In spite of the late posting, all of this will be on tomorrow's quiz:

From The New York Times, "The Choice They Made" by William Kristol. The Founding Fathrs are not only still relevant today - we need them more than ever.

From the Wall Street Journal, "The Tragic End of Bush's North Korea Policy" by John Bolton. Read it and weep.

From NRO's The Corner, "Obama Zigzags on Iraq" by Pete Hegseth. At least Obama's about to flip-flop in the right direction. Probably.

From the Wall Street Journal, "Obama's Dry Hole" by the editors. Trying to introduce facts into the energy debate. Silly Journal. (What does Obama need with oil since in his view the gas-less car is only a few years away?)

From the New York Times, "Anxious in America" by Tom Friedman. Sample quote: "We need nation-building at home, and we cannot wait another year to get started. Vote for the candidate who you think will do that best. Nothing else matters." Nothing else matters? Does that mean I can now use my priceless collection of Tom Friedman books on the Middle East as doorjambs? Finally!

Bonus: From the This Ain't Hell blog, "Guantanamo Protest in DC." Behold! The lamest protest in the history of protesting!

Ben Smith reports that Medal of Honor recipient Col. Bud Day, one of the veterans defending McCain's service, was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Smith notes the apparent irony that "The Arizona Republican was among the first to condemn the Swift Boat ads, calling one 'dishonest and dishonorable.'"

But Smith fails to mention is that McCain also told CBS in 2004 that "what John Kerry did after the war is very legitimate, political discussion and controversy."

And if any reporter took the time to watch the actual ads put out by the Swift Vets, he would see that the ads primarily focused on John Kerry's 1971 congressional testimony that American troops tortured, raped, and murdered Vietnamese civilians "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

As Vietnam veteran Mackubin Thomas Owens wrote in January of 2004:

If [John Kerry] believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service. Who can be proud of committing war crimes of the sort that Kerry recounted in his 1971 testimony? But if he is proud of his service today, perhaps it is because he always knew that his indictment in 1971 was a piece of political theater that he, an aspiring politician, exploited merely as a "good issue." If the latter is true, he should apologize to every veteran of that war for slandering them to advance his political fortunes.

Barack Obama is going to solve the economic problems of hardworking Americans, according to his new ad "Dignity":

The ad claims that Obama "helped lift neighborhoods stung by job loss." By "lift" does Obama mean consigned to hell on earth?

The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else.

But it's not safe to live here.

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing.

As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.

But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obama's former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama's constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted....

The campaign did not respond to questions about whether Obama was aware of the problems with buildings in his district during his time as a state senator, nor did it comment on the roles played by people connected to the senator.

Not exactly a chicken in every pot and a Prius in every garage, now is it?

This marks the eighth Democrat to denigrate McCain's military service:

a former Obama adviser and top Democratic voice on foreign policy argued Monday that the former POW's isolation during the Vietnam War has hobbled the Arizona senator's capacity as a war-time leader.

“Sadly, Sen. McCain was not available during those times, and I say that with all due respect to him," said Rand Beers. "I think that the notion that the members of the Senate who were in the ground forces or who were ashore in Vietnam have a very different view of Vietnam and the cost that you described than John McCain does because he was in isolation essentially for many of those years and did not experience the turmoil here or the challenges that were involved for those of us who served in Vietnam during the Vietnam war."

"So I think," he continued, "to some extent his national security experience in that regard is sadly limited and I think it is reflected in some of the ways that he thinks about how U.S. forces might be committed to conflicts around the world."

This morning, the McCain campaign held a conference call to rebut Wesley Clark's statement that John McCain's getting "getting shot down" isn't a qualification to become president. Sen. John Warner said that Obama displayed an "exercise of poor judgment to allow an individual like Clark ... to come in and do this attack." Col. Bud Day pointed out that when McCain was shot down, Hanoi was "most heavily defended city in the world."

