washingtonpost.com: Israel's Intifada Victory: "While no one was looking, something historic happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost."
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The real winner is George Bush. Even though the US made pro-forma complaints about Israel's policy, Israel ignored them, and followed Bush's example, that a nation has the right to defend itself even against world opinion and against the paper mache UN and its "courts," which are really instruments of anti-US and anti-semitic propaganda.

Excite News: "The court also ordered Israel to pay reparations to Palestinians harmed by the barrier and return land seized to construct the wall, which is about a quarter completed.
The court's advisory opinions are non-binding but bear moral, historic and political weight, and they can be the basis for U.N. action."

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Say what? Do people need any more evidence against the UN? Pay reparations? These are the Israelis, O esteemed judicial ones. You know, the ones who are getting blown up every day by Islamic haters, the same ones who were getting paid by Saddam to do it. Remember him? He's the one the UN, your philosophical bedfellows, refused to do anything about but pass resolutions.

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Much of world is more peaceful: "THERE IS A tendency these days -- and I share it -- that urges one on to hit George Bush while he is down. But before he goes, permit me a word in his favor -- or, more accurately, his regime. Briefly put, the world is more at peace than when he came to power. The big powers have never been so relaxed with each other since the late part of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th, and the number of small wars -- ethnic disputes, tribal conflicts, and territorial disputes -- has been going down every year."
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FYI

TIME - Charles Krauthammer - Why the French Act Isn't Funny Anymore: "It is easy to make fun of the French and their pompous pretense to the grandeur they shed a half-century ago when their loss of honor under Vichy, and then their loss of empire, relegated them to the rank of second-class power. But the fun is over. Before Sept. 11, France's Gaullist anti-Americanism as a form of ostentatious self-aggrandizement was an irritant. With a war on -- three, in fact: Afghanistan, Iraq and the larger war on terrorism -- France's willful obstructionism becomes dangerous and deadly. "
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The French have been arrogant and dangerous for centuries. Sometimes their arrogance has been useful, however. Charles V was not able to crush the Reformation in the early days because he had to defend Europe from the Ottoman Turks [Islamic] who were allied with...[drumroll]..the French! France has always looked out for her own perceived interests. Francis I was sometimes allied with Rome against Charles V, when he wasn't coming to an "understanding" with the Turks.

Later on, the French under Napoleon would ally with the Ottomans against Britain. And so it goes. What has principle to do with foreign policy in these days of Machiavelli triumphant? But it has always been very French to be suavely, sophisticatedly immoral--or is that sophisticatedly immorally suave? Or does it matter anymore what a third-rate power does?

The comfort for the saints is this: God cannot deny Himself and will always act according to His glory and character. No comfort for those who presume on His longsuffering.

The New Republic Online: Talk Down: "As so many [applause] as so many of you know, throughout this campaign, John [Edwards] talked about the great divide in America--the two Americas that exist between those who are doing very well and those who are struggling to make ends meet in our country. That concern is at the center of this campaign. It is what it is all about. It is what the 35 years of my struggle have been about and I am so proud that together John Edwards and I are now going to fight to build one America for all Americans."
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Come on, Mr. Kerry? Gonna rob the middle class some more in order to buy votes? That's old hat. Unions are losing power; the young are mostly looking to do their thing and get government out of their lives. "Liberals" cannot seem to come up with a new idea. One thing is comforting, though. Liberalism has failed every where it is tried. Have you ever heard of Ronald Reagan? The country has moved on since the New Deal to better ideas and a better concept of liberty.

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Cosby's comments cut deep: "In his recent remarks, Cosby said young black people are failing to honor the sacrifices made by those who struggled and died during the civil rights movement. He is correct, but again, the same premise applies to young white Americans who are forgetting all those great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers who came to Ellis Island as teenagers and wanted one thing for their children: an education. In learning, those immigrants saw the path to economic security, which is something quite different from the mindless acquisition of material wealth. They passed that value on to their children, who in turn passed it on to their baby boomer children, who somehow are failing to pass it onto their own offspring."
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Ouch! But Cosby got it right across the board, not only for blacks, but also for hispanics, and especially for those WASP children who understand nothing about the Reformation and the struggle for liberty in Zurich and the Palatinate, by Geneva, French Huguenots, William of Orange, John Knox, the Westminster Assembly, and America.

Read this article. It will hurt, but it is true like a hammer.

WSJ.com - Political Capital: "But Mr. Edwards is a trial lawyer. His campaign for the presidency was financed by trial lawyers. And there is nothing that makes America's CEOs see red these days like America's trial lawyers. 'It's visceral,' says one person who works with a group of chief executives. 'You can feel it in a room.' The nation's top executives view the plaintiff's bar as modern-day mobsters, shaking down corporations by bringing endless lawsuits that are too costly and too dangerous to litigate and that result in settlements costing billions to the corporate bottom line. The antipathy, while not new, has never been greater."
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'Nuff said.

New York Daily News - Dave Barry: "The key to 'The DaVinci Code' is that it's filled with startling plot twists, and almost every chapter ends with a 'cliff-hanger,' so you have to keep reading to see what will happen. Using this formula, I wrote the following blockbuster novel, titled 'The Constitution Conundrum.' "
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Finally! Someone--I mean Dave Barry--has finally given the bestselling book, The DaVinci Code, the respect it deserves. Funny, isn't it. When people reject the Scripture, they will believe almost anything.