Pick the government snooping program that bothers you most: (a) warrantless surveillance; (b) Patriot Act sneak peeks at your reading habits; (c) the collection and coordination of vast amounts of personal data on travelers; (d) all the above, because the info obtained is in all likelihood being aggregated and coordinated so that there is little if any difference between the programs.

Kevin McCullough is in the business of trying to convince people that liberals "hate" a lot, especially Christians. Kevin McCullough posted this on his web site this very morning:

Is James Brolin (Mr. Babs) the most vomit-inducing, clueless, tasteless, stool sample ever to walk the planet?

After the children on the CBS reality TV series Kid Nation create their own government, it might not be an ally of the United States. Several of the contestants posted online profiles on the CBS web site that are highly critical of President Bush.

Not surprisingly at all, there is a lot of evidence that the White House, not to mention General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, were a little less than completely forthcoming, accurate, and complete in their recent attempts to portray Iraq's Anbar Province as a new beacon of hope, courtesy of the surge, that there is finally light at the end of the Iraqi tunnel.

What prompts the question is a small item about Richard Mellon Scaife's divorce, noting that the soon-to-be-ex is challenging Scaife's claim that all the money he loses on his Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper is a legitimate business expense. In the eyes of the wife, the paper is just a "hobby" and the lost money should be treated as part of the marital estate which has been used up by the Mister. And we're talking "$20 million to $30 million a year" in subsidy.

Another bunch of "conservative leaders" has formed a group calling itself the "Forgotten American Majority." In what appears to be their first concerted action, the group issued a declaration to the American people on the dangers of precipitously pulling out of Iraq. If it all sounds familiar it's because it is. Think Viet Nam and the Moral Majority, think the last speech of the President and/or Vice President.

You may be under the impression that our constitution prohibits the government from attempting to convert people to Christianity--you know, that separation of church and state, First Amendment thing. But it doesn't seem to be stopping our military from proselytizing it's ever-more-Christian butt off, or assuming that nonbelievers are, at a minimum, defective in some way. I guess they think it's hard to fight for God & Country if you have the wrong (or no) God.

Yesterday's congressional testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker went pretty much the way almost everyone knew it was going to go. And the recommendation by those two gentlemen that we pretty much stick with current policy is based largely on the uncertainty of Iraq's outcome.

The cavalier discussion of American Empire and the American Century that not long ago permeated many political articles and organizations has died down considerably in light of our predicaments in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same predicaments and how we ended up in them, especially Iraq (and now the public discussion of the need to "do something" about Iran), also appear to be having an impact on both how foreigners view the US, and how Americans in the US feel about that view.

I sincerely thought my opinion of our erstwhile leader couldn't go lower. Then I read an excerpt of the new Bush biography Dead Certain, and a few other pieces about it. Looks like the Gonzales "I don't recall" disease infects the entire White House.

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