This photo was taken by by a Japanese moon probe orbiting the moon.

Just look at the detail. You can see shadows and craters and of course, that beautiful marble-looking planet called Earth.

Ed Morrissey, whom I believe every blog I read has linked or quoted from time to time, was invited to do a segment on CNN in regards to the Clinton campaign’s planted questions.

Well done Captain.

UPDATE: For a related story from CNN go here. It doesn’t look like this student is backing down at all. Good for her and if others are unearthed, I hope they do the same.

We can all only imagine what Hillary’s campaign would do to one of her rivals if this situation was proven to be taking place within their camp.

He then opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it.

“The top one was planned specifically for a college student,” she added. ” It said ‘college student’ in brackets and then the question.”

Still believe the candidate was unaware of this situation? Check out the whole interview and also the video below.

It may not sound like a lot, but the United States Military has begun to withdraw some of the troops used in the surge.

WASHINGTON — The first big test of security gains linked to the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq is at hand. The military has started to reverse the 30,000-strong troop increase and commanders are hoping the drop in insurgent and sectarian violence in recent months — achieved at the cost of hundreds of lives — won’t prove fleeting.

The current total of 20 combat brigades is shrinking to 19 as the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, operating in volatile Diyala province, leaves. The U.S. command in Baghdad announced on Saturday that the brigade had begun heading home to Fort Hood, Texas, and that its battle space will be taken by another brigade already operating in Iraq.

Between January and July — on a schedule not yet made public — the force is to shrink further to 15 brigades. The total number of U.S. troops will likely go from 167,000 now to 140,000-145,000 by July, six months before President Bush leaves office and a new commander in chief enters the White House.

As the U.S. troop reductions proceed, it should become clear whether the so-called “surge” strategy that increased the U.S. troop presence in and around Baghdad resulted in any lasting gains against sectarianism. Critics note that the divided government in Baghdad has made few, if any, strides toward political reconciliation that the Americans have said is crucial to stabilizing the country.

This is great news and the military must have reason to believe the Iraqis in that area are trained and willing to protect themselves.

Excerpts from “Fighting Terrorism” by Benjamin Netanyahu are available at Liberty Pundit.

“To achieve this goal [defeating terrorism] we must first have moral clarity…..

Looks like one to put on the list of must reads.

Sounds like a good idea to me. From the American Spectator:

Quite an interesting concept.

Thanks to those who supported Project Valor-IT. If you would like to see the final totals raised by all services for this worthwhile cause you may do so here.

Some people seem to have taken this seriously. I prefer the attitude here.

ADHD can be a real challenge for parents and children alike. If this piece at the LAT proves true, there could be hope on the horizon (minus drugs).

The brains of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder develop more slowly than those of other children but eventually catch up, according to a government study published Monday that suggests ADHD may be a transient condition, at least for some.

Using advanced imaging techniques, scientists found that the cortices of children with ADHD reach peak thickness an average of three years later than children without the disorder.

Finally from Musing Minds a very short “movie” which no doubt rings true for each of us.

So often, human beings will try to “help” or “save” something and we just don’t really think about the fact that what we want to “help” or “save” may not want or need it.

Thirty-nine years ago today at 10:40 am EST I gave birth to my firstborn, a son we named Sean.

I remember when the doctor said excitedly, “It’s a boy!” and I cried tears of joy as I glanced at the clock to see what time he arrived.

I remember the expression on your face, son, as the doctor held you up near my knees so I could see you.

I remember the catch in your Dad’s throat when I told him we had our boy and he said, “I know it!”

Through joys and heartaches I have always remembered that special moment of that special day and it wasn’t because of the pain, but because of the happiness.

Now you’re a husband and Dad yourself. Where has the time gone?

I will remember your birth and your sister’s birth as long as I live and savor every memory of each of those days.

Happy birthday, Son. We love you more now than we did that first day, if that’s possible.

For me, this was the post of the day. It comes from Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive.

US Flags celebrate Veteran’s Day, Attack Hillary

I would just like to salute those brave colors who did what just about every veteran who has ever seen Hillary wants to do. Since they were apparently inanimate objects, the Secret Service was completely fooled and the flags enacted their cunning plan.

The above offers a bit of humor but the final paragraph in this post speaks volumes:

And those flags also spoke for the many military members who served in the White House when Hillary lived there and she asked why “those people” had to be around. Sorry Hills, it was to keep your pear-shaped carcass alive. I do eagerly await the second reign of our Clintonian masters.

Yep, I hope people remember that members of the military were simply “those people” to the woman who wishes to be our next Commander in Chief.

If this is not taken out of context I just erased him from my list of possible choices.

Father, I have sinned against you tonight due to anger brought on me by someone else. I ask your forgiveness because if not, I cannot face the world. Cover my sin in the blood of Jesus and cleanse me till I am white as snow. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

If I’m not mistaken today is the final day for contributions for voice activated laptops for our injured military people who cannot use a conventional laptop or PC. They need one that is voice activated so they can keep in touch with their friends and family.

Please go to the sidebar and click to make a donation to this more than worthy cause if you haven’t done so already.

Or go directly here to make your donation.

Please help these people have as normal a life as possible.

I just finished reading this op-ed written by Shmuley Boteach, in the Jerusalem Post.

It started me thinking of something I have thought of a lot in the recent past.

We have the Orthodox Jews, of which Mr. Boteach seems to be one, the radical Islamists and dedicated followers of other religions who believe so strongly their faith is right that they are willing, in some cases to die or to kill for their faith.

While I am willing to die for my faith I’m not willing to kill for it because I don’t believe that’s what God wants me to do.

But what if Christians, real born-again Christians, had the same desire to evangelize the world as those in other faiths?

I read somewhere Sunday that in Great Britain only 42% of the people pray. That’s a disgrace! And it shows why our world is in the shape it’s in.

You don’t have to sign up to be a missionary in a faraway land to proclaim the Gospel of Christ.

You can help your neighbor or a friend or an agency in need of food, clothing and other supplies to make a person or a family comfortable.

Someone can’t pay their electric bill and won’t have heat because of it? If you have the money pay it for them. If you don’t get a few of your Christian friends to chip in and pay the bill for them every month until the weather warms. You didn’t need that new car right now anyway.

How about the family that can’t afford groceries and I’m not just talking about Thanksgiving. Can you afford to pitch in and help them during their tough times?

Isn’t this the Christian thing to do? And at the same time you can tell them the Gospel and show them Jesus through you and your actions. Don’t do it for the praise you get on earth, but do it because it’s the right thing to do and God will take care of the praise part later on when you’ve forgotten all about it.

Listen to this song by Ray Boltz.

It’s all about love and the ripple effect.

Serving as a reminder that we are nearing the close of the Bush admiistration and heading quickly towards an election which may be one of the most important in many years is the closing of a chapter in the Blog World.

I would skip over at least once a day to see what the guys at Blogs For Bush were thinking on the events of the day.

I was delighted to see that the site itself will remain up so the archives may be accessed but even happier to see that Mark and Matt will continue their work at a new site, Blogs for Victory.

Should you have a free few minutes, you might want to wander over a take a look.

I’ve heard of good luck charms in many forms but never one such as this:

The family of man who held a fragment of a more than 1,000-year-old manuscript of the Hebrew Bible for six decades as a good luck charm will present it to a Jerusalem institute next week, officials said Thursday.

The parchment, about “the size of a credit card,” is believed to be part of the most authoritative manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, the Aleppo Codex, said Michael Glatzer, academic secretary of the Yad Ben Zvi institute. It contains verses from the Book of Exodus describing the plagues in Egypt, including the words of Moses to Pharaoh, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.”

Imagine this fragment of biblical history surviving all those years in the wallet of a man who believed in its powers. Truly, amazing.

Reading this story in which Hillary Clinton claims to have no knowledge of her campaign planting questions in her audiences reminds me of Sgt. Schultz in the old “Hogan’s Heroes” series.

When caught knowing something he wasn’t supposed to know his answer was always, “I know nuthink!”

Well, Hillary claims she knows nothink too in this mini-scandal.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton responded to allegations Sunday that her presidential campaign had planted questions during public appearances.

At a media event in Waterloo, Iowa, Clinton responded to a reporter’s question about two separate incidents, one that occurred this week at a biodiesel plant in Newton, and the other in April on a farm outside Fort Madison, both in Iowa.

“Well it was news to me” Clinton said. “And neither I nor my campaign approve of that. And it will certainly not be tolerated.”

The reporter went on to ask if she knew of other incidents beyond those reported.

Clinton responded saying, “You know everything I know.”

I know for a fact I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night!

She knew what was going on and she approved it. Why can’t she just admit it and moveon.org?

Apparently she thinks the entire electorate is as gullible as she pretended to be when she accused us of fabricating the Lewinski story. You remember; she accused us of being the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.”

Who knew Bill was a right-winger? And who believes Hillary’s unbelievable prevarications now?

McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:
Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men — Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans — in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

“I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days… Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done.”

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae’s dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l’Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. “His face was very tired but calm as we wrote,” Allinson recalled. “He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer’s grave.”

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

“The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene.”

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

Hillary Clinton is, by her husband’s description, “the smartest woman in the world”.

What this article shows is she is one of the most manipulative, power-hungry and stupid politicians around.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign admitted Friday that it planted a global warming question in Newton, Iowa, Tuesday during a town hall meeting to discuss clean energy.

Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elliethee admitted that the campaign had planted the question and said it would not happen again.

“On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Senator Clinton’s energy plan at a forum,” Elliethee said….

In a state where the caucus is held sacred and the impromptu and candid style of the town hall meeting is held dear, Clinton’s planted question may come as a great offense to Iowans.

According to a report on the Grinnell University Web site, the Clinton campaign arranged for some of the questions for the candidate to be asked by college students:

“On Tuesday Nov. 6, the Clinton campaign stopped at a biodiesel plant in Newton as part of a weeklong series of events to introduce her new energy plan. The event was clearly intended to be as much about the press as the Iowa voters in attendance, as a large press core helped fill the small venue….

…But according to Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff ’10, some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance. ‘They were canned,’ she said. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. ‘One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],’ she said.

“Clinton called on Gallo-Chasanoff after her speech to ask a question: what Clinton would do to stop the effects of global warming….

“But the source of the question was no coincidence — at this event ‘they wanted a question from a college student,’ Gallo-Chasanoff said.”

The tape of the event shows that the question and answer went as follows:

Question: “As a young person, I’m worried about the long-term effects of global warming How does your plan combat climate change?

Clinton: “Well, you should be worried. You know, I find as I travel around Iowa that it’s usually young people that ask me about global warming.”

Canned questions, funny money from Chinese people, taking three positions on the same question in two minutes.

Is this what passes as the frontrunner in the Democratic party for president? Is this the one everyone who is anyone thinks is going to be our next president? Is this what we want as our next president?

You decide.

Update: It seems to be a habit:

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — For the second time in as many days, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has had to deal with accusations of planting questions during public appearances, FOX News has learned.

In a telephone interview Saturday, Geoffrey Mitchell, 32, said he was approached by Clinton campaign worker Chris Hayler to ask a question about how she was standing up to President Bush on the question on funding the Iraq war and a troop withdrawal timeline.

The encounter happened before an event hosted by Iowa State Sen. Gene Frais on a farm outside Fort Madison, Iowa.

Clinton’s Iowa campaign confirmed to Fox News that one of its staff discussed questions with Mitchell before her April 2 event, but denied attempting to plant a pro-Clinton question.

Mo Elliethee, spokesman for Clinton’s campaign in Iowa, told Fox that Hayler and Mitchell “had a previous relationship” and that a discussion about Clinton arose out of a normal conversation between two people who knew each other well.

“They had a previous relationship and were talking before the event and the topic of the senator’s position on Iraq came up and Geoffrey said he had some questions,” Elliethee said. “Chris suggested Geoffrey ask a question.”

Mitchell, however, said that he and Hayler did not know each other personally before the event.

“I had no previous relationship with him,” said Mitchell. “I knew his name and by name only as some who worked for Sen. Evan Bayh. But we didn’t know each other and I had never met him before this event.”

Mitchell told Fox the Clinton campaign wanted to contrast Clinton to Sen. Barack Obama who had recently said the president would probably prevail in the Iraq funding battle with Congress.

Mithell said he refused to ask the question.

As has become the norm, Senator Lieberman knocks one out of the park with this speech.

It is rather lengthy therefore finding one excerpt which should stand alone would be difficult.

One of those must reads..I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

HT: Blogs for Bush

This post at Iraqpundit is stunning:

Frankly, I don’t understand why so many mock us for wanting a future for Iraq. Is your hatred for George Bush so great that you prefer to see millions of civilians suffer just to prove him wrong?

It really comes down to this: you are determined to see Iraq become a permanent hellhole because you hate Bush. And we are determined to see Iraq become a success, because we want to live.

Please go read the whole thing.

HT: Red State

Former federal judge Michael Mukasey was confirmed by the Senate late Thursday by a vote of 53-40.

After both sides predicted he would get 70 votes it’s a bit of a surprise to me that he got only 53 yes votes, but it was all to do with the fake outrage over waterboarding if it’s taking place.

Either way he’s our new Attorney General and has said he would resign if the president tried to enforce something that was not legal. That should make some people a little more happy with him. Otherwise they probably would have had Ted Olsen in the job.

We hear so often of troubled youth but rarely are the stories of those who have acted with kindness and bravery made public. That’s why when I found the video below, I felt it was worth sharing.

The CPSC has ordered Aqua Dots off the store shelves.

The parents of a Jacksonville toddler were horrified when their child swallowed part of a colorful toy bead set made in China and then passed out. He apparently was overcome when the coating on the beads metabolized into a chemical compound known as the “date rape drug.”

It’s good to see this quick action when this problem was identified, but unfortunately according to the WSJ the list of childrens toys being recalled has grown again. And again.[Final link added late. It applies to Curious George toys.]

Tuesday, Mattel Inc. recalled 155,000 toys marketed under Fisher-Price’s Laugh & Learn brand after pieces of the play kitchen’s faucet were found to pose a choking risk to children…..

Books continue to look better and better.

Thought there was nothing useful about all that spam in your mailbox? Think again. Check out what Linzie Hunter has done. Pretty darn clever! HT: Boing Boing

If you or someone you know is anemic and on medication, be sure to read this piece from the NYT:

Amgen and Johnson & Johnson strengthened the label warnings for their widely used anemia drugs yesterday, placing further emphasis on the risk that the medicines could cause heart attacks, a worsening of cancer and death.

Wrapping up this fly-by is an article by non other than Karl Rove..sounds like he hasn’t missed much since departing the White House:

This week is the one-year anniversary of Democrats winning Congress. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid probably aren’t in a celebrating mood. The goodwill they enjoyed after their victory is gone. Their bright campaign promises are unfulfilled. Democratic leadership is in disarray. And Congress’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest point in history.

Have a terrific Friday and wonderful weekend.

OOPS, I knew there was something else. For a chuckle go have a look at this from Texas Rainmaker.

Now I promise, I am finished.