But is it a fair trade?

CNN reports: “A Kenyan says he offered Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter’s hand in marriage five years ago — and is still waiting for an answer.”

True love stands the test of time.

“Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor told the East Africa Standard newspaper last week that he wrote to Clinton asking for Chelsea’s hand in 2000 during the then-president’s visit to Kenya.

Chepkurgor, a 36-year-old elected city councilor in Nakuru, recounted writing to the U.S president through the Kenyan government.

He described his plans for a grand wedding presided over by South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He named then-President Daniel arap Moi and the president of his university as references.”

And why not? A good man is hard to find. Just ask Hillary.

“Had I succeeded in wooing Chelsea, I would have had a grand wedding,” he told the Standard in an interview published Friday during Clinton’s recent visit to Kenya.

Chepkurgor said his letter praised Clinton’s leadership and commended his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, for standing by her husband “like an African woman” in the face of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Well, one thing is obvious: Mr. Chepkurgor has standards and a discriminating eye for quality. But can he be sure it’s daughter-like-mother? Some might argue that Hillary broke the mold.

Those wacky Europeans…

AP reports: “Vienna’s prestigious Leopold Museum is usually a pretty buttoned-down place, but on Friday, some of the nudes in its marble galleries were for real.”

Scores of naked or scantily clad people wandered the museum, lured by an offer of free entry to “The Naked Truth,” a new exhibition of early 1900s erotic art, if they showed up wearing just a swimsuit — or nothing at all.

Now, there’s an idea.

“With a midsummer heat wave sweeping much of Europe, pushing temperatures into the mid-90s Fahrenheit in Vienna, the normally staid museum decided that making the most of its cool, climate-controlled space would be just the ticket to spur interest in the show.

“We find a naked body every bit as beautiful as a clothed one,” said Elisabeth Leopold, who founded the museum with her husband, Rudolf. “If they came only out of lust, we have to accept that. We stand for the truth.”

Lust? Who knows. But surely an appreciation for attractive human form.

With a heat wave sweeping the U.S., perhaps we’ll also find some venues to cool off.

This is a photo of Cheryl Ann Magner.

She has been missing since the beginning of June. She was last seen in Marin County, CA.

Cheryl is a 17-year old girl, 5′8 and 140 pounds. She was last seen by a friend and has not been heard from since.

Anyone who has seen Cheryl or has any information regarding her whereabouts, please call the Marin County Sheriff’s Department at 415-499-7365.

Please pass this announcement on to others. Thank you.

(via ChristmasGhost)

The greatest photo-op. Staged with Washington’s leading liberals.

Senators (L to R) John Kerry (D-MA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Joe Biden (D-DE), Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) address a joint news conference on protecting the U.S. from terrorism on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 12, 2005. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Democrats talk. Republicans act.

As Gateway Pundit examines:
“Democrats Fight Republicans Who Fight Terror”

RELATED:
Delivering The Predictable: Democrats Criticize
Bush’s Speech on Iraq

KnightRidder reports: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton courted a moderate image on Monday, urging a truce between the liberal and centrist wings of her Democratic Party and a platform that bridges differences as she positions herself for a possible bid for the presidency.”

Blurring the lines as campaign strategy.

“Delivering a broad overview of public affairs that illustrated how she would lead the party, Clinton blended the rhetoric of President Bush in stressing an aggressive war on terrorism with the kind of talk her husband used in forging middle-ground consensus on divisive issues such as abortion and the role of faith in public life.”

And so the makeover begins. Political cosmetics…

Ever since she won election to the Senate in 2000, Clinton has been striving to establish her moderate or centrist credentials. It’s an apparent effort to overcome her reputation as an orthodox liberal. Like everyone else at the meeting of party centrists, Clinton is keenly aware that the only two Democrats to win the presidency in the last 35 years have been moderate Southerners - one of them her husband, Bill Clinton, and the other a former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter.

In her speech, Clinton sought to place herself astride the divisions in her party and the country.

“All too often we have allowed ourselves to be split between left, right and center,” she said of Democrats. “It’s high time for a cease-fire.” Echoing one of her husband’s favorite lines, she said Democrats should stop “accepting the false logic of false choices that keep our party and our country divided.”

The problem Democrats are facing is that voters are getting more logical. False rhetoric fails. The Internet has fueled a new age of information, and controlling spin isn’t what it used to be. Campaigns are more transparent, and so must be the candidates.

“She referred to faith in God, shared values and a desire to “protect our children from the excesses of the popular culture.”

And she proposes what? It takes a village?

Talk is cheap. Actions not words will make the difference. Hillary might wear red lipstick, but her politics will always stay blue. Liberal, through and through.

RELATED:
Hollywood: Running Offense For Hillary
Clinton/Obama ‘08?
Hillary the Hawk?
Don’t Overestimate Hillary
The “Next Great President?”
Hollywood Elects A President
Hillary Joins The Army?

