Rolled into La Crosse, WI an hour or so ago, after some 15 hours on the road. I’m not going to bore you with the details, but the doggies done good.
It’s a readers tips post for the time being – I still have around 20 hours of driving ahead before I’m home, and as you might well imagine, it’s going to be a couple of days before I get up to speed.
Thankyou again to the guest bloggers who have been doing such a great job keeping the place humming along.
Good night. Must sleep now.

You know how it works.

I’ve spending a couple of quiet days in a big log house in Maryland getting rested up for the “death march” of Montgomery County. We spent last weekend camping at the show site in Minchigan, so I’m almost completely out of the news loop, other than catching a bit of Fox last evening. (Though I did catch the news that the folks who built Olympic Stadium may have also been trying their hand in overpass construction.)
You can use this thread for readers tips and related commentary.

I have a busy day as I get ready for an extended road trip, plus – my connection has been extremely flaky for the last 36 hours. You can use this thread for readers tips, and related discussion.

Two of these things are kinda the same.
Keep track of your favourite blogs with Google Reader.
Elections in Yemen. No, really.
Operation Medusa wraps up – ” described as one of their biggest battles since the Second World War”.
Gunmen have shot dead

… an elderly Italian nun and her bodyguard in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
The attackers shot the nun three times in the back at a children’s hospital in the south of the city, before fleeing the scene.
It is unclear if the shooting is connected with strong criticism by a radical Somali cleric about the Pope’s recent comments on Islam.

Allah Akbar.

Dyslexic Muslim protesters burn effigy of Popeye.
And why not?

WAUKEGAN, Illinois (AP) – A coroner’s jury has declared the death of a heart attack victim who spent almost two hours in a hospital waiting room to be a homicide.

The Guantanamo Top Ten List.
The Gansta code of ethics;

There is a fine line between idealistic compassion and retardation. Methinks James Lathlin has crossed that cognitive Rubicon.

The comments are open for your own suggestions.

If Israel was the loser in Lebanon, why is Nasrallah still living in Undisclosed Locationland?
The Country the World forgot – Again. Also known as: The Country that forgot itself.
Several readers have sent links to this this video.
Adler on the anniversary of 9-11
Via The Corner;

The killing of the crusading deputy chairman [Andrei Kozlov] of Russia’s central bank is a clear signal that the criminal element which still has a presence in the Russian economy is not going to give up without a fight. Like Paul Klebnikov’s murder—also because he, as a journalist, was hot on the trail of a number of shady dealings—this was, in my opinion, a “demonstration” killing—interfere too much in our affairs, and pay the price—and by the way, we can still subvert Putin’s efforts to impose law and order from time to time.
[…]
What remains to be seen is whether, like the Beslan attacks, the murder of Kozlov is used by Putin as the basis for further centralization of power—but the murder is also a reminder that all the best written plans for law and order are useless if you can subvert the personnel who are expected to carry them out.

Use the comments for your own.

If there wasn’t a California, they’d have to invent one.
Stephen Green – “When some smart hawk you know compares the Current Mess to the Cold War, tell them, ‘You wish, brother.'”
Deciphering Reuters;

They were “gunmen” who were “shouting religious slogans”. A Syrian government official is willing to speculate as to their Muslim terrorist motives, but the wires are (a) sticking with the non-offensive non-terrorist label and (b) take no notice of what religion the religious slogans were from. Could be any religion, really. Didn’t Debka publish something recently about how US HUMINT has picked up a lot of fundamentalist Unitarian unrest in the region lately?

(lots more at that link on the foiled U.S. embassy attack in Damascus )
Well, Clinton lawyers got what ABC wanted – Drudge FLASH: – ABC ‘PATH TO 9-11’ TOP RATED SHOW OF MONDAY NIGHT… 8.3 RATING/12 SHARE FOR ABC MOVIE, BEAT ‘CSI: MIAMI’ RERUN [6.8/11] AND NBC 9-11 ‘DATELINE’ [3.7/6]… DEVELOPING…
Did anyone else catch the attempted hatchet job on “Path to 9-11” by the (Chicago Sun-Times?) reviewer who appeared on Charles Adler last week? One suspects his motivations went beyond artistic considerations.
Add your own in the comments.

