PopConservative: Eight months of a poor man's blogging

An initiative has been proposed for the 2008 ballot in Missouri that would make human cloning illegal. Because even though the ballot language for Amendment 2 in 2006 expressly banned cloning, the actual text of the amendment did the exact opposite. Thanks again, Robin Carnahan.

Michael Vick will not admit to participating in or betting on dogfights. That seems fairly predictable; he'll plead guilty to the less gruesome counts in return for the really ugly charges getting dropped.

The National Intelligence Estimate is conveying what many have been saying for months: the troop surge has been successful enough that a premature withdrawal would be disastrous.

George Will is probably right when he says that many on the right made too much of a NY Times opinion piece that said the surge was working. Of course part of the reason was that it was so out of character for the Times. Not out of character: rejecting an op-ed by Iraq war veterans who wanted to respond to a Sunday op-ed by another group of Iraq war veterans that supported an immediate withdrawal.

The Times isn't the only paper that particularly relishes the gatekeeping and agenda-setting aspects of journalism. But when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer raised a big middle finger to those who complained that they wanted to decide what is and is not news, and what is and is not fair, they ended up looking foolish. Taking your position in society more seriously than anyone else will usually do that.

Yahoo and MSN have agreed to censor themselves and blogs they control for the Chinese market. Some things happening in China are good, such as the recognition of property rights and a free-market economy. Some things, however, remind us why Communism is so terrible, such as regulating internet content to exclude criticism of the government and endorsements of liberal democracy.

And because we are constantly reminded of why Communism is bad, it should make us take a harder stance against Hugo Chavez, who to this point has gotten somewhat of a free pass in the American press.

The construction of the security fence between Israel and the Palestinian territories has reduced successful attacks by 90%. Bet you didn't see that on the Nightly News.

More Hamas cartoon propaganda, this time attacking Fatah, the rival Palestinian Authority party (mostly) supported by the US.

Tell your kids: women are low-risk adults, men are high-risk adults. But, as Glenn Reynolds reminds us, do not tell your kids whether certain ethnic groups commit more crime than others; restrict your socialization of discrimination to gender.

It is against the law in many European countries to use an internet connection that does not belong to you, even if it is unsecured. This is of interest to me because I am writing this on a "borrowed" wi-fi connection right now. Sorry, neighbors.

Hilariously self explanatory: Goth Day at Disneyland.

Maybe this will drive up the comments from "0" to "some": if Mellow Yellow is he poor man's Mountain Dew, then PopConservative is the poor man's what?