A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Upkeep Of Security Devices A Burden - In 2003, the FBI used a $25 million grant to give bomb squads across the nation state-of-the-art computer kits, enabling them to instantly share information about suspected explosives, including weapons of mass destruction. (READ MORE)
Tommy Thompson Leaves Race After Poor Showing in Iowa Poll - Former Wisconsin governor Tommy G. Thompson dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination last night, a day after finishing sixth in the straw poll in Ames, Iowa. (READ MORE)
Maliki Aims To Reconcile With Cabinet - BAGHDAD, Aug. 12 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday expressed optimism about the chances of reconciliation within Iraq's fractured government, even as a political rival accused him of protecting militias with ties to Iran. (READ MORE)
Unearthing Anguish In a Troubled Land - CHAM TALA, Afghanistan -- A dusty track winds through acres of used-car lots, a vast municipal garbage dump and a cluster of abandoned Russian bunkers just north of Kabul, the capital. Eventually it stops at a steep sandy slope, marked off with police tape. (READ MORE)
Rove Leaving White House - Karl Rove, President Bush's close friend and chief political strategist, plans to leave the White House at the end of August, joining a lengthening line of senior officials heading for the exits in the final 1 1/2 years of the administration. (READ MORE)
Italy Halts Iraq-Bound Weapons - A chance discovery at Rome's busy Fiumicino Airport led anti-Mafia investigators to a huge black-market transaction in which Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into Iraq. (READ MORE)
Students Push for Guns on Campus - College students are pushing for their schools to allow them to carry guns on campus, saying they should have the right to protect themselves in a situation like the one in which 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty were fatally shot. (READ MORE)
Veto Threats Up With Democratic Congress - President Bush has issued veto threats against 48 bills since Democrats took charge of Congress eight months ago, in stark contrast to the eight such threats all last year when Republicans controlled Capitol Hill. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
W. Thomas Smith Jr: "Another Day in Eye-Rack" - BAGHDAD (A little after 1:00 a.m.) — Flew in just after midnight aboard a CH-46 Sea Knight from Al Taqaddum; landing first in Fallujah (dropping off and picking up some Marines), then to Camp Liberty next to Victory out at the airport (dropping off some Marines and picking up some soldiers). Finally, we roared into Landing Zone Washington. (READ MORE)
Matt Sanchez: Sadr City--Prisoners and Sun Bathing. - Staff Sergeant Toby Hansen is the 3rd Squad leader of the 3rd platoon, 118th MP Co. (Airborne) out of Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.. This Middletown, New York native is far from home in Sadr City Iraq, but after a tours in Bosnia and Kosovo, the Staff Sergeant has the experience necessary to deal with prisoners in any situation. (READ MORE)
Desert Flier: Dilemma - "Just what am I supposed to do with this patient?" "It's not my call to make. Don't know what I can tell you beyond circumstance and treatment." "Well, was he doing anything before he was intubated?" (READ MORE)
Acute Politics: Damn Internets - Time is growing short for us, and we're starting to pack and turn in gear in preparation for our return. (Don't worry- the blogging will continue long after our redeployment stateside. There are a lot of stories left to tell.) As a result of some of the shuffling we've done, I've lost dependable internet acess while in Falluja. (READ MORE)
Michael Yon: Three Marks on the Horizon - Almost everyone (by now) must have heard about the “lazy” Iraqi parliament members who, like so many Neros fiddling while Rome burns around them, are taking a month off. Yet comparatively few Americans will ever hear or read about IA Scorpion Company Commander Captain Baker; or Iraqi entrepreneur and community catalyst, “Tonto”; or the Mayor of Baqubah, who summoned the courage to step out of the shadow of al Qaeda and fight to get his constituents a warehouse-sized stockpile of food. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Burt Prelutsky: A political primer - Nothing that I’ve written recently has stirred up the hornets quite as much as a piece in which I declared my support for Rudy Giuliani. I can’t say I was too shocked. After all, aside from religion and, in certain strange circles, TV soap operas, there’s little that Americans feel more passionately about than partisan politics. (READ MORE)
Suzanne Fields: False Badge of Courage - In one brief compressed paragraph, the novelist captures a reality of war, the way rumors become stories and how stories testify to the human need for the messenger to embroider facts as though he lives in a romance, where characters are decorated in red and gold. Stephen Crane never went to war, but as every reader learns quickly, "The Red Badge of Courage" dazzles with the authenticity of experience. Good writers do that. (READ MORE)
Robert D. Novak: House of Corruption? - Murtha is called "King Corruption" by Republican reformers, but what happened after midnight Aug. 5 is not a party matter. (READ MORE)
Star Parker: Barack Obama's strange ethnic politics - It's been equal-opportunity week to attack Barack Obama because of his remarks that seemed to justify a U.S. invasion of Pakistan. Democrats and Republicans alike had a field day at the expense of the poor senator. (READ MORE)
Ann Marlowe: On the Road to Jalalabad - AFGHANISTAN--Sen. Hillary Clinton has cynically charged that we are "losing the fight to al Qaeda and bin Laden" in Afghanistan. But on my eighth trip to Afghanistan (last month) I saw that the trend lines are up, not down. The first encouraging sign came in Dubai as I boarded my flight for Kabul. Afghanistan's main private air carrier, Kam Air, has recently added a second daily round trip between Kabul and Dubai. (READ MORE)
