>> This is just genius.  Christopher Orr reviews 21: The Trailer, versus Christopher Orr reviews 21: The Movie.  Shorter Orr: The Trailer is staying on 17, The Movie busts.

Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. (NAS)

I was asked by a friend once about the two bumper stickers I had on my first car when I was a teenager. One was a Catholic pro-life sticker written in Spanish - the other, a small flag of Tibet. He asked me if I was trying to get my car keyed by everyone at once, or if they would just take turns.

For me, the question still is: Why aren’t conservatives leading the way for Tibetan freedom?

While it my inspire very different demographics, I still believe that these two battles speak to the very soul of American conservatism. If conservatism means anything, it means this: that we are all born with an equal claim to certain rights given to all mankind, and that these include the right to live, and live freely, regardless of whether your life is inconvenient, or another claimed to own it, and the power to determine its fate … and the right to worship, regardless of whether the deity you serve is unpopular with the ruling authorities of your nation. The claim to the first principle gave rise to the abolitionist movement and the Republican Party; the claim to the second gave rise to the Pilgrims and the birth of America itself.

And that principle is at the heart of the conflict in Tibet today.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe the Dalai Lama’s message about the nature or theology of the divine - that is irrelevant. What matters, in the case of the recent “unrest” in Tibet - such an adorable, innocent little word these foreign beat reporters use, as if China was turning restlessly in its sleep - is that the freedom to worship in this case has not just been torn from an entire people. It is their right to exist, to direct their own paths in any meaningful way.

No wonder they are willing to risk disappearing forever into the oblivion of imprisonment, willing to dare the edge of the Communist knife, to speak out, to show the world what a mockery of “peace” the Olympic torch represents as it enters Beijing.

They have few avenues for support, and fewer still for information. Only one international journalist, from The Economist, is even in Lhasa. His reports are tragic and sad, but there is an aura of inevitability to them. We all knew this had to come someday.

Given enough time, everyone tires of praying in secret.

Someone explain it all to me. Someone, please, explain why we conservatives should not advocate forcefully for a free Tibet against the People’s Republic of China. Someone explain why, as conservatives, we should not strongly support those who wish only to claim the freedoms we believe are the birthright of all people.

(And no, it can’t just be that all those trend-chasing ex-hippies want a free Tibet, too. For once, they’re right, even if it’s just another excuse for a hippie jam festival, so just be happy about it.)

Listen to the few conservatives who do recognize the significance of this issue. Listen to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. Listen to Rep. Frank Wolf, who’s been doing this for years. They’ve called for a boycott of the games, for a ban on diplomats using taxpayer money to travel to this Olympics, and forcefully disagreed with the recent administration decision to remove China from the human rights watchlist.

Conservatives should stand up for human rights in Tibet. We should stand up against the despot nouveau who attempt to sweep this ongoing clash under the rug. We should lead, or be prepared to make the case why the rights we have always claimed belong to all mankind are, in this case, irrelevant.

crossposted at redstate

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>> John McCain’s daughter Meghan has excellent taste in music. I don’t just say this because she’s tapped excellent selections from The Fratellis, The Moldy Peaches, Phoenix, Band of Horses, The Decemberists, Sleater-Kinney and Alexi Murdoch in her last two playlists - she’s also got Blur, Clarence Carter, Nina Simone, The 88, Seu Jorge, The Von Bodies, Elliott Smith, Jay Z, Elastica, Thelonius Monk, The Flaming Lips, Spacehog, The Doors, Remy Zero, The Clash, Goldfrapp, The Cure, The Who, Chet Baker, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. I have no idea about her politics, but hey, if she ends up losing out on the first daughter stakes, she really ought to DJ.

>> Some things change, some things change the same: Sal Paolantonio is still a brating fool (we eagerly await your paean to Donovan McNabb, greatest QB evah!), and Aaron Schatz is brilliant and accurate.  What really comes into perspective with Favre’s retirement is the poor choices the Packers made as a franchise over the past few years - GM Ted Thompson has drafted well, for the most part, but consider what the Packers offense would’ve looked like this year with underperforming rookie RB Brandon Jackson as the central contributor (Thompson’s second round choice), as opposed to the diamond-in-the-rough Ryan Grant, who they got purely for depth.  For a team that has the money to spend and a QB with the juice to get them to the playoffs consistently, their Free Agent choices are just batty at points: in 2001, 2002, and 2004, they signed one free agent or less, all while letting Favre’s all-pro line walk with less than adequate replacements (Favre lost three out of five linemen, the entire center of his line, to free agency in his last three years in the league). Don’t get me wrong - they have a good young team in Green Bay, and the potential to be successful this year (Aaron Rodgers walks in as the second best starting QB in the division compared to Grossman and Jackson, maybe the best if Kitna comes back to earth), but with a great like Favre, a dominant o-line, and cap room to make some moves, you’d have thought they’d choose to load up for a run before #4 retired.  Making a run doesn’t mean you have to break the bank, but it does mean you should invest in a bit more (and more wisely) on defense than DE Joe Johnson and S Mark Roman over the course of three years, neither of whom is still with the team. If they’d made moves like they did in 2006 to get CB Charles Woodson and DT Ryan Pickett a few years earlier, the Packers might’ve made it to a few more NFC championship games in that time.

>> Mike Gerson has a fascinating piece in the NY Sun on Obama’s First 100 Days. Best thing he’s written since coming to the WaPo Writers Group: “Obama’s Oval Office speech to the nation on Iraq is initially more successful. As promised, he orders a phased, unconditional withdrawal of combat forces, beginning “not in six months or one year — now.” American troops will no longer be embedded in Iraqi combat units or used to combat Iranian influence (all pledges made during his campaign). Many Americans cheer. But the next day, The Post reports stunned disbelief among the troops. A high-ranking officer observes, “The surest way to break the morale of the military is to undo its achievements and humiliate it on the verge of success.” Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni allies react with panic at another sign of American unsteadiness and retreat from the region. Armed groups of Sunnis and Shiites within Iraq begin preparing for a resumption of sectarian conflict. An intercepted al-Qaeda communication talks of “so much defeat, exhaustion and death — and then, praise be, this unexpected victory!” Obama’s 100-day agenda would be designed, in part, to improve America’s global image. But there is something worse than being unpopular in the world — and that is being a pleading, panting joke.”