The New York Times has posted a photo gallery of dead or wounded marines, soldiers and civilians killed in Iraq, with the following story as a fig leaf: BAGHDAD — The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to

Per the Aspen Times: U.S. Sen. John McCain paused in his ongoing run for the presidency on Friday to trade a few pleasantries in Aspen with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and to urge China to release Tibetan political prisoners and improve its record in human rights. The Dalai Lama — twelfth son of the Lama — looked graceful and striking in his traditional, flowing robes.  A reporter asked McCain whether

The truth hurts, lots: If Senator Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreat under fire. The Iraqi Army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically. Al Qaeda would have killed the Sunni sheikhs who had begun to cooperate with us, and the “Sunni Awakening” would have been strangled at birth. Al Qaeda fighters would have safe havens, from where they could train Iraqis and foreigners,

Converts family into potted meat product. UPDATE: Fucker. via happyfeet, Progg Hero Kidnaps Kids, holds them in Yemen. Yay, team!

Oxymoran has a list of those thrust beneath the bus by Obama, so far. A moment of silence, please.

On gender “bias” and being “underrepresented”… What’s interesting is that Tierney still frames the question in terms of women being “underrepresented” in certain professions and areas of study. But this rather begs the question. How do we know that 1:1 gender parity is some natural, default state, from which any deviation must be construed as evidence of bias? On what basis – besides ideology – can we determine that there

Alex Trebek: “This long-handled garden tool is also the name for an immoral pleasure seeker. Chuck?” Chuck: “What is a hoe? Alex.”

La Hamsher at NPR: Hamsher is especially angry about the changes to FISA. Proponents say those changes actually strengthen privacy rules for certain phone calls, but in fact, the bill also streamlines the government’s ability to sweep up large amounts of data without court warrant. What really gets Hamsher’s goat is the fact that congressional Democrats agreed to give immunity to phone companies that may have cooperated with past illegal

I am happy to offer up my quips and pearls of wisdom, my lapidary analyses and spot-on insights on these front pages of Protein Wisdom, but I wish to bring to your attention once again and after a too-great hiatus the tremendous efforts of our colleagues at the Protein Wisdom Pub. Among those deserving notice are RTO Trainer with positive news from Afghanistan, where hopiness and changeitude, it is said,

Mr. Obama: “For a long time now, and — most tellingly — amid a political climate suffused in the kind of macho militarism that is antithetical to peace and prosperity, I’ve been saying that the so-called ‘surge strategy’ devised by the Bush administration would not work in Iraq. As it turns out, I was completely correct in my assessment: on the surface, sure, the strategy looks to be a success.