Former Secretary Gates's comments last week give me pause. See http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57584087/gates-some-benghazi-critics-have-cartoonish-view-of-military-capability/

I laugh every time Jonah laughs, and I laugh heartily when he and John Podhoretz start trading jokes. We need more of this.

The Dems out-politicked the Repubs this time around for the presidency. Hats off to them for flummoxing even The Great Karl Rove (was he great in 2004?). Romney's own polling kept him in the race on election day.

I'm thinking this is just bad strategy, bad executing. I biked around DC today during the Cherry Blossom Festival today; families and young couples -- from Middle America, India, Latin America, Korea, China, European countries like Germany -- all modestly dressed people everywhere. Those who are Americans among them are as reasonable as all get-out, and probably conservative on a lot of issues; nobody took their clothes off or smoked pot (well, one cyclist was apparently toking medical marijuan, according to my wife); two -- count 'em two -- guys were protesting at the White House, and everyone just ignored 'em.

But why pick Romney over Obama? How many of you were absolutely enthused about a Romney presidency early on?

He may better stay out of politics and continue his work on helping school children. Through his scholarship program the nation will have more productive, hopeful citizens. http://carsonscholars.org/

Or, he may just retire and be a good influence to the people around him.

If CPAC equals the Republican Party, then, yes, Governor Christie and GOProud need to get an invite. But CPAC is just one part of Republicanism, so I don't see this as an incivility.

CPAC could have made it fun by inviting the Governor for a hard question-and-answer session, that's true. But like-mindedness and freedom of association is what makes for conferences.

(Wait. Did they invite Newt Gingrich?)

My wife Linda and I both shouted "Oh, no!" when we saw Matthew going a little too fast in that roadster.

Linda says she can't watch any more. But I know better. We'll buy the next season's DVDs when they're available and veg out for a weekend swimming in all those stories.

All that matters, though, is that there is now an heir. It beats out the Canadian cousin, no?

We do not need a return to slavery of any form. We need to remove slavery from the face of the earth. We want freedom for all men, and all women.

In the Torah if a man got a wife from his master, then had children with her, guess who kept the wife and kids? "[T]he wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself." Ex. 21:4 Family values?

And how about helping out the women? "[I]f a man sell his daughter to be a [slave], she shall not go out as the menservants do." Ex. 21:7 So much for ennobling work that gave women freedom.

Any freedom for a foreigner after seven years? "Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves...they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life..." Lev. 25:44-46

No we do not need slavery. We do not want any person owning another, to do with as he wills. Period.

"No one told me you should major in engineering if you want to be able to pay back your student loan debt." It reminds me of my experience. I wanted to be a classics major -- I seriously looked at a program at the University of Cincinnati -- but I ended up with a degree in Russian in 1982. I was headed for a Ph.D. in Russian, but my Russian prof. sat me down and told me it wasn't going to pay the bills. Good on him! Eventually I realized a career lay in computers if I re-trained.

(BTW, if you want a classics degree, the University of Cincinnati lists famous people who studied classics. First on the list? Karl Marx! http://www.uc.edu/degreeprograms/Program.aspx?program=15BA-CLAS )

This year one book I read was "Captain's Courageous", Rudyard Kipling's novel about a rich young man who is thrown into sailing on a fishing boat in the late 1800s. The descriptions of fishing, of the ships, and the roughness of it all was exciting, from an arm-chair view.
My favorite words from the book describe a Baltimore tall ship:
        She was a black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton craft. Her mainsail
        was looped up, and her topsail flapped undecidedly in what
        little wind was moving. Now a bark is feminine beyond all
        other daughters of the sea, and this tall, hesitating
        creature, with her white and gilt figurehead, looked just like
        a bewildered woman half lifting her skirts to cross a muddy
        street under the jeers of bad little boys.

Here's the President yesterday in Detroit: "[W]e['ll] make some tough spending cuts on things that we don’t need." http://www.barackobama.com

If it's tough to cut on things we don't need, oh boy....

I find it heartening that he resigned. Who does that anymore?

I wept at one point reading Jean Edward Smith's biography of US Grant. Because of Smith I have deep respect for the man I'd previously known only from the reported drinking problem and corruption in his administration.

Danny,

Were your argument correct, the President would withdraw all US military personnel in all Muslim nations, and he would stop using drones to target the jihadists -- notice that these drone attacks take place where they revere the prophet Muhammed -- and he would not have killed Bin Laden. (Google "we are all osama"; you'll see that protests against Obama for killing Bin Laden are legion.)

Muslims in Libya protested against the killing of the Americans in Benghazi.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/09/22/libya-protesters-benghazi.html

It's my hope that the purple fingers of voting in Iraq and Libya will inspire more Muslim countries to turn to democracy. I am sure this, too, is Mr. Obama's hope.

If we have to compromise with Dems to spend money at the Federal level, the underground current gets my vote. I live in a private, planned city without the overhead lines. It's not only reliable, it's beautiful.

No women -- or men -- on bicycles. Lots of wind whooshing everywhere throwing the rain against the aluminum siding. Streets are empty.

Most importantly, the electricity is still pulsing through our houses; that sump pump can still do its job.

Paris in the rain is better than -- what? -- LA in sunshine? :-)