, and people watched. Mission accomplished.

I’ve read and heard a little of what he said about President Bush last night, and it frankly was not offensive. His opinion – at least for the purposes of his jokes – is that President Bush is spending too much money and the Michael Moore Fahrenheit flick was an actual documentary. He told the jokes he was paid to tell.

I’ve also heard that he pretty much told the Academy that no one is watching their movies.

Should they bring him back to host next year? I don’t care. Do you? Really?

Would we have been thinking about this on the afternoon of 9-11-01?

Just a curiosity. The New York Daily News tells us that Dan Rather’s CBS colleagues just can’t bear to watch him. Never could.

Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes: “He’s uptight and occasionally contrived. … I don’t find him as easy to watch.”

Walter Cronkite accused Rather of “showboating,” trying to act like a super-reporter for his audience.

Don Hewitt, 60 Minutes creator, watches ABC’s Peter Jennings. Of Rather: “If you’re in a three-network race and you come in third, then the public is against you.”

(They draw their article from a Ken Auletta piece in the New Yorker, not available online.)

Are these sentiments genuine, or are these folks distancing themselves professionally from Rather? They might think it sophisticated to proclaim: “I prefer the more urbane Peter Jennings to the folksy, contrived Rather.” Rather’s fallen out of favor, exposed himself as a fraud, the true reporter’s anti-reporter.

It’s not sophisticated to claim your distortions are fed to you via Jennings instead of Rather, by Person X rather than Person Y. It’s all from the same banal sludgeheap, but Wallace, Cronkite, and Hewitt helped build that heap.

Good Monday morning!

The Syrian government has surrendered Saddam Hussein’s half-brother Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikritii to the Iraqi government. Ibrahim, called “al-Tikrit” by the low wattage types at the New York Times (linked), is believed to have been a major financier of the Iraq insurgency. The Syrians are also said to have delivered over 29 other members of Saddam’s erstwhile Ba’ath Party.

This was a good move by Syria as an attempt to portray themselves as fully cooperative in the global war on terror, etc., as asserted by Syrian Minister of Emigrant Affairs Bouthaina Shaaban on CNN this afternoon. Syria has also been accused of harboring Iraqis and launching the insurgency over its border with Iraq.

That Ibrahim was in Syria to be surrendered at a convenient time, though, indicates that there is an entire community of Iraqi Ba’athis holed up in Damascus.

Here are three more from Aidan:

Aidan is Canadian, so his main gripe is with the CBC, but we can apply this to CNN especially just as easily:

Chen Shui-bian, the pro-independence president of Taiwan, played host to (Bill) Clinton Sunday, even though the folks in the PRC evidently didn’t much care for this.

In the meeting, “Clinton hailed President Chen’s courage to meet with opposition leader James Soong,” Joseph Wu, head of Taiwan’s China policy decision-making body Mainland Affairs Council, told reporters.

As part of his Asian book tour, Clinton then gave one of his longwinded speeches about this and that, a variation of those expensive things the MSM wastes ink lauding. He talked about how he hasn’t changed his mind: “I sincerely stand by the one-China policy.”

Which is all well and good. I think it should be up to the people of China when the government of the PRC ceases to exist, and to the people of Taiwan. Neither Clinton nor I are president, though.

No predictions. I do not go to the movies, and it has nothing to do with perceptions of the attitudes of the “Hollywood left,” or whatever. The movies today, to my perhaps pea-sized brains, are garbage.

I might watch on that day they give Fatty Arbuckle a Lifetime Achievement award.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was Steph’s guest on ABC’s This Week‘

Steph talked to Arnold, pointed out that his approval ratings had dropped ten points in six months. Find, said Arnold, but I still have majority approval, they love my initiatives before we’ve even advertised them, and these things fluctuate.

The recall election was not about dumping Gray Davis, he said. “It was about the whole system.”

Steph asked Arnold about Social Security, and Arnold talked about the problem with the California pension plan: “I’m not getting involved at the federal level.” He did say that “any balance you pay in, you should get back.”

Steph asked him about the right wing extremists – Justices Scalia, Thomas – the President says he admires. “I don’t get in the Supreme Court. … It’s not necessary.”

