Both retired FBI officials asserted that the Bush administration was thoroughly briefed on the mortgage fraud crisis and its potential to cascade out of control with devastating financial consequences, but made the decision not to give back to the FBI the agents it needed to address the problem. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, about 2,400 agents were reassigned to counterterrorism duties.

FBI saw mortgage fraud early

First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you're supposed to stop digging when you're in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense? It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if the editors over at the New York Times editorial page spend their afternoons dropping acid or drinking rubbing alcohol.

Someone Take Away Thomas Friedman's Computer Before He Types Another Sentence | The Smirking Chimp

It’s not often that I find myself recommending a French state-owned industry as the answer to major U.S. problems, but I guess there’s an exception to every rule.

In this case the exception is the French nuclear energy company Areva, which provides about 80 percent of the country’s electricity from 58 nuclear power plants, is building a new generation of reactor that will come on line at Flamanville in 2012, and is exporting its expertise to countries from China to the United Arab Emirates.

America Needs France’s Atomic Anne - New York Times

An aircraft crashed into a building in New York City’s Upper East Side this afternoon, igniting several apartments of the residential high rise before pieces of the building crashed onto the ground, witnesses and officials said.

Small Aircraft Hits Building in Manhattan - New York Times

The first call to San Francisco police came in Tuesday at 12:47 p.m. -- a shiny black Honda Pilot had just plowed into another vehicle at Larkin Street and Golden Gate Avenue near Civic Center.

It's the kind of routine vehicle accident that police hear about innumerable times every day.

But this smashup was not routine. And it was no accident.

Within minutes, the driver of the Pilot would speed into the hills straddling the Western Addition and Pacific Heights, ripping back and forth through a 15-square-block area like a ripsaw on four wheels, leaping curbs, cutting corners and tearing the wrong way through traffic.

WTF?!

DRIVER'S RAMPAGE / Swath of central San Francisco terrorized as SUV guns for pedestrians

Japan said Monday it was considering whether a pre-emptive strike on North Korea's missile bases would violate its constitution, signaling a hardening stance ahead of a possible Security Council vote.

U.N. Vote on North Korea Resolution Is Delayed - New York Times

No injuries were reported this morning after a disabled American Airlines jet made a safe emergency landing at O'Hare International Airport.

Disabled jet makes safe landing at O’Hare | Chicago Tribune

Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in an American airstrike on an isolated safe house north of Baghdad at 6:15 p.m. local time on Wednesday, top American and Iraqi officials said today. Islamic militant Web sites linked to Al Qaeda quickly confirmed the death, saying Mr. Zarqawi had been rewarded with "martyrdom" for his role in the war here.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Is Killed in U.S. Airstrike - New York Times

The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the US occupation of Iraq. The first step, of course, is to establish as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the US interest and has not become so. It is such an obvious case to make that I find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not already made it repeatedly.

A year or two ago, my sentiment about the Iraq war was something like "I'd like to know the real reason why we invaded since its come to light that the WMDs aren't there." Now, I don't think there ever was a "real reason" ... it was just a total policy fuckup. A bunch of folks -- CIA, neocons, oil, etc, sat down and each told a different story but they all ended with "overthrow Saddam Hussein." So we went and did it. It took 3 weeks and minimal casualties.

The problem is that historically, "Iraq" doesn't exist. The administration's commitment to a "one state solution" doomed the whole thing from the start. For example, there probably ought to be a free and independent Kurdistan. That would absorb some of Turkey. Oops.

Nieman Watchdog - What’s wrong with cutting and running?

] In this case, a Blackhawk helicopter was sent by the
] Department of Homeland Security to intercept the errant
] plane, and a crew member, kneeling in the open door, held
] up a sign indicating the radio frequency that the pilot
] should tune to. As it turned out, that frequency was
] jammed at the time by a problem with a transmitter aboard
] another plane on the ground.

Ummmm....

No Order to Down Stray Plane, Pentagon Says