John Fund: The Price Is Wrong - In a sign of just how deeply entrenched Congress's pork barrel culture has become, Democrats on Capitol Hill are delaying sending President Bush an ethics bill they've already passed that purports to reform lobbyist reporting and earmarks. The reason? They're afraid Mr. Bush will veto the bill, which makes only cosmetic changes on the earmark process, gutting the reforms Congress voted earlier this year. The White House has called what remains "worthless." (READ MORE)
McQ: The coming urban terror - John Robb details what he believes to be "The Coming Urban Terror" based on terror tactics developed in Iraq: “Iraq is a petri dish for modern conflict, the Spanish Civil War of our times. It's the place where small groups are learning to fight modern militaries and modern societies and win. As a result, we can expect to see systems disruption used again and again in modern conflict-certainly against megacities in the developing world, and even against those in the developed West, as we have already seen in London, Madrid, and Moscow.” I'm not sure this comes as a surprise to anyone, but Iraq is hardly the "petri dish for modern conflict". (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Wrong Way - Genocide-preferring NYT ed board, noting that Britain’s slow exit from Basra has left serious problems in its wake, takes a firm stand for a more responsible rush to abandonment. Aptly headlined “Wrong Way out of Iraq” is short, sweet, and utterly chilling in its cold willingness to relegate U.S. troops to encircling Iraq and watching the mass murderfest, with a mandate only to lob bombs at questionably identifiable targets: (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: NYT: Partial British withdrawal from Basra has been disastrous — so let’s shoot for total withdrawal - It’s a testament to how vague their Iraq prescriptions are and how buggered is their logic about withdrawal that on the first read-through of this I thought they had changed their minds since last month and were now calling for a significant U.S. troop presence into next year to keep the peace. Nope; don’t think so, at least. Here’s their reasoning as best as I can parse it: (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Iraq Report: Assassination campaigns - Both the Mahdi Army and al Qaeda in Iraq appear to have conducted bold assassination attempts on Iraqis working with the Coalition. Both attacks occurred on August 11, one in Baghdad and the other in the contested city of Diwaniyah. Khalil Jalil Hamza , the governor of Qadisiyah province along with newly appointed provincial police chief Khalid Hassan and three security guards were killed in a bombing as they returned from a funeral in a nearby town. (READ MORE)
Don Surber: The $10 million cheeseburger - People occasionally ask me why a beautiful state such as West Virginia, with all its resources, has become the second-poorest state in the nation. Two reasons: 75 years of Democratic Party domination of the state government. People who want something for nothing — and regularly get it from the state. Until very recently, workers’ comp fraud was not prosecuted. (READ MORE)
Kim Priestap: Karl Rove Set to Resign at the End of August - From the Wall Street Journal: “Karl Rove, President Bush's longtime political adviser, is resigning as White House deputy chief of staff effective Aug. 31, and returning to Texas, marking a turning point for the Bush presidency.” There's a lot more detail in Paul Gigot's commentary, which you can read here. Here's a portion in which Rove discusses the mythology the nutroots and moonbats have created about him: (READ MORE)
Ron Winter: Gen. Petraeus To Lead An Army of Thousands; Leftists Quitting War Against US, Deserting Sinking Ship - A movement is underway across America and beyond to ensure that when Gen. David Petraeus, who is leading the ongoing offensive against Al Qaeda in Iraq, comes to Washington on Sept. 15 to testify before Congress, an army of veterans and our supporters will be watching his back. Another nationwide installment of A Gathering of Eagles, modeled on the wildly successful event on March 17 when tens of thousands of pro-troop, anti-terrorism demonstrators blocked leftists' access to national war monuments that had been targeted for defacing, is gathering momentum with an even broader base of support than we had last winter. (READ MORE)
Sweetness & Light: NYT Bemoans Closure Of Black Muslim Bakery - From those defenders of the faith at the New York Times: “A federal judge’s order to liquidate the assets of Your Black Muslim Bakery will shutter one of this city’s black nationalist institutions, a step called long overdue by many members of the clergy and community activists… “They had veered far, far away from the basic tenets of the Muslim faith,” said Amos C. Brown, senior pastor at the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco. “They had become agents and perpetrators of terror and vigilantism.” (READ MORE)
Rhymes With Right: More On Edwards' "Dirty" Fox Money - I mentioned last week that John Edwards, despite attacking FoxNews and NewsCorp as enemies of the Democrats, had taken $500,000 in advance money and $300,000 in expense money to write a book. Well guess where the $300,000 went --to Deputy Campaign Manager Jonathan prince, and to the candidate's own daughter, Cate Edwards. (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: Is This The Beginning Of The End For The Goracle's Religion? - Mark Steyn's latest column touches on the new NASA data that should, by all rights, be causing even the most rabid believers in manmade global warming to think again, "Something rather odd happened the other day. If you go to NASA's Web site and look at the "U.S. surface air temperature" rankings for the lower 48 states, you might notice that something has changed.” (READ MORE)
