Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

They were off last night. As I type this, the Yanks trail the Kansas City Royals, 5-3, after 6 ½. In the top of the sixth, they could have had bases loaded with one out, but for a stupid bit of baserunning by Tony Womack.

Boston beat Detroit earlier, and soon it will be time again to start worrying about Toronto.

Yuck.

Before the game, I listened to Concerto en Moto Galante, by Joaquin Rodrigo. He was a 20th century Spanish composer, and what is it with the guitar? Wonderful.

I bought a new keyboard yesterday. It has the symbol for the Euro — € — over the Num key. I would not give €0.02 for that 500 page constitution.

From his web site, Harry Reid making the case that Judge Janice Rogers Brown is a right wing extremist who should not be confirmed the Court of Appeals for the DC circuit.

He cites five-year-old speeches, all making valid points, and ignores her legal opinions. It is her rulings which should be of concern to Reid, who is the head fisherman of an ugly expedition.

[ht, Andrew Hyman at Confirm Them.com.]

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, in an address to the Iraqi National Assembly Tuesday, called on the U.N. Security Council to extend Resolution 1546, their resolution “authorizing” U.S. troops to remain in Iraq.

“It is true that (the multinational forces) are not Iraqi forces but their task is to secure the country under the Iraqi will and Iraqi timetable,” al-Jaafari said after the assembly session. “So if Iraqis choose, through their elected government, that they need extension (of Resolution 1546) in order to improve the security situation, the decision will be Iraqi.”

And Iraqi decision, not a U.S. decision, Jaafari said. And Iraqi decision, not a U.N. decision, Jaafari said between the lines. This is the U.N.’s chance to be on the right side of history or become further irrelevant. And this one should not be tough.

The French wire AFP looks at the defeat of the EU referendum through the prism of Vedrinism: “The United States will now have to deal with a European Union that has been weakened by the French rejection of a European draft constitution.”

Remember, Hubert Vedrine is the author of the theory, adopted by Chirac and the poet de Villepin, that the world needs to be bipolar — not “multipolar” — to resist the hyperpuissance of the U.S.

Curiously, the piece argues that it is in the Interests of the United States to deal with United Europe, presumably one led by France.

There’s chatter about whether this faction in the U.S. will prefer to deal with the PRC rather than Europe, and whether that cabal in the U.S. will take Europe serious. Oh, and what will the neocons do?

This, from the AFP piece linked above, is Charles Kupchan, director of European studies at the Council on Foreign Relations:

But, added Kupchan, “there may be certain members of the US government that are not unhappy to see Chirac’s political fortunes take a downturn because of the legacy of the rift over Iraq.”

Kupchan was NSC in the Clinton Administration, for what that’s worth.

It seems clear, however, that it is in the interests of the United States to deal individually with, say, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands than it would be to deal with the whole lot of them under the Franco-German thumb.

[posted this AM at RedState…]

Former Nixon deputy associate FBI director W. Mark Felt, age 91, has told Vanity Fair that he was the Woodward/Bernstein “Deep Throat” source that ended the Presidency of Richard Nixon: “I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat.”

I hope he is the Deep Throat, as this joke isn’t funny anymore.

This is the President, from this morning’s presser:

“I’m aware of the Amnesty International report, and it’s absurd. It’s an absurd allegation.”

Unfortunately, though, it’s not funny.

Sophisticated dope Paris Hilton, a breathing contradiction, is reportedly set to marry a Greek shipping heir, a la Jackie Kennedy-ONNASIS. This fellow’s name is Paris Latsis, grandson of Greek shipping magnate. Paris and Paris.

Will they have the blessing of the Elysees prime minister, the poet Dominque de Villepin? Just curious.

Good morning!

Here’s a story from Oregon’s Salem Statesman Journal, dealing with their moderate Republican Senator Gordon Smith. The man’s a candidate for “bipartisan compromise,” or whatever, but he draws the line:

Smith said that’s because he thinks that the president has a right to an up-or-down vote on all judicial nominees.

