Wednesday digest

- You know what word I really don't like anymore? Dialogue. As soon as I hear it, the red flags shoot straight up.

- Remaining on the "with friends like that" file, Pakistan wants us to cry uncle to the Taliban.

- A modern-day hero, Irshad Manji, weighs in on the Pope's visit to Turkey. Here's a look at efforts by the usual campus suspects to silence Manji's contemporaries. Meanwhile, as the advance of Sharia law continues in Britain, VDH calls for more like her to speak up and defend the West.

- A late entry into the understatement of the year sweepstakes: Jimmy Carter says that the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian forces in Gaza was "probably a mistake". By reading the link above, we can reasonably guess what Carter thinks of the ridiculous 1,000 for 1 prisoner exchange offer that Hamas refuses to take off the table.

(I wonder what he'd call the refusal by Hamas to recgonize Israel? "Maybe not that great an idea?")

- Robert F. Kennedy: the original blue dog Democrat?

- Reading this article, I'm reminded of the two day fast-a-thon I went on in Grade 7. In between the regular anti-capitalist breast-beating that goes along with these things, the teachers threw peanuts in the shell all over my elementary school parking lot, and when it was time for breakfast in the morning, we were told to go pick 'em up, because that was it.

And damn, did that McDLT combo I ate when it was all over ever taste good.

I still remember it today - and, quite frankly, the memory is made even fonder by thinking about how at the time, my twelve-year old self didn't even realize how I was helping to create jobs, expand trade and foster wealth creation all over the world, just by dropping $3.99.

(Then again, how was I to comprehend anything other than that most powerful of emotions - guilt?)