With the stroke of a pen, the wisdom of a single man makes it a civil “right” to call your union whatever you wish — against the wishes of the state’s electorate. Let’s hear it for the philosopher kings! From the Chicago Tribune: A Polk County judge on Thursday struck down Iowa’s law banning gay marriage. The ruling by Judge Robert Hanson concluded that the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriage

Gary Schamburg emails: […] if you read between the lines, there never was a true civil war in Iraq. Al Qaeda hoped to play on the fears of a fight between Sunn’i and Shi’ite, and our media played up those fears with civil war stories. But, the situation wasn’t pitting Sunn’i vs Shi’ite, as the article points out — it’s a different paradigm in Iraq. I’ve been excoriated on a

“Evacuations in progress. Still unconfirmed by any major media sources.” (h/t Old Texas Turkey, in the comments here). More as it develops (or fizzles). update: From ABC’s Brian Ross, writing for The Blotter: United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous nerve gas, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York this morning, federal authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

From Newsmax: If Marine Col. Jeffrey Chessani is exonerated of the charges against him he may haul Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman John Murtha, into court, suing him for libel, one of his lawyers told NewsMax.com. Brian Rooney, one of the attorneys at Michigan’s Thomas More Law Center representing Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani and a former Marine captain himself told NewsMax.com that his client, who is alleged to have failed to fully

An addendum to Karl’s post, courtesy Major General James E. Simmons, Deputy Commanding General for Support of Multi-National Forces, Iraq, [JS] who was yesterday interviewed by Hugh Hewitt [HH]. Here’s what he has to say about conditions in Basra, which we’ve been told by the mainstream press has been overtaken by radicals in the vacuum left behind by a British force withdrawal: JS: [Those reports] are not accurate, and that

Back in the day, I bagged lots of chicks in public bathrooms.  Discuss.

…unless, that is, you happen to be a Taliban or al Qaeda fighter. In which case, you might want to ease off the roughage here soon. After all, not even a terrorist would want to show up for his date with 72 raisins having soiled his jihadi tighty-whities because some infidel watching a plasma screen in a Florida conference room pushed a button and sent a Hellfire missile his way

From USA Today: Former security guard Richard Jewell, who was erroneously linked to the 1996 Olympic bombing, died Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. Jewell, 44, was found dead in his west Georgia home, GBI spokesman John Bankhead said. “There’s no suspicion whatsoever of any type of foul play. He had been at home sick since the end of February with kidney problems,” said Meriwether County Coroner Johnny Worley.

All right. Y’all have had your fun. Now please, leave me be until the sentencing date. I’m dog tired. So to speak.