Below The Beltway

I really have to wonder, when I read something like this:
In Washington, a prominent Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, urged President Bush to call for an immediate cease-fire and work to restore an image of U.S. fairness in its approach to the Middle East. He also recommended the appointment of an experienced statesman to [...]

The Israeli Security Cabinet today approved an expansion of the ground war in Lebanon and resumption of air strikes after tomorrow’s expiration of the 48 hour moratorium:
JERUSALEM, July 31 — Israel rejected the prospect of a cease-fire in the coming days in its war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, launching new ground and air operations against [...]

It surprises the heck out of me, but the trade deadline has passed, and Alfonso Soriano is still playing for the Washington Nationals:
SAN FRANCISCO, July 31 — Despite a flurry of activity and late bids by several teams, Monday’s trade deadline passed — and, in an upset, Alfonso Soriano is still a Washington National.
Nationals General [...]

But, please, don’t call yourself a Catholic when you obviously aren’t.
Tomorrow afternoon, Bridget Mary Meehan, a nun and former television producer from Falls Church, will be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. At least that’s how she sees it.
Meehan, 58, is among 12 American women who will board a chartered boat at 3 p.m. at [...]

It comes at least once a summer, the hottest week of the year. And it appears, this year, the time is now:
The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat watch for the Washington region, forecasting 100-degree temperatures tomorrow and Wednesday.
The scorching temperatures, combined with high humidity, will cause the heat index to rise to [...]

Will Collier has an excellent post up at Vodkapundit that asks the question; how do we fight the War on Terror ?
It’s not just an academic question. The opponents of classical liberal civilization have become adept at using the West’s principles against us. The Geneva Conventions, for instance, were originally designed to protect both civilian [...]

The United Nations had issued a warning to Iran about the Iranian nuclear weapons program:
The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution today that gives Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend its uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel reprocessing activities or face possible economic sanctions.
The resolution, which passed by a vote of 14-1, was weaker than the [...]

There will be no more pizza in the Islamic Republic of Iran, from now on, the people of Tehran will be eating “elastic loaves”:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as “pizzas” which will now be [...]

As summer turns into fall, the fall election will heat up considerably, and one of the biggest fights in Virginia this year, aside from the Senate race between George Allen and James Webb, will be over the referendum to add an Amendment banning same-sex marriage to Virginia’s Constitution. As I’ve announced before, I am opposed [...]

There is no doubt that Bernard Lewis, as a scholar, as a profound respect for Islam as a religion, and for the history that Islamic peoples, be they Arabic, Turk, or Persian, have contributed to world civlization. If anything, that presumption of respect only makes his most recent book, The Crisis Of Islam, all the [...]