“My tenure here has shown me that we have a dysfunctional system when it comes to the executive calendar,” Smith said Thursday in an interview with the Associated Press. “I really do feel the presence of litmus tests that disqualify people from the left and the right from serving on the bench really begins to do damage to a vigorous judiciary.”

Under Senate rules as practiced for the past several years, “the unwritten, the unrevealed and the unaffiliated now are the only (nominees) who can get through,” Smith said.

Senate Dems have indeed vowed to make life difficult for President Bush, whom they still view as an illegitimate President, having “stolen the vote” from Democrat Al Gore in 2000 (Smith did not say this, though.)

The poet de Villepin has been named the new French Prime Minister.

“It’s a catastrophe, a real catastrophe,” said Philippe Moreau Defarges, a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations.

“People will come out on the streets to show their anger. It’s a man who has never been elected, who doesn’t represent the people at all. This will turn out badly.”

AFTER-WORD: Monday, May 30, 2005

I received a comment Sunday to my post regarding Specter and Brownback having at it on ABC’s This Week of which I am not sure what to make. It’s from a fellow named Bob, and he tells me that “almost 100 percent of all conservative utterances to be of the ain’t it awful variety. It bores me, and I know it is ineffectual.” He then tells me that he doubts that he “would be motivated to return [to this weblog] unless to sample some other sites you carry links to.” (Read his entire comment here.)

I appreciate his sentiment — “I want to make a big difference, not a small difference…. I like to win, not just play.” — but I’m disheartened that he has not read this blog. I don’t deal in “ain’t that awful.”

I’m having a blast, and I hope you are too. As the song goes: “We’ll be singing/ when we’re winning…”

Okay, we’ve remembered them and their sacrifice today. Thanks a lot. Tomorrow, we move on.

NO. It does not work that way. Most conservatives, and a number of liberals, remember our war dead by honoring our living soldiers. Honoring is expressing thanks, both to the soldiers and to their families. This is important, because we must not only honor our soldiers when we’re in their presence, we must honor their parents, wives, husbands, siblings. I’m sure the soldiers themselves feel honored that we would do that.

No game today.

To mark the failure of France’s referendum of the EU constitution Sunday, I am listening to Hector Berlioz’s Harold in Italy. From what I’ve been led to believe, although Camille Saint-Saens is the most French composer, the unofficial “French national composer” is Berlioz.

That the French people are covetous of their French nature, and their existence as the French, strikes a wonderful chord with me. As an American, I can relate.

After his defeat Sunday, French President Jacques Chirac is likely to politically off French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, and chatter has turned to Raffarin’s replacement. The favorite, according to Reuters, is the poet Dominique de Villepin.

Check out Reuters:

“Possessed with dashing good looks, a striking head of grey-white hair, boundless confidence and energy, Villepin is an ultra-loyal aristocrat who, as foreign minister, was the public face of French opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.”

You might remember the coifed French foreign minister dashing across Africa at the last minute in 2003, seeking to secure security council votes against America. (It was against America more so than against the war or for Saddam’s oil contracts. This is fundamental to Vedrinism, that school of foreign policy thought, named for former French foreign minister Hubert Védrine, which warns against U.S. hyperpuissance (hyperpower) and argues for a rival. Chirac and the poet de Villepin are the two largest proponents of this paranoia in the French government.)

There’s also this from John Thornhill at FT.com, Friday:

The greatest political actor is interior minister Dominique de Villepin - matinee idol looks, romantic nationalist, scourge of the Anglo Saxons, best known for his emotional opposition to the US-led war in Iraq. In the Theatre du Rond Point, just off the Champs-Elysees in Paris, one fine spring evening last month - when public opinion was still showing a majority Non - he was showcased to great effect.

[ . . .]
De Villepin is simply too elegant, too passionate, too handsome. With his coiffed silver hair, gangling arms and outstretched fingers, he bore more than a passing resemblance to an eagle in flight. Sometimes his rhetoric soared into the rafters; occasionally it flew right over the audience’s heads. “We are at the dawn of a great European century, of a century in which Europe can change the course of history,” he cried. Europe was a means of humanising globalisation. The constitutional treaty would deepen Europe’s democracy, allow its 25 member countries to act more cohesively and enable the EU to project its influence abroad.

