Below The Beltway

On Monday, I wrote about an Asia Times article calling a war with Iran as inevitable. Today, Gerard Baker writes in the London Times that, in addition to being inevitable, that war is absolutely necessary given the consequences of not acting.

The unavoidable reality is that we now need urgently to steel ourselves to the ugly [...]

Carnival of Liberty 30 is being hosted next Tuesday, January 31st over at Mover Mike. Follow the link for Mike’s submission instructions.
If you are interested in hosting a Carnival of Liberty, I’ve still got slots open in April and May. Let me know via comment or email if you’re interested.
Technorati Tags: Carnival of Liberty [...]

Writing from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, David Ignatius wonders what the laid-off workers at Ford and General Motors would think of the advice that those in attendance would probably give them — learn a new skill, adapt, and find a niche somewhere else in the economy. As Ignatius writes, this advice may [...]

Thanks to Stephen Littau at Fearless Philosophy For Free Minds, I am reminded of this article at Reason Online by Matt Welch directed toward pro-war libertarians in which he asks a series of questions.
Stephen’s responses to Matt’s questions can be found here.
And here are mine.
1) Should the National Security Agency or CIA have the ability [...]

It seems that not every Democratic Senator is convinced of the wisdom of John Kerry’s call for a filibuster of Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Several prominent Democratic senators called for a filibuster of Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s Supreme Court nomination yesterday, exposing a deep divide in the party even as they delighted the [...]

Over the past six months, I’ve quoted, written about, possibly even disagreed with more than one thing Charles Krauthammer has written in the Washington Post.
All I’m going to say today is read this now.

Tax season is approaching. If you haven’t gotten your forms in the mail yet, and don’t feel like trudging down to the Post Office, you can simply download the new 1040 and print it out at home.
Here it is:

Its possible that Virginia Delegate John S. (“Jack”) Reid may be a perfectly good guy and a decent legislator, but I don’t think he’ll ever live this down:
RICHMOND, Jan. 26 — A Virginia lawmaker accidentally discharged a handgun in his General Assembly office Thursday morning, firing a bullet into a bulletproof vest that was hanging [...]

Writing today in the Wall Street Journal, Steve H. Hanke and Stephen Walters point out that Maryland’s recent decision to force Wal-Mart to pay a larger share of employee health insurance costs will, not surprisingly, only end up hurting the poorest residents of that state.
As the authors point out, prior to the laws passage, WalMart [...]

From Michelle Malkin:
Meanwhile, potty-training my son is like dealing with post-9/11 liberals. No matter how much patient educating and explaining you do to convince them to take responsibility for their actions and prevent future disasters, the end result is always the same: soiled pants.
Heh.