A great report from the AP on Bushs' use of the straw man in this speeches. It actually does a nice job explaining it's usage.

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.

This is definitely a good sign. I'm fairly optimistic today... but then I just got back from "V For Vendetta". Excellent movie. Let the straw men burn......

Starting April 3rd, the Christy Harvey and Center for American Progress will be starting up a new media resource service called Mic Check. According to Christy on the Bill Press show today it will host audio clips for use by other radio shows to help get inportant (or interesting at least) information out to the public. Here's their blurb:

Mic Check will offer news, facts, gossip and audio clips for use in your shows. We’ll bring you the latest in foreign relations, from the Axis of Evil to the Paris-and-Paris breakup.

The bad part is that Christy will no longer be a full time part of the Bill Press Show. She will be missed there. Good luck on the new venture CAP.

According to most of our media here in the States, Dubai has been staying quiet about the whole ports deal. One of my co-workers was in Dubai during this whole uproar and brought back the Dubai paper. The image below was an advert in the Dubai paper that took up most of the page with an article strongly defending the deal.

Click on picture for the full scan.

It sure seems to me that Dubai has rather a strong opinion about the deal.
Go figure.