Earlier today, Jeff posted on the linguistic improvements on the English language that new Prime Minister Gordon Brown has wrought by fiat, wherein the association of Islam and terrorism is to be made tantamount to a speech crime, as well as “War on Terror.” Melanie Phillips, thinking along the same lines, refers to this as “the strategy of consensual dissimulation.” Now, that’s rather a mouthful, but it does represent the

Maybe he’s finally waking up to just how craven his political opponents really are. Or maybe he’s just trying to appease the base. You decide: President George W. Bush on Tuesday refused to rule out a pardon for former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a day after sparing him from prison in a case that helped seal his Iraq legacy and gave ammunition to Democrats. Bush, who angered Democrats

The key, evidently, being that one is fiscally conservative. Of course, in Ms Bean’s defense, who wouldn’t want a four-sided, glare-free view of Henry Waxman rendered in gorgeous hi-def. At the very least, you’d be able to put to rest the Republican slander that Waxman plays host to a nest of house finches in one of his cavernous nostrils. And that alone, I think, justifies the expense.

Larry Johnson might beg to differ, but then, who cares? From CBS/AP: British intelligence services increasingly believe that the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow bear the fingerprints of al Qaeda in Iraq, CBS News has learned. Intelligence sources tell CBS News that the people behind the attempts were directly recruited by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the present leader of the terror group’s Iraq franchise. Police investigating the plot had

Joe Wilson — who, to my knowledge, has yet to apologize to the American people for attempting to swing the 2004 presidential election with his inflammatory op-ed that a Senate investigation later showed was built around lies, half-truths, and the machinations of his wife in her role as CIA agent — is demanding that President Bush apologize to his family for commuting the sentence of a man caught up in

Recently, there’s been a rash of imaginary decapitations committed by non-existent Iraqi militants with the complicity of the credulous and lazy MSM.  Bob Owens was able to get a couple of the outlets who peddled the latest phantom atrocity to retract their stories, but just as Scooter Libby’s trial and sentence summons comparison with the treatment of Sandy Berger, the contrast between the MSM’s fervid treatment of the fictional tale

Blasphemy, I know! And yet, in Oregon, I might even be able to utter such a shocking sentiment — in a school zone no less! — and avoid arrest, thanks to a judge who didn’t cave in to the morality police, but instead applied the law and, in doing so, even appealed to the state’s Constitution, rather than fishing around for some civil right that was being violated by the

This comes on the heels of earlier news that Libby’s appeal for a sentencing stay was denied, despite the 12 amicus briefs filed on his behalf. The court’s ruling was a single paragraph. For Bush, this gambit comes at the perfect time, though I’m not sure how helpful it will be for Republicans in the long term; the President’s decision to commute the sentence should take the spotlight off of

Well, to be fair, what he actually says is it’s doubtful Muslims were involved. But if they were (and that’s just a silly hypothetical, one that either 1) has no precedent in recent history, or 2) is far too easy and convenient given the many, many, many precedents) — well, clearly it was the British recognition of Rushdie’s literary prowess that is to blame, not the really quite predictable reaction

From the CBS/AP: A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant was attacked by a man who villified the bird as a vampire, animal-control authorities said. The … bird was later euthanized, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the [New York] city’s center for Center for Animal Care and Control. […] he peacock, a male several years old, wandered into a Burger King parking lot in