Medary.com

The Dakota Athletic Conference, currently in the NAIA, is considering a move up to NCAA Division II:

The eight remaining DAC members are Minot State, Black Hills State, Mayville State, Valley City State, Dickinson State, South Dakota Tech, Jamestown College and Dakota State. They will be comparing the NCAA and the NAIA, researching such issues as cost, competition, recruitment and enrollment.

"There are a lot of differences between the two," (Minot State University athletic director Rick) Hedberg said. "The NCAA puts limits on recruiting and scholarships. There are travel costs to keep in mind. There are conference dues and scheduling concerns."

Hedberg said that if the DAC decides to move to Division II, it likely would happen quickly.

Backhanded praise from a Boston paper:

Although they left their powder – Jonathan Papelbon and Jeremi Gonzalez – dry for tonight, the Red Sox suffered a dispiriting loss against a weak team with a pretty good bullpen.

They also wasted a chance to pick up a game in the American League East on the Yankees, who lost 9-5 to Toronto.

Royals need to go 22-16 to avoid 100 losses.

U.S. may deploy anti-missile lasers on fighters as soon as 2007.

"We've combined the high energy density of the solid state laser with the thermal management of the liquid laser," New Scientist quoted project manager Don Woodbury as saying.

Doug at Below The Beltway goes for the Star Wars metaphor instead. I suppose a Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica reference would be in order as well.

TV preacher Pat Robertson apologizes for wanting Venezuela President Chavez "taken out".

"Is it right to call for assassination?" Robertson said. "No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him."

Er, Pat, apparently there are some in the U.S. who do want to kill him . . .

The Christian Science Monitor muses on an Iran-North Korea role reversal:

The two nations have long presented the West with seesawing expectations. Until recently, US officials were more optimistic about progress with Iran, and frustrated with the prickly North Koreans. But there are also signs the two cases are intertwined in complicated ways as the United States confronts what is left of the axis of evil.
. . .
For now, US attitudes about Iran and North Korea may have switched. "In recent months, I think we've almost had a reversal of fortune," said Ted Galen Carpenter, a Cato Institute foreign policy expert, at a recent forum on these issues in Washington.

Finally, the full text of the translation of the draft Iraqi constitution.

My main comment: it's way too long, and way too detailed. However, Iraq does not have the democratic tradition that we did when we wrote our Constitution--some things that didn't need to be said in ours need to be spelled out in theirs. I hope it works.

OpinionJournal takes a look:

It's worth noting, more broadly, that alarums about Iranian-style Shiite theocracy in Iraq have been raised repeatedly over the past few years, often by American or Arab proponents of the Sunni dictatorships that are the Mideast status quo. But one of the most underappreciated stories in post-Saddam Iraq has been the extent to which the Shiite community has remained committed to a constitutional, democratic process--despite the best attempts of the terrorist Zarqawi or cleric Moqtada Sadr to provoke them to violence. Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who adheres to a "quietist" school of Islam that shuns excessive mixing of religion and politics, has continued to play a particularly constructive role.

I had hoped to get through the rest of my life without again discussing That Woman In Texas. But, some things need to be said. When this started, I thought that she was probably pushed over the edge by the loss of her son. But, as more information comes out about her politics prior to the tragic and heroic death of Casey Sheehan, it looks more and more like she is cynically using his memory to push a fundamentally distasteful and disastrously wrong-headed agenda.

Cindy Sheehan's status as a grieving mother does not justify her borderline paranoid anti-Semitic views. Nor does it excuse her Stockholm Syndrome-like characterization of those who killed her son as "freedom fighters." Nor does it excuse her disingenuous attempt to hijack the Gold Star Mothers organization's good name and lash it to her campaign. The Gold Star Mothers can speak for themselves:

Cindy Sheehan is currently in the news. She and her organization have no connection whatever with American Gold Star Mothers, Inc. We are a 501 C(3) organization and, as such, do not engage in political activities. We do support our troops. After all, they are our children. More on gold star mothers vs American Gold Star Mothers, Inc.

Some of us have forgotten what Thomas Jefferson and the Founders knew:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Perhaps the anti-war people simply wish that this was not the way of the world. But whether tyranny comes in the form of a musket carried by a British Redcoat, or an airliner flown by a radical Islamic terrorist, or a mullah spouting violent jihad from a mosque, it is tyranny nonetheless. As previously posted here, Iraq along with Syria are keystones in the militant Islamic war plan. That is why we're there.

Some wars are worth fighting. The pacifist crowd naively shouts that "war doesn't solve anything." They are wrong. War gave the U.S. independence from Britain. War defeated Nazi Germany and militarist Japan. War toppled the repugnant Taliban. War removed the monster Saddam Hussein.

And what about the Iraq war, anyway? I direct your attention to the Congressional Resolution which authorized the war:

#10: Red Sox 5, Royals 2
#9: NCAA to Florida State: "never mind . . . "
#8: NASA settles on heavy-lift booster
#7: 10-4 no more?
#6: Chimpanzee Culture
#5: War on Terror: Paraguay?
#4: Pat Robertson is a looney
#3: Homeland Security's Chertoff admits border problem
#2: Australia says no Sharia here, please
#1: No lip-synching in Turkmenistan

This pretty much describes the entire 2005 season for the Royals:

There was nothing macabre or morbid about the Red Sox' 5-2 victory, just that it was embarrassingly one-sided until Mike Timlin gave up two runs in the ninth inning. And the Sox have the pleasure of playing two more games at Kauffman Stadium against the worst team (40-83) in the major leagues.

Royals need to go 23-16 to avoid 100 losses.

NASA official reports that a Shuttle-derived booster will be NASA's heavy lift vehicle of the future:

These will become the launch vehicles to take the USA back to the Moon from 2015 and beyond. Previously NASA administrator Michael Griffin had only expressed his personal preference for Shuttle derived launch vehicles. The 100t launcher will place lunar mission boosters and other heavy hardware into LEO.

Image credit: NASA/Flight International