By Steve Clemons

A headline today in the Los Angeles Times reads “Rebel Leader in Libya Demands More of NATO.

Just heard terrible news that a popular Arab-Israeli actor and ‘healthy civil society’ activist has been assassinated allegedly by Palestinian militants in Jenin on the West Bank. Juliano Mer Khamis, director of Arna’s Children and founder of Jenin’s Freedom Theater was killed today.

This is a pic I took when I was in Florida last time. You can click it to get a larger version if you like. I’m down here again for a very fast trip to speak at the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Goverment at the University of Central Florida on US-China policy.

The Canadians know have to have fun. Thursday evening, the Embassy threw its own stylized night of Oscar-like, red carpet strolling, high drama award-giving for some of Washington’s policy and political elite who embrace rather than poke fun at the maple leaf and all that entails.

The world’s most famous guilty dog, Denver, lives in Millington, Maryland — just five miles from my river house in the same county. Very cute clip done by owners Mali and Brenda Vujanic. When my dogs get into stuff they shouldn’t, they are completely duplicitous and act as if nothing at all happened.

While growing up on US military bases, one of the perennial radio personalities that the Department of Defense would transmit to us wayward DoD dependents was Paul Harvey and his show, The Rest of the Story.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy The CIA is assessing the composition and capabilities of the Libyan opposition.

(Satellite image after 2003 Bam, Iran earthquake; photo courtesy of Digital Globe) Yesterday I mentioned that Freedom House and the Progressive Policy Institute had launched a new Iran Strategy Task Force to look at Iran’s human rights record and raise awareness and concerns about Iran’s conventional military capabilities.

Sean Kay authored this guest note for TWN. Kay is a professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University and an Associate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University.

(photo credit: Valerie Clemens, former Miss Maine; click image for larger version) Tonight at a gathering of “The New Republican Majority”, approximately 15 Miss America contestants from around the nation sang the national anthem before 2,000 Republican devotees.