A Key Iranian Defector?
This could be a very cool development that might prevent a full scale war in Iran.
Jenny Hatch

Gen. Petraus speaks
Michelle Malkin has a great round up of the recent press Conference by the good general.
Jenny Hatch

Mark Steyn has some choice words about Mormon Demographics, and plugs Hugh Hewitts new Book: Go Here.

“Hugh Hewitt has a new book out this week, A Mormon In The White House? In The Boston Globe, Alex Beam answers the question:

Can a Mormon be elected president in 2008? No.

He offers the standard rationale: The Mormon church creeps out Mrs and Mrs America. It’s all just too freaky weirdy icky.

Maybe he’s right, but I would be surprised if anybody’s writing that kind of column in ten years’ time. As a world-champion Demography Bore, I have an interest in the numbers. From the official records, it’s long been clear Utah is a statistical outlier: at the bottom of the hit parade for abortion, unwed mothers, single-parent families, etc. It has one of the highest fertility rates in the western world. According to this piece by Eric Kaufmann:

In the 1980s, the Mormon fertility rate was around three times that of American Jews. Today the Mormons, once a fringe sect, outnumber Jews among Americans under the age of 45.

To modify the old Himmelfarb line, the Jews earn like Episcopalians, vote like Puerto Ricans, but breed like Continentals. Proportionately, the America of 2020 will have fewer Jews, fewer blacks but more Mormons. So if they are creepy-freaky then America will be significantly creepy-freakier.

So too will be Alex Beam’s Massachusetts, which (in contrast to Utah) has one of the lowest fertility rates in the country. In a civilized nation, it’s harder for yawneroo broadsheets to run columns arguing that a group that makes up 15 or 20 per cent of the citizenry are a bunch of weirdsmobiles. And who’s “weird” is often little more than a reflection of who’s got the numbers and the energy. Alex Beam may think Boston and New York are hip happening burgs where all the cool cats hang, but, in fact, the “youngest” state in the nation with the lowest median age is Utah.

As for the politics of it all, one notes that that’s also the only state where Bush got over 70 per cent of the vote.

Jenny Hatch

Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Trial
Libby is the fall guy for a non-incident:

Does this mean Plame, Plame, Plame, Wilson, Plame, No WMD will go away?
Nope.
Warner Bros. Plans Movie on CIA Employee Valerie Plame and Husband Joe Wilson
Bleeech!! You know? I have no problem with holding people accountable to the Rule of Law. I do have a problem with a non-crime being blown up into a vicious partisan attack. President Clinton yelled loud and clear about the WMD in Iraq and pursued by Sadaam while he was president.
Bill Clinton: December 16, 1998
Transcript:

“If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them. Because we’re acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future.”

Video and Audio is also available on the PBS Web Site
Now the fact that this action was done around Monica Testifying to Congress would tend to nulify and put into question President Clintons actions of that day. However, THE WHOLE WORLD acknowledged at the time that Sadaam Hussein was developing and seeking weapons of mass destruction.
This whole Libby/Cheney witch hunt has been the biggest farce of the past few years and I am about sick of hearing about it.
Jenny Hatch

Paul and I were married 19 years ago today.
Here is the video clip of us walking out of the temple ten minutes after we were married:

Jenny Hatch

Here is a picture my mom took while Paul and I were engaged. In the photo album I titled it “Paul and Jenny respond to our first kiss”.
For those of you readers who have no sense of humor and have not quite found the joke, that was in fact supposed to be funny.
The first time Paul kissed me we were laying on the floor of his apartment watching Saturday Night Live. I was lying on my back and he was on his stomach and our heads were close together. As he was kissing me I started to laugh because it was an upside down kiss. We properly righted ourselves and as he kissed me I felt like I had just arrived home after 19 years of homlessness as I wandered around searching for him.
We set the goal to make it to our wedding day as virgins. And happily achieved that goal. I believe Michelle was conceived right on our wedding day, as I gave birth to her exactly nine months later.
The feeling of being safe at home in the arms of my lover and best friend has continued to this day. Paul is the nicest guy I have ever known, and I don’t know what I did to deserve him, but it continues to astound to me that I married such a gentle man.