Here's a sure sign that Colin Powell is no longer running State:

'America would back Israel attack on Iran'

UN inspectors 'spent their days drinking'

That's actually far more productive than anything we'd have guessed they were doing.

It Begins:

Bush Sends Senate 20 Judicial Nominees

Another one for the good guys:

Senate OKs Limit on Class Action Lawsuits

We're tempted to go out on a limb and opine, based on the Senate majorities for this vote (72-26) and the Gonzales confirmation (60-36) that obstruction may be less of a problem this year than many of us had feared. We'll know for sure when the 10 filibustered Appeals Court nominees come up for a vote.

The mad mullahs who run Iran have promised a "burning hell" for any aggressor (Hat Tip Best of the Web).

No doubt the rhetorical intensity will increase over the coming months, and we'll soon be faced with "The Mother of All Burning Hells."

The State of Florida is working on a new law that would allow people to shoot intruders in their homes without having to ascertain the malefactor's intentions first. As the Evil and Villainous NRA puts it:

"You can't expect a victim to wait and ask, "Excuse me, Mr. Criminal, are you going to rape me and kill me, or are you just going to beat me up and steal my television?' "

What a concept.

The article also helpfully points out that:

The bill has law enforcement support because it does not allow homeowners to shoot law officers...

Jim Hoagland writes in the Washington Post:

Cheney's instinct for the unvarnished was on display during his Jan. 20 conversation with Imus on MSNBC. The vice president did not retreat into diplo-speak when Imus asked him what dangers Iran's nuclear program posed: Iran's stated intention to destroy Israel meant that "the Israelis might well decide to act first and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards," Cheney replied.

His words sent foreign officials skittering to the White House and State Department to ask if the vice president had just endorsed or warned against an Israeli preemptive strike.

Cheney has declined opportunities to dispel that uncharacteristic ambiguity.

Hold the phone! Ambiguity? How could any phrase be less ambiguous? Perhaps Mr. Hoagland has been listening to Bill Clinton so long he no longer possesses the ability to understand "plainspeak."

Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit has a piece in the Wall Street Journal discussing Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen as a possible Democratic candidate for President in 2008.

The article is worth reading, and Bredesen seems like the kind of Democratic we'd like to see more of, but his chances in 2008 are nil. Why? He'd have to get nominated by the party of Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. He'd have to raise money from Democratic paymasters like Barbara Streisand and George Soros. He'd have to get the MoveOn.org crowd and Michael Moore to support him.

Fat chance.

We fondly remember Ronald Reagan's response when asked by a reporter about the military buying a hammer for $300. He said yes, it's a problem, but keep in mind that this administration is the one that discovered it.

Enter North Korea. It's a problem, but one that the Bush administration has highlighted, not created.

Today North Korea has officially and publicly admitted what everyone already knew: They have nukes. They also pulled out of diplomatic talks and again threatened an invasion of the South.

How come these guys always escalate when we start getting serious with someone in the Middle East? The last time the North rattled its saber we were ramping up to invade Iraq--some unserious leftys even questioned why we didn't invade North Korea first. Now we are starting to get serious with Iran and the North is at it again. It's almost as if they were working together, you know, in some kind of axis of evil or something.

Enough foreplay. Start dropping the bombs!

We love the oft repeated quip that the only thing the left is liberal about is sex. It appears they are also rather obsessed with it. Here's an interesting back and forth on the topic of gays. (Hat Tip Polipundit).

In case you have better things to do than wade through the noise, the bottom line is this: For years gays have told us that what happens in a person's bedroom is private and to mind our own business. Now they are upset that we are doing just that. Now they want us to care about what they are doing in their bedrooms.

No thanks.

We recently argued that the outcome of the 2006 Senate races will depend more on vacancies and recruiting than anything else. Well, as if on cue, Best of the Web is reporting the first putative vacancy:

Sen. Mark Dayton, the Minnesota Democrat who fled Washington in October because he feared a terrorist attack but returned after President Bush's re-election, is leaving the capital for good. St. Paul's KSTP-TV reports Dayton will retire from the Senate after just one term:

Dayton had been seen as vulnerable in a run for a second term. Late last month, a Star Tribune Minnesota Poll found Dayton's approval rating had fallen to 43 percent.

Dayton's departure from the race presents a major opportunity for Republicans in a state that has become increasingly more friendly to GOP politicians. Among those considering bids were Congressmen Gil Gutknecht and Mark Kennedy, as well as former Senator Rod Grams, who lost to Dayton in 2000.

Minnesota is a longtime Democratic bastion in presidential races, last backing a Republican in 1972. But in 2002 the GOP won races for both senator and governor, and John Kerry's margin last year was only 3.5%. You can bet the GOP will be eyeing this seat.

The Animal House character Dean Wormer offers advice to Michael Moore:

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life son."

The International Herald Tribune has a story about US citizens moving to Canada. Fair enough, but how about the millions who come to the US each year from all over the world, including Canada? Seems that if immigration versus emigration is a proper standard then Bush wins by more than 99% of the vote.

To those leaving, we wish you well. Really. What you are doing is not unprecedented. Before, during and after the Revolutionary War many Tories left the US for Canada, which remains to this day a member of the Commonwealth. God Save the Queen and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Back to the IHT (a subsidiary of the notorious NYT). Focusing on those leaving without mentioning the long lines to get in is analogous to writing about the handful of people moving to Cuba each year while ignoring the thousands who risk their lives to get out. For shame.

Palestinian families wonder: were suicide attacks worth the loss of our children?

No. Next question.

Polipundit is arguing against the use of the so called "nuclear option" for overcoming Senate filibusters of judicial nominees. We're inclined to disagree.

1. Appellate Court vacancies have already changed the outcome of court cases. In a well known example, vacancies on the 9th Circuit resulted in the part-time use of retired judges including Stephen Reinhardt, the guy who wrote the opinion declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it mentions "God." We need those vacancies filled.

2. Yes we will lose the filibuster issue, but there are plenty of other issues. If Harry Reid's happy warriors are willing to continue judicial filibusters after their recent losses, then they'll certainly be willing to do other stupid things too. There are lots of good issues out there--plenty of rope to hand the Dems so they can go off and hang themselves. We don't have to hamstring the judiciary in order to let them Dems make fools of themselves.

3. Rather than distracting from an almost certain battle over Supreme Court nominees, this is the perfect time and place to start it. Let the Dems use, and lose, their best weapon fighting 10 superbly qualified Appellate Court nominees. They'll lose, and their loss will make our job easier when the Supreme Court comes up. Bush is being very clever renominating the filibustered nominees now, before the Supreme Court comes up. It forces the Dems' hand. They either fight now (and lose) or back down (and lose).

4. Republicans do need to boost their numbers in the Senate, but we think that will have much more to do with a) the quality of the candidates recruited, and b) vacancies. In last November's blowout only one incumbent Senator lost his seat, Tom Daschle, and that was a very unusual race.

5. The only reason the Dems would continue to filibuster judicial nominees is...wait for it...money. The issue is bringing in campaign donations. The flip side of that argument is that, if we can take away their ability to filibuster judicial nominees, we dry up that source of campaign contributions. Some of that money will find its way to other lefty causes, but not all of it.

Apropos the Iraqi elections:

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Nietzsche

Hat Tip to Best of the Web.

Reason #2451 why Hugo Chavez really, really needs to go.

Chavez is, BTW, the new dictator for life of Venezuela, best buddies with Castro and 7 figure donor to al Qaeda.

Oops. That's not a permalink. So here's the "money" quote:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice illiterate and suggested in a speech last week that she had sexual dreams about him...

This is dangerously close to an act of war:

Snipers working as "lookouts" for drug traffickers and illegal-alien smugglers are targeting U.S. Border Patrol agents from vantage points across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Then again, nations have gone to war over less. The illegals represent Mexico's most important export. It's not just the $16B they send home each year. It's also the important safety valve they provide. Better to nod and wink while they swim a river than have them stay home and, you know, try to change things.

We love this story:

Iraqi citizens Kill 5 terrorists

Citizens of Al Mudhiryiah (a small town in the "death triangle") were subjected to an attack by several militants today who were trying to punish the residents of this small town for voting in the election last Sunday.

The citizens responded and managed to stop the attack, kill 5 of the attackers, wounded 8 and burned their cars.

3 citizens were injured during the fire exchange. The Shiekh of the tribe to whom the 3 wounded citizens belong demanded more efforts from the government to stop who he described as "Salafis".

Are you one of the Three People on the planet who isn't reading The Diplomad? If so, quit wasting your time with our lame site and click over there now!

What are you still doing here? Fine. Be that way. We'll post some Diplomad here:

Let's be blunt. You don't want to be on the wrong side of an American President who has shown he will literally "pull the trigger"; a President with the solid backing of the Senate, the House, and the American people; and, to top it off, a President who has nothing to lose politically and has made clear that he will spend his political capital. You don't see this combination often -- and when you do, you take notice.

Good stuff. Even better when you see this headline from Al Guardian:

Bush warns Syria and Iran over terror

Pull the trigger George. We're with you.

In general we really liked the SOTU address. Clean nuclear energy. Spending cuts. Privatizing Social Security. Who could be against these things?

But the Palestinian part bugs us. It sounded the only bad note of the evening, so bad it got us thinking.

Bush believed in the Iraqi people. Lots of people disagreed. In the end Bush was right and the detractors were wrong (say it over and over, it sounds so good). What is clear to us now is that Bush believes in the Palestinians too, so for the very first time we have real empathy for those who were (and inexplicably still are) against freeing Iraq. We understand what the left was feeling. We don't believe in the Palestinians. We don't think they want freedom. We don't think they want peace. We don't trust them. We think any attempt to "free" the Palestinians is not just a fool's errand, but will in fact make things worse.

Coming round back to Bush, it's clear he believes in the Palestinians and is quite serious about "freeing" them too. We think it's a stupid idea. You can't build a nation out of shit. You can't even lay a foundation. All you can do is spread the shit around. We disagree with Bush about whether the Palestinians are a good candidate for freedom, peace and prosperity--or just shit.

Nevertheless, we're going to do something that the left refused to do. We're going to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. We hope for his success. We won't try to make it harder. We won't chuckle to ourselves every time something goes wrong.

We won't be cheerleading either. Rather, we'll reserve our praise for initiatives that are unquestionably worthy, such as nuclear power. But if Bush is right and we're wrong we'll say so, and congratulate him on yet another historic success.

But come on. The Palestinians? Seriously?