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Betty Bowers has an interesting take on what President Bush plans to do concerning the events in the Middle East.

Slate's John Dickerson chimes in on MD Senate hopeful Michael Steele: "When in a hole, stop digging. This is good advice in life and crucial advice in politics. Unfortunately, no one seems to have shared it with Michael Steele , a Republican candidate for the Senate from Maryland. Steele's slogan appears to be: 'More shovels !'" I smell a recap coming: 1. Steele, the Republican candidate, puts up a Republican-free campaign site full of Dem-friendly pictures . 2. He's supports the President's view on stem cells, than blasts him on everything else . 3. After being caught , he tries to play the whole thing off as a misunderstanding , than a joke. So he's a Republican who's afraid to admit he's one to the public, and he thinks just about every Republican venture has fallen flat. What a guy.

These orders were given to U.S. Sgt. Lemuel Lemus' unit serving in Iraq. And that's not all: Lemus was also ordered to "kill all military-aged men."

The financial fallout from the (high) number of retiring nuns from the Catholic Church " dwarfs costs from the clergy abuse crisis ."

Two bits of news that hurts Israel in the "Hearts and Minds" front: a report that U.N. officials tried to warn Israel about the shelling that lead to the deaths of observers, and al-Qaida decides to weigh in on the issue (maybe they were waiting til after Condi came back?). This kinda magnifies Israel's conundrum: they are trynig to stop an enemy that wants to see them destroyed, but every accidental death/injury makes it hard for the non-Mulsim population to completely accept what's going on. Make no mistake about it: as long as Israel occupies land coveted by just about every major religion, they will be hated and attacked. In that regard, they have a right to defend themselves. However, the further they push into Lebanon, or any other country for that matter, the more they risk losing the international support that's kept their more hostile enemies at bay. Sooner or later, Israel's military forces will have to leave southern Lebanon . It won't take lon...

Howard Dean has been on the offensive lately: He's called President Bush divisive on on various policies, labeled the Iraqi PM an anti-Semite , and pretty much buried Katherine Harris . In his defense: Bush has promoted divisive agenda such as constitutional amendments on flag burning and gay marriage, the Iraqi PM has seemed more sympathetic to Lebanon than Israel, and Katherine Harris has lost her campaign staff at least twice and gotten into a squabble with Florida Gov Bush (and that's the good news for her).

For PG County, it's whites who have to adjust to a predominately black environment . In light of everything that's been going on in the world, I think it's important to see that there are instances where people of different races, cultures and backgrounds do live together.

Michael Steele flip flops now that he's been caught .

The divorce was filed back in May, according to the story . I guess this means that Prince's longest partnership has been with Warner Bros., who he didn't really want to stay with.

Fresh off of leaving the Republican Party , Charles Barkley renews his interest in runnning for Governor of Alabama. Some don't think he's taking the run seriously. Funny, I don't remember that kind of talk when Republicans were courting Darrell Green .