At least our media is crafty when it lies, unlike the North Korean media who gets to print outrageous whoppers with no regard to the hundreds of people killed last week.

Many North Koreans died a “heroic death” after last week’s train explosion by running into burning buildings to rescue portraits of leader Kim Jong-il and his father, the North’s official media reported on Wednesday.

Can I get a witness? Muammar Gaddafi is the pimpest dictator on the planet! Female bodyguards dressed in matching blue-camo Bond-villian-henchwomen uniforms? The man is the fat Elvis of totalitarianism.

Today’s reason: misguided funding.

Hawks argue that we are still fighting the cold war, which I think is reflective of a poor ability to let go of the past, but even if we are still worried about nuclear long range battles, we’re spending too much on it (as has been explained elsewhere).

The budget is busted; American soldiers need more armor; they’re running out of supplies. Yet the Department of Energy is spending an astonishing $6.5 billion on nuclear weapons this year, and President Bush is requesting $6.8 billion more for next year and a total of $30 billion over the following four years. This does not include his much-cherished missile-defense program, by the way. This is simply for the maintenance, modernization, development, and production of nuclear bombs and warheads.

Measured in “real dollars” (that is, adjusting for inflation), this year’s spending on nuclear activities is equal to what Ronald Reagan spent at the height of the U.S.-Soviet standoff. It exceeds by over 50 percent the average annual sum ($4.2 billion) that the United States spent—again, in real dollars—throughout the four and a half decades of the Cold War.

Military spending should shift to personal/mano-a-mano fights, yet Bush is increasing funding for nukes.

Okay, I know we have a delicate truce here re: abortion. And I don’t want to break that by getting into a discussion of the issue itself. However, I do hope that we can discuss Karen Hughes’ use of September 11 to defend/promote Bush’s anti-choice position. (you have to scroll down pretty far to get to her interview with Wolf Blitzer).

I’ll forego my usual “Can you please let the man die first?!” rant, but it looks like having to go to college with liberals may soon be optional.

On the silver screen, he was a college football hero and a cheerleader. He played cadets at two different military academies. He appeared as a zoology professor in the Hollywood classic “Bedtime for Bonzo.” But now America’s only movie-star-turned-president may have another dramatic role in higher education: as the namesake and inspiration for Ronald Reagan University.

Backers of the ambitious plan to build a private university outside Denver that would focus on the former president’s economic and diplomatic principles asked the Colorado legislature this week to endorse the idea.

From the NY Times, Wes Clark responds to the recent criticism from Karen Hughes and others about Kerry’s Vietnam medals and subsequent protests. Choice quote:

“I believe those who didn’t serve, or didn’t show up for service, should have the decency to respect those who did serve — often under the most dangerous conditions, with bravery and, yes, with undeniable patriotism.”