George Orwell, call your office. You can add to your list of opposites (“war is peace,” “ignorance is strength” and “freedom is slavery”) a new one. It is the emerging plan of congressional Democrats, joined by at least one Democratic presidential candidate: “losing is winning.”

Western Europe has a Muslim problem, and it is particularly acute in Great Britain, which is more intimately linked to constitutional traditions and procedures.

It’s been a hoot reading and listening to pundits and armchair legal analysts speculate on the fate awaiting Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick on charges of illegal dogfighting.

Last week, when Karl Christian Rove, born on Christmas in 1950, announced that he was ending his White House life, pundits eager to punch back had the best of all possible worlds: They could write the summing-up lines characteristic of an obituary without the constraints of courtesy to the deceased. The New York Times was typical in referring to Rove’s “infamously bare-knuckled political tactics.”

WASHINGTON — The unexpected, widely praised cut in the discount rate a week ago Friday only momentarily removed pressure from the Federal Reserve. While the Bush administration and conservative economists deplore bailing out improvident investors, leaders of the mortgage finance industry consider it unthinkable that the central bank will not take decisive action.

I had put off reading Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses” for years, having picked it up when it first came out in paperback in 1993. But a Colorado vacation seemed a perfect time to take it up again. There’s something satisfying about reading a book in sync with the locale where I happen to be.

“The Guy,” back in my day, was named Joe Granville.

With his slick black hair and dark suits, Granville looked the part of an insider who knew the stock market, but pulled back the curtains so the “little guy” could get some, too.

There is no doubt that some entertainment critics have glorified rap “artists” like Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Ludacris. Twenty years ago, pro-drug, anti-women and pro-violence lyrics would not have been embraced by the mainstream media for fear of public backlash. But today, bring on perversity in the name of diversity. Anything goes.

Did you know — better, would you have guessed? — that the top income-tax rate in India, which is the home of breast-fed socialism, is a mere 30 percent? That is down from 60 percent in 1979. How does that compare? Well, in the United Kingdom it is down from 83 percent in 1979 to 40 percent today; in the United States, from 70 to 35. In all three cases, it has been cut roughly in half.

Everything you hate about the culture of Washington is symbolized in two recent altercations involving two obnoxious Beltway buttinskis, one Democrat and one Republican.

We always get back to the same place, don’t we, whenever something goes wrong — the place known as How Can the Government Help?

NEW YORK — Benazir Bhutto arrived in New York three weeks ago, shortly after meeting secretly in Abu Dhabi with Gen. Pervez Musharraf. She leaves this week, without having heard again from Pakistan’s military ruler. More than merely deciding who rules Pakistan, global conflict against radical Islam may be at risk.

The drill was called Oklahoma; why, I don’t know. It had nothing to do with the wide open spaces; it was just the opposite.

It is not just in Iraq that the political left has an investment in failure. Domestically as well as internationally, the left has long had a vested interest in poverty and social malaise.

Last year, among the nation’s 10 largest cities, Philadelphia had the highest murder rate with 406 victims. This year could easily top last year’s with 240 murders so far.

This week, Nancy Jones Cornell, president of the Old Campbell County Historical Society (OCCHS) presents a story of her Joneses. Nancy writes:

All of a sudden we are bombarded with daily reports of a credit crunch and wild securities market fluctuations with mortgage and sub-prime lending at the root. What does it all mean?

PORTSTEWART, NORTHERN IRELAND — Britain’s New Labour, despite criticism from Prime Minister Gordon Brown of a government that has grown too fast and costs too much, has been quietly planning a vast expansion of government.

Mama thought I was crazy. It was not the first time. Nor would it be the last. But it was certainly the most memorable.

Did you know — better, would you have guessed? — that the top income-tax rate in India, which is the home of breast-fed socialism, is a mere 30 percent? That is down from 60 percent in 1979. How does that compare? Well, in the United Kingdom it is down from 83 percent in 1979 to 40 percent today; in the United States, from 70 to 35. In all three cases, it has been cut roughly in half.

Enoch lived thousands of years ago during a time when the knowledge of God was very limited. There were no churches, no bibles, no radios or other forms of media that we are blessed with today. No one in his day was born again because Jesus had yet to be raised from the dead, yet Genesis 5:24 tells us that he was famous for “walking with God.”

“There is nothing so dreadful as a great victory ... excepting a great defeat.” — Sir Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington

This spring, I reminded readers about a 2006 column of mine. That original column warned that America was headed off a cliff with its commitment to a bloated housing market, and that the mortgage industry would come tumbling after.

Should biblical churches host gay-glorifying funerals? Should evangelical politics move leftward? Many news organs give us one answer: Yes!

Elizabeth Edwards, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’ wife, wants affirmative action — for white males. Okay, she didn’t put it exactly that way. Here’s what happened.

All around the country certain cities are refusing to inform federal authorities about the activities of illegal aliens, even foreign nationals who commit crimes in their jurisdictions.

University of Kansas professor and respected scholar on the subject Diana Carlin said it best about presidential debates: They are the “only time you have the (presidential) nominees in the same place, the only time you can really get to compare them. ... I equate it to a job interview that gives voters the chance to really assess who would be the best president.”

WASHINGTON — Anticipating that Sen. Hillary Clinton will clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, some supporters are beginning to argue against her principal rival — Sen. Barack Obama — for vice president.

Suspiciously, Daniel Pearl’s widow is suddenly being lavishly praised by the Treason Lobby. Jane Mayer, co-author of the discredited hit-book on Clarence Thomas, “Strange Justice,” published an article in The New Yorker last week recounting that Mariane Pearl was called by Alberto Gonzales in March with the news that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had admitted to American interrogators that he had personally beheaded her husband and they were going to release the transcript to the press. Mayer wrote: “Gonzales’ announcement seemed like a publicity stunt.”

The GOP has traditionally been the party of political primogeniture. From Ronald Reagan to George Herbert Walker Bush to Bob Dole to George W. Bush, Republicans have nominated the man who could best lay claim to being the natural heir, either by virtue of his service to the party or his ability to ring up early endorsements and financial backing from the party faithful.