If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee. ~ Abraham Lincoln

My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (Martin) The Iraq Surrender Group must be obeyed!! — “The opinions of 9 old men and an old woman are no more likely to be the right prescription than mine. Less so. A camel is a horse designed by committee, and that’s what this report is.”

Blue Star Chronicles (Beth) Ahmadinejah tells West, Follow God or Vanish — “Ahmadinejah warns us once again that his intention is to have us convert to islam or die. As per his own words, there are no other choices. Still we don’t listen to what our enemies tell us over and over and over again.”

Confederate Yankee Just the Facts, Ma’am — “Kathleen Carroll, the Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of the Associated Press, just can’t seem to do the required legwork necessary to resolve the questions surrounding six immolations and four mosque burnings alleged in news reports by anonymous reporters working for her organization. She does, however, try her best to deflect criticism in her latest response to the emerging scandal this afternoon.”

Don’t forget to vote in the 2006 Weblog Awards.

Thank you for your coffee, seignor. I shall miss that when we leave Casablanca. ~ Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca)

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) That Was Quick — “Robert Gates made a bungee appearance at the Senate Armed Forces Committee today for his confirmation hearings to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Some expected the hearings to provide some fireworks and an opportunity for grandstanding — but in the end, it looks like all sides just wanted to get it done quickly:”

Blogs for Bush (Mark Noonan) Blogging the Gates Hearings — “The big story, which is sure to be endlessly trumpeted in the MSM, is Gates stating that we are not winning in Iraq – a debatable point. The real story, of course, is that Gates is determined to win in Iraq – but the MSM is uninterested in the real story.”

Wizbang (Kevin Aylward) The 2006 Weblog Awards Finalists Have Been Announced — You can see the list of finalists here. Drat. Passed over again.

BLOGIVERSARY DATABASE NOTE: I have added a page which displays the day’s Blogiversaries in the same way as they are displayed in the sidebar here and on other blogs which use the code. This was created mostly for those blogs that can not add javascript code to their site (like those hosted on wordpress.com). You can link to the page with this code:

<a href="http://www.brightandearlyblog.com/todays-blogiversaries/" target="_blank">See Today's Blogiversaries</a>

Coffee is a beverage that puts one to sleep when not drank. ~ Alphonse Allais

Iowa Voice (Brian) How’s This For Some Biased Reporting? — “So the Justice Department says that detainees in the war on terror don’t have the right to challenge their detention, so Yahoo! immediately slaps up the headline “Administration: Detainees have no rights”. Riiiight.” [I had meant to post this under the ridiculous headline category last night, but fell asleep watching MNF. Jim]

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) Iran Politicking For Control Of Al-Qaeda — “The Iranians are pragmatists within their own Islamist bent. They support Hamas and Hezbollah despite the Sunni and Shi’ite natures of the two groups, respectively. Teheran has less interest in denominational differences at this point than in winning the overall clash of civilizations. They want to drive the West from the Middle East and make themselves the center of the new Caliphate. At some level, the Guardian Council understands that a new Caliph will have to work with Sunni, Shi’a, and Sufi alike in order to gain control of the ummah.”

2006 Weblog Awards (Wizbang) The 2006 Weblog Awards – Nominations Are Now Open! — “Nominations for The 2006 Weblog Awards are now open. The Weblog Awards is the world’s largest blog competition, with over 1 million votes cast in the last three years for nearly 1,000 blogs.”

Very short first cup today. More later.