No coffee can be good in the mouth that does not first send a sweet offering of odour to the nostrils. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Happy 1st Blogiversary to
Israel Matzav

It’s back to school day. Chaos Reigns!

Blogs for Bush (Mark Noonan) The Kooks Are Coming Home to Roost

Democrats, casting about for any club they could to belabor Bush with, brought these kooks into the mainstream, and now they’ve got to deal with them:

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) What You Don’t Know About The Federal Minimum Wage

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have placed a significant minimum-wage increase at the top of their agenda for the 110th Congress. President Bush has signaled his willingness to approve it, using the increase as a lever for tax relief on small businesses. One would imagine that this show of bipartisanship springs from a national crisis, but George Will explains that the effort will benefit only a few, and not even the few that the politicos assume:

Sister Toldjah Dems take control of Congress today

It’s a big day for the Democrats and their friends in the MSM, as the Dems take control of Congress for the first time in 12 years. Here’s a mini-link roundup of stories, opinion pieces, and blogposts related to the swearing in of the 111th Congress:

The drink that comforteth the brain and heart and helpeth digestion. ~ Sir Francis Bacon

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) There’s Gotta Be Irony In Here Somewhere — “Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has told an interviewer that he wants German troops in any international force protecting the Jewish state.”

Iowa Voice (Brian) Senate Dems Block Minimum Wage Bill — “Over the next day or so, they’re going to be in the news, patting themselves on the back for “screwing the rich”. But in reality, the only one who got screwed here was the poor. The rich already pay those taxes, so not getting them cut isn’t going to affect them in the least.”

Blue Crab Boulevard Another Day Of Waiting For Fidel — “Weird pronouncements are coming from Cuba, the US government admits they really do not know what is going on, either and we’ll just have to wait. Hard, isn’t it? Cuban government spokesmen are warning the the communist party will “defend the revolution”. Now that sounds almost as if it were a backhanded admission that Castro will not come back to power, but we’ll have to see.”

Babalu Blog (Val Prieto) Pa’ la calle! — “I would have given anything to have seen the expression on the faces of all of these reporters, most of whom have showered fidel castro and la revolucion with praise and adulation for so many years. Their utter shock! Their utter dismay! How could the glorious revolution turn its back on such staunch supporters!”

The Strata-Sphere (A.J. Strata) Petulent Democrats — “Family owned small businesses once again take a hit from Democrats who cannot abide anyone succeeding in life and passing the fruits of their efforts to their children. Their petulance has blocked a compromise on the infamous death tax where greedy bureacrats take the hard earned poperty built over a lifetime for their own wasteful uses.”

Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love. ~ Talleyrand

Happy 1st Blogiversary to:
Drew Kaplan’s Blog

GOP Bloggers (Jonathan R.) Congressional GOP Again Displays Gross Incompetence — “Instead of using substantive issues on which the Republican position enjoys a clear advantage among the American people, the GOP scrambles to vote on disparate and mostly symbolic issues in an ad hoc fashion with no guiding principles and no cohesive agenda or vision. The latest is a vote to raise the federal minimum wage, which is irrelevant to most families and a job-killer.”

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) Shooter In Seattle — “Some may start thinking about those Hezbollah sleeper cells that Hassan Nasrallah threatened to unleash against the West, but it’s an extremely unlikely explanation for this incident. If this initial report is accurate, it looks much more like a lone nutcase taking out his bigotry in a violent manner. Hezbollah would not waste a sleeper agent on an attack of this type, with so few potential victims. When Hezbollah strikes, they aim for maximum damage, as they did in Buenos Aires when they killed over eighty people at a Jewish center. This sounds much more similar to the wannabe jihadi in North Carolina earlier this year.”

TMH’s Bacon Bits (DL) The Coming GOP Battle Is a Good Thing — “What they won’t forgive the GOP for, is becoming exactly like ultra liberals when it comes to protecting this country’s borders and forcing another major amnesty and meltdown of the very idea of a sovereign nation.”

Ankle Biting Pundits (Bomb Truck) Cindy Sheehan’s Land Purchase Was A Con Job — “Not that anyone here would be shocked to read this, but it looks like “Saint” Cindy had to use some questionable practices to get ahold of her 5 acres in Crawford, and the natives are restless over it. KXXV.com reports that a local moonbat who sold Mother Sheehan the 5 acres in question lied to the sellers about his reasons for buying the land:”

Right Truth (Debbie) United Nations makes demands of Israel and remains useless [Absolutely the best headline for a story I have seen today! Jim] — “Maybe we should demand the United Nations pack up their bags and go set up shop with some of these terror groups, since they seem to side with them most of the time. Anyone ready to make some demands of the UN???”

The powers of a man’s mind are directly proportioned to the quantity of coffee he drinks. ~ Sir James Mackintosh

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) Israel Rejects UN-Led Force In Lebanon — “Israel’s outspoken ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, explicitly rejected the deployment of another United Nations-led force in southern Lebanon as part of any cease-fire initiative. Gillerman said that any force deployed to replace the Israelis would have to have more professional leadership than that offered by Turtle Bay:”

Wizbang (Jay Tea) No honest broker — “Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, reminds me a little of our own ambassador, John Bolton. Both have what traditionally been a crippling trait in diplomats: a tendency to speak forthrightly, without obfuscation and nuance.”

The Strata-Sphere (AJ Strata) The War On Terror’s Last Phase — “If people thought we were going to disrupt a few cells and take out a few enabling governments and be able to win the war on terror, they were sadly too optimistic. I had held out hope this would be possible. But the nature of our enemy never let me get too comfortable with that hope. I understand that people who are willing to die in a blaze of glory so they can obtain heaven and leave this world are not going to be easily deterred. They want to die. All we are negotiating is the terms of their death and how many of us they will be taking with us.”

Iowa Voice (Brian) GOP To Vote In Minimum Wage Increase? — “The government has no business telling employers what they will pay and what benefits they’ll offer. Government cannot dictate winners and losers in a capitalist system. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s socialism, is what it is. Look around the world and through history and see the record of socialism. It’s horrible! And the Democrats want to repeat that mess right here in the United States. No thanks!”