A few links, starting with this “must read” by Robert Sibley in the Ottawa Citizen ;

Sept. 11 was what the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel would undoubtedly call a “world-historical moment”; which is to say, the terrorist attacks forced a fundamental shift in the way we think (or should think) about the world. Simply stated: On Sept. 11, 2001, a half-hidden war against western civilization and all that it represents was finally made explicit for all to see. Only the most naive or ideologically purblind deny this. “Is there a war on?” asks Italian philosopher Marcello Pera. “My answer is: from Afghanistan to Kashmir, to Chechnya, to the Philippines, to Saudia Arabia, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, and elsewhere, in a great part of the Islamic and Arabic world, groups consisting of fundamentalists, radicals, and extremists — the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, the Armed Islamic Group, and many others — have declared war, jihad, against the West. They have said it, written it, diffused it in plain speech. Why should we not take action?”
[…]
“We should be confident of the superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given people widespread prosperity in those countries that embrace it, and guarantees respect for human rights and religion,” Mr. Berlusconi said in late September of 2001. “This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries. … We must be conscious of the strength and force of our civilization.”
[…]
To say one civilization or culture is better than another is one of the Great Taboos nowadays, at least if you subscribe to the postmodern shibboleths of multiculturalism, multi-racialism, egalitarianism, relativism, post-structuralism, etc. There is one exception, of course. If the civilization you love to hate has its roots in European Christian culture, well, that’s all right, then. You can have a nice career as a professor or a newspaper columnist denouncing the traditions and values of western civilization, even as you enjoy the best that civilization has to offer.
Nevertheless, Berlusconi was right — assuming you think societies that allow religious freedom, free speech, human rights, etc. are “superior” to those that forbid the open practise of all religions, denounce non-believers as less that human and impose death sentences of those who dare criticize the faith. If you don’t assume the former is better than the latter — if you disagree with Berlusconi — then you really need to ask yourself why you live in the West. To partake of its material benefits while denouncing its fundamental values is the life of a parasite. This isn’t to say you’re obliged to worship all things western. To the contrary, one of the secrets of the West’s vitality is its openness to rational self-criticism (at least until recent decades). But to be “anti-western” while partaking of the benefits of western society is, to say the least, to live with a false and hypocritical consciousness. But that perhaps describes the zeitgeist for many contemporary intellectuals in these early years of the Age of Terror.

Emphasis mine.
A CanWest poll reveals just how widely this intellectual rot has taken hold in Canadians – “More than one in five Canadians believe the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were orchestrated not by al-Qaeda terrorists but by Americans looking for a pretext for war in Iraq, according to a new poll.” .
Katherine Kersten Minneapolis Star Tribune; “Poisoned political atmosphere fuels conspiracy theories” and the poisoned minds behind them – you’ll find plenty of examples of that in the comments section here.
I was listening, coincidentally enough, to a U of Sask political science prof explaining in a radio interview that American foreign policy was the number one source of terrorism, as I clicked on this piece by Michael Ledeen;

There are many who are saying that we have lost that anger, that we have reverted to a 9/10 state of mind. I have my doubts.
Certainly nobody in my house has reverted, and my sense of the American people is that they have not either. But many of our opposition leaders, journalists, broadcasters, and editors, and, apparently, the overwhelming majority of the professoriate, clearly have. Otherwise it would not be possible for them to actively undermine the war.It is wrong to say they have forgotten the significance of 9/11, because they never grasped it. For them, patriotism has always been unworthy of sophisticates like themselves, and fighting enemies on foreign battlefields is something that rubes and rednecks do. They understand neither the world nor their fellow countrymen. They think we can achieve peace by being nice–did you hear Senator Biden prattling on and on about the need to talk to our Iranian enemies?—and they don’t know that our commissioned officers are college graduates, many of them from the best universities. I doubt more than a small fraction of leading journalists know that you need a college degree to get a Marine commission. Their ignorance about, and contempt for our military, fester beneath the surface of their reportage.

Terrorism and Market Preparation – “At 9:30 a.m. on September 17, a bell was rung on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and trading resumed as it has for 209 years.”. Submitted by reader “Emmanuel”, who writes;

Here is an article that reminds us that all those who died on the ground in NYC had one thing in common, capitalism. And, although many saw the rapid resumption of trading as a sign of greed, most saw it as the proof that the free world is far stronger than the strongest
terrorists.

