It’s been a bit of a rough week for me, culminating in yet another fall in the parking lot at work on Friday (told you I was freak-accident prone). Not only that, but blogging this week has taken a lot out of me emotionally, considering the highly-charged atmosphere surrounding the immigration issue, and I’m feeling a bit out of sync and not ‘on my game.’ So I’m going to take the weekend off as I need to get my sea legs back (as the old saying goes - I think!).

I’ll be back on Monday, blogging here as well as guest-blogging at Right Wing News.

Have a great weekend, ya’ll. And stay cool

Via AP:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A Mickey Mouse lookalike who preached Islamic domination on a Hamas-affiliated children’s television program was beaten to death in the show’s final episode Friday.

In the final skit, “Farfour” was killed by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour’s land. At one point, the mouse called the Israeli a “terrorist.”

“Farfour was martyred while defending his land,” said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed “by the killers of children,” she added.

The weekly show, featuring a giant black-and-white rodent with a high-pitched voice, had attracted worldwide attention because the character urged Palestinian children to fight Israel. It was broadcast on Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa TV.

These people are beyond sick.

According the Mike Allen at the Politico, the answer is “yes”:

Veteran Republicans say they have quietly raised millions of dollars for a pair of nonprofit organizations that will launch this fall with the ambitious aim of providing a conservative counterweight to the liberal MoveOn.org, Politico.com has learned.

The issues and education group, which has a plan to enlist hundreds of thousands of small donors, aims to be active in the 2008 presidential election, according to Republicans involved in the effort. Organizers, who include veterans of the last three Republican White Houses, would not give specifics on how much money the group has raised so far or who its donor base is.

The president and chairman of the board will be Bradley A. Blakeman, a lawyer who appears frequently on television as a Republican analyst and was a member of President Bush’s senior staff during his first term.

“We’re in the formative stages of creating a new group that will give voice and hope to conservatives everywhere who believe in peace through strength and limited government,” Blakeman said. “We expect to have more to announce sometime down the road.”

One supporter is Sig Rogich of Las Vegas, an image expert and ad agency founder who was known as the “events czar” for President George H.W. Bush when he was assistant to the president for public events and initiatives.

Neither Blakeman nor Rogich are household names — but both were influential, behind-the-scenes White House players who boast extensive Rolodexes.

I’m down with that, provided that, unlike MoveOn.org, differing opinions are welcomed and encouraged.

LOL! Jules Crittenden has the post of the day after Pelosi’s announcement to a group of hungry liberal bloggers that the President is not worth impeaching:

But let me get this straight. Bush and his “junta” are a gang of criminals who have hijacked the United States and trampled on the Constitution, sent U.S. soldiers to meaningless deaths in an illegal war, imprisoned innocent militants in the hated Crusader gulag at Guantanamo, caused the world to hate us, thumbed their noses at Congress, subverted the Justice Department, etc. But despite these outrages, it “wouldn’t be worth expending the political capital and effort to push the process forward.”

This is interesting. He has committed all these crimes, but it isn’t worth it. What kind of crimes does he need to commit? Here’s a hint:

… the courts would be particularly unfriendly to Democratic moves for criminal investigations unless they substantially “built the cases” for each move.

Real crimes, apparently. Crimes on which cases must be built. But that’s an awful lot of work. Really hard. Even harder if you don’t have any crimes to start with. OK, moving on:

Zing

Keep reading it, as Obama’s apparently also saying, in so many words, that Bush isn’t worth impeaching.

Strange, those Democrats. They’ll investigate the President and administration for everything under the sun in hopes of finding a ’smoking gun’, yet now we find out he’s not really done anything ‘worth impeaching.’

Boggles the mind …

I didn’t watch it, but The Politico’s Roger Simon did, and here’s his take on the winners and losers, highlights and lowlights of it.

The debate was held at Howard University, a prestigious black college, so the pandering mode was in full effect, as you can see from the WaPo recap (I haven’t been able to find a transcript from the debate yet).

Update: Here’s a link to the transcript (hat tip to LLR in the comments section).

As I’ve written here before, I believe conservative French president Nicolas Sarkozy is a breath of fresh air for France - but not when he’s giving distinguished awards to liberal moonbats like Babs Streisand:

(AP) Barbra Streisand performed her first-ever concert in France this week - and was rewarded with a medal of the Legion of Honor.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy awarded the medal to Streisand in a ceremony Thursday, the first time he has bestowed the honor since taking over from Jacques Chirac last month.