At an event in Pennsylvania, McCain responded to the attack:

“I think that that kind of thing is unnecessary,” Mr. McCain said. “I’m proud of my record of service and I have plenty of friends and leaders who will attest to that. If that’s the kind of campaign that Senator Obama and his surrogates and supporters want to engage in, I understand that. But it doesn’t reduce the price of a gallon of gas by a penny, it doesn’t bring us any closer to energy independence, doesn’t keep anyone in their home or address the challenges Americans have in keeping their homes, their jobs and supporting their families.”

Asked if he wanted an apology from Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain said, “That’s certainly up to Senator Obama.”

Obama's spokesman says that Obama "rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark." During a speech today in Independence, Missouri, Obama said:

for those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country – no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary. And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides. We must always express our profound gratitude for the service of our men and women in uniform. Period. Full stop.

But Clark didn't challenge McCain's patriotism--Clark said that McCain's experience "getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president."

Andy McCarthy perfectly captured the absurdity of Obama's statement on McCain's patriotism: "He's not gonna question McCain's patriotism? What a tremendous concession! Tune in tomorrow when Obama announces he will never question whether Shaquille O'Neal is really tall."

Jim Geraghty notes that Clark is the seventh Democrat to challenge McCain's service. Doesn't Obama need to personally disavow Clark's statement? Or maybe this is the kind of attack Obama had in mind when he pledged: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

The words "children's rights" and "discrimination" take on new meaning:

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party. The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament. The school, in Lund, southern Sweden, argues that if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination.

The boy's father has lodged a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman. He says the two children were left out because one did not invite his son to his own party and he had fallen out with the other one.

Doesn't the Swedish Parliament have better things to do than forcing a couple eight-year-olds to make up? Maybe the answer is no now that I think about it. So perhaps the take away is, as well-adjusted Americans, it never took an act of Congress to secure our invitation to a classmate's party.

Gallup posts new data this morning on the congressional generic ballot that deserves a look. If anything, I’m a little surprised the numbers aren’t worse for the Republicans, given shifts in party identification in the past several years toward Democrats and President Bush’s approval level.

A few points of perspective: First, this spread will likely close as the election approaches--particularly if the presidential contest remains highly competitive. Gallup notes:

Voter turnout typically helps the Republicans narrow any Democratic advantage seen in pre-election polls based on all registered voters. That was the case in 2004, when the Republicans trailed the Democrats by four percentage points among registered voters in Gallup's final pre-election survey, 45% to 49%, but the Republicans went on to win 47% of the national popular vote, and a 30-seat majority in Congress.

Second, the generic ballot is a good, but not perfect, predictor of House seats gained/lost. The question is highly correlated with the average total number of votes each party wins in the aggregate. But due to other variables--like the way congressional district lines are drawn--a party’s average share of the national vote doesn’t always neatly translate to seats gained/lost at the district level. Third, research shows the generic question is more highly correlated with House seats gained/lost in midterm elections than in presidential years.

Still, any party would rather lead than lag when it comes to this generic question. And since 1950, when Gallup first started reporting this data, Republicans have only held an advantage twice (1994 and 2002)--both years saw the GOP win more votes nationally and more House seats than did Democrats.

Using grown-up words on standardized tests in Britain get kids extra-credit, not detention.

Peter Buckroyd, chief examiner of English for the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), an examination board, said swear words should gain positive marks if the spelling and punctuation is correct.

In one case a pupil who wrote a two-word obscenity in answer to the question "Describe the room you're sitting in", on a 2006 GCSE paper was given two marks out a possible 27 for the expletive, 7.5 per cent, by Mr Buckroyd.

Had he punctuated it with an exclamation mark this would have risen to 11 per cent.

And if he had used three exclamation points, one imagines the AQA would have awarded the boy a passing mark. On math tests, do graders give partial credit to students, asked to find x, who circle it in the equation and write, "there it is"? How many points for YGTBFKM?

In place of a comprehensive energy plan, Barack Obama blames the oil companies for rising prices, alleging that they have the means to increase our supply of oil if only they would drill on the federal lands they've already leased.