Steph asked Arnold: “Do the Christian Conservative Right have too much of a hold on the [GOP] primary process?” Arnold said: “I would think, NO.” He became discursive, and he and Steph ended up talking about what would provoke him to run for reelection.

He is a Catholic. Steph asked how he reconciles this with his “pro-choice, pro-gay rights” stands. Arnold said it was easy, in that he represents everyone. “The people of California, they’re not all Catholics.”

He acknowledged that he “went to Sunday School in Austria,” but he promised not to unleash what he learned there on the Hindus and Buddhists of Cal-EE-FORN-EEUH.

The complete RSN, and subscription information, can be found HERE.

Sunday’s Rightsided Newsletter, the review of the Sunday shows, has been sent to the sundry global Inboxes. If you do not yet subscribe, you can read the RSN at it web site: here.

Look for the review of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos in this space momentarily, and look for the entire thing with interactive capability at Redstate.org later this afternoon.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, we learned that former Carter advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was the Pope’s best friend. (That’s what they tell us, anyway.)

All the rage this morning is a front page article in the Washington Post which asserts that GOP lawmakers are set to scrap the President’s Social Security proposal in favor of one written by Representative Clayton Shaw, which would set up forced savings in retirement accounts outside the Social Security system. It also compares the President’s push for Social Security reform to Clinton’s failed Hillary Care scheme of days gone by. It’s not, but I’ll get into that later if I have to. I’d sooner to what Senator John Sununu did on FTN, when he dismissed the Post piece and the Shaw proposal. Social Security reform will originate in the Senate, he said, and people can already save their money in I.R.A.s and 401(k)s.

So far, we’ve learned on Meet the Press that Rick Santorum wants to be GOP Whip and says he is not considering a run for President. Joe Biden says he might run for the DEM nomination, but Hillary will probably be the nominee. He said that contrary to some skeptics, she can win the nomination.

He thinks Santorum is the frontrunner.

On FOX News Sunday, John McCain joked that Jeb Bush was the frontunner for the ‘08 GOP nomination. When he had settled down, he made a crack about “political dynasties.”

Meet the Press (NBC): Host Tim Russert interviews Senators Rick Santorum and Joe Biden. Nuke option?

We know it is Sunday if Joe Biden and John McCain are doing the shows.

FOX News Sunday: Host Chris Wallace talks with guests about the Pope’s health. First, though, he’ll speak with John McCain. Natch. Next, it’s Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and Ray Flynn, former Clinton ambassador to the Vatican.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer Senators Sununu Jr. (R-New Hampshire) and Corzine (D-New Jersey). (It’s important to mention the money, right?) He’ll also talk to form Carter advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, which I think we can accept as proof the old Dem foreign policy hand is still with us in this world.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos interviews Governor Schwarzenegger and… yawn, Donna Brazile.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolfgang Blitzer chats with Senators Arlen Specter and Lindsey Graham, both Republicans of one sort or another, and Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of Cal-EE-FOH-ee-a.

I will review and summarize the shows for Sunday’s Rightsided Newsletter, to which you can subscribe for free by visiting the web site at http://rightsided.tripod.com, or by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [AT] topica.com.

It will arrive if your inbox shortly after it is completed early Sunday afternoon.

Also, look for it at Redstate. Heck, look for everything at Redstate.

This post means absolutely nothing but that the BTK guy didn’t have outwardly apparent fangs. There are a lot of psychological questions I have about him.

He has evidently confessed to two killings to which he had not previously been definitively linked; if one of these occurred after 1994, he will be death penalty eligible. Before that, Kansas did not have the DP, so it would not apply to Dennis Reader.

Here is a transcript [from pdf] of BTK, Dennis Rader, being sworn in to the office of Animal Control Advisory board at the Regular Meeting of the Board of County Commissioners of Sedgwick County, Kansas, on April 10, 1996:

Chairman Winters said, “Is Dennis Rader [BTK], Bob Scott or Pam Bauer here this morning? Dennis Rader [BTK]? Come right on up to the podium please. Sedgwick County Clerk, Susan Crockett-Spoon will swear you in to this position.”

Ms. Susan Crockett-Spoon, County Clerk, said, “Dennis [BTK], I am going to read the affirmation and if you will say, so help me God, afterwards. Raise your right hand please.

‘I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Kansas and faithfully discharge the duties of the Office of Animal Control Advisory Board, so help me God.”

