With a nod to Drew Curtis at Fark, this article is just begging for a new subtitle:

Clinton to be U.N. Tsunami Envoy, Source Says
Former president already cochairs U.S. fund-raising effort
Immediately calls into question the meaning of the word “be.”

UPDATE: Captain Ed asks:

I’m curious about one thing, though. Doesn’t Annan care about the connections that Bill Clinton had to Marc Rich, who appears to be at the center of the Oil-For-Food corruption scandal?

From the Chicago Sun Times article title What if Bush has been right about Iraq all along?:

Maybe you’re like me and have opposed the Iraq war since before the shooting started — not to the point of joining any peace protests, but at least letting people know where you stood.

You didn’t change your mind when our troops swept quickly into Baghdad or when you saw the rabble that celebrated the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue, figuring that little had been accomplished and that the tough job still lay ahead.

Despite your misgivings, you didn’t demand the troops be brought home immediately afterward, believing the United States must at least try to finish what it started to avoid even greater bloodshed. And while you cheered Saddam’s capture, you couldn’t help but thinking I-told-you-so in the months that followed as the violence continued to spread and the death toll mounted.

But after watching Sunday’s election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?

Via Drudge.

Check out this t-shirt from Bryan at Spare Change.

HT: Michelle Malkin

From Roger L. Simon:

Many of us had just watched Ms. Arraf waiting with what “seemed” like great dismay in front of an empty polling station in Mosul. The Iraqis were not turning out to vote. Then, an hour or so later, she popped up at another polling place in the same city that was crowded with voters, explaining that she had “switched polling places.” But she hadn’t. According to my situation room correspondent, her first venue was not a polling place at all. For whatever reasons (embarrassment? bias? both?), Ms. Arraf omitted this important fact.

Interesting observation about Barney Frank’s question at the World Economic Forum in Davos, from Dan at the GayPatriot Blog.

Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive at CNN, implied that the American military was deliberately killing journalists in Iraq. He even “offered the story of an Al-Jazeera journalist who had been ‘tortured for weeks’ at Abu Ghraib, made to eat his shoes, and called “Al Jazeera boy” by his American captors.”

And then, this liberal Democrat pressed Mr. Jordan to be more specific, putting the CNN Executive on the spot. The newsman rambled on a bit and mumbled some sort of response about how “‘There are people who believe there are people in the military who have it out’ for journalists.” He could provide no evidence to buttress his claims, then “offered another anecdote: A reporter who’d been standing in a long line to get through a checkpoint at Baghdad’s Green Zone had been turned back by the GI on duty. Apparently the soldier had been displeased with the reporter’s dispatches, and sent him to the back of the line.”

Had Mr. Frank not challenged him, the global elites there might have taken Jordan’s words at face value, convinced that Americans were indiscriminately targeting journalists.

UPDATE: Ace of Spades rants today about Eason Jordan’s line of questioning.

UPDATE 2: New post on the subject here.

To borrow a line from Taranto, “What would we do without studies?”

The StarTribune has this article:

A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25.

I wonder how much money was spent by the government on that study. They should have just asked parents, it would have been cheaper.

This NYT article has one of the best summaries of the lucrativity (that definitely should be a word) of spamming I’ve read. If you’re curious about spammers, it’s an interesting read.

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, John Kerry had the following dialogue with Tim Russert

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, if you would just do one thing and that is sign Form 180, which would allow historians and journalists complete access to all your military records. Thus far, you have gotten the records, released them through your campaign. They say you should not be the filter. Sign Form 180 and let the historians…
SEN. KERRY: I’d be happy to put the records out. We put all the records out that I had been sent by the military. Then at the last moment, they sent some more stuff, which had some things that weren’t even relevant to the record. So when we get–I’m going to sit down with them and make sure that they are clear and I am clear as to what is in the record and what isn’t in the record and we’ll put it out. I have no problem with that.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you sign Form 180?
SEN. KERRY: But everything, Tim…
MR. RUSSERT: Would you sign Form 180?
SEN. KERRY: Yes, I will.

Via Wizbang

And commentor Bullwinkle suggested everyone send Kerry a form 180 here:

Sen. John Kerry
Washington D.C.
304 Russell Bldg.
Third Floor
Washington D.C. 20510

That same MTP interview generated an interesting discussion over at Captain’s Quarters about John Kerry appearing to “accuse American intelligence service of running weapons to the Communists during Viet Nam.”

UPDATE: JustOneMinute and Instapundit also caught this.

John Kerry confesses to treason on Meet The Press:

MR. RUSSERT: And you have a hat that the CIA agent gave you?
SEN. KERRY: I still have the hat that he gave me, and I hope the guy would come out of the woodwork and say, “I’m the guy who went up with John Kerry. We delivered weapons to the Khmer Rouge on the coastline of Cambodia.” We went out of Ha Tien, which is right in Vietnam. We went north up into the border. And I have some photographs of that, and that’s what we did. So, you know, the two were jumbled together, but we were on the Cambodian border on Christmas Eve, absolutely.

Running guns to the Khmer Rouge? Uhh, Tall Dour One, they were on the other side.

UPDATE 2: Oh my goodness, this is funny < -- Click that!!!:

Ravenwood’s Universe has exclusively obtained Top Secret CIA Memorandums that prove that John Kerry is telling the truth. I have turned these over to CBS, so be sure to watch 60 Minutes tomorrow, as I’m sure Dan Rather will want to drop the bombshell during the top segment. This is rock hard evidence.

The recent blog bashing article by Camille J. Gage has a bit of hidden irony (maybe hypocrisy is a better term) that is responded to by Powerline.

The piece accuses us of a failure to fact-check. The author refers to a news story we linked to last October which related to voter fraud in Wisconsin, and says that she “made a few phone calls” and determined that “[t]here was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations.”
…
I talked to Commentary Editor Eric Ringham today, and he acknowledged that the Strib didn’t do any fact-checking at all before they accused us of not fact-checking. That’s right: None. Zilch. Zippo. Nada. And Ms. Gage, if that’s really her name, has no knowledge about the voter fraud scandal which has now resulted in a federal criminal investigation.

So Gage says “blogs don’t fact check” in reference to some Powerline blogging, and in fact she had done no fact checking herself and now the issue Powerline had raised is a federal criminal investigation. Poweline claims this is the fifth time in six months they have been “defamed” by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Hat tip: La Shawn Barber.

UPDATE: Powerline has responded. (HT: LaShawn) They’re using words like “libel” which is generating quite a buzz. A popular question today is, are bloggers public figures? It makes a difference, because there is a much higher standard of proof for libel when the person being written about is a public figure.

UPDATE 2: Blogenlust has an interesting take on Hindraker’s response.

This story is truly horrifying. Mexican prisoners are being deprived of flat screen TV’s, cell phones, pizza deliveries, and sex.

They’re being treated “like dogs” and being forced to live in these “sub human” conditions.

Heartwrenching.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Deprived of their flat-screen TVs, mobile phones, pizza deliveries and long visits from lovers, inmates at Mexico’s top security prison complained on Monday they are being treated “like dogs.”
A government crackdown in prisons, aimed especially at drug lords and other violent criminals, has the prisoners of La Palma jail close to Mexico City up in arms at the “subhuman” conditions they face.

On Monday, they paid for a full-page advertisement in Mexico’s top daily Reforma and called on President Vicente Fox to respect their human rights. They also want the right to buy the soft drinks of their choice from the jail’s small store.