Could it be?
A MANCHESTER historian has claimed that Pope John Paul II was Jewish.
Yaakov Wise says his study into the the maternal ancestry of Karol Josez Wojtyla (John Paul II’s real name) has revealed startling conclusions.
Mr Wise, a researcher in orthodox Jewish history and philosophy, said the late Pope’s mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were all [...]

When companies put out a spot like this, you know they’re in trouble.
Given that, I wish more companies were in trouble.
You’ll see…
(HT: GigaOm)

A new essay from Michael Totten, who’s in Beirut for the next several months, reveals the fine art of driving in Beirut.
When I first arrived in Beirut I thought Lebanese drivers must be among the worst in the world. They don’t stop at red lights. They drive the wrong way down one-ways. Seat belts are [...]

Incredible intellectual honesty from one of my favorite bloggers.
The next phase looks messy, but not necessarily more disastrous than what has happened up till now. (Yeah, I know that’s not exactly a high standard). I’m hanging in there with David Brooks. It’s not intellectually easy to continue supporting a war when you’ve lost faith in [...]

A new law passed make it legal for private entities to buy up some federal plots…
On the surface, the bill reads like the mundane nip and tuck of federal mining law its authors say it is. But lawyers who have parsed its language say the real beneficiaries could be real estate developers, whose business has [...]

I love the logic, or lack thereof…
“The world is getting bigger; your penis has to get bigger too.”

The former “Superlobbyist” is going down, and he may take a lot of people with him.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 – The Justice Department has signaled for the first time in recent weeks that prominent members of Congress could be swept up in the corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff, the former Republican superlobbyist who diverted some of [...]

Michael Yon finally has his long-awaited (by me, at least) article on the Deuce Four banquet:

The overwhelming joy of being home with families and friends was grounded by the permanent losses and severe battle scars of those who paid the highest price for the success of the mission. The ghosts of the fallen took their [...]

No surprise here.
“I think he’s got a lot of explaining to do, and depending on how he does, I think will determine whether or not he has a problem or not,” said Sen. Joseph Biden, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which plans confirmation hearings in early January.
In 1985, Alito was applying to become [...]

This weekend I learned that our two close friends are getting divorced. What a cold day this is.

Inquiring minds want to know …
-Did the Iraqi War begin strictly as a response to the 9/11 attacks?
-What factor did faulty intelligence play in leading the U.S. into the war?
-Was the war waged exclusively upon a crusading fervor shown by G.W. Bush?
-Were Cheney and Rummy marvelous manipulators and shamelessly spinning the situation in [...]

Gerald Baker ponders the American Democratic leadership from across the pond:

Half the Democratic members of the Senate � oddly enough, including all those with serious presidential aspirations � John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden � voted for the war in 2002. The awful truth about many of these people is that their cynicism [...]

Like John Kerry and a number of others, I don’t want to hear any bad-mouthing of Jack Murtha. Murtha represents in Congress a district in the hardscrabble mountain country out around Johnstown, some of the poorest Appalachian terrain in Pennsylvania and not far from where Flight 93 went down.
An excellent column on the political war [...]

“I like guys who’ve never been there that criticize us who’ve been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don’t like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done.”
–?
Just guess. It shouldn’t be too hard.
However, if you want to [...]

Some perspective is needed in this new debate. Andy Sullivan gives it.
It seems to me it would be more helpful if Republicans and conservatives offered positive arguments for how to do better instead of attacking every critic as a wuss, unpatriotic, inconsistent, or worse. Murtha spent 37 years in the Marines. He voted for [...]

Congressman John Murtha’s press release calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq is no doubt being viewed by the insurgents as a victory, while at the same time with puzzlement and disbelief by our military currently deployed.
The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. [...]

Greg Djerejian at The Belgravia Dispatch has been one of the few bloggers I’ve been reading who has managed to keep his head in the current political meltdown over Iraq and Bush/Cheney. That is, he navigates between the Scylla of unquestioning loyalty to leaders who don’t quite deserve it and the Charybdis of “say anything [...]

An interesting read from an interview with a former military intelligence officer and UNSCOM inspector regarding WMDs in Iraq.
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill Tierney, a former military intelligence officer and Arabic speaker who worked at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and as a counter-infiltration operator in Baghdad in 2004.
He was also an inspector [...]

34%? Jeezus…
So the administration seems to think that hammering the Democrats on being historical revisionists will bring the numbers up, and this poll seems to suggest otherwise. Why? Well, the American people want answers on the war and they want them now. But explaining things in a clear and precise manner unfortunately isn’t the Bush [...]

Seems like they weren’t too terribly honest the first time around…
Senate Democrats demanded that oil company executives who testified last week about skyrocketing energy prices reappear before lawmakers and testify under oath, after news reports raised questions about the truthfulness of their testimony.
Leading oil company executives long have denied taking part in a secretive energy [...]