There have been many times in his long public career when I have wondered whether Al Gore is just plain stupid or, as the British say, barking mad.

We Conservatives often accuse the left of having no moral compass. I am not sure that is quite correct. Everyone has a moral compass, although surely not everyone’s operates in the same manner. I think Conservatives have missed their diagnosis of the left. It is not that they have no moral code, it is that they suffer from a new malady, that malady I will call moral retardation.

One of their favorite arguments: “Why, we can’t trust the free market to educate our children - the very idea! The free market excels at many things, they say, but it does not guarantee education “equity” for our kids.

As al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Iraq have not been able to defeat the United States of America, Democrats and RINOs (Republicans in name only) are finally making the moves to do it themselves.  The first step for the Democrats is the ‘non-binding’ vote of ‘no confidence’ in President Bush’s plan to add reinforcements into the Iraq arena, which was passed on Friday.  The second is to defund US troops.  Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) who vocally denigrated US troops in 2006 when he said they were murdering Iraqis “in cold blood continues to call for an immediate cut and run policy from Iraq.  New Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA) said she concurs with an abrupt withdrawal.  But, the Democrats’ non-binding and feckless proposal is just the beginning.

They really don’t care, all that is on their minds is advancing their Communist/Marxist/Socialist agenda.

No American soldier or Marine fighting in Iraq would ever make such an absurd statement.

I have been watching the “reportage” on the regrettable incident of a teenaged killer’s rampage in a Utah shopping mall with mounting interest. In nearly every story of this crime the fact that this youngster is from a Muslim background is either muted or ignored altogether.

Loss of freedom - In his book, “THE FATES OF NATIONS”, Paul Colinvaux wrote, “Liberty, in the Jeffersonian sense, cannot survive a continual packing-in of people. If our numbers continue to rise on a resource base that expands but little, the future inevitably holds ever greater restrictions on individual freedom.”

Western “diplomacy” has strengthened North Korea. - Thanks to a new diplomatic deal, the nuclear stand-off with North Korea will allegedly end bloodlessly. In exchange for $400 million worth of aid and diplomatic concessions from the West, North Korea has promised to start disabling its nuclear facilities. This new arrangement is being celebrated as a levelheaded, practical, and win-win solution to the problem of the North Korean nuclear threat.

There is a bit of irony in the fact that a hearing to debate whether or not Greenhouse Gas Emissions from human activities are contributing to a warming of the planet was postponed by The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality due to inclement weather. I suppose it would be hard to be taken seriously when waxing poetic about the scourge of Global Warming amidst one the harshest cold spells in this country’s history; but if the Global Warming alarmists are entitled to frolic in a parallel reality, what is to stop us skeptics from engaging in similar flights of fancy?

It’s hard to believe that any American politician would do something intentionally wrong in foreign affairs. So there must have been other mistakes made somewhere.  Mistakes? Yep, the same old same old. It seems that we somehow always put in charge, or support, a banana head who couldn’t manage a girl’s baseball team.

Rudy Giuliani seems to have pretty much wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination.  No conservatives truly dislike him, even if they may disagree with him on issues.  All conservatives want to win in 2008, especially if Hillary is the Democrat nominee, and Rudy seems like a favorite to beat Hillary.  This concern will move from important to critical if Republicans look to remain in the minority in both houses of Congress, and it will move from critical to desperate if Democrats come within striking distance of a filibuster proof Senate.

NRO columnist leaves no doubt whose side he’s on…

On Monday, the day the mass murderer Sulejman Talovic gunned down nine unsuspecting shoppers in Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, five of whom died instantly, every report was calling it a “massacre.” Salt Lake City Salt Lake City Police Detective Robin Snyder observed: “We’re just trying to figure out where it started and why this happened.  There was one shooter. We have no indication that anyone else was involved in this. That shooter is dead.” Eyewitnesses described the gunman as “white, in his 20s, about 6 feet tall, with brown hair.” The New York Post headlines screamed “UTAH MADMAN GUNS DOWN FIVE.”

An enduring society is not a random assemblage of people drawn together, like pigs around the feed trough, waiting for welfare-state handouts.