Republican VP Candidate Sarah Palin has made much noise about the fact that her son, Track Palin, headed off to war last month.  Not to be outdone, Joe Biden’s son, Beau Biden,  is off to Iraq as well.

Just kidding, well… sort of.  It’s not a game of one-up-manship, but all the same, the timing is quite fortunate for the Democrats.  While both McCain and Palin have been taking shots at the Dems for not voting to provide more funding for the troops (it’s not about funding, it’s about time-tables.  Dems want them, Reps don’t, they each vote accordingly regardless of what else is attached to the vote) and Palin herself has a son who is off to the war that the Reps are standing behind so intensely now is a perfect time for the Dems to appear to have more of a personal stake in things.

So, good timing and best of luck to Beau Biden and his unit, as well as Track Palin and his unit as they both go to war, and serve as symbols for their respective parent’s parties.

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Remember that Austrian guy who locked his daughter in a basement for 24 years?  This story is sorta like that only the children were locked in an underground cave…. in the Holy Land….  and with less vacationing in Thailand:

Nablus – Ma’an – Police in the West Bank city of Hebron arrested a man for allegedly imprisoning his son and daughter, who are now in their thirties, in two caves for over 20 years.

Police said they found the siblings in the adjoining caves during a security sweep for drugs and weapons dealers.

Only one passage leads to the two caves, which lack light and ventilation.

The siblings were taken for medical and psychological treatment.

Preliminary investigations show that the suspect was a widower who remarried. He and his wife told the police that the children were mentally disabled, and they locked them away to “avoid embarrassment.”

On Monday police announced that arrests had been made in a similar case, where a man chained and tortured his maid and young daughter in Bethlehem.

Plato would be so proud.

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