“You are the America that we love,” said Sarkozy, who is seen as more U.S.-friendly than Chirac. “Women like you … do a lot to bring our two peoples together.”

She might do that there in France, but she sure as hell doesn’t do that here in her own country! LOL. And I hope that you love more about America than Babs Streisand-types, Mr. French President.

Photo courtesy: AP/Philippe Wojazer, Pool

Since French men are such notorious charmers of women (and the new French prez even tried that route with his combative Socialist opponent Segolene Royal in the run-up to the elections there), I’ll forgive Sarko for his lapse in good judgement - this time, anyway

Alexander Bolton at The Hill reports that true lovers and defenders of free speech have something to smile about after yesterday:

The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from using taxpayer dollars to impose the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters who feature conservative radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

By a vote of 309-115, lawmakers amended the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill to bar the FCC from requiring broadcasters to balance conservative content with liberal programming such as Air America.

The vote count was partly a testament to the influence that radio hosts wield in many congressional districts.

It was also a rebuke to Democratic senators and policy experts who have voiced support this week for regulating talk radio.

House Democrats argued that it was merely a Republican political stunt because there is little danger of the FCC restricting conservative radio while George W. Bush is president.

Republicans counter that they are worried about new regulations if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on Tuesday that the government should revive the Fairness Doctrine, a policy crafted in 1929 that required broadcasters to balance political content with different points of view.

“It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine,” he said. “I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, said this week that she would review the constitutional and legal issues involved in re-establishing the doctrine.

Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic Party’s 2004 presidential nominee, also said recently that the Fairness Doctrine should return.

Gosh, wasn’t it just a few days ago that liberals in the leftosphere were claiming that the right wing was “falsely accusing” the left of wanting to bring back the Fairness Doctrine? Why yes, it was.

As they say, ignorance is bliss for some, I guess.

Captain Ed liveblogged some of the floor debate, which you can read here.

Watch video of Minority Leader McConnell smacking down the thought of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine here.

Brian Maloney reminds us, though:

At least for the moment, any attempt at bringing back the FCC’s former Fairness Doctrine (known as “Hush Rush”) has been shelved.

But over the long run, this largely symbolic, 309-115 House romp may not stop increasingly- determined Democrats from shutting down talk radio as we know it today. While today’s vote prevents using taxpayer dollars to fund any reimplementation of the agency’s past policy, the real test will come after the 2008 presidential election.

That’s when an elected Democrat president would have the opportunity to stack the FCC with the party’s own directors, which would mean an almost certain reimposition of free speech- stifling regulations. If Congress remains in Democrat hands, this scenario would be even more likely.

Indeed. We’ve got to move past our differences on other issues in order to combat future Democrat attempts at ‘regulating’ free speech.

Others blogging about this: Dee at Conservatism with Heart, Betsy Newmark, Mark in Mexico

Via the AP:

LONDON — Police defused an explosive device found in a parked car in central London on Friday, and the new government called an emergency meeting of senior security chiefs to investigate what many feared could have been a planned terror attack.

Police said the car — parked near busy Piccadilly Circus — contained a “potentially viable explosive device” but would not give further details.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took office on Wednesday, said the incident was a reminder that Britain faces “a serious and continuous threat” and the “need to be alert.”

“I will stress to the Cabinet that the vigilance must be maintained over the next few days,” Brown said.

The incident comes a week before the second anniversary of the July 7 London bombings, when four British Muslim homicide bombers killed themselves and 52 bus and subway passengers.

For more than a year, the government has held the country’s terrorist threat level at severe — which means a terrorist attack is highly likely.

Officers were called to The Haymarket shortly before 2 a.m., a police statement said.

The Haymarket is the site of restaurants, bars, a cinema complex and, most famously, theaters. On a Thursday night, the area would have been buzzing with crowds of people. The broad street links Piccadilly Circus in the north to the Pall Mall at its southern end.

[…]

Sky News broadcast a photograph of the vehicle taken early in the morning, showing a green canister beside the car and the backseat door open with blankets spilling out.

The station cited witnesses as saying doormen from a nearby nightclub had reported that someone had crashed a Mercedes sedan into garbage bins and ran away.

Pajamas Media has more, including reports that police are now searching landmark sites in London for other explosive devices. Stay tuned …

Update I: There are tons more links on this developing story at Memeorandum.

And as ST reader Leslie says in the comments, the Brit authorities are to be commended on a job well done - again.

Police in London are also checking into another report of a suspicious vehicle in central London.

