Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage has written a masterful and thorough article laying out the high-level strategic battle over traditional versus same-sex marriage in California and across the country.  The piece first appeared in National Review’s August 10 issue.    The Coalition for Marriage and Family has re-published Gallagher’s article here.   Those who have been following the issue will recognize just how spot-on Gallagher’s analysis is, and everyone who cares about the issue should read the entire article.  Here are some “teaser” paragraphs:

The headline on the story about a new CBS News/New York Times survey was interesting: “Poll: Support for Gay Marriage Dips.” How fast and how far had support for gay marriage had to drop before a mainstream-media headline acknowledged it, even as a “dip”?

Here’s the answer: 9 percentage points.

That’s right: In just a few short months, support for gay marriage in this poll plunged 9 percentage points, from its all-time high of 42 percent to 33 percent. . . .

We have two videos that we can’t embed, but we’ve got links for you.  Both are very much worth watching.

First, this BBC video shows an amazing clash between Iranian police and a large crowd of street protesters.  Start paying close attenttion at about 1:45.

Second (and swinging all the way back to the other side of the world), Sonja Schmidt at Pajamas TV offers a scathing wrap-up to the David Letterman – Willow Palin disgrace, and throws in some pointed comments about Guy Cimbalo, the Playboy on-line editor who fantasized about assaulting specific conservative women.  Video here.

(HT: Instapundit.)

This just in from our correspondent Steve Finefrock:

The photo below captures a disturbing trend that is beginning to affect US wildlife.

Animals that were formerly self-sufficient are now  showing signs of belonging to the Democratic  Party… as they have apparently learned to just sit and wait for the  government to step in and provide for their care and sustenance. 

This photo is of a Democrat black bear in Montana nicknamed Bearack Obearma.

And our selected weekend cartoons follow . . . .

From commenter Lotus at Knox News:

Under Bush, we had 100 left-leaning, rabidly anti-administration media outlets that were trying to get the President impeached and members of his staff thrown in jail. Against that, we had a single media outlet giving him generally favorable coverage.

Now, under Obama, we have 100 left-leaning media outlets trying to ram the President’s agenda through while working at having his likeness chiseled on Mount Rushmore. Against that, we have a single media outlet playing watchdog.

(HT: Instapundit.)

Zonation comments here.   You’ll see some compelling video from past installments of David Letterman’s show, along with some questions that Letterman will never answer.

I liked this:  “You don’t make jokes, man, you hide behind jokes. You’re a weak, mean-spirited humanoid.”

I’m someone who is not the world’s biggest fan of Governor Sarah Palin, but I am a huge fan of my 12 year-old daughter. So I’ve been following with interest David Letterman’s utterly inexcusable joke about Alex Rodriguez having sex with Gov. Palin’s 14 year-old daughter. (We first posted about that here.)  On the “Today Show” Matt Lauer asked Palin about the matter. That discussion begins about one minute into this video: