Top Items:
Fouad Ajami / Opinion Journal:
Hostage to Hezbollah — Lesson for Nasrallah: "The violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you." — Pity Lebanon: In a world of states, it has not had a state of its own. A garden without fences, was the way Beirut, its capital city, was once described.
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Thomas Sowell / Townhall.com:
Pacifists versus peace — One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
BBC:
Israel calls up army reservists — Israel has called up thousands of reserve troops and told civilians to quit southern Lebanon immediately, amid threats of a large-scale incursion. — Israeli troops are already fighting Hezbollah inside Lebanon and have been heavily shelling the border area.
Ben Stein / American Spectator:
Out of Disproportion — So, now I see that some commentators are saying that Israel's bombing of Lebanese Hezbollah strong points and neighborhoods is "disproportionate." The Israeli campaign, so this story goes, is bullying and terrorizing the Lebanese populace, and this is (so the argument goes) typical Israeli thug behavior.
Yaakov Katz / Associated Press:
5,000 called up in latest mobilization — The IDF sent out emergency calls for 5,000 reserve soldiers on Friday in addition to the reserves already called up. — OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam stated that the move was done in order to relieve some of the forces currently operating in northern Israel.
Discussion:
Atlas Shrugs
New York Post:
BARING FIENDS' BURIED SECRETS — July 21, 2006 — INSIDE ISRAEL JERUSALEM - What the Israeli military has learned since the Lebanese border war began nine days ago is that Hezbollah managed to secretly build a network of underground tunnels and bunkers to house a vast artillery arsenal.
Yaakov Katz / Jerusalem Post:
IDF forces gathering in North for possible ground incursion
IDF forces gathering in North for possible ground incursion
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, Counterterrorism Blog, The Belmont Club, The Politburo Diktat and Decision '08
New York Times:
More Than a Cease-Fire Needed — Lebanon needs more than U.S. marines …
More Than a Cease-Fire Needed — Lebanon needs more than U.S. marines …
Discussion:
The Beirut Spring
Ctblogger / ConnecticutBLOG:
Douglas Schwatrz breaks down latest Q-poll report — Douglas Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, gave a press conference where he talked about the latest Q-poll report released yesterday and what it means for the senate and governor's race.
Josh Gerstein / New York Sun:
Centrist Democrats Ponder How To Counter Netroots — At a time when centrism has become a dirty word in some Democratic Party circles, hundreds of the party's avowed moderates are convening in Denver this weekend to discuss their agenda for this fall's election and the presidential contest in 2008.
Austan Goolsbee / New York Times:
Count Ethnic Divisions, Not Bombs, to Tell if a Nation Will Recover From War — WITH repeated Shiite and Sunni killings in Iraq, the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel, Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, the assaults by the Taliban and counterassaults by American forces in Afghanistan …
wsbradio.com:
Cynthia McKinney Missing In Action — Rep. Cynthia McKinney was a no-show this week in the U.S. House, as WSB Washington Correspondent Jamie Dupree reports that the Georgia Democrat missed all four days of legislative business and every vote on the House floor as well.
Reuters:
Massachusetts same-sex marriage pioneers split up —Text+BOSTON (Reuters) - The lesbian couple whose landmark lawsuit helped Massachusetts become the only state in America where same-sex couples can marry legally have split up, a spokeswoman said on Friday.
Discussion:
Shot In The Dark
Fausta / faustasblog.com:
A sign of courage in Madrid — El Manifestómetro (in Spanish) has video of the lone Israel sympathizer at a peace demonstration in Madrid. — The young man was alone, holding a sign that said, — on one side, "Israel wants peace! Stop the killing!" — and on the other side, "Don't let them fool you!
Judd / Think Progress:
Sen. Inhofe: 'Gore Is Full of Crap,' 'All Recent Science...Confirms This Thing Is A Hoax' — Yesterday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attacked Al Gore and global warming science, claiming that Gore was "full of crap" on global warming. — Appearing on Glenn Beck's radio show and CNN television program …
Reuters:
Banned cleric begs UK: Save me — LONDON, England (Reuters) — A hard-line Muslim cleric barred from Britain for glorifying violence said on Friday he tried to get on board a British warship to flee Beirut but was turned back. — "The answer was, 'unless you have a British passport …
Steve Clemons / The Washington Note:
White House Calls on Jewish Groups to Line Up Behind John Bolton — It's hard to imagine something more cynical than the White House exploiting Middle East convulsions — in which many innocents on all sides are dying in real time — to divide Americans at home in order to try and squeeze through …
Digby / Hullabaloo:
Another Moment of Clarity — The conflict in the mideast has always had a certain kabuki element. In the past when these situations would flare up, Israel would take an agrressive action to demonstrate that it wasn't a pushover and the US would step in like a Dutch uncle and reluctantly pull the pissed off Israelis back.
Chris Bowers / MyDD:
Privilege Breeds Bad Campaigning … TNR, via mcjoan: … There is a connection between the sense of privilege Lieberman and Lieberman supporters feel, and between his terrible campaigning. Matt hinted at this back on Tuesday night, as has emptywheel over at The Next Hurrah.