KtL report
As of two hours from now I will be on my way to Florida to vacation for a few (five) days. I will undoubtedly be unable to blog, which will make the next five days the longest hiatus in Kick the Leftist history. Which means nothing to anyone. However, enjoy yourselves, check out the archives...bookmark the page for goodness sake. I will see both of you soon.

Ouch
Berger says he warned Rice about al Qaeda. Too bad she's too busy to appear in front of the commission

Zell blasts Kerry
He's apparently enjoying his stint as a novelty.

Clark goes on the attack
Clark went for the jugular at the commission hearings today.

Cheney would say that Clarke is "not in the loop," as he did on Limbaugh. But uh, Dick, why weren't you keeping your counterterrorism chief "in the loop"?

Dropping the ball
How can we feel safe with competence levels like this?

Anti-Bush books selling big
Guess who isn't too popular among the intelligentsia?

How unsuspicious
The U.S. was firm on toppling the Taliban a day BEFORE 9/11.

Winding things down
In preparation for our eventual withdrawal from Iraq, we've added 30,000 troops.

"I'm Bob Edwards"
The phrase we will likely never hear again.

Clear Channel=whores
Not political, they say? Not kicking Stern off for being anti-Bush, they say? Donating thousands to Bush, they say? Well they didn't say that last part, but they are.

They outdo themselves
Not to be one-upped, a 4-year old brought $10K worth of crack into school today.

Downplaying bin Laden
Apparently the whole "dead or alive" schtick was just political. Or at least that can be inferred.

The world
What has it come to?

Kennedy would let foreign-born run for Pres.
While some (idiots) over at DU might object, I say that letting a foreigner who has been in the country long enough become president isn't exactly the end of the world.

(Yes, I realize not everyone in that thread was against the concept).

578 dead
The toll thus far in Iraq.

Interesting
Adult websites could soon use the suffix ".xxx"

After two hard weeks...
In which Bush has thrown everything at Kerry and Kerry has made a few missteps, he still leads by two points.

After the killing of a Hamas spiritual leader, it seems that the tension is racheting up just a tad.

Elevating the debate
The right just loves doing it.

Rice denies Clarke's accusations
Clarke says that Bush ignored terrorism in favor of Iraq. Now clearly Condi can't deny that Bush concentrated on Iraq as a whole, so what she has to do in this discussion is tie Iraq to terror. Let's see her try:

"He has a different view of how to fight the war on terrorism," Rice told CNN's "American Morning."

"It is a narrow view that it has to do with killing bin Laden and dealing with Afghanistan. The president has a broader view which is that you have to take the fight to the terrorists."

Hmm....but wasn't Clarke saying that the war in Iraq was the exact opposite? As in, ignoring the terrorists in favor of Saddam? OK, so Condi, how did Iraq tie to terror? I mean, aside from being of the same race as most Islamic terrorists. Condi?

Mmmm...democracy
They like to toy with it in Florida.

al Qaeda claims suitcase nukes in its possession
If this is true I'm frightened, since I'll live in D.C. next year and in general do not want to die. However, if you'd notice, al Qaeda never brags about its abilities unless it DOESN'T have them. We heard no threats before 9/11, for example. Most likely, it's another scare tactic.

KtL update
I'll soon be removing the archives from the sidebar; instead I'll simply add a link to a list of the archives, which should reduce the clutter.

Decency campaign hits radio knitting show
Here we go:

So this is what the cutting edge of free speech looks like. The scene is an eccentric Los Angeles hotel with fusion Mexican/Moroccan décor and waitresses in fez hats. We know we're not in Kansas any more.

The event is a celebration of a local comedian called Sandra Tsing Loh, who has become the latest cause célèbre in America's increasingly bizarre broadcasting decency wars. After the scandal of Janet Jackson's momentary breast-baring at the Superbowl in January and the zingers thrown at the shock-jock Howard Stern, it seems downright eccentric to be recognising a 42-year-old suburban mother as the latest victim of the Bush administration's crackdown on the airwaves.

But that is what Ms Tsing Loh is. For several years she has been a regular fixture on an LA affiliate of National Public Radio known for its dispassionate news coverage.

Then, a few weeks ago, disaster struck. Ms Tsing Loh was in the middle of "a subtle but luminous five-part series on the joys of knitting" when a four-letter word she meant to have bleeped out went on air unchecked.

Station manager Ruth Seymour hit the roof, immediately firing Tsing Loh. With the Federal Communications Commission in a smut-hunting frenzy, Ms Seymour wanted to be seen by all to have taken retributive action. "There are some things in life you go to the wall for. The right to use indecent language on the radio is not one of them," she said.

The listeners did not buy it. They flooded the station with threats to cancel their subscriptions if Ms Tsing Loh was not reinstated.

She was offered her job back, but declined. Is this what we've come to?

Stern vs. Oprah
This is something that Stern confronted a couple of days ago on his show: is Oprah just as raunchy as his show at times?

Progress
More Americans dead.

Domestic terror overlooked
An excellent look at perhaps the most often ignored part of the war on terror: the homefront.