Peggy Noonan;

Something terrible had happened. Life was reduced to its essentials. Time was short. People said what counted, what mattered. It has been noted that there is no record of anyone calling to say, “I never liked you,” or, “You hurt my feelings.”

David Frum – “Five years on—and how little we have learned”.
Clearly, some are incapable;

A year and a half ago I was walking down a residential street in Brooklyn NY. I think it was 15th St. near the Prospect Park subway station. I came upon a block where every lamp post, sign post, telephone pole, fire hydrant and I think even the trees were all painted red white and blue. They had literally painted the flag on everything on the street. The colours were starting to fade just enough that you could tell it was direct response to 9/11. When I looked at the houses I saw that many of them had memorials in the windows, teddy bears in fire, police and military uniforms with signs saying “we will never forget”. I concluded that the block must have suffered heavy casualties in the disaster and I acknowledged their grief even if I couldn’t fully appreciate it.
But I found the place to be really creepy, not because I found myself suddenly confronted with such a public display of mourning, but because as a Canadian I’m not accustomed to such blatant displays of patriotism and I’m certainly not accustomed to people expressing their grief through patriotism.

Disbelief, mine.
This is a dedicated readers tips post – share your own (9/11 related items only, please) in the comments. Links to your own blog posts are welcome, as always.

“COSTIN, the owner and director of operations for DataUSA, was charged with conspiracy to engage and engaging in a wire fraud scheme to defraud clients of DataUSA by falsifying and fabricating survey results.“
The NDP convention gets off on a rocky start. So, they’ve decided to close the doors to the public.
The Ruxted Group on the Afghanistan debate: What Harper should say.

It has been suggested that our soldiers are winning on the battlefield while the government is losing the war in the nation’s cable television system. We will try, today, to explain to Members of Parliament and to the people of Canada why we are in Afghanistan and why we need to stay the course.

Adrienne Clarkson has a few stories to share;

It was July 20, 2004, the day the Liberal minority government was being sworn in at Rideau Hall. Such an occasion, by tradition, was a most formal event. But there were some of the prime minister’s chief aides dressed in T-shirts and running shoes.

Any guesses as to which ones?
Add yours in the comments.

More Contests – win a DVD of United 93 from Greg Staples.
A report on anti-Semitism in the UK;

We conclude that calls to boycott contact with academics working in Israel are an assault on academic freedom and intellectual exchange. We recommend that pro-democracy lecturers in the new University and College Lecturers Union are given every support to combat such selective boycotts that are anti-Jewish in practice. We would urge the new union’s executive and leadership to oppose the boycott.

Making Sars look like gingivitis.
The National Citizens Coalition has something for NDP MP Jean Crowder.
Advertising’s best kept secret – it takes a graphic artist about 2 hours to come up with one of these – if they’re good at what they do. The rest of the time is spent writing after-the-fact bafflegab that speaks to the “brand”, to distract the client from the $3 million/hr design rate.
Thanks for all the items you’ve sent – if I didn’t use yours, feel free to share it in the comments.

The Blogging Tories have added a new feature – Forums
The Carnival of Liberty (link fixed!)
Turning coal into oil – a 60 year old technology whose time has come.
Yet another source for the blogosphere. Google is adding “the ability to search through more than 200 years of historical newspaper archives”.
The NDP draft policy resolutions make the National Post this morning;

Canada’s troops in Afghanistan have been “acting like terrorists, destroying communities, killing and maiming innocent people”, according to a resolution that will be voted on by New Democrats at the party’s convention in Quebec City this weekend.

Captain Capitalism and the Canadian Invasion.
Add your own in the comments.

I’m heading out for the remainder of the weekend, so this is all you get until Tuesday. Maybe I’ll run into you at the Riders-Bomber game. (I’ll be the one without green face paint.) If I can get computer access, I’ll do my best to free up comments caught by the filter, but no promises.
Besides, it’s much too nice a weekend to be reading blogs – get out and enjoy it before it’s gone.
And a reminder to keep sending those entries in for the Kate-O-Shop contest!