Much more at Blogs Against Hillary

Wall Street Journal reports: “To whatever extent the recent United Nations report on Zimbabwe calls attention to the brutalities of the country’s tyrant, President Robert Mugabe, the U.N. has performed a service. But as far as the report translates into nothing more than a fresh bout of aid funneled via Mugabe’s regime, this U.N. initiative will only compound the suffering in Zimbabwe–where the government’s latest atrocity has been to “clean up” the cities by evicting hundreds of thousands of poor people, destroying their dwellings and leaving them jobless, homeless and hungry.”

In describing this scene, the U.N. report provides a wealth of horrifying detail, but takes a detour around the basic cause, which is not, as the report concludes, such stuff as “improper advice” acted upon by “over-zealous officials.” The real cause is the long and ruinous rule of Mugabe and his cronies.

With a delicacy over-zealously inappropriate in itself to dealings with the tyrant whose regime has been responsible for wreck of Zimbabwe, the report starts by thanking Mr. Mugabe for his “warm welcome” to the U.N. delegation, which visited the country from June 26 to July 8. The report, issued by the secretary-general’s special envoy Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, then proceeds to the usual U.N. prescription that what Zimbabwe needs is more aid, and a framework–here comes the UN lingo–”to ensure the sustainability of humanitarian response.” While the report also calls for the “culprits” to be called to justice under Zimbabwe laws, Mugabe himself is somehow excused from direct responsibility.

Instead, the report faults wealthy nations for not providing more aid already, and notes that “With respect to the funding issue, some in the Zimbabwe political elite and intelligentsia, as well as others of similar persuasion around the continent, believe the international community is concerned more with ‘regime change’ and that there is no real and genuine concern for the welfare of ordinary people.”

Apart from the problem, not mentioned in the U.N. report’s comment, that after a quarter-century of Mugabe’s rule the surviving Zimbabwe elite are to a great extent Mugabe’s own cronies, there is the profound difficulty that in Zimbabwe’s state-choked economy, Mugabe has a record of diverting foreign aid to his supporters, while starving–as well as mugging and murdering–his opposition. Aid workers themselves in recent years have lamented the difficulty of channeling aid in Zimbabwe to the intended beneficiaries. The danger with any massive, not to mentioned “sustainable” humanitarian response, is that it will most likely translate into sustainability of Mugabe’s regime (generating hefty fees along the way for any U.N. agencies involved).

More here.

RELATED:
No Human Rights: The Terror in Zimbabwe
Humanitarian Alert: Mugabe Is Cleaning House,
Liberals Remain Silent

WashingtonPost reports: “Mars Inc. said yesterday it is holding ’serious discussions with large pharmaceutical companies’ about the development of a line of cocoa-based prescription drugs that could help treat diabetes, some forms of dementia and other ailments.”

“The McLean candy and food conglomerate for more than a decade has pursued research on the possible health benefits of cocoa flavanols, compounds contained in one of the basic ingredients of chocolate.”

Great news for health care — and chocolate lovers. And a sizable new market to pursue.

Smart on, Mars.

And here we thought he was busy searching every golf course for the “real killers” of Nicole…

INQUIRER reports: “DIRECTV said that OJ Simpson will have to pay $25,000 after a civil court found he had tapped into its signals using bootloading devices.” (Hattip: Engadget)

“According to the Chicago Tribune, Simpson will appeal the case, because he neither knew nor should have known devices in a house he owned were illegal.

But, said his lawyer, Simpson wasn’t living in his house at the time.”

He’s also likely to say: If he didn’t pirate, you must acquit.

AP reports: “A sewer might be no place for an emperor, but it is precisely from an ancient drainage system that archaeologists have dug-up a large marble sculpture of Constantine, one of Rome’s greatest leaders.”

The 60-centimeter-tall (24-inch-tall) marble head of Constantine, one of Rome’s greatest leaders, is unveiled during a press conference in Rome, Thursday, July 28, 2005. The head, found in an ancient drainage system in Rome, dates back to earlier days of Constantine’s empire and was put up after A.D. 312 in the part of the Forum built by the emperor Trajan. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

“Archaeologists found the 24-inch-tall head last week while clearing up a sewer in the Roman Forum, the center of public life in the ancient city, said Eugenio La Rocca, superintendent for Rome’s monuments.”

CNET reports: “When Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and the man many consider the father of video games, launched his Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant chain, he based it on the idea of mixing food and easy entertainment for preteens. Now he wants to create a playland for twentysomethings.”

Bigger cheese, for sure.

“The serial entrepreneur plans to launch, late this fall, the uWink Media Bistro, a grown-up version of the Chuck E. Cheese’s chain. This time around, Bushnell wants to lure hungry customers and their pockets full of disposable income with a mix of what he promises will be good food and innovative technology.

The core of that technology will be a tabletop gaming system that will let customers challenge their friends or join teams and play against other restaurant patrons.”

What about blogging? Goes great with food.