
It's a great picture. I'm glad that it doesn't endanger any lives or blame America or George Bush first. In fact, Rosie says she likes the picture.
Here's wishing Rosie O'Donnell and The View a great season in 2006-2007.
Links, commentary, and news on all things political and theatrical. Thespis is said to have introduced the first featured actor into dramatic performances which previously were presented exclusively by the chorus. His contemporary Solon resented him, with the explanation that what he showed on stage soon would be acted out in reality as well.

I'm not one to put much faith in opinion polls. But the other day, I came across an interesting set of statistics that I want to mention. It seems that the Pew Research Center asked opinion leaders in the United States their views of the prospects for a stable democracy in Iraq. Here were some of the results: 63% of people in the news media thought the enterprise would fail. So did 71% of people in the foreign affairs establishment and 71% in academic settings or think tanks.
Interestingly, opinion leaders from the U.S. military are optimistic about Iraq by a margin of 64% to 32%. And so is the American public, by a margin of 56% to 37%. And the Iraqi people are also optimistic. I've seen this demonstrated repeatedly--in public opinion polls, in the turnout for the elections, and that tips to authorities from ordinary Iraqis have grown from 483 to 4,700 tips in a month.
This prompts the question: Which view of Iraq is more accurate? The pessimistic view of so-called elites in our country--or the optimism expressed by millions of Iraqis and by the roughly 158,000 troops on the ground? But, most important is the question: why should Iraq's success or failure matter to the American people? I'd like to address these questions today.
From its very start, the ballyhooed case of who leaked the name of CIA analyst Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak has been drenched in partisan politics and media hypocrisy. The more we learn, however, the more it also reveals about the internal dysfunction of the Bush Administration and the lack of loyalty among some of its most senior officials.In other words, the leaker wasn't Karl Rove or Scooter Libby or anyone else in the White House who has been accused of running a conspiracy against Ms. Plame as revenge for her husband Joe Wilson's false accusations against the White House's case for war with Iraq. So what have the last three years been all about anyway? Political opportunism and internal score-settling, among other things.
While conspiracy theories can be used to weave an intricate plotline, the wild-eyed, totally contrived theories promulgated by liberals and their willing accomplices in the media are finally exposed as the deceitful heresy that has become the foundation of the democrat party. If democrats plan to use these fabricated mantras as Fall campaign slogans, the November elections should prove to be very entertaining.
"So, here is what we have. Valerie Plame uses here married name, her cover name, working at the CIA front company called Brewster-Jennings & Associates, contributes $1,000 to the Gore campaign. The media spins this as a revelation resulting from the Novak article-and of course, Karl Rove. But, this is not what this shows. What this shows is that Valerie Plame blew her own cover because she contributed to the campaign of Gore under the same name that she used for her undercover, her married name, and the name of a CIA front company that she worker for. So, Valerie Plame violates who knows what other kinds of protocol using her undercover name, exposing the existence of a CIA front company and all of this is totally ignored because supposedly her name was leaked and that is how people noticed. Now, this is a clever, clever attempt to try to spin the as she didn't do anything wrong. Why is it perfectly normal for an American and CIA agent to contribute and want to contribute to the Gore campaign."
“Let me be clear, however. I am not against textbooks, nor do I have it in for the big textbook publishers. I do not support the radical decentralization of instructional decisions to individual classroom teachers. My general beef with instructional materials is NOT the materials themselves. My frustration is that the structure of the market for educational materials does not reward innovation, does not reward effectiveness, and does not lead to general improvements in student performance.”
I keep saying this but here it is again: There are certain skills that intelligent persons simply must have, at certain ages. When one becomes a self-sustaining adult, (which status of course many 'adults' never attain because their families and they themselves allowed them to go through school without doing or learning anything!!!) (My SELF ESTEEM!!!!!!) a decent person will be armed with skills, marketable skills, with which to earn one's own living.Alexander at This Week in Education writes about the rate of Blogging, and the appropriate number of posts for an education blogger. There are two week totals of posts from several prominent education blogs and a comparison chart. This is Wicked good.

Kathie Bracy has more.


And then there are the victims, two blameless young men who are left with disabling injuries and the distinct impression that what happened to them matters less than the future of those who committed the thoughtless act.
In what apparently was supposed to be a prank, the Kenton boys stole a deer decoy and put it in the middle of a road last November so they could watch as motorists swerved to avoid it.
One driver, Robert Roby, Jr., crashed his car, suffering a broken neck, collar bone, arm, and leg. Now 19, he faces his 11th surgery to repair those injuries. His passenger, Dustin Zachariah, 18, wasn't as fortunate. He has brain damage.
The perpetrators, Dailyn Campbell, 16, and Jesse Howard, 17, pleaded no contest to charges of vehicular vandalism and juvenile delinquency counts of possession of criminal tools and theft.
The two were sentenced to house arrest, ordered to pay fines and restitution, and they must write 500-word essays on "Why I Should Think Before I Act." But they're still free to play with the Kenton Wildcats when the team opens its season next Friday. Their coach testified on their behalf.
While it may be true in theory that football builds character in young men, we believe the more important lesson to be taught is that criminal behavior - even a stupid prank gone awry - has serious consequences, and that there are worse things in life than missing a football season.