Reformed Chicks Blabbing: I thought they were supposed to clean out the House - Of corruption that is: "Republicans returning to the House floor on Friday morning Aug. 3 after their walkout the night before were surprised to find as presiding officer the Democrat they call "King Corruption": Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, master of earmarks and backroom deals." (READ MORE)
The Redhunter: Update II: New Rules for Going To War - Well that was fast. Just last Monday I published an updated version of our New Rules for Going to War if Liberals Were in Charge, and here already have one more to add. Here it is: * Every fatality in a hostile area requires its own formal investigation. This will be known as the Cpl. Pat Tillman Rule." Here are the compete rules, including our addition: (READ MORE)
Right Wing & Right Minded: Politics In America. A Downhill Game - This has been, without doubt, the dumbest political season I've ever seen. First, well, maybe not first, but up there, we had the "What Do You Hate About America?" question at the MSNBC Republican debate. Now we have CNN's White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux asking if Hillary Clinton could sustain black support with Obama in the race. That's like asking Obama if he could sustain Latino or Asian support. Or Bill Richardson if he could sustain White or Indian support. Race should play absolutely 0% in politics. Yeah, I know every race has their own issues, but you'll never find a candidate who can speak to all of them. (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: Taboos - One of the basic tenets of the contemporary liberal faith is the beauty of "diversity." Every day the dogmas of multiculturalism are promulgated relentlessly by our schools, newspapers and media, and public authorities. The transformation of the United States by waves of immigration from non-European countries is always depicted as a phenomenon to be celebrated, as are the immigrants' religions and cultures. Minneapolis and St. Paul have been deeply affected by the large number of Somali and Hmong immigrants who have made the Twin Cities metropolitan area their home. Their occasionally disturbing cultural practices and the related social costs are rarely discussed. (READ MORE)
Paul Mirengoff: Wishful thinking disguised as conventional wisdom - Clifford May challenges the view of the Washington foreign policy establishment that, though we should be concerned about the reconstitution of al Qaeda in Pakistan, we have little reason to fear that al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) will attack our homeland. Members of this same establishment believed during the 1990s that al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan posed no threat to our homeland. In their zest to see us pull out of Iraq, they seem to have forgotten how wrong they were then. (READ MORE)
Kobayashi Maru: The Glenn on Global Warming - Instapundit Glenn Reynolds yesterday, on global warming: “...the whole debate seems to me to be a religious sideshow. Regardless of what you think about global warming, there are lots of good reasons to avoid burning fossil fuels. But the global-warming discussion in the media is a consensus identity narrative designed to achieve political ends, not an effort to find facts or protect the environment.” (READ MORE)
Flopping Aces: More on The Global Warming Temperature Error - The blogger who started the whole shabang rolling on the story of bad temperature date, Steve McIntyre, which resulted in the hottest year on record changing from the mid 90's to mid 30's has put up another great post about all the controversy: “There’s been quite a bit of publicity about Hansen’s Y2K error and the change in the U.S. leaderboard (by which 1934 is the new warmest U.S. year) in the right-wing blogosphere. In contrast, realclimate has dismissed it a triviality and the climate blogosphere is doing its best to ignore the matter entirely.” (READ MORE)
Crazy Politico: Duh! - No, the title doesn't refer to the new Hyundai commercials, but instead to the "revelation" that Hillary Clinton at the top of the Democratic ticket next year could hurt the bottom of the ticket. “Since the ludicrously long campaign season began last year folks like me have all but told the Democratic party that Hillary is the wrong choice for the top of the ticket. While Joe Biden or Dennis Kucinich would be obvious losers for the top, Hillary might have a chance of winning, but costing the party seats in Congress.” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Another Sign Of Success - Major attacks in Iraq have dropped 50% since the start of the surge, USA Today reports. The majority of the improvement comes from the reduction of the al-Qaeda network in western Iraq, which has kept them from conducting large-scale operations: “The number of truck bombs and other large al-Qaeda-style attacks in Iraq have declined nearly 50% since the United States started increasing troop levels in Iraq about six months ago, according to the U.S. military command in Iraq.” (READ MORE)
Blue Crab Boulevard: The Fraudulent Carbon Offset Market - Another positively greewaldian title for the post, but the news warrants it. One of the prime most holy indulgences carbon offsets pushed by the true believers from the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption is the planting of trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Tree planting is touted with religious fervor by the disciples of Pope Goreus I and, in fact, are pimped by Gorezilla himself. (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Twenty-one Years Later Kerry Answers His Own Question - On April 23rd, 1971 John F Kerry, speaking on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War asked this question; “We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” John Kerry answered that question in 1992 when he chaired a commission looking into the issue of POW/MIAs in Vietnam. Kerry, along with John McCain, ignored the facts and evidence in order to declare that no Americans were alive in Vietnam (who did not want to be there) and that the matter was closed. (READ MORE)
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