So, the refrigerator light blew out.  Stop your bitching and run out to Target a get a new one. Christ. How old are you, ten?

As someone who often describes himself as something of a free speech absolutist (which is a bit of a misnomer, really—I’m closer to a free speech pragmatist with absolutist tendencies), I’ve really kept up only peripherally with the Google / China / US conflict.  In fact, it wasn’t until dinner last night, when my wife mentioned something to me about the DoJ handing out subpoenas to Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.—and

—and what?—and the sneaky little reiver just washed down my last 20 Klonopins with a bottle of Black Swan Shiraz and is busy flinging himself heavily into my bookshelves, singing the Allman Brothers’ “Sweet Melissa” over and over and over again at the top of his squeaky armadillo lungs like some trippy lunatic Vietnam-era rat trapped in shrapnel-pierced body armor? Is that what you were going to ask me?  Because

From the Arabic Dar al-Hayat (via Iraq the Model), “Iraqi tribes in Anbar arrest 270 Arab and foreign al-Qaeda members!”: The Anbar tribes’ campaign to rid the province of Zarqawi’s terror organization, al-Qaeda in Iraq is in its 2nd day and so far, 270 Arab and foreign intruders have been arrested. […] Usama Jad’aan, the leader of Karabila tribes in Qaim told al-Hayat that “the operation will continue to eliminate

Here’s Left-wing middle east expert professor Juan Cole, his bent little anti-Zionist, anti-Bush hardon engorged to the point of throbbing, trouser-tented blowback, luxuriating in Hamas’ “victory” in the Palestinian elections.  From Salon, “How do you like your democracy now, Mr. Bush?”: The stunning victory of the militant Muslim fundamentalist Hamas Party in the Palestinian elections underlines the central contradictions in the Bush administration’s policies toward the Middle East. Bush pushes

From Breitbart /AP: Colombia has dismantled a false passport ring with links to al-Qaida and Hamas militants, the acting attorney general said Thursday after authorities led dozens of simultaneous raids across five cities. The gang allegedly supplied an unknown number of citizens from Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and other countries with false passports and Colombian nationality without them ever stepping foot in the country, the attorney general’s office said in

Thanks to producer Joe Christiano of NYC’s Q104.3 Jim Kerr morning show for sending along this MP3 clip of one of my posts being read on-air in that sonorous, morning disc jockey voice that for some reason always gets me giddy to hear the late Randy VanWarmer’s “Just When I Needed You Most.” From 1978, yes.  And no, don’t ask.

Many of my Aruban leads drying up—after all, there are only so many shallow marshes and muddy gullies on an Island the size of your average Super Target—I spent the morning recording international news coverage of Fatah protests in the Palestinian territories, moving frame by frame through edited video (my requests to CNN, SKY, FOXNews, and Al-Jazeera for access to their raw footage has thus far gone unanswered) looking for