(Belated) Morning Roundup

Lots coming off the wires, so let's get started folks.

• Ozzie Guillen was fined for his anti-gay slurs this week, though he's not out of the woods yet with the aggrieved columnist calling for his suspension and some talk about him having to go sensitivity training. As much as I despise the Sox, and abhor Guillen for what he said, sensitivity training?! This is baseball, people, not ballet. But best part of this whole disaster so far were Guillen's attempts to talk his way out, claiming his vitriol would have had a different context in his native Venezuela (...right), and - this is when it gets priceless - "He also said that he has gay friends, goes to WNBA games, went to the Madonna concert and plans to attend the Gay Games in Chicago." Rest of the article is here.
• In what can't come as a surprise to anyone with a little bit of common sense, General Casey has explicitly linked Tehran to Shiite extremist groups, saying that the Iranians have provided training, IED technology, and weapons both directly through their special forces and indirectly through their Lebanese lackeys. Beyond the obvious problem, Casey said (and I agree) that such support works to increase Sunni suspicion of the new government. Calling Tehran out might not stop their aid altogether, but it may force them to back off a little bit.
• A two-tour Iraqi veteran lets off steam about the Iraqi plan (since revised) to give amnesty to those insurgents and terrorists who killed only Americans, not Iraqis. I heartily agree, and was disappointed when some Senators found it within themselves to vote in favor of such an amnesty plan, hoping it'd go unnoticed (I'm not goign to name names). Thankfully I've heard elsewhere that the Iraqi government realized that they'd just stuck their foot in their mouth and revised the proposal, refusing amnesty to those killing Iraqis or their friends (US, UK, etc.) but still letting those found carrying weapons go...I swear this place makes Deadwood look like Pleasantville.
• Thank you Captain Obvious. Pew's put out a new poll on the Muslims perception of the Western world and vice-versa. Nothing too stunning there, though I found the regional disparities within the Western perception of the Muslim world interesting. Feedback welcome as always.
• Apparently we've broken up another attempted terrorist attack, this one aimed at targets in Miami or Chicago, with the target in the latter city being the Sears Tower. These guys apparently dreamed big but had no real means of carrying out their attacks; I've read elsewhere that they thought taking out the Sears Tower would cripple the nation...seems like a leap to me. In other homeland security news, cities have finally gotten around to talking about banning transhipment of dangerous chemicals through densely-populated areas. Everytime one of those cars derails out in the boonies they have to evacuate half a county - can you imagine that in a major city? Of course it won't end the threat, but if enacted, these measures will go a long way to securing America's big urban centers (oh and I'm shocked that the railroad lobby can possibly defend such bans on economic grounds...that'll go over real well).
• In some of the greatest news I've heard for democracy in a long while, my favorite for the Texas gubernatorial, Kinky Friedman, has made it onto the ballot. Kinky, for those of you aern't familiar with it, burst onto the scene with a C&W band called "Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys" - and it's been uphill ever since. His website is here - and I hate to admit it, but the man makes some sense. The joke in the primaries was "Rick Perry got the most votes, incumbent Republican Carole Keeton Strayhorn [Scott McClellan's mom] took second - who took third? Kinky or the Democrat?" Rick Perry should still win without serious effort, but this will be an amusing race now that Kinky's on the ballot.
• In our second "Duh" moment of the day, Democrats angling for the White House stressed the importance of being able to relate to middle-class voters on things like faith and NASCAR. I'm not going to say anything more - tre fact they had to step up and say that themselves just shows why Democrats cannot win national elections. Victor Davis Hanson also points it out, noting that most of their doom and gloom predictions (or wishful thinking, i.e. Karl Rove being indicted) have failed to materialize, to say nothing of their continued stubborn lack of vision or big ideas...yes they rolled out a program last week, but college tax credits don't count as big ideas, indeed they're about as quotidien as one gets in the world of policy.
• The House passed two bills of some note yesterday, one scaling back the death tax, after the Senate had failed to abolish it, and the other passing a weaker form of the line-item veto, a mechanism by which they hope to reduce wasteful spending. We'll see if either one gets through the Senate.

That's all for now folks, sorry about how late this is getting out.