Abigail Taylor, the Minnesota girl who was disemboweled last summer in a pool accident identical to the one made famous by John Edwards, has died. She succumbed to complications of transplant surgery intended to replace her small intestine, liver, and pancreas. She was six years old.

   This morning as I read the opinion page of my local paper, my eye happened to fall upon Thomas Sowell's latest column. Now, Sowell is a wanker of the first order, and can always be counted on to write something stupid, illogical, or just plain factually incorrect.

  A fine example of your tax dollars at work, defending our Preznit against harm. From the Sacramento Bee (the link is to a Google search, it gets you past the Bee's registration page):

The latest Sacramento resident to be questioned by federal agents in possible threats against President Bush is a 14-year-old girl with a heart on her backpack and braces on her teeth, a freckle-nosed adolescent who is passionate about liberal politics and cute movie stars.

Her name is Julia Wilson, and she learned a vivid civics lesson Wednesday when two Secret Service agents pulled her out of biology class at McClatchy High School to ask about comments and images she posted on MySpace.

Beneath the words "Kill Bush," Julia posted a cartoonish photo-collage of a knife stabbing the hand of the president. It was one of a few images Julia said she used to decorate an anti-Bush Web page she moderated on MySpace, the social networking Web site that is hugely popular among teenagers.

Continued below the fold:

  On this miserable, 95 degree day, I returned home from work, let the dogs out, filled their kiddie pool with cold water, popped a beer, and jumped into the swimming pool (no, not the one the dogs were in; I have my own). After a suitable period of cooling off, I wandered out to the mailbox only to find a flyer from the AMA supporting my incumbent congressman, Joe Schwarz. As I read the mailing, my temperature returned to boiling. The thing basically shows a member of the Westboro Baptist Church as a representative "war protester".
  Schwarz,a moderate, pro-choice Repub in a mainly red district, is facing a primary challenge from Tim Walberg, a former state rep and certified wingnut backed by the Club for Growth. I don't know if this is Joe's effort to appeal to the fringe right, but it sure pissed ME off! Below is the text of my email to Schwarz's office: