As it turns out, there really hasn’t been any news in the case of Bilal Hussein — an Iraqi stringer working for the Associated Press with a history of taking staged photographs of Islamic terrorists (as featured in “The Big Picture(s)”) — since the US military announced its plans to seek a criminal charges against Hussein in an Iraqi court. However, Tom Curley, president and chief executive of the AP, has

Failure to CommunicateAn 82-year-old hero from World War II died in Glasgow, Scotland because of rules prohibiting dispatchers from notifying an ambulance crew that was 500-yards away. The Daily Record reports former British soldier Ernie Rutkiewicz choked to death as his daughter frantically begged for help. An ambulance crew was on meal break nearby, but government rules prohibit them from being disturbed and in fact they do not even show

More fires in Malibu force celebrities to “Flea” (har, har, har, no but really man bummer): Local media reports said actors Matthew McConaughey and Minnie Driver were among those forced to evacuate while Red Hot Chili Peppers bass guitarist Flea’s home was destroyed by the flames. Anybody willing to offer Minnie a place to stay?

The indigenous uprising: Almost since the beginning of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq in late 2003, there has been an ongoing public debate about the significance and origins of foreign-born jihadists who have traveled to Iraq intent upon joining Al-Qaida and killing Americans and Muslim “apostates”. Despite a veritable avalanche of evidence suggesting that these foreign fighters have had a disproportionate role in destabilizing Iraq and that a large cross-section

Dymphna at Gates of Vienna has an interesting article up about Denmark and the implications of its launching an anti-piracy cruiser, that ends: Thinking about this news report, it seems to me that Denmark is evolving into part of the Anglosphere. It must be all that Danish DNA that was inserted into the English gene pool before there ever was an England. I little more of that Norman thing might

Can I claim my minority status, now? Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found. And that’s not the only conspiracy theory with a huge number of true believers in the United States. The poll found that more than one out of three Americans believe Washington is concealing the truth about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination –

Ohioans are so easily freaked out.

So, if you listened to that Swamp Rock that I posted last night, you might want to recall this, and this. Was Stevie ripping off Jerry Reed? Unconsciously, I suppose, even as Jerry “ripped off” Delta Blues, but the allusiveness of pop music has always anticipated the interesting elements of post-modernism, without the self-consciously “sophisticated” hokeyness. What one-hit wonder song is behind this, converted to Jerry Lee Lewis piano? Answer

Raised a little too much cain: A “Lipstick Bandit” menaced female workers in a city welfare office – chasing them around desks, smearing red lipstick on their cheeks and even pulling down a woman’s blouse to expose her breasts, a federal lawsuit charges. The scandalous accusations leveled yesterday by three female workers from a Bronx office of the Human Resources Administration cast supervisor Serena Reaves-Cain as a pervert who constantly

Sometimes one doesn’t have to look very far for something to post about. I open up my intarweb thingie this morning, and one of the very first things I encounter (after scouring the webs for paeans to me) is this AP headline: Despite Economy, Malls and Stores Jammed Just the latest in a proud history of AP “despite” headlines, such as “Despite Failure of Surge, Civilian Deaths in Baghdad Down.”