I’m heading off back east for the next week and a half. I’ll take a laptop, but posting will be sporadic, at best. In the meantime, check out my Fox column tomorrow (which will be basically my column about commemorating, rather than celebrating the holiday, and celebrating our liberation from the planet) and in the meantime, check out Ken Barnes’ Independence Day quotes and notes.

Dennis Ross has an essay about the Arafat myths in this month’s Foreign Policy.

Some worshipers see the Holy Mother in a cowflop, others see Dale Earnhardt’s number on a goat.

Some worshipers see the Holy Mother in a cowflop, others see Dale Earnhardt’s number on a goat.

Some worshipers see the Holy Mother in a cowflop, others see Dale Earnhardt’s number on a goat.

Joe Farah has a different perspective on tomorrow’s holiday. Sadly, I think that he’s right.

Tony Woodlief has a disturbing post about the Oprahization of America and our public school system. It explains Bill Clinton’s success.

Speaking of anniversaries, today is the 139th anniversary of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, which was the high-water mark for the Confederate cause.

In the words of Faulkner:

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two oclock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet…”

Lee’s army retreated that evening, and Grant took Vicksburg the next day, sundering the would-be nation in half, on the Fourth of July. A little less than two years later, Lee would surrender to him at Appomattox Courthouse.

Only seventeen shopping days left until July 20.

By the way, if anyone has had trouble getting into the forum at the Evoloterra web site (that is, in registering so you can actually post), please let me know.

Fellow space-policy blogger Mark Whittington has a column in today’s LA Times recommending that NASA get out of the low earth orbit business. Not a bad idea, but unfortunately, the devil’s in the details.