"I want you to think about this," Barack Obama said in Las Vegas last week. "The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill. They're allowed to
drill it, and yet they haven't touched it -- 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production."

Today the Wall Street Journal takes on the allegation:

[Obama's claim] assume[s] that every acre of every lease holds the same amount of oil and gas. [T]he existence of a lease does not guarantee that the geology holds recoverable resources. Brian Kennedy of the Institute for Energy Research quips that, using the same extrapolation, the 9.4 billion acres of the currently nonproducing moon should yield 654 million barrels of oil per day.

Seymour Hersh's latest opus focuses on the threat posed by Iran. He cites no reason to doubt that Iran's nuclear enrichment program is strictly for civilian use, and he fails to ask what conceivable reason a country with Iran's oil reserves could have for nuclear power other than to build a weapon. If the Iranian government were peaceful-minded, for example, wouldn't it instead invest in increasing its refining capacity? And perhaps stop saying it wanted to destroy the United States and Israel?

In Hersh's head, the notion that Iran is openly hostile to the U.S., killing our soldiers in Iraq, is something of a mass delusion on the part of the Bush administration. Consider the following paragraph:

[T]he Administration also revived charges that the Iranian leadership has been involved in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq: both directly, by dispatching commando units into Iraq, and indirectly, by supplying materials used for roadside bombs and other lethal goods. (There have been questions about the accuracy of the claims; the Times, among others, has reported that “significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement.”)

The Times article, however, makes plain several points Hersh implies are in dispute. First, the piece confirms, "Iran's Quds Force had developed a formal and sophisticated training program that included five courses on tactics, leadership, training, commando operations and weapons and explosives." Second, it cites interviews with "two dozen military, intelligence and administration officials" in reporting that Iran's "shipments of arms had continued in recent months despite an official Iranian pledge to stop the weapons flow." So what are "significant uncertainties" to which Hersh refers? Well, the article does say the shipments of arms had "not necessarily increased." In other words, uncertainty exists not over whether weapons are being shipped, but whether the rate of the shipments have accelerated.

Setting aside whether this constitutes a "significant" uncertainty, there is also reason to question Hersh's use of the word "uncertain." After all, there seems to be general agreement in the Times account that Iran is involved in shipping weapons to terrorists and training them to go fight U.S. forces, consistently so and despite its promise to desist.

Last week Chinese authorities released Zha Jianguo, vice chairman of the Beijing-Tianjin branch of the outlawed China Democracy Party (CDP). Zha had served out a nine-year prison sentence for "subverting state power." Last week also marked the 10th anniversary of the founding of Zha's party.

During a period of political thaw known as the "new Beijing Spring," the CDP attempted to officially register with the Chinese government. In March 1998, China announced its intention to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, giving hope to the country's political activists. Grossly overestimating the government's tolerance for dissent, on June 25, 1998--as then-president Clinton began his nine-day state visit to China--CDP members in the eastern province of Zhejiang signed and posted on the Internet a declaration announcing the establishment of the party's local preparatory committee. It stated:

All political power can come only from the public and can only be [used] in the service of the public; a government can only come into being according to the wishes of the public and [can only] act according to the wishes of the public; a government is the servant of the public and not the one which controls it.

The crackdown on the CDP began shortly after Clinton's visit ended. Undeterred, CDP members, including Zha Jianguo, continued their efforts to form what would have been the first opposition party in China since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. By December 1998, when three key figures of the movement--Xu Wenli, Wang Youcai, and Qin Yongmin--were tried and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, CDP branches or preparatory committees had been set up in more than 20 provinces throughout the country.

The arrest and jailing of CDP supporters continued well into 2000. More than 30 current or former CDP members remain in prison or in reeducation-through-labor camps, their names fading from the pages of international media as more attention-grabbing headlines dominate the landscape. Zha Jianguo, for instance, had disappeared from the list of Chinese political prisoners published annually by human rights groups. As Zha's sister lamented in a moving tribute to him published in The New Yorker last year, "the world has moved on."

