President Bush, in the second veto of his six-year term, killed an Iraq spending bill that included timetables for troop withdrawal to begin in October of this year, setting up another showdown between the Bush administration and Congress. But what will the new bill look like?

The Kurdish population is spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, and all of those countries have long been nervous about the loyalties and intentions of their Kurdish population.

There's a fairly large display ad on page A21 of Thursday's New York Times with a large caption reading "Challenge Debate" followed by even larger letters proclaiming that "Global Warming is Not a Crisis." The ad has a picture of Lord Monckton labeled "For" and a picture of Al Gore labeled "Against."

I live a few miles from Williams College. The college had an incident exactly a week ago that seems to me to exemplify a particular gulf in values in this country that has caused a lot of heat and will likely cause a lot more.

In a further sign of eroding support for the Iraq war among Republicans, talk show host and former Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough announced on his MSNBC program Tuesday night that the United States "can't win this war."

The novelist Andrew Klavan has written a rant titled "The Big White Lie" that celebrates himself for being a conservative. I hate self-congratulatory stuff like this, whether it's coming from the right or the left, because it reduces politics to a sports rivalry in which your team rox and the other team sux.

Add Congressional staffer Mark Zachares to the list of casualties of the Abramoff investigation.

In his April 19th radio show, Rush Limbaugh referred to the ideology of the Virginia Tech shooter as liberal, and then acknowledged he would be attacked for it.

I opened up the parenting magazine that we've been getting for free since the birth of our latest daughter and I came across this ad from Big Beef telling me that the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada wants me to eat red meat. Why does the Heart and Stroke Foundation think so much of red meat that they've given it a Health Check, their symbol meant to indicate a "good for your health" type option?

The similarities between 21st century America and 19th century America are numerous and, for most of us, frightening. The 19th century is not a time that I want to revisit. It's not a coincidence that the 19th century gave rise to the first modern "labor rights" struggles, given the unsafe conditions, inadequate pay, unlimited hours, and government weighing in on the side of employers.

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