Newt Gingrich's declaration on Meet the Press that World War III has already started, brought a quick demurral from Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), who was also a guest on the show. According to Jay Bryant, though, Newt is Right: It's World War III, Yahoo News.

Read more: TRUTH—THE NO SPIN POLITICALLY INCORRECT ZONE: World War III?

But there is something even more insidious implied here. Plantinga suggests that the judge legislated that “the scientific community has successfully refuted the criticism of unguided evolution brought by the IDers” and this is utterly false. The judge did not ‘legislate’ this conclusion at all. What he did was summarize the general consensus within the scientific community. Intelligent Design has very very little support within science, so, in fact, if it is a question for science then ID has lost and lost catastrophically. This much is obvious to anyone who bothers to actually take a look. What is insidious in Plantinga’s argument is the suggestion that the judge did not have the right to do this, that the judge was not qualified, somehow, to take the advice of experts.

Read more: hell’s handmaiden � Alvin Plantinga… hmm, never really liked Plantinga

Tony Juniper began by putting the demonstration in context, noting Blair's recent change of heart, away from international emissions targets and towards voluntary technology uptake, revealed in comments to Condoleeza Rice at the Clinton Global Initiative two months ago (this contradicts my post of Tuesday, but I think Juniper is right on this). You can get more of Tony Juniper's view in his piece in the Guardian yesterday.

Read more: London climate change public meeting - Nov 22nd - some notes

According to Braverman, who held a number of positions at the World Bank, Israel needs to adopt the social democratic outlook of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, the American concepts of the Constitution and free enterprise, and the socio-economic policies of Sweden and Finland.

Read more: Lots of new Laborites

Quick post while Dave’s in the shower: I survived the flight. I got a job. (More details on that later.) We’ve managed to eat some pretty awesome food - some cooked by my sister, some cooked by chefs in a fancy-shmancy restaurant. I got a great early birthday gift from my sister - a pair of jeans that make my ass look fantastic. (How rare a find is THAT?) We’ve been to the Museum of Modern Art and Central Park. We (meaning Dave and I - and probably my siblings, but definitely NOT my parents) got way too tipsy last night at dinner. I’ve managed to only get into one fight with my dad so far. (I’m doing well. Trust me.) And today we’re going to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty before we head back to T’s apartment and eat way too much food for Thanksgiving. I’m wearing my fat jeans in anticipation. Hope everyone has a good holiday.

Read more: happy thanksgiving

While Vietnam is remembered as the television war, Iraq has been the television-crawl war: a scrolling feed of bad-news bits, pushed to the margins by Brad and Jen, Robert Blake, Jacko and two and a half years of other anesthetizing fare. Americans could go days on end without engaging with the war, on TV or in print.

Read more: The media and Iraq…

Congresswoman Pelosi’s “traps and smears” stemmed not from the legitimate vote, but from the MSM’s peevish misrepresentation of Congressman Murtha’s stunt. And while I don’t think he’s a coward, I’m offended by Democrats playing politics with troops that include my son.

Read more: Pelosi, Traps, and Smears

He said he had resisted prior offers from Peretz to enter politics, believing that his work in the Negev was of greater importance. "But the turnabout, the big bang that has occured, Amir Peretz' entry as the leader of the Labor Party, changed my decision."

Read more: Ben Gurion University President joins Labor, not Sharon

Bill Dembski has made the point that Intelligent Design is a search for intelligence in the history of life, not unlike SETI’s search for intelligence in the universe. In that regard, I came across this interesting article by Michael Crichton [HT: Thinking Christian]. Chricton argues that SETI is not science and that it led to a brand of politically driven science including the scientifically dubious “Nuclear Winter” and “Global Warming”.

Read more: Crichton on Consensus Science

The Bush Administration has launched a full-frontal assault these past several weeks attempting to staunch the bleed-out of its credibility concerning the Iraq war. As accusations of misused intelligence information continue to surface, Bush Administration officials like Condoleeza Rice have begun to push back against their critics by once again asserting that "everyone" believed Hussein was an imminent threat and had WMD's. "Everyone" being defined as the Bush Administration, Congress and foreign leaders.

Read more: Wrangling Over The War Intelligence

Richard M. Doerflinger — Deputy Director, Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — testified on November 15 before a Virginia legislative stem cell research subcommittee regarding the Catholic Church’s perspective on stem cell research. A copy of his testimony is available stemcellresearch.org

Read more: Stem Cells in the Old Dominion State

WHEN IT COMES to the future of Iraq, there is a deep disconnect between those who have firsthand knowledge of the situation — Iraqis and U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq — and those whose impressions are shaped by doomsday press coverage and the imperatives of domestic politics.

Read more: Confidence In Iraq

("The General," Wes Clark, has a plan up at his Securing America site, too.) There seems to be a consensus among military experts on this. We need to begin drawing down forces, and we need to leave a much smaller "rapid reaction" force behind, partly in Iraq, mostly in Kuwait. Even the wildest winger surely knows we will be pulling significant numbers of troops out of Iraq sooner rather than later, mostly because of the politics.

Read more: Strangely familiar...

I actually attended this talk and stayed for the whole time and saw that the liberal audience was respectful — certainly not the “unhinged” portrayal that Malkin presents. If anything, the double standard becomes apparent in the unhinged conservative movements, not only do they call everything a “liberal bias” or “anti-Bush” but the comparable extremes to Malkin’s case studies are norms such as war-mongering ego-driven profiteers and the extreme cases of ignorant conservatism ranging from intolerance of scientific progress (again, ranging from stem cell research to intelligent design) to the KKK.

Read more: Michelle Malkin at Cornell University

You can view the two ads online by clicking here. One 30 second ad features former Senator Jack Danforth arguing that you can be "pro-lfe" and pro-stem cell. The other 60 second ad explains the value of stem cell research and encourages Missourians to sign the iniative.

Read more: Coalition For Lifesaving Cure Unveils TV Ads