But Zha Jianguo had long ago recognized that his conduct was placing him at great personal risk. In an interview with foreign media six months before his arrest in July 1999, Zha had this to say:

Democracy is a process, and in that process a small number of people will be sacrificed. We want to use our sacrifice to arouse the people, and we believe that sacrifice is worthwhile.

Last week, German defense minister Franz-Josef Jung announced that Berlin plans to send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan this fall to support the NATO-led military effort there. This deployment will bring the number of Bundeswehr ISAF soldiers to 4,500, bolstering Germany’s position as the third-largest troop contributor to the Afghanistan mission after the United States and the UK. At the same time, defense minister Jung also said that Germany would cut the maximum number of troops deployed under the separate OEF mandate--which allows Bundeswehr soldiers and several German navy vessels to participate in U.S.-led anti-terror operations in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, etc.--from 1,400 to 800 this fall. Unlike ISAF, the OEF mission is not specifically covered by a UN Security Council resolution. Furthermore, on July 1, Germany is taking over the NATO Quick Reaction Force from Norway. This is a potentially dangerous, “highly kinetic” rapid-response mission designed to protect ISAF troops against Taliban ambushes.

As required by the German constitution, the strengthened ISAF mandate must be approved by parliament in October. The new mandate will have a 14-month term--rather than the usual one-year duration--in a calculated move to keep the Bundeswehr’s politically controversial Afghanistan mission out of Germany’s next hotly contested general election on September 27, 2009. Last week, the German Bundestag’s budget committee also approved about $750 million in additional military procurement, including 98 state-of-the-art armored “Dingo 2” vehicles that are used by Bundeswehr troops in Afghanistan.

For Chancellor Merkel and her conservative CDU/CSU allies, the beefed-up Afghanistan deployment carries significant political risks. After all, more than two-thirds of the German population are in favor of a swift Bundeswehr withdrawal from Afghanistan. So far, Angela Merkel’s left-wing SPD “grand coalition” partner remains largely supportive of her Afghanistan policy; the same goes for the Greens--even though both parties would prefer to put more emphasis on the reconstruction component rather than the anti-terrorist component of the NATO deployment. For the SPD and the Greens, of course, a sudden populist volte-face is not easy to pull off politically; after all, it was the previous left-wing Red-Green coalition government under Chancellor Schroeder that first decided to deploy German Bundeswehr troops to Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

So far, only the populist Left Party is running on a clear “Out of Afghanistan Now!” platform. For them, this issue provides a golden opportunity to attract far-left SPD supporters as well as pacifist voters from other parties to their ranks. And indeed, the Left Party is surging in national opinion polls (now standing at 15 percent) while the SPD is hovering around an all-time low of about 22 percent.

Joseph Lieberman was on Face the Nation, and the one-time Democrat explained just why he is so disillusioned with his former party and their presidential nominee. “My problem is with the party overall, for sure. In other words, this is a separation that has occurred mostly on matters of foreign and defense policy, where I feel very strongly that the party that I joined when President John F. Kennedy was its leader, a party that believed in progressive government at home and a principled, strong internationalist foreign policy, economic policy, pro-trade; that party is not represented by the leaders today. And that's why I decided to endorse Senator McCain. I did it last December, when all the candidates in both parties were there, and I did it for two main reasons. One is that John McCain is ready to be commander in chief on day one. He knows the world, he's been tested, he's ready to protect the security of the American people.”

Flip flopping is becoming a key part of the election cycle. On Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol tried to guess the next evolution in Obama’s beliefs. “The next big flip for Obama, and this will make Brit [Hume] even more astonished, will be on Iraq. He’s going to go to Iraq, meet with General Petraeus, decide the surge is working, and walk back from his immediate, unconditional withdrawal. And all of the sudden it’s going to be very careful, gradual, honorable withdrawal.”

Hugh Hewitt, meanwhile, wondered what impact Obama’s lack of consistency will have on a key group of voters. “The Nation and the Huffington Post readers are very comfortable with Obama; it doesn’t matter what he says, they’re going to turn out in huge numbers. What’s important is that middle. And what John McCain did in Lordstown … John McCain said, as he has always said, I’m a free trader. The way to persevere in the economic renewal of America is with free trade. He doesn’t change, he doesn’t shift.”

Meet the Press featured an interview with California governor and McCain supporter, Arnold Schwarzenegger. McCain, the governator said, “is terrific with the environment. He has been there four years ago and stood by my side when I talked about the environment, when I talked about the--fighting global warming and putting together a good energy policy and starting with the green building initiative or start building the hydrogen highway in California and the million solar roof initiative. He was there and he supported me on every step of the way, so he's the real deal when it comes to the environment.”

On CBS's Face the Nation this morning, Obama surrogate Gen. Wesley Clark said of John McCain: "I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president."

The McCain campaign responded with a statement from Admiral Leighton "Snuffy" Smith:

If Barack Obama wants to question John McCain's service to his country, he should have the guts to do it himself and not hide behind his campaign surrogates. If he expects the American people to believe his pledges about a new kind of politics, Barack Obama has a responsibility to condemn these attacks.

Clark's attack is a bit like saying that JFK's boat getting sunk wasn't a qualification to become president in 1960. Can you imagine the outrage if someone said that Clark's getting shot four times in Vietnam didn't count as a qualification for the presidency?

When choosing a commander-in-chief, most voters do take into account the courage and heroism that candidates displayed while serving their country.

McCain's citation for the Distinguished Flying Cross states: "Although his aircraft was severely damaged, he continued his bomb delivery pass and released his bombs on the target. When the aircraft would not recover from the dive, Commander McCain was forced to eject over the target." Does Clark know this?

Is Clark unaware that McCain won a Silver Star for resisting "extreme mental and physical cruelties" inflicted upon him by his North Vietnamese captors? Or that McCain won the Navy Commendation Medal for declining early release?

The man that Clark supports, Sen.Obama, routinely refers to McCain's heroism.

Shouldn’t Clark apologize personally to McCain? Shouldn’t Obama disavow Clark’s comments?

A Quinnipiac poll shows that majorities in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Colorado oppose withdrawing all troops within 18 months. Obama plans to withdraw all combat troops in 16 months.

Earlier this week, an AP poll found that voters think McCain would handle the war better than Obama. The McCain Report predicts the mother of all flip-flops from Obama on Iraq within the next month.

If Representative William Delahunt from Massachusetts had to choose sides in that fight, it seems he would choose al Qaeda over Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. At the end of a televised House Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, where Addington appeared under subpoena, Delahunt said that he was glad the world's most lethal terrorist organization finally got a glimpse of the low-profile official.

"I'm sure they [al Qaeda] are watching, and I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you, Mr. Addington, given your penchant for being unobtrusive."

You might think that whatever the state of partisan Washington it would be unacceptable for a sitting Member of Congress to hope that al Qaeda gets a chance to see a senior executive branch official, not-so-subtly wishing him ill. Apparently it's okay. Dana Milbank, the Washington Post's resident snarkist who included the exchange in his column, was more outraged that Addington's "unbridled hostility" toward committee Democrats than he was with Delahunt's odious comment.

Delahunt tried to walk his comment back yesterday. His explanation makes no sense. Powerline has more.

An apology -- at least -- would seem appropriate. I'm not holding my breath.

UPDATE: It's nice to see someone else who thinks it's outrageous.

Those who are crammed in under the Obama campaign bus better make room for one more guest. Philadelphia's subtly named The Bulletin (I've never heard of it either) reports:

Gen. Merrill A. McPeak, the most senior retired general advisor the Obama campaign, raised a few eyebrows when he suggested John McCain, the former POW and presumptive nominee, is, shall we say, pleasantly plump.

"He was fresh out of jail, you know," Gen. McPeak told the Washington Times. Both he and Mr. McCain sat in the same National War College class in 1973-74.

"Skinny kid. All beat up of course, physically. But quite thin. They weren't feeding him very well in Hanoi. He's done very well at the dinner table in Washington," the general added.

