A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some articles)
Border-fence bill awaits signing “The White House is pleading with Congress to send over the bill authorizing 700 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border so the president can sign it immediately, but Republican leaders on Capitol Hill want to wait until closer to the election…” (READ MORE)
U.S., allies fear 2nd nuke test by Pyongyang “The United States and two allies voiced new worries yesterday that North Korea is set to conduct a second underground nuclear test, as Pyongyang said that new U.N. sanctions are tantamount to a declaration of war.” (READ MORE)
Rove foresees GOP victory “White House political strategist Karl Rove yesterday confidently predicted that the Republican Party would hold the House and the Senate in next month's elections, dismissing fallout from the sex scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley.” (READ MORE)
U.S. defector ends silence about life in N. Korea “Unrepentant and professing support for communism, the last living American defector in North Korea has spoken out publicly for the first time about his life in the nation and his motivations for defecting -- on celluloid.” (READ MORE)
News From the Front:
Farewell on a Dark Tarmac “SATHER AIR BASE, Iraq -- His commanders gave Airman 1st Class Lee Bernard E. Chavis the proud emblem of their squadron -- a blue-and-yellow flag known as a guidon -- because they knew he would rather die than lose it. The 21-year-old District native carried it from the unit's home base in the hills of Georgia to the sands of Kuwait and onto the streets of Baghdad, where, on Saturday, he was killed by a sniper as he tried to keep civilians away from a suspected roadside bomb.” (READ MORE)Tense Calm Prevails as Iraqi Forces Seal Off River Town “BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 -- Police and black-clad Shiite militiamen toting machine guns sealed off the predominantly Shiite city of Balad on Tuesday, guarding against attacks by Sunni insurgents flooding into towns just north of Baghdad, vowing revenge for four days of violence in which dozens of Sunnis were killed. Calm largely returned to Balad by Tuesday, with Iraqi army troops forcing Shiite militia fighters out of police cars that the militiamen had commandeered for the attacks, said residents reached by telephone in the cut-off town. American troops patrolled the city and guarded one end of a Tigris River bridge that links Balad with Duluiyah, a Sunni farm town also at the epicenter of the outburst of sectarian conflict.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio writes Afghan Battles and Pakistani Plots “Clashes in southern and eastern Afghanistan point back to Pakistan as a purported coup plot targets Musharraf. Afghan and Coalition forces engaged the Taliban in pitched battles in the eastern and southern Afghanistan over the past few days. Over forty Taliban and al-Qaeda were killed during the battles, with zero Coalition or Afghan casualties. The Taliban activity is increasingly being tied back to Pakistan, as a purported coup plot against the Musharraf regime is uncovered.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Crazy Politico writes Honesty In The Debate “Robert J. Samuelson has a great Op/Ed in this mornings Washington Post, "An Oil Habit America Cannot Break" which lays the blame for our energy dependence where it belongs; not on Congress alone, but on we, the people. Honesty in the debate about our energy future is probably the biggest missing part of the puzzle to becoming closer to energy independent. Three groups, the tax lobby, the auto lobby and the environmental lobby, which all represent big segments of the population have prevented us from doing anything meaningful in the area of reducing our dependence on foreign oil.” (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson writes The Pseudo-Histories of the Iraq War “Three recent books about the "fiasco" in Iraq — Cobra II by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, State of Denial by Bob Woodward and just plain Fiasco by Tom Ricks — have attracted a lot of attention, and sales. All three well-written exposés repeat the now well-known argument that our government's incompetence and arrogance have nearly ensured America's failure in birthing democracy in Iraq. It's worth noting, though, that many of the authors' critical portraits rely on private conversations and anonymous sources. The most damning informants in these books are never identified and so can't be questioned.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit writes Video: Tony Blair calls the veil a ‘mark of separation’ “Thanks much to kasper kasper, our man in the UK, for clipping this. The news services are already buzzing about it. Blair, like the public, is siding with Jack Straw, but I don’t know what he hopes or expects to happen here. If the wearing of the veil is a matter of faith or “identity” then Muslim women aren’t going to take it off simply to put the infidel at ease.” (READ MORE)
Dean Barnett writing at Hugh Hewitt writes Broken Beyond Repair “A few weeks ago, I wrote that I didn’t care what the then-controversial National Intelligence Estimate said because the level of analysis that emanates from our intelligence community is uniformly wretched. I realized there was a possibility that our intelligence analysts might inadvertently stumble onto an insight. My point nonetheless was that if you really wanted to know what was going on in the world of Islamic Fascism, you’d be better of reading analysts like Walid Phares and the intrepid Steve Emerson who, unlike the intelligence community, know what they’re talking about and have been right on these matters for more than a decade. In other words, their concern with Radical Islam predated not only 9/11 but also the rise to prominence of Osama bin Laden. That, my friends, is quality analysis.” (READ MORE)
Kim Priestap writing at Wizbang writes Reuters Photographers' Creed: Do Anything to Get the Shot “Another Reuters photographer got himself into trouble. This time it was Imad Muhammad Intisar Boghnat, who was arrested and thrown in jail for inciting rock throwing. On Tuesday, a Reuters cameraman was remanded to prison until trial for his part in rock-throwing attacks on security forces in Bil'in, where the separation fence is a constant target of protesters.” (READ MORE)
McQ of QandO writes A Remembrance: October 17, 1967 “About a month ago, wandering through the internet, I came across a story of a young Second Lieutenant named Harold Bascom Durham Jr. I wanted to read his story, because he was a 2LT about the same time I was. And besides, he had an impressive name. Sounded every inch a soldier. And he was - for the short time he was able to serve. As I started to read his story I got a chuckle because you see, 2LT Harold Bascom Durham Jr. of the impressive sounding name was better known by those who served with him as ‘Pinky’.” (READ MORE)
Dr. Shakleford of The Jawa Report writes You Tube Jihad Continues, Part of a Larger Problem “An editorial about the YouTube jihad. Interestingly enough, The Jawa Report was also once banned by Google News for alleged 'hate speech'. But, we kissed and made up and now we're a Google News source again. Now we and other right-of-center Youtubers are being targetted by the same thin-skinned cyber-jihadis who believe that the best way to insulate political Islam from criticism is to shut people up.” (READ MORE)
Captain Ed writes Dershowitz Experiences The Clinton Double-Standard First-Hand “Alan Dershowitz, writing in the New York Sun, complains of a double standard applied by the media to him and Bill Clinton. Dershowitz elicited a wave of criticism and outrage when he argued that American law should set up a narrow exception to the laws against torture in order to allow accountability for it. However, when Bill Clinton made the exact same argument during an NPR interview, the media never bothered to report it:” (READ MORE)
Jay of Stop the ACLU writes ACLU Express Outrage As Bush Signs Terror Interrogation Into Law “So Bush signs the bill into law that will allow terrorists to be interrogated harshly, as they should be, and allow many top Al Qaeda agents to be brought to justice through military tribunals. ‘It is a rare occasion when a president can sign a bill that he knows will save American lives,’ Bush said. With this the ACLU are having a good old-fashioned moonbat hissy fit, calling it one of the worst civil liberties measures ever enacted in American history.” (READ MORE)
Wretchard of The Belmont Club writes Barbour's Dilemma “Is National Self Defense a War Crime? Asks Alan Dershowitz in a op-ed in Canada’s National Post. The answer says Dershowitz is “yes” if you ask Louise Arbour, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and currently the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, for so long as national self defense entails the risk of inflicting collateral damage. Dershowitz rejects her position and goes on to argue that:” (READ MORE)
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