Wednesday digest

- In this interview, Sen. Joe Biden from Delaware, sizing up the competition in the Democratic field for the '08 Presidential nomination, said the following about Illinois Senator Barack Obama:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

A quick scan of the homepages of CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and CNN don't mention this. Anyone think that if a Republican said the same thing about Obama, he'd be let off as easily by the mainstream media, much less still be in the race?

- Security forces in the UK have uncovered a terrorist plot to kidnap and publicly behead a Muslim soldier who is serving in the British army.

This has somehow got to be George Bush's fault.

- On Monday, I mentioned a recent poll taken in England where over a third of those young Muslims surveyed said that conversion to another faith ought to be punishable by death. Another look at a number of recent surveys, more global in scope, paints a similarly unsettling picture. I am generally dubious regarding public opinion research, but there's a common thread emerging here that we dismiss at our peril.

Meanwhile, although the language is not the most sophisticated (and we can blame translation for that), the town council of Herouxville, QC is (predictably) being derided as racist for warning potential newcomers to their community that if they're uncomfortable with equality of the sexes, among other things, they may want to reconsider moving there.

Perhaps if the moderate Muslim community in North America and Europe spoke out against the extremists in their midst more regularly, others wouldn't need to defend society's values in such clear (and apparently offensive) language. As we are constantly reminded, if it's such a small minority of Muslims who reject liberal democratic culture, it shouldn't be that difficult for those Muslims who love living in the West to point out that those who don't (but still live here) are out of line and need to adapt.

Should it?

- Today's loony left play of the day comes to us from France, where the government is looking at the viability of sanctioning afternoon naps in the workplace.

- Palestine - equally and eternally an opportunity yet hopeless at the same time.

- As Iran begins to celebrate, it looks like the mullahs have begun to rein in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. I think that the more this guy's back is against the wall, the louder and more strident the anti-Israel, anti-US, pro-nuclear rhetoric will become. Meanwhile, warnings from Gingrich and Fukuyama.

- Over an inch of snow in Tulsa, OK, today, as the media machine gears up for this week's UN report on climate change. The "Union of Concerned Scientists" (of course they're concerned - their funding would dry up without the threat of global warming) says that the Bush White House interfered with their findings while others are looking into the crystal ball and predicting the next 1,000 years with certainty on top of looking 650,000 years into the past. One can only conclude that the skeptics who dissent both at home and abroad just aren't as talented as those who can predict an entire millenia into the future.

Myself, I agree with my buddy Dave: there's no doubt global warming is happening, but we can't be sure why, especially given the blatant lack of objectivity that has characterized this debate and sloppy, ill-considered conclusions that are now bordering on conventional wisdom. And as for Kyoto, I also agree with the Prime Minister who stated five years ago that it's a socialist scheme indeed that will cripple Western countries while doing nothing to stop man-made emissions by virtue of the fact that China and India are excluded.

(It's also good to see that the hacks in the Liberal research bureau are finally doing their job.)