From the AP: Saudi officials told Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday that he must fully withdraw troops from Lebanon and begin soon or face strains in Saudi-Syrian ties. Assad promised only to study the idea of a partial withdrawal by later this month. The kingdom took a tough line as Assad met with the Saudi leader, Crown Prince Abdullah, and other officials in Riyadh. So far, Damascus has resisted

…though I have to admit I wouldn’t mind seeing somebody give O’Reilly a good spanking. And not over the phone this time, either.

“200 professors at CU have stood up, Billy.  They’ve stood up and been counted and have made clear that they recognize that this whole controversy has never been about anything other than an attempt to chill speech that is unpopular with the criminal right-wing establisment and its soulless lackeys.  To try to make this about anything else—my heritage, my scholarship, my art—is yet further proof of the systemic undermining of

From Ronald Bailey’s “Attack of the Killer Crops,” Reason, March 2: Activists are again trying to frighten poor people in developing countries by claiming the U.S. is poisoning them with genetically modified food. Never mind that 280 million Americans have been eating biotech-enhanced crops for nearly a decade with zero evidence that it has caused anyone so much as a sniffle or a bellyache. Friends of the Earth tested samples

Meanwhile, in news that really should concern media watchdogs—on both the left AND the right—Redstate’s Mike Krempasky points to this CNET interview with FEC commisioner Bradley Smith, which suggests the FEC may soon attempt to regulate blogging and other internet activity: In just a few months, [Smith] warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign’s Web site. Even