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Politics and other nightmares

Dear God

This can't possibly be controversial -- Louisiana legislators want to put the Ten Commandments into a state law, but they don't want to offend Jews or Protestant or Catholic Christians, so they're spending all this time trying to get the wording just right. Yes, legislators have actually taken it upon themselves to rewrite the Ten Commandments. I wonder if they might end up with something like this:

1. Only me, OK?

2. I mean it, not even a photo or a line drawing of somebody else.

The state of the unions

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby is right about the gay-marriage debate should be approached:

Pro, con, or undecided, Americans should be able to discuss something as serious as redefining marriage without resorting to slander and ad hominem attacks. There are sincere, compassionate, and thoughtful people on both sides of this issue. How can you tell who they are? They aren't the ones calling people bigots.

The end is near

Susette Kelo, the namesake of the worst Supreme Court decision in recent memory, is one step cloer to being evicted from her property. And there is, of course, no remorse from the government thugs who are stealing the property:

New London Mayor Beth Sabilia says, "The City Council has authorized the Director of Law to begin the process to obtain the properties at Fort Trumbull."

The dangerous Evan Bayh

Right Wing News, a blog that, as you might expect, worries about Republicans losing the White House, rates the 10 most dangerous Democrats, based on their electability. Evan Bayh comes in third, behind Mark Warner and Bill Richardson, just ahead of Hillary Clinton and Al Gore and way ahead of John Kerry and John Edwards. But the assessment is based on the belief that Bayh is a "moderate senator," so take it for what it's worth.

The best Congress money can buy

It's not just Republicans. It's not just Democrats. A congressional culture has developed in which these people live in a separate reality:

Over a 5½-year period ending in 2005, members of Congress and their aides took at least 23,000 trips — valued at almost $50 million — financed by private sponsors, many of them corporations, trade associations and nonprofit groups with business on Capitol Hill.

Ditch the "Ditch Mitch"

Oh, yeah, this is a really smart platform for Indiana Democrats in the fall election:

Another waste of time

If President Bush is trying to shore up his dismal poll numbers by "getting back his base," I'd have thought there might be something in there to please me, too. Things like fiscal restraint, a serious attempt to protect the border, recommitting to federalism instead of proposing new national initiatives. But, nooooo. This is his idea:

Busy signals

Ah, shallow politicians with simplistic answers:

New York, you've got nothing on Lawrence.

New York state made national headlines four years ago for becoming the first state to ban motorists from using cell phones. But a proposed cell phone ban in Lawrence would be tougher than that law or any other cell phone ban in the country, a national group that studies cell phone usage said.

Baseless politics

When I read about Mike Pence, truly a conservative in most respects, dissing the U.S. Senate's amnesty plan disguised as a guest-worker program, then offering his alternative, which calls for a stronger border-security program, followed by another version of an amnesty program that he says is not an amnesty program, I thought I had seen the final proof that Washington.

Indecent interval

If I hadn't been so angry about Vietnam for 30 years, stuff like this would really set me off:

Henry A. Kissinger quietly acknowledged to China in 1972 that Washington could accept a communist takeover of South Vietnam if that evolved after a withdrawal of U.S. troops -- even as the war to drive back the communists dragged on with mounting deaths.

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