Schoolfellows who know John Kerry from the old days in the Political Union will find awfully recognizable the spotlight-grabbing behavior featured in the incident of today described by Dean Barnett on Soxblog, who writes:

I know we’re never going to see the day where we all agree on the quality of George W. Bush as both a president and a man. But can we not at least agree that this country is fortunate to not have John Kerry as its president?

We were busy with other things, and fell behind on PJM coverage. A good summary which brings things pretty nicely up-to-date has been written by Mister Snitch.

Any undertaking on this scale, involving significant numbers of creative and temperamental people, was bound to feature conflict, drama, break-ups, and feuding. The newly launched site did prove surprisingly unfinished, and functionality, content, and organization were all initially wanting, but it’s easy to see that, bit-by-bit, improvements are occuring. I suppose the fundamental problem has been that producing one blog is very time-consuming, and the PJM principals have all continued to run their own renowned, popular, and important blogs, and have been consequently only left-handedly developing PJM. Skeptics need to remember that the PJM organization does include a very major share of the best talent existing in blogging. Those betting negatively over on PJM Death Pool may well wind up disappointed.

The London Times is reporting that a Belgian woman, who had married a Morrocan and converted to “the religion of Peace,” travelled to Iraq and last month blew herself up in a suicidal act of terrorism.

MIREILLE, who was born in Belgium to a white, middle-class Christian family, blew herself to pieces last month in a suicide attack against American troops near Baghdad.

In one of the most extraordinary tales of Islamic radicalisation, she is thought to be the first white Western woman to carry out a suicide bombing.

Belgian investigators, who arrested 14 people associated with her, are keeping the 38-year-old woman’s true identity secret, but details have started to emerge. She was from the southern Belgian town of Charleroi, married to a Moroccan and converted to an extreme form of Islam.

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Expatica

The New York Times reports that at the University of the South (recently renamed as “Sewanee: The University of the South”), as at numerous other Southern colleges and universities these days, traditions and symbols pertaining to history and Southern regionalism, especially those associated with the Lost Confederate Cause, are being bowdlerized out of existence.

Submission to contemporary prejudice and political correctness is seen by many college executives as necessary for achieving so-called “diverse” enrollments, i.e. student bodies featuring significant percentages of members of designated victims’ groups, and national reputation.

The flags from Southern states disappeared from the chapel. The ceremonial baton dedicated to a Confederate general who helped found the Ku Klux Klan vanished. The very name of the University of the South was tweaked, becoming Sewanee: The University of the South, with decided emphasis on Sewanee…

Across the country, colleges are trying to reposition themselves to attract more high-quality students and raise their national profiles. But perhaps nowhere is this more challenging than in the South, where university officials often find themselves struggling to temper Confederate imagery without alienating alumni and donors determined to uphold their heritage.

Reports the Arizona Conservative:

Congressman John P. Murtha (D-PA) widened his call for a strategic withdrawal to include Washington, D.C.“Let’s face it,” Murtha said. “The capitol has led the nation in crime for more than a decade. There is nothing more than can be accomplished by staying. It’s time to pull out.”

A snap poll conducted by NBC showed a majority of Americans agree with Murtha’s latest proposal.

“Congress has been looting and pillaging taxpayers for generations,” said pollee John Smith of Anytown, U.S.A. “Shutting down the capitol sounds like a pretty good idea.”

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asserted that Murtha’s words have been misconstrued. “Congressman Murtha was referring to a Republican pull-out,” said Pelosi. “He’s saying everything would be fine if we could get the Republicans to pull out of Washington.”

Congressman J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) said his office has been inundated by citizens calling for a “sense of congress” resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of all members of congress and the redeployment of resources back to the taxpayers. “Murtha may have awakened the proverbial ‘sleeping dog,’“ said Hayworth. “There’s no telling where this may lead now.”

Some poltroon lawyers nixed airing it, but this ad is a hoot. (Warning: Politically Incorrect imaginary violence!)

Right Reason‘s Maxwell Goss interviews with Roger Scruton on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the publication of his book The Meaning of Conservatism.

John Hinderaker of Power-Line discusses in the Daily Standard damaging intelligence leaks by active CIA officer members of the anti-Bush Administration Intelligence Community cabal.

THE CIA’S WAR against the Bush administration is one of the great untold stories of the past three years. It is, perhaps, the agency’s most successful covert action of recent times. The CIA has used its budget to fund criticism of the administration by former Democratic officeholders. The agency allowed an employee, Michael Scheuer, to publish and promote a book containing classified information, as long as, in Scheuer’s words, “the book was being used to bash the president.” However, the agency’s preferred weapon has been the leak. In one leak after another, generally to the New York Times or the Washington Post, CIA officials have sought to undermine America’s foreign policy. Usually this is done by leaking reports or memos critical of administration policies or skeptical of their prospects. Through it all, our principal news outlets, which share the agency’s agenda and profit from its torrent of leaks, have maintained a discreet silence about what should be a major scandal. Recent events indicate that the CIA might even be willing to compromise the effectiveness of its own covert operations, if by doing so it can damage the Bush administration

“We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

— actual source unknown, generally attributed to George Orwell

Charles Krauthammer has a thoughtful article in The Weekly Standard, which constitutes an unusual contribution to the debates within the American commentariat on terrorist interrogation by virtue of saying sensible things. I found the article being chewed over, like a rubber dog toy tossed to a pack of terriers, by a consistery of conservatives on NRO.

I believe myself that attempting to have a publicly-discussed, publicly-disclosed policy of what happens to terrorists is a fundamental and profound mistake.

It is also my opinion that members of the American intelligentsia, a pampered lot, whose personal experience of violence, by and large, tends to have been confined to a certain number of viewings of the films of Quentin Tarrantino, whose worst experience of physical suffering inflicted by another human being took place in a dental chair, the kinds of people who believe there need to be rules about this sort of thing and theories about that sort of thing, are just not qualified to sit in safety and comfort in offices and studies in the United States, telling rough men, charged with maintaining their safety, how to do their job.

The American intelligentsia should simply be grateful that their society includes men who can do for them what they could not possibly do for themselves, shut up, and let it go at that. There are always things which happen in the course of wars which it is better not to think about, better not to talk about. That’s what war is.

Another must-read posting from Wretchard, who takes the occasion of Representative Cunningham’s resignation to recall another very different day:

Whatever Randy Cunningham did in later life, it remains true that on the tenth of May, 1972 ShowTime 100 would shoot down two MIGs, then a third. …

The Guardian reports in tomorrow’s edition:

Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, singled out Mr Cheney in a wide-ranging political assault on the BBC’s Today programme.

Mr Wilkerson said that in an internal administration debate over whether to abide by the Geneva conventions in the treatment of detainees, Mr Cheney led the argument “that essentially wanted to do away with all restrictions”. Asked whether the vice-president was guilty of a war crime, Mr Wilkerson replied: “Well, that’s an interesting question – it was certainly a domestic crime to advocate terror and I would suspect that it is … an international crime as well.”

Colonel Wilkerson has been unleashing a series of attacks on the administration in recent weeks, making the same kinds of arguments made by known and acknowledged members of the VIPS cabal of State Department and Intelligence Community doves operating in opposition to the current administration since well before the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.

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Terrorist mouthpiece Aljazeera, with its customary pose of journalistic impartiality, aired today a videotape showing four Western moonbat hostages captured in Iraq by a previously unknown group, calling itself “the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. ”