More terror raids in the UK overnight.
The Washington Post had been reading the blogosphere, they’d have figured this out months ago. And now, there are finally questions being asked about the conduct of Plame prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, You don’t say?
The CBC gets letters!
An NDP MP goes AWOL on Jack Layton.
A reminder – check out the new National Newswatch aggregator as a source for breaking news items.
Add your own in the comments.
And don’t forget the Kate-O-Shop contest! There are several entries in already.

The Budweiser commercial I want to see. (link fixed)
An essay by Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club;

Neither Israel nor the West at large can long resist radical Islam without some sustaining faith of its own, a faith it will not find unless it makes up its mind to look for it.”

Suckered again.
It’s time for conservatives to put this contentious pilot project behind us so that we can move forward on a “harm reduction” initiative with real live-saving meat on its bones – Safe Driving Lanes for alcoholics.
Add your own in the comments.

For blogosphere “old timers” here’s a real treat Steven Den Beste makes a guest appearance.
To the utter disinterest of world media, the rockets are still flying in Gaza
This would read much better in crayon.
A CITIZEN JOURNALIST commemorates the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in the only way he knows how.
An update on blogosphere Liberal leadership endorsements. I know. The whole notion of “endorsing” a Liberal is counterintuitive, but humour them. (Hey, Ted – what t’hell happened to my vote for Volpe?)
The comments are open for yours.

CNN’s Kyra Phillips – skirt down, mike open.
Hitchens on the whimpering demise of Plamegate.

In his July 12 column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak had already partly exposed this paranoid myth by stating plainly that nobody had leaked anything, or outed anyone, to him. On the contrary, it was he who approached sources within the administration and the CIA and not the other way around. But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq has—like Robert Novak’s—long been a byword in Washington. It is particularly satisfying that this admission comes from two of the journalists—Michael Isikoff and David Corn—who did the most to get the story wrong in the first place and the most to keep it going long beyond the span of its natural life.

When a Liberal talks about a “national food policy”, think “Canadian Wheat Board For Everything”.
Stanley Kurtz – Our Fallout Shelter Future, in National Review.
Comments are open for yours.

I’m still sick. So, it’s a readers tips post for now, and I’ll be back later.
For those interested in the ongoing discussion on feminism, this post by Maxed Out Mamma ;

I meant what I said about women not being able to be honest about what they want, and then taking out their unhappiness and insecurity on men.

MIchael Totten;

Here’s a dispatch with tons of photos from Israel’s second rocket war, the one on the border with Gaza, the one almost every journalist in the country is completely ignoring for whatever reason.

The death of multi-culturalism in the UK – “How right wing the left sounds after its moment of racial truth”
Leave yours in the comments. Behave yourselves. As I mentioned earlier, NeoCitron brings out my mean streak.

I’ve been sick all week, work and housecleaning are both behind in schedule, so I’m taking the rest of the blogging day off. Before I do, a few reader tips and stuff I’ve spotted while surfing;
Dust art.
After hearing their exchange on Charles Adler yesterday (where guest host Roy Green surprised Denis Coderre with an unannounced appearance by Jason Kenney), I was planning a post on this poor man’s tempest in a teapot – but Steve Janke beat me to it.
Revisiting this famous lie and the lying liar who told it;

“Now, let’s imagine the future. What if [Saddam] fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who’s really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.”

RTWT.
Warren Kinsella was a wee bit inconsistant yesterday.
Is it not time to disallow the combination of the words “UN” and “demands” in the same sentence? Or– “How I learned to stop worrying about the bomb and worry, instead, that some crazy Persians might actually USE the freakin’ thing”
Uh oh – “This is going to piss off Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
And don’t forget to vote for Preston!
Thanks for the others you all sent that I wasn’t able to use (due to time constraints or heavy coverage elsewhere). Feel free to drop them again in the comments.

“In a recent poll, more Iraqis, who live in Iraq, say Iraq is headed the right direction than Americans who merely watch TV reports about Iraq or read newspaper reports about Iraq.”
A bracelet campaign I can finally get behind.
The risks of marrying a “career” woman;

If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy ( Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill ( American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research).

Robert Marshall asks a pretty simple question of media.
Add your own in the comments.