Mr. Dennis Rader [BTK] responded, “So help me God.”

Ms. Crockett-Spoon said, “This is your certificate and we appreciate your service. Thank you very much.”

Chairman Winters said, “Yes, Mr. Rader [BTK], thanks very much. We do appreciate, a great deal, the input of citizens on advisory boards and committees and we appreciate your willingness to work in this capacity.”

Mr. Rader [BTK] said, “Thank you very much Commissioners.”

Chairman Winters said, “Thank you. Next item please.”

Two years and two months later, on June 10, 1998, BTK’s letter of resignation was read and unanimously accepted at the end of the meeting [pdf.]

Dennis Rader was also president of the congregation council at Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita; his name has been removed from the site, but here is Google’s cache with his name.

I’m through thinking about of this monster for a while.

Egyptian President/dictator Hosni Mubarack has suddenly demanded that the country’s Constitution be changed to allow opposition candidates to challenge him this September. This is a major change from the current method, which has voters every six years casting a YES or NO to the question of his retention.

“We have moved a mountain,” said Rifaat el-Said, leader of the opposition Tagammu party. “This should open the gate for other democratic reforms.”

The catch – and there often is one – is that Mubarack declared that any opposition candidate who would appear on the ballot must be from a parliamentary approved party. He and his party control the parliament.

The elections in Iraq were not perfect, but they were democracy opening its eyes. The P.L.O. elections also were a step, albeit a much weaker one. Saudi Arabia allowed for some elections for local offices near Riyadh, no women voters, which were also movement in the right direction. Egypt’s starting to play along.

And as Arab peoples look at what is happening in their midst, they’ll demand their own franchise. It’s happening.

The Berlin wall fell. When faced with freedom, nothing is impossible. If President Bush frees the Middle East, what can anyone say? Simply repeating “Halliburton” will continue to sound pathetic.

Last night, I reported that Canada had opted out of the North American missile defense shield, and I linked to a Canadian story about how this would hurt Canada in matters of defense, trade, etc. And that Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin was being derided for expecting to be alerted should the U.S. need to shoot down an incoming missile over their airspace:

But critics said the prime minister is deluding himself if he expects a heads-up. Bercuson said only military officials involved in missile defence would be in on any strike.

“Somebody has obviously not explained to the prime minister how these arrangements work,” [director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary David] Bercuson said.

“The reason you put these arrangements in place beforehand . . . is that you don’t have to run back to your respective government every time you have to make a decision.

“The White House would be informed that there was a missile launch against North America. It would not be asked for its permission to shoot the missile down.”

The kids at Tapped (the American Prospect blog) insist that “our man in Ottawa has been pissing off Canadians.” They go on to belittle the Bush Administrations for preparing for contingencies.

The American left has been reduced to scraping the scrapings from the bottle of the barrel under a stack of barrels.

PoliPundit is fighting with cartoonist/columnist whom I consider to be so irrelevant as not to bother mentioning his name.

It’s amusing.

After the kerfuffle over linking pictures and stealing instalaunches has subsided. it is heartening to see that Austin’s Political Blog is again operating. This thirteen-year-old Floridian blogged for Terri.

(ht, Elizabeth Taylor at Daily Inklings)

Good morning!

This one is a little old, but I just picked it out of today’s offering from Free Republic, which is quite often the site for many wonders.

Check this out. Connecticut’s Manchester Journal Inquirer ran a story several weeks ago indicating that actor Paul Newman, who now makes salad dressing, might challenge that State’s Democrat junior Senator Joseph Lieberman next year.

Read the story, but come one. The man will be 81 next year.

Newman and Howard Dean, though, might just be the best that party has to offer.

I’m not claiming that this signifies anything; if it does, I am not sure what.

He doesn’t say whose they are, how they were determined, or where he got them, but Matt Drudge has some numbers for cable news shows.

The top five are from FNC, fronted by Bill O’Reilly, Hannity & Colmes, Shep Smith, Brit Hume, the Greta – each with over 1,300,000 viewers. The only other show with over a million is CNN’s Larry King Program, and that has only slightly more that the seven-figure mark.

The least-watched show is Keith Obermann’s flat, lame countdown show, with 208,000 viewers. The true believers.

