Kill The Right People

"Under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. special operations became a “giant killing machine,” according to former Army colonel Douglas Macgregor, who anticipates a change when Navy Vice Adm. Eric Olson takes the helm of the operations. “The emphasis will be on, ‘If you have to kill someone, then for God’s sakes, kill the right people,’” Macgregor said. “That’s been lost over the last several years.”

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks,
To hate all but the right folks,
It's an old established rule!

- Tom Lehrer, "National Brotherhood Week
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Bush Blames Al Qaida For Violence in Iraq

"Al Qaida is the main enemy for Shia, Sunni and Kurds alike," Bush asserted. "Al Qaida's responsible for the most sensational killings in Iraq. They're responsible for the sensational killings on U.S. soil."

- George W. Bush

And yet they're apparently invicible.

What do they have, the Ark of the Covenant or something?
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Buzz on Fred Thompson: He's a "Soft, Safe Place" to Be?

Reuters article
By Steve Holland

"Things must be going well for prospective presidential candidate Fred Thompson because even his ex-wife and former girlfriends are endorsing him.

One-by-one they've said the Tennessee Republican is their man -- at least for president, according to London's Sunday Times newspaper.

Thompson, 64, dated for a long time after his 26-year marriage to his first wife, Sarah Knestrick, ended in 1984. In 2002 he married Jeri Kehn, who is 24 years younger than he.

"I think he has a great chance of capturing the women's vote. He's majestic. He's a soft, safe place to be and that could be Fred's ticket. Women love a soft place to lay and a strong pair of hands to hold us," ex-girlfriend country music singer Lorrie Morgan told the Sunday Times.

Another old flame, Republican fund-raiser Georgette Mosbacher, said he would defeat Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton because of his appeal to "traditional women who will like the Southern gentleman in him," according to The Times."

Well, that's interesting, I guess. Not every man is good terms with his wives and girlfriends. I'm not sure what it means that he is a "soft, safe place to be," nor do I want to. Perhaps Chris Matthews can explore this matter on an upcoming show.
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TIME OUT, DUDE!

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine police chased down an unfit thief on Tuesday after he ran out of breath and asked his pursuers for a "time out."

"He was panting and gasping for air when we caught up with him after a 500 meter sprint," Erwin Buenceso, one of the arresting officers, told local radio station dzBB.

Buenceso said the man and an accomplice broke into a house in the Philippine capital and stole two expensive mobile phones. Screams from the residence alerted a local police patrol, which gave chase.

The robber asked for a "time out" using hand signals.

After he regained his composure, police seized the two stolen phones and brought him to a station for questioning."
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So harsh. The man called "time out"!!

Fred Thompson -- Avid Blogger?

According to an article in Reuters, actor, lobbyist and former Senator Fred Thompson is an avid blogger and commenter on conservative Web sites as he gears up for a 2008 "posting thoughts on topics ranging from the French election to the Middle East and the immigration debate."

The article quotes Roger Simon of Pajamas Media saying: "The guy actually likes blogging. Before he decided he was going to take the plunge on a presidential race, he cruised the blogs. It attracted him."

From the article:

"That's why so much of my effort has been focused on talking to Americans through this medium," he wrote on Pajamas Media. "By empowering individuals and building communities, the Internet provides a way of going around the inside-the-beltway crowd to reach people in numbers unheard of not that long ago."

If true, it demonstrates a certain level of savvy one might expect from a Hollywood actor that you may not get from say, a Tommy Thompson or Duncan Hunter.

Speaking of second tier candidates, I also caught Gov. Gilmore on MSNBC this morning. Not an idiot, but I wouldn't expect much from him either. The peculiar thing about the brief interview was that you pull quotes from it to bolster a claim that Gilmore really wants to invade Iran, and that he thinks its a really bad idea. Also, he seems to want to pull troops out of Iraq as long dirty hippies get no credit. Ideally, he would dig up Ronald Reagan and run him for President, but alas, that is currently possible.
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Is Mitt Romney Too Weird to be President? Part III

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According to this morning's New York Times, Jay Garrity, the director of operations of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, is going on "a paid leave of absence while the authorities investigate accusations that he impersonated a state trooper in Massachusetts and told a reporter in New Hampshire that he had run the reporter’s license plate".

According to reporter Pam Belluck, "Mr. Garrity has worked for Mr. Romney since his successful 2002 campaign for governor of Massachusetts. In 2004, Mr. Garrity was cited by the Boston police and fined after a Crown Victoria that was registered to him and that had been illegally parked was found to have police equipment without the requisite permits. The equipment included flashing lights, a siren, a nightstick and identification with a state police patch on it."

Quite a charmer, this guy.

Someone left a voicemail message at a company called Wayne’s Drains, saying he was "Trooper Garrity," of the "Massachusetts State Police" and complained about one of the company's drivers. As if that weren't creepy enough, then the person said he was coming to the company to issue a citation.

Promising to show up in person to issue a ticket! That's either one very industrious state trooper, or someone with a serious screw loose.

The call was made from a call apparently linked to Jay Garrity. Garrity says is completely innocent, and far be it from this commenter to suggest otherwise. Culture of Truth and all that.

Garrity has had some bad luck lately, because a reporter for the Times, Mark Leibovich, says that Jay Garrity recently got out of Mitt Romney’s car, walked over to his car, and told him that he couldn't follow Romney's car, and further, that he had "run his license plate."

Paul Nagy, the chairman of "Conserve NH," must be backing another candidate, because he has apparently filed a complaint with the state attorney general’s office on Thursday.

From the Times: “They broke New Hampshire law,” Mr. Nagy said. “It was very arrogant, and that’s not the way we treat people up here during a presidential primary season.”

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NOW THAT'S A LOT OF WINDEX

(Reuters) - "France will unveil one of its most dazzling architectural showcases, the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, next week after a restoration that has brought fresh life to colors buried for years under grime.

Frederic Didier, chief architect of France's historical monuments, told Le Figaro daily that it now looked "like a dazzling old lady. And all the wrinkles in her face tell a story," he said.

Built in 1684 on the orders of the "Sun King" Louis XIV, the Hall, which takes its name from 357 mirrors that run along its 73 meter (220 feet) length was the centerpiece of a palace designed to emphasize the power and glory of the monarch.

The decor is considered a high point of European art in the 17th century, a period when France's might and influence was at its height.

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Supreme Court Upholds Rights of Passgener in Stop

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The Supreme Court has ruled that passengers, as well as drivers, have the right to challenge the legality of a stop by the police.

The ruling was unanimous.

In the case, the California Supreme Court found that, as a matter Constitutional law, only the driver had been "seized" by the original traffic stop, but the passenger, who was convicted of a crime as a result of the stop, argued that he was seized as well, and therefore had the right to challenge the use of evidence against him under his rights against unreasonable search and siezure.

The Court agreed. Justice Souter wrote:

"When police make a traffic stop, a passenger in the car, like the driver, is seized for Fourth Amendment purposes and so may challenge the stop’s constitutionality."

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Cat Blogging

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Cloisters Blogging

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ROBERT F. BAUER TAKES OBAMA CAMPAIGN OFF MESSAGE

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Just read the "Pardon Scooter" Huffington Post column by Obama campaign General Counsel Robert F. Bauer.

I still like Obama, but this falls into the category of "way too clever by half."

I think I get what Bauer is trying to say, but on it's face it is simply ridiculous to wade into this snake pit. My advice: just campaign, and try not get sucked into irrelevant arguments like this one.

This piece, along with the incident with Edwards adviser Mudflap Saunders (I know, Mudcat) indicate that once a person is attached to a candidate, they should run all public statements through the campaign. As far as I can tell, all this will do is roil the liberal blogosphere completely unnecessarily.

Don't tell me "Pardon Scooter" is Obama's Message for the Day.

There's a class of Democratic advisers who spend too much time trying to show everyone else how smart they are. In fact, this is popular among Democrats in general, and is generally a good thing. There's nothing wrong with being smart, and as well all know, too many Republicans seem to spend all their time showing the world how stupid they are, even if, in fact, they are not. This is supposed to make them seem genuine, or something.

But sometimes cleverness can go too far. Bauer should spend a little less time showing us how he can bend logic like a pretzel and more time helping his candidate win.
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ANCIENT ROME LIVES AGAIN

Ancient Rome has been brought back to life through a unique digital reconstruction project, said to be the world's biggest computer simulation.

An international team of architects, archaeologists and experts spent 10 years working on a real-time 3D model of the city called Rome Reborn. Some 7,000 buildings were scanned and reproduced using a model of the city kept at a Rome museum.

Users enter the city at the time of Constantine and see inside buildings. The simulation takes place in the year AD 320, which is said to be the city's peak, when it had grown to a million inhabitants.

"We can take people under the Colosseum and show them how the elevators worked to bring the animals up from underground chambers for the animal hunts they held," said Bernard Frischer, the project's leader who heads Virginia's Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities.

For an eyewitness view of an empire's decline and fall, the U.S. evening news is suggested.
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TOO MANY WANGS IN CHINA

Chinese Government: We Have Too Many Wangs

Chinese officials are considering measures to expand the number of surnames in the country in order to prevent confusion, state media says. At the moment around 85% of China's 1.3 billion residents share around 100 surnames, a survey in April by the Ministry of Public Security found. The most popular name, Wang, is shared by some 93 million people.

I imagine most people will want to hold on to it.

Their name, that is.
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TUTU'S NOBEL PRIZE STOLEN; RECOVERED

Police find Archbishop Desmond Tutu's stolen Nobel Peace Prize

Police have found the Nobel Peace Prize medal awarded to South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, after it was stolen from his Soweto home on Sunday. The archbishop - who was overseas when the robbery took place - won the international award in 1984 for his work against apartheid.

I knew that on Nobel Prize on eBay too good to be true!
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DO THE TALIBAN USE HELICOPTERS?

"U.S. Troops Kill 7 Afghan Police"

(By AP/Amir Shah)

"U.S. forces mistakenly killed seven Afghan police and wounded four in an apparent friendly fire incident early Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said.

Police manning a remote checkpoint in Nangarhar province said an American convoy backed by helicopters approached and opened fire despite their protests and calls for them to stop.

"I thought they were Taliban, and we shouted at them to stop, but they came closer and they opened fire," said Khan Mohammad, one of the policemen at the post. "I'm very angry. We are here to protect the Afghan government and help serve the Afghan government, but the Americans have come to kill us."

I have a question, aside from the specific circumstances of this case, prompted by the policeman's comment. Is it common for the Taliban to attack in large convoys backed by helicopters?
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