Jeanette answers the question For Those Who Don’t Know Why.

Go read it. You will not be sorry.

The nominations are now open here

Nominations close Saturday, November 26, 2005.

We would be eligible for (not that I think we’ll win) Shameless plug though – please nominate us!:

Best Blog

Best Group Blog

Best Conservative Blog

Best of the Top 251-500 blogs

The Anchoress and Oh How I Love Jesus have been nominated for Best Religious Blog

Bill Hemmer just interviewed Terry McAuliffe on Fox News Live… (all emphasis mine)
{Rep Murtha’s name has been corrected}

Ian (that wonderful young man) has posted the video at Political Teen.

Hemmer: Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe is my guest here now in D.C. and we welcome you, Terry, here. Welcome to Washington.

McAuliffe: Very good to see you.

Hemmer: It is downright nasty in this town.

McAuliffe: Well…

Hemmer: Is this just the precursor for what we’re seeing in midterm elections, 12 months from now, in November of 2006?

McAuliffe: I think, Bill, people are very upset. We’ve lost over 2,000 troops, we’ve spent 200 billion dollars, we have a mess on our hands in Iraq today. And it’s not, you know they’re trying to blame the democrats, I remind you that two days ago they voted in the United States Senate, bipartisan, 79 to 19 a no confidence vote in George Bush and Dick Cheney. And you saw Senator Hagel the other day come out against the Republicans saying it would be unpatriotic not to ask these kind of questions.

{A “No Confidence” vote? Is that what that was? I’m sure McAuliffe wishes that the United States had a Parliment. Then, an actual no confidence vote would result in new elections, almost immediately. Too bad for him we don’t have a Parliment. We have regularly scheduled elections and McAuliffe is stuck with President Bush and Vice President Cheney until noon on January 20, 2009.}
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This is Raven (left) and Bitsy (right). Bitsy likes to cuddle, so she cuddled with Raven last night, and Raven let her for a while.

Although the headline at Fox News (story by Associated [De]Press[ed]) is U.N. Summit Lets U.S. Keep Control of Internet Domain Names (emphasis mine).

As if the U.N. Summit can give us permission or something…

A U.N. technology summit opened Wednesday after an 11th-hour agreement that leaves the United States with ultimate oversight of the main computers that direct the Internet’s flow of information, commerce and dissent.

…

“If the Internet had been developed in Australia, I don’t think we would have had so much heat on this discussion,” ICANN chief Paul Twomey, an Australian, remarked of the tension surrounding the U.S. control of the Internet.

The U.S. not only invented the internet, it performs its oversight duties exceedingly well.

It’s snowing here in Northern Illinois. A little more than flurries really, not much, but it is snowing. I don’t think we’ll get any real coverage, but the Shih Tzu leaves tiny pawprints in what’s sticking to the porch. The Siberian, on the other hand, is in his element.

Found this through Lady Jane at A Lady’s Ruminations.

Elvish

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Elves were always my favorites.

Read Who Is Lying About Iraq.

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Go read the rest.

The Dems have made a huge mistake focusing on their hindsight aided clairvoyance regarding Iraqi pre-war intelligence. They seem to have forgotten that we now live in an information age where stuff we say is recorded and stored in a handy dandy replayable format.

occasionally chirping intellectually dishonest positions from the sidelines is one thing, but using them as the centerpiece in the run up to the 2006 elections is quite another.

Am I the only one out there who thinks Bush and company were giving the Dems enough rope to hang themselves on in waiting to “respond forcefully” to the Dems’ dishonest position on Iraq?

From kimsch: No Jeff, you are not the only one. My metaphor was that President Bush was allowing the Dems to dig their holes deeper and deeper…

In Canada November 11th is Remembrance Day. The following is a poem written by Lt-Colonel John McRae (1915):

In Flanders Fields

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.