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- While the rest of the political world chews on Max Baucus' health-care bill, Harry Reid has indicated that the Senate probably won't take up climate change legislation until 2010, citing the busy schedule for the rest of the year. Well, maybe that's true. But the closer Congress gets to Election Day, the more squeamish its members will be about supporting "controversial" legislation. Recall that ACES passed the House by a very, very narrow margin back in June.
- It's reassuring to know that the minority party in Congress isn't wasting its time with trivial matters like health-care reform or foreign policy in Afghanistan, instead mustering 100 co-sponsors for a bill looking into the Obama administration's singularly unique use of "czars" to handle specific policy areas. Underscoring the seriousness of the legislation, Republicans have tapped Rep. John Shadegg to produce a formidable chart of the 34 czars in the Obama administration who have not gone through the confirmation process in the Senate, including the 10 who have.
- One thing that has always confused me about unending debate between science and religion is that so many points of would-be contention aren't actually all that difficult to reconcile. Take, for instance, Jim Manzi, who spends nearly 2,500 words responding to the assertion that "accepting Darwinism require atheism." Obviously, one can easily believe in a deity while simultaneously believing that same deity conjured up natural selection and random mutation. The only reason conflict arises is because the specifics of religious dogma interfere with a more malleable spirituality in which Creation remains a mysterious process slowly revealed -- though never fully -- through human ingenuity.
- Credit where credit is due at The Corner, where Peter Robinson takes a break from Reagan deification to push back against Dana Perino's silly claim that Bush would never say the things quoted by Matt Latimer in his new memoir, and also to Iain Murray, who is "depressed, shocked [and] frightened" by a poll which found that around a third of New Jersey Republicans believe or aren't sure whether Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. If National Review wants to be treated seriously, it needs this sort of self-corrective thinking and intolerance for fringe beliefs.
- Remainders: Shame on the Obama administration for wanting to extend three expiring provisions in the Patriot Act; we're no longer "defending" marriage from non-existent threats, we're "respecting" marriage because, yeah, I don't know either; Politico thinks the mainstream media ought to be paying more attention to the lunatics in the conservative media; Jonah Goldberg suffers from a rare form of dyslexia that prevents him from recognizing possessive adjectives; and The Onion offers a unique tribute to The Gipper.
--Mori Dinauer