The highest rated news show, qua news show, is Shep Smith’s, with 1,386,000. Olbermann’s is the least watched. The most watch political news show is Hume’s, with 1,318,000. Chris Matthews on MSNBC has 388,000 viewers.

Both Olbermann and Joe Scarborough (MSNBC, both) fared worse that CNN Headline News’ Nancy Grace, who managed 366,000 viewers.

Rudi Baktiar was nowhere to be found, and it should be.

He’s Native American, he’s Hawaiian!

Hugh Hewitt’s Vox Bloguli 2.2

Q: Does the Senate GOP Go McClellan or Grant if Harry Reid “Goes Gingrich?”

If the Democrats want to obstruct the nation’s foreign policy at this critical time, if they want to ignore social security after its been place on the table in full view, if they want to shut down the government, they can watch the Blue States become as purple as the prose of a liberal columnist with nothing of substance to say. It’s their life.

Civil war characters aside, the Senate GOP must make their move now. The wreckage must be out of the way before Chief Justice Rehnquist retires (perhaps as soon as June).

Chairman Specter, at his Thursday press conference, had declared that it would be best to avoid a fight. He said he would run the nomination of William Myers III of the Interior Department first, hoping Chuck Schumer would play along. Schumer, of course, said that Myers was an environmental extremist and the Democrats would stick to their principles.

Their principles? Actually, they do not differ greatly from Specter’s principles. They will accept only nominees who do not ring the bell of “extremism” (no vice) on the right: strict constructionism, protecting unborn life, etc.

This fight, when fought, will doubtless be bloody, and the opening salvo must be a 800-pouind gauntlet thrown.

Start by taking the first action on California Supreme Court Justice Janice R. Brown to sit on the DC circuit. Let the Democrats oppose her. Watch them try, as they did with Justice Clarence Thomas, to convince blacks that she’s not. Let them attempt to convince women that she’s not.

There comes a time when A is A becomes obvious even to those with the worst-colored glasses.

The first action taken on Justice Brown should be another set of Judiciary Committee hearings. Showcase her and her talent to a nation, and they will tune in if they know history could be in the making. The problem with this, is that Specter opposes new hearings, preferring to take the nominations directly to the floor; therefore, Specter must be circumvented and ignored to the extent he can be, removed if he must.

(A worthwhile caveat is that his Thursday press conference probably meant less than what was said. He had to prove his stamina, and in so doing, he might have rambled a bit.)

Once she clears the committee, the Dems must be warned that the rules will change to break the extra-Constitutional filibuster. The public must know that the Democrats know this, and the public must also know that the ball is, at that point, in the Democrats’ court.

After Brown is confirmed, it would be fine to skip the Judiciary Committee re-hearings. Vote on them as a group, as Hugh Hewitt recommends.

Of the utmost importance for the Senate Republican leadership to remember and realize, though, is that in the process, Arlen Specter is their sworn enemy and must be treated as such.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Ooops. Hugh called this blog: “MarkA.Kilner.” Actually, if you ever want to pop it into Google and come back and say HI, this eponymous blog is: “Mark A. Kilmer.” The other will give you some horse racing site across the pond.

In Haiti, two Pakistani United Nations workers evidently paid a prostitute to engage them in a banana field. (It was initially thought to have been rape.)

If a U.N. board of inquiry finds that they committed the offense, the U.N.’s blue-helmeted rent-a-cops will be sent back to Turkey. I’m not sure what they lop of in punishment in that Moslem nation, and I assume I don’t want to think of it.

These must be heady days to be Michael Schiavo, what with the 15 Warholian minutes of fame thrust upon him. But that’s not the least of it. The man has POWER. According to the laws of men, he, Michael Schiavo, controls the fate of his wife. Life? Death? It’s his call.

I heard Father Frank Pavone deliver a homily yesterday. He was much kinder to Michael Schiavo than I care to be for these purposes, stating simply, addressing Schiavo, that Schiavo does not really hold that power; rather, he’s been duped.

The bit about the power rush is all mine. I can only guess what it is like for an insignificant man to suddenly believe that he controls life and death.