It's a good thing Obama is so repulsed by even the thought of personal insults inveighing on his upliftingly pristine campaign. If he weren't, can you imagine how ugly his supporters' comments would be?

Yesterday, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff David Addington refused to discuss particular interrogation techniques during a meeting on Capitol Hill because al Qaeda could benefit from such communications being broadcast on television. Democratic Congressman Delahunt replied: “I’m sure they are watching. I’m glad they finally have a chance to see you, Mr. Addington, given your penchant for being unobtrusive."

Delahunt claims he was trying to say "I have a chance to see you," rather than "they." It sure doesn't seem that way when you watch the video.

This wouldn't have been the first time Delahunt expressed a friendly attitude toward our enemies. In the past, he expressed gratitude to Hugo Chavez for impoverishing the people of Venezuela to help the people of Massachusetts.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Democratic National Convention issued the following mandates:

No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation.

The DNC has also ordered baseball caps made of organic cotton by unionized labor and will use "biofuel made from beer waste to power the convention's fleet of flex-fuel vehicles," according to the Journal.

Denver's mayor John Hickenlooper says that the Democrats' green convention is a display of "the new patriotism".

One wonders what Mayor Hickenlooper must think about the patriotism of Republicans gathering in Minnesota. The St. Paul city council has voted in favor permitting bars to close at 4 a.m. during the Republican National Convention, and the RNC spokemsan says Republicans will be "drinking our beer, not burning it."

And what will the Democratic food police think of all the Republicans heading to Minnesota State Fair, where gluttons will be chowing down a few deep fried Twinkies, or, for those preferring lighter fare, deep fried cheese curds and a pork chop on a stick?

Why does the UN need to blame Israel for supposedly violating a truce?

As Ace noted a couple days ago, MSNBC had effectively declared Israel Violates Hamas Ceasefire By Allowing Itself to Be Attacked By Rockets.

Isn't it a bit redundant for the UN to speak out after House of Olbermann has already declared an international consensus?

A new Pew Research study on trends in online political news consumption shows that only 40 percent of all adults report getting news or information about the election via the Internet. Forty percent?

Imagine that. Some Americans aren’t hunched over a computer screen waiting for the next polling update on Real Clear Politics or cursing their Blackberry browser because it’s too slow pulling up THE WEEKLY STANDARD Blog.

But the report also suggests it won’t be long before even more Americans get their political news online. Consider this trend.

At this point in the 2004 election cycle, 31% of Americans had used the internet to get political news and information. The jump to 40% who say this now is even more striking because the population of online political users already exceeds the number of Americans who had used the internet for politics in the entire 2004 campaign. Moreover, the proportion of Americans getting political news and information on any given day in the spring of 2008 has more than doubled, compared with a similar period in 2004. In May and June of 2004, about 8% of adults were using the internet on a typical day to stay in touch with political developments. In April and May of this year, 17% of adults are getting political news online on a typical day.

Pew also notes the growth of two other online political modes--10 percent report using social networking sites for election activities and 35 percent watch online videos (such as on YouTube) about politics. Each of these figures has grown phenomenally.

So even if a majority of Americans don’t do what you’re doing right now, they will be in the next few years--or maybe even months.

Saying the British are wussy is like calling the Italians romantic, the Germans belligerent, the French arrogant. Still, this seems particularly wussy even for them:

Children under the age of eight have been banned from playing in football leagues and cups amid fears they are under too much pressure from competitive parents.

Youngsters can still play matches but results must be kept private and no league tables can be compiled, according to the ruling from the Football Association. And they should not compete in knockout tournaments where trophies or medals are at stake as FA officials fear the pressure could be too great.

The move -- due to be enforced when the new season starts in September -- is aimed at protecting children from pushy parents and aggressive coaches on the touchline, and from peer pressure and bullying.

He added: 'We are trying to create an environment where children can develop their skills and enjoy the game without the pressure of having to get a result week in, week out. Children told us they were giving up football because they were getting hollered at if they made a mistake.