And, the Daily Kos loved it! In well over 300 comments, readers of the Daily Kos express their obvious glee at the meeting of Elphaba and Fiyero. (If lost, see the Wicked homepage). In the meantime, The Times, The Post, and The Daily Kos are cheering Hilary on in her latest display of unadulterated duplicity. These media outlets hold only conservatives accountable.
From the New York Post: August 26, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday jumped off the sidelines to throw the full weight of her monstrous political machine behind anti-war Democratic darling Ned Lamont - a move aimed at appeasing her liberal critics. To help Lamont thwart an independent general election challenge from Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, Clinton is loaning Lamont her trusted political spinmeister Howard Wolfson and vowing to help the political novice raise gobs of campaign cash. The relationship is mutually beneficial: While Lamont gets access to Clinton's campaign experts and fund-raisers; she can reap some of the liberal love being heaped on Lamont by party activists and bloggers. She revealed the stunning scope of her support over coffee during an hour-long meeting with Lamont, his wife Annie and his campaign manager Tom Swan at her Chappaqua home yesterday morning.
Poor Jack Murtha, he's tried everything, and he obviously can't help it. He will say anything to get back to the front and center of the mainstream media circus. He seems to know precisely what to say to return his name and picture to the front pages of the mainstream media. "Instead of deterring terrorism, our policies are fostering it," Murtha said. "We're spending $8 billion a month on this war, our courageous fighting men and women are being killed and maimed and we are wreaking havoc on Iraq. An end must be brought to this now.” Murtha truly believes that America has created the terrorism. His logic surely applies to pre-9.11 policy as well. Therefore, Murtha blames America for 9.11 and the entire scope of worldwide terrorism. What a fool! It looks like Murtha has the early lead for idiot of the week.To continue with the Wicked theme, Murtha seems to see himself as the great Wizard himself, behind the curtain, pulling the strings and pushing the buttons. Too bad Murtha already overplayed his hand, and pulled his own curtain away as he exposed his true motive: to run for majority leader when Nancy Pelosi ascends to Speaker. Murtha’s fifteen minutes of fame has probably just entered its final Act.
From the New York Daily News: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin refused to apologize for taking a cheap shot at the sluggish rebuilding of Ground Zero - but Mayor Bloomberg would not hit back. Bloomberg said he was "scrupulously avoiding criticizing anybody" and focused on the efforts New Yorkers made to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina last year. "We sent down police officers, firefighters, correction officers, equipment to New Orleans," Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show. "So I'll let Mayor Nagin worry about [rebuilding] New Orleans and I'll try to do everything I can to help the governor here." Nagin had upset some New York officials by invoking Ground Zero during a tour of New Orleans' still-decimated Ninth Ward in an attempt to deflect criticism about the pace of the cleanup in the Big Easy.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin criticized efforts to redevelop the World Trade Center site when confronted in a television interview about delays in rebuilding his city after Hurricane Katrina.
During the CBS "60 minutes" interview, a correspondent pointed out flood-damaged cars still on the streets of New Orleans' devastated Ninth Ward. Nagin replied, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later. So let's be fair," according to CBS.
In our war against Islamo-fascist terrorism, we face enemies both overt and covert. The overt enemies are, of course, the terrorists themselves. Their motives are clear: They hate our society because of its freedoms and liberties, and want to make us all submit to their totalitarian form of Islam. They are busy trying to wreak harm on us in any way they can. Against them we can fight back, as we did when British authorities arrested the men and women who were plotting to blow up a dozen airliners over the Atlantic.
Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. These covert enemies are those among our elites who have promoted the ideas labeled as multiculturalism, moral relativism and (the term is Professor Samuel Huntington's) transnationalism.
At the center of their thinking is a notion of moral relativism. No idea is morally superior to another. Hitler had his way, we have ours -- who's to say who is right? No ideas should be "privileged," especially those that have been the guiding forces in the development and improvement of Western civilization. Rich white men have imposed their ideas because of their wealth and through the use of force. Rich white nations imposed their rule on benighted people of color around the world. For this sin of imperialism they must forever be regarded as morally stained and presumptively wrong. Our covert enemies go quickly from the notion that all societies are morally equal to the notion that all societies are morally equal except ours, which is worse.
The Democratic Party still has no plan, and Ted Strickland is really nothing more than Ohio's Jimmy Carter. When push comes to shove, a lot of people are going to decide that - regardless of what they think about the Ohio GOP - Strickland is too liberal, too inexperienced, and too much like what we've already had.
This year's Democratic plan for the future is another inane sound bite designed to trick American voters into trusting them with national security.
To wit, they're claiming there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and while they're all for the war against terror — absolutely in favor of that war — they are adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. You know, the war where the U.S. military is killing thousands upon thousands of terrorists (described in the media as "Iraqi civilians," even if they are from Jordan, like the now-dead leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). That war.
As Howard Dean put it this week, "The occupation in Iraq is costing American lives and hampering our ability to fight the real global war on terror."
This would be like complaining that Roosevelt's war in Germany was hampering our ability to fight the real global war on fascism. Or anti-discrimination laws were hampering our ability to fight the real war on racism. Or dusting is hampering our ability to fight the real war on dust.




Fox News Channel reporter Steve Centanni and freelance cameraman Olaf Wiig are still missing. It has now been more than a week since their kidnapping at gunpoint in Gaza by unknown terrorists. FNC top management, the journalists' families, and Palestinian journalists continue to press for their release..
Following up on my post late Sunday night, some media types are now musing that one possible reason the story is not getting the attention it deserves is that there aren't any "new" developments to report. Vaughn Ververs, CJR Daily, and Stephen Spruiell at The Media Blog weigh in. TV blogs are covering the story: check TV Newser, Johnny Dollar, and Inside Cable News.
My opinion: No news is news. So is unchecked terrorist thuggery against Western journalists. The disappearance of Centanni and Wiig is at least as newsworthy as--and far more threatening to our national security than--people falling off cruise ships or getting eaten by alligators or attacked by bees.
Thanks Michelle and others covering this topic: MsUnderestimated, Hot Air, Media Blog, TV Newser and many others.