Chirac can secretly blame the sinking of his beloved charter on the widely unpopular Raffarin and try again with the poet de Villepin. It seems some non-French press is is fixated on the twit as the ultimate French European, with flowing locks and long legs, and the ability to mesmerize with poetry as purple as the prose used to describe him. Yes, “aristocratic,” indeed.

Take heart, French mortals, for aristocrats in Paris have a legacy of losing their heads.

Pssssst. As for his the poet’s verse, I’ve found none in translation, but I did come across this review found this review in an old entry from the Merde in France weblog.:

Villepin ™ writes poetry, but his poetry sucks. On top of it, he makes French taxpayers underwrite the promotion of his garbage.

Doesn’t he owe it to the world community to have at least one volume of his verse translated into English? It might lose its foot-ing (pun), but some of us are curious. He could have the EU foot the bill.

The “dawn of a great European century.” With the EU in place, and it’s not over yet, that may have dawned several hundred years ago.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE: I tried this piece over a RedState, and it went over like a lead-filled box of balloons. My disdain for the poet de Villepin is perhaps inestimable, in that I’ve never calculated. If he becomes the next French PM, I’ll try to conver his hijinx like a glove.

On CNN’s Larry King Live Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that First Lady Laura Bush would defeat Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York) at the polls in a Presidential election. So says Reuters, anyway.

Here’s the exchange:

“You know, people are thinking of Mrs. Clinton running for president. I think Mrs. Bush ought to run for president,” Mrs. [Lynn] Cheney said. “If we want to have a Bush dynasty, let’s get Laura Bush.”

The vice president, who again ruled out making his own run for president when Bush’s term ends, agreed.

“It’s a great idea,” Dick Cheney said. “And I think I know who would win too.”

It’s a throwaway remark, and at least Reuters does not say that it tried to contact Hillary for her reaction to this “challenge.”

But with Hillary’s very real and very solid negatives, it is very possible that Bush could beat Clinton. (Don’t tell Dick Morris. He wishes to sell books.)

Look, I didn’t make this up.

In Britain, the Tories and Lib Dems have told Tony Blair to get over it; the EU constitution is DEAD unless, according to shadow Foreign Sec. Liam Fox, the government “must agree that if any part of the constitution is to go ahead, the British people must still have their say in a referendum as soon as possible.”

Let’s hear from the Dutch.

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

Justin Darr has: Liberals Think Democracy Has a Reset Button.

Doug Hagin has: Atrocities; Real and Imagined.

And when you’re through, subscribe FREE to the twice-weekly Rightsided Newsletter. (You can subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [AT] topica.com. We ask for no other information, and you will receive no e-mail other than the newsletter by doing this. For more info and the latest RSN, check out the RSN site.)

Happy Memorial Day!

Yes, to those who came back alive, but especially in the memory of those who did not.

Columnist Bob Novak has proclaimed that the new era of bipartisan comity in the Senate, brought on by Monday’s McCain-Byrd deal on filibusters, has ended, with Senators reverting “to mean and brutish behavior a little after 7 p.m. Thursday when Democrats blocked an up-or-down vote on John Bolton” He blames Chris Dodd:

The overriding point is that warmth generated by last week’s deal did not extend to giving John Bolton an immediate up-or-down vote without going into Dodd’s dubious complaints. For all of Sen. Robert Byrd’s treacle about the Republic being saved, Thursday night’s behavior was in the tradition of the reactionary body that blocked civil rights legislation for a century.

Novak makes an interesting argument, but I still blame Joe Biden, a mastermind with a snarling vendetta.

It was on this day in 2005 (this year) that the Lebanon held its first free elections in three decades, won by the list of candidates under the banner of the son of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Saad Hariri.

France today rejected the Constitution of the European Union.

And Chris Dodd declared on FOX News Sunday that Joe Biden wanted the secret docs regarding U.N. nominee John Bolton because: “”There’s a pattern of behavior which fits a pattern.”

Boston is winning, 6-2, in the 7th. This season is not over for the Sox.

