Massive amounts of interesting stuff out there *UPDATED (REPEATEDLY)*

[Since I’m repeatedly updating this post, I’m going to keep it at the top of the blog, at least for a while.  There are other, newer posts below.]

What a morning for interesting reading (and, in my next post, I’ll put up the Watcher’s Council submissions, which are also great).  Some of these links will provide the genesis, I hope, for longer posts but, right now, I just wanted to pass them on to you.  In almost no particular order:

All the others are in no particular order.  This one is today’s must read:  Daniel Henninger argues strongly that Obama’s recess appointment of the ultra radical Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is “probably the most significant domestic-policy personnel decision in a generation. It is more important to the direction of the country than Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court.”  Read it and weep.

Rich Lowry on the problem with the Obama administration’s suit against Arizona: “To make the case that the Arizona immigration law conflicts with, and therefore is preempted by, federal law, the Justice Department has to make an extraordinary claim — that the federal laws as written don’t matter so much.” Yup, that’s a problem.

Karl Rove writes about his biggest failure during the Bush years:  failing to take seriously (and therefore to counteract seriously) the charge that Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq.

The Marin IJ, a liberal paper in one of the bluest counties in America, grapples with the fact that Big Government stifles initiative and economic common sense.

Although England may be a lost cause, continental Europe’s sense of self-preservation may be kicking in when it comes to countering Islamism within its borders.  The measures seem draconian to free Americans — no burqas, no minarets — but they recognize that Islamists are not interested in quietly living their lives.  For them, burqas and minarets are weapons of war, just as surely as IEDs and suicide bombers.

In the eternal Roe v. Wade tug of war being fought at ground level, pro-abortion forces try to lift the isolation that the pro-life movement imposed on abortion providers (thereby reducing their numbers), and to reintegrate them in the medical mainstream (which presumably will increase their numbers and status).

Confederate Yankee has solid evidence that Leftists are crashing Tea Parties in an effort to create the illusion that the Tea Parties are racist.  Our local Tea Party is wise to this strategy, and Tea Partiers come armed with “infiltrator” signs, that they point at party crashers.

(More to follow — and please consider this an Open Thread.)

UPDATE:  As I promised, there’s more.  Whether you’re pro-Life or pro-Choice, I think you will really appreciate Zombie’s take on Sharron Angle’s honesty and consistency when it comes to encouraging women who are pregnant as a result of rape to carry the child to term.  Just as Zombie describes him/herself as “reluctantly pro-choice” I am “reluctantly pro-Life.”  We’re both reluctant, I think, because we recognize the fact that, if you’re honest about either position, there’s a cruelty to the practical realities of that position, if it is carried out consistently.

UPDATE II:  Another must-read, this time about Britain’s failed responses to the threat of radical Islam.

I was once pro-Choice, because I thought it was all about the woman, so I resigned myself to the fact that “zygotes” would die.  Now that I’ve had children and can no longer pretend that a zygote isn’t still a human being, I have to support the child’s right to live, even though it may mean that women (and girls) have miserable choices.  Sharron Angle has accepted those difficult choices — and her acceptance allows Zombie to look at the weaknesses inherent in the halfway arguments both sides try to make.