Update II: The latest from MSNBC/AP: U.K. report: Police believe foiled car bomb was to be set off by cell phone

Update III: Via SkyNews: Two Bombs Were Set To Blow In London

I need to take a break from the “issues” for the rest of the night, and instead wanted to start a thread where we could rant about non-political stuff, like pet peeves. I know you’ve got a few. Here are some of mine:

— Someone chewing bubble gum with their mouth open: Recently at my work, a gal came in to fill out an application and while I was in the middle of getting her a pen and a clipboard to use, I could hear her smacking her gum. You know the sound. It is unbelieveably annoying. I remember hearing it a lot when I was in high school and to a certain extent college, but people are supposed to grow up beyond that point and now how to chew gum properly, but there people who try to make themselves exceptions, obviously …

— On a similar note, listening to people eat corn on the cob: Ok, I know that’s a little weird, but you can’t help hearing the way people eat when you sit with them, and there really is no graceful way to eat corn on the cob, unless you do what I do - cut the corn off the cob. I mainly do that because I’ve been too paranoid since I had my braces taken off my teeth when I was in high school to eat unsliced apples and corn because I was worried about my teeth going back in the direction I didn’t want them to (yes, I know this is a bit of trivia you’d probably rather not know about your blogstress). In any event, since there really is no ‘quiet’ way of eating corn outside of the one I mentioned - and I know most people don’t do what I do - you can’t really say something to someone about how they eat corn. Nevertheless, it drives me nuts.

— People who have had their turn signal on since 1973. C’mon! Turn the thing bleeping off if you’re not turning in the next few seconds.

— Grocery store customers who have their buggies full of groceries, see the person behind them standing their with one item, and not letting them go ahead. Ok - that’s more of an irritation than a pet peeve, I know. All the same, when my buggy is full, if someone is behind me at the checkout with just a couple of items, I’m going to let them in front of me. I’ve seen cases in other aisles where elderly people that had just one or two items had to stand in line behind someone who had loaded up for the month in groceries. Not right

Ok - your turn

For your listening enjoyment tonight, here’s a song by a Christian group, a song which is pretty much the story of my life right now. It’s a short song - a little over two minutes long, but one that we have probably all been able to identify with at one point or another in our lives. The band is called Wilshire and the song is called “Special.”

This is a horrible idea:

RALEIGH - Legislators in North Carolina, and other states across the country, are taking a look at changing the way voters elect a president.

Under a bill approved by the N.C. Senate last month, North Carolina’s 15 votes in the Electoral College would go to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote instead of the winner of the North Carolina vote. The change would take effect only if enough other states pass similar bills.

The bill is part of a small but growing national movement to make sure that the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide wins the White House.

Take the election of 2000, for example.

Al Gore won the popular vote by a small margin, but George Bush won the presidency in the Electoral College. Under the proposed changes, Gore would likely have been elected president.

Supporters in the General Assembly argue that the plan serves North Carolina voters because it would encourage presidential candidates to spend more time campaigning here, rather than focusing most of their energy on a few highly contested battleground states.

The proposed change, known as the “National Popular Vote” plan, requires states to enter a multistate contract and agree to assign their electoral votes to the nationwide popular winner, regardless of which candidate wins in individual states.

Legislative chambers in seven states have approved bills that would form such an agreement. The agreement would not take effect unless it were signed by a sufficient number of states so that their electoral votes taken together would make up a majority of the 538 members in the Electoral College.

That won’t happen by 2008, and it has generated plenty of skepticism. Some people say that the proposal favors Democratic candidates or that it would cause candidates to campaign only in major-media markets. Critics also say that it is nothing more than a clever way to get around the U.S. Constitution.

Sen. Pete Brunstetter, R-Forsyth, said that there are good arguments on both sides for changing the Electoral College system and moving to a popular vote for president. But he said that any change should be made through a constitutional amendment, not through a haphazard collection of state laws.

“As people raised in a democracy, it’s just difficult to embrace the fact that the party that loses the popular vote (could win) the presidency,” Brunstetter said. “But when you say, ‘This is a clever way to get around the Constitution,’ that’s just hard for me to get warm and fuzzy about.”

Thanks to reader TB for bringing this to my attention. I had no idea that such a movement was taking and am alarmed that it is gaining in popularity in certain states. I encourage readers to contact their state reps to voice their opinions on this issue, no matter whether or not it’s being debated in your state. If it’s not, it doesn’t hurt to go on the record in advance to oppose it. If it is being debated, your reps won’t know how you feel until you let ‘em know.

Check out the main for and against arguments here. Rick Moran makes a compelling against argument here.