Buddhism’s holiest tree in Sri Lanka’s ancient capital, tightly guarded by monks and security forces after Tamil rebels attacked it 23 years ago, is under threat again — this time from monkeys. Pilgrims are frisked and scanned by metal detectors before being allowed to worship the “Sri Maha Bodi,” grown from a sapling of a tree in India that sheltered the Buddha when he attained enlightenment more than 2,550 years

Although Dan already mocked the NYT Obamartyrdom story this morning with an absurdist bent, I do have some uncool, professorial analysis of the story. The key passage is actually buried near the bottom of the inverted pyramid: That afternoon, Mr. Obama’s motorcade passed Dealey Plaza and the Texas Book Depository building, where the fatal shot was fired at President Kennedy in 1963. Several campaign aides looked out their windows, silently

Amen, little brother: Comment by Amber Burns on 2/25 @ 6:38 pm #|Edit This I am Jaxon Burns mom and I appreciate all of you praying for Jaxon’s 2nd liver transplant. If you would like to read his story: www.caringbridge.org/visit/jaxonburns. He is doing really well and they are weaning him from the conventional ventilator and will be taking him off dialysis on Wed. Thank you so much. God bless~Amber Burns It’s so great.

Spengler at the Asian Times doesn’t like Obama, I guess: Radical anti-Americanism, rather than Islam, was the reigning faith in the Dunham household. In the Muslim world of the 1960s, nationalism rather than radical Islam was the ideology of choice among the enraged. Radical Islam did not emerge as a major political force until the nationalism of a Gamal Abdel Nasser or a Sukarno failed.        Well, that article might be

Republican stabs Obama supporter: Authorities said Ortiz, a registered Republican and Clinton supporter, allegedly stabbed Shurelds, an Obama supporter, in the stomach. Ortiz told police Shurelds began to choke him, so he grabbed a knife and stabbed him.Shurelds was flown to an area hospital and was listed in critical condition. He is expected to recover from his wounds.Ortiz, 28, was jailed on $20,000 bail. He is facing charges of felony,

Rules that allow only the catching of larger fish may encourage their replacement with slower growing, more timid varieties. That, at least, is the concern of researchers who studied test populations in two artificial lakes and report their findings in this week’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. the opposite population pressure is operating within Western human societies.   O! the rape.

At RCP, Steven Warshawsky argues that John McCain must change his position on Iraq because it is… unpopular!  Polls say so: A Rasmussen Reports poll from January 29, 2008, reported that 59% of Americans want U.S. troops to be brought home from Iraq immediately or within one year, while only 35% want U.S. troops to remain in Iraq “until the mission is complete.” According to this poll, not only do

Clinton advisor Harold Ickes throws Jesse Jackson into the mix again: “We have two really strong and very good candidates. This party has been blessed … to have a woman who, I think will be the next president of the United States [and] to have a powerful spokesman in the form of Sen. Obama and he is, that’s one of the reasons I supported Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988,

The New York Observer’s Politicker blog compares the current campaign to the 1976 election: An unelected president, Ford had barely secured the Republican nomination against a fierce challenge from Ronald Reagan, leaving the party’s conservative base dispirited and even more distrustful of Ford than they already had been. And the stench of Watergate—and Ford’s politically damaging pardon of Richard Nixon—stubbornly hung in the air. After eight years of Republican rule,