By this time, with rain battering my windscreen and cars jamming the road, I was at the end of my tether.

"OK", I said, tossing the phone into the back of the car.

"They are under P for pirates."

Giggling with pirates

"Hello. Please can I talk to the pirates," said my daughter in her obviously childish voice.

Just.... wow.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | 'Mummy, can I phone the pirates?'

"Our findings suggest that the surge has had no observable effect, except insofar as it has helped to provide a seal of approval for a process of ethno-sectarian neighborhood homogenization that is now largely achieved," Agnew's team wrote in their report.

Well not quite, it seems to have been the capstone of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad.

The Surge Did Nothing

In it, two World of Warcraft players discuss a raid on the "White Keep" inside the "Stonetalon Mountains." The major objective is to set off a "Dragon Fire spell" inside, and make off with "110 Gold and 234 Silver" in treasure. "No one will dance there for a hundred years after this spell is cast," one player, "war_monger," crows.

Except, in this case, the White Keep is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. "Dragon Fire" is an unconventional weapon. And "110 Gold and 234 Silver" tells the plotters how to align the game's map with one of Washington, D.C.

HAHAHAHAHA! Yep, let's talk in code in WoW. Give me a break.

Pentagon Researcher Conjures Warcraft Terror Plot | Danger Room from Wired.com

By the time officers arrived, the teen was off the 30-foot overpass, lying on the shoulder below along U.S. 65, with no good explanation as to how he got there.

“According to the doctors, all injuries are consistent with a fall,” said his aunt, Samantha.
...
His aunt says he is undergoing major surgery for a broken back and broken heel. While he was lying on the ground, she wonders why Ozark police used an electric stun gun on him up to 19 times.

WaitaWHAT??? 16 year old falls off bridge, breaks heel and BACK, and the cops hit him with a taser 19 times??? They don't call an ambulance, they zap the shit out of him. What the hell is wrong with these imbeciles?

Parents question why Ozark police used stun gun on injured son | KY3 | Video

Get to the end, it seems like Dave is seriously asking whether war crimes charges would be correct.

Letterman - Jane Mayer "The Dark Side" 7/23/08

Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.

As of January 20, W & co never get to leave the country again. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.

Book Cites Secret Red Cross Report of C.I.A. Torture of Qaeda Captives - NYTimes.com

City officials in charge of the airport declared it a "gun-free zone" when a law allowing people to carry guns on public transit and other places took effect Tuesday. Gun rights supporters, including a state legislator who helped pass the law, quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the designation.

Does anyone else think it's a bad idea that if people can just stroll into airports loaded for bear it's a bad idea?

Lawsuit filed over Atlanta airport barring guns - Yahoo! News

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. government has spent nearly $500 million on an Arabic language television and radio station.

Now an investigation finds that the project has not only been poorly run and hemorrhaged taxpayer money but is also airing bizarrely anti-American and anti-semitic coverage despite repeated complaints from the State Department and Congress.

How do you get permanent war? Fund both sides.

TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Today's Must Read

Decius wrote:

Violence in all of Iraq is the lowest since March 2004. The two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, are calmer than they have been for years. The third largest, Mosul, is in the midst of a major security operation. On Thursday, Iraqi forces swept unopposed through the southern city of Amara, which has been controlled by Shiite militias. There is a sense that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government has more political traction than any of its predecessors.

Radical policy shifts on Iraq seem less reasonable with each passing month. A number of previous threads on this subject are easy to search for. I think this is going to present a problem for Obama, as previous Dem positioning in Iraq is going to get squeezed against improving news from the ground. McCain will easily capitalize on this.

And this would of course be wrong.

Core problems:
The Army is physically unable to maintain the current deployment status so a shift in policy is not only reasonable, it is required.
The primary reason for the decrease in violence has been Muqtada al-Sadr's decision to reign in the Mahdi Army. He's waiting for our shift which he knows is coming before taking further action to consolidate his power.
The main secondary reason for the decrease in violence has been the segregation of Iraq into unmixed enclaves. Areas that used to be part Sunni part Shi'ite are now all one or the other, either by murder or flight.
The recent "maintenance contracts" handed to ExxonMobil, Shell et al is going to make things worse. To operate, they're going to need security forces (Blackwater) and the Iraqi populace is going to see this as a naked grab to steal their oil. Again. People in this country are going to start seeing this as what it always was, a naked grab for the Iraqi oilfields, again. Put that together with higher gas prices and $100+ billion dollar profits for companies like ExxonMobil and that's a backlash loop.

Where this gets really messy is the following. As of December 31, the UN mandate that the US forces are operating under expires. That's why the White House is pushing hard for the mutual treaty. Maliki is also somewhat pushing for this because about the only real support his government has is from the US, but every other group wants nothing of the sort. We want 60 bases in perpetuity, they want us to get the hell out. These are not reconcilable differences, and without the UN mandate, the pretext we are there under expires.

Were Saddam and his kids pieces of crap masquerading as members of the human race? Yes. That part I'm not going to bother disputing. Are we safer now than we were before we invaded? No. Is that situation destabilizing the middle-east? Yes. Is that contributing to what we're paying for gas? Yes.

And oh yeah, remember the guy who kicked off this whole deal, bin Laden? he's STILL out there. Afghanistan? Getting worse. Relations with Pakistan? Getting worse. Iran? Please. If I were the Air Force, I'd seriously consider replacing the contents of "the football" with a copy of "My Pet Goat." I don't need W thinking "Today is the day! Rapture!"

RE: Big Gains for Iraq Security, but Questions Linger - NYTimes.com

Torture "is basically subject to perception," CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."

Well no shit Sherlock. Does anyone still question whether what we were doing at Abu Ghraib, Bagram or Gitmo was torture? How can that still be in question? Because Georgie said we don't and the President wouldn't lie to us? When has he told the truth?

CIA Played Larger Role In Advising Pentagon - washingtonpost.com