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Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.  Hope your children were able to send their mother's day wishes better than these guys.

It’s always gratifying to see mainstream media attempt to catch up with the truth—however belatedly.

For more than fifteen years, I’ve been writing and speaking about the myth of America’s "soaring divorce rate", and the pernicious lie that “50% of all marriages end in divorce.”

My bestselling book HOLLYWOOD VS. AMERICA (1992) includes a whole subchapter entitled, “The Myth of the 50% Divorce Rate.”

This week, even the Associated Press began to acknowledge the truth. “Divorce Rate Falls to Lowest Level Since 1970,” said the headline of a major article on May 10.

This piece accurately reported the following: “America’s divorce rate began climbing in the late 1960’s and skyrocketed during the 70’s and early ‘80’s, as virtually every state adopted no-fault divorce laws.  The rate peaked at 5.3 divorces per 1,000 people in 1981. But since then it’s dropped by one-third, to 3.6. That’s the lowest rate since 1970.”

Of course these numbers reflect only those people who get divorced in a given year, and say nothing about the number of marriages that ultimately end up shattered. Nor can you extrapolate from these figures reliably into the future. The fact that 3.6 out of a thousand people get divorced in a single year doesn’t mean that 36 people out of a thousand will have gotten divorced after ten years.

The only way to measure the over-all divorce rate – the percentage of all  first marriages that end in divorce --is to consider the readily available numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. According to the most recent figures (from 2001, after the last completed national census), some 166,932,000 Americans have ever been married – or 76% of all those 15 and older.

Meanwhile, 48,412,000 have ever been divorced.

This means that of all those who have ever been married, a startling 71% are either still married to the person they originally wed, or else they remained married until the spouse died.

This figure applies only to first marriages, of course: the number for those who have “ever been divorced” (22.2% of all American adults) includes many people who have been divorced more than once.

Nevertheless, think of the important, valuable, reassuring message to prospective married couples that could be provided by an honest summary of the marital realities:

If this constitutes the first marriage for both of you, there’s a better than 70% chance that you will remain married until one of you dies.

Despite decades of media distortions, the truth remains precious and liberating.

Last night (or actually about 1:45AM this morning), the House passed a bill to fund our intelligence operations (CIA, NSA etc.). Disturbingly, several earmarks were slipped into this important national security legislation without the knowledge to most members until the very last moment. Altogether, 26 unclassified earmarks were included totaling around $97 million.

The largest beneficiary of these secret earmarks was none other than Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). One of his earmarks directs $23 million to a drug intelligence center in his hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He got this pork for his district even though both the Government Reform Committee and GAO have criticized the center for being an unnecessary use of taxpayer dollars. The center’s remote location and the fact that there are 19 other operations just like it have caused these oversight panels to publicly oppose its continued operation. Even drug enforcement officials have been quoted as saying the center is basically “a jobs program that Mr. Murtha wanted for his district.”

Three times yesterday, motions were made to take the House into secret session so that we could discuss any such earmarks and whether they have legitimate merit or are just pork. Three times on near party-line votes, these motions were defeated. Also, an amendment was offered to strip just the Murtha earmark and use the money for more human intelligence resources. That too was defeated. Why? Did the Democrat's not want to open up their earmarks for disclosure even to the rest of us in Congress? How much money will not be spent on real intelligence efforts because of secret earmarks? I guess Rep. Murtha and the Democrat's feel bringing home the bacon is more important than prioritizing and properly using our national security funding.

Katie's busy gradu-ma-tating from Catholic University this week (Congrats!), so I put together a little interview piece from the Milblog Conference, about the new Army regulation, announced last week, which could kill combat blogging.

I have more footage of J.R., talking about his injury in Iraq and recovery from it, but I'm trying in vain to clean up the audio before I get it up. Anyone who could help me lighten it up and isolate his voice on the audio track, please let me know: mkham@townhall.com.

Update: Uncle Jimbo suggests that, since video-editing is the bane of my existence, I should take his approach:

You should try my technique, no ideas, no script, no effects, one take, then 30 minutes in iMovie and I'm having a cold one.

Neal Boortz took the shock jock duo to task last night -- urging they be fired -- for their crude sexual content on Wednesday's show regarding Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth.   They seemed to have survived so far but no doubt their apology on Friday's show was motivated by XM/Sirius executives who are trying to push their merger though and don't want increased scrutiny from Congress.

"We deplore the comments made on Wednesday's 'Opie & Anthony Show,'" XM spokesman Nathaniel Brown told The Associated Press on Friday. He would not say whether XM planned to take disciplinary action.

Opie and Anthony, whose full names are Anthony Cumia and Greg "Opie" Hughes, apologized to listeners on Friday's show.

"We apologize to the public officials for comments that we made on our XM show on May 9th. We take very seriously the responsibility that comes with our creative freedom and regret any offense that this segment has caused," they said.

The comment section is in overdrive with people on all sides of the argument making their case.  Some coherent and civilized -- others not so much.   Opie and Anthony fans, affectionatly called "Pests" by the hosts, have also flocked to the comment section to defend their heroes.   

Drudge has some info on the upcoming 60 Minutes Interview with Mitt Romney:

When asked whether they broke the strict church rule against premarital sex, Romney says, "No, I'm sorry, we do not get into those things," but still managed to blurt out "The answer is no," before ending that line of questioning.

Is it just me, or has this line of questioning gone way too far?

Speaking of Mike Wallace's question, K-Lo adds: "Perhaps he can replace Rosie on The View."

Last night's episode of The Office could not be described as a classically "great" episode. Maybe it's because I'm not a fan of Survivor, but it wasn't a "home run" for me.

Still, it set up the Season Finale next week. Of course, I'm talking about Pam's rant (after the coal walk) that she "misses" Jim, and that she "shouldn't have been with Roy..."

