oatmeal:  “Let me put it to you this way:  whoever it was who pieced that Frankenberry cat together?  Hooked him up big time.”

Former DNC Chairman Terry Mcauliffe, appearing moments ago on FOXNews’ “The Big Story,” laid out Democratic criticism of the administration’s GWOT strategy (paraphrasing):  1) We now see that the Taliban is reorganizing in Afghanistan—all because Bush (the inaccurate argument goes) “pulled the troops too soon” and “rushed them into Iraq” before the Afghan job was completed.  In short, leaving to allow a sovereign Afghanistan to try to stand on its

Case in point:  after staying up into the wee hours of the morning investigating the Natalee Holloway disappearance (I spent six hours staking out the Spice channel and am sad to report finding no sign of the missing Alabama teen—though with my wife out of town, I plan to dig more this evening), I overslept today’s Presidential Strategy speech for the War in Iraq—a speech that John Kerry and others

Nice roundup at Pajamas media of Harry Reid’s…er, revelation?  speculation?—no one seems quite sure—to a Nevada TV station that Usama bin Laden was been killed in last month’s major earthquake in Pakistan (video here).  Here’s how PJM frames the story: […] More than the news itself that the No. 1 Most Wanted could be dead—it’s not the first time the speculation arises, and at least until now it has been

More Katrina-coverage post-mortem, from Reason‘s Matt Welch: On September 1, 72 hours after Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, the Associated Press news wire flashed a nightmare of a story: “Katrina Evacuation Halted Amid Gunfire…Shots Are Fired at Military Helicopter.” The article flew across the globe via at least 150 news outlets, from India to Turkey to Spain. Within 24 hours commentators on every major American television news network had

From the LA Times: As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq. The articles, written by U.S. military “information operations” troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials

Jawa Report has video of the 4 western peace activists taken hostage in Iraq by The Swords of Righteousness [Truth], an Islamic resistance group. The post includes a transcript revealing the names of the other three hostages (previously, only Norman Kember had been identified).  The hostages are accused of spying. We have not seen videotaped executions in some time, and the purported Zawahiri letter to Zarqawi expressed concern with the

From the New Zealand Herald: Air New Zealand and Qantas have banned men from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights, sparking accusations of discrimination. The airlines have come under fire for the policy that critics say is political correctness gone mad after a man revealed he was ordered to change seats during a Qantas flight because he was sitting next to a young boy travelling alone. Auckland man Mark