NEW YORK -- Whether the topic is Libya's rebels or Afghanistan's "reconciliation" with the Taliban, the pivotal question is, or should be: What about the women?

During my brief tenure as a CNN anchor, I insistently raised this question and was consistently disappointed by the answer, which more or less went like this:

"Yes, well, the women. Too bad about the women. They'll suffer."

Score another victory for the Confederates.

In what surely has to be the irony of ironies, yet another federal judge has sided with the Sons of Confederate Veterans in the group's ongoing battle to distribute its "heritage" license plates.

Anything bearing the image of the Confederate battle flag is widely considered politically incorrect, if not akin to full-blown Nazism. And that's not just the jaundiced opinion of Northerners or liberals. Republican legislatures, including Florida's, have taken a similarly dim view.

With more than 6.8 million acres already under state and local government control, the Florida Legislature is angling to sell and buy more land.

The dirt-dealing plan, buried in a Senate budget bill, directs agencies to sell off unneeded property. But it also would funnel all proceeds into the Florida Forever trust fund for the purpose of acquiring still more acreage.

"What one hand saveth, another spendeth," says Robert Weissert, of Florida TaxWatch.