Reached for comment, pieces of dead Israeli school children blown to bits by Arafat-directed suicide bombers over the years asked if former President Carter "wouldn't mind fucking right off." Only they said it in Hebrew.

My 11-year-old interjects this: "I bet if the audience could talk, they would ask what his plan is."

Indeed, the audience is skeptical. A voter asks, "Will you look into the camera and tell us you won't raise taxes?" Then ... Lerch-Munster approaches the camera and it looks like he's coming into my living room. Get out of here!! Hide the children. Is he taking a head count to charge us per person?! Scary.

An Aberdeenshire joiner has hit out after waiting nearly 24 hours to have a 3in nail removed from one of his fingers.

John Milne went to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary's accident and emergency department to have the nail removed but, after becoming increasingly frustrated, he left 22 hours later with it still in his finger.

Whenever government enters a field of private activity, that field becomes a political battleground. Whenever you mix politics with medicine, doctoring becomes a political instead of a medical activity.

“The spoken word is a mighty lord, and for all that it is insubstantial and imperceptible it has superhuman effects. It can put an end to fear do away with distress, generate happiness, and increase pity…When the power of the incantation meets the beliefs of a person’s mind, it beguiles, persuades, alters by its sorcery…techniques which cause the mind to err and deceive beliefs…For if everyone could remember everything that had happened in the past, could understand everything that was happening in the present, and could foresee everything that would happen in the future, the spoken word would not have the power that it has.”

Watching news reports of John Kerry's latest campaign appearance, a pressing question occurs to me: Why don't politicians use lavalier microphones when they speak without a podium? Do media consultants tell them it's more effective to talk loudly by carrying a big stick?

If Muslim religious leaders around the world will not publicly condemn the taking of children as hostages and their subsequent slaughter ? if those "men of faith" will not issue a condemnation without reservations or caveats ? then no one need pretend any longer that all religions are equally sound and moral.

You have revived the hopes of this nation through your blessed Jihad. By Allah, be patient until, with Allah's help, one of two good things will be awarded you: either victory or martyrdom. Our hearts are with you; our prayers are dedicated to you. The Islamic nation will not spare money or effort in support of your cause.

"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."
- Frederic Bastiat

Known as the 65-10 Rule, it calls for landowners to set aside 65 percent of their property and keep it in its natural, vegetative state. According to the rule, nothing can be built on this land, and if a tree is cut down, for example, it must be replanted. Building anything is out of the question.

He has inaugurated a new genre of documentary: the "Freak Does Something Disgusting And Gets Sick" movie. Such documentaries can only advance our understanding of human endurance, not to mention abnormal psychology. Perhaps we can look forward to such titles as:

"Make That a Double," wherein our intrepid filmmaker resolves to drink alcohol as his beverage of choice for all three meals. If asked to "make that a double?" he must say yes. And he must eventually try every liquor on the premises. Result? His liver looks like a Brillo pad and his brain looks like Spongebob Squarepants. Moral: fight Big Alcohol by outlawing demon rum. (It's been tried? Shut up, history boy. That was before the Internet, so it doesn't count.)

"Unlimited Trips To The Pasta Bar? Sure!" It's the same as Super Size Me!, but at Golden Corral. Result: Spurlock explodes on day five. Moral: Hurray for Golden Corral!

"I'll Have a Venti!" wherein our intrepid director takes all his drinks at Starbucks, paying the extra twenty cents for a super-grande mega-trough of energy-packed java when asked if he'd like to do so. Result: jittery, paranoid, and voluble, Spurlock becomes a freelance writer. Moral: caffeine is the backbone of a free and literate society.

Some state lawmakers are convinced they have the answer to solve the D.W.I. epidemic and want to require everyone on the road to take a breathalyzer test before they can start the engine of any vehicle.

We also can (and should) use positive arguments to determine whether implementing the conservative value-laden vision, or the libertarian competing lifestyles vision, will do more for human welfare.

…welfare state liberalism and ideological libertarianism are variations of the same thing. Both are basically concerned with satisfying individual preferences and both take all preferences as equal in worth.

They [liberals/libertarians] contrast with conservatism because conservatism says the human good is more complicated than everyone getting what he wants.

In the paper you mention here the emphasis is on methods more than goals. I say there that a "leftist" is someone who favors bureaucracy, a "libertarian" is someone who favors markets, and a "conservative" is someone favors tradition -- that is, who favors accepting institutions that have grown up more or less on their own terms. Leftists and libertarians in their different ways want to make everything completely rational and systematic, and conservatives reject that idea.