I WONDER HOW MUCH ATTENTION THIS PHOTO will get from Big Media outlets?

UPDATE: Well, it took a little while, but it actually got a lot.

HERE’S A COLUMN on the Kerry state income tax issue mentioned here earlier:

On the issue of affluent Americans paying more income taxes, John Kerry is, as always, consistent in his inconsistency.

On the campaign trail, he’s in favor of raising taxes on everybody who makes over $200,000 a year. Unless, of course, he’s the one being asked to pay more, in which case, forget about it.

We know this because of a little whoopee cushion recently inserted into the income tax forms of his home state of Massachusetts.

Weary of liberals always clamoring for higher taxes on other people, an anti-tax group managed to place a line on the tax form giving Bay Staters the option of paying at the old, since-repealed 5.85 percent rate, rather than at the current 5.3 percent rate.

For two years now, John Kerry has had the opportunity to pay his “fair share.” But like some Benedict Arnold CEO, the Democratic Party candidate for president has taken the money and ran.

“Why do you even call asking about this?” his spokesman, Michael Meehan, said Saturday morning. “He has made the same decision as 99.9 percent of his fellow Massachusetts residents.”

Read the whole thing.

LOTS OF INTERESTING POSTS over at VodkaPundit. Just keep scrolling.

JAMES LILEKS disagrees with Andrew Sullivan about the desirability of a gas tax.

ROGER SIMON has an update on the oil-for-food scandal (the UN’s internal investigation is being stonewalled), what Iran is up to (using American antiwar sentiment to force us out of Iraq) and links to multiple analyses of what’s going on in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Daniel Drezner has interesting posts on outsourcing and other topics.

NEAL BOORTZ: “Instead of defending his patriotism, Kerry needs to defend his positions.”

Interestingly, many on the left agree.

JUST NOTICED THIS NICK DENTON POST from March 31 of last year, on partitioning Iraq:

Let’s remind ourselves why the US intended to preserve the integrity of Iraq. Turkey was fearful of an independent Kurdistan, and Saudi Arabia hostile to the empowerment of the Shiites. And the US did not want to alienate the Sunni Arabs who dominate Iraq. Well, Turkey betrayed the US, and has forfeited its privileges; anything that makes the Saudis fearful is fine by me; and the Sunni Arab establishment failed to turn against Saddam. So screw them all.

Read the whole thing. Via email, Nick suggests that this is still a good idea. I’m not sure what I think about this — it seems to me that the notion that old colonial borders are sacrosanct has caused enormous trouble throughout the world, and dividing Iraq would certainly send a long-term lesson about what happens to countries that resist the United States. But neither of those, by itself, makes it the thing to do. It’s worth thinking about, though. (It’s also worth noting the rather gloomy tone of this post — the war’s going badly, we need to rethink, the regime isn’t collapsing like the Administration thought — all from just before we utterly routed Saddam. Ups and downs are normal in wartime, and it’s a mistake to let either the depression or the elation of the moment get the upper hand.)

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan (in his London Times column) and Joel Mowbray have more upbeat assessments.

THE RACIST ROOTS OF GUN CONTROL: If you’re interested in these topics, you should read this article by Robert Cottrol and Ray Diamond. Here’s the opening quote, on a Florida gun control statute, from a Florida Supreme Court justice in 1941:

I know something of the history of this legislation. The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State drawn here for the purpose of working in turpentine and lumber camps…. [T]he Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers and to thereby reduce the unlawful homicides that were prevalent in turpentine and saw-mill camps and to give the white citizens in sparsely settled areas a better feeling of security. The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population…. [I]t is a safe guess to assume that more than 80% of the white men living in the rural sections of Florida have violated this statute…. [T]here has never been, within my knowledge, any effort to enforce the provisions of this statute as to white people, because it has been generally conceded to be in contravention of the Constitution and non-enforceable if contested.

Read the whole thing. You might also be interested in another article by the same authors: The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration, from the Georgetown Law Journal.

PHOTOBLOG UPDATE: Here’s a gallery of Israeli body painting photos.

No wonder fundamentalist Islam hates them. It’s jealousy!

(Safe for work? Not too raunchy, but it depends on where you work. The ones from the Tel Aviv Love Parade are racier, though.)