Interesting article in tomorrow’s Jerusalem Post. Apparently King Abdullah (Jordan, not Saudi) has been coming up with some interesting proposals and mooting them around the region. The Arab states will guarantee Israel’s right to exist in exchange for a Palestinian state. The devil’s in the details, of course, but the very notion that the Arab world would not only recognize Israel’s right to exist, but actually defend it (at least on paper) is a revolutionary one. An interesting quote:

“Abdullah is understood to have canvassed the idea with the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, and with several north African states, but major barriers have been encountered in Syria, Iraq, and Iran.”

Hmmmmm….lessee now. Iranian objections may become moot if there is a pro-western popular uprising there, which is looking increasingly likely. Syria and Iraq are predictable in their opposition. Just one more reason to move them to the top of the list after we sort out Afghanistan.

Finally, note that it doesn’t say that the House of Saud is objecting. Maybe they really are getting a little nervous over there…

“‘America can’t get me alive,” bin Laden was quoted as saying. ‘I can be eliminated, but not my mission.”’

He’s probably not up on the latest news, hunkered down in his cave and all, but the President has already expressed our national indifference as to his metabolic state when we get him. If he wants to be taken dead, we will be pleased to accommodate him–it’s actually easier. Maybe he should sign up with the crack suicide squad just to further ease things.

Junaid’s statements and actions could prompt charges which carry the death penalty if he sets foot on U.S. soil again, legal experts said.

“This sounds prosecutable under the Sedition Act,” said former federal prosecutor Sean O’Shea. “It would call for the death penalty.”

No, it’s not what you think. Glenn Reynolds and Dave Kopel have an excellent review of a television program that I consider a “must read.” It better articulates than anything I’ve read in a long time why gun control is ultimately a very, very bad idea…

Thank you for your patience, and continued patronage.

According to the Washington Post, until the planes hit the towers, the biggest concern in Chelsea Clinton’s life was the simply-horrid notion of letting Americans keep a little more of their own money.

In one passage, Clinton deftly makes clear her Democratic pedigree while embracing bipartisan unity. Venturing out again with Davison, “I was expounding on the detriments of Bush’s tax cut as we approached Grand Central Terminal and were met with hordes of people running out of the station, some crying ‘Fire!’ and ‘Bomb!’ We all were crying. We all thought we were literally going to have fire rain down on us. . . . For a brief moment I truly thought I was going to die.

Once we stopped running, I started praying. I prayed for my country and my city. I stopped berating the tax cut and started praying that the president would rise to lead us. And I thanked God my mother was a senator representing New York and that Rudy Giuliani was our mayor. I have never reacted more viscerally to a leader, particularly not to one I had been criticizing just the day before for some insensitivity or other…”

Sounds more clumsy than deft to me. Is it just me, or does this sound more like some Onion parody of what Chelsea would write? I’ve never had much of an opinion about the young Ms. Clinton other than a little sadness for her that she had to grow up in such a dysfunctional family, but in terms of transparent political opportunism, it appears the apple didn’t fall far from either tree.