I'm sure David Beckham's parents never "hollered" at him. No doubt it was all hugs and kisses on the field, in front of his mates, that made him the soccer player/underwear model he is today. Goes to show Britain's dystopian future has less in common with V for Vendatta than Walden II.

If only the Taliban had respect for evolving community standards:

Militants in Pakistan have carried out what officials have called a "public execution" of two Afghans before thousands of cheering supporters.

The pair were alleged to have helped an American missile strike that killed 14 people in a border village last month.

Correspondents say that the brazen nature of the killings -- one man was decapitated and another shot -- show the Taliban's growing power.

Never mind those pesky missiles being fired into Israel. Never mind that Hamas refuses to do anything to stop Fatah from firing them. The UN says Israel has violated the truce:

UN records 7 incidents of IDF soldiers attempting to drive Palestinian farmers away from border fence by shooting at them. Only one offence marked against Palestinians for firing on Sderot; report does not include most recent rocket fire.

Since it went into effect last week, at least eight violations of the new ceasefire agreement with Hamas and the Palestinian factions have been recorded, a UN source told Ynet on Thursday. According to the source, seven violations were committed by the IDF, while the Palestinians are responsible for just one.

However the UN report does not include the Qassam fire launched towards the Negev during the day.

Terrorists in Al Qaeda's "last urban stronghold" in Iraq are without a leader:

The US military in Iraq says a militant killed on Tuesday has been positively identified as the leader of al-Qaeda in the city of Mosul. It said the man - identified by a pseudonym, Abu Khalaf -- had co-ordinated and ordered many attacks. He was shot dead by American troops during a raid on a building in Mosul.

Via HotAir, a new Time poll shows Obama leading McCain by five points--which is almost exactly where an average of polls at Pollster.com and Real Clear Politics show the race. Obama's bounce is real, and he may not be done bouncing, but the Newsweek and LA Times polls showing Obama up 15 points and 12 points, respectively, certainly appear to have been off.

When it comes to endorsing pols, Will Smith is very particular. "Nelson Mandela is kind of the one person I've said yes to," says Smith. "And Barack Obama was probably only the second person that I've really to this level said yes to." Note that world leaders come to Smith—not the other way around. And why shouldn't they? As Smith tells it, "I think I'm a pretty good judge if someone's a good person. So I just lend my support to people that I believe are good people."

Fear not, there are more than three righteous men in the world. Counting Smith's buddies, Earth has its minion. Consider Slick Rick, who Smith sent a letter of support in 2002 when a little misunderstanding resulted in Rick's arrest for illegally trying to reenter the United States. Ever the shrewd judge of character, why wouldn't Smith stand up for this British rapper's right to visit our fair land? After all, it's not as though Slick Rick killed somebody. No, blessed Rick had only pled guilty to and served time in jail for attempted murder.

Lest we forget, Smith also counts Tom Cruise among his dearest friends. I certainly can think of no more upstanding a man in all of Los Angeles. Oh, did I mention Smith is a scientologist?

Umm, no. In a post yesterday, I declined to weigh in on Joe Klein's regrettable smear about the supposed "divided loyalties" of Jewish neoconservatives in order to challenge his claim that Iran is not a threat to the U.S. I wrote, in passing, "Klein is usually more sensible than most of the liberal pundit crowd."

This is not one of those times. Sheesh.

Classy:

The Washington state Democratic Party says it will change a video ad that pictures Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi accompanied by the theme song from "The Sopranos," after a Seattle group said the ad was offensive to Italian-Americans.

The Italian Club of Seattle sent a letter Wednesday to Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, calling for removal of the video and asking for state Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz to step down.

The video played the theme song from the hit series about Italian-American mobsters, while criticizing Rossi's ties to the Building Industry Association of Washington, a powerful lobby group in the state. A black-and-white photo of Rossi, who is of Italian descent, is on-screen the entire time.

Here's the ad:

In a year where Democrats see racist appeals everywhere, it's stunning that they would introduce an ad that plays on ethnic stereotypes in such an obvious way. Can you imagine the reaction if Republicans produced an anti-Obama ad with rap music playing in the background?

