Israel and the Palestinians

First paragraph of a Reuters article:

"Firing into the air, Fatah gunmen and police stormed Palestinian parliament buildings on Saturday in growing unrest after their long-dominant party's crushing election defeat by Hamas Islamists."

As I've said before, Israel is the only civilized nation in that part of the world.

Oregon and West Virginia

In Oregon, some celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to overturn their physician assisted suicide law.

From West Virginia comes this Associated Press story, which I find deeply moving on many levels:

By VICKI SMITH
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -

With a little help, the sole survivor of the Sago Mine disaster stood for the first time since the accident, and puckered his lips when his wife asked for a kiss, doctors said Friday. Randal McCloy Jr., 26, came out of a coma earlier this week.

"In this business of taking care of severe head injuries, little things make us happy," Dr. Julian Bailes said.

McCloy can make noises when doctors cover his breathing tube. Whether he will be able to speak when the tube is removed depends on the extent of the brain damage he suffered from carbon monoxide during his 41 hours trapped underground, Bailes said.

Twelve fellow miners died after the explosion Jan. 2.

Doctors described McCloy as being within "moments if not hours from death" when he arrived at West Virginia University's Ruby Memorial Hospital on Jan. 4.

On Thursday, he was transferred to a rehabilitation center. He stood for the first time that day with help from medical aides, and later puckered his lips when his wife, Anna, asked for a kiss, said Dr. Russell Biundo, medical director at HealthSouth Mountain View hospital in Morgantown.

"There is definitely a better connection with her than anybody else," Biundo said. "What we all want is a connection so that when I say, `Lift one finger,' he does it. Boom, then we have a party."

When they're not busy protecting their right to kill unborn children...

your garden-variety core constituents of the Democratic party are planning to turn the annual White House Easter egg hunt into a teaching moment reflecting their sensitivity to children's needs. (or should that read, "their willingness to subject children to anything, including death"?)

Specter

President Bush just signed into law a bill making it a crime to annoy someone via the internet. We can thank Arlen Specter for prodding the priveleged boy President into this new Big Government initiative.

Now if we could just pass a law making it a crime for senators to annoy people by bloviating on national television....

Biden

If Joe Biden's bowels worked like his mouth, he'd be diagnosed with a life-threatening condition.

A Prayer for a Friend of Peace and Justice

If anyone ever writes a book with the title, "People Who Took Risks for Peace", unexpectedly (given his earlier history), Ariel Sharon must be one of the prominent chapters - one of the great stories of the struggles of the Middle East in the post-WWII era. Somehow, that part of the world seems to just suck down such lives like an alcoholic quaffing his first few beers, hardly even savoring the nuances of the courage and committment of this old fighter who stood up to the intransigent in the movement he'd helped start, in an effort to bring to a successful conclusion a just war to which he'd devoted his life. I pray that we have not seen the last of him.