The Dish

"Snow-Mexico" no more! Alex Beam has a jolly column:

Canada, the world’s second largest nation, has launched a $10 million "Canada: Keep Exploring" promotion campaign to convince Americans that Snow Mexico isn’t boring and stodgy, but cutting-edge, upscale, and hip.

The Wall Street Journal says one ad soon to land in Boston and elsewhere hypes "tony outdoor digs on Vancouver Island accompanied by the caption ‘ Is sipping 40-year-old brandy in a luxury tent still considered roughing it?’ " My proposed caption would attract a lot more Yankee turistas: "The Pot Capital of North America — Just Minutes Away." I’m still fuming that the newspaper didn’t send me to cover Vancouver’s Global Marijuana March ("Think Global, Smoke Local"), which took place earlier this month.

Or "Canada: Keep Going."

A revealing sign of the shifting times.

Heh:

"’Here is Sam Brownback talking about evolutionary biology.’ That’s a bit like saying: ‘Here’s Paris Hilton talking about partial differential equations.’"

A reader, passionate about the Garamond typeface, also introduces me to "ambigrams," many of which are displayed on a sort of porn site for font-freaks. Check it out. Here’s one that will give you the general idea:

Here’s another:

Cooler?

"Conservatism embraces President Kennedy’s exhortation to "Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country," and adds: You serve your country by embracing a spacious and expanding sphere of life for which your country is not responsible.

Here is the core of a conservative appeal, without dwelling on "social issues" that should be, as much as possible, left to "moral federalism" — debates within the states. On foreign policy, conservatism begins, and very nearly ends, by eschewing abroad the fatal conceit that has been liberalism’s undoing domestically – hubris about controlling what cannot, and should not, be controlled.

Conservatism is realism, about human nature and government’s competence," – George F. Will, today. Couldn’t agree more. Conservatism’s embrace of reality – and the empirical skepticism required to see it clearly – is at the core of my own account of conservative political philosophy.

Michael Fumento argues that the press may not be as blameworthy as some believe for the paucity of good news out of Iraq.

In a word: indifferent. Tim F responds here.

Nine minutes of his greatest hits. It’s been a while. Ah, YouTube.

Laura Ingraham "takes the gloves off." Doesn’t she want to "do what’s right for America"? Finally, conservatives get mad at this president – for all the conservative reasons we’re now familiar with. It only took six years of betrayal to get there, but, hey guys, welcome aboard. I find myself echoing Glenn Reynolds:

Heck, I’m basically pro-immigration and I find the Administration’s arguments for the bill sufficiently unpersuasive and insulting that I’m leaning against it on that basis alone.

It’s the arrogance and condescension that finally makes your blood boil.

For "peace-with-honor." Ross has the ad they need. But who? The GOP has rather painted itself into a corner on Iraq, declaring anything that isn’t "lets-keep-doing-what’s-failing" as a "white flag." So McCain and Giuiani are non-starters. Romney could do it, of course. He could stand for anything, if it got a him a few percentage points. Fred Thompson? I’m sorry but I haven’t seen a whiff of seriousness about the war on terror from the guy – except rhetoric. So if we’re looking for a Nixon in ’68, Obama may be the best bet, however strange the analogy, however different the men.