BTW, I beleive that Karen will get the new corporate job, and that Jim and Pam will finally get together.

On the funny side, the Sumo wrestling was quite good. I like when Jim says, "I've never seen that look in a man's eye before..."

.... On another note, Dean Barnett tells me that Mitt Romney is a big fan of The Office!

(Cross-posted on Townhall's "The Office" blog).

One of the favorite rhetorical tricks of the secular left involves the comparison of Islamo-Nazi terrorists with Christian conservatives. Rosie O’Donnell on “The View” specifically declared that the American Christian Right represents a danger similar to Islamist fanatics while Howard Dean and others regular refer to “the Taliban wing of the Republican Party” as a way to stigmatize pro-lifers and other social conservatives.

Recent revelations about the Fort Dix Six (the Muslim fanatics in New Jersey who allegedly planned murderous attacks on US soldiers) serve as a potent reminder, however, that religious enthusiasm brings very special risks for Muslim families.

The New York Times quoted relatives of several of the accused terrorists as worrying over their increasing religiosity. Murat Duka, a relative of the three illegal immigrants at the heart of the conspiracy, declared: “It’s fine to be a religious man. But if you get too much to the religion, you get out of your mind and do stupid things.”

The father of another suspected plotter, Serdar Tatar, told reporters that “the young man had gravitated to radical Islam in recent years, prompting a rift between them. “I’m not a religious person,” said Muslim Tatar. “I don’t want my son to be a religious person, but he was a religious person.”

It’s true that in Christian and Jewish homes some casually religious parents may worry over the faith-based intensity of their offspring. But these concerns involve potential damage to the child himself – who may harm his career, or wear funny clothes, or embarrass the family by handing out obnoxious tracts. No Christian or Jewish parents need worry, however, that the intensifying religiosity of a child will lead to acts of violence against others, or to suicide as a means of gaining “paradise.”

Muslim parents do worry about such outcomes, however – because literally tens of thousands of their most devout young people have encouraged of horrifying acts of brutality and self destruction. When Murat Duka expresses concern that religion will cause you to “get out of your mind and do stupid things,” the stupid things he has in mind are far worse than talking in tongues, or growing an unkempt beard, or restricting your diet based on ancient law.

Outsiders may see radical Islam and Evangelical Christianity and Orthodox Judaism as similarly “fundamentalist,” but the nightmarish experience and legitimate fears of the Muslim families of the Fort Dix Six, suggest that not all fundamentalisms are created equal.

So it's 5 on a Thursday, and you're sick of Rudy and Romney, right? 

The good news is, there's a new episode of The Office on in 3 1/2 hours.  In the meantime, you can get your office fix over at my "The Office" blog ...

This week, the federal government reported record revenues in April. In fact, more tax money was deposited by the United States Treasury on April 24th, 2007 than on any other day since the founding of the Republic. Revenues for the fiscal year are now up 11.3 percent. That's after they were up 11.5 percent last year. And 14.6 percent the year before that. If I just add those up without compounding, that's a 37.4 percent in the last 3 years. That's pretty darn good. Way over the historical average. Did your salary go up that much in the last 3 years?

So why are the Democrats so determined to raise taxes? Is a 37 percent revenue increase in 3 years not enough? Do they want to increase spending by more than that? Of course they do. There's no other explanation. If we held spending to no increase for next year, the deficit would be gone in one year. There is simply no logical reason to increase taxes with revenue going up so much. But, the Democrat's will likely vote to raise taxes as soon as next week.

Clearly, whatever we send them of our money, it will never be enough.

Please find below a clip of a one minute speech I gave on the floor this morning relative to this topic. It was followed by applause from groups of people in the gallery. To my knowledge, I do not know any of these people and they had not clapped for any of the previous 12 speeches. The speaker immediately gaveled them down since you are not supposed to express opinions from the gallery.

To watch it click here.

My earlier post on Rudy's 'proclamations' inspired a debate over at AmSpecBlog, where my friend Philip Klein's first post on the subject included this:

If this is Lewis's attempt at gotcha journalism, it falls far short.  Giuliani was mayor of perhaps the most diverse city in the world, and so he showed tolerance for evangelical Christians as well as homosexuals. That shouldn't be considered an assault on conservatism.

 After Dave Holman came to my defense, Philip fired back with this:

Dave, what bothered me was not that Lewis chose to provide a counterweight to Brody, but what he cited as examples of Rudy's divergence from conservatism. Objectively, the gay and lesbian community is an important part of New York City. The city has days that salute Israel, the Irish,  Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, evangelicals, etc. I honestly don't see why acknowledging the contributions of gays and lesbians should be seen as a bad thing, worthy of derision.

So what do you think?  Am I a gotcha journalist, or is Philip a bit too open to the "diversity" of New York City?  Either way, it's a good debate to have ...

Dean makes a very good point about how weekly news magazines are always behind the curve (gotta love the internet!)

But regarding the argument that it was Romney's wife -- not the candidate, himself -- who made the donation, there is an interesting wrinkle.  Romney's spokesman told the Boston Globe:

... the check was written from the Romneys' joint checking account, but she signed it and the contribution came from her, Madden said. Mitt Romney has not donated to the group, Madden said.

This story raises two other interesting issues:

1.  It is presumable that either the McCain campaign or the Romney campaign leaked the story of Rudy's donations to Planned Parenthood to Jonathan Martin.  If it was the Romney campaign, this would be an example of very sloppy staff work.  You never attack someone for something that you, yourself, are guilty of.

2.  Planned Parenthood presumably made the Romney contribution public.  This cannot be a good policy.  Future donors to Planned Parenthood may have to now worry about whether or not the group will honor their confidentiality policy.