Earlier, I listened to Albert Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariane, which was not bad piece of music. I’ll have to hear it again before classifying it as this or that.

Three U.S. Senators are running around Uzbekistan, betting to the bottom of things and howling at dictator/President Islam Karimov.

We’ve a base there, so Karimov might feel somewhat protected by the U.S. government.

The Senators saying otherwise are John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John Sununu. Speaking for the group in Tashkent was, of course, McCain:

“And I believe the United States must make this understand that the relationship is very difficult, if not impossible, if the government continues to repress its people.”

Here, here. But we’ll see.

The French rejected the European Union constitution by referendum Sunday, 57-perecent to 43-perecent, handing President Jacques Chirac a crushing and humiliating defeat from which he may not recover. He’s going to be busy firing Prime Minister Raffarin and his cabinet, but some critics say that it’s time for Chirac himself to get the hook.

As I reported this morning from Britain’s lefty The Observer, Blair doesn’t won’t want to push forward with his referendum, but the Eurocrats plan to push on, perhaps forcing another vote in France in the future. Or at least trying.

Why did the referendum lose in France? There were very valid concerns that the treaty would absorb the French national identity, and there were other concerns that it pushed more for market economics than for social assistance.

The defeat of the treaty helps the United States, in that the more freedom observed worldwide, the safer we are. The Euro-constitiution would have greatly constained political and economic freedom.

The first free parliamentary elections in three decades in the Lebanon saw the candidates of the Rafik Hariri List, after the slain former prime minister, score big wins. According to Ya Libnan, seventeen candidates on the Hariri list nationwide were elected by default when “rival candidates failed to appear or dropped out.” Hariri’s son, Saad Harir, leads the opposition and won his seat.

According to the BBC:

Our correspondent says the main competition is likely to be within the Maronite Christian camp.

Leading Christian opposition figure Michel Aoun - who has many supporters in the north - is heading his own election list after failing to agree on a broad opposition alliance.

The election has been light on issues and heavy on horse-trading between the factions that have dominated the country’s politics for decades, our correspondent says.

But the election will consolidate a new political reality largely free from Syrian interference, he says.

We’ll see how this one pans out.

Host George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s This Week spoke with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) and Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) about federal funding of experiments on human embryonic stem cells. Of course, the debate was about the experimentation itself.

Specter said that the human embryos are not life, because “life does not occur until they are implanted in a woman.” He said that there were a bunch of them frozen, so that when the President says that he will not spend federal money to take lives to save lives, “he is factually incorrect.” Specter said we have two choices: use them to save lives or throw them away. He made no mention of using federal funds to conduct the experiments.

Brownback pointed out that other countries limit the number of embryos created for in vitro fertilization. “These are human lives…. They aren’t medical waste.” Steph interjected that unless they are implanted in a woman, they cannot start to become life. Brownback countered that we should work with that rather than wide scale experiments.

Specter declared that we need to adequately fund wars against diseases. He blamed Richard Nixon for not adequately funding the fight against Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, with which he is dealing. He insisted that President Bush wants “to tie the hands of human research,” which is incorrect. President Bush merely does not want to fund the research with taxpayers’ money.

Brownback said that he’s “been taught a lot of lesson from the Democrats recently,” and has several ideas on preventing the federal funding legislation from coming to a vote in the Senate. Specter insisted that he ought not to be taking lessons from the Democrats, who were busy trying to block judicial nominees.

Brownback pointed out that human embryonic stem cells have produced no results, so we should concentrate on the adult cells. Specter countered that the embryonic stem cells were the only ones which would work. He said that his friend is dying of Parkinson’s Disease, and that “there is evidence” that embryonic stem cell research would cure Parkinson’s. Brownback countered that he knows a man who was cured with adult stem cells, and that no one should experiment on cells without permission of the owners.

Specter said that he’s less concerned with when life begins than with life ends, and that life “does not start in the laboratory dish.” Brownback said that if you asked the “Snowflake Babies,” their lives wouldn’t have existed if they had been destroyed has embryos.

If these two men lived on opposite sides of the political aisle, I fear they would have come to blows.

