[BigWaveBetty]

when he's "driven" out of Syria and "forced" to go live in luxurious exile in the salons of Paris??? Interesting theory, let's hope it's true!

Oh no Br'er Jihadi, don't throw me into that thar luxurious Paris exile!

[Timeout]

This is so cool. A photo of Helix Nebula taken by the Hubble Telescope.

NASA calls it simply "The Eye of God"...

This photograph of the coil-shaped Helix Nebula is one of the largest and most detailed celestial images ever made. The composite picture is a seamless blend of ultra-sharp images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope combined with the wide view of the Mosaic Camera on the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. The image shows a fine web of filamentary "bicycle-spoke" features embedded in the colorful red and blue ring of gas. At 650 light-years away, the Helix is one of the nearest planetary nebulae to Earth. A planetary nebula is the glowing gas around a dying, Sun-like star.

[Timeout]

Michael Ledeen of National Review, when referring to democracy in the Middle East, has been saying for years: "Faster, please". He's a very smart man and I look forward to his articles as much as those of Victor David Hanson.

Today Ledeen explains that the current worldwide trend of democratization began with ...are your ready for this?...the death of Generalisimo Franco of Spain! I love it when a writer surprises me with something like that.

Very informative article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200503010752.asp