Quick Hits, non-Israel/Lebanon/Palestine Edition

Let's go around the horn:

• Gregory Djerejian just destroys Hugh Hewitt. Not that it's a feat, but it's fun to watch. It leads me to a larger point about the New Apocalyptics, screaming for world war, but I'll save it for a larger post.

• These Bush Administration-era offices called "pregnancy resource centers" are flat-out lying to teenagers, "telling investigators who posed as pregnant 17-year-olds that abortion leads to breast cancer, infertility, and mental illness." You can relate opposition to abortion without just lying about it. By the way these resource centers get $30 million in taxpayer money per year.

• Bush is going to address the NAACP convention for the first time in his Presidency. That could be very interesting. A TiVo alert.

• Business boards of directors used the September 11 tragedy to hand out stock options to rich executives so they could cash in when stocks fell on their return (buy low, sell high principle). If that doesn't make you want to throw up, nothing will.

• Also using September 11: Mike DeWine, in his campaign ads. Someone tell me why showing the cost of war reflected in flag-draped coffins is beyond the pale, but showing scenes of horror that resulted in dead citizens is not. You can't politicize Iraq, which was a political decision, but you can politicize 9/11, which was not.

Got it.

• The conservative Young America Foundation bans progressive Campus Progress reporters from their National Conservative Student Conference. The media spokesman has twice covered the Campus Progress Student Conference.

It's OK if you're a Republican.

• Guantanamo: the gift that keeps on giving. Solitary confinement and torture hasn't stopped Al Qaeda elements from organizing at Gitmo and recrutiting fellow inmates. Like everyone's said, if they weren't terrorists going in, they certainly will be coming out.

• Yes, they should absolutely get rid of the penny. There used to be a half-penny and we no longer miss it. The euro only has denominations of 5 cents and it gets along just fine. And pennies now cost 1.4 cents to make, thanks to the price of zinc.

Mind you this is a Republican bill I'm advocating. I'm all bipartisan and shit!