Writes Father Pavone (linked):

If the courts permit that to happen, then why should that permission apply only in Terri’s case? There would be no way to limit it to her case alone. Countless others would follow, and their deaths would be described as “letting them die” instead of “killing them.” Where, indeed, does the state get the authority to starve people? Court decisions permitting this lack all authority, as Pope John Paul II teaches in “The Gospel of Life” (section 72). These decisions cannot be obeyed, because they are not binding on the conscience and are in fact acts of violence.

Someone has to deliver the judge’s order. Don’t, Father Pavone says. Someone has to disconnect the feeding tube. Don’t. The whole way up and down, he argues, people are not compelled to obey these orders.

Stripped to its essence, this situation is surreal.

Good morning.

Here are three more ‘toons from Aidan; the third one links to an explanation.

The Florida Department of Children & Families has filed an 11-page document with Circuit Court Judge George Greer detailing why they would like 60 days to investigate allegations that Terri Schiavo was abused or mistreated. Terri’s parents, who have seen the documents, say that they back up an assertion they had previously made.

The allegation is that Terri’s husband Michael has abused her before she slipped into a coma. A bone scan taken back in September of 1991 evidently showed signs of trauma.

If it is found that Michael Schiavo had abused Terri, it would be simpler to have him removed as Terri’s guardian. If guardianship reverts to the State or to her parents, Terri will be allowed to live.

Ahmed Abu Ali, of U.S. citizen who resided in Virginia, was recently extradited from Saudi Arabia, where he had been detained. Upon his return to Virginia, he was indicted for taking part in discussions regarding the assassination of President Bush.

His father Omar, though, isn’t buying it:

The young man’s father, Omar, said, “The Saudi government are slaves of the Americans” and the U.S. government is lying when it says his son was under Saudi control for the 20 months before he was flown to the United States and charged.

Omar is pressing a lawsuit against the U.S. government for allegedly torturing his son. The U.S. government is seeking to have his lawsuit dismissed.

I wonder if Omar has worked Mossad into his little theory.

Pope John Paul II, 84, underwent a tracheotomy today at the Gemelli hospital in Rome. The man can hopefully now breath freely again.

Flu. The Pope, by nature of who he is, cannot be put in a bubble, sheltered from all communicable disease. His faith in and his love for Jesus Christ have again sustained him, but he will know when it is time.

When it is time. Time was when he stood astride the world in a perhaps unspoken partnership with U.S. President Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Of the three, the Pope alone had experienced the atrocities of Nazism and Communism, and he had survived them. He had looked the enemy in the eye and he was on the winning side of history.

That was not a tribute so much as a reminder. God willing, this giant has great works yet to accomplish.

Be well, John Paul.

Maverick, renegade Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is shoving another one in the face of the GOP, angrily decreed that he would refuse to reduce the sheer size of the asbestos compensation fund from $140-million. He agreed to meet with Major Leader Bill Frist next week, but went Nader-like in vowing to fight corporate fatcats.

In accordance, of course, with Scottish law.

We’ve three new columns on the Rightsided Newsletter web site:

Christopher G. Adamo has “The ‘Fifth Column’ of America’s Enemies.”

James Atticus Bowden has “World War IV: The Operational Level of War.

Isaiah Z. Sterrett gives us “Chris Rock at the Oscars.

Editor & Publisher reports that, in the wake of the James Guckert/Jeff Gannon story, Talon News has withdrawn, according to a Talon statement, for “a top-to-bottom review of staff and volunteer contributors, and [to] address future operational procedures.”

Talon’s site says:

The recent public focus on Talon News, while much of it malicious, has indeed brought some constructive elements to the surface. It has also brought many kind messages of support, and for that we are extremely grateful.

In order to better serve those readers across the country who enjoy Talon News content and look forward to receiving it each day, we feel compelled to reevaluate operations in order to provide
the highest quality, most professional product possible.

Thus, Talon News will be offline while we redesign the web site, perform a top-to-bottom review of staff and volunteer contributors, and address future operational procedures.

We look forward to bringing an even better product to our readers in the future.

It was bloggers on the left who “outed” Guckert, and it’s good that they have their badge. But nothing has changed for the rest of the world.

‘Gravitas’ was the MSM fun-word for a time during the 2000 Election Cycle. According to Ratherbiased.com, the latest phrase is “charm offensive.” They credit CBS News’ John Roberts with spitting out the cliché three of the past four days, and others as well.

Charm offensive. ‘T is oxymoronic.