NORTH KOREA TO REJOIN 6-WAY TALKS

What do Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have in common? The ability to make their political opponents look like idiots:

TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea has told officials in South Korea it is willing to take part in six-party talks on its nuclear arms program in June, a Japanese newspaper reported.

Pyongyang also said in its message, which was conveyed to South Korea by unofficial routes and then to Japan by Seoul, that it was willing to sign a treaty with the United States by October, the conservative Sankei Shimbun said on Monday.

If John Kerry had been elected, it’s an absolute certainty that this would not have taken place. Kerry believed that initiating bi-lateral talks with North Korea was the way to get them back to the six-party negotiations.

He, like opponents of Ronald Reagan’s “Zero Option” strategy for eliminating medium range nukes in Europe during the 1980’s, didn’t have the patience to negotiate with tyrants. Back then, Walter Mondale and liberals in the press were screaming at Reagan to go back to the Russians and grovel, beg the Soviets to come back to the negotiating table. Instead, Reagan patiently built up the military, pulled off a diplomatic coup by getting our medium range missiles deployed, and then watched the Russians slink back to the bargaining table. The result was the elimination of an entire class of nuclear weapons.

Makes Dubbya look like a prophet.

PUTIN IS ONE KLUELESS EX-KGB KOMMIE

I don’t know whether to laugh or be scared to death about this:

George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush’s four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin’s crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. “Putin thought we’d fired Dan Rather,” says a senior Administration official. “It was like something out of 1984.”

That’s not all. During the joint press conference, Putin called on a reporter who asked Bush the very same question (an obvious plant).

While this would normally be the stuff of a Cox and Forkhum cartoon, it’s also enormously worrisome. I don’t know where Putin is getting his information about how things work in the United States, but whoever is giving it to him is pretty much of a loon. It makes Russia look more and more like some exotic third world country rather than a nation with 10,000 nuclear weapons.

Kind of scary that.

SYRIA “CAPTURES” SADDAM’S HALF BROTHER

Hey kids! Look who we found!

CAIRO, Egypt – Iraqi officials said Sunday that Syrian authorities had captured Saddam Hussein (news – web sites)’s half-brother and 29 other officials of the deposed dictator’s Baath Party in Syria and handed them over to Iraq (news – web sites) in an apparent goodwill gesture.

Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, a former Saddam adviser suspected of financing insurgents after U.S. troops ousted Saddam, was captured in Hasakah in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, two senior Iraqi officials told The Associated Press by telephone on condition of anonymity. Hasakah is about 30 miles from the Iraqi border.

So let me get this straight. Thirty or so Iraqi nationals are planning and carrying out terrorist activities for more than a year and a half in a country where if a flea sneezes without giving obiesance to Baby Assad it’s promptly arrested and thrown in jail. And we’re supposed to believe the Syrians just now discovered this network of terrorists on its soil?

It’s clear that Assad is running scared now, backtracking furiously in hopes of placating America long enough to salvage something out of his rapidly deteriorating position in Lebanon. If he can make his withdrawal from Lebanon seem like some kind of triumph, he has a chance of surviving. Anything less and its curtains for him, as the military as well as opposition in his own Baathist party would likely band together to oust him.

WELCOME BACK RICHARD NIXON

After taking a hiatus to serve our country, Richard Nixon is back! If you haven’t checked out his excellent blog Dead Republican Presidents, please do so.

Welcome back Dick…and THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!.

SPONGEBOB’S T-MOBILE HACKED: WASHINGTON TENSE

Cross-eyed Bear has the details of why the nattily pantalooned Porifera could very well be the next scalp hanging on the lodgepole of the blogosphere.

Since rumors of the impending release of Sponge Bob’s T-mobile address book began on Saturday night, the Washington scene has been buzzing, particuarly in the wake of the blogger induced “outing” of Jeff Gannon by left wing bloggers and the anticipated right-wing blogger response. At Large has learned that response may be at hand.

MOONBAT UPDATE

Van Helsing has the telling story of a moonbat standing in the way of progress by hanging on to his decreipt condo while trying to extort more money from the developer. Funny how moonbat’s get all rabid about “private property rights” when it’s their private property that someone wants to fool with.

Unemployed “peace studies” major Dan Goldstein is the only resident of a converted warehouse in a crappy part of Brooklyn. Everyone else unfortunate enough to have lived in the building has taken advantage of an extremely generous offer by Forest City Ratner, the development company that is trying to convert this particular slum into a new home for the New Jersey Nets, in addition to office and apartment towers — a project that will draw significant revenue into a community in sore need of it. It’s believed that residents were given double what they paid for their condos. But Goldstein apparently doesn’t need the money, having socked away more than his share back when he worked for a living, for AOL during what calls “the go-go 90s.”

THE CASE FOR LIFE

Sunnye from “The Sunnye Side of Life” relates a story with a strong message for why choosing life can be a glorious choice:

In 1996, I became pregnant during a rape. Due to complications, I was
advised to terminate my pregnancy. I refused all the way through. He
was born dead after being trapped in the birth canal and strangled by
the umbilical cord, but they resuscitated him. The social workers
told me that he needed to be institutionalized, that he may have
cerebral palsy after being deprived of oxygen. He needed a
craniectomy at 2 months to stop his seizures. They tried everything
to make me give up my son. I kept him, prayed for him every day, and
believed that my God could work a miracle.

Read the rest of this remarkable story.