by two Americas. Stacy’s got a post up about the desire of some Republicans to separate themselves from the South and fundamentalists, presumably the extremist wing of conservatism. And he’s right to say that the impulse arises out of scorn that in turn arises from buying into the progressive characterization of Southerners (apart from those in Athens, Georgia and Greater San Antonio in Texas, maybe) as backwater hicks. Donald Douglas

I mean, wow. No. Really. Wow. (h/t J Howard) **** update: Like, seriously? WOW!

Michael Barone, Washington Examiner: It is an article of faith among the Madame Defarges that the interrogation techniques they consider torture didn’t produce useful information. All along, Obama tried to pay homage to this dogma. The text of Adm. Blair’s letter released to the public carefully omitted his admission that “high value information came from interrogations in which the methods were used.” Just normal editing, said his spokesman. Yeah, sure.

Or at least, responsible for its spread. Now, if only the government would step in and save us…!**

Via Stacy McCain, via William Teach, comes Pam Gellar noting that Charles thinks he’s got the goods on Malkin to “take the gloves off” and go to war. I think the bicycle gloves might protect his palms if he wants to start a slap-fight, but what do I know? Hey, Pam’s not exactly my cup of tea, most of the time, but Charles’s fixation’s a little weird, IMO. He’s the

OUTLAW? Mark Summers has a beef with the pirates who are seizing cargo ships and taking hostages off the coast of Somalia: They’re ruining his bad name. For years, Mr. Summers has been donning frock coats and plumed hats and rakish red scarves and tucking blunderbusses into his belt to transform himself into Cap’n Slappy. That’s Pirate Capt. Slappy to you, mate. His alter ego symbolizes a spirit of freedom,

From the WSJ: In Ricci v. DeStefano, firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut who passed a qualifying exam were denied promotions to lieutenant or captain because of the color of their skin. They were white. The High Court will decide whether New Haven violated civil rights law and the Constitution when it threw out the results of the examinations after no black test takers passed. The city doesn’t deny that its

Family issues forced him south, and now he’s kinda stuck without funds. If anybody can spare some change, please send it his way; any little bit helps: vermontaigne – at – gmail – dot – com is the email address to use through PayPal.

Betrayal! (h/t cj)

So, I’m here in sunny Florida, visiting M&D and having a last family vacation before Brendan goes off to college, and really as family vacations go, it’s not bad, because one of the things that I learned by watching my dad closely is that it’s absurd to go into these things with any expectations or specific objects in mind, and expect to return home with your sanity intact. He’s a