Steph pointed out that Specter couldn’t get enough votes to override a veto. Specter insisted that there were more than signed the letter to Bill First who would vote to override, which is a fine thing for Arlen, as only six Senators signed that pro-funding letter. Specter added that when the American people understood this stem cell issue, there would be the largest march of Washington in history as angry voters demanded federal funding.

For the rest of the review of the Sunday Shows, see the Rightsided Newsletter online. And subscribe.

Steph wisely changed the subject to judicial nominations and “extraordinary circumstances.” Brownback suggested that just because a nomination was to the Supreme Court does not make it an “extraordinary circumstance.” Specter made his case for Judge William Myers, one of the Michigan nominees, and how he would be confirmed. (Myers and Henry Saad, another Michigan nominee, were excluded from the definite-vote provisions of The Deal last week. That Specter singled out Myers and did not mention Saad indicates that Saad’s confirmation will be even more problematic.)

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.

Meet the Press (NBC): Host Tim Russert will talk to former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia), Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar (R-Indiana), and those two guys, Kean and Hamilton, from the 9-11 Commission. (It’s meeting again, beginning June 6, to grade the government’s progress in implementing its designs, with its report card due July 25.)

FOX News Sunday: Host Chris Wallace talks with Biden lackey Chris Dodd and Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer, will chat with Representative Tom Davis (R-Virginia).

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos interviews Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter and PLO leader Abu Mazzan.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolfgang Blitzer chats with the inevitable John McCain, Afghan Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who was always nattily dressed in Western attire, at least when the Taliban ran the show and shortly thereafter.

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 Sunday afternoon at RedState.org.

The fate of the European Union may rest in the ballot boxes of the French voters, who today vote on whether or not to ratify the EU’s constitution. Polls show the French rejecting the charter as pushing to far toward capitalism and ignoring social needs. (Why’d they fight that revolution, anyway?)

This report from Britain says:

Tony Blair will be forced to shelve the controversial European constitution treaty if the French reject it today, with leading pro-European allies declaring they will abandon the fight.

The French government, Whitehall says, will be looking for revenge.

That’s what’s on my agenda this morning. I’ll view them and jot the summary, to be included in this afternoons Rightsided Newsletter, linked here. There will be some other stuff concerning them directly in this space, and the whole bit will be posted at RedState.org this afternoon.

The lineup will be live in a few moments.

Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, describing what it’s like to lead the Senate:

“It’s sloppy and simplistic to blame the president every time things get tough in the Senate, when by its very nature the job of majority leader is like walking across hot coals as other members throw kerosene on your feet while carrying just a couple of ice cubes in your hands.”

Sounds like fun!

A new TV ad by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, designed to promote his initiative to restrain State spending, features a conference table on which can be found, peripherally, several brand name products: Arrowhead water, Diet Pepsi, Cheetos, Sun Chips, and Ruffles. They are all manufactured by PepsiCo, but Schwarzenegger’s people say it was by chance. The Schwarzenegger critic set grumble that the government is selling products for big corporations, etc.

Curious, anyway.

A Musical Offering, by J.S. Bach. He wrote the canons in 1747 for Frederick the Great of Prussia and called it, Regis Jussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” - Keats

After their loss in the British elections early this month, Conservative Party leader Michael Howard said that he would leave his post this fall. Some Tories are calling him a “lame duck” and urging him to quit now, but he says that this won’t happen:

“There are proposals to change the rules and we have to see if we can get them through in September… and I said after the party conference I would step down. I think that’s the right timetable and that’s what I intend to do.”

The Conservative Party conference will happen in October.

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire’s disputed election is still in dispute:

Wenatchee, Wash. — A judge declined Friday to dismiss a Republican lawsuit seeking to remove Gov. Christine Gregoire from office because of alleged fraud and illegal votes in her election last year.

The judge, John E. Bridges of Chelan County Superior Court, said Democrats would have to present their case before he ruled on the merits of either party’s arguments.

In denying the Democrats’ request for a dismissal, which came immediately after Republicans rested their case here Friday, Bridges said he was seeking to create a robust record in a trial that could have repercussions that might include the removal of a sitting governor or a change in the state’s election procedures. Whatever the outcome, the decision is certain to be appealed to the State Supreme Court.