Polls show incumbent Christine Gregoire (D) with a narrow lead).

Today's handgun ruling from the Supreme Court is good news for women. As Megan McArdle says, the gun issue is a feminist issue because “guns are the only weapon that equalizes strength between attacker and attacked. It's the only time when men's greater speed, strength, and longer reach make no difference; if you pull the trigger first, you win.” She argues that feminists should "push for widespread gun ownership."

I agree with Megan completely. With a gun, a woman has a fighting chance to defend herself in her home, or, if permitted to carry a concealed weapon, on the street. As 126 female state legislators and academics wrote in an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court in support of overturning the handgun ban (H/T Volokh Conspiracy), the

prohibition against handguns and immediately serviceable firearms in the home effectively eliminates a woman’s ability to defend her very life and those of her children against violent attack. Women are simply less likely to be able to thwart violence using means currently permitted under D.C. law. Women are generally less physically strong, making it less likely that most physical confrontations will end favorably for women. Women with access to immediately disabling means, however, have been proven to benefit from the equalization of strength differential a handgun provides.

Now that D.C. women have all of their constitutional rights, they can protect themselves rather than relying solely on others. Feminists should be proud. Child rapists may not get their due justice, but perhaps some rapists of adult females in D.C. will now get theirs.

In his response to a letter from ADL's Abe Foxman, Joe Klein doubles down on his claim that "Jewish neoconservatives" are pushing for a "a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear program. Their gleeful, intellectual warmongering ... is nauseating."

Foxman responds here.

On June 20, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) released a video promoting its attacks throughout the country. In one segment, AQI promotes attacks by two Kuwaitis, one of whom was a former detainee at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The former Guantanamo detainee was responsible for a devastating suicide attack at Combat Outpost Inman in Mosul on March 23, 2008 that killed 13 Iraqi soldiers and wounded more than 40.

I was embedded in Mosul with the U.S. Military Transition Teams that work with mentoring the Iraqi army during this time frame. I was on the scene within an hour of the attack at Combat Outpost Inman, and took photographs and wrote an article on the horrific bombing. Al Qaeda found my images, and incorporated four of the photos in their propaganda video to document the aftermath of the attacks. I took a look at the tape here and discuss the usage of my images in enemy propaganda with Covert Radio’s Brett Winterble.

From the Rosett Report: Condi Rice Wants Us to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Kim Jong-Il, by Claudia Rosett.

From the Chicago Sun Times: Reporters banned from Obama-Clinton meeting with Clinton backers on Thursday., by Lynn Sweet.

From Confederate Yankee: Obama: The Bus List.

From Middle East Strategy at Harvard: Assign Iran to Israel?, by Josef Joffe (with responses from Mark T. Clark, Mark N. Katz, and Stephen Peter Rosen).

From First Things: The Myth of the 'Evangelical Crackup', by J. Daryl Charles.

John Steele Gordon on Walter Nugent's Habits of Empire: "In all, 'Habits of Empire' is an excellent book as long as one ignores the historical claptrap of the postscript, which is an embarrassment to the author and publisher and an insult to the reader."

Despite reports that the necktie is dead, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is doing his part to ensure the survival of those "lovely silken things" that hang around men's necks. In fact, some female MPs say he is taking his one-man mission to an extreme.

Nicolas Sarkozy's office sent a sleek black case to all MPs, male and female, including a pale grey tie. Socialist MP Aurelie Filippetti proclaimed it "yet more proof of male chauvinism in the political class". Others took it more lightly, gamely adding the ties to their outfits or even wearing them as headbands.

Junior minister Nadine Morano -- one of Mr Sarkozy's most loyal staffers -- defended her boss's blunder by saying that "even for a woman, wearing a tie can be nice," the Guardian reports.

Instead of wearing them as headbands, I have a more lucrative proposal for gender-sensitive French MPs. Auction your pale gray ties on ebay, and donate the proceeds to charity. And perhaps next year, Sarkozy can make amends by distributing handbags or heels.