Our best to Republican Dino Rossi. He wuz robbed.

In pondering the conduct of the war in Iraq after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Los Angeles Times> laments his possible passing:

Sometimes pictured as thin and willowy and other times as pudgy and bearded, Zarqawi is the face of the insurgent movement. If website postings are correct in suggesting that Zarqawi has suffered a bullet wound to a lung, the rebels could lose their fiercest voice in attempting to defeat Washington’s designs for a new Iraq.

The Voice of a Downtrodden Generation, and all that. One would think they were thinking of Nelson Mandela. Does this mean Zarqawi will be a candidate for the Peace Prize soon? There is precedent (Arafat).

Now on the Rightsided Newsletter web site, we have the latest from 16-year-old conservative Rudy Takala, who offers us A Liberal Supports Theocracy, about John Conyers’s House resolution which would promote the Korea as “the holy book for Muslims who recite passages from it in prayer and learn valuable lessons about peace, humanity and spirituality.”

Seperation of what, exactly, was that?

Good morning.

Senator John McCain — King of the Kompromise, Duke of the Deal — has decided that he thinks the White House should give Joe Biden the Bolton docs he wants in exchange for the promise of the Dems lifting the filibuster and allowing a vote next month.

This is not a compromise. It is the Democrat position. Biden is playing a little Senatorial imperialism, admittedly seeking the documents for the sake of demanding the documents. It is his separation-of-powers play.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan:

“The Democrats who are clamoring for this have already voted against John Bolton,” said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. “This is about partisan politics, not documents. They have the information they need.”

Biden is voting no on Bolton, regardless of whether or not he gets the docs. He wants to prove a point: that the Senate is entitled to privileged White House papers regardless of their relevance to the Senate’s vote. McCain agrees.

I looks like The Deal on judges made last week will soon become meaningless, but we have three judges that had spent years in inescapable limbo. We can’t expect much more from a and of obstinate politicians still adjusting badly to their seemingly permanent minority.

San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy, leaving office July 15 under a scandalous cloud, will be replaced by the winner of a July 26th election. Fifteen people have opted in for the replacement race, including councilperson Donna Frye, who almost won last years mayoral election as a write-in.

Other leading candidates are Jerry Sanders, a Republican former police chief, and Steve Francis, a Republican businessman who already has pledged $500,000 of his own money.

Any write-ins this time?

This bears repeating, from the V.O.A.:

He [Brig. Gen. Jay Hood] added that there were also 15 cases in which detainees mishandled the Quran, including one who purposefully ripped pages out of his own book.

No abuse of the Koran by U.S. soldiers, but some “mishandling” before the rules were in place. Fifteen cases in which the captured militants mishandled, including one who tore the Islamic holy book’s pages from its binding.

Someone ought to riot. That’s what we civilized folks do, you know.

New York Yankees 6, Boston Red Sox 3. The winner was Randy Johnson, the loser was the knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, and Mariano Rivera got the save. Robbie Cano tied it with a two run home run, the second homer of his career, and Gary Sheffield put it out of Boston’s reach with a three-run shot in the bottom of the 6th.

Toronto lost and Baltimore lost, so the Yankees are alone in 2nd place in the AL East, trailing the Orioles by 3.5 games.

I heard on the radio this afternoon that 19th century composer Franz Berwald’s chamber music was not appreciated until relatively recently because the man was an ass. With that in mind, I’m listening to his Piano Quartet no 1 in C and no 2 in A. People have said the same about Tom DeLay.

Hillary’s boy David Rosen, the fundraiser who lied to the FEC about the cost of an L.A. fundraiser, was acquitted Friday of lying to the FEC about the cost of an L.A. fundraiser.

You figure it out.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R-Massachusetts), whose views on abotortion have been evolving as 2008 draws nigh, has vetoed a Bay State stem cell bill, as it would allow for human cloning.

“It is wrong to allow science to take an assembly-line approach to the production of human embryos, the creation of which will be rooted in experimentation and destruction,” Romney wrote in a letter to lawmakers explaining the veto.

And he had asked legislators to include language in the bill which defined life as “beginning at the moment of conception.” This was rejected by the State’s legislature, which instead took the cut-and-dice approach to human embryonic stem cell experimention.

Despite new new reports of “Koran abuse” in the mainstream media, and despite the traditional angry Arab protests, the Pentagon Friday said that there is no credible evidence of such abuse.

And there is this:

He [Brig. Gen. Jay Hood] added that there were also 15 cases in which detainees mishandled the Quran, including one who purposefully ripped pages out of his own book.

From the Saudi Press Agency:

Riyadh, May 27, SPA– The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd bin Abdulaziz was hospitalized today to undergo some medical tests, the Royal Court said in a Statement.
The statement said the king entered the Riyadh-based King Faisal Specialist Hospital for medical tests, wishing him complete health.
–SPA 1943 Local Time 1643 GMT

The only report I’ve heard is that he has pneumonia. Saudi Arabia is in lockdown/full alert.

If he passes, there might be a power crab. Crown Prince Abdullah has been running the country for the past decade, since Fahd’s stroke, but Prince Nayf, the more backwards brother, might also put himself in the mix.

Either way, the House of Saud is not long for their position.

Sid Blumenthal is still around:

President Bush’s drive for absolute power has momentarily stalled. In a single coup, he planned to take over all the institutions of government. By crushing the traditions of the Senate he would pack the courts, especially the supreme court, with lockstep ideologues. Sheer force would prevail. But just as his blitzkrieg reached the outskirts of his objective, he was struck by a mutiny. Within the span of 24 hours he lost control not only of the Senate but temporarily of the House of Representatives, which was supposed to be regimented by unquestioned loyalty. Now he prepares to launch a counterattack - against the dissident elements of his own party.

That’s good stuff! If I were a publisher, I’d give this man a huge advance for that novel; he’d have to quit using real names in his fiction, though.

Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona have a plan, a complete and comprehensive immigration reform bill, but they’re only showing us the part regarding hiring more border patrol agents.

The plan would authorize 10,000 new Border Patrol agents and 1,000 new immigration inspectors over the next five years. There are about 11,000 Border Patrol agents.

It would commit an additional $500 million between 2006 and 2010 for equipment such as unmanned aerial vehicles, camera poles, sensors and other technologies to help control the border.

John McCain and Teddy Kennedy earlier this month released a plan giving the illegals jobs and paying the States to stuff them in prison.

But the only solution to the immigration problem is to dismantle the social welfare programs which draw undesirables here. Those willing to work should be allowed to do so for those willing to hire them, provided it is legal for them to be here. And it should be, so long as they pay taxes for legitimate government services. And, of course, my scheme is unthinkable to those wed with the problem.

Good morning!

The vote [Senate roll call] was 56 in favor and 42 opposed, so with Lisa Murkowski presiding, John Bolton’s did not receive the 3/5ths necessary for cloture on debate and the filibuster was one. (Bolton actually had 57 votes, but Bill Frist had to vote no in order to file the motion to reconsider the vote.)

(Senators Inouye and Specter didn’t vote, the latter presumably for his health concerns and Inouye,,, I’m not certain. He was signatory to the Gang of 14 who came up with The Deal on judicial nominations.)

As Democrat Leader Harry Reid said, this was not about Bolton; rather, it was about Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd getting requested information from the White House. (We can discount Dodd as an unserious tagalong and concentrate on Joe Biden.) Joe Biden knows how he will vote on the Bolton nomination. He does not need the information to come to a decision. He wants the information only because he thinks he is entitled to it. It has nothing to do with John Bolton, they insist; rather, it is a matter of Senate minority prerogative.

It would look bad for the Senate Democrats to accept defeat on a nomination as noisily challenged as that of John Bolton, and I suspect herein lies the concern. By requesting more information and directing this request towards what they describe as White House obstinacy, the Democrats are both blocking the nominee, adding to the perceived controversy, and providing the MSM with an excuse not to call it a filibuster.

This is